SMALL SCHOOLS NATIONWIDE:

Detroit News: Debate in Michigan on new small schools
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has proposed zero-interest loans to school districts to help create new high schools of no more than 500 students. These smaller schools are intended to increase student learning by creating a learning environment in which students interact more personally with their teachers. A debate has followed. [04/26/05]

Honolulu Advertiser: Hawaii Takes A Look at Small Schools
The movement toward "smaller learning communities" grew out of the shooting spree in April 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., and concerns about the impersonal nature of large high schools. [04/25/05]

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: A Look at a ‘Gates’ Small School
The four-year high school experience is dubbed 101 through 401, rather than freshman through senior. Last year's 401 class had 26 members. Twenty-three went on to higher education and three did not graduate. [04/02/05]

Education Week: ‘First Things First’ Shows Promise
Wyandotte H.S. in Kansas City, KS and the First-Things-First program, were singled out as a model of H.S. reform by Bill Gates in his speech to the Governors' Confernce. [03/09/05]

New
One of the most interesting points in this New York Times editorial was the revelation that the large, factory-model high school was actually set up for the purpose of tracking and sorting kids, one-fifth into college and the rest into low skilled jobs. In this sense, our large high schools aren't "failing" but rather doing what they are supposed to do. The point for us is that small schools are not simply a technical or remedial reform, not just a tinkering or change in management structures, but a deeper change that requires a re-purposing as well as restructuring. --Mike Klonsky [02/01/05]

Detroit News
April 26, 2005

     Karen Adams, dean of the College of Education and Human Service, Central Michigan University: Gov. Jennifer Granholm has proposed zero-interest loans to school districts to help create new high schools of no more than 500 students. These smaller schools are intended to increase student learning by creating a learning environment in which students interact more personally with their teachers. Nationally, smaller schools have been credited with decreased dropout rates and increased test scores.

     This plan is an excellent and exciting one for Michigan, as long as those designing these new schools realize that just changing the size of the student body does not guarantee an increase in learning.

     Teachers and administrators must plan specific strategies ranging from class scheduling and teaching strategies to actual learning community activities. Involving those from similar and successful small school initiatives may provide important assistance in this planning process.

     Michael Williamson, former deputy state superintendent, former Wyandotte superintendent and an education consultant in Northville: The "small high schools" movement has gained support across the United States. In Michigan, however, it seems that small high schools are bad when philanthropist Bob Thompson wants to build them in Detroit, but good if they are to be paid for by the taxpayers.

     The truth of the matter is, it is not the size of the school that is significant. It is what adults believe about the students in them, and how much respect they have for students' innate ability to learn and achieve at high levels.

     What seems to be missing is any real strategy for the improvement of Michigan K-12 education. Maybe the new state superintendent will help us develop a comprehensive plan to take Michigan education to the next level. Then we can plan for schools small and large.

     N. Charles Anderson, president of the Detroit Urban League and former Detroit school board member: I applaud the governor for being creative in trying to assist school districts throughout Michigan. It is constitutionally the state's responsibility to provide education to communities.

     Depending on what those schools are designed to do -- especially if they focus on certain curriculum -- they could definitely help Detroit students and others academically.

     Lu Battaglieri, president of the Michigan Education Association: We don't need new buildings to create smaller communities in our schools. We have many examples of middle and high schools that are successfully structuring schools within schools.

     But it is not the buildings -- large or small -- that make the difference. It is the educators who staff them who matter the most. We should focus on building them up -- provide professional development; give them the tools and resources to do what is expected and required of them; and respect that they are the most important classroom investment that we can make.

     Michael Addonizio, former Gov. John Engler education adviser and associate professor of education at Wayne State University: Gov. Jennifer Granholm's plan to offer interest-free loans to academically struggling districts that build small, new high schools deserves support for several reasons.

     First, research tells us that the best size for a high school is in the 600-student to 900-student range. That's big enough to realize some economies of scale (the larger the school, the lower the cost per student), but small enough to avoid some educational problems that often arise in large, impersonal institutions.

     Second, it will create jobs. Third, it will provide some state support where it is now sorely lacking. Michigan has the dubious distinction of being one of a handful of states that provide no grant support for local school construction.

     I would offer two suggestions. First, raise the enrollment limit for the schools to 700 from 500. This would allow more students to attend these new schools and provide a little more relief for overcrowding. Second, forgive a portion of the loan principal for the poorest districts (those with the lowest taxable value per pupil).

     Gary Wolfram, Hillsdale College economics professor and former member of the State Board of Education: Gov. Jennifer's continual application of the New Deal to Michigan's economy will meet without success in reducing unemployment rates. These government projects must be paid for by taxpayer money, and so every dollar that is spent on the new school buildings will reduce employment in the industries that taxpayers would otherwise have spent their money.

     It is possible, perhaps probable, that reducing school size will improve economic performance. But how do we know that 500 students is the magic number? Why should only those districts chosen by the administration be able to borrow?

     Recent research by the Manhattan Institute demonstrates that smaller school districts produce greater achievement. If the governor wants to improve the educational performance of our schools, she should advocate an increase in the number of school districts by supporting charter schools and letting the individual districts decide what the correct school size is.

     Tim O'Brien, director of the Small Government Alliance in Allen Park: After years of consolidation and "economies of scale," it's now claimed that the opposite approach is needed. The real problem here is the government monopoly. End that and the truth will emerge.

Schools aim for 'relevant' learning

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

     The goal of "smaller learning communities" is to improve student achievement and performance by creating a more personalized setting for them at large high schools.

     Nine hundred thirty-one high schools nationally, including 10 in Hawai'i, are "redesigning" their academic structures with $45 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Education. The 558 different strategies being employed include "schools within schools," career academics, restructuring school days, instituting personal adult advocates and developing teacher advisory systems.

     "The schools choose the models that best fit their student population and community," said Aileen Ah Yat, coordinator of the Hawai'i SLC Consortium. "The bottom line is to increase academic performance through implementation of SLC for all students."

     The structure for freshman and sophomore SLCs being used in Hawai'i calls for a minimum of three teachers — English, science and social studies — assigned to each "house" or SLC. The intent is to make student learning "more rigorous and relevant," Ah Yat said.

     Students are selected randomly because of U.S. Department of Education requirements, Ah Yat said. "You can't put students in SLC based on grades or test scores," she said.

     The 10 schools awarded grants for the projects in Hawai'i are Waipahu, Campbell, Roosevelt, Wai'anae, Kaimuki, Kalani, Kaua'i, Lahainaluna, Waiakea and Maui.

     Kahuku, Kalaheo and King Kekaulike high schools, which have received planning grants, have applied for implementation grants for the 2005-06 school year.

     The movement toward "smaller learning communities" grew out of the shooting spree in April 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., and concerns about the impersonal nature of large high schools.

     In the aftermath of Columbine, Education Secretary Richard Riley urged high schools to create smaller, more personal learning environments for students.

     The 1999 Appropriations Act for the Department of Education included money for "smaller learning communities" grants.

Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.

A look at a small Gates-funded school

By Peggy Andersen
Associated Press Writer
April 02, 2005

     FEDERAL WAY, Wash. -- Truman Center was designed to accommodate the Gates Foundation's small-school ideal.

      Truman has two "forums," each with 104 students and six teachers - a 1:17 ratio - and two computers for every three students. Teachers are called "advisers" and addressed by their first name.

     "Teachers think it's going to be easy because it's just 17 students," says principal Judy Kraft. "But it's the hardest work they'll ever do."

      The center opened in March 2003. Its six classrooms - crammed with projects, art, words of wisdom - open onto a wide hallway. Most have a "quiet room" for those who need to concentrate. The only doors are on the bathrooms and to the outdoors.

     "We're kind of like a family, or exceedingly close friends," said student Steven Lee, 15.

      There's a great room that can accommodate everyone, and an airy, comfortable lobby.

      The school has no library. Students use the Internet and libraries operated by the city, neighborhood schools and a nearby community college.

      Higher-level science, math beyond geometry, foreign languages, music and the arts also must be pursued elsewhere, often through a program offering early access to community college.

      There is no gymnasium, track or pool. Athletes can try out for teams at their neighborhood schools.

      The four-year high school experience is dubbed 101 through 401, rather than freshman through senior. Last year's 401 class had 26 members. Twenty-three went on to higher education and three did not graduate.

      Truman has an exemption to the state "seat time" requirement, since as much as 40 percent of the student experience may be off school grounds. Students are in the school Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

      On Tuesday and Thursday, students are encouraged to job-shadow or intern in an area of special interest. Allaina Dube, 15 - whose brother graduated from Truman and is studying to be a chef - shadowed a horse veterinarian last year but decided against that path. She had a fall internship at an aviation school, and plans to find a niche this semester in commercial aviation.

     "You need to take charge of your own education," she says.

      Off-campus experiences are processed into exhibitions shared with classmates, who offer frank comments on each others' work. Passing from one stage to the next - from 201 to 301 - requires a "gateway exhibition" that demonstrates use of writing, math, organizational and presentation skills.

      Students are guided to lessons and resources as their internships, job shadows or special interests require them. Scores in the Washington Assessment of Student Learning for reading and writing are generally at or above grade level. Math scores have been weaker, and students now have a one-hour math class three days a week.

 

     When James P. Connell arrived here nine years ago peddling a school improvement model he called First Things First, plenty of people wished he’d head back home.

     “First Things First came in and I thought, ‘More of the same,’ ” recalled Robert Bayer, an assistant principal at the city’s 1,125-student Wyandotte High School. “I didn’t want any part of it.”

     Eventually, Mr. Bayer and many other educators in this 20,000-student school system changed their minds. As the district gradually restructured all five of its high schools into small learning communities using Mr. Connell’s model, feelings grew that the developmental psychologist from Philadelphia just might be on to something.

     Now, at a time when high schools have risen to the top of the nation’s education agenda, this hardscrabble city is piquing the interest of educators searching for models.

     Traci Burks, center, a teacher at Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kan., meets with a small group of students she advises. Such close relationships are key to the First Things First approach.

Susan Pfannmuller for Education Week

     No one is calling it a miracle, but the Kansas City, Kan., district’s experience with First Things First¬with backing from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation¬is offering hope that the redesign of urban high schools is not a lost cause.

     In his speech to the nation’s governors at last month’s summit on high schools, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates placed the district first on a short list of examples that he said provide “mounting evidence” that redesigning high schools can work to improve graduation rates and prepare students for college, work, and citizenship. ( "Summit Underscores Gates Foundation's Emergence as Player," this issue.)

     “It appears to be the best model for improving existing high schools out there,” said Tom Vander Ark, the executive director of education for the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a major national supporter of smaller, more academically engaging high schools.

See related stories from this issue:

“Summit Fuels Push to Improve High Schools.”

“Summit Underscores Gates Foundation’s Emergence as Player.”

     While perhaps not everyone would go that far, the district’s progress under First Things First stands out when viewed against the disappointing results often yielded by attempts to carve high schools into smaller units. The gains have come in an urban system in which nearly four of every five students are nonwhite, and three out of four qualify for federally subsidized school meals¬a profile that typically correlates with subpar achievement.

     Attendance is up, and as Mr. Gates pointed out in his Feb. 26 speech, the graduation rate for the district’s four nonselective high schools climbed from 48 percent in 2000 to 78 percent last year. Reading scores in high schools have risen, though they are not stellar. Test results have edged up only slightly in mathematics in the high schools, however, a trouble spot that local officials attribute partly to an initial focus on literacy.

     “It’s been a struggle,” Superintendent Ray Daniels told a group of 70 educators from seven districts who visited last month for a closer look. “But we’re really beginning to see the results.”

     To Andy Tompkins, the Kansas commissioner of education, the district’s story is one that educators elsewhere should hear. “They’ve made tremendous progress, and they’ve got a long way to go,” he said of the Kansas City schools. “And they’d be the first to tell you that.”

Kicking the Tires

     A former tenured professor of psychology at the University of Rochester in New York, Mr. Connell came on the scene here shortly after leaving academia to focus on a nonprofit school improvement organization he had formed called the Institute for Research and Reform in Education.

     The IRRE has received major grants over the years from the U.S. Department of Education; $2.8 million from the Kansas City, Mo.-based Kauffman Foundation for its work here; and a recent commitment of $3.8 million from the Gates Foundation to scale up.

     The institute is now working in Houston, New Orleans, and across the river from here in Missouri’s Kansas City. Other locales using its model or planning to do so include Norristown, Pa.; Sarasota, Fla.; Riverview Gardens, Mo.; and the Mississippi school districts of Greenville and Shaw.

     Kansas City, Kan., was the first and only district to put First Things First in place in all its schools. So for Mr. Connell, this district is where interested educators come to “kick the tires of First Things First.”

TalkBack, Join our readers' discussion forum on “Revamping High Schools.”

     The model has three pillars for the high school level: small, themed learning communities that each keep a group of students together throughout grades 9-12; a “family advocate” system that pairs teachers with 15 to 17 students over four years; and a heavy emphasis on instructional improvement.

     High school learning communities have no more than 325 students, and in many cases are smaller. At Wyandotte High, the first here to implement First Things First, the eight small learning communities each average around 170 students, who take all their core academic subjects within their SLCs.

     Besides strengthening relationships between students and teachers, the structure is designed to broaden the roles of faculty members, heighten their collaboration, and promote a sense of collective responsibility for students’ success.

     “We have asked our staff to do so much,” Superintendent Daniels remarked. “I keep wondering when they’re going to say, ‘That’s it; go to hell; we’re not doing any more.’ ”

     Within each SLC, teachers typically handle all but the most grievous student-discipline matters. Faculty members also decide how to allocate money and time, and play a big role in filling staff vacancies.

     Teachers have common planning periods each day and two hours of professional-development time every Wednesday, when students are sent home early. District leaders see those hours as critical.

     “It is a gift from our community, a true gift that we treasure and that we are very careful not to abuse,” said Steve Gering,the district’s executive director of instruction for secondary schools.

     Cassandra Kincaid, a social studies teacher at Wyandotte High, said teachers in her SLC gather in one another’s classrooms on Wednesday afternoons to test-drive teaching strategies aimed at snaring students’ interest. “We give feedback on how engaging it is,” she said of a new teaching approach. “If we start talking and we’re bored, that’s a good sign that the kids will be, too.”

Model Evolves

     Initially, the tenets of First Things First were fuzzier than they are now. So the district became a testing ground for concepts that the IRRE revised over time¬sometimes to the frustration of local educators.

     At first, IRRE did not require small learning communities that keep students together over all four years of high school. So some schools started out with 9th grade academies, moving students to theme-based SLCs for the upper grades. But IRRE and district leaders soon concluded that the academies were not raising graduation rates.

     Another feature of First Things First that evolved is its family-advocacy system, which was piloted in 2001 and fully phased in this school year. Under the system, teachers are designated as advocates for groups of 15 to 17 students, for whom they remain responsible for four years. Advocates meet for at least an hour a week with their groups, and are supposed to hold private conversations with each student for at least five minutes. And they are to get in touch with students’ families monthly and meet with them in person twice a year.

     The idea was not an instant hit, and with some, it still isn’t.

     “There are some SLCs that haven’t bought in,” said Traci Burks, a special education teacher at Wyandotte High.

     But others say the system works well. For teachers, having designated advocates who know students well and keep in touch with their families can be a big help when concerns arise about students’ performance. And students say the system helps them feel like more than just faces in the crowd.

     Armon Williams, a senior at Wyandotte High who has diabetes, said he realized that his teacher-advocate, Ms. Kincaid, really cared for him a few years ago when she walked him to the cafeteria to get a snack after his blood sugar had dropped dangerously low.

     “Another teacher would have just given me a pass and had me go down on my own,” he said. “There’s no guarantee I would have made it.”

     Officials here decided early on to use First Things First in all the district’s schools, a focus they say has contributed strongly to their success. Mr. Connell also stresses that leadership and support from the central office here has been critical.

     Yet he insists that districts can succeed by adopting First Things First in only their high schools. Indeed, for the past five years, the IRRE has concentrated mainly on secondary schools, and most of the districts now interested in adopting the model share that focus.

     “I think K-12 is the best way to go, but it’s not the only way,” Mr. Connell said. “The high schools are the heart of the community, and if you get all the high schools, you’ve got district reform.”

     Local school officials say they have been greatly helped by outside support, principally the $10.6 million that the Kauffman Foundation has given the district to support First Things First since 1996. But they say that the district has shown a matching commitment by shifting people and resources around, including redeploying curriculum coordinators from the central office to work directly with teachers on instruction in schools.

     Managing resistance from staff members has been challenging all along, officials here say.

     “Teachers ran Connell out of the building a couple of times, literally screaming at him,” Mr. Gering said.

Getting on Board

     Still, the teachers’ union, an affiliate of the National Education Association, got on board when it counted, administrators say.

     “There was a lot of skepticism, quite a bit of mistrust,” said Linda Hollinshed, the president of the NEA-Kansas City, Kan. At first, she said, the union was miffed that it hadn’t been consulted before the district decided to go with First Things First. But that attitude started shifting after the district held a retreat for the union’s building-level representatives¬a gathering where alarming student-performance data were laid out.

     “Our students weren’t graduating from our schools at the levels we wanted, and the state test scores were low,” Ms. Hollinshed said. “The question became, ‘So if not this reform, what next?’ ”

     In the years since, implementation of First Things First has been uneven across the district. Some observers caution that what role the model played in the district’s improvements is not entirely clear. Leaders of the Kauffman Foundation, for example, say they still have unanswered questions.

     But on the whole, an evaluation released last month concludes that the effort has had a positive impact at the high school level on graduation rates, attendance, student engagement, and test scores.

     On the attendance front, just 20 percent of students had no more than one unexcused absence per month in the year before each high school put the model in place. After three years, 40 percent met that standard, said Michelle Alberti Gambone, the lead researcher on the evaluation, conducted by the Philadelphia-based Youth Development Strategies with partial funding from the Kauffman Foundation.

     On the Kansas State Assessments, the district has seen sizable math gains in elementary and middle schools. But the proportion of high school students who scored at the proficient level or better merely inched up, from 14 percent in 2000-01 to 16 percent in 2003-04.

     In reading, the high school gains have been better, though still not on a par with those in the lower grades. From 2000-01 to 2003-04, students rated as proficient rose from 25 percent to 40 percent.

     District leaders and Mr. Connell say they are far from satisfied with those figures. Still, they are heartened by the progress, and attribute much of it to sticking with the program over time.

     “For the first couple of years, there weren’t changes in student performance, and that’s when most reforms die,” Mr. Gering said. “We were so close to having it die so many times.”

     The district is now at a turning point. Funding from the Kauffman Foundation is winding down, and Superintendent Daniels will retire this summer. Jill Shackleford, a deputy to Mr. Daniels who is moving up to the top spot, said the coming transition has triggered some “shakiness” among staff members, who have wondered whether she means it when she promises to stay the course with First Things First.

     Her message to them is yes. “It is working¬better in some places than others¬but it’s just the way we do business now,” she said. “We’ve got too much invested in it to not make it.”

Vol. 24, Issue 26, Pages 1,13-14

 

Reinventing High School

New York Times
February 1, 2005

     The achievement gap between rich and poor students is narrowing in some states, thanks to the added resources and better instruction that are a result of the No Child Left Behind Act. But that good news is largely limited to the early grades. Progress is stalled in high schools, where more states are slipping behind than are making progress, and American teenagers have lost ground when compared with their peers in other industrialized nations. The United States, which once led the world in high school graduation rates, has plummeted to 17th - well behind France, Germany and Japan.

     The American high school is a big part of the problem. Developed a century ago, the standard factory-style high school was conceived as a combination holding area and sorting device that would send roughly one-fifth of its students on to college while moving the rest directly into low-skill jobs. It has no tools to rescue the students who arrive unable to read at grade level but are in need of the academic grounding that will qualify them for 21st-century employment.

     New York City recently embarked on a plan to develop a range of smaller schools, some of them aimed at the thousands of students whose literacy skills are so poor that they have failed the first year of high school three times. The plan is to pull these students up to the academic standard while providing some of them with work experiences. The National Governors Association has begun a high school initiative that calls for remedial services and partial tuition reimbursement for students who complete community college courses that lead to technical or industrial job certifications. The White House, rushing to get ahead of the parade, recently announced a high school project of its own. And other school districts are tinkering with gimmicks like cash bonuses for good grades.

      The emerging consensus is that the traditional high school needs to be remade into something that is both more flexible and more rigorous. But the rigor has to come first. Many states are still setting the bar for reading performance abysmally low in the primary grades, paving the way for failure when children move on to high school. State education departments have fudged vital statistics on graduation rates, as well as the teacher qualification data they have reported to the federal government in ostensible compliance with No Child Left Behind.

     The federal Education Department failed to push the states toward doing better under the disastrous leadership of its departing secretary, Rod Paige. No matter how hard localities try, the best-designed high schools in the world will still fail unless the states and the federal government finally bite the bullet on teacher training. That means doing what it takes to remake the teacher corps, even if it means withholding federal dollars from diploma mills pretending to be colleges of education, forcing out unqualified teachers and changing the age-old practice of funneling the least-prepared teachers into the weakest schools.