Friday
April 11, 2008
Yesterday I attended the second annual Catalyst High School Summit.
At the event, Washington Post reporter Jay Matthews gave a national perspective, outlining some key elements of high school reform. He emphasized that school change is a “hiring issue,” that districts need to find principals that will hire and retain teachers who can raise expectations and create a school culture of learning. Later, CPS High School Transformation Project director Alan Alson agreed, saying that the district needs to be tougher and more systematic about hiring, training, and firing teachers.
Catalyst reporters Sarah Karp and John Myers reported on the CPS transformation project, the subject of a special just-released issue of Catalyst. One key problem CPS high schools face is something Karp and Myers refer to as “enrollment creep.” Their focus school Marshall HS, for example, admitted almost its entire freshman class after the first day of school. One student Karp shadowed at Marshall arrived on the tenth day of school...but her special education records didn’t appear until the tenth week of school.
That is the type of chaos that makes it nearly impossible to set clear expectations and establish an effective class culture. It makes it hard to get to know students and means that every week of the first quarter will be just as unpredictable as the first week of school.
CPS CEO Arne Duncan and Alan Alson both talked about some of the plans CPS has in place for addressing this issue in the next few years. First and foremost, 8th graders will register for high school in the spring. In addition, many schools will be implementing a two week freshman orientation period to give 9th graders the time they need to acclimate to high school and get all scheduling and registration issues sorted out before the regular school year begins.
Karp and Myers also mentioned the impact that absenteeism has on Marshall. Students miss on average 50 days of school per year at Marshall. In 1992, CPS cut its 153 truant officers to save money. Schools often contract with outside agencies to help them, but with limited resources, even these workers have caseloads far too large to make a real difference.
The most interesting part of the day was a panel of high school students. Some highlights:
Talking about what motivates her, Tevela, a student at Robeson HS called the feeling “the fierce urgency of now.” She takes heart from her desire to disprove the implicit message of impending failure that kids in tough high schools receive every day. Evelyn, from Gage Park HS, said that some of her friends are discouraged when they see how nice other schools are compared to theirs.
Skyler, a student at North Lawndale College Prep (a charter school) said creating a solid school culture can play a major role in turning a school around. “[A]t our schools we are the metal detectors.” At her school, on the other hand, Tevela reports that there is so much security (including an actual police office in the building), that many kids simply don’t want to come to school.
Talking about their teachers, the students agreed that not all of them have high expectations. Deon, from Gage Park, suggested that the key is to figure out which teachers do have high expectations and focus on them. Evelyn pointed out that sometimes it feels like you have just too many teachers who don’t care, and that’s when students stop coming to school.
For more, including discussions with teachers and students at Marshall High School and plenty of charts, be sure to check out the new edition of Catalyst. Also, visit the Eduwonk blog, where this week guest bloggers are talking about how high schools can prepare students for college and sharing an amazing collection of student application essays.
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