The Dropout Crisis? Can Obama Reverse the Dropout Crisis? by Richard Lee Colvin

A SPECIAL REPORT FIGHTING THE CRISIS

Can the Obama administration get more high schoolers to graduate? A tale of three cities that are trying. Rod Morata special report

CONTENTS

Introduction A2 INTRODUCTION Can Obama reverse the dropout crisis? Can Obama reverse the dropout crisis? by Richard Lee Colvin

New York City A4 By Richard Lee Colvin Big gains in the Big Apple. by Sarah Garland n his first address to Congress in February 2009, when the nation teetered on the brink Philadelphia A10 of economic collapse, President Obama declared that “dropping out of high school is no After decades of effort, Ilonger an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country—and a decade of progress. this country needs and values the talents of every American.” Since then, the administra- by Dale Mezzacappa tion has made a major commitment to increasing America’s high school graduation rate, which was once the highest in the developed world and is now among the lowest. Lead- Portland, Oregon A13 ing researchers now agree that 25 to 30 percent of students who enroll in American high schools fail to graduate. In many of the country’s largest urban school districts, such as All the advantages, Detroit, Cleveland, and Indianapolis, the dropout rate is as high as 60 percent, and rates and nothing to show for it. are similarly high in many rural areas. A generation ago, high school dropouts could still by Betsy Hammond join the military, or get work on assembly lines, and had a fair chance of finding their way in the world. President Obama does not exaggerate when he implies that today’s America has little use for dropouts and cannot expect to flourish so long as their numbers remain so high. This special report was made The administration has proposed nearly $1 billion in its latest budget specifical- possible with the generous support ly for the dropout problem. And it has already put $7.4 billion on the table, including its of (in alphabetical order) the Boston famous Race to the Top grants, which states and districts can get only if they agree to Foundation, Carnegie Corporation overhaul their worst-performing high schools. These are the 2,000 or so high schools that of New York, Nellie Mae Education Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan refer to as “dropout factories”—schools Foundation, Spencer Foundation, that graduate fewer than 60 percent of their students and account for more than half the and William Penn Foundation. nation’s dropouts. This level of financial commitment to fixing America’s underperforming high schools is unprecedented. The 1983 Nation at Risk report, which marked the start of the modern era of education reform, did not so much as mention the dropout problem even as it called for higher graduation requirements. Between 1988 and 1995, only eighty-nine school Guest editor: Richard Lee Colvin districts won federal grants for dropout prevention programs. The No Child Left Behind Editor: Paul Glastris Act of 2002 applied mostly to grades three through eight. While it nominally required Publisher: Diane Straus Tucker states to hold high schools accountable for dropout rates, it ended up allowing them to Cover photo: Rod Morata lowball the problem. Generally, the thought among educational reformers has been to concentrate on preschool and grade school education, and hope that success there would result in better student performance in high school. Informing this approach was a not-unreasonable fear that by the time struggling students reached high school, there was little that could be done to turn them around. A To subscribe to the Washington Monthly, 1999 report found that what few federally financed attempts had been made to improve call (888) 238-0047 or e-mail teaching in high schools did not lower the dropout rate. A 2002 General Accounting Office [email protected] report summed up twenty years of federal dropout prevention efforts by noting that the Washington Monthly few that had been rigorously evaluated showed mixed results. Worse, even the occasional 1200 18th Street, NW success stories were not replicated. Washington, DC 20036 Which leaves a big question: Do we know enough today to make good use of a new phone: (202) 955-9010 massive federal commitment to lowering the dropout rate? One reason to think so is that there has been a data-driven revolution in our understanding of the problem. During the 1970s and ’80s and well into the ’90s, educators and social scientists at- tempted, without a lot of success, to discover the most important predictors of whether a student would drop out or not. Mostly they wound up using known risk factors—

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such as extreme poverty, poor grades, and Those approaches fall into two general true. Dropouts and at-risk kids, especially contact with the juvenile justice and foster categories: fixing existing low-performing those in the city’s alternative schools, are care systems—to predict who would drop high schools, often by breaking them into coaxed into showing up in class, not chal- out and try, through mentoring and oth- smaller schools; and creating alternative lenged to actually graduate, and almost no er services, to keep them from doing so. schools and programs—“multiple path- adults are held accountable for results. (On Students who fit those categories were on ways,” in the jargon of the trade—that the expectations-and-accountability front, average more likely to drop out. But averag- cater to the diverse needs of those kids Philly is closer to the New York model, and es can be misleading, especially when there who are on the verge of dropping out or so is its level of success.) is great diversity around the mean. already have done so. All three cities also What do these three case studies In recent years, researchers have have very active civil sectors—business tell us about whether the Obama admin- gained access to “longitudinal” data—that groups, nonprofits, local and national istration’s efforts are likely to work? For is, information on the experiences of indi- foundations—which are playing central one thing, they suggest that success, if it vidual students as they progress over time. roles in the reform dramas, from spurring comes, will not be uniform, but will vary This research has yielded far more precise school officials into action to designing according to the quality of local leaders and indicators of which students are likely not and running alternative programs. the engagement of local civic actors. For to graduate. For example, while many ju- And yet despite these similarities, another, it confirms that school districts venile delinquents drop out, many do not. the three cities have had quite different can get the job done and ought to be held Yet if any child has a poor attendance re- outcomes. New York has achieved the responsible for doing so. “The problem is cord in ninth grade or fails to pass ninth- most impressive progress in lowering its too big and complex for individual schools grade English or math, the chances are dropout rate. Philadelphia has made real to handle on their own,” notes education overwhelming that he or she won’t gradu- if less dramatic headway. Portland, on the consultant Chris Sturgis. They also sug- ate, regardless of background or other ex- other hand, has seen zero measurable im- gest that the administration is on the right perience. The research also showed track with the policies it’s pushing, but much more variety among dropouts not totally so. The vast majority of the than experts imagined. Some have It is possible to funds the administration is making earned only a fraction of the credits move the needle on the available are for turning around ex- they would need to graduate, while isting, low-performing high schools others drop out only a few credits dropout problem, but (by bringing in new leaders, new shy of a diploma, largely because good intentions and teachers, or turning them into of outside events—a run-in with effort are no guarantee charter schools). This is the right the law, say, or a family emergency target, and one Washington has long requiring them to stay home with of success. neglected. But our reporting, as well siblings. Such granular information as much research literature, shows should make it much easier to craft the that turning around chronically low- right interventions for the right kids. provement. These results are almost the performing schools is awfully hard to pull opposite of what you’d expect. After all, off and will likely fail more often than et there is still a big difference be- New York and Philadelphia are much big- it succeeds. tween abstract knowledge and ef- ger districts with much higher concentra- By contrast, the administration is Yfective practice. What do we re- tions of poverty. putting relatively little money into the ally know about what has worked, and Policy choices can’t really explain creation of alternative schools specifi- what has not, in schools? To answer this the differences, since all three districts cally for students who have dropped out question, the Washington Monthly sent tried similar approaches. Rather, the ex- or are about to. This doesn’t make much reporters to three large urban school planation seems to lie in leadership and sense. Yes, alternative schools can easily districts—New York City, Philadelphia, attitude. The New York schools have had become dumping grounds for the hard- and Portland, Oregon—that have worked one very capable and driven chancellor, to-educate, as has happened in Portland. strenuously in recent years to apply the Joel Klein, running them for eight years, But when good systems of accountabili- new research to improve their chronical- whereas Philly and Portland have each ty are built in, as New York has done, ally low graduation rates. The reports that gone through several superintendents, ternative schools can work well and are a have come back from the field give reason each bringing his or her own vision. And crucial tool in getting graduation rates up. for qualified optimism. Yes, it is possible in New York, Klein has fostered an atmo- There are other risks to the admin- to move the needle on the dropout prob- sphere of high expectations and account- istration’s approach. On the one hand lem, but good intentions and effort are no ability: every student is presumed capable it is pushing policies to lower the drop- guarantee of success. of getting a diploma, and schools are mea- out rate. On the other it is pressing Con- All three cities have taken remark- sured and rewarded based on that assump- gress and the states to increase academic ably similar approaches to the problem. tion. In Portland, the opposite has been standards. Many experts warn that these

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are conflicting goals—that the latter will make the former harder to accomplish, and the former will create further incen- NEW YORK CITY tives to undermine the latter. That may be true. But it’s worth noting that New York hasn’t succumbed to that contradiction: it Big gains in the Big Apple. has increased graduation rates and the percentage of its students who pass its high- standards Regents exam. By Sarah Garland Any effort to lower the dropout rate must also work against the countervail- ing effects of growing inequality, fallout of ast fall, the New York City pub- After an intensive joint effort by the Great Recession, and a demographic lic schools granted Justin Skeete, counselors, teachers, and the school’s tide that leaves more students struggling L a twenty-year-old dropout from principal, April Leong, to reach him, with English as a second language. In- a crime-ridden section of Coney Is- Justin settled in at Liberation. The deed, many experts think that schools and land, a third and last chance to gradu- teachers wrote lesson plans that incor- teachers cannot by themselves provide the ate from high school. Once he turned porated the diverse cultures of their level of social support needed to make the twenty-one, he would be too old. His students and connected classwork to ca- kind of headway we’d want against the new school, Liberation Diploma Plus reers. The administrators balanced strict dropout problem. Robert Balfanz, a lead- High School, was taking a risk: Justin discipline with an open-door policy that ing scholar on dropouts and codirector of arrived with a bad attitude. He cursed allowed students from rough neighbor- the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns out teachers and fellow students. He hoods like Justin’s to stay late at school Hopkins University, has put together a didn’t care about homework. His odds and off the streets and away from- po consortium of schools in which members of finishing looked bleak, but Libera- tential trouble. Within a few months, of City Year, the national service program tion, with a tiny student population of Justin’s grades had risen to As and Bs. for young adults, are assigned to work one- fewer than 200, was prepared for stu- Leong says the school’s philoso- on-one with at-risk kids to help with their dents like Justin. phy is discovering “who the kid is, and studies and keep them in school. Another One of several new last-chance what they need.” Justin began meet- group, Communities in Schools, assigns high schools opened by the city in re- ing once a week with counselors from social workers as case managers for stu- cent years, the school had a striking a nonprofit connected to the school. dents with more acute needs. track record in graduating students Soon, he was behaving better and, in Yet even without such extra levels of that other schools had given up on. June, he graduated. “Before I got here, social support, our three case studies sug- Justin’s original high school was Lin- I can’t really say I tried,” Justin says. “I gest that real progress can be made. That coln, a traditional school in Coney Is- felt like nobody cared.” finding should be inspiring, especially con- land with more than 2,500 students. Justin’s turnaround is part of a sidering how important such progress can Although he came in with high test bigger transformation in New York City, be to the long-term strength of America’s scores on eighth-grade exams, after a the largest school district in the nation. economy and society. One study estimates few months at Lincoln he lost inter- In 2009, the city pushed its four-year that if all the students who drop out over est. He showed up every day, but slept graduation rate to 63 percent, up from a decade were to graduate instead, they through classes or wandered the halls. 47 percent in 2005, according to the would earn an additional $3 trillion in wag- He failed ninth grade and returned for state. By the city’s calculations, which es. That amount of money would do a lot more of the same the next year. Dur- count GEDs as diplomas, the graduation to make the economic recovery that is now ing his third year, he moved into an al- rate rose from 51 percent in 2002 to 68 shakily underway sustainable in the years ternative school housed in the Lincoln percent last year. to come. building where he took evening class- More students are also hanging on es. He earned five credits, but he didn’t after four years: more than 65 percent of Richard Lee Colvin, a longtime journalist, is direc- like the teachers. He started cutting the students who remain for five or six tor of the Hechinger Institute on Education and and soon dropped out. years eventually graduate, according to the Media, Teachers College, Columbia University, Justin was working two jobs, at state figures. White students are much and editor of the Hechinger Report, an indepen- McDonald’s and Home Depot, when a more likely to graduate than blacks and dent, foundation-supported news operation cousin told him about Liberation. Jus- Hispanics, but everyone is graduating based at Teachers College. This coming year, the tin was skeptical, but he liked the sound at higher rates. Students are learning Hechinger Report, at www.hechingerreport.org, of the place. His cousin described the more as well. The percentage of gradu- will provide ongoing coverage of the challenges school as “just like a family”—the oppo- ates earning the more demanding state of increasing the high school graduation rate. site of his former school. Regents diploma grew significantly.

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“Just like a family”: Liberation Diploma Plus High School in Coney Island didn’t give up on Justin Skeete. He graduated in June.

New York’s schools have all the addressing the dropout crisis. It seems gling schools with small, more intimate challenges that we associate with urban that New York, the nation’s largest city schools. Klein told her he had a job for schools, only more so: almost 80 per- and school district, offers potential so- her in his reorganized education depart- cent of the city’s 1.1 million students are lutions to an intractable problem that ment as his senior counsel. The job came poor enough to qualify for a reduced- has primarily plagued big cities. with a monumental assignment: raise price lunch. Roughly the same percent- New York’s four-year graduation rate by age are black and Hispanic. A tenth are n July 2002, Mayor Michael Bloom- 20 percentage points. His goal was 70 special education students, and close to berg stunned New York City with percent—the same as the national av- 15 percent are still learning English. All Ihis choice for the new schools chan- erage. Klein gave her one main instruc- of those groups have an elevated risk of cellor. Joel Klein was an antitrust law- tion: “Be bold.” dropping out. yer, an old hand at breaking up mo- Shortly after, Cahill discovered Some critics have questioned New nopolies. Bloomberg, who had recently that not a lot was known about the York’s improvement numbers, but even wrested control of the city schools from city’s dropout challenge. Which of the most conservative calculations the board of education, wanted some- the city’s 230 high schools were get- show unprecedented progress after de- one willing to remake the dysfunctional ting their at-risk students on the right cades of stagnation. The New York rate school district. track? Which were failing at that task? is especially dramatic considering that, A day after he was appointed, Klein Which students were falling through on average, only about half the students phoned the woman who would lead the the cracks? She found some useful data graduate in large cities. In Los Angeles transformation. Michele Cahill was a stored in an outdated computer sys- and Las Vegas, graduation rates have program officer at the Carnegie Corpo- tem. Often, though, no one could an- fallen. The city has made many mis- ration of New York, and, at the time, she swer her questions. steps, but education reformers, includ- was running an experiment in New York That fall, Cahill visited schools. At ing those in the Obama administration, City funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Evander Childs, a 3,000-student be-

Emily Anne Epstein have looked to New York as a model for Foundation to replace large, strug- hemoth of a school in the northern

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Bronx, the graduation rate had recently Klein announced that the city would other district. They sorted through the been tallied at 31 percent. When Cahill open 200 small schools starting the fol- discharge data to find which students showed up a month into the school year, lowing year. had dropped out. For the students who there were still nineteen teacher vacan- The plan was massively ambitious, were still enrolled, they looked at their cies. The hallways were so chaotic it took but the district wouldn’t be opening age and how many credits they had students more than fifteen minutes to the schools by itself. The Gates Foun- earned toward graduation. change classes. “This was the kind of dation put $150 million toward the In 2005, the numbers were thing where you said this doesn’t need new schools. The district would oper- ready, and they were shocking. Near- a Band-Aid,” she says. “This was really, ate the new schools, but they would be ly 140,000 high school–age youth in really broken.” connected to private groups, including the city were at least two years behind She decided on a two-pronged as- New Visions for Public Schools, which where they needed to be to graduate sault. The department would compile worked on the Carnegie Corporation’s on time. They had failed one or more data to find out which students were small schools experiment. The organi- grades in elementary or middle school dropping out, and why. At the same zations ranged from Outward Bound to and were way behind in accumulating time, the district would close schools universities such as Johns Hopkins, to the forty-four high school credits they such as Evander Childs that had chroni- civil rights groups such as the Nation- needed to graduate. Half of the over- cally low graduation rates. Inside these al Council of La Raza. The connections age and undercredited students had al- same buildings, they would open small provided more than extra support, says ready dropped out. Those still in school schools with fewer than 500 students, New Visions President Robert Hughes. made up almost a third of the city’s replicating the experiment that Cahill Having outsiders with a variety of per- 247,000 high school students. had been working on at Carnegie. Some research had suggest- The small schools strategy was ed that middle schools were the not new: Klein and Cahill bor- When Cahill problem—that once future drop- rowed the idea from a decades- showed up a month outs reached high school, they old progressive education move- were already behind and doomed. ment in the city that had become into the school year, But the New York numbers showed a national model with the sup- there were still nineteen that nearly a third of eventual port of foundations, includ- teacher vacancies. The dropouts entered high school ing Gates. Some of the old- with their class, with proficient er small schools were success- hallways were so chaotic reading skills. This meant that ful, but others floundered just as it took students more for many students, high school was much as large schools. In 2002, the problem, not middle school. the city’s existing small schools than fifteen minutes to The revelation was encouraging: had a four-year graduation rate change classes. it wasn’t too late to help students that was only marginally higher once they reached ninth grade. Re- than the city average. But small designing the high school experience schools potentially offered advantages spectives as partners “created a richer with new small schools, curriculum in- over large schools. Teachers could get education experience.” terventions, and improved teaching and to know a smaller number of students As the new schools were rolled out, leadership had the potential to make a better, and the more manageable size Cahill got to work on the second piece major difference. created an opportunity to experiment of the plan—identifying and under- The data uncovered other bright with teaching methods, curriculum, standing the students who were most spots. Three characteristics predicted and course schedules. likely to drop out. To analyze the num- which schools would have the best grad- The district, the administration bers, Cahill hired outsiders to help, in- uation rates: gender, school size, and in- believed, could increase its graduation cluding Parthenon Group, Boston-based coming student performance on stan- rate by opening up more small schools private equity consultants who special- dardized tests. That is, schools with modeled on the ones that worked. Ca- ize in education. Cahill, with the help fewer low performers had significantly hill came up with a list of qualities that of Parthenon, gathered data on the co- higher graduation rates. The research- characterized the best schools: strong hort of students who had entered high ers also found that reducing by 100 the leadership, a strong shared mission, ac- school in 1999—almost a quarter of a number of students in the freshman tivities that excited teenagers, high ex- million students. Each student had been class of a school with a high concentra- pectations, good teaching, mechanisms given a code in the outdated comput- tion of low performers produced a 2.7 for tracking student progress, and oper system: still enrolled, graduated, or percent increase in its graduation rate. portunities for the students to give back discharged—which meant they had ei- Dispersing low-performing students to the community. In October 2002, ther dropped out or transferred to an- among schools also helped.

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More encouraging was a finding tion Diploma Plus was one of the new partment soon attributed a plummet- that alternative schools for at-risk stu- schools. The transfer schools would be ing dropout rate, at least in part, to this dents worked wonders with struggling open to the hard cases: younger stu- simple new procedure. “These were very students. Regular high schools gradu- dents who had spent less time in school strategic decisions to move all the levers ated 19 percent of overage, undercred- and had earned fewer credits, or stu- at the same time,” says Lynch. “To close ited students. At alternative schools, dents like Justin, for whom the YABCs low-performing high schools, to open the graduation rates were 56 percent— didn’t work. Not long after opening, new small schools, to drive innovation right at the city average. Once students waiting lists formed at several of the around curriculum, and to create recu- switched to an alternative school, they transfer schools. perative options.” came to school more often and began At the new alternative schools, at- By 2006, all of the pieces were earning credits more quickly. The solu- tendance was the obsession, since get- lurching to life. The next step was to tion was obvious: open more alterna- ting potential dropouts into the class- wait and see what worked. There were tive schools. room was half the battle. At a YABC good signs early on. That year, the first Since the 1980s, Good Shepherd opened in John F. Kennedy High School round of seniors graduated from fifteen Services, a nonprofit organization in in the Bronx, monitoring attendance small schools that had opened in 2002. New York, ran a particularly successful was part of the job description of nine The average graduation rate at the new alternative school for students at risk of people. At some transfer schools, ad- schools was above 70 percent. At some dropping out. The group had opened in ministrators visited the homes of stu- of the schools, the graduation rate was 1857 as a home for troubled girls. But its dents who missed class. above 90 percent. foray into coed public education was im- The data also pointed toward a It didn’t take long for problems pressive. Cahill had already hired one of less drastic option than closing down to appear, however. At Lincoln, the Good Shepherd’s leaders, JoEllen Lynch, schools. Two-thirds of potential drop- school where Justin began his high to help as a part-time consultant; she school career, the student popu- decided to hire her full-time. lation had grown from 2,500 to Not all potential dropouts By 2006, all of 2,800 the previous decade. The were the same, however. The Par- the pieces of New York’s same phenomenon was happen- thenon report revealed a wide ing citywide. As the city replaced range of achievement and ex- ambitious dropout large schools with small ones, perience among the students reform plan were the remaining big schools— who were most likely to drop lurching to life. The next which still held more than out, those who were already older half of the city’s students—got than their classmates and were not step was to wait and even more crowded. A 2009 re- earning enough credits to gradu- see what worked. port by researchers at the New ate on time. Studies done around School found that the neediest the same time in Chicago and Phila- students from the closed schools delphia found the same thing. New York outs with poor literacy skills quickly fell tended to be channeled into the re- needed to create different options for further behind in high school, and of- maining large schools. Many of these different types of students. ficials believed a new focus on helping students demanded services that small In 2005, Klein and Cahill created an them become better readers could keep schools didn’t necessarily offer— Office of Multiple Pathways to Gradua- more students in school. In 2003, 200 including special education—or were tion with $6.6 million from Gates and ap- schools introduced Ramp Up, a remedi- ill-equipped to make informed choices pointed Lynch director. She was charged al literacy program for ninth graders de- about the new school offerings. with opening forty-five new schools. signed by America’s Choice, a national Lincoln was able to keep up its grad- For older students closer to graduation, for-profit education company that sev- uation rate, but many of the ballooning the district opened six new Young Adult eral states have since hired to help re- schools struggled, creating a domino ef- Borough Centers, alternative schools lo- form high schools. fect. In the New School report, research- cated inside large high schools that con- Another reform was imposed by ers pointed out that several “barely tinued to operate—such as the one that a judge in 2003. Local education advo- functioning” large schools “soon be- Justin attended at Lincoln. The YABCs cates, worried the district was push- came failing schools.” The administra- held classes in the evening to accommo- ing out its lowest-performing students, tion responded by closing them, too. date work schedules and offered a diplo- won a lawsuit that forced schools to By 2010, thirty-five high schools were ma from the student’s original school. hold “exit interviews” with dropouts. in the process of being closed or had al- In addition, Lynch opened thirty new Guidance counselors urged students ready been shuttered. transfer schools modeled on the Good to stay, or pointed them to alternative A New York University profes- Shepherd alternative school. Libera- programs such as the YABCs. The de- sor who has studied New York’s drop-

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out problem, Pedro Noguera, worries about the administration’s attitude that SMALL SCHOOL, “schools will fix themselves or they’ll be shut down.” BIG RESULTS “We shouldn’t allow schools to flounder,” he says. RONX, New York—Jayquan Hy- ninth graders. The school puts its “best Some of the new small schools Bman, a gangly fifteen-year-old foot forward” for freshmen, she said. have faltered, too. A handful made the ninth grader, seemed destined to drop The school uses sports—batting state’s failing-schools list. When the out after starting high school last Sep- averages, the arc of a basketball shot, the schools did well, critics accused the ad- tember. He failed fifth grade and was biography of Jackie Robinson—to teach ministration of allowing small schools older than his classmates, had spent math and history. Ninth graders research to “cream” the best students, point- years in special education classes, and careers and apply for internships with ing out that during their first two years cut classes throughout middle school. the New York Yankees. Twice a week, of operating they were not required to He was suspended within weeks of the teachers gather in intense meetings to admit special education students and start of school for cursing at a teacher. hash out lessons and debate how to help those who were still learning to speak He was sullen and angry. He was also struggling students. English. (The policy was later changed.) black, male, and living in the South Jayquan was frequently a topic And while small schools are good at fo- Bronx, one of the poorest neighbor- of discussion. None of what they tried cusing interventions on struggling stu- hoods in America. The one person in seemed to penetrate. The breakthrough dents, they don’t have the resources of his family who had gone to college was came when Lepore created a program larger schools. Often they can’t provide an aunt, now deceased. He was the just for him: he was given a campus job challenging courses for high-achieving sort of student that a principal might after school in the main office. But he students, exacerbating inequities be- hope would quit to spare the school was only allowed to work if his conduct tween New York City schools. the trouble. that day was perfect. Jayquan pulled Another problem has been the un- A decade ago, Jayquan would have ahead. He began handing in his home- intended consequences of pressure on been enrolled in South Bronx High, work and passing his classes, which had principals to raise graduation rates or face a school of about 1,000 students in a mix of special education and regular closure. A few principals were caught a neighborhood of rusted train tres- students, and even got 80s in his histo- cheating—raising grades and giving tles and abandoned lots. Back then, the ry and business classes. By March, his out unearned credits. More pervasive school had a reputation as a dumping conduct reports were mostly positive. was an unmonitored system of cred- ground for some of the borough’s worst Jayquan is an example of what can hap- it recovery, which let students make students, and it’s likely Jayquan would pen when a school knows the history of up a failed class, sometimes by sim- have ended up among the one in five who entering students, monitors their prog- ply completing a few hours of home- dropped out every year. But South Bronx ress, and provides them with help tai- work. Although the state had re- High had been closed. lored to their needs. The school’s popula- quired students to put in “seat time”— Instead, Jayquan, a basketball tion is one that, statistically, is less likely meaning hours spent in a classroom— player who hopes to make a career of to graduate. More than 80 percent of its to earn course credits, at many schools it, enrolled at Urban Assembly School students live in poverty, 100 percent are students were passing classes even for Careers in Sports, one of three small black or Hispanic, and nearly 85 percent though they didn’t have to show up. schools installed in the old South Bronx are male, who are slightly more likely to In April, the state responded to the lax building. Principal Felice Lepore un- drop out than girls. But Urban Assem- standards by implementing new guide- derstands the importance of engag- bly’s formula seems to be working. Its lines. The city is collecting data to see ing ninth graders quickly, before they four-year graduation rate is more than how prevalent the practice is. have a chance to falter. Studies in a 80 percent, compared to 46 percent at The missteps have disillusioned number of cities have found that fail- the old South Bronx High. at least one former booster of Klein’s ing even one ninth-grade class drasti- Lepore, who worried that Jayquan methods—Diane Ravitch, the educa- cally reduces a student’s chance of grad- wouldn’t last a year, now believes he’ll tion historian and former assistant uating. In the typical large high school, make it all the way to graduation. The job secretary of education. She has pointed teachers with more seniority opt to seems to have made him more serious to the large numbers of New York City work only with seniors and juniors. But about school. What’s the job? Every day, public school graduates who must take Lepore says that at Urban Assembly the he calls the students who haven’t shown remedial classes at the city’s commu- school’s most effective teachers, regard- up for school—in effect, becoming the nity colleges—75 percent—as evidence less of seniority, are assigned to teach enforcer of rules he once broke. —S.G. that the reforms are superficial. She has also accused the administration of

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manipulating the graduation numbers, cluding Cahill and Lynch. Many more teachers meet regularly to discuss noting that the city excludes about students are earning the more com- struggling students and collective- a fifth of the students in each cohort petitive Regents diploma than before, ly figure out ways to help them. New from its graduation rate calculations. but 26 percent of graduates do not. In Visions, which has now opened 133 The students are labeled discharges, 2012, all students will have to earn a schools in New York City, first im- and the Bloomberg administration Regents diploma to graduate, meaning plemented the program as an exper- maintains that many of these students New York’s graduation rate will like- iment in its small schools. New Vi- move to other districts. Ravitch argues ly drop. Last year, a state comptroller sions also created versions in two that under federal guidelines, many audit raised concerns about the qual- large, traditional schools. Graduation would be considered dropouts. While ity of the Regents diploma system it- rates climbed from 54 percent to more the high percentage of discharges is self, which is based on exams graded by than 68 percent at both schools, even problematic, it can’t explain the rise teachers who, according to the audit, as their student populations grew. in the graduation rate: discharges have tend to inflate the scores. The success spurred the department stayed steady at about 20 percent for At the same time, recent chang- to require the program citywide. the past eight years. es to state law have made it more dif- The graduation rate has not yet Cahill acknowledges that in the ficult for the city to close large fail- made the 70 percent goal that Klein and rush of the reforms, everything wasn’t ing schools. The new law may not be a Cahill set, and Bloomberg has since set “perfectly done,” particularly when it significant blow to the city’s reforms, a new goal: 75 percent by the end of his came to helping the large schools cope. however. Size mattered, but by itself, current four-year term. To meet it, the “We were not putting sufficient sup- making schools smaller was not suffi- city plans to expand its reforms to new ports in those schools,” she says. frontiers such as special education. “But the overarching direction Yet city officials—along with their was to get more kids out of these Some critics have critics—have also come to believe dropout factories.” questioned New York’s that the Regents diploma is no In that, they were success- longer enough. In the next phase, ful. By 2008, the percentage of improvement numbers, they plan to attack graduation students in small high schools but even the most standards and set a higher bar, had more than tripled. About the same one set by the Obama the same number of students conservative calculations administration this year: mak- were attending small schools as show unprecedented ing sure every student who gradu- had attended the large schools progress after decades ates is also ready for college and that had been closed, according a career. “The hardest work is still to a report released in February of stagnation. ahead of us,” says Thomases. by the national research group New York’s ideas for reform- MDRC. MDRC also found that the ing high school may become more complaints that small schools serve cient to raise graduation rates. What than just an interesting case study. less-challenging students were un- mattered was how the smaller size of That’s what happened a decade ago founded. Actually, small schools tend schools allowed educators to focus on, when New York’s innovations in com- to serve more poor, minority, immi- and be more flexible toward, student munity policing, under the David Din- grant, and low-performing students needs. It allowed not for bold change, kins administration, and its use of than their larger counterparts. but for incremental progress—student fine-grain data on crime, under Rudy Last year, the district’s 234 new by student, day by day. Giuliani, got national attention as schools (most of them small) gradu- A department official who over- the country was battling violence and ated 73 percent of their students. The sees academics, Josh Thomases, says drugs. The Clinton administration in- graduation rate for black, Hispanic, the structural changes were really just stitutionalized the city’s ideas in the English as a second language, and spe- laying the groundwork for a new phase federal COPS program, and trans- cial education students was also higher of reform: improving teaching inside formed how the country fought crime. at the new schools. schools, both large and small, by en- If New York succeeds this time, it The results from the small schools couraging more collaboration, helping could once again be the leader in na- are hopeful, but New York City still fac- teachers make better use of data about tionwide reform. es huge hurdles. Klein has become one their students, and creating “fewer, of the city’s longer-serving chancellors, clearer, higher standards” for schools Sarah Garland is a staff writer at theHechinger giving much needed consistency to the and students. Report and a Spencer Fellow in education system, but many of the deputies who One promising idea is teacher- reporting at Columbia University School orchestrated the reforms have left, in- led “inquiry teams.” Small groups of of Journalism.

Washington Monthly A9 special report

PHILADELPHIA After decades of effort, a decade of progress.

By Dale Mezzacappa

o major city in America has to combat the dropout problem could pro- and several thousand nationwide. Exten- worked longer and harder on vide some real help. sive research deemed the academies to be N its dropout problem than Phil- In 1968, Philadelphia’s business, po- a successful anti-dropout strategy. adelphia. Yet those efforts, going back litical, and civic elite got together to fig- Over the next thirty years, with nearly half a century, have gained trac- ure out how to get more high school kids strong support and substantial nudging tion only in the last ten years. Between to stay in school and prevent them from from the city’s foundations and private 2001 and 2009 the percentage of Phil- being swept up in the maelstrom of an- sector, the school district would attack adelphia students who entered ninth ger and urban violence touched off by the dropout problem in a number of oth- grade and graduated in four years in- the assassinations of Martin Luther King er ways. In 1982, when Constance Clayton creased from 48 percent to 56 percent. Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. The year be- became superintendent, she looked at the Those gains might seem modest, and fore, as many as 3,500 African American city’s neighborhood high schools and saw are clearly insufficient. But the fact that students demonstrated at school district “lethargy and sameness and undue stabil- they occurred at all, and at a time when headquarters demanding better schools, ity of faculty and administrators.” She said dropout rates nationally have not in a 1993 interview that she saw good budged, suggests that Philadelphia The kinds of anti-dropout programs, career acade- is doing something right. mies among them, but they reached It’s a measure of the complex- problems that only a relatively small number of stu- ity of the problem, however, that it typically squelch major dents in what was then a school dis- is difficult to discern which of the trict of more than 200,000 students. flurry of policies and practices reforms in large urban Embracing the efforts of the Phil- that have been tried here are re- school districts—money adelphia High Schools Collabora- sponsible for the gains. Unlike in tive, an outside organization ded- New York, Philadelphia has not fol- shortages, union icated to reforming city high schools, lowed a single blueprint or plan. In- resistance—were present she decided to shake things up. The stead, the work on the issue has ac- Collaborative effort built on the ca- creted over time, with new reforms in Philadelphia as well. reer academies example and divided and initiatives, most of them pri- the high schools into smaller, semi- vately conceived or supported, added autonomous units within one building to the mix along the way. In the last five more black teachers, and culturally rele- that focused more attention on incoming years the city has concentrated on pro- vant courses and textbooks. ninth graders. Good results were seen al- viding students with an ever-growing ar- The big idea the leaders formulated most immediately at three pilot schools— ray of options to the city’s traditional high was career academies: subunits within better attendance, more success in classes, schools—charter schools, small alterna- large neighborhood schools that blend- a more studious atmosphere. Eventually, tive or “accelerated” schools—based on ed academics with a vocational training twenty-two high schools were using parts students’ needs and inclination. Yet some and established stronger relationships be- of the strategy and 20,000 students were of the most promising experiments in re- tween students and their peers and teach- being affected. The goal was to create more form have also occurred in the city’s tra- ers. The first such academy in the nation, intimate, personalized environments for ditional high schools, which the vast ma- focused on preparing students for jobs learning, a concept that still drives much jority of its students still attend. But for in the electrical field, opened in 1969 at of the thinking on how to reduce the drop- bureaucratic and budgetary reasons those Thomas Edison High School, which had out rate. initiatives have seldom been sustained. If the highest dropout rate in the city. New But the kinds of problems that typ- Philadelphia wants to continue to make career academies were started through- ically squelch major reforms in large ur- progress, it’ll have to find a way to do so, out the 1970s and ’80s, and by the mid- ban school districts were present in Phil- and the Obama administration’s efforts ’90s there were twenty-nine in the city adelphia as well. Skeptics questioned the

A10 July/August 20092010 special report

statistics showing improvement. The in seven of the district’s high schools. A said that when decisions are not made Philadelphia teachers union objected to 2004 evaluation by MDRC, the public pol- based on evidence they result in districts making the smaller units equivalent to icy research organization, found that the implementing the “reform du jour.” separate schools, which affected teachers’ Talent Development schools “produced Rather than attempt to fix the large seniority and job security. Money prob- substantial gains in academic course cred- neighborhood high schools, Vallas’s plan lems grew. Clayton also had her differ- its earned and promotion rates and mod- was to create alternatives to them. He ences with the Collaborative; she retired est improvements in attendance.” started twenty-six new small schools, in 1993, and the effort faded. The “small In 2002, Paul Vallas, the energetic, backed the creation of more charter learning communities” continued to exist, do-it-all-at-once former CEO of the Chi- schools, and created disciplinary schools but lost the autonomy that made them ef- cago Public Schools, was hired as Phila- that were run on contract by private com- fective. In many high schools, they began delphia’s sixth superintendent in thirty panies. As of 2002, there were thirty-eight to function like academic tracks, separat- years. He arrived just after the state had public high schools in Philadelphia, with ing students by ability. Meanwhile, voca- declared the Philadelphia schools finan- an average enrollment of 1,700 students. tional career academies were reduced in cially and academically bankrupt, replaced By 2007, there were sixty-two schools, in- number, from twenty-nine in the ’90s to the mayorally appointed school board cluding charters. Today there are ninety, only ten today. with a School Reform Commission with a twenty-nine of them charters. It’s impossible to say what effect majority named by the governor, and de- As Vallas was deciding to move away these on-again-off-again reforms had on manded that the district turn over many from Talent Development, Robert Bal- the school district’s overall dropout rate. of its worst-performing schools to pri- fanz and Ruth Curran Neild, two Johns By narrowly defining who was a drop- vate, sometimes for-profit operators. Val- Hopkins researchers, began a retrospec- out, Philadelphia and other school dis- las embraced the “diverse provider” strat- tive study, paid for by a number of national tricts had for decades been underreport- egy even as he continued to push for more and local foundations, of the “dropout cri- ing their actual attrition rates. Whatever money and implement his own agenda. sis,” covering the years from 2000 to 2005. the effect of the anti-dropout measures, After the MDRC study came out, Vallas Their 2006 report, called Unfulfilled Prom- they were overwhelmed by the flight ise, was the first definitive counting of of white and black working- and high school dropouts in the district, af- middle-class families to the sub- Philly’s gains ter decades of policies aimed at stem- urbs and a growing poverty rate in might seem modest, ming the tide. They found that, dur- the city, which rose from 15 percent ing the period studied, some 30,000 in 1970 to 24 percent today, accord- but the fact that they Philadelphia students had dropped ing to U.S. Census data. Students occurred at all, while out, and thousands more were were promoted in elementary “near dropouts” who showed up and middle schools even though dropout rates nationally less than half the time. On a pos- they weren’t learning fundamental have not budged, itive note, however, they found evi- skills; by 2000 more than 75 percent dence of improvement. More than 52 of the students who enrolled in the suggests the city is doing percent of the class of 2005 graduated district’s neighborhood high schools something right. on time in four years. That was about were far behind academically. 4 percentage points higher than the In 1999, Philadelphia’s civic com- average for the previous four years. munity pushed yet another remedy aimed said the district could not afford to contin- Until that study, “[w]e didn’t have a at reworking the high schools that Clay- ue the existing Talent Development High public fix on who was dropping out, where ton, more than a decade before, had char- Schools, let alone expand the program in- they were dropping out from, and what acterized as outmoded and resistant to tact. Instead, he said all the neighborhood kind of services they need,” said Neild. change. The Philadelphia Education Fund, schools would borrow some ideas from Because it was one of the first studies to which combines money from foundations, Talent Development. define the graduation rate in terms of wealthy individuals, corporations, and James Kemple, the researcher who cohorts—tracing the fortunes of each en- public agencies, persuaded the school dis- headed up the study of Talent Develop- tering ninth-grade class and showing how trict to bring in a new approach to its worst ment, was at the meeting in which Val- many graduate—“it helped people realize schools. The model, developed at Johns las said he’d do his own take on the mod- the scale of it,” she said. Hopkins University, was called Talent De- el. Kemple cautioned him against trying The researchers discovered that velopment High Schools, and its primary to do it piecemeal. “I was trying to make many of those most likely to drop out goal was to keep ninth graders on track the case with Paul that the best research could be identified beginning in the sixth toward graduation by making sure they you have … is based on this version of the grade and nearly all of them by the ninth passed all of their courses. Over the next model,” Kemple said. He called Vallas’s de- grade. They advised that high schools four years, the model would show progress cision “changing horses midstream,” and alone could not fix the problem. The mid-

Washington Monthly A11 special report

dle school grades would have to do a bet- Vallas created the Office of Multiple Path- late ’80s. Ackerman has a new plan called ter job of educating their students. Keep- ways to Graduation to expand programs Renaissance Schools in which some of the ing ninth graders on track needed to be for disengaged youth. He contracted with worst schools will be converted to char- a priority. Also important, however, was private companies to run “accelerated” ters or slated for turnaround treatment that one in five dropouts were older stu- schools that could help students gradu- within the district, some directly under dents who had either quit school or en- ate more quickly. Arlene Ackerman suc- her supervision. In the first year, three tered the juvenile justice system a few ceeded Vallas in 2008, and she has add- long-troubled high schools made that list. credits short of a diploma. The research- ed seats to the network, which now can Though disentangling the effects ers recommended the creation of alter- accommodate 2,200 youths. Under Ack- of all these policies on the city’s overall native institutions instead of expecting erman the district has also set up a Re- dropout rate isn’t easy, the numbers are these youths to reenter the high schools engagement Center, where former stu- certainly moving in the right direction. they had already given up on. This had the dents can come and be referred to a school Between 2005 and 2009 the percentage potential to bump up the graduation rate within the expanding network of options. of students who entered ninth grade and quickly without dealing with the messy And with funding from the U.S. Depart- graduated in four years increased from 52 politics and adult interests that come with ment of Labor, Philadelphia community percent to 56 percent. And the six-year the territory in high school reform efforts. organizations are now helping students graduation rate has been steadily inch- ing up—from 57 percent for the class of 2005 to 60 percent for the class of 2007. At least some of that six-year graduation rate increase is attributable to the new “accelerated” schools, according to Proj- ect U-Turn data. It could be that Vallas and Proj- ect U-Turn are right and that taking on dysfunctional high schools was too hard and expensive, at least at the time. But there’s a limit to what the alternative schools Vallas and Ackerman have en- couraged can do: most of the students entering them have accumulated very few high school credits and have reading and math proficiency that hovers around the fifth-grade level. Even with the improvements, each year more than 8,000 Philadelphia students drop out, most from the neighborhood schools. Project U-Turn’s goal is to cut that number by at least 2,000 students Dropout factories: Schools like West Philadelphia High desperately need reform. by the end of the upcoming school year. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has set Not surprisingly, it was this last rec- who have dropped out earn either a GED a high bar as well. He has committed city ommendation that Vallas seized on, be- or credits toward a diploma. resources to increasing the six-year grad- cause it was consistent with what he was The traditional high schools have uation rate to 80 percent. To reach those already doing. There also was demand. not been abandoned by the new wave of audacious goals, Philadelphia will need to The release of the report had marked the reformers. Since Project U-Turn was cre- do what it hasn’t succeeded in doing in the launch of a new advocacy group called the ated, the city has won about $65 million past—fix neighborhood schools. And with Project U-Turn Collaborative that would in grants, also from the Labor Depart- the Obama administration now pledging help implement some of these recom- ment, for programs in seven neighbor- billions of federal dollars for school “turn- mendations. In the first year after its Oc- hood high schools that were cited as “per- around” efforts, Philadelphia has another tober 2006 launch, Project U-Turn raised sistently dangerous.” Using some of this opportunity to keep trying. $10 million from public and private sourc- money, the district is creating in most of es, and 1,500 dropouts contacted the proj- its neighborhood schools “bridge” pro- Dale Mezzacappa, a former reporter for ect to ask for help in getting a diploma. grams that try to engage ninth graders in the Philadelphia Inquirer, is a contributing edi- But seats could only be found for 158 in the summer before high school, reviving a tor of the independent Philadelphia Public

the city’s existing alternative schools. practice first introduced by Clayton in the School Notebook. ASSOCIATED PRESS

A12 July/August 20092010 special report

PORTLAND, OREGON All the advantages, and nothing to show for it.

By Betsy Hammond

f any big-city school district should encourage all school districts with achieve- bottom line. Voter-enacted changes in have a handle on its high school drop- ment problems to adopt. the way Oregon funds schools hit the I out problem, it would surely be Port- But in Portland, those reforms Portland school district hard in the ear- land, Oregon. haven’t worked. Despite fifteen ly 1990s. The surest and quickest way Compact and bike friendly, this years of effort, the city’s dropout to refill its coffers was to lure back stu- darling of urban planners draws middle- rate hasn’t budged. How Portland dents who had dropped out. and upper-middle-income profession- took good ideas and managed to It seemed like a win-win: discon- als to live inside its city limits. And they botch their implementation—through nected students could find their niche in do something that their counterparts inattention and a failure to meas- a nontraditional school setting, and the in Detroit or Washington, D.C., or Los ure and demand results—is a caution- Portland school system could keep up to Angeles rarely consider: they send their ary tale for those in Washington who 20 percent of the state funds that paid children to public schools. In a school want to use federal dollars to get local for them to be there. Enrollment in the district that enrolls 47,000 students, schools to do right by their students. alternative programs doubled between only 43 percent are poor (in Chica- 1991 and 1997. go, 85 percent are) and a majority National meetings were con- are white (in Philadelphia, 13 per- How Portland vened in Portland to let other cent are). White and middle-class took good ideas and youth-helping agencies see first- teens are far less likely to drop out hand the variety and power of of high school than their minority botched their implemen- Portland’s second-chance alterna- and low-income peers. tation is a cautionary tale tive schools. New York, Phil- But a shockingly low per- for those who want to adelphia, and others created centage of Portland’s high similar networks of commu- school students graduate on use federal dollars to get nity-based schools with nontra- time: just 53 percent. That puts local schools to do right ditional structures and extra so- its dropout rate on par with rates cial and emotional support to help in Philadelphia, Louisville, and by their students. dropouts or near dropouts get back El Paso—all bigger districts with on track. much higher concentrations of The city’s second stab at fixing poverty. A majority of Portland’s drop- ortland’s first effort to grapple its dropout problem began in the ear- outs are white, only half qualify for with its dropout problem began ly 2000s. At that time, the Bill & Me- subsidized school meals, and 90 per- P in the mid-1990s, when the school linda Gates Foundation was pouring cent are native English speakers. district vastly expanded what had been major money into promoting a partic- It’s not that Portland hasn’t tried to a small network of community-based al- ular school reform idea: breaking up do better. The school district has imple- ternative high schools. Founded in the big, institutional high schools to create mented a series of reforms, many of them 1970s and ’80s, these privately run non- small, personalized ones. Researchers strikingly similar to what New York City profit programs had a good reputation had found links between these more and Philadelphia, two cities with rising around Portland for welcoming troubled intimate school settings and higher graduation rates, have been doing. A few teens who had dropped out of tradition- test scores and graduation rates. Lead- of these reforms—turning to private out- al high schools and reconnecting them to ing Portland-area employers teamed fits to run schools, upending the faculty the classroom and society. with Oregon’s biggest philanthropy, and curriculum at schools with chronic low Expanding these schools seemed the Meyer Memorial Trust, to pool test scores, using sophisticated data sys- like a good way to benefit more of these funds and snare $2.1 million more from tems to pinpoint instructional needs—are vulnerable kids. But it also happened Gates to remake three of the city’s big

ASSOCIATED PRESS steps the Obama administration wants to to benefit the Portland school district’s traditional high schools—those with

Washington Monthly A13 special report

the most disadvantaged students and n theory, the three strategies Port- adopt others that were. This the district the worst dropout rates. Those schools land chose to address its dropout failed to do. Three years into the proj- were broken up into multiple small I problems—plentiful and welcoming ect, there has yet to be a public report on academies housed under one roof, each alternative schools, innovative small how many “priority” freshmen at each with its own defined academic theme, academies in place of large tradition- school passed their classes or earned such as business-technology and “real high schools, and targeted extra sup- enough high school credits after getting naissance” arts. port for ninth graders at risk of failure— extra attention. In fact, the district’s of- As those campuses were reorga- were the right ones. They have certainly fice of high schools, which launched the nizing, another effort got underway: worked elsewhere. New York City’s small ninth-grade initiative and was supposed an unprecedented study, also funded high schools showed slightly higher grad- to oversee it, was subsequently disman- by foundations (including Gates, Carn- uation rates just a couple years after they tled and its staff dismissed. egie, and Mott), of who dropped out opened. Philadelphia’s growing network The city’s effort to break up its big in Portland and why. Released in May of alternative high schools has brought high schools into smaller schools-within- of 2007, the study tracked every stu- positive results. Researchers in Chicago schools suffered a similar fate. dent in the class of 2004 and yielded and Baltimore confirmed that identify- When Portland first won grants to three major findings. First, the drop- ing at-risk students in eighth and ninth create the new small schools, backers out problem was much bigger than the grade and helping them pass enough pledged that students would be known state or school district had let on: the classes to be on track toward graduation and nurtured and challenged so well that on-time graduation rate was not 85 per- is the smart way to prevent dropouts. 97 percent would earn diplomas. But, cent, as had long been officially re- five years into the Gates-led initia- ported, but 54 percent. Second, it tive, overall graduation rates at the wasn’t just poor and minority stu- At Portland ’s small academies remain stuck at dents who were dropping out; alternative schools, the same abysmal level of the old white kids were, too, at alarm- comprehensive high schools they ing rates. Finally, and of most in- students sit on comfy replaced. One high school facul- terest to school district leaders, couches, bring guitars to ty revolted and reverted to the big likely dropouts could be pin- school model. pointed as early as ninth grade class, and spend hours Why the inability to im- based on their attendance, test talking about current prove? Part of the reason was scores, and grades. In Portland, the the federal No Child Left Be- study found, students of any race events. Actually earning hind law, which required giving or family background who failed credits to graduate can students at failing schools the to accumulate 5.5 credits during ability to transfer out. Most stu- ninth grade were four times more seem downright square. dents who could read and write likely to drop out than those who at grade level opted to flee, leav- earned enough credits. ing higher concentrations of lower- The study sparked immediate ac- But in Portland, these same steps achieving students at the smaller schools. tion. Then superintendent Vicki Phil- haven’t led to any measurable improve- But those schools never had much of a lips, now head of education initiatives ment in the high school graduation rate. chance to compete, because they nev- at Gates, created an “academic priority” The reason is that in each case, the school er had real autonomy. New York City program in which the district identified district failed to press for results and to hired full-fledged principals for its new by name all incoming ninth graders with fight against—or even to recognize—the small high schools and gave them the the most risk factors for failing to earn political, cultural, and bureaucratic forces ability to hire their own teachers. Port- 5.5 credits. Each high school was given an that typically undermine reform. land paid small school principals what it average of $120,000 apiece to design its Take the “academic priority” pro- paid vice principals at large schools and own approach to helping these students. gram for at-risk ninth graders. Leav- vetted their qualifications at that same, Some schools used the money to reduce ing it up to individual schools to design lesser standard. Teachers who were on class sizes in ninth grade and asked their their own interventions probably made staff at the big schools were recycled into best teachers to teach them. Others as- sense—the district’s central office cer- small school faculty, whether or not they signed blocks of freshmen to a common tainly had no monopoly on good ideas. or the small schools considered that the set of core academic teachers who met But for such a decentralized strategy to right fit. together to monitor their progress. Still work, the district needed to measure and Portland’s biggest failure, howev- others appointed adult mentors to con- reward outcomes so that the principals er, has been its community-based alter- duct daily or weekly check-ins with the and teachers would have an incentive to native schools. In 2007, the most recent shakiest students. drop practices that weren’t working and year on which the district has reported,

A14 July/August 20092010 special report

these privately run alternative schools the alternative schools wildly popu- indicated that the district will start vet- enrolled about 2,500 students but is- lar with young adults turned off by ting such schools for results beginning sued just 156 diplomas. By contrast, the city’s traditional high schools (not this fall, cutting off contracts to those New York City’s alternative schools now to mention magnets for troubled and that don’t measure up. She has also said issue diplomas to more than half the listless teens from nearby school dis- that this fall the district will begin post- overage, undercredited students who tricts). In New York City, about 5 per- ing data on at-risk freshmen at the tra- enter them. cent of high school students attend ditional high schools who are supposed The reason for this unconscionable community-based second-chance alter- to be getting extra support and atten- difference has to do with expectations native schools high schools, known tion under the “academic priority” pro- and accountability. In 2004, New York there as “transfer high schools”; in gram. That should make it possible to schools chancellor Joel Klein closed a Portland, nearly 20 percent do. see how good a job individual schools host of dropout recovery programs that Having such a large portion of the are doing in helping these at-risk kids weren’t getting the job done. The school city’s students in alternative schools can pass their classes and earn sufficient district now issues detailed yearly per- depress a district’s graduation rate by ex- credits to graduate. formance reports on each of its trans- cusing regular middle and high schools In the face of declining district fer high schools, and schools that don’t from addressing students’ problems enrollment, Smith is also pressing a measure up risk being shut down. “One early on, notes Robert Balfanz, a Johns plan to close one or more high schools of the principles that drive the New Hopkins University researcher who spe- and lessen the socioeconomic gulfs York effort is the belief that all kids can cializes in dropouts. “School officials can between those that remain. Her hope graduate,” says JoEllen Lynch, former say, ‘Well, we have lots of good alterna- is that having fewer, larger neighbor- executive director of the Office of Multi- tive schools for students who need more hood high schools—the opposite of ple Pathways to Graduation in New the Gates approach—will allow each York. “Those students need a lot one to guarantee more catch-up more support, instructionally and If New York and opportunities for struggling stu- emotionally, but you have to move Philadelphia, cities with dents, plus an array of fine arts, them toward a diploma. That’s just music, college prep, and world a basic expectation of a school.” much bigger problems, languages now entirely lacking in Such expectations and ac- can improve their some of the less affluent Port- countability have simply never land high schools. been part of Portland’s alterna- graduation rates, what Smith’s focus on improv- tive schools system. Those schools excuse does Portland ing the district’s graduation are funded with public money, but have not to do so, too? rate—she calls it “our primary because they are privately operat- challenge”—is welcome. But if ed, they are not subject to state ac- she hopes to succeed she’ll need to countability reports on their test foster a change in expectations. The scores or graduation rates. The way support than we can give, so the best attitude that has long infused Port- school district and city leaders see it, solution is really to try to get these stu- land’s alternative schools—that trou- getting disengaged teens to reconnect dents there,’ ” rather than provide sup- bled teens can’t be expected to gradu- with school is a victory in itself. The at- ports or prevention services in our regu- ate, and that just getting them to show mosphere inside these schools reflects lar schools, he said. up is a victory—has also defined Port- these low expectations. They project a None of this should be news in land’s general approach to the drop- youth-embracing vibe in which earning Portland, by the way. The local paper, out problem. Grant makers and school credits, mastering algebra, and learning The Oregonian (for which I work), has board members praised the district for to use proper spelling and grammar can run several front-page articles show- its creativity and partnerships in ad- seem downright square. Preparing for ing that the alternative schools have dressing the dropout issue, even as the the GED—a vastly substandard creden- poor attendance, weak oversight, lax schools were still failing huge numbers tial to a diploma—is considered rigor- academic expectations, and extremely of students. Good intentions were re- ous. Students can take classes on com- few graduates. warded, not results. If New York and fy couches, bring their guitars to class, Philadelphia, cities with much bigger and spend hours talking about current he potentially good news is that problems, can improve their gradua- events—all engaging, but not the ticket the Portland schools are begin- tion rates, what excuse does Portland to a proper high school diploma, much T ning to show signs of waking have not to do so, too? less college or career. up. Superintendent Carole Smith, who As you might imagine, this high- spent decades running one of the city’s Betsy Hammond covers education for The sympathy, low-demand ethos makes better private alternative schools, has Oregonian.

Washington Monthly A15 Increase the nation’s level of high-quality degrees and credentials to 60% by the year 2025.

Join us in achieving it. Read the strategic plan. www.luminafoundation.org/goal2025