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9486 in the collection
Fixing the Freshman Factor: Pr. George's Schools Focus 1 in 4 Kids Flunked Last Year on 9th Grade, Which
Ohanian Comment: Read
this and weep. Weep for a curriculum that
reveals no understanding of adolescent
psychology or of sound pedagogy.
The clue here is in the title: Fix the
Freshman. It's the curriculum, stupid. Fix
it and those freshmen will have a chance.
How many members of the House and Senate
education committees do you suppose know the
answer to this question asked by the assistant
principal: "What's an appositive?" How
many of the Fortune 500 CEOs? How many members
of the American Medical Association? How many
butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers?
How many teenagers' lives have been salvaged by
acquiring the skill of identifying an
appositive? Of course I admit to once being
reduced to tears of despair after an argument
with a colleague who insisted that correct use
of commas in apposition is a vital skill for
second graders.
Some might think I weep too easily, but that
same feeling of despair swept over me as I read
this article. There seems to be no hope.
By Nelson Hernandez
The ninth-grader slouched in the chair one fall
day, avoiding the principal's glare. He had the
body of a boy, but he was deciding right there
what kind of man he would be.
At the start of the school year, this child's
education was flying off the rails. Mark E.
Fossett, principal of Suitland High School in
Prince George's County, called up the boy's
attendance record on a computer and rattled off
a lengthy list of days missed and classes cut.
Unless something changed, he would fail ninth
grade.
As schools push to raise graduation rates, many
educators are homing in on ninth grade as a
moment of high academic risk. Call it the
freshman factor.
Last week, Maryland reported that one of every
six seniors statewide is at risk of not
receiving a diploma in spring because they have
not reached minimum scores on four basic tests
in algebra, biology, government and English. At
Suitland High and countywide in Prince
George's, more than a third of seniors are in
jeopardy. But for many of those students,
troubles began in their freshmen year. That's
often when the state algebra test is taken.
In August, Prince George's schools quietly
released an unusually detailed report that
showed freshmen aren't just having trouble with
tests of basic knowledge. It found that one in
four freshmen -- about 3,000 -- flunked ninth
grade last school year. Of almost 1,600
students trying a second or third time, more
than half flunked.
High schools nationwide face a major challenge
in acclimating ninth-graders to new academic
demands. Suitland High is addressing the
problem in several ways. Freshmen spend most of
their time in a separate building, take an
advisory class that provides a forum for
discussing problems and attend special programs
to catch up with reading and math skills they
didn't master in middle school.
But the reality is that progress happens one
student at a time.
Speaking forcefully, Fossett tried to steer the
boy back on track. "You have seven E's and one
D on your progress report," he said. "This
behavior -- you are going to fail if you don't
change it." The easy days of middle school were
over, he explained: If the boy wanted to
advance, he had to pass his classes.
"I know your face a month into school," he
concluded. "What does that say?"
"That I'm not doing the right thing," the boy
mumbled.
"Absolutely! Absolutely," Fossett said. He
hectored the boy a little more. The boy slumped
back into his chair.
"You don't want to be in a position where you
are going to fail. Your year is still
salvageable, but you're going to have to change
now." He let the boy go to class.
"Hopefully, the light will go on," Fossett
said.
To survive freshman year in Prince George's, a
student must earn five credits and pass a
first-year reading course. Thirty percent of
Suitland High's 808 ninth-graders last school
year fell short.
In most cases, students start with the deck
stacked against them. Barely half of the
freshmen in Prince George's last fall had shown
proficiency on the state's eighth-grade reading
test. Thirty-five percent were judged
proficient in math. What's more, the average
freshman in the county misses 18 days of
school, or almost four weeks of instruction.
Fossett, in his fifth year as principal,
remains cheerful in the face of these hurdles,
switching from analysis of education policy to
a detailed assessment of the Redskins' playoff
chances, or from quiet counseling of a student
in need to bellowing at youngsters to get to
class.
In 2004, Fossett set up a freshman academy in
an annex about 300 yards from the main
building, meaning freshmen would be kept in a
smaller world of their own. "In big schools, a
kid gets lost," Fossett said, "and ninth-
graders get lost more than other students. A
big part of our ninth-grade academy is building
relationships."
Recently, students who had trouble in eighth
grade have gone to a "summer bridge" prep
program before starting high school. The
advisory class meets once or twice a week to
give students lessons in life skills: conflict
management, college and test preparation, or
resolving personal issues.
In the subdued hallways of the annex, distant
from the noisier main building where the older
students are concentrated, ninth-graders make
the transition from the more-controlled
environment of middle school to the relative
freedom of high school.
"What we've done is create a place here where
they kind of grow up a little bit," said
Keishia Wallace, the assistant principal in
charge of the freshman academy.
Success looks like a grammar class in a
temporary classroom, where students dissected
parts of a sentence with surgical precision. It
looks like the young man wearing a Suitland
Rams football jersey in the back of a physics
class, snapping off correct answers to
questions about Newton's second law of motion.
It looks like Kieara Burnette, 14, in honors
algebra. A perfectly completed assignment she
did hangs on the classroom wall. She wants to
study computer science at the University of
Delaware. "I just want to be able to help
people out with their computer issues," she
said.
It looks like Larry Camper, 14, who wants to
run his own fashion label. (Suitland is home to
a well-regarded visual and performing arts
program.) "It's not an option to drop out for
me," he said. "If I drop out of school, what am
I going to do? You might as well stay in
school, go to college. You'll be better off in
life."
Wallace is at the sharp end of the fight to
save youths who are at risk and pick up those
who have fallen. It is an intense job. In the
course of about two hours Oct. 16, she visited
three classes, pulled cafeteria duty and spoke
to dozens of students in the hallways, in
classes and in her office. Her cellphone rang
constantly, and reports and requests flooded in
over the radio.
About 10 minutes were spent trying to make
peace between two girls, a sophomore and a
freshman, who had almost gotten into a fight.
The antagonists sat in front of her and avoided
looking at each other.
"Tell me what happened again," Wallace said to
the ninth-grader.
"What?" the girl shrugged. "She was just
looking at me."
"When you say looking, do you mean looking or
was she staring at you?"
"It was like she was staring at me, but she was
looking at other people, too."
There was some back and forth as Wallace probed
for any deeper source of friction between the
girls. They denied it.
"I don't even know what to say right now about
this situation because it's silly," Wallace
said. "But we don't want it to escalate into
something else and you all are fighting and
getting suspended over the fact that she was
looking at you or she was looking at you and
she got irritated by it."
Wallace offered peer mediation and got them to
shake hands and part ways with hedged promises
that it wouldn't happen again.
A lunch order from Chick-fil-A had been dropped
off in the meantime, but it would have to wait.
Someone radioed Wallace with a new situation: A
classroom was out of control. She took a deep
breath.
"I'm on my way."
The class was in a trailer outside. A teacher
next door thanked Wallace for coming and said
kids had been running around outside and
flinging objects at her classroom. The loud
chatter of talking students could be heard as
Wallace approached the door.
She opened it, and the grammar students soon
got a lesson in the imperative voice. A student
sitting in the entrance hurried out of the way.
Wallace's eyes locked on another student
sitting on a desk who didn't belong in the
class, and she sharply ordered him to leave.
The students, now mostly quiet, sat at circular
tables. The assistant principal went from table
to table, quizzing them on the problems on
their worksheets.
"What's an appositive?" she asked. "What's an
indirect object? Tell me, what is an indirect
object? What's a prepositional phrase? Anybody?
What's an indirect object?"
Nobody knew.
"It's the lesson," Wallace said. She sat down
and watched the class. "It needs to be more
engaging. That's a big problem, that they're
doing this work and they don't know what
they're doing. They don't get it."
As she walked back to the annex, Wallace said
she'd talk to the teacher after school. Part of
her job is counseling adults as well as
children, helping them become better at their
jobs. The school day was nearing its end, but
she stopped more students in the hallway. There
is hardly any downtime.
"Every day, I wonder what today's going to
bring," Wallace said. "I just think about all
these students, all their parents, wanting them
to get a good education. You may be the only
one giving them some attention, motivating
them, letting them know they can succeed."
— Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post
2008-11-04
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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