9486 in the collection
Principal tells ninth graders to study, or leave
Ohanian Comment: Read my letter exchange with Pete, when he was in 7th grade. I recommend this as an example because Pete undoubtedly exhibits the skill level of some of the students described in the article below. According to the piece below, I just didn't set the bar high enough. Maybe Pete's problem could have been solved in high school if a gung-ho principal had kicked him out if he didn't shape up--or put him in Advanced Placement.
This edict of withdrawing students from school "for lack of interest" sounds an alarm to anyone familiar with the World of Opportunity in Birmingham, Alabama. When the late Steve Orel noticed lots of 16-year-olds showing up at the WOO, he asked why they weren't in high school. They all showed him the same termination papers. Reason for withdrawal: lack of interest.
Steve wondered how much "lack of interest" there could be when kids immediately tried to get into another school. As he talked to them, he heard stories of family troubles, students taking care of fatally ill relatives, working to put food on the table, students ill themselves, and so on. They said nobody at their high schools had ever asked them why their attendance was so poor, why they never did the homework, and so on.
Steve believed in second chances. And third. And fourth. . . . Steve knew that poor students lack many things; he didn't believe in "lack of interest."
The World of Opportunity continues to show another way. Steve's widow struggles to keep it going, and reports that those 16-year-olds are still being terminated by the local district.
Looking good at any cost is some districts' motto. The easiest way to do that is get rid of the really low kids.
Reader Comment:
There are a host of problems with the "evidence" here that this superstar principal is succeeding beginning with the fact that it's darn nigh impossible for a journalist to write objectively about someone who so clearly buys into the journalist's own biases.
Some problems:
1. Largely untested assumption that "raising the bar" is good policy. Fact that apparently this school had 671 out of 687 AP test failures would suggest just the opposite. School is setting a bar too high for all but a handful of students to reach. What were the AP passing percentages before? Wouldn't it make more sense to work on getting smaller numbers of prepared students into AP instead of just throwing as many in as possible so as to shine on Jay's hs rankings?
2. The fact that school reduced its numbers of "failing" 9th graders from 330 to 50 in one semester tells you nothing. Did the students drop out? Did they transfer to night school? Did they improve? We don't know.
3. Although the percentage passing state tests sounds impressive, without knowing more it is largely irrelevant. Obviously all of the improvement could be as a result of the dropout of the lowest achievers.
It's hard work getting low achieving students to improve. Unfortunately, the magic bullet formula of putting kids into classes labeled AP or IB makes it sound as if a school is really doing something, i.e. "We have high expectations for all our students." Wave the magic wand, move the deck chairs, whatever... Always disheartening when anecdotes substitute for evidence and even more so when schools allow fairy tales to drive policy.
by Jay Mathews
One of my education reporting maxims is that principals of schools in troubled districts never seek me out. Journalists are poison to them. We only want to write about bad stuff. Anything they say can be held against them.
So I was surprised when Charlie Thomas, principal of Crossland High School in Prince George's County, began sending me emails. His school has been one of the worst in a low-performing district for a long time. But Thomas, who arrived in 2004, was trying to improve his school and was willing even to deal with a fault-finding columnist if it would help. Nearly 66 percent of his students were low-income, but he was not going to let that slow him down.
I confess he has gotten my attention with some unusual moves. For instance, he quickly discovered that close to 800 of his 1,800 students were still in the ninth grade. "I asked for a list of every ninth grade student that was 16 years old or older with a grade point average of less than 1.0 [a D average]," he told me. The list had 330 names. Some had been there four or five years.
"As soon as the school year began we met with each of these students and informed them that they were being placed on academic probation," he said. "They were informed that they had one quarter to raise their grade point average to at least 1.0. If they failed to do so they would be withdrawn from the school due to lack of interest or transferred to the evening school program. . . . At the end of the first quarter, only fifty students remained on the list."
Several of his teachers needed to improve. He created performance plans and focused on absenteeism. Some left. Seventy percent of the faculty today were hired by him. Some got better. His state test scores improved, the passing rate in English going from 51 to 78 percent, and in algebra from 25 to 64 percent, in the last three years.
Then he got a disturbing letter from Pamela Stuart, whose daughter Destiny had passed all the state tests and won many school honors. College was going well for her, the mother said, except that "Destiny felt as if her academic courses really didn't prepare her for what she was to face. . . . Her roommate comments on how her college calculus class has been so much easier for her because she learned all that stuff in high school."
So Thomas raised the standards even more. Every ninth grader reading at or above grade level was placed in at least one honors course. Every 11th and 12th grader who had taken an honors course was placed in an Advanced Placement course, with a new International Baccalaureate program on the way. In the last two years the number of AP tests taken has grown from 164 to 687, a 319 percent increase.
"For many it is frightening," said AP government teacher Brian Ford. They are getting academic challenges that many "have not had to face before," he said. But senior Grace Bolompe said she appreciates how this will help her in college. "Personally, these classes have opened my eyes," she said.
Now Thomas' goal is to raise the school's AP test passing rate from an abysmal 2.3 percent. Some critics say principals like Thomas are wrong to use college-level courses to revive their schools. Start with something easier, they say. Thomas says when his graduates go to college "EVERY class they take will be an AP class. I tell them that NOW is the time to learn how to be a college student.” Sounds right to me.
— Jay Mathews
Washington Post, Class Struggle
2010-04-19
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/04/principal_tells_ninth_graders.html
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