High schools: What's our best bet
by Paul Socolar
What's the most promising and important strategic focus for the District to go about turning its high schools into producers of graduates rather than producers of dropouts?
To reduce the dropout rate, the School District needs to focus on caring about its students. Dropouts come from neighborhood schools, which are the most underfunded and most lacking schools. I graduated from West Philadelphia High and it has over 1,000 students. There was a lack of resources, challenging classes, counselors, qualified and experienced teachers who actually care, to name a few things. Students need teachers who care about them because they might not have anyone else. Students also need the tools to be able to graduate, go to college, and graduate from there. Worksheets and boring lectures won't help. Students need classes to be interactive and hands on. And probably most of all, the District needs to LISTEN! Students have been saying what they need in many different ways and if the District doesn't listen to them, the problem will grow until it's too late to turn back.
Lawrence Jones-Mahoney
2008 graduate, West Philadelphia Automotive Academy
Board member, Philadelphia Student Union
The key to solving the dropout crisis is figuring out what to do with our neighborhood high schools. They need to be fundamentally redesigned to promote excellence and equity. Here are some suggested principles for H.S. transformation:
1. Shared Vision. Engage students, parents, staff, and community members in creating and implementing a shared vision for improving teaching and learning in their school.
2. Personalization. Students are more likely to succeed when staff knows every student. For this reason, large schools should be broken into clusters of smaller learning units on a shared campus.
3. Flexibility, Accountability, and Equity. We must unleash the talent in our schools. Give staff the flexibility to craft scheduling, staffing, budget, and to adjust curriculum to meet students’ needs. Central administration should provide strong support and accountability.
With these principles the District CAN build the capacity to fundamentally transform neighborhood high schools while serving the same population of students without special admission requirements.
Carol Fixman
Executive director, Philadelphia Education Fund
Communities In Schools of Philadelphia has spent 25 years addressing the Philadelphia dropout epidemic, and it is apparent that the students who succeed and stay in school are those who have choices. Improved strategies must provide exposure to best practices and new alternatives in education, which in turn impact the way students see themselves, their current situations and their futures.
We are no longer dealing with cookie-cutter situations or cookie-cutter students. The right strategy should entail a plethora of alternatives for students, so that each child is serviced and educated to meet their needs. Then we will see a positive shift to the currently bleak dropout situation.
Martin Nock
President, Communities in Schools of Philadelphia
Comments (2)
Submitted by David T. Shulick, Esquire (not verified) on Sat, 04/04/2009 - 16:27.
As the President of DVHS, a 39 year old alternative school in N.E. Philadelphia and Lower Bucks County (www.dvhs.org), which touts a 93% graduation rate with 100% of our student population being former "drop-outs" or "disruptive" in their public school, I am compelled to post a comment.
It takes much more than vague concepts which offer no accountability. Teachers, Administrators, and ultimately students, must attend a single school community where there are small classes, no restrictions on hiring and firing of staff as needed (putting student success ahead of teacher and administrator desires), rules are rigorously and uniformly enforced, and student management software is available for staff that enables a school's Administrators to track academic progress AND social and behavioral needs of each and every student. More often than not, these adolescents do not understand the value of education, and their home life lacks the support and guidance they need. These realities are wide-spread and schools that service "at risk" youth MUST make students feel valued, respected, cared about, and their academic efforts supported. In fact, by tracking social and emotional needs and issues, and providing effective counseling for students and their families, a school can help keep these students attending, feeling valued, and ultimately move them forward to college or a viable technical career.
Finally, merit pay is essential!! Each and every hard working administrator and teacher needs to be recognized for their efforts. Human nature being human nature, unless people are rewarded financially for their hard work, tough days, and their "extra" efforts for each and every student, in an objective yet variable manner, eventually, little by little, they will stop putting out that "extra effort". While I applaud many educators who are truly in education to help - eventually - the realities of our world set in - and people need to pay their bills. Being rewarded financially for taking that extra effort creates a competitive culture among staff to help these students, and fosters that caring, respectful environment that they so desperately need.
Unless this comprehensive approach is taken, the problem will never be solved.
Submitted by f (not verified) on Sat, 04/04/2009 - 17:54.
Lets take a brief moment to examine the irony of a commonly used statement of the school reform rhetoric. ‘Its all about the children” or some variation of this phrase such as,
“Putting student success ahead of teacher and administrator desires”
Of course our mission as educators is to help children to succeed in this world. Our goal is to help every child to develop proficiency in the literacy skills that will help she or he to become productive and successful members of our society. To this end most all-educational professionals do help students by fostering the caring and respectful environments that a child so desperately needs. This is where the irony comes into play. Everyone craves a caring and respectful environment in which to live and learn. Children crave this and so do adults. How do we expect adults who are treated with out regard to their own needs for respect and dignity to cheerfully and selflessly create such an environment for their students?
A healthy school community tends to the needs of all of it members. Teachers are not merely parts that can be replaced when someone determines that the school machine is broken. When thinking of a school as a community of people the points that Carol Fixman makes are more than vague concepts. They are principles that can guide the people of a school community as they strive to create and maintain a successful school.
In regards to paying the bills, how about we pay a decent salary to all of the members of the school staff from the start. When a child’s success in school depends on teachers building on the success of other teachers isn’t it better to create a cooperative and collaborative culture as opposed to an environment where teachers compete against each other?
I agree with Mr. Shulick statement in his post that we,
“MUST make students feel valued, respected, cared about, and their academic efforts supported."
I also believe that we must do the same for Teachers, principals and parents?
A school that shows that it doesn’t care for any member of its community is a school that doesn’t care.
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