Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Thursday, July 6, 2006
An opportunity to reshape high school
In 1999, I took over the education beat at the Dayton Daily News just a short time after having moved back into the city and celebrating the birth of my oldest daughter.
So I talked to a lot of people about the city schools, both to help me get a handle on my work and because even in those pre-toddler years I was casting an eye about for where my little girl would one day go to school.
The conventional wisdom at the time went like this:
If you could claw your way into one of a handful of good elementary schools, the Dayton school district would be fine through grade six. But for God’s sake, get out before middle school!
The one exception to this rule back then was Stivers School for the Arts for students in grades 7 to 12 with enough artistic talent to pass the audition.
Otherwise, the word on the street at that time said, you were out of luck. The rest of Dayton’s high schools were all rock-bottom in the state ratings. Middle schools, serving grades 7 and 8, avoided a state rating, since those grades were not tested by the state, but they were still generally regarded as awful, again with Stivers excepted.
When the Gail Littlejohn-led reform school board was elected in 2001, they began by following the usual reform approach — straighten out the elementary schools first. The board launched a massive, scripted reform focused heavily on math and reading. It included 90 minutes of reading a day, beefed up libraries and math and reading coaches at all elementary schools.
The old reform wisdom was always to focus on elementary schools, with the idea that better prepared kids coming up would help the middle and high schools perform better in time. But I distinctly remember the school board meeting that first year at which Littlejohn realized the folly of that approach. The board couldn’t wait, she said — something needed to be done about the upper grades right away.
One of the first steps was a simple one — they killed middle school altogether. As the board crafted a master plan for the rebuilt school district after $627 million in new construction, it moved toward K-8 elementary schools, redirecting small pockets of 7th and 8th graders to each elementary.
At the same time, the board got serious about high school. Here’s some of what they’ve done:
—Kept Stivers intact. There were a lot of questions about the future of Stivers, in it’s crumbling, ancient building, when the board took over. Littlejohn & Co. moved quickly to rebuild the school and kept the programs intact (housed for now at the former Julienne High School on Homewood Avenue).
—Maintained the International Baccalaureate program at Meadowdale High School. This program, with higher level classes similar to Advanced Placement, pre-dates the Littlejohn school board.
—Closed Grace A. Greene Academy. This alternative school program was a chronic low performer. The district has not yet solved the alternative school problem, as the Longfellow Alternative School is also low scoring.
—Launched the “academic magnet” program at Colonel White High School. This move was in response to calls for a “college prep high school” for high performers. Now about a third of the Colonel White kids are in this program, which offers added college prep coursework.
—Founded the Dayton Early College Academy. In partnership with the University of Dayton, this school seeks kids with high potential but perhaps not always a record of high achievement. They place the kids in a high expectations environment and let them progress right to college courses when they’re ready.
—Revamped career technical education. This work still is in progress, as the new David Ponitz Career Technology Center promises an intimate partnership with Sinclair Community College and state of the art equipment and facilities.
—Started the credit recovery program. In the past, kids started failing in ninth grade, fell behind, got discouraged that they could never catch up and quit school. Now they can make up flunked classes by completing online courses before and after school, giving many the chance to even graduate with their original classmates.
—Soon will launch a small technology high school. So far, this has been described a as a specialty school with a heavy focus on IT that may be include a large number of online classes.
Interestingly, what the board has really done is try to create more good options. In the past, the choice was largely Stivers or one of the large comprehensive high schools. Now parents of high performers can opt for the academic magnet. Or frustrated kids with high potential can try the early college academy. Soon, career technology program will lead directly to Sinclair certification programs and, for many, decent jobs. The same may be true for the technology high school.
They are building a classic “portfolio” program, one provides lots of options and gives kids more freedom to find what best fits for them. While at elementary grades, reform is heavily scripted and instruction regimented. Only recently it dawned on my that this was exactly the sort of approach I heard former Cincinnati Superintendent Steve Adamowski advocate for last year.
So what’s been the affect of all this upper grade change?
Here’s how high school state report cards looked in 2004 (ratings from best to worst are excellent, effective, continuous improvement, academic watch, academic emergency):
Early College Academy — Not rated (too few test takers)
Stivers — Excellent
Colonel White — Academic Emergency
Medowdale — Academic Emergency
Patterson — Academic Emergency
Belmont — Academic Emergency
Dunbar — Academic Emergency
Longfellow — Not rated (too few test takers)
Grace A Greene — Academic Emergency
Here’s what they looked like in 2005:
Early College Academy — Excellent
Stivers — Effective
Col. White — Continuous improvement
Meadowdale — Continuous improvement
Patterson — Continuous improvement
Belmont — Academic Emergency
Dunbar — Academic Emergency
Longfellow — Not rated (too few test takers)
Grace A. Greene — Closed
New Report cards come out in just about a month. We’ll see then if the momentum continues to go in the right direction.
One remaining challenge is the comprehensive high schools, especially poor performing Belmont and Dunbar, but even the non-IB programs at Meadowdale. The district has not yet undertaken any large scale changes for them.
But the construction program offers another opportunity, as new visions for those schools can be crafted as the schools are moved into first-class facilities, as the district is doing with Colonel White and the career technology school.
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