Superschools

By Tom

Besides having the most functional name in the publishing industry, US News and World Report also ranks high schools. This year Bellevue's International School, one of our area high schools, made their top ten. Three other schools in the Eastside suburbs made the top 100: International Community School in Kirkland, Bellevue High School, and Newport High School, also in Bellevue. Let me first of all offer my most sincere congratulations to the students and staff of these schools. I have heard wonderful things about each of these institutions even before the list came out.

So what makes these schools so great? Is it their staff? Their students? Their mascots? And more importantly, what can other schools learn from their success?

If I was a betting man (and I'm not) my money would be on the students. After all, over 90% of the people in a school are students. The rest of us just work there. And frankly, since the teachers in this area pretty much all come from the same colleges and take pretty much the same training, it's got to be the kids.

Consider Newport and Bellevue. What kind of kids go to those high schools? Rich kids. Or rather, kids with rich parents. Which doesn't necessarily mean they're smart, but it probably means they aren't hungry. It probably means they're clean and dressed for the weather. It probably means they have parents who benefited from a good education and who try to make their kids believe that education is important. And that translates into kids who do their homework, study for tests and turn their projects in on time. Those things matter in a school, and not all schools can take those things for granted.

The other two schools on the list are "choice schools." They're public schools, but they operate without a specified service area. Parents apply to have their kids go there, and acceptance is decided by a lottery. In other words, these schools benefit from the miracle of self-selection. Every student wants to be there, and every kid who doesn't want to be there, isn't there. That also matters a lot, probably even more than affluence does.

So back to the big question. What can regular schools learn from these superschools? It would be easy to say, "Not much, really." It would be easy to say that these lists merely show us what's possible when a hard-working staff works hard in an affluent neighborhood. Or what can happen when a creative corps of teachers designs an innovative choice school. It would be easy to say that these lists can't really do anything to improve the education system as a whole. That they can't teach the rest of us how to teach better; they only teach us what our schools might be like if they were in a different community, or with a student body that overwhelmingly feels lucky to be there. We could easily conclude that these lists don't represent a sustainable model for school reform.

But this is, we're told, the Season of Hope. Although we know there's nothing inherently smarter about affluent kids in the Eastside suburbs, let's acknowledge the fact that the students at these schools, with the support of their teachers and their parents, have achieved an amazing level of academic success. Because they have. US News bases their list, after all, on student achievement, using multiple measures, and these kids are sharp.

So how do we get other students to achieve at that level? I don't think it's that complicated when it comes to the individual student. Difficult, maybe; and time-consuming, but not complicated. I think that early learning, lots of books, loving, stable parents who are curious and supportive will more than likely yield a child who is academically successful.

The trick is to do it en masse. Teachers, you see, teach the class that shows up. If most of the class doesn't study for a test and subsequently fails it, a good teacher doesn't just plow ahead as if they did, thus ensuring that they fail the next test as well. But if 90% of a class studies hard for a test and subsequently aces it, a good teacher will build on that success and take that class to the next level, the next day. That, in a nutshell, is what makes a superschool: a critical mass of students who, due to their hard work, allow their teachers to constantly move forward, without continuously reteaching the same concepts and skills.

So here's what I suggest: Starting in the elementary schools, parents and teachers work together to create a strong learning community. Which means teachers need to acknowledge that they can't create that kind of community on their own. They need to work in partnership with parents, realizing that they're the ones who have the most at stake in what happens at the school. In many cases, of course, working together with parents means getting over a few language barriers. Get over them.

Concerned parents: enough already with the skating parties, the movie nights and the wrapping paper sales. Those are fun, but let's focus now on student learning. Organize classroom volunteers to help the teachers help the kids who need help. Create after school homework support, where students can work in a quiet environment with someone available to help them when they get stuck. Make sure every kid in your child's school has a warm coat, a full box of crayons and a backpack. Sponsor a science fair, like the parents did at my school, and schedule after school workshops to help the kids who need some help putting their projects together.

And then keep up that support as your kids grow up. Support the middle school band, the high school drama club. The debate team. Organize an evening academy, where volunteers met struggling students and give them help with their homework.

Because here's what they figured out in those elite schools: it's a lot easier to achieve at school when you're surrounded by kids who are trying to achieve at school.

That's a superschool; hard-working kids surrounded by other hard-working kids, who become high-achieving kids surrounded by other high-achieving kids.

It's not rocket science, but it's how we get rocket scientists.

Comments

[Travis A. Wittwer]

I like choice schools because it necessitates parental involvement. All of my sons go to a choice school. K-12, fewer than 400 students. (go MLC!)

A community of learning. The instilled belief that education is valuable.

[Tom]

Very good insights, Kristin. It's clear that you and your colleagues, in partnership with the parents, are doing what needs to be done to teach these students. It's unfortunate that NCLB looks only at the output; student test scores, and not at what the the teachers and staff are doing in our schools.

[Tracey]

I've taught in both schools - the "super school" and the "failing school". I'm working so much harder now, now that I've switched over the "failing school". You're right about the community and climate of the "super school". Everyone is there because they wanted to be. Many waited a long time on the wait list just to be enrolled. Parents were actively involved and made education their primary goal for their kids. There are a lot of differences between these two schools, and a lot of reasons why I have to work harder at this school. But, here's something that's new and relates to your post.

We are reaching out to the parents and bringing them in. We have a large group of immigrant families from all over the world - particularly Latin America, East Africa, and the Pacific Islands. We've started two parent groups that meet monthly - the Latino parents and the Somali parents. At these meetings they ask questions about the school and we teach them about how American schools work. For example, they learn what the student-led conferences are all about, how to talk to your teacher, what the school psychologist does, etc. At our last professional development, the Somali parent group came to teach us about their culture and answer questions from teachers. One of the things that came out was that they saw their kids "didn't have homework". It was fun to watch the truth unfold, as one teacher put it, "If your child is telling you he doesn't have homework, he's lying."

The best thing about this is that the parents are getting together -at school - and making plans. And each time they meet, they're bringing more parents from the community to join them. On paper, we're still considered a "failing school" as we are now in our fourth year of not meeting AYP. But I'd like to think that this is the sort of thing that makes a school like ours "super".

[Tom]

Mark- Home matters a lot. Our challenge is to get what happens at high-performing kids' homes into more homes. And obviously we can't do it alone. The first step, though, is to start talking about it
Tim- I think everybody wants their community school to be a high performing school. To do that, we need high perfoming communities.

[tim-10-ber]

The two top schools from Tennessee are also choice schools with academic admission minimums and a lottery. In addition the schools require kids take a minimum of two AP classes and the tests. These kids come from families that believe in the value of education. I want to see my communities default er zoned schools do this as well...

[Mark]

I'm glad you have the guts to state the truth: those "top" schools are not some cookie cutter model we can simply stamp on every community in the country. It's kind of like comparing my building's AP students to our traditional mainstream students. The AP kids aren't "better" as a result of AP alone...they are entering with a unique set of dispositions and interests which not every child possesses, otherwise they'd all be AP.

Considering that this is the era of school punishment for poor performance, I'd be curious what would happen if the staffs at those schools were forced to redistribute to all the "high needs" or In-Improvement schools in the state.

Perhaps then the important people would realize that teachers everywhere are working hard and that what happens at home matters MORE than what happens at school.