America's traditional public high schools are failing urban kids. For proof, look no further
than Detroit, where less than one in seven students graduate and go to college. Here's the sad math: Of the roughly 15,000 students who start ninth grade in the Detroit school district each year, only about 5,000 return three years later for 12th grade. Some of the disappearing 10,000 teenagers transfer to other school districts, but most make the
life-shaping decision at the age of 16 or 17 that schooling is not for them, and they drop out altogether. Even among those who actually graduate, only about 40 percent enroll in two- or four-year colleges (which is about the national average for African-American students). So: 15,000 kids enter high school in Detroit each year, and maybe 2,000 go on to postsecondary institutions.
What will it take to correct a record of such abysmal failure? And we don't mean to marginally raise the graduation and college matriculation rates, or to show modest signs of improvement. We mean, what will it take to radically alter the whole equation?
Five years ago, we started a public charter school in Detroit called University Preparatory Academy, which has a goal of graduating 90 percent of its students and sending at
least 90 percent of those graduates on to college -- the same rates that schools achieve in Detroit's affluent suburbs. The academy has a middle school and a high school. We started with sixth-graders only and have been opening a new grade each year as our
original class -- now in the 10th grade -- has progressed.
So far, we're on track to meet those so-called "90-90" goals when our first class of seniors graduates in June 2007. Since opening the high school two years ago, we've had only one student drop out, and all of our remaining students aspire to go to college.
We believe the story of our school to date, along with the record of other 90-90 schools in East Harlem and Queens, N.Y.; Providence, R.I.; San Diego; Boston; and Los Angeles,
among other places, offers a working theory for urban education and a model for school design that can be widely replicated.
In our planning phase, as we visited a number of the urban public schools that had set and reached similar goals, we reached a critical conclusion: The preferred policy prescriptions of federal and state officials -- choice, charters, and academic standards -- along with the
factors most commonly cited by educators -- such as curricula and teacher quality -- are all important ingredients to improving urban schools, but they are not sufficient. What politicians and educators are missing is a fundamental understanding of what enables
urban kids to learn.
Radical redesign. When we looked at other 90-90 schools, it was obvious that they had radically redesigned everything about the traditional school model. That traditional design is based on the assumption that a child's family prepares him or her for school and provides the motivation to learn. We've heard the CEO of the Detroit schools say, "Give us motivated children and we will teach them successfully." He is right: Students who enter school motivated to learn and see themselves as capable students can cope with, and even excel in, the mass-production conditions of the traditional high school.
But -- and this was a crucial insight -- most urban students do not come to school motivated to learn. They do not have the self-identity of successful students. Many have no idea how schooling connects with what they care about, or how it can shape their futures in the real world. They are deeply alienated from the experience of schooling and don't identify with the goals of schooling. They do not see themselves as college bound, nor do they know what it takes to get into college.
Essential elements. Unfortunately, nothing in the design of mass production, factory-model urban high schools will motivate an unmotivated child. So the two-thirds of the ninth-graders who enter urban schools unmotivated drop out in short order.
It became clear to us that success for urban students would require a new role for the school, in which the school would take responsibility for building urban students' motivation and self-identity. We recognized, as others have, that this could not be
achieved in Detroit without breaking the mold of traditional school design. The 90-90 schools we found had developed powerful new approaches to urban education. There
were five essential elements, in particular, that we have been able to copy:
First, 90-90 schools are small schools -- ranging in size from 125 to 500 students -- with small classes. Such small communities can provide nurturing learning environments in which every adult knows every child. In a small school, with 15 or 16 students per class, no kid can stay anonymous or drop through the cracks. The documented advantages of small schools include better student attendance, lower dropout rates, less violence, stronger test scores, higher graduation rates, higher rates of college enrollment, and higher teacher satisfaction.
Second, these schools offer every child powerful and enduring relationships
with teachers, and provide mentors from the world of work and other parts of the community. Some schools use "advisories" or homerooms, where students have a continuing relationship with one teacher throughout the four years of high school. Most 90-90 schools place students in long-term internships with adult mentors. This practice reflects the belief that changes in a student's self-identity and motivation are fostered
by intense relationships with interested, caring adults.
Third, 90-90 schools provide individualized student learning plans tailored
to each kid's skill level, learning style, maturity, and interests, rather than using one-size-fits-all curricula and textbooks. Individualization permits an initial focus on a student's
strengths and interests, which increases the chances that a student will succeed. Success generates the self-confidence that is the prerequisite for a student's motivation.
Fourth, 90-90 schools usually offer college preparation as the expected
path for every student. No general education track exists in these schools; indeed, they consistently seek to avoid tracking students into vocational training programs.
And fifth, they rely heavily on partnerships with institutions in the community. To provide students with experiences that will help them develop career goals, they team up with colleges and universities, cultural institutions, businesses, government, and community organizations. These partners get involved in the school's
core curriculum and identity-building activities, not just in marginal add-on programs.
We took these lessons to heart as we designed University Preparatory Academy in Detroit. We intended to demonstrate the 90-90 design's power to achieve better outcomes for kids. We would spend no more money per student than the Detroit school district;
in fact, we spend less. We would use regular teachers we would find in the local labor market, paying them comparably to Detroit's unionized teachers. And we would enroll students by lottery, rather than handpicking only the brightest kids.
Our experiences over the past five years, with 600 sixth- through 10th-graders and their families, have reinforced our belief in our learning theory and school design. All but one of our students have stayed in high school; our standardized reading and math test scores are above those of the surrounding school district; our students and their families believe they will graduate and go on to post-secondary studies (indeed, more than one-half of our 10th-graders have already been accepted to one or more higher-ed programs); and the culture of the school is warm, nonviolent, and supportive of academic excellence.
We didn't want to be another special-admissions school for the small number of already high-achieving kids in Detroit. We wanted to show that a general admissions high school with regular Detroit kids can, in fact, perform at the level of suburban school systems. If we pulled this off, we assumed, the Detroit school district would want to adopt the innovation and spread it.
But that hasn't happened yet. The Detroit Public School System is not likely to jettison its failing schools for a new design that can meet the 90-90 goal, unless the political dynamics around education issues change dramatically.
When we applied for our school's five-year charter, we said the school should be judged on its success in graduating students and enrolling them in colleges, community colleges,
or technical skill programs. If we did not meet our 90-90 goal, we declared, our charter should be terminated. We don't know of any Detroit school official who has taken a stance remotely like this one: clearly stating a measurable outcome that wildly defies the
unacceptable status quo, and staking the life of a school -- and his or her job -- on achieving it. This is partly because school officials have no reason to believe they can achieve such goals; their schools are not designed to.
Blame game. Instead, many urban educators join with many urban elected officials in engaging in the politics of false hope. This politics has two dynamics: claims and blames. Education professionals and politicians claim that the problem is being fixed, by using choice, standards, new curricula, better teacher training, and so on. Their goal is to maintain the public's confidence. At the same time, these players spread the blame around: socioeconomic factors, incompetent parents, lack of money, bad teachers, penny-pinching politicians, ineffective administrators, and so on. But with all
the claiming and blaming, almost no one says to the families of urban students what they most want to hear and what our school dares to say: "We will get your kids into college. If we don't, then get rid of us."
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm took a step in the right direction when she set a goal of doubling the number of Michigan students who go to college. But it won't be enough to offer more scholarship and loan money. What matters is preparing kids -- especially
urban kids -- to go to college and succeed once they get there. And that means politicians -- Democrats, in particular -- should focus on getting traditional school districts and charter schools to adopt radically different designs for schooling that work for urban students.
In addition to the success of the 90-90 model, there are other noteworthy developments.
The Gates Foundation is investing in developing 1,000 small high schools nationwide. New York's Republican mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is also championing small schools. He is aiming to put 100,000 high school students into small schools over the next
few years.
Instead of being drawn into the education establishment's war against charter schools, New Democrats should encourage the launching of more innovative charter high schools and the conversion of traditional public schools that are committed to the 90-90 goals for urban students.
And we shouldn't let traditional school districts pursue just incremental improvements. Instead, we should reward any urban school district that commits itself to radically redesigning a substantial portion of its middle and high schools. Schools must be
smaller and provide individualized attention for students and the goal of college enrollment. We should encourage teachers unions to take the lead in getting this done; there's no reason why they can't run these sorts of schools, either as charters or within traditional school districts.
What is at stake now is fundamental: Urban kids must have good schools that meet their needs and help them get into college. We know what these
schools look like and how to create them. New Democrats should let nothing stand in the way of delivering what these kids deserve.
