Top Rank Schools

Last week The Denver Post ran an instructive article about the small school movement in Colorado. Downsized Schools Raise Bar, But Not All Reach It touches on some of the efforts in the state to transform struggling high schools by turning them into small schools, sometimes by dividing large comprehensive high schools into multiple academies, sometimes by starting a new small school from scratch.

The theory behind small schools is that they foster closer personal bonds between students and the school and (as one of a number of changes in a school’s climate) improve everything from attendance to graduation rates to academic achievement. And it has had success in raising attendance and graduation rates. But it has a mixed record on improving standardized test scores.

Feeling that they were not getting enough bang for their buck, the Gates Foundation (which for several years invested millions into this reform strategy) pulled its small schools money, now focusing its work on developing effective teachers. But the small school strategy does have its supporters, including some hoping to use it to transform a struggling Denver high school. My assumption is that the article shines a light on the strategy to help inform the public of the potential pros and cons of going this route.

But the points of this article can be taken far beyond small schools.

The article talked about the initial attempted small school transformation of Denver’s Manual High School. It struggled because (I am inferring from the article) those in charge broke the large school into smaller ones–and that was it.

“When you just change structure and don’t also make changes in teaching and learning that are required, you get less than you hoped for,” said Vicki Phillips, director of education for the [Gates] foundation.

That applies not only to small schools, but charters schools, schools that divide their staff into professional learning communities, or any other improvement strategy. There is no a silver bullet. Whenever a struggling school begins to succeed, it starts with a comprehensive look at all components of the school, and efforts to address all weaknesses, not just one.

Another lesson: Improvement takes time. Mapleton’s superintendent Charlotte Ciancio oversaw the conversion of that district’s comprehensive high school to smaller schools, but three years in, test scores were lagging. They made tweaks, and at five years test scores improved dramatically.

“There’s this false notion in education circles that you can ‘skip the dip,’ ” Ciancio said. “I guess what I get surprised about is that we all agree that good performance takes three to five years. But they only give it three. What happened to years four and five?”

Especially at this point in education, when we are focusing so much of our efforts on improving the lowest performing schools in the country (as we should be), we would be wise to remember these lessons, and develop and evaluate our efforts accordingly. Real change is possible, but it is not easy or immediate.

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