THE DOOR IN EXPERIMENTAL SCHOOLS USE INNOVATIVE IDEAS TO STEM 'EPIDEMIC' OF HIGH-SCHOOL DROPOUTS
By Gil Klein—Media General News Service
Washington - Mandy Franklin dropped out of high school twice - once while living with her mother and once after moving in with her father. She said she just couldn't take the early hours, the family problems and what she saw as an uncaring attitude from overworked teachers in the regular high schools.
"Teachers just didn't seem that concerned if you didn't understand,"
she said.
But now Franklin, 17, is enrolled in an experimental school in Guilford County and looking forward to graduating this spring.
"Here the teachers are patient and go over stuff with you. They work one-on-one and they care if you are doing good," she said during a break in a geometry class that she was taking with 11 other students. "There's no way I would have made it without this."
Finding ways to reach dropouts has taken on new urgency since recent independent reports found that the national high-school dropout rate is about 30 percent, far higher than the 15 percent that the Department of Education was reporting as recently as 2003. That's because old methods of counting school dropouts have proven unreliable and misleading.
The dropout problem is especially acute in the South, where Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee graduate fewer than 60 percent of the students who start in the ninth grade, according to a recent study by the Manhattan Institute.
"This is not just an isolated crisis that will quickly pass," concluded a similar report by the Urban Institute. "We are facing an epidemic that will demand systemic remedies."
Some school districts find that radically revamped experimental high-school programs bring dropouts back to class and keep at-risk teens from leaving.
"Several school districts recognize that the biggest issue is not lack of student ability, but lack of student engagement," said Assistant Secretary of Education Susan Sclafani. "Mold the program more to their interests and treat them like winners, rather than losers, and they stay."
These experimental schools are attempting to deliver the high-school curriculum in ways that will engage disaffected young people who often feel isolated and rejected in large standard high schools.
Rules are relaxed - hats can be worn, even smoking sometimes is permitted. Teachers try to create personal bonds with all of the students. Rigid bell systems for changing classes are eliminated. And students get more flexibility on when they come to school.
Many of these schools have opened on college campuses to allow high-school students to take college classes, which keep them motivated to graduate and ease their transition into higher education.
"Something magical happens for some kids when they see themselves as college students responsible for their own learning rather than as high-school students who are treated like children," said Kati Haycock, the director of the Education Trust.
Mandy Franklin is one of 135 students at the Early/Middle College at Guilford Technical Community College, tucked away in a small building on the community college's campus in Jamestown, not far from Greensboro.
The "Middle College" part of the name refers to the juniors and
seniors who have a chance to take both high-school and college classes.
"Early"
was added to the name when freshmen and sophomores were added this year.
Started four years ago, the school attracts students who have the ability to do high-school work but whose grades don't show it. More than 30 percent of the school's students had dropped out. The rest were at risk of leaving.
"You look at our students' test scores and they're pretty good," said David Ewalt, the school's counselor. "But you look at their grades and they're Ds and Fs. You talk to them about their schools and they say, 'I hate it. I'm not happy. I don't fit in.'"
The school looks for students who may have skipped a lot of school, who may be struggling with family situations, had drug and alcohol problems or are teenage mothers, he said. They may not have been able to concentrate in large classes or just not fit into the high-school pecking order.
Students take their high-school classes from noon to 5 p.m., which eliminates the typical early-morning school start times that defeat many teenagers, especially teen moms.
Brandon Smith, a junior, said that he had not dropped out of high school, but he was getting farther and farther behind his classmates until he transferred here.
"In my old school, I was expected to write down everything in my notes," he said. "But I'm a visual learner. Here, we are provided with all the notes all the time."
The school offers only a college-prep diploma, Ewalt said. And most of the classes are taught at honors level. The difference is that the teachers don't let the students get behind. If a student doesn't show up for class, the teacher is immediately on the phone to find out why.
Not all of the students graduate. Six dropped out this year. But 70 will graduate who might not have without the program.
Senior Nick Schmid is ready to join the Marine Corps as soon as he graduates. He already has the haircut for it. The Marines require a high-school diploma, and Schmid acknowledges that he would have had a hard time graduating from his former high school.
"I never did my homework, that's what brought me down," he said. "The teachers at the old school didn't care about me. They said 'work or fail.' Here the teachers care, they go one-on-one with you."
In Florida, White Hat Management, a for-profit charter-school company, is bringing its approach to dropout prevention to a state that graduates fewer than 60 percent of its high-school students.
School boards in Hillsborough and Polk counties fought White Hat's charter application, even though the company, based in Ohio, already operates 25 Life Skills Centers in four states.
Hillsborough school officials questioned whether White Hat could provide the services it promises for the money the county will pay. Polk officials worried that the program would not educate the dropouts and be forced to close within three years under the state's school-accountability laws.
Cathy Wooley-Brown, the senior executive director for White Hat Life Skills of Florida, said that her task is to allay both concerns.
"People assume these kids can't learn," she said. "But they absolutely can. They have survived some of the most difficult of life's circumstances, and they just keep going."
In both cases, the State Board of Education overruled the local school board's denial, and the schools will open next fall
White Hat cuts through obstacles to learning, she said. Students can
choose which four hours of the day they want to attend, whether it's 8
a.m. to noon, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. or 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
That gives them a chance to hold down jobs or take care of children.
Each student gets a computer and an individual plan that starts where they are academically, she said. They don't spend time sitting in large classes, but complete lessons to earn credits. With a student-teacher ratio of 11 to one, teachers work individually with students.
"You move at your own pace," Wooley-Brown said. "You're in control. You come four hours a day. But if you want to finish quicker, you can stay longer and do more work."
The school has a full-time social worker to help students find child care, public assistance, a place to live or food and clothing. A vocational specialist finds jobs. A special-education teacher works with disabilities.
Wooley-Brown said she is looking for a building in downtown Tampa where the school can begin next fall with 300 students. It will expand to 600, she said, which is still small compared to the more than 2,000 who typically attend a Hillsborough County high school.
But with its different time schedules, she said, only 150 students will be in the school at any one time.
"It's like a family," she said. "You get a lot of individual attention."