An inner city school sends all of its graduates to college. How?
Many of you have been sending me stories about the incredible success of Urban Prep Academies in Chicago. (The Web site is worth a visit.) The charter high school is sending all 107 of its first class of graduating seniors to four-year colleges.
In reading about the school, the same theme emerges: Students aim for college because that’s the expectation and culture of the school.
Many people argue that it’s Pollyanna-ish to maintain that expectations can overcome the grim realities of these inner city teens’ lives and the deficiencies of their early education. Clearly, it is not simply the expectation that these students will go to the college that matters, but the day-to-day effort by teachers and administrators to make it happen.
Here is an excerpt from a good story in the Christian Science Monitor about Urban Prep:
The school of about 450 students is in a neighborhood where violence is pervasive, and many students have to cross gang territory every day. It’s thus crucial for the school to offer an oasis of relative calm.
“For us, it’s not just about teaching new vocabulary words. We really do have to understand what is going on with this student outside school,” King says. That means faculty members develop close relationships with students and are available by phone on evenings and weekends. Often, they provide help on issues that seem to have nothing to do with school: homelessness, family tensions, or money problems.
The No. 1 criterion in hiring is that teachers believe in the mission, says King, who notes that some of the most successful teachers have not been black men. But having those role models is important, he adds. “None of us are particularly shy about sharing with students our life stories,” he says.
The most notable aspect of Urban Prep’s culture is its focus on college, an emphasis that infuses every aspect of the school – from an achievement-oriented creed that students recite daily to the framed acceptance letters that decorate the walls.
“Every single adult in the building – from the director of finance that handles payroll to the CEO to all the teachers – has a very clear understanding that our mission is to get students to college,” says Kenneth Hutchinson, the school’s director of college counseling.
“We start in the freshman year,” adds Mr. Hutchinson, who grew up in Englewood. “It’s not about helping them fill out applications; it’s about building strong applicants.”
Senior Milan Birdwell says he always knew he wanted to go to college, but he had no idea how he would get there. When he transferred to Urban Prep as a sophomore, he had a grade-point average of 1.6. Since then, he has raised it to 3.04 and posted a respectable score of 21 (out of a possible 36) on the ACT. “It’s like someone opened a door, and behind that door is a future,” he says.
Milan has been accepted to five colleges and is waiting to hear from the University of Rochester in New York – his top choice.
The success that Urban Prep has seen so far can be replicated, King believes. Pedro Noguera, a professor at New York University who has been researching single-sex black schools, concurs.
“What this school shows is that under the right conditions, black males can thrive. They can be very successful,” Professor Noguera says. The key to its success isn’t that it’s all-male, he adds. It’s “the attention they pay to teaching.”
Ok, here’s the million dollar question. If they can do it at Urban Prep, why can’t it be done everywhere? Why can’t we do it in Georgia?
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65 comments Add your comment
catlady
April 27th, 2010
4:00 pm
3 for 3. I guess I quit. The filter wins.
williev2000
April 27th, 2010
4:06 pm
I’m a retired teacher. It sounds like some of the teachers on this blog are saying anything to discredit this school is not worthy of being in the spot light for making progress with children. I work with many teachers now and most are very lazy and put forth very little effort to help students. They ignore the research and really are poor examples of the profession.
Tonya T.
April 27th, 2010
4:15 pm
kalukilani:
I believe it’s the latter. I think these are always the students and parents who gave a dang, but didn’t have the right setting to get the job done. Their grades may not have been stellar, but the parental buy-in was already there. Does that make any sense?
Proud Black Man
April 27th, 2010
4:24 pm
@ Well, well, well
“Meh, Proud Black Man is just some idoit who wants to throw out the race card and ruin every topic. Just ignore him and he’ll go away.”
Once again PBM does not answer/cater to buckrah, look it up, and their uncle tom lap dogs.
drew (former teacher)
April 27th, 2010
5:09 pm
Stories like this make it clear what a school can accomplish, if all parties involved are responsible and on the same page. And you can call it a public school, but let’s be honest and at least admit that it operates more like a private school, from the “chosen” students, to the parental buy-in, to the uniforms, to the smaller classes, to the single sex student body.
And it’s not always about what the school provides. Sometimes it’s just as much about what the school excludes: disinterested parents, a culture that devalues education, students who have NO desire to learn, the distraction of the opposite sex, and of course students who have no desire to behave. If you could “exclude” these things from your school, I suspect it would improve by leaps and bounds also.
So there’s your template for a successful school. But what about the ones that didn’t win the lottery, and had to remain in their regular school? Surely no child deserves to be left behind?
Discipline counts
April 27th, 2010
6:19 pm
Do you think this school even BEGINS to tolerate the discipline problems that most failing public schools routinely tolerate?
1teacher
April 27th, 2010
7:13 pm
I don’t believe anyone is discrediting the school. I think it is wonderful that they are doing so well. What most of the teachers on here seem to be saying is…we all want to be a part of this type of success, but we are fighting administration, absent parents, students with little drive and a ridiculous test that keeps everyone on edge. I worked today from 6:45-6:00, was accused of hating a child (mom would be the accuser) because I had to have an administrator remove him from the class. He refused to leave the room and it was lunch time…other kids wanted to eat. The child has a 62 avg in reading, his mom has yelled at the nurse before because “she can’t come every time her kid is sick!” He is 8 years old. This is what we are concerned about, not making excuses just asking people to actually see what is happening in the schools.
Just a Thought
April 27th, 2010
9:04 pm
Maureen,
This could be accomplished in just about any struggling school if there was a principal who:
1) had the guts to set high expectations and stick to it regardless of what central office says. They would not care about cries from central office to lower their suspension rate or to increase their pass rate (even though they know the students are not learning and that this leads to grade inflation). They would be honest with the parents of struggling students about where they really are versus passing them on from year to year. They would also support these students in getting back on track.
2) was firm with parents who want the school to coddle their children just like they do (Thank you to the parents on this blog that hold their children accountable for their actions and realize it’s not the teacher’s fault when their child is misbehaving).
3) had a back up plan for another career after being fired for DARING to execute numbers 1 and 2.
I am so serious about this. Too many times principals are forced to decide between challenging the status quo and their jobs. You can guess from the state of most at risk schools the popular choice.
????
April 28th, 2010
8:37 am
Should I transfer my private school children to public school after hearing all of this??? They are being challenged. Would love to see straight A’s again though. Seems like all you have to do is go into the principal’s office and complain and your child too will have straight A’s.
Verdad
April 28th, 2010
8:48 am
Dig a little deeper and you will find the ACT scores at this school are no better than other public schools in Chicago. The fact that all the kids have been admitted to a four-year college speaks more to the fact that affirmative action admits black males with vastly lower qualifications. than other races. A black male who can sign his name should be able to get into Harvard these days.
kalukilani
April 28th, 2010
11:00 am
tanya, that does make sense. i wonder though, is it that parents don’t care or are they unaware, uninformed, deflated…? it bothers me when people, usually teachers and administrators, say that parents just don’t care about their childs education because i think the issue is deeper than that. i know “hood parents” who feel so beat down by life that education becomes less of a priority; so they pass this message to their kids, thus devaluing education. but i challenge the thinking that they don’t care. maybe they just care about it less than keeping the lights on? i would be really interested to know the backgrounds of these young men – what their family life is like, what their parent/s life is like? i guess i just don’t want them to be an exception! i want them to be and i want the world to see them and this school as a different and effective way to school our children. i’m rambling, sorry…!
drew, i’m with you on what the school excludes. include in that list disinterested teachers and useless administrators.
kalukilani
April 28th, 2010
11:00 am
and verdad…that’s just foolish.
Just a Thought
April 28th, 2010
11:15 am
Verdad,
Surely you know that test scores (SAT/ACT) are only one component of the freshman index (the formula many colleges use to rank applicants). So just because the students don’t test as well does not mean they can not be successful in college.
Even if what you said was 100% true to have these students going to college IS far better than most public schools in the area. What they do with it once they get there is up to them but the opportunity is what’s important.
I hate to say it but the more I live the more I understand that there are people in this world who don’t ever want to see minorities succeed. They will find every reason to discount progress in the very communities they always complain about. What a shame.
P.S. Some people don’t realize that many of the same programs that benefit African Americans also benefit women, Hispanics, Asians AND Whites who are first generation college students (which many grants also consider a minority subgroup). Don’t disregard the true diversity represented by so called affirmative action programs.
????
April 28th, 2010
4:34 pm
I am sooooo sorry. I hate hearing about this minority thing. White male students are the new minority!!!!! In Georgia schools white students are 48% of the population. More females, asians, hispanics, africian american and other are being excepted into Georgia colleges these days than a male student with a perfect SAT score and 4.0 GPA. This just happened at my child’s private school. We were schocked to hear some of these top students didn’t get into GA TECH or UGA. Female students, African American students and others got in and not the truly top of the class.
Verdad
April 28th, 2010
10:04 pm
Asians do not benefit from affirmative action. In fact, they suffer from it more than any other group. Affirmative action only applies to blacks and hispanics.