[James Ward Elementary School]
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These nine schools are not perfect. Each school continues to struggle to improve achievement. In some schools, they are working to deepen student learning in core subject areas. In other schools, they strive to extend academic excellence beyond reading and mathematics to other areas of the curriculum. In some of the nine, they continue to work to build a team among teachers, support staff, and parents. In others, they are trying to get students to accept a broader sense of responsibility for their learning and school success. Although teachers and administrators at the schools were quick to point out the areas where they still hope to improve, all nine schools have achieved impressive results.
Surrounded by poverty and all of the negative features associated with poverty, these schools have achieved academic goals that many people would have assumed unrealistic. Their academic results compare favorably with other schools in urban, poor communities; but also, they compare well with many suburban schools that serve much more affluent populations. In some cases, their achievement is demonstrated on norm-referenced assessments. In others, their success is visible in results from criterion-referenced or performance-based assessments. As well, in each school there are many other evidences of academic success in the daily work of students as they demonstrate the ability to read with understanding, write in a manner that communicates ideas clearly, and use mathematics to solve problems.
If such success was apparent in only one school, we might applaud the administrators and teachers as heroes and wish that we were so lucky to have such miracle workers in our communities. In contrast, however, there were nine successful schools in this study and if data, resources, and time were available, we probably could have identified 90 others throughout the country. These successes came from the hard work of everyday teachers, administrators, support staff, parents, and students.
Ultimately, the question posed by these schools is "Why not?" If a school in inner-city Detroit, Houston, or Boston can achieve these results, then why not the school a mile or two down the road? If a school in a poor community in San Antonio, Chicago, or Atlanta can bring almost all of its students to high levels of academic success, they why not the school in my community? If a school in East St. Louis, metropolitan Washington, D.C., or Milwaukee can achieve such a high level of academic distinction, then why not every school in America?
The answer certainly cannot be attributable to the problems of students or parents because these nine schools have students and families with the same challenges found in any poor community. The answer cannot be attributable to the quantity of resources available. Although these schools had reasonable resources, they generally had no greater resources than low-performing schools in their districts.
Perhaps, the answer to "why not," is that many of us assumed that this level of achievement could not be attained or at least, could not be attained at "my school." Perhaps, the answer is that many of us simply did not know where to begin, what to do, or how to proceed to move from current levels of performance to a much higher level of academic expectation. Hopefully, the stories of these nine schools address both types of answers and increase our resolve to create excellent schools in every community throughout the nation.
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[James Ward Elementary School] |
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