Raising the Educational Achievement of Secondary School Students - Volume 1 Summary of Promising Practices - 1995

A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Adapting Organizations to Increase Learning

Successful secondary schools develop new organizational arrangements, as needed, to support innovations in teaching and learning. To implement new curricula, instructional approaches, and assessment strategies, teachers expand their repertoires and their ways of interacting. These adjustments often demand accommodating the educational environment and organizing the schools. Productive reforms also challenge students to assume new roles, achieve higher standards as learners, and accept new responsibilities as members of the school community. The schools' grouping procedures, schedules, resources, and routines must adapt to offer a supportive context for new behaviors. Successful secondary schools transform their organizational structures as they expand their visions.

Under the banner of restructuring, innovations such as site-based shared decisionmaking, team teaching, modular scheduling, and interdisciplinary courses have gained considerable currency. Changes in structure alone, however, seldom enhance student achievement. Only when organizational change is tightly linked to teaching and learning does it have a positive effect on student outcomes. Even if "restructuring" is the first item on a school's reform agenda, the content of education--what and how much students learn--is the ultimate target, and maintaining a focus on that goal is the ultimate challenge.

Two approaches are particularly rewarding for making the organizational changes essential for lasting improvement: creating communities of learners on a manageable scale, and reconceiving schools' uses of time.

Creating Communities of Learners

In its seminal report, Turning Points, the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development (1989) called for schools to provide small-scale "communities for learning" where close, trusting relationships among faculty and students give rise to a climate that stimulates growth and intellectual development. In such communities, students can rely on a small, caring group of adults who work closely with each other to provide coordinated, meaningful, and challenging educational experiences. In turn, teachers can get to know every one of their students well enough to understand and respond to them as individuals.

A number of middle schools and high schools that have caught the eye of researchers have succeeded in creating just this kind of personalized environment. In an intensive study of an inner-city magnet school that had been highly successful with at-risk students, Talbert (1990) observed that personal relationships between teachers and students motivated students to stay in school and work hard. Students whose lack of prior school success discouraged academic engagement and those whose out-of-school lives were chaotic found hope and connection in their relationships with teachers. The affirmation and accountability in their school experience helped them to persist and often to prevail, despite obstacles. To create personalized environments, this school made strategic choices about organizational structures, and staff worked continually to respond to students. In a similar way, the schools profiled in the companion volume to this idea book have reorganized to create more personalized learning environments for their students. These schools have created schools-within-schools or more informal "clusters," or found a way to keep their enrollments small.

School Size

Throughout most of the twentieth century, high schools have steadily grown in size. Small high schools consolidated to form bigger schools that offered a wider range of courses and, it is argued, achieved some economies of scale. As a result, the average secondary school enrollment is now 678, and more than 53 percent of all secondary students attend schools with enrollments of at least 1,000 (National Center for Education Statistics, 1993). However, recent analyses of academic and other outcomes of secondary education suggest that increasing school size has created more problems than it solved. There is a growing conviction that, where secondary schools are concerned, small is beautiful.

School observers note that a positive sense of belonging is easier to achieve in small institutions, where frequent face-to-face contact engenders personal relationships between teachers and students. Small schools are often more effective in implementing fair disciplinary policies and practices, which students view as evidence of adults' care and commitment, while students in large schools often view rules as arbitrary and bureaucratic. In addition, faculties in small schools are more likely to reach consensus about educational goals with an academic focus--and work together to achieve them.

A growing body of research on the effects of school size supports arguments for downsizing. One study found that students in small secondary schools learn more than similar students elsewhere, and, conversely, students in graduating classes of more than 750 suffer negative effects on attitudes, achievement, and participation in voluntary activities, when compared with others (Howley, 1989). Other practitioners argue that schools of less than 1,000 are necessary, and schools of 500 or less are even closer to optimal size.

Small size is also a correlate of success in dropout prevention programs. Designs for alternative high schools emphasize low enrollment because they can serve students who feel lost in comprehensive high schools. City Academy, which serves students who have either dropped out or been expelled, has been sensitive to the issue of size from the outset. The Academy's two founding teachers left another alternative school when its enrollment nearly doubled to 80, and students began to fall through the institutional cracks. Struggling students simply dropped out of places where "they could go through a whole day of school and no one would even know they were there." These students needed individual support and encouragement, which was not readily available in their large home schools. At City Academy, in contrast, staff meet weekly to define goals and set priorities on a student-by-student basis. With so few students, teachers "created a system to match each student, rather than forcing the student to match the system."

Schools-within-Schools

A common way to address the anonymous and impersonal nature of large comprehensive high schools is by forming schools-within-schools for students--typically 200 or fewer--and teachers who share an interest or career orientation. These organizational sub-units often occupy a particular wing or section of the building, which is clearly designated as their home territory. Some of these sub-units primarily enroll students who are seriously committed to a career choice, and they involve community members in related occupations as program advisors and mentors. The Academy for the Health Professions, at Socorro High School in El Paso, enrolls students as early as ninth grade in a program that prepares them for immediate postsecondary employment or further study. Students work in small cohorts with the same group of classmates and teachers for all four years of the program. Members of the El Paso medical community provide a variety of services, from guest lectures to supervised field placements. Completing this academy program is no small accomplishment.

However, some schools use thematic sub-units as much to lend coherence to studies and offer opportunities for authentic learning experiences as to cultivate particular kinds of expertise. Students serious in their interests do gain valuable skills and knowledge, but teachers expect most students simply to explore the possibilities raised by the theme. In such schools, students may choose their sub-unit with less deliberation, and they more often transfer to another sub-unit when they find a new interest. At Tuba City High, in Tuba City, Arizona, all entering freshmen choose one of four schools-within-schools: Math, Academics, Science, and Health (MASH), Technology and Engineering Career House (TECHs), Business, and Liberal Arts. Academic work and enrichment programs are organized around these themes. Within each sub-unit, academic and other courses use the theme as a source of experiences, knowledge application exercises, and career exploration.

Creating relatively self-contained units, each with a shared focus, within large comprehensive high schools reduces the professional isolation that teachers often feel. Because teachers in self-contained units work with the same small group of students, they find it easier to collaborate over common learning goals, behavior expectations, and problem-solving strategies--collaborations facilitated by the curriculum focus. Similarly, students see themselves as part of a learning community with clearly defined goals and expectations; they learn to use each other as resources. Theme-based schools-within-schools can engender a sense of "family" that provides effective support for teachers and students.

Clusters, "Houses," and Teams

Dividing teachers and students into heterogeneous clusters, sometimes called "houses" or teams, is another way to create units with more manageable social dimensions within large schools. In some schools, clustering is simply an administrative strategy that breaks an unwieldy institution into sections that are microcosms of the whole, including students from several grades and teachers representing all departments. In other schools, the clustering is more directed. For example, in some middle schools all sixth graders belong to one house, and seventh and eighth graders belong to several others; similarly, some high schools cluster all freshmen together but mix students from grades 10 to 12 in other houses. Members of teams may not occupy a designated space, but they share some daily experiences and ceremonial events. The purpose of forming houses is to increase the opportunities for personalizing the educational experience.

Clusters are typically composed of a group of students--perhaps 125--with a proportionate share of teachers, usually one from each of the major disciplines plus a specialist--in reading, English as a Second Language, art, or music--who may also participate on other teams. Students take core courses from teachers on their own team, a strategy that allows control of scheduling for a significant portion of the day to rest with the team. Faculty arrange special learning opportunities that extend beyond the traditional class period, regroup students for special projects, offer interdisciplinary units and courses, and make other adjustments to accommodate team needs.

Working together in houses, whose membership is usually stable over the whole period of a student's enrollment, enables teachers and students to get to know and understand each other better. Having common preparation periods enables teachers to share perceptions of each student's strengths and weaknesses, learning styles, and work habits and to develop appropriate responses. A house system facilitates development of interdisciplinary lessons, units, and courses supported through team teaching by subject-matter specialists. Regular meetings of house faculty members enable them to identify and solve problems together, often before the crisis stage, and to establish common disciplinary policies. Especially at the middle school level, teachers report that clustering dramatically reduces the incidence of classroom discipline problems.

Individualized Instruction

Keeping learning communities small makes it possible for teachers to develop flexible, individualized learning plans for students who need them. Such plans may be particularly important for secondary students who are over-age for their grade. Those who have been retained even once are 40 to 50 percent more likely than others to drop out before high school graduation; those retained twice are almost twice as likely to drop out (Mann, 1986). To enable retained students to catch up with their peers, teachers at the Urban Collaborative Accelerated Program coach them through a competency-based curriculum that students may complete at their own pace. As students reach the standards for each grade level, they move on to address the next set of standards until they are ready to join their high-school-bound age-mates.

This model, based on a small-scale school environment, competency-based curriculum, alternative assessments, and flexible schedule for both teacher and student, has also proven successful in dropout recovery projects. Some projects organize curriculum and instruction to allow students to earn partial credit for any coursework that they complete during their intermittent attendance. Those whose sustained enrollment suffers because of conflicts in their personal lives are able to accrue credit incrementally until they meet graduation requirements.

The Opportunity Program (TOP) in the Waco (Texas) Independent School District offers year-round classes for high school students who are over-age for grade and those who have dropped out of the traditional program. This self-paced, open-entry/open-exit program allows students who might not otherwise graduate to earn credits toward a diploma. Students work with multimedia curriculum frameworks for 44 competency-based courses that reflect as closely as possible the curriculum of the regular high school course. Instructional materials draw on both regular course resources and on the resources of the Comprehensive Competencies Program, which was developed and disseminated by United States Basic Skills Investment Corporation (US BASICS).

With the help of special TOP teachers who consult with relevant departmental faculty each student selects learning activities from a menu of possibilities for each objective. Students exercise substantial control over their learning: to reach a mathematics objective, for example, one student might choose to conduct hands-on experiments with a small group of peers, observe videotapes of teacher lectures and demonstrations, and complete text- and computer-based exercises on computation and problem-solving. A different student might choose other activities to reach the same goal. In addition, the TOP instructor might meet with both to provide direct instruction on a few complex topics.

When students complete the activities for a course module, they take a mastery test. Students completing work on one course before the semester's end may begin work on a second course, and those whose work is interrupted or unfinished may start up where they left off when they return to TOP. Students enrolling as freshmen when they are one or two years behind age-mates can sign up for one or more periods of TOP work each day, and many use this opportunity to speed through basic courses, making up time lost by earlier failures. The possibility of earning credit for objectives met enables students whose regular high school program is disrupted by the demands of family responsibilities, migrant farm work, or legal problems to accumulate the credits or competencies for a diploma or GED certificate in the time that is available.

The Role of Choice

Seasoned observers of successful secondary schools report that allowing students some freedom in choosing their school community may lead to greater commitment and deeper engagement in learning. Exercising a degree of choice can be an important precondition for personalization; students who consciously select a personalized environment are more likely to contribute to its maintenance. Likewise, allowing secondary school students to choose a school or program increases the probability that students will buy into its academic mission. When parents help students to make these choices, the process of selection supports their ongoing collaboration over educational goals.

Nearly all the schools profiled in the companion volume to this idea book permit some form of student choice. For many schools, students must make an active decision to enroll. Students select "second chance schools" like City Academy, Middle College High School in Seattle, and City-as-School after leaving their regular high schools. Students must apply and in some cases be interviewed for slots in the Socorro Academy for the Health Professions, the youth apprenticeship program in Pickens County, South Carolina, and the one selective theme-based program at Tuba City High School. At the Alternative Middle Years (AMY) program, students and their parents choose a course of study each trimester from an extensive roster. AMY's principal comments that "kids and parents use this [opportunity to choose courses] as an educational dialogue."

Using Time Flexibly

Besides reorganizing work groups, successful secondary schools use scheduling systems that permit adjusting time allocations to accommodate diverse learning experiences. A 40- to 50-minute period may not be long enough for lessons that probe deeply into interdisciplinary themes, and daily class meetings may not be necessary for every course. Innovations in scheduling allow restructuring schools to match time allocations by the period, the day, the week, or the semester to fit the variable demands of teaching and learning. At the Urban Collaborative Accelerated Program, for example, teachers plan week-by-week schedules that allot time to classes in any way they see fit; at Alternative Middle Years, teachers may work together to combine periods in a conventional class schedule to carve out longer blocks of time for particular courses or class activities.

A common approach to reconceiving the use of time is block scheduling, in which teachers can create class periods that last from an hour to 90 minutes or more. Block scheduling works most effectively when it is controlled by the relevant team of teachers, permitting them to take an interdisciplinary approach to some topics or courses. For example, they may schedule art and literature courses in adjacent time slots, and then jointly offer an integrated course that explores the works of a certain era or country. The extended period provides opportunity for students to work together on complex projects and for teachers to make presentations or arrange experiences that take longer than one period to complete. In a two-period block, students can draft an essay, throw a pot, or finish a round of team critiques on research projects. Block scheduling is beneficial because teaching longer and fewer periods can reduce the number of students teachers see in a day, enabling teachers to get to know their students better and develop a more personal relationship.

In addition to dividing up the school day differently, a number of restructuring schools have loosened the boundaries of the traditional school day or year to accommodate alternative learning experiences. In a more flexible school week, high school students can combine their regular classes with advanced courses at local community colleges or universities in the afternoons and evenings. Students can also participate in internships or other field work with business, industry, schools, and private and public community organizations. In City-as-School, for example, students can arrange their schedules around the traditional work week, combining internships in workplaces across the city, classes at City-as-School, and courses at community colleges. The Manhattan Comprehensive Night School in New York City is the first school in the country to allow students to earn a regular high school diploma at night. Founders of the school argue that flexible scheduling and afternoon and evening classes allow the school to reach many students who would not otherwise attend school because of family or work responsibilities. Seattle Middle College High School allows students to schedule classes around jobs or family responsibilities in much the same way.

Other schools profiled in the companion volume to this idea book extend the school day and year to expand learning opportunities for students. City Academy added a two-hour afternoon program three days a week for students experiencing problems in other settings. For students returning to school after dropping out, these afternoon sessions provide a chance to test the waters before deciding to return to school; for some, the sessions offer a bridge back to a regular day program. Scheduling a longer school day (for example, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.) can also make the school a learning center for the entire community, including parents and other community members.

Many schools extend the school year by adding summer sessions with creative and appealing themes and formats. During the summer at City Academy, for example, students attend morning-long seminars on one subject. Sometimes they pursue time-consuming activities impossible during the regular school year, such as field trips to historic places to enrich history classes. Summer enrichment activities have been an important part of the Tuba City experience for almost a decade. Because the school is isolated, students may lack information about career and educational opportunities or confidence in their ability to pursue them. The school staff believe that off-campus summer experiences can help students gain experience and confidence. Using foundation funding, Tuba City staff and faculty from the University of Arizona in Tucson developed a five-week, five-course summer program for 15 students. As dorm residents on the university campus, these participants studied Native American literature and creative writing for six hours each day. The school sponsors a number of field trips during the summer; for example, the mathematics and science house sponsors a geology excavation trip, which any student in the school may attend.

Another idea book in this series, Extending Learning Time for Disadvantaged Students, provides additional examples of extended time programs in secondary schools.
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