Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 4, No. 3 | Small Schools in the Big City: Promising Results Validate Reform Efforts in New York City High Schools, page 3

But there’s much more going on than a widespread effort to simply shrink the size of urban high schools, Hughes explains. The Initiative’s ambition is to change the way urban high schools educate students by creating conditions that promote more challenging curricula and more effective teaching methods. Only by increasing academic rigor and engaging students in the learning process can schools generate the hoped-for student outcomes, he cautions. At the same time, academic content must be relevant to students and must prepare and motivate them for postsecondary options, including college.

To guide schools toward the ultimate goal of higher education, New Visions has compiled “Ten Principles of Effective Schools,” benchmarks in the ongoing process of evaluation and making adjustments: • clear focus and high expectations • rigorous instruction • personalized learning environment • instructional leadership • school-based professional development • meaningful assessment • partnership/parent/caregiver engagement • student voice and participation • integration of technology. Follow-up studies have shown that if schools implement these principles well, student achievement and systemic improvement will follow.
A close look at any New Century High School offers myriad examples of these principles in action, along with evidence of innovation and strong relationships among institutions and individuals alike.

Seventeen-year-old Samora Mitchell commutes across Brooklyn to the High School of Global Citizenship. He started out shy, he says, but gradually got involved in school activities, becoming the leader of the school’s global conference in his sophomore year. Last summer Samora traveled to seven countries on the Peace Boat, including a stay with a family in Turkey. This year he’s off to Australia and New Zealand with People to People, to interact with others through sports. “I came here to become more global-minded,” he says, “instead of just looking at how things are in the U.S. The traveling I’ve done has made me a better person and a leader and shown me how to reach out.” He says the school’s small size makes it easy to interact with teachers and even the principal, and “the chemistry between everyone makes everything gel.”

The Partnership Strategy
Reaching high standards for all students is a new challenge for American education. New Century tackled this challenge by enlisting the resources of the entire city in the work of creating strong schools. The Initiative employs a strategy of school-level partnerships that provide resources to help make quality education a reality. Each new high school collaborates with a nonprofit lead partner—a community organization, university or cultural arts institution—that brings knowledge, experience and opportunities to the school in support of students’ academic and personal achievement. Well over 200 such organizations are currently involved with New Century Schools.

Partnering begins before the school exists, ideally from the earliest planning stages. Schools start out as concept proposals created by partnership teams, which, with approval from the Initiative and the Department of Education, evolve into viable implementation plans. Requirements run the gamut from advancement of high quality teaching and learning in every classroom, to specific supports for English Language Learners (ELLs) and special education students, to professional development strategies for staff. As teams revise their plans to gain approval, New Visions helps the process along with orientation sessions, workshops and site visits to exemplary schools.

The High School for Global Citizenship (HSGC), an innovative small school in Brooklyn, beautifully demonstrates the partnership dynamic. Its aim is to create a democratic community of active learners who understand the connections between their own lives and international events. The partner organization, Global Kids, is a nonprofit dedicated to helping urban youth become global and community leaders. Founding principal Brad Haggerty says, “Global Kids has been integrated in every way since the very beginning. We count on them for co-teaching, bringing in the global context and helping students get involved. Without them, we’d be Global Citizenship in name only.”

Haggerty and Global Kids found each other at the ideal moment, as proposals were being sought for innovative small schools in Brooklyn. He was a social studies assistant principal in a high school around the corner from the future site of HSGC, and to meet certification requirements had recently completed his final project: inventing a school. He had chosen an international theme because, “knowledge of the world will always be important, and students should recognize that world problems aren’t that different from what’s happening here.”

Haggerty attended an information session about New Century schools where he met Global Kids representatives and was taken by their “energy, idealism and student-centered style.” Happily, they were already planning a new school and needed a principal. “Once we made sure we spoke the same language and shared the same goals, we became a team and put our proposal on paper,” Haggerty recalls.

Their school got the go-ahead in 2003, but Haggerty insisted on waiting a year to beef up the team, hiring his first staff member, Global Kids’ youth development specialist Coco Killingsworth, to work with him on the implementation plan. She had years of experience conducting workshops that bring New York City students in touch with the wider world and, having seen “burnout and irrelevancy; educators with good intentions not living up to standards,” felt strongly that Global Kids had the ability to make a difference.

Olabisi Sobowale, valedictorian of Marble Hill class of 2006, is entering her sophomore year at Middlebury College in Vermont, which she chose for its outstanding foreign language program. It’s been a challenge, she admits. Opting for the pre-med track, she’s had to contend with chemistry and calculus along with living on her own for the first time. And then there’s the weather. “The school is beautiful but I was not raised in wintertime,” says Sobowale, whose family emigrated from Lagos, Nigeria in 2001. But Marble Hill built up Sobowale’s confidence. “I’m blessed that I went to that school,” she says. “It changed my life. It made me interested in where people come from. I loved having teachers who had been abroad. And I got to travel. I went to Nicaragua to help build a school. Coming home I met a doctor from Doctors without Borders and I said—‘That’s me!’ ” With four years of studying Japanese under her belt, Sobawale’s looking forward to spending her junior year in Japan. “I want to do more than just studying,” she stresses. “Four years just isn’t enough time to do everything you want!”

When the first ninth grade class entered the school in 2004, it was clear they had walked into a whole new world. Testing week turned into global citizenship week, with workshops, museum trips, movies, speakers and more. In tenth grade, students take responsibility for planning a school-wide conference on an issue of their choice. In 2005, students picked “Teen Sex and the Global Consequences” for their inaugural effort: the next year it was “Power in Peace,” with Ismael Beah, author of the autobiography A Long Way Gone, visiting the school to share his experiences as a child soldier in Sierra Leone.

In eleventh grade students travel: to U.S. cities such as Boston and Washington, D.C.; to the Heifer Project’s ranch in Arkansas; to South America and Central America with the organization Experiences in International Living. A few of the most adventurous students set sail on the Peace Boat from Kenya to Italy, stopping at seven countries en route. Funds come from a variety of sources: school and student fundraising efforts; partners such as New Visions; limited school funds and nominal contributions from the students themselves.

These opportunities go a long way toward “selling” the Global Citizenship concept to prospective students who can, in theory, attend high school anywhere in New York City. “School choice means that every eighth grader applies to high school,” Haggerty explains, “and every school is listed right here,” he says, holding up a directory that looks like a Manhattan phone book. “We want all our students to come to this school because of what we stand for, but we’re nowhere near that point,” he adds. The overwhelming majority of HSGC’s students come from Brooklyn, and 85 percent are entitled to free or reduced-price lunch (comparable to small school enrollment citywide). When they enter, over half are scoring below standards in English Language Arts and Math.

But scholastic and socioeconomic status aside, these students are expected to achieve—to become college-ready—whatever it takes. Some come to school motivated and wanting to learn. “They’re easy,” says Haggerty, “but for others, school is the last place they want to be. Much has occurred in their lives before coming to us, and they have developmental and psychological needs that are difficult to meet. Yet with our small size, we get to know every student well,” he notes, “which helps. Teachers talk to each other a lot about their students’ strengths and weaknesses and what works. They try multiple strategies…and they’re not afraid to get in touch with parents.”

The school has rigorous hiring practices, according to Haggerty. “It’s not easy for a teacher to get in here,” he stresses, “so the commitment has to be real.” On top of the usual teaching load, the entire Global Citizenship staff also plays an advisory role, dealing with everyday problems, making students aware of expectations and how to meet them while promoting the school values of responsibility and respect. “It’s a lot more than just a job,” says English teacher Erin Bauer. “We’re like a family. We work so closely with the kids…we care about them. And we want them all to succeed in everything they do.”

Next page: Succeeding Against the Odds In the Bronx…

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5