Strong Principals
Can a rigorous religious academy like Hanna Sacks Bais Yaakov High School be transformed into an excellent all-around school? Yes, but such dramatic changes require . . .
Limits and rewards. As dedicated as Bechhofer is in pushing her students academically, she knows she has to ease up at times on her hard-working charges. When students protested last fall that they were overwhelmed by their workloads, she put a student committee on the problem and backed its recommendations that no more than 20 minutes of homework be assigned per night per class and that no student face more than one test per day. (She and her colleagues spent hours creating a complex testing schedule to enforce this.) She rewards the school's 40 or so seniors for sticking with the school's tough science curriculum by letting them select among three courses for their final year's focus--AP biology, AP psychology, or child development.
Bechhofer's steadfastness has paid off. Hanna Sacks now has 35 of 37 seniors enrolled in AP courses in English composition, calculus, biology, psychology, or American history. Two thirds of its students take four years of math, and the entire school takes four years of science. "We raised expectations and found doing so wasn't beyond their capabilities," says math teacher Dan Mix, who has 26 students preparing for an Advanced Placement test in calculus.
Short, soft-spoken, and driven by a commitment to each and every child, Bechhofer couldn't be more different from Joe Clark, the bat-wielding former principal of Eastside High School in Paterson, N.J., who was hailed a decade ago as a get-tough savior of urban schools for hounding troublemakers out of his hallways. Bechhofer, to be sure, is running a school where chewing gum, wearing nonregulation socks, and plopping a head on the desk during class are considered discipline problems. But if Clark established order in Eastside High--undeniably a prerequisite for education to take place--it is Bechhofer's vision, drive, and savvy that get students to reach their full academic potential.
Examples of excellence
Includes all or part of the following counties: Cook, De Kalb, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, and Will
URBAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Hyde Park Academy (S), Chicago
Kenwood Academy, Chicago
Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center, Chicago
Whitney M. Young Magnet (S), Chicago
SUBURBAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Adlai E. Stevenson, Lincolnshire
Buffalo Grove, Buffalo Grove
Elk Grove, Elk Grove Village
Glenbrook North, Northbrook
Glenbrook South, Glenview
Maine West, Des Plaines
Niles North, Skokie
Palatine, Palatine
Prospect, Mount Prospect
Rolling Meadows, Rolling Meadows
Schaumburg, Schaumburg
William Fremd, Palatine
[Data for chart are not available.]
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS
Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary, Chicago
Benet Academy, Lisle
Fenwick, Oak Park
Marian Catholic, Chicago Heights
Resurrection, Chicago
St. Rita of Cascia, Chicago
[Data for chart are not available.]
INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS
Hanna Sacks Bais Yaakov, Chicago
Northridge Preparatory, Niles
Timothy Christian, Elmhurst
[Data for chart are not available.]
SUCCESS RATIO: Ratio of actual to expected performance. When this equals 1.0 (at the PERFORMANCE THRESHOLD line), actual performance equals expected performance. Above the line, schools are performing better than expected.
Below the line, schools are not performing as well as expected. AP TEST TAKING: Number of Advanced Placement tests taken divided by number of seniors. SAT/ACT TEST TAKING: Percent of students taking college-admissions tests. STATE TEST SCORES: Average scores on the math and reading sections of the Illinois Goal Assessment Program. SAT/ACT TEST SCORES: Average college admissions test scores. S: A public school (a magnet, in some cases) that has selective admissions for at least half its students.
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