Last year, for the first time, the federal government released comparative test scores for 10 cities that have traditionally been home to the most troubled schools and the lowest minority achievement. At the bottom of the list was Washington, D.C., where 73 percent of black fourth graders were "below basic" in reading. At the other end was Charlotte, N.C., where 52 percent of black fourth graders were below basic.
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While these scores leave plenty of room for improvement (overall, just 17 percent of whites in Charlotte were below basic), African-Americans in Charlotte easily bested the black national average. True, Charlotte enjoys advantages that the nation's capital lacks, notably the support of a reform-minded state government and the benefits of a school district that encompasses its immediate suburbs. Nevertheless, Washington and other failing school systems have much to learn from the kind of reforms that are starting to close the gap between white and black in Charlotte.
Great expectations. Each morning, televisions flicker on in the classrooms and offices of Charlotte's Highland Renaissance Academy. Two students lead the public elementary school in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and the school's "Pledge for Success": a list of rules such as "I will wait my turn to speak." Jenell Bovis, the principal, appears on the closed-circuit broadcast to call a group of students in front of the camera. Each has read enough books and passed enough comprehension tests to reach a different milestone. At each level, students get a prize--a shirt, water bottle, or Beanie Baby--and recognition.
This is the big idea at Highland: Set individualized goals for all students, and publicly reward those who meet the targets. As a result, achievement is up at the school, where most students are poor and African-American. The number of black 9-year-olds at grade level in reading, for example, rose from 29 percent in 1998 to 75 percent last year.
Academic success for Charlotte's African-Americans was supposed to have come with integration, more than three decades earlier. The city's desegregation fight reached the Supreme Court in 1971 when, in Swann v. Mecklenburg, the justices unanimously upheld the use of busing to integrate the schools. In the years that followed, Charlotte achieved a higher degree of integration than many other cities. But the achievement gap remained. "The promise of court-ordered busing has fallen short where it matters most: in improved learning for African-American students," Superintendent John Murphy proclaimed in 1994. Indeed, when Eric Smith succeeded Murphy as schools chief two years later, he found a double standard. In low-income schools "the rigor was less," says Smith, who now leads a suburban Washington, D.C., district. "There was a tendency to say, `We feel sorry for kids, and we don't want to push them hard.' "
Making change. Highland used to be one of those low-expectation schools. But when Bovis, the principal, arrived, she expanded the time spent on reading and writing, combined phonics with literature study, and made sure the curriculum was just as challenging and interesting as at suburban schools.
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