Getting Young Lives In Line
While the nation still struggles to fulfill the promise of Brown , these schools are proving that high achievement can also be colorblind
Martin Robinson, 14, didn't have much use for elementary school. He interrupted teachers, talked in class, and ended up having to repeat the fourth grade. In the evenings, battles raged over the homework he never wanted to do. For role models, kids in his South Bronx neighborhood looked not to their teachers but to the men selling drugs out on the streets, young guys with cool clothes and easy cash. "If it weren't for KIPP," he says today, "I'd be right out there with them."
He's talking about the Knowledge Is Power Program, a network of public middle schools that is fast becoming a national model for educating poor minority kids. KIPP was founded 10 years ago in Houston by two young Teach for America recruits, David Levin and Michael Feinberg, to create rigorous college preparatory schools for disadvantaged middle schoolers. The program they envisioned encompassed long school hours, substantial homework, and strict discipline. Both kids and parents would be required to sign contracts pledging to meet the school's attendance and homework expectations. But the real key would be dynamic teachers who had not only a command of the curriculum but also the ability to connect with children. "The quality of teachers is the heart and soul of what we do," says Levin.
Today, there are 31 KIPP schools (almost all charter schools) located in 13 states and the nation's capital. Most KIPP students are poor and enter with reading and math skills well below grade level. Yet the schools have consistently taken disadvantaged children and dramatically boosted their academic achievement. At the KIPP school in Gaston, N.C., 47 percent of entering fifth graders were reading below grade level in 2001. By the end of the following school year, the percentage had dropped to 7 percent. KIPP Academy New York, founded in 1995, has become the highest-performing public middle school in the Bronx in math, reading, and attendance. Virtually all KIPP graduates go on to top public and private high schools; over 80 percent of KIPP alumni currently in their senior year are expected to go to college.
Martin Robinson was lucky enough to find his way into KIPP Academy New York after his mother heard about it from a neighbor. (Children are admitted on a first-come-first-served basis and, if necessary, by lottery.) Located on the fourth floor of Intermediate School 151 in a bleak section of the South Bronx, it seems like a cross between a motivational workshop and a military corps. The walls are plastered with brightly colored signs: "Work Hard!" "Be Nice!" "There Are No Shortcuts!!!" Running or yelling is forbidden; students walk in straight, quiet lines. Though classes average more than 30 students, they are so silent you could hear an eraser drop. If a child speaks without being called on, the teacher stops in midsentence. If a child's attention strays, the teacher warns: "I'm missing one person's eyes."
Boot camp. Creating this environment doesn't happen all at once. Entering fifth graders spend their first week in a process called "KIPPnotizing." Among other things, they learn to SLANT (sit up straight, listen, ask and answer questions, nod your head, and track the speaker). Some critics question the regimented approach, but Brookings Institution education scholar Tom Loveless, a former classroom teacher, argues that it is vital. "You have to have basic order before you can do anything educationally sound," he says.
KIPP's success also comes from its extended schedule and a complex set of incentives and rewards. School days last from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., with half days on Saturdays and three weeks of summer school. Teachers catalog infractions--from talking out of turn to failing to hand in homework--on each child's weekly "paycheck," redeemable in the school store. Students with average or better paycheck scores are rewarded with skating or bowling excursions and end-of-year trips to places like Utah's canyon lands. Students with low scores face consequences: They must eat lunch in silence, stay an extra hour after school, and forfeit field trips. Each child also takes part in extracurricular activities like music or martial arts. KIPP Academy New York's 160-piece orchestra is one of the finest youth ensembles in the country.
Still, it's not all discipline and hard work. Teachers use chants, singing, and poetry to make lessons fun. There's also a lot of affection and individual support from KIPP staff, who tend to be young, energetic, and willing to be on call 24-7 (because of the extra hours, they typically earn 15 to 20 percent more than regular public-school teachers). At nights and on weekends, they carry cellphones and encourage kids to call them with problems--academic or personal. Once, Levin got a call at home at 1:30 a.m. from a worried parent whose child was missing. He got out of bed, tracked the student down in a nightclub, and delivered her safely home. Martin Robinson says the belief that Levin and other teachers personally cared about him is what changed him from idler to honor roll student: "I had someone telling me I could be good!"
KIPP expects to open seven more schools this fall, including a preschool and a high school in Houston--mass-producing a formula that's proved effective. "The culture and high expectations of the original schools can be replicated," says Steve Mancini of the national KIPP Foundation office in San Francisco. "KIPP is showing that demography is not destiny." -Lynn Rosellini
Reading By The Numbers
When Annette Saccomano's oldest son attended Beulah Heights Elementary in Pueblo, Colo., he didn't learn how to read very well. While his test scores were adequate, once he got to high school, he had to rely on audiobooks to complete research papers.
It turns out he wasn't the only one with reading problems. In 1997, when Colorado released the results of its first statewide test of reading and writing skills, Pueblo was close to the bottom of the list. Conventional wisdom dictates that Beulah Heights--where 68 percent of the students (including Saccomano's children) are Latino and the majority qualify for free or reduced-price lunches--would find it nearly impossible to dig itself out of that hole.
So when Saccomano noticed three years ago that her youngest son, Gregory, a second grader, was struggling with reading, she feared the worst. This time, however, teachers said they knew exactly what skills he needed to work on and how to help him. Gregory had to stay after school for an hour and give up a semester's worth of physical education and music classes for extra literacy training, but in a year and a half, his skills solidified. "Now," says his mother, "the first thing he does when he gets home is grab a book and read."
Some would say Gregory dodged a bullet. According to Department of Education data, only 44 percent of Latino fourth graders read at a basic level or better, with just 15 percent reading at a proficient or advanced level. In contrast, 75 percent of white fourth graders read at a basic level or better, with 41 percent proficient or advanced. Researchers offer an overwhelming number of reasons--English is many kids' second language, Latino children are disproportionately poor, their parents expect them to contribute to the family income as adolescents, and so on. But the result is clear: With weak basic skills, just 13 percent of Latinos go on to college. And schools in low-income areas are usually the least capable of turning these statistics around.
But with the right approach, those hurdles can be surmounted, say the educators at Beulah Heights. The terrible test scores had shaken Pueblo school board members into action: They hired a new superintendent, hashed out a set of academic and social standards for which they could hold teachers and students accountable, and invested in the Lindamood-Bell Learning System, a sophisticated literacy program that helps teachers identify and treat reading problems.
Data driven. Now, all of Beulah Heights' students take eight diagnostic reading tests when they arrive at the school, and they're retested at the end of the year. The tests show which, if any, of a child's literacy skills--word recognition, say, or the ability to visualize images suggested by words--are weak. Along with data from quarterly district skills tests, they enable teachers to design an individual plan similar to the one that helped Gregory Saccomano. Educators say that since the kids are eager to learn how to read, there is no stigma attached to the extra training. "I've had kids ask, `Ms. Gallegos, when are you going to take me?' " laughs Gina Gallegos, the school's literacy coach.
Since Beulah Heights embarked on this program four years ago, the reading abilities of its students, as measured on the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP), have improved dramatically. For example, 86 percent of Beulah Heights' fourth graders read at the proficient or advanced level versus only 63 percent of all fourth graders statewide. In fact, students at all grade levels have consistently beaten the state and district averages on all Colorado assessments for the past three years. And between 1998 and 2003, the achievement gap between Latino and white third graders in Pueblo as a whole shrank by almost half.
Beulah Heights teachers say that the abundant professional development they have received since their school started using the new system has taken the sting out of shifting gears. And when they discovered that the data could help them, they got excited about the change. "Ten years ago when I was teaching first grade, I felt that I always had high expectations for my kids," says second-grade teacher Jeanine Takaki, who has been at Beulah Heights since 1987. "But nobody told me where the bar was. Now I have a bar, and it is, indeed, way higher than it was before, because [back then] I didn't have the specifics of what kids needed." She adds, "In all my years here, it's never mattered whether the children were Hispanic or where they fell socioeconomically. But we become really blind to that when we're focusing on data and who needs the most help. We just go at it, no matter what."
As would be expected from a school on a mission to improve, a purposeful vibe permeates Beulah Heights, with little groups of students cheerfully following teachers through the gleaming hallways to intensive reading clinics while their classmates busy themselves with traditional classroom instruction. Considering that teachers are constantly monitoring kids' performance--and being evaluated themselves--the place is surprisingly relaxed. Second-grade teacher Gene Sandoval happily relinquishes his place at the front of his classroom to Gallegos when she shows up to model a literacy lesson. Down the hall, fifth graders are discussing a wilderness survival novel. "They're taking the CSAPs next week, so I thought we'd do fun stuff this week," explains teacher Diane Stewart. "No need for the kids to stress out." -Samantha Stainburn
The Military's Intelligence
Leonard Gordon Sr., a U.S. Army master sergeant stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky., was contemplating retiring to Georgia after 27 years in the service, so he and his wife scoped out new schools for their 15-year-old son. They were not impressed--and neither was Leonard Jr., a recent National Honor Society inductee and linebacker on the football team at Fort Campbell High School. Not only was he miserable at the prospect of leaving the Department of Defense-run school where he'd spent his freshman year, but Leonard Jr., who is African-American, couldn't believe the lack of diversity and academic focus at the predominantly black public schools in the area where his family planned to relocate. It was "all athletics--almost like trade school," he says.
And that was not part of Leonard Jr.'s plan. So Gordon made the decision to stay a few extra years in the Army, allowing his son to graduate from Fort Campbell High. Now a sophomore, Leonard Jr.'s classes include Advanced Placement world history, Algebra II, and chemistry. "Here, they expect a lot from me," he says. "And I expect a lot from myself."
Head of the class. Just as the military has integrated minorities into its ranks more successfully than many civilian institutions, schools run by the Department of Defense have gained a national reputation for doing well by all of their students. Located on bases in seven states and two U.S. territories, as well as 13 foreign countries (including Germany, Japan, and Turkey), the Department of Defense Education Activity schools enroll some 103,000 children of military personnel--about as many as the Albuquerque, N.M., system.
On national tests of reading, writing, math, and science, African-American and Hispanic students at DOD-run schools consistently rank at or near the top on comparisons of minority achievement. The schools are small, nurturing, and demanding across the board. And that, says Fort Campbell High Principal Kenneth Killebrew, is the secret of their success: "In any class in this school, you're going to find rigor."
The racial makeup of Fort Campbell High mirrors that of the military itself: Nearly one third of its 600 students are African-American, 14 percent are Hispanic, and 7 percent are Asian and Pacific Islanders. True, they have the advantage of parents who have made it into the military. But 40 percent receive free or reduced-price lunches. And they all have success in common: Ninety-nine percent of seniors at Fort Campbell graduate, and 79 percent go on to college.
In many high-achieving schools, Advanced Placement classes tend to be stratified by race. But on a recent day in Greg Gillis's Advanced Placement world history class at Fort Campbell, where pupils were taking in a slide show of works by masters like Botticelli and Raphael, you could see African-American, Latino, and Asian students mixed in with all the white faces. All told, Fort Campbell offers 13 AP courses, with African-American students making up 20 percent of enrollment and Hispanic students accounting for 9 percent.
That's not to say that plenty of students, many of them minorities, don't need extra help. In the reading lab, a supplemental offering for students who score poorly on reading tests, Chiantae Rodriguez, a sophomore, is puzzling through an assignment for her English class. "We'll buddy up right here," says teacher Patty Greene, motioning to a desk near a tie-dyed futon. Across the room, students scan a story about Denzel Washington's boxer character in The Hurricane. Then comes a yell: "I'm ready for something harder!"
Moving up. "Where in other schools you begin to see intensive sorts of tracking that would leave the black students at lower math levels, you do not see that sort of segregation" in DOD schools, says Claire Smrekar, an associate professor of education at Vanderbilt University and coauthor of a report on minority achievement in DOD schools. Instead, the lab classes are used to prepare kids for more-challenging offerings. Says Principal Killebrew: "We didn't want to just throw them in there."
The military community helps out, too. Parents regularly stop by to sit in on classes, and soldiers are often released from work to tutor the kids. The command structure also gives teachers unique leverage with parents. "If I say [to the commanding officer of a student's father], `Colonel, you know Mr. Smith really needs to be at this meeting,' that's pretty motivating," says Scott Lowe, a special-education teacher.
But contrary to widespread belief, DOD-run schools aren't particularly, well, regimented. Fort Campbell students delight in rattling off the misconceptions they routinely encounter: "They ask us, `Do you march to class? Do you wear [fatigues]? Do you carry a gun?' " says Adam Mines, a 17-year-old senior.
In fact, at first glance, Fort Campbell High might even seem more Montessori than military. Sure, there are the kids in their junior ROTC uniforms--15 percent of students participate. But there are also two sections each of guitar and piano classes, along with courses on psychology and computer-assisted animation.
The appeal of DOD schools is so great that parents of all races are willing to endure cramped and often shabby housing to keep their kids enrolled. "People tell me all the time, `Drive by where I live, see the kind of housing I have,' " says DOD schools director Joseph Tafoya. " `I'm there for one reason: so my kids can go to these schools.' " -Anna Mulrine
This story appears in the March 22, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.