NPR reported that 100% of the graduates of a struggling high school are going to college.
Usually, we hear this about charter schools, but they usually forget to tell you how many students dropped out before reaching 12th grade or graduation. Nor do they refer to test scores. Urban Academy in Chicago, for example, is celebrated in the media for getting 100% of its graduates into college but the stories never mention the attrition rates or the fact that the charter school scores’ are lower than those of the average Chicago public high school.
Ballou High School in D.C. is in the midst of one of The city’s poorest neighborhoods.
“Last school year, the graduation rate was just 57 percent. And, when it came to meeting citywide standards in English, only 3 percent of students passed. No one passed the math.
“While every one of the 190 seniors was accepted to college, that doesn’t include the students who have dropped out in the four years along the way.”
This is what they never tell you about charters.
“So how did this dream become a reality? It started with a pledge from the class of 2017 when they were just juniors looking ahead to their final year of high school.
“But it was a strong support system within D.C. Public Schools that made it a reality. For months and months, staff tracked students’ success, often working side-by-side with them in the school library on college applications, often encouraging them to apply to schools where data show D.C. students perform well.
“And then there was money. Grants, donations and district funds took students on college tours around the country. The school kept spirits and motivation up with pep rallies, T-shirts and free food. When college acceptance letters started rolling in, Trayvon says it was a wake-up call for a lot of his friends.
“But it wasn’t a year without struggle. More than a quarter of the teaching staff quit before the end of the school year — that’s not usually a good sign. And out of the nearly 200 graduates, 26, are still working toward their high school graduation — hoping to earn their diploma in August.”
Not easy. Not simple. Lots of struggles. Extra money. Setbacks. Mission accomplished. Until someone decides to take over the school and hand it off to a corporate chain of charters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is the kind of news I really love. Public schools struggle but succeed. I’m very curious though about what they actually did to pull it off. The two years between pledge and graduation must have involved some remarkable effort and real innovation. Aside from visiting colleges, what did they do?
The idea of close monitoring students and their performance is a good one. In some large systems it is easy for students to get lost in the shuffle. My small diverse district improved our high school graduation rate by breaking students into smaller “houses” that had all core students taught by the same team. This team also had a weekly meeting to discuss struggling students. Teachers shared ideas and worked on ways to address small problems before they became big problems.
Like the charters who achieve their results with attrition . I have more than a little skepticism. I am sure that many will benefit from the experience of college.whether they get the degree or not. I am sure that many have benefited from the experience they have had in this HS. I am not so sure that 100% of any cohort is capable of college even in wealthy districts.
This article was very unenlightening.
It talked a lot more about pep rallies, playing drums and doing college tours and applications. But it said the year before only 3% met city standards in English and 0% in math. Did every senior had to meet them to graduate? What money was spent for one-on-one tutoring, teaching, addressing whatever academic weaknesses each of the students had and whether that led to a huge improvement?
So about 60% who start at the school finish and graduate and out of that 60%, 100% are going to college?
I don’t know why charters don’t explain this. It’s still an achievement. It doesn’t in any way diminish the achievement pf the students who graduated and are going to college by providing the context, that 57% graduate.
I’m pleasantly surprised when reporters go to a public school for a feel good story. I wish NPR had simply called it a school instead of a struggling school in the title, but I nitpick. At least it wasn’t another article about “choice” and tech (I debated putting ‘tech’ in quotes too creating miracles to be replicated and scaled up… Diane is right, this is a real school with real people. Not easy. Not simple. Not a miracle. It’s just a public school in the news. These days, that’s inspiring.
Charter schools count students that are accepted to open admissions institutions. The Houston, Texas, area has a wide range of open admissions junior colleges, and a large percentage of the students that “are accepted to college” are really just signed up at a junior college. Also, in Texas, if you attend a smaller charter school then your chance of being in the top 10 percent is much higher. That means you could get accepted to an Ivy League institution even if you really don’t deserve to go there. You could be pushing someone out of a placement that is more deserving, but that student will not get considered because they are not part of the “top 10 percent.” Charter schools in Texas actually forego a rich curriculum to teach to the test. Harmony Public Schools actually has SAT classes that are mandatory. Other parents are paying out of pocket to keep their child in a great Texas public school, while these charters are rigging the system.
Houston also has several Gulen charters. Gulen opened its own college, so it could say that every senior was accepted into cipollege. From Gulen high school to Gulen college!
See Mark Hall’s documentary, “Killing Ed.”
Let’s just say you are more likely to be considered if you are in the top 10% of your class. There is not an Ivy league school that accepts a student on the basis of their class rank. While huge public institutions may have to rely on readily available data, GPA, class rank,… , schools that have the luxury of vetting students on a more personal level are looking at individuals, not just their stats. Getting pushed out by less deserving candidates in terms of stats is more likely to happen at large institutions who rely on those stats to vet their students. Even way back when I was applying to schools (late 60s), we all knew that you needed at least a B average to apply to the top state school. It didn’t matter whether your grades were in honors classes or not. There was no recognition of the difference in the calibre of your high school or the differences in grading practice. A “B” was a “B” was a “B.”
The relatively new principal at Ballou, Dr. Yetunde Reeves, made two major changes when she came on board. One was the initiative to have all seniors apply to college,and that is reflected in the success about which Diane is writing. But the other is just as important. She brought in a restorative justice process as a means of addressing some of the conflicts and other problems that were causing serious discipline problems. As a result, the level of suspensions was cut in half. You can read an article about Ballou and restorative justice here
I am aware of the problems with retaining faculty, but from everything I know Ballou, which has a population of which 100% are on Free and Reduced Meals, and whose test scores are still low (again, look at the FARM statistics), is very much on an upward trend.
Diane,
Contrary to your opinion, I think most reformers support initiatives like this. We like to see an all out focus on kids and goals, and most of us understand that that costs more money. But, this school also lost a quarter of their staff, presumably because they weren’t on board with the changes or leadership. That is sometimes also a cost of major change.
I have the same questions many others do about attrition, application vs. matriculation, % going to 2-year vs. 4-year schools, and other data that would indicate what percentage of these students will actually attend and complete college, and what academic and cultural changes were made to achieve these results.
But, I applaud the effort regardless of what type of school it is. In fact, I’m more gratified to see this happening in a low income, traditional public school because that’s where the majority of students are that need the most from their schools.
John,
The teacher attrition at Ballou is 25%.
The teacher attrition at Eva’s “Success Academy” charters is 60%.
John says: “I have the same questions many others do about attrition, application vs. matriculation, % going to 2-year vs. 4-year schools, and other data…”
John NEVER has questions about attrition at charter schools. Especially when attrition at the highest performing charter schools is – shockingly! — much higher than the attrition at lower performing charters. John prefers to accept the racist belief that low-income non-white parents just don’t like high performing well-funded charters as much as they do mediocre charters who don’t get million dollar donations. Right, John?
John is complicit. Like the Republicans in Congress, we will wait forever for any oversight of their corrupt leaders. As long as the money keeps flowing, they see no evil. Unless it is a public school which has no billionaire funders to “encourage” the people like John to look the other way. So John professes to care about attrition as long as it isn’t attrition about the charter schools his funders don’t want him to question. Then he is complicit.
NYC parent as usual with the ad hominem attacks.
You can’t look at % passing at any type of school without looking at attrition. I’ve said it many times, and never said otherwise, but that doesn’t fit your internal story about me, so you just make stuff up.
My school’s donations last year were < $15,000.
“You can’t look at % passing at any type of school without looking at attrition”.
John, you sound like John McCain saying “I’ve said many times that Trump’s policies are bad as I vote to enable him to do anything he wants.”
Once in a while you whisper that attrition is important (in public schools) while completely failing to call out the highest performing charters that ALSO have extraordinarily high attrition rates. You keep suggesting that as long as a high performing charter school’s attrition is slightly lower than any failing school then it should NOT be criticized even if it is much higher than charters schools that have far worse test scores.
In fact, John, what you have said “many times” is that the test results of the highest performing charters are so extraordinary that even if every missing child had failed those charters would still be superior so we should not question attrition at all.
Instead of questioning WHY so many African-American parents would choose the best charter school in the country but then pull their children out of the best charter school in the country, you instead look for reasons why we shouldn’t care.
And that’s offensive to me because most of those parents are African-American and you want me to agree with your certainty that the only reason they would pull their children from high performing charters more frequently than they pull them from mediocre charters is that they don’t like high performing charters very much. What a nasty thing to imply but you always do it anyway. Because otherwise you would have to acknowledge that the most likely reason is that those parents don’t like the way their children are being treated in that high performing charter. But you keep trying to convince me that’s not the reason and it’s really just that those parents don’t like great schools.
I have NEVER seen you question why the SUNY Charter Institute has not investigated the extraordinarily high suspension and attrition rates at their highest performing charters but instead has rewarded them by giving them dozens more high attrition charters. I’ve only heard you saying that attrition doesn’t account for those charters’ high performance so it doesn’t matter whether anyone investigates. After all, the parents leaving just don’t like top performing schools, as you keep telling me. I know that isn’t true but you are CERTAIN of it.
But I’m glad you are willing to acknowledge that a public school that has 100% graduation might need someone to look into their attrition rate. Too bad you are too much of a hypocrite to demand the same of the charter schools that make similarly dubious claims.
Once again, I expect you to to profess outrage at me instead of acknowledging how SUNY has been derelict in investigating why the highest performing charter schools don’t have the lowest attrition rates.
But I’m sure your time is far better off attacking me for questioning that and you can keep hoping the public believes you when you insist that it’s just because those parents hate well-funded high performing schools.
No one believes it when the middle class white parents leave BASIS Charter Schools in droves. But you want me to believe it when African-American parents leave high performing NYC charters in droves. Because BASIS doesn’t have to pretend to be for any but the highest performing students and the NY charters you defend so rabidly have to pretend to be for every child who wins the lottery.
And when you are given a choice between acknowledging that high performing charters are most definitely NOT for all students trapped in those failing public schools, and promoting the lie that they are, you prefer to promote the lie. Even if it means you have to hope that racists will believe you when you insist the reason so many kids disappear from high performing charters (and not mediocre ones) is that their (non-white) parents just don’t like high performing charters. I don’t believe that. Do you? And if you don’t, then why aren’t you calling on SUNY to investigate?
NYC parent, I don’t think there’s any place for your personal attacks. Talk about issues, but don’t make up BS about people you have never met.
Why did teachers quit?
Sent from my iPhone
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Deb,
Maybe there was too much pressure to give passing grades to kids who were far far behind.
They probably got fired or bullied into quitting. Until you have a principal that has very little experience, then you have no tools for comparison. My first principal was 28 years old, and she was a mess. My last principal (from a Gulen Charter; Harmony Public Schools) has only a 4-8 certification for math, and no higher degree. She is practically illiterate. She even barged in my classroom while I was proctoring the STAAR EOC English I exam and stopped the clock to give the kids a snack. She allowed the kids to run up and get stuff out of their backpacks…the law says that you can give the kids a lunch break, but you cannot stop time for a snack. She wanted me to lie on the state form, but I refused. I reported her to the Texas Education Association, but Harmony did nothing to support me, or to help her. Please, understand…I HAD to report the testing incident. If I had not, I could have lost my certificate. Well, I no longer work there…it was retaliation, retaliation, retaliation. I could write a book and title it Harmony Public Schools Malpractice in Education. I got in trouble for so many things, I could paper a wall with the write ups!!! LOL The school counselor used to teach something like kindergarten or first grade…she has no counseling degree per se…no certification as a counselor. It’s a hot mess! I don’t mind being honest…check out the principal…if the principal is a quack..Don’t go there!!!
Watch Mark Hall’s “Killing Ed” about Harmony and Gulen
Getting the entire class into college probably required a missionary zeal that doesn’t allow for much of a personal life. I would like to hear from those teachers before demonizing the administration. I may not agree with some of the things that the school did, but apparently they did spend considerable effort on getting these kids ready for college and finding the colleges (and funding) where they had a chance to succeed.
So while I agree that there was a lot of effort – but I am not completely convinced with your statement, “they did spend considerable effort on getting these kids ready for college and finding the colleges (and funding) where they had a chance to succeed…” There are huge steps between applying to college and getting accepted to college (although the latter in some cases is not as challenging as one can imagine – as I have seen instances where colleges come to schools, have kids fill out forms, and are instantly admitted to the schools). That being said, yes I think that it still takes effort to get all students to complete those two tasks. The story, however, does not say that the appropriate funding was provided for each student for four years…And as the story notes, DC overall has a very low college completion rate.
No doubt there are lots of factors other than my rather simplistic summary that led to this high school’s “success.” Even the goal of 100% acceptance to college is simplistic. I am merely suggesting that we search for the reality in this narrative. Did they do anything that can be considered an advance? If so, what did they do that helped their students achieve beyond what they ever hoped to? It’s a feel good story that might actually hide some good ideas… or may not.
“…I have seen instances where colleges come to schools, have kids fill out forms, and are instantly admitted to the schools)”
I have too. One comes to my mind where one of my advisees came to me all excited that a (for profit) college had approached his family, even coming to his home, to sell them on the chance for him to go to college. I had to burst his bubble and warn him to look at the school very closely. I know he never expected more than a low wage factory job if he was lucky, and the effort he put into school showed it. I wished I had had him as an advisee for four years instead of two. On the other side I had a student who was taking the vocational courses to be an auto mechanic and not doing more than “C” work. I knew he was very bright and suspected he was not really engaged in it. I told him I would really like a mechanic who took his training seriously. I asked him why he wasn’t taking some of the academic courses? He said his younger brother was the “smart” one who should go to college. He did take the academic track courses his senior year and did well. I wish I could have kept track of him, but I “graduated” (got canned) that year as well.
So a couple of thoughts – thank you for seeing the idea of for profit schools. I recall one year that one for profit in Orlando got many of my students excited – it was only after folks in a particular industry spoke honestly about the for profit did it change some of the students’ minds….
as for lessons learned – yes, there may have been some supports that were put into place. But at the same time, I think all of us need to look at everything involved…and examine the reasons for successes carefully
We are in complete agreement. I was just pontificating. 🙂
In Buffalo, the students can sign up for Erie Community College right in the Guidance Office. The requirements? Oh you have a pulse! Accepted!
To be fair, some of the programs, such as Nursing School, are extremely competitive, but general admission is a simple process.
so similar instances occur with other schools in the DC area…I certainly think that it is valuable to have all students look at options for post secondary education; however I worry about institutions that simply accept folks on the spot…
jlsteach,
Yes, especially with the cost of non-credit remediation and the dismal completion rates that some of these schools have.
So, I am honestly torn on this article (I have seen similar articles on Ballou’s success in getting all of it’s seniors to get accepted to college). First, as some have said here, more stories about traditional public schools like Ballou do need to be hi-lighted. But at the same time I think that we should be cautiously optimistic. Dr. Ravitch brought up a key point – on one hand the school has had lots of success, but on the other you have a large percentage of teachers quitting. To me that means there may be a disconnect somewhere.
Additionally, the article from NPR notes the college success rates – the few number of students that end up successfully completing college in six years (not even four years). I also wonder how many of the colleges just accepted students on the spot no matter what their grades were, etc – are they ok to have these students take remedial classes for no credit at a cost in order to work towards a degree (and then, as often happens, students end up leaving school after one year because it’s too costly – they leave with high debt, etc. I mentored a former student who became pregnant as a junior in college. Even if she hadn’t left, she was in debt due to technicalities over in-state status. She has worked hard to get a job, but if she wants to continue her education she has to make payments to a collection agency in order to have her transcript released.
To be candid – I am often torn at how we look at success stories like the student who is headed to Bethune Cookman to study music. On one hand, such stories offer hope that folks can get out, but on the other hand, I worry about such stories.
There is a great documentary out that I recently saw called For Akheem (watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/200129185). I left this movie completely conflicted – on one hand the main character perseveres and graduates from her alternative high school, but on the other, I looked at the level of math she was expected to complete, the numerous chances, etc. And I was left wondering – ok, she got her diploma, but what does it mean.
Accountability vs. opportunity – it’s something that I think everyone in education needs to consider. Both are needed to create a successful education opportunity, but too often I think that policy makers and even teachers find themselves on one side or another.
When attrition is high I always say, look at the principal!
You can also see if you have a good district superintendent by how many administrators retire or find other jobs.
Which is why I’m torn here…on one hand it seems the principal is trying to do good things with the grad rate – but on the other hand there’s low attrition…
I agree with your sentiment – I often share with those looking at different jobs that the priniciap should be one of the main factors when deciding
What no one ever considers about teaching in low SES schools is the physical drain on a teacher. The wife of one of my colleagues divorced him because he was too tired to accompany her to week-night socials she attended as part of her career networking.
Talking, moving about a room, maintaining alertness, making multiple judgements, etc. is burning energy. As one new teacher put it, he could earn more money a whole lot easier than in teaching. Those without the physical stamina and resilience to sass give up. Twenty-five percent are the ones who lack purpose.
School boards have accepted unions precisely because they were trying to hang on to the other seventy-five percent.
BTW: my colleagues wife tried to reunite. He rejected her. Preferred paper work and resting in the evening.
It can be done, but it takes a lot of work to change a school culture.