Loose Change
New proposals alarm parents teachers at Madison High.
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[March 19th, 2008]
Two recent changes at Madison High School are stretching teachers thin and causing them to question how closely administrators are listening to them.
The first is a unanimous vote by the School Board on Feb. 25 to create a new “academy” at the outer Northeast Portland high school for 115 eighth-grade students next year.
That change is designed to relieve overcrowding at nearby Rigler and Scott schools, which had been targeted to become K-8s next year. Both schools now have only kindergartners through seventh-graders.
The second is a decision to keep three “small schools” or “schools within schools” at Madison, despite a board decision last December to postpone indefinitely a vote on cementing those schools in place.
Teachers say dividing staff and students among those three “small schools” limits what Madison can offer because it requires them to duplicate courses for three sets of students. For example, students may take classes only in their own “small school,” so all three “schools” must offer a class in Advanced Placement literature, even though none of the classes is full.
The impact of the two changes is heightened by the fact that enrollment at Madison has dropped 30 percent since 2003 to about 820 students. That means principal Pat Thompson must cut teaching positions at the high school next year. At the same time, she’s hiring eighth-grade teachers for the new academy.
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To fill the ranks, she’s first asking high-school teachers with little to no background teaching middle-school-age students to shift positions, a move some teachers find worrisome.
Madison teacher Gene Brunak, also a “community writer” for The Oregonian, penned an editorial in early February for the newspaper, expressing optimism for the changes related to the eighth grade. “In some ways, this solution makes sense,” he wrote.
But his confidence is a “little shaken,” Brunak told WW more recently. “These things need to be planned for carefully, and [the district’s] track record is not great.”
Thompson, one of five administrators at Madison next year, says enrollment may rebound, reducing pressure on teachers.
Senior Nick Culbertson, 17, says he and other students are worried dramatic changes that are poorly thought out will harm Madison’s overall reputation. He also says he’s fearful parents won’t want to send their eighth-graders to Madison with older teenagers, a trend that might do the opposite of what Thompson wants.
“Maturity-wise, they’re just not ready to be with 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds,” Culbertson says.
Small narrowly focused high schools:
Require that students decide as incoming 9th graders (or as early as Jan/Feb of 8th grade year due to transfer process) what subject they will focus on for the next four years in high school;
Curriculum and course offerings are very limited, but high school is a time when students should at least have the opportunity to explore various subjects before choosing a college major, etc.
Small high schools are more susceptible to closure. For example, one year after Marshall was divided into 4 separate schools, one had to be closed due to budget cuts.
Small, separate high schools have higher administrative costs - money that could be spent on teaching or supports for students below grade level;
Reorganizing into small schools doesn't address many documented reasons why high schools in lower income schools aren't as "successful" as high schools in higher income neighborhoods (students enter high school already below grade level; parent involvement is lower; ineffective (or non-existent) school/family/community communications;
"achievement gap" exists districtwide, not just in low income neighborhoods - it needs a districtwide solution; in general students living in poverty need additional supports to achieve at the same level as students from middle income families who get extra supports at home; frequent reorganizations/reconfigurations/reconstitutions are very disruptive to the learning enviroment;
Research does not support reorganizing comprehensive high schools into small schools. Dividing into small schools alone does not show significant improvements to student achievement, and can actually be detrimental to student learning. Even Gates Foundation has admitted this;
There are other ways to provide small personlized learning environmments that have lower administrative costs and provide greater educational opportunities/curriculum choices to students (i.e. 9th grade academies) that were in place at Jefferson (and identified as a school strength in the 2003 ODE comprehensive review of Jefferson.) Other schools have also implemented these cohort academies for 9th and sometimes 10th graders (Wilson, Benson, Cleveland?) Parent feedback at Jefferson indicated that 9th grade academies greatly increased individual support for students and improvement teacher/parent communications - and tests scores in recent years were showing above average increases at Jefferson compared to the rest of the district, for students below grade level and those students who were meeting benchmarks.
Small, focused high schools can be great for some students. But students in low income neighborhood should also have the choice of a high school program with a comprehensive curriculum like in wealthier parts of town