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Articles: Small Schools associated with CCE

Museum, school ending collaboration, by Kyle Alspach, in the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise,May 9, 2006.
The Fitchburg Art Museum is ending its decade-long $150,000 contract collaboration with the city on the Museum Partnership School, the first Pilot school outside of Boston. Instead the school and the museum will work on a fee basis for specific projects.

Boston’s Success Could Be Lesson for D.C. Schools: Facing Similar Challenges a Decade Ago, Leader Persevered to Reverse Course, by Lois Romano, in the Washington Post, May 9, 2006.
Washington D.C.’s failing school system could look to Boston and Superintendent Thomas Payzant’s innovative use of small school conversions to turn around the public schools. Hyde Park High’s small school conversion is examined to see how a successful turnaround has been achieved.

Fine arts and media get new recognition in school, by Drake Lucas, in the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, February 7, 2006.
Leominster High School now has a small academy for the arts, named Fine Arts and Media Education, or FAME Academy.

BPS to prepare every city student for college, workplace, in Education Notes, in the Allston/Brighton Tab, December 16, 2005.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $9 million to the Boston Public Schools to work with the Center for Collaborative Education and Jobs for the Future, to implement “initiatives aimed at strengthening small schools and small learning environments, enhancing teaching, engaging at-risk high school students, and improving district-level policy and operations.”

Experts hail Leominster High’s small schools transformation, by Crystal C. Bozek, in the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, September 16, 2005.
“Just two weeks into the school year, educational experts from across the country are hailing Leominster High School's comprehensive transition from a 1,900-student school to five small schools -- each holding under 400 students and 25 teachers -- as a future model for others to follow.” Article goes on to cite CCE, CES, and quote Dan French.

The Best Schools: Smart Answers—the Incredible Shrinking School, by Katherine Ozment, in Boston, September 2005 (excerpt p. 137)
TechBoston is cited as a successful example of a “shrinking school” that broke off from “massive” Dorchester High. “Students and teachers at TechBoston work together to create programs of study tailor-made for each student’s strengths and interests.”

A test of whether smaller can be better: Three high schools spring from one, by Tracy Jan, in the Boston Globe, September 9, 2005.
Hyde Park High School has been re-invented as three small schools, starting this week. Will they succeed where the large, old school failed? The article focuses on a senior girl at the Engineering School who hopes to go to MIT but can’t get all the advanced courses she had hoped for.

Leominster to expand ‘small school’ approach, by Kyle Alspach, in the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, June 7, 2005.
At a school committee meeting, Leominster HS Principal William Hart reports on the success of a pilot small school at the high school this current year. He presents plans for full conversion to all small schools at the high school level in the fall.

Making changes that are making a big difference: Academies, college courses keeping high schoolers interested in learning, by Jane Manners, in the Boston Sunday Globe, May 8, 2005.
Students at Dorchester Education Complex are gaining new interest in education since the large Dorchester High School was broken down into academies.

New area USA school to run through Meadows, by David Ertischek, in the Roslindale-West Roxbury Transcript, April 21, 2005.
Rasheed Meadows, an Alumnus of CCE’s Principal Residency Network and an academy leader at the New Boston Pilot Middle School, is profiled as the appointed headmaster of the new Urban Science Academy, to open its doors at West Roxbury High School in the fall.

Communications is the key at MCT school, by David Ertischek, in the Roslindale-West Roxbury Transcript, March 31, 2005.
“Sung-Joon Pai's name means intelligent or brilliant in Korean. But Pai wasn't named the headmaster of the newly formed Media Communications and Technology High School for his name, but because he exhibits the meaning of his name. The MCT school is one of four new theme schools at West Roxbury High School created by the Boston Public School system to take advantage of smaller classes and to better engage students with faculty.” Pai is a graduate of the Greater Boston Principal Residency Network (housed at CCE), was a founding member of the Boston Arts Academy Pilot school and has worked at the Fenway High School Pilot school.

In search of a challenge, student engineers a school, by Tracy Jan, in the Boston Sunday Globe, March 20, 2005.
One of the new small schools within the new Hyde Park Education Complex will be the Engineering School, as a result of the personal campaign of a tenth grade girl, Alafia Spencer. Article details her persistence and creativity in winning over the school designers.

West Roxbury High going ‘fourth,’ by David Ertischek, in the Roslindale-West Roxbury Transcript, March 10, 2005.
Article looks at the make-up and new headmasters of the four small schools that will comprise the former WRHS in September 2005. Three of the four new headmasters come out of Pilot or recently converted Small Schools in Boston.

300 students to enroll in small schools, by Lisa Guerriero, in the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, July 3, 2004.
As the number of students enrolling at next year’s pilot small school in Leominster High School has reached 300, with more expected, parents are participating in introductory gatherings and the staff are in a “summer academy” to train in the functioning of a small school.

Small But Sure: Boston’s Quest to Give More City Teens a Small High-School Experience, by Sarah Tomlinson, in the Boston Parents’ Paper, June 2004.
“...Those involved with the small schools initiative in Boston hope the Gates grant will allow local school districts to make real curriculum changes and to retrain teachers, as well. They plan to use the grant money to also fund such programs as an annual summer institute on small school design, structured visits to successful small schools, and substantial on-site coaching, according to [Dan] French, of the Center for Collaborative Education.”

Group to give $750K for small-schools initiative, by Lisa Guerriero, in the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, May 24, 2004.
The grant to Leominster High School for small school conversion is being administered by the Coalition of Essential Schools, with funding from the Gates Foundation, and including $300,000 to the Center for Collaborative Education to guide the LHS transition to small schools.

Language teacher to head ‘small schools’, by Lisa Guerriero, in the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, May 1, 2004.
“[Pauline] Baker was one of the teachers who visited small schools in other districts, and she attended a conference in Ohio with the Coalition for Essential Schools. The coalition is guiding Leominster's transition to small schools.”

Search is on for ‘small schools’ head, by Lisa Guerriero, in the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, April 20, 2004.
The principal is looking internally in the high school for a headmaster for the new small school within the school.

Leominster principal: Small-school program going ‘quite well’, by Lisa Guerriero, in the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, April 16 , 2004.
“Teachers will attend a two-day ‘retreat’ in early May to develop a vision statement and identify goals for the school. They will also attend a weeklong training and planning event, which entails an overnight Outward Bound trip to Thompson's Island near Boston. The training will help teachers learn to deal with each other effectively and determine decision-making processes. ‘It’s critically important that these folks come together as a team,’ [Principal William] Hart said.”

Small schools pilot program will go in one wing at LHS, by Lisa Guerriero, in the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, March 19, 2004.
In a compromise program of small school conversion, worked out with help from CES/NESSN, Leominster High School will convert one wing to a small school, while maintaining the traditional high school in the rest of the building.

Bigger schools try small on for size, by Laura Pappano, in the Boston Sunday Globe, January 18, 2004.
“More than 40 years after a Harvard president trumpeted the benefits of large, “comprehensive high schools” offering a smorgasbord of courses, conventional education wisdom has reversed. Today, the smaller-is-better mantra dominates urban school reform and has middle-class communities seeking ways to make big high schools feel intimate.” In her weekly Chalkboard column, Pappano looks at Tech Boston Academy, the Economics and Business Academy, and the Academy of Public Service, at the former Dorchester High, and considers the national trend.

Aiming high in high school, Editorial in the Boston Globe , November 29, 2003.
The Globe endorses the findings of the Center for Education Research and Policy identifying factors that characterize successful high schools, including high expectations, supportive cultures, small learning communities, data-driven curriculum, and engagement with parents and community.

Big isn’t always better, by Jennifer Chase, in the South End News, November 27, 2003.
CCE and Jobs for the Future released “Creating Schools that Work,” in which they propose creation of small, personal, focused schools in Massachusetts. They also recommend breaking up larger urban high schools into smaller schools to help close the education achievement gap for low income and minority populations.