By Sarah Tomlinson

A metal detector operates by the front door of Dorchester’s Economics and Business Academy; elevators require a key and classroom doors have locks that are engaged during class to prevent disturbances.

It’s a fact of life for many high schools these days, in the wake of violence and crime that can occur on school grounds. But the mood pervading the hallways of this academy is sunnier and more human than the security devices might suggest.

This is the former Dorchester High School – a place that, in years past, teemed with 900 students; a place where teachers tried valiantly to prepare a huge student population for college, technical school or immediate entry into the working world. Today, though, it is the Dorchester Education Complex, a place that has been divided into three small schools, including the academy.

In previous years, at Dorchester High, students frequently pulled prank fire drills and hid out in the labyrinthine building while skipping class. With such a large student population, it was easy for teens to remain anonymous and unaccountable, Academy Headmaster Jack Leonard says. When he did discipline students, Leonard had to approach them with sensitivity because they often entered the conversation with a chip on their shoulders, he says.

This year, students are more likely to smile or greet Leonard in the hallway than challenge his authority. “I think they feel safer,” he explains, noting that with a much larger school population “kids are intimidated and just trying to carve out their own space.”

 

“Where Everybody Knows Your Name”

The idea that everyone is more likely to know each other and a sense of community can develop in a smaller school is the central philosophy behind a move to create more small schools in Boston. Studies have shown that kids, particularly those from disadvantaged economic backgrounds, blossom in more intimate, small-school environments. They not only do much better in school, they also graduate at higher rates.

Currently, 18,300 students attend 16 citywide public high schools in Boston. Six are considered small schools. In addition, the city also oversees about a dozen “exam” schools or schools with special application requirements.

Boston has had several small schools in place since 2001. But new programs, such as the Economics and Business Academy, were created thanks to a $13.6 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2003. It’s part of a whopping $700 million that the foundation has distributed to high schools in 41 states over the past five years to support improvements in education. Boston was recognized because of the work it had already done to improve its public schools.

The $13.6 million grant follows an earlier 2001 grant that was awarded by the Gates Foundation with the Carnegie Corporation, and is payable out until 2006. The money will be used to support existing small high schools and to create 12 new ones, by dividing larger high schools in Dorchester and South Boston into education complexes.

The Gates foundation’s goal is to create 1,400 new small schools nationwide, about half of which will be new, while the other half will be newly divided schools, says foundation spokesperson Marie Groark. That goal also aims increase high school graduation rates nationwide, particularly among African American students. Currently, only half of African American and Latino students will actually graduate from high school in this country, Groark says.

“I think the premise is that if you create a much more small, personalized culture, you’re able to engage kids in challenging academics – much more so than you could in large schools,” says Dan French, executive director of the Center for Collaborative Education. This Boston-based organization works on school reform throughout New England and has helped to design and launch small schools locally.

By 2006, the end of the Gates grant term, efforts to create successful small high schools in Boston will affect some 10,000 students. Thirty percent of all Boston public school students will be enrolled in small schools, says Hilary Pennington, CEO of Jobs for the Future, which serves as a fiscal agent for the grant and helps with the design of small schools.

 

Making the Grade

On a Monday morning in April, Leonard walks into an English classroom in the Economics and Business Academy, where about a dozen students sit at tables that have been grouped into a large rectangle. Their teacher is preparing to hand out a quiz on Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The teacher, Leonard and the reporter he has brought to the class are all white, while the students in the class are all black. One teen asks Leonard if the reporter is his daughter, and the headmaster cracks a joke about how, yes, he’s related to every white person the student has ever seen. The class laughs appreciatively. It’s a casual, natural interaction, and it’s easy to imagine that humor about the issues of race and culture that impact these students is possible because Leonard knows these issues firsthand and can respond to them in a real way.

It’s possible, Leonard says, because there’s less bureaucracy in a smaller school. A principal or headmaster is more likely to talk directly with teachers and students – to know students by their names.

And when children and teens are recognized as unique individuals, they perform better as students, according to Pennington. Studies even show that smaller schools are more likely to result in better classroom performance than smaller classroom size, she says. “The single most important thing about a small school is that students are known,” says Pennington. “They know each other and there are lots of adults who know them and care about them, and it makes it much more difficult for them to fall through the cracks.”

 

More Than Just Smaller School Size

Still, it’s not enough to simply divide large schools into smaller programs. To create a genuinely caring and personal environment, teaching methods also have to change. Current teaching methods aren’t engaging kids enough to make them care about their education or their future, and recycling these same methods at small schools isn’t going to cut it, notes Kathi Mullin, special assistant to Boston Superintendent of Schools Thomas Payzant.

“I think we have to be cognizant, when we [change] to small schools, that we’re not designing large schools in drag,” says Mullin, who oversees the city’s High School Renewal program. “It’s not the thought process of a comprehensive high school fitting into a small school.”

And so 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 re-train 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 French, of the Center for Collaborative Education.

While small schools are a still a relatively new idea in Boston, many students and their parents are interested in trying them out. Two years ago, nine students chose a small school in the Dorchester Education Complex as their first-choice high school. Last year, that figure increased to between 50 and 60 students, French says. “Just that alone says that students are interested in attending smaller, more personalized schools, in which they’re known well by the adults in the building,” he says.

Lower student-to-teacher ratios, new teaching methods, longer class periods, more integrated curriculums and more opportunities for project-based learning are all part of getting an education at Boston’s small high schools. And yet, those basic changes are only the beginning. School administrators want to add internships, writing and thinking workshops, field trips outside the classroom, and lessons that combine curriculums to show students that different academic subjects all play a role in their real lives. Because planning such programs costs money, grants provided by organizations such as the Gates Foundation are crucial.

Changing the way city teens are educated “takes a lot of technical assistance, resources inside and outside the system, a lot of planning and professional development of staff,” notes French. “And there’s always going to be a need for foundations like the Gates Foundation to support that process.”

 

Is It Working?

When it comes to actual data showing whether Boston’s smaller high schools are a success, statistics are hard to come by at this point. But educators point to pilot schools, which have existed in Boston since the 1980s and also tout smaller student-to-teacher ratios and hands-on learning. Looking at the success of these schools offers a glimpse of just how small high schools can impact students in Boston.

“We issued a report recently that basically showed that by serving the same demographics of kids with the same per-pupil budget, pilot schools, in general, out perform the districts,” says French. “They have higher student attendance, lower suspension, lower transfers out of school, higher graduation and college-going rates, while having comparable or higher MCAS scores.” 

But school administrators here acknowledge that better test scores aren’t enough to trumpet small schools as a success. There are many questions that they need to ask themselves. “Do we have more kids who want to come to school and stay in school?” says Mullin. “Are they more engaged in the learning process? Do they have a voice in the learning process?”

If small schools are indeed a better learning environment for many public high school students, the next issue is sustaining the programs after the grant period ends. Small school supporters say there’s no reason for concern. “They are public schools, so from the beginning, sustainability is built in, and they have to run on a public school budget,” says Pennington. “What the Gates money is doing is helping with the start-up costs and a lot of the professional development.”

 

Students Give the Grade

Despite all the effort and praise going into this small-school initiative, the program remains a work in progress. Some students currently attending small high schools in Boston have mixed feelings about their experience. Students at the Economics and Business Academy (EBA), for example, say they wish they had as many programs to choose from as students at larger, more comprehensive high schools.

Erica Dumas, a senior at EBA, wants to be an interior designer. She liked the business education she got at EBA, but she was disappointed that the academy didn’t offer art classes. Dumas had to take those courses at another school.

Ninth grader Tiffany Henry Smith knows she wants to be a nurse, but she’s envious of other schools that offer programs in subjects such as hair design, which are not directly related to her area of study but would be fun to pursue.

On the other hand, students who sought out the school to gain a business foundation, such as Ramah Laurent, an 11th grader who wants to continue her family’s tradition of small business ownership, are pleased with the classes in economics and marketing.

Small high school administrators here are aware that students want more electives, and Leonard hopes to expand course offerings at EBA next year. But because students already have full days, any electives may have to be squeezed in creatively. Leonard says he has considered allowing students to stay beyond the regular school day to take optional courses in areas that interest them. Grant money would be used to pay teachers to stay late.

Another possible solution is to create more opportunities for teachers and schools to share their resources, both in terms of curriculum lessons and facilities. “There are still the challenges of how do these schools share some of the kinds of things that larger schools can support more easily, like their athletics,” says Pennington. “And I think in the conversions, many of them are looking at a way in which a number of small schools in the same building can collectively share some of the cost-cutting services.”

Another drawback is that when one high school becomes three, the three schools’ administrators all need separate offices. And when it comes time for annual evaluations and state and federal testing results, there is triple the paperwork, with fewer people to complete it because smaller schools have less bureaucracy. Teachers can also face more work. They are more likely to have to teach classes at several different grade levels, which takes more preparation time.

 

Not for Everyone

For all the praise heaped on a small-school environment, small high schools aren’t for all students. Perversely, a few students have even left these schools once they realized they couldn’t goof off the way they could in a more anonymous environment.

“After awhile, [some students] began to realize it was very different this year,” Leonard says of students at EBA. “Some struggle with it, and we have a number of kids who just disappear.”

But students who have struggled to carve out their own niche at larger comprehensive high schools may find that the small school experience is just what they need. And administrators are hoping to make it even better, expanding programs and offering students even more in the future. “We live in such a different world then we used to and kids grow up faster. … A lot of being able to navigate in this changing economy means getting the chance to apprentice into adult roles,” says Pennington. “And this is a place where Boston has enormous strengths because of all it has done with school-to-career partnerships.”

Mullin, Boston’s assistant to the superintendent, knows that strengthening small schools to the point where they can sustain themselves through a rocky time in public education will require real change.

“People say to me, ‘Oh Kathi, this was nice, and it will go away when the funding ends,’” says Mullin. “No, it won’t. …We don’t layer this on top of the old. We get rid of the old, and this becomes the institution.”

 

Resources

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA, 206-709-3140; www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm.  An organization devoted to improving health and learning opportunities for people around the world, the foundation has been the funding source for several new small high schools in Boston and nationwide.

Boston Public Schools 2004 – 617-635-9000; http://boston.k12.ma.us/schools/assign.asp  – The department’s Web site provides information on all public schools in the city, with a special section on public high schools.

Center for Collaborative Education – 617-421-0134; www.ccebos.org/contact.html  – An education-reform organization that is helping to design and implement small schools.

Jobs for the Future – 617-728-4446; www.jff.org/jff/  – A Boston-based organization serving as fiscal agent for the Gates Foundation grant. Also helps small school designers plan for post-secondary transitions.

Boston Plan for Excellence – 617-227-8055; http://www.bpe.org/  – A Boston-based organization devoted to training teachers to improve education, which is integrating small schools into larger city-wide reforms.

Boston Private Industry Council – 617-423-3755; www.bostonpic.org/  – A local business-led organization serving as a clearinghouse to help small schools launch community partnerships.

 

Sarah Tomlinson is a freelance writer and regular contributor to The Boston Parents’ Paper.

June 2004