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At a time when the achievement gap is large and seemingly impossible to reduce, some California high schools are finally beating the odds. How they are doing this and how others can emulate their exemplary success is the heart of a new study released this week by the School Redesign Network (SRN) and Justice Matters in San Francisco.
The study, entitled High Schools for Equity, focuses on Stanley E. Foster Construction Tech Academy here in San Diego--the only public high school in Southern California in the Stanford University study.. It includes two other public high schools, New Tech High in Sacramento and June Jordan School for Equity San Francisco, and two charter schools, Animo Charter High in Inglewood and Leadership High in San Francisco.
Each school was recognized in the study for graduating students at higher rates than the state average and sending more than 80 percent of their graduates to college. None of the five schools has selective admission requirements. All serve primarily low-income students and students of color. These five aren’t the only schools succeeding against the odds, but they represent sound educational approaches to close California’s educational achievement gap and to prepare all students to succeed in careers and college.
Key findings of the study were released Tuesday during the California Department of Education’s Achievement Gap Summit in Sacramento.
“These schools break the conventional links between race, poverty and academic failure,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of education at Stanford University and co-executive director of SRN.
“Not only do their students receive an academically rigorous curriculum that prepares them for college and careers,” she said, “they also experience learning opportunities that are culturally rich, socially and practically relevant, and responsive to their needs and interests.
“High Schools for Equity identifies and describes the work of these pioneer schools and districts, which can be adopted and adapted by educators in similar contexts across California and the country and supported by policymakers.”
“The kind of success we’ve seen in these schools is exceptional,” said Olivia Araiza, program director of Justice Matters. “Even though they face the same challenges of most of California’s large urban schools, they are graduating their students in remarkably high numbers and sending them to college at rates more than twice the state average.
This study hones in on the practices at their schools that are making such extraordinary success possible, and helps us to see how these practices can be scaled up statewide.”
The schools in this study provide small, personalized learning environments, rigorous and relevant curricula that provide authentic learning and assessment, and extensive opportunities for teachers to collaborate and learn with one another in improving their practice.
For more information, visit www.srnleads.org/press/news/hsfe.html
