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Learning Environments
VUE Number 19, Spring 2008
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Beating the Odds
By Carol Ascher and Cindy Maguire
Carol Ascher is a principal associate and Cindy Maguire is a research associate at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
> Author biographies
High schools that have “beaten the odds” and succeeded in improving graduation and college-going rates share practices that contribute to their success.
Across the nation, urban districts struggle to raise what are often abysmally low high school graduation rates. New York City, with a four-year graduation rate of 57 percent, is no exception. Yet, some high schools in New York, as elsewhere, succeed beyond expectations in bringing ninth-grade students with low academic skills and high needs to graduation in four years, followed by enrollment in college.
This article describes a study, conducted in 2006 by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, of a small group of New York City high schools that have demonstrated success in preparing low-performing ninth-grade students, who generally lack collegegoing supports in their families, for timely high school graduation and college going. Our study was designed to understand how these high schools are able to “beat the odds” and suggest how the success of these schools can be maintained and scaled up. The study was inspired by New York City high school students in the Urban Youth Collaborative, a citywide high school organizing group that raised demands for improved college-going rates in their schools and communities.1
Thirteen Schools That Are Beating the Odds
The thirteen Beat the Odds (BTO) schools described in this article were identified in an earlier quantitative analysis, based on New York City Department of Education 2001–2002 data (Siegel et al. 2005).2 Success was defined as: graduation from high school in four years; graduates’ enrollment in the City College of New York (CCNY); and first-year academic success in CCNY. Although these thirteen high schools admitted ninth-graders with far-below-average eighth-grade reading and math scores, they produced fouryear graduation rates and/or CCNY grade-point averages that were better than their demographics and prior math and/or English achievement would predict.
Though the BTO schools include two long-established technical-vocational schools, nine of the thirteen were created between 1993 and 1998, generally with support from intermediary organizations, as part of an earlier wave of high school reform in the New York City system. Two high schools resulted from the reconstitution of large, failing high schools.
The BTO schools were and remain relatively small. They had lower percentages of teachers with five or more years’ experience than all New York City high schools, and the cost per student in the BTO schools was 10 percent more than the citywide average.
Also, in both 2001 and 2005, the thirteen BTO schools served the city's most disadvantaged students. Entering ninth-grade students in the BTO schools were more likely to be over age for their grade than the citywide average. And BTO schools had higher percentages of special education students.3
However, the BTO schools’
students were less likely than the
citywide average to be foreign born or
English-language learners.
The four-year graduation rate in BTO schools in 2001 was 59.1 percent, exceeding the citywide graduation rate of 51 percent. Moreover, the graduation rate at schools with similar high-needs students was 45.6 percent, considerably lower. Yet, in 2001, students in the BTO schools received largely local, rather than Regents, diplomas.
BTO schools were more successful than comparison schools in all other student outcomes. BTO schools enrolled students in both two- and four-year CCNY colleges at percentages similar to the citywide average and had much higher two- and four-year enrollment levels than other high schools with comparable student populations. While we have no data for actual college enrollment for 2005, 35 percent of the graduating students in the BTO schools planned to enroll in CCNY, compared with 28.3 percent in the comparison group.
Best Practices in the BTO Schools
Our interviews with the BTO high school administrators revealed that, despite a generally unsupportive district environment, the high schools share a common commitment to bringing each and every student to high school completion and to making it possible for them all to attend and succeed in college. This section describes the practices that enable them to achieve that standard.
Academic Rigor
College going, at a basic level, is dependent on students taking rigorous college-preparatory courses, including, but not limited to, a foreign language, physics, chemistry, and advanced math and algebra. Since the BTO schools take in low-performing ninth-graders and move them to high school graduation and college going beyond the levels predicted, our first interest was in the standards for rigor that these BTO schools developed and the courses they offered.
In most of the BTO schools, staff used such formats as grade-level and departmental meetings to develop and sustain jointly held standards for curricular rigor and student work across disciplines, including both academic and technical/vocational courses.
To monitor the implementation of these standards, administrators in several of the schools visited classrooms on a regular basis and conducted learning walks with faculty. Administrators also examined classroom data to understand where faculty was working well with students, which students might need additional help, and where curriculum and/or instruction might be falling short.
All the BTO schools offered at least two Advanced Placement (AP) courses and/or opportunities for students to earn college credit through attending courses at nearby colleges. The AP courses included Spanish, English, world history, U.S. history, psychology, calculus, art, and computer science. In one school, the principal decided not to offer AP courses. Since these courses could not be offered to all students, the principal believed AP offerings operated as a form of tracking. As an alternative, students were encouraged to take courses in a nearby college.
Networks of Timely Supports
Creating a pre-college curriculum is only the first step in enabling low-performing students to succeed in academically rigorous courses. Since any academic subject can potentially be a source of frustration, discouragement, and failure, schools must provide the assistance and support necessary for students to succeed.
To generate timely graduation and create college-going pathways for low-performing students, adults in the BTO high schools kept track of every student’s progress and intervened quickly with a targeted and efficient intervention when difficulties arose.
Despite growing enrollments, staff in every BTO school were organized to ensure that no student’s academic, behavioral, or personal needs went unnoticed. All schools had structures for assigning each student to one or more adults on campus to make sure that no student’s academic progress escaped scrutiny. Schools tracked their students’ progress, both formally and informally, through multiple strategies. Several schools implemented advisories, often the initial sites in which faculty members engaged with struggling students. In several other schools, faculty and administration regularly reviewed transcripts to assess students’ academic progress and credit accumulation. In addition, most schools relied on school secretaries and paraprofessionals for information on how students were progressing.
For BTO school staff, providing a solid preparation for graduation and college required a commitment that went beyond their class assignments and the regular school day to providing tutoring, mentoring, counseling, and other activities through which they maintained close relationships with students. One administrator intentionally hired teachers with multiple skills and interests, so that the faculty could assist students in after-school clubs and engage in direct work with students both inside and outside the classroom. Yet administrators were also clear that maintaining this level of staff commitment amid increasing enrollment pressures was becoming more difficult and that in some schools teacher turnover had increased; some administrators wondered whether students’ difficulties would begin to go unnoticed without the needed attention.
Through their understanding of students’ needs, the BTO schools developed a range of timely interventions, from phoning a parent or guardian to academic interventions that included beforeand after-school tutoring, Saturday school, lunchtime classes, and special classes.
As part of working to respond to students’ social and emotional as well as academic needs, two schools recognized that a segment of Black males was experiencing particular difficulty in focusing on academic coursework. These schools then implemented special afterschool conversation groups, run by Black male faculty members who operated as mentors for these young men.
All the BTO schools were also open for extended hours before and after school, during the week, and on Saturdays for ad hoc academic programming and support for students. Most of the schools also offered summer school, including eighth-to-ninth- grade bridge programs. Through these structures, the schools also developed more intense levels of ongoing community building across the student body and teaching faculty. However, as administrators reported, these programs had been cut throughout the district in the time between our quantitative and qualitative studies; they were recently reintroduced for smaller numbers of students.
While most administrators in the BTO schools were critical of “test prep,” their students were given multiple opportunities to prepare for and take the various Regents exams, as well as SAT/PSAT tests for college admission. Some of this preparation focused on offering practice in the types of problems the tests presented or in such skill areas as test-essay writing. One administrator, whose school had shifted its course sequence across grades to better meet the needs of its students, waited until a few weeks before the testing periods to briefly halt the school’s innovative curriculum and prepare students for the tests. Some principals provided after-school and Saturday “cramming sessions,” as well as counseling, pep talks, and meals to their students before tests.
In the conviction that a focus on both academics and behavior was integral to the overall well-being of their schools, the administrators in all the BTO schools enforced ground rules for behavior that inculcated mutual respect between adults and students. Several schools required that students wear uniforms. In the schools without uniforms, dress codes were clearly delineated and enforced by the adults on campus.
The twin focus on academics and behavior was also evident in how school security was handled. With two exceptions (one was a school that was entered through another school which housed the screener), these schools had consistently refused metal detectors or other screening devices on their campuses. Several administrators viewed screening devices as antithetical to the respectful, high-achieving academic environment they were working so hard to develop. Quantitative data substantiates our impression that the BTO schools were able to maintain extremely low incidents of violence on campus. Ten of the thirteen BTO schools reported 0-1 violent crimes in 2005 — lower than the citywide average.4 BTO schools also averaged 5.1 suspensions per hundred students in 2005, compared with 8.2 per hundred in similar schools and 7.5 per hundred citywide.
College Expectations and Access
Low-income students of color whose families have not had access to college require special efforts to sustain their belief in the possibility of college going. Care must also be taken to ensure that they have the skills, coursework, and national tests required for college entry. These students must be helped to navigate the daunting complexities of choosing a college, filling out applications and financial forms, and meeting all application deadlines. These supports can only be provided by an individual or individuals with extensive knowledge of the world of colleges and what it takes for first-generation students to get there, as well as the time to devote to working with these students.
All the BTO schools began their
relationships to their entering ninthgrade
students by making it clear that
the next four years would involve
disciplined academic work directed
to graduation and college or another
form of post-secondary education. The
technical schools helped their students
understand that careers in their fields
depended upon post-high school technical
programs. The principal of one
BTO technical high school believed
that the high graduation and collegegoing
rates in his school were the result
of all faculty continually emphasizing
to students the exact post-secondary
education programs needed to enter
specific technical careers.
The BTO schools also made a point of giving prominent visual and physical space to the college-going process. However, administrators reported that this space had been increasingly threatened between 2001 and our 2006 school visits. Schools were asked to displace libraries and elective classrooms to devote physical space to additional students and to disciplinary and special education rooms in compliance with unfunded federal and state mandates.
All but one of the BTO schools still housed a college counseling office in 2006. Though often small and rudimentary, these offices displayed pictures of and information about colleges and offered computers and a quiet supportive room in which students could review their transcripts, write their essays, and work on other aspects of their college and financial-aid applications. Most schools showcased students’ college acceptances, prominently displaying letters of acceptance and scholarship awards in the school hallways.
In some schools, college offices were staffed by college counselors, whose duties were devoted solely to assisting students in getting into college. In other schools, because of budgetary constraints, the counselor who staffed this program or office was assigned additional duties. Several schools reworked their budgets to hire college counselors on a part-time basis, and one school worked with a retired counselor with strong ties to colleges. This individual, a fierce advocate for students as they sought college entry, had for some years spent several days a week at the school, but had recently been cut back to a day a week and wondered how she could continue to adequately serve students.
To impress on students the range of opportunities and options that awaited them after high school, all the BTO high schools hosted annual college and career fairs. They also established direct linkages to colleges, either through the contacts that administrators and teachers developed with admissions offices or through former students currently enrolled at these colleges. At one school, a graduateÕs success in a college had led to fifteen students being awarded full college scholarships at this college in the following two years. At several schools, we met graduates who had returned to visit with former teachers and talk to students. It was clear that the graduates expected — and received — warm welcomes and pride in their accomplishments. In one college office, we found a graduate engrossed in helping a student fill out a college application form.
The BTO schools collaborated with local community-based organizations, where students were able to participate in service learning and the kinds of extracurricular activities and community service opportunities valued by admissions officers Ð traditionally more available to middle-class students.
In all the BTO schools, administrators raised private funds to sponsor yearly visits to a handful of colleges both in and out of state. These college visits involved overnight trips for significant numbers of students, mostly eleventh- and twelfth-graders. In two schools, an annual busload of students traveled south for a tour of the historically Black colleges. Other schools provided annual visits to northern colleges, including such high-prestige schools as Yale, Tufts, Ithaca College, and Cornell. Students in all the BTO schools visited local two- and four-year colleges (CUNY and others) and colleges in the State University of New York (SUNY) system.
Since most of the students in the BTO schools were the first generation in their families to attend college, administrators in these schools understood that parents’ support for college going had to be built and sustained.
In two schools, administrators talked of parents’ apparent shame about their incomes and their reluctance to giving out accurate (or any) income information on financial-aid forms. Staff expended considerable effort overcoming this obstacle to students receiving critical financial assistance.
In all BTO schools, an individual or group of staff sought public and private scholarships and other funds to make attending college more feasible for their students. For several schools, finding money for undocumented students, who are not eligible for government scholarships, was an extra struggle. (Reluctance of undocumented parents and students to provide personal information was common and understandable.) One school with a number of undocumented students held a workshop addressing issues of college access and funding for undocumented students.
Effective Use of Data
Data-driven reform has become a complex and contested practice, given how the pressure of standardized tests has narrowed students’ learning opportunities. While data collection and analyses are increasingly defined as integral to improving student achievement, administrators and teachers are generally viewed as reluctant users of data. Not surprisingly, a common criticism of college-preparation programs is the lack of systematic data collection and analysis (for example, see Hughes et al. 2005).
School administrators and faculty in the BTO schools viewed the effective use of data as their weakest area of practice. Indeed, all the administrators reported needing to strengthen this area. In spite of this, all the BTO schools did use student data in a variety of ways to strengthen programs and practice. All the BTO schools analyzed their fouryear and five-year graduation rates and regularly reviewed a range of other data to keep track of students and strengthen their instructional programs.
In all the BTO schools, data was used to follow students’ progress and to identify student weaknesses and strengths across different academic subjects. This information was also used to shape tutoring and other academic interventions and to provide feedback to the administration and faculty about how curriculum could be revised, modified, and reinforced.
The BTO schools also kept track of how individual students were accumulating credits. In one school, the principal maintained a cohort file with the program and graduation requirements of every senior. Students were asked to review the file regularly and to sign off as they accumulated the necessary credit requirements to graduate. In another school, the guidance counselor met weekly with all students who were behind in their credit accumulation, again asking them to sign off once they had jointly created a plan for moving forward and catching up.
All but two schools kept track of students’ PSAT and SAT test-taking rates and results. While most administrators were proud of high rates of PSAT and SAT test taking, a principal who had raised money to pay for all sophomores taking the PSATs reported that low scores had greatly discouraged some students and that the goal of encouraging all students to take the PSAT needed to be rethought.
The level of information provided about college opportunities and scholarships varied across BTO schools, as did the sophistication of technology schools employed for keeping track of student data. As several administrators pointed out, a recent wave of retirements among guidance counselors had exacerbated information flow problems, since retiring counselors had taken their expertise and knowledge with them.
Six schools tracked the percentages of students who applied to two- and four-year colleges. However, several BTO administrators expressed concern over their lack of knowledge about whether or not their students followed through on college acceptances. (Our ability to link New York City Department of Education and CUNY data was a revelation to several.) Moreover, the schools rarely knew whether students who entered a twoyear college transferred to a four-year program. Nor did BTO schools have systematic data on how well their students did in different colleges or other post-secondary programs.
Less formally, most administrators and counselors used returning graduates to keep track of the colleges students actually enrolled in and how well they did once enrolled. However, since administrators assumed that those students who did well in college were more likely to return to their high school than those who were struggling or had even dropped out, they realized that this information was likely skewed.
Scholarships and other financial aid awarded to students were sources of pride in all the BTO schools. In two high schools, administrators and counselors knew exactly how much scholarship money had been awarded to students graduating in spring 2006 and, in a third school, the administrator had a list of all the scholarships graduating seniors had received. However, information in this area depended on the efforts of the college counselor and/ or principal, who, being over-stretched, regarded systematic data collection as a low priority. No school had information on how well former students who had received financial aid performed in college, even though this knowledge might influence the decision of a philanthropist or scholarship provider to fund other students from the same high school.
Administrators and faculty in all the BTO schools reported going far beyond their job descriptions to enable most of their students to graduate in a timely manner and enter college. The administrators worked long days and on weekends, and students regularly streamed into their offices, including during their interviews with us. Most were clear that they had reached the limits of what they could do and that data was an area that suffered as they responded to the immediate needs of students. Yet all acknowledged the importance of finding ways to use data to better keep track of student progress both before and after graduation.
The Remaining Challenge: Maintaining and Scaling Up the Success of BTO Schools
It is cause for celebration when any student, against steep odds, graduates from high school and goes to college. It is equally cause for celebration when schools, against steep odds, produce high graduation and college-going rates with students who would not ordinarily graduate and attend college.
The administrators in the schools we visited were courageous, highly skilled, and relentless in developing and sustaining their programming initiatives and interventions on behalf of their students.
When asked, “Is there a way to do all this without being a hero or a heroine?” one BTO administrator laughed, shaking her head, and gave an emphatic, “No!” The only recourse, she explained, when exhaustion threatened, was to ask herself and her staff, “Wouldn't you do this for your own child?” Yet the solutions to “beating the odds” could not always be found within the schools themselves. Increasing enrollments and decreasing support were generating burnout and real or potential faculty turnover, and several BTO administrators wondered how long their staffs could expend the commitment and devotion necessary to sustain high graduation and collegegoing rates.
While BTO schools provide strong examples that high schools can turn students who enter ninth grade with low skills into timely graduates and successful college-goers, several important elements are needed for these schools to continue their success and for their practices to be scaled up to a wider group of New York City high schools. Most important, to stabilize the work these schools are doing and to support other schools that might be able to “beat the odds” requires a better distribution of resources, greater control over enrollments, and a stronger system of district support and accountability.
FOOTNOTES
1 For more detail about the study and findings, see Ascher and Maguire (2007).
2 The Siegel et al. (2005) study was based on 2001-2002 data from the New York City Department of Education’s Annual School Report, the Department of Education’s school-based expenditure report, as well as aggregated studentlevel data from the Department of Education and the City University of New York. A regression analysis controlled for student demographic characteristics and eighth-grade math and English test scores to capture high schools’ contributions to student success.
3 This contrasts with lower rates of special education students in New York City’s small schools noted by other researchers. See, for example, Citywide Council on High Schools (2006).
4 The average for all NYC high schools in 2004-2005 was 2.14; when weighted by student population so big schools don't unduly skew the average, the figure is 3.54. Citywide, the number of violent crimes per school ranged from zero to 14 in 2004-2005.
REFERENCES
Adelman, C. 1999. Answers in the Toolbox: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns, and Bachelor’s Degree Attainment. Executive Summary. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Available online at
Ascher, C., and C. Maguire. 2007. Beating the Odds: How Thirteen NYC Schools Bring Low- Performing Ninth-Graders to Timely Graduation and College Enrollment. Providence, RI: Brown University, Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
Citywide Council on High Schools. 2006. Annual Report, 2005-2006. New York: New York City Department of Education.
Horowitz, J. 2005. Inside High School Reform: Making Changes That Matter. Oakland, CA: WestEd.
Hughes, K. L., M. Mechur Karp, B. J. Fermin, and T. R. Bailey. 2005. Pathways to College: Access and Success. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education.
Oakes, J., J. Rogers, D. Silver, S. Valladares, V. Terriquez, P. McDonough, M. Renee, and M. Lipton. 2006. Removing the Roadblocks: Fair College Opportunities for All California Students. Los Angeles: University of California, UC/ACCORD and UCLA/IDEA.
Sable, J., and J. Hill. 2006. Overview of Public Elementary and Secondary Students, Staff, Schools, School Districts, Revenues, and Expenditures: School Year 2004-05 and Fiscal Year 2004. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
Siegel, D., H. Bel Hadj Amor, A. Zaltsman, and N. Fruchter. 2005. Assessing Success in New York City High Schools. Report by the New York University Institute for Education and Social Policy for New Visions for Public Schools. New York: New York University, Steinhardt School of Education, Institute for Education and Social Policy.
Weinstein, M., R. Jacobowitz, C. Maguire, and M. Luekens. 2006. The Effectiveness of Small Schools. New York: New York University, Steinhardt School of Education, Institute for Education and Social Policy.
Archives
Learning Environments
VUE Number 19, Spring 2008
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
Beating the Odds
By Carol Ascher and Cindy Maguire
Carol Ascher is a principal associate and Cindy Maguire is a research associate at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
> Author biographies
High schools that have “beaten the odds” and succeeded in improving graduation and college-going rates share practices that contribute to their success.
Across the nation, urban districts struggle to raise what are often abysmally low high school graduation rates. New York City, with a four-year graduation rate of 57 percent, is no exception. Yet, some high schools in New York, as elsewhere, succeed beyond expectations in bringing ninth-grade students with low academic skills and high needs to graduation in four years, followed by enrollment in college.
This article describes a study, conducted in 2006 by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, of a small group of New York City high schools that have demonstrated success in preparing low-performing ninth-grade students, who generally lack collegegoing supports in their families, for timely high school graduation and college going. Our study was designed to understand how these high schools are able to “beat the odds” and suggest how the success of these schools can be maintained and scaled up. The study was inspired by New York City high school students in the Urban Youth Collaborative, a citywide high school organizing group that raised demands for improved college-going rates in their schools and communities.1
Thirteen Schools That Are Beating the Odds
The thirteen Beat the Odds (BTO) schools described in this article were identified in an earlier quantitative analysis, based on New York City Department of Education 2001–2002 data (Siegel et al. 2005).2 Success was defined as: graduation from high school in four years; graduates’ enrollment in the City College of New York (CCNY); and first-year academic success in CCNY. Although these thirteen high schools admitted ninth-graders with far-below-average eighth-grade reading and math scores, they produced fouryear graduation rates and/or CCNY grade-point averages that were better than their demographics and prior math and/or English achievement would predict.
Though the BTO schools include two long-established technical-vocational schools, nine of the thirteen were created between 1993 and 1998, generally with support from intermediary organizations, as part of an earlier wave of high school reform in the New York City system. Two high schools resulted from the reconstitution of large, failing high schools.
The BTO schools were and remain relatively small. They had lower percentages of teachers with five or more years’ experience than all New York City high schools, and the cost per student in the BTO schools was 10 percent more than the citywide average.
Also, in both 2001 and 2005, the thirteen BTO schools served the city's most disadvantaged students. Entering ninth-grade students in the BTO schools were more likely to be over age for their grade than the citywide average. And BTO schools had higher percentages of special education students.3
However, the BTO schools’
students were less likely than the
citywide average to be foreign born or
English-language learners.
The four-year graduation rate in BTO schools in 2001 was 59.1 percent, exceeding the citywide graduation rate of 51 percent. Moreover, the graduation rate at schools with similar high-needs students was 45.6 percent, considerably lower. Yet, in 2001, students in the BTO schools received largely local, rather than Regents, diplomas.
BTO schools were more successful than comparison schools in all other student outcomes. BTO schools enrolled students in both two- and four-year CCNY colleges at percentages similar to the citywide average and had much higher two- and four-year enrollment levels than other high schools with comparable student populations. While we have no data for actual college enrollment for 2005, 35 percent of the graduating students in the BTO schools planned to enroll in CCNY, compared with 28.3 percent in the comparison group.
Best Practices in the BTO Schools
Our interviews with the BTO high school administrators revealed that, despite a generally unsupportive district environment, the high schools share a common commitment to bringing each and every student to high school completion and to making it possible for them all to attend and succeed in college. This section describes the practices that enable them to achieve that standard.
Academic Rigor
College going, at a basic level, is dependent on students taking rigorous college-preparatory courses, including, but not limited to, a foreign language, physics, chemistry, and advanced math and algebra. Since the BTO schools take in low-performing ninth-graders and move them to high school graduation and college going beyond the levels predicted, our first interest was in the standards for rigor that these BTO schools developed and the courses they offered.
In most of the BTO schools, staff used such formats as grade-level and departmental meetings to develop and sustain jointly held standards for curricular rigor and student work across disciplines, including both academic and technical/vocational courses.
To monitor the implementation of these standards, administrators in several of the schools visited classrooms on a regular basis and conducted learning walks with faculty. Administrators also examined classroom data to understand where faculty was working well with students, which students might need additional help, and where curriculum and/or instruction might be falling short.
All the BTO schools offered at least two Advanced Placement (AP) courses and/or opportunities for students to earn college credit through attending courses at nearby colleges. The AP courses included Spanish, English, world history, U.S. history, psychology, calculus, art, and computer science. In one school, the principal decided not to offer AP courses. Since these courses could not be offered to all students, the principal believed AP offerings operated as a form of tracking. As an alternative, students were encouraged to take courses in a nearby college.
Networks of Timely Supports
Creating a pre-college curriculum is only the first step in enabling low-performing students to succeed in academically rigorous courses. Since any academic subject can potentially be a source of frustration, discouragement, and failure, schools must provide the assistance and support necessary for students to succeed.
To generate timely graduation and create college-going pathways for low-performing students, adults in the BTO high schools kept track of every student’s progress and intervened quickly with a targeted and efficient intervention when difficulties arose.
Despite growing enrollments, staff in every BTO school were organized to ensure that no student’s academic, behavioral, or personal needs went unnoticed. All schools had structures for assigning each student to one or more adults on campus to make sure that no student’s academic progress escaped scrutiny. Schools tracked their students’ progress, both formally and informally, through multiple strategies. Several schools implemented advisories, often the initial sites in which faculty members engaged with struggling students. In several other schools, faculty and administration regularly reviewed transcripts to assess students’ academic progress and credit accumulation. In addition, most schools relied on school secretaries and paraprofessionals for information on how students were progressing.
For BTO school staff, providing a solid preparation for graduation and college required a commitment that went beyond their class assignments and the regular school day to providing tutoring, mentoring, counseling, and other activities through which they maintained close relationships with students. One administrator intentionally hired teachers with multiple skills and interests, so that the faculty could assist students in after-school clubs and engage in direct work with students both inside and outside the classroom. Yet administrators were also clear that maintaining this level of staff commitment amid increasing enrollment pressures was becoming more difficult and that in some schools teacher turnover had increased; some administrators wondered whether students’ difficulties would begin to go unnoticed without the needed attention.
Through their understanding of students’ needs, the BTO schools developed a range of timely interventions, from phoning a parent or guardian to academic interventions that included beforeand after-school tutoring, Saturday school, lunchtime classes, and special classes.
As part of working to respond to students’ social and emotional as well as academic needs, two schools recognized that a segment of Black males was experiencing particular difficulty in focusing on academic coursework. These schools then implemented special afterschool conversation groups, run by Black male faculty members who operated as mentors for these young men.
All the BTO schools were also open for extended hours before and after school, during the week, and on Saturdays for ad hoc academic programming and support for students. Most of the schools also offered summer school, including eighth-to-ninth- grade bridge programs. Through these structures, the schools also developed more intense levels of ongoing community building across the student body and teaching faculty. However, as administrators reported, these programs had been cut throughout the district in the time between our quantitative and qualitative studies; they were recently reintroduced for smaller numbers of students.
While most administrators in the BTO schools were critical of “test prep,” their students were given multiple opportunities to prepare for and take the various Regents exams, as well as SAT/PSAT tests for college admission. Some of this preparation focused on offering practice in the types of problems the tests presented or in such skill areas as test-essay writing. One administrator, whose school had shifted its course sequence across grades to better meet the needs of its students, waited until a few weeks before the testing periods to briefly halt the school’s innovative curriculum and prepare students for the tests. Some principals provided after-school and Saturday “cramming sessions,” as well as counseling, pep talks, and meals to their students before tests.
In the conviction that a focus on both academics and behavior was integral to the overall well-being of their schools, the administrators in all the BTO schools enforced ground rules for behavior that inculcated mutual respect between adults and students. Several schools required that students wear uniforms. In the schools without uniforms, dress codes were clearly delineated and enforced by the adults on campus.
The twin focus on academics and behavior was also evident in how school security was handled. With two exceptions (one was a school that was entered through another school which housed the screener), these schools had consistently refused metal detectors or other screening devices on their campuses. Several administrators viewed screening devices as antithetical to the respectful, high-achieving academic environment they were working so hard to develop. Quantitative data substantiates our impression that the BTO schools were able to maintain extremely low incidents of violence on campus. Ten of the thirteen BTO schools reported 0-1 violent crimes in 2005 — lower than the citywide average.4 BTO schools also averaged 5.1 suspensions per hundred students in 2005, compared with 8.2 per hundred in similar schools and 7.5 per hundred citywide.
College Expectations and Access
Low-income students of color whose families have not had access to college require special efforts to sustain their belief in the possibility of college going. Care must also be taken to ensure that they have the skills, coursework, and national tests required for college entry. These students must be helped to navigate the daunting complexities of choosing a college, filling out applications and financial forms, and meeting all application deadlines. These supports can only be provided by an individual or individuals with extensive knowledge of the world of colleges and what it takes for first-generation students to get there, as well as the time to devote to working with these students.
All the BTO schools began their
relationships to their entering ninthgrade
students by making it clear that
the next four years would involve
disciplined academic work directed
to graduation and college or another
form of post-secondary education. The
technical schools helped their students
understand that careers in their fields
depended upon post-high school technical
programs. The principal of one
BTO technical high school believed
that the high graduation and collegegoing
rates in his school were the result
of all faculty continually emphasizing
to students the exact post-secondary
education programs needed to enter
specific technical careers.The BTO schools also made a point of giving prominent visual and physical space to the college-going process. However, administrators reported that this space had been increasingly threatened between 2001 and our 2006 school visits. Schools were asked to displace libraries and elective classrooms to devote physical space to additional students and to disciplinary and special education rooms in compliance with unfunded federal and state mandates.
All but one of the BTO schools still housed a college counseling office in 2006. Though often small and rudimentary, these offices displayed pictures of and information about colleges and offered computers and a quiet supportive room in which students could review their transcripts, write their essays, and work on other aspects of their college and financial-aid applications. Most schools showcased students’ college acceptances, prominently displaying letters of acceptance and scholarship awards in the school hallways.
In some schools, college offices were staffed by college counselors, whose duties were devoted solely to assisting students in getting into college. In other schools, because of budgetary constraints, the counselor who staffed this program or office was assigned additional duties. Several schools reworked their budgets to hire college counselors on a part-time basis, and one school worked with a retired counselor with strong ties to colleges. This individual, a fierce advocate for students as they sought college entry, had for some years spent several days a week at the school, but had recently been cut back to a day a week and wondered how she could continue to adequately serve students.
To impress on students the range of opportunities and options that awaited them after high school, all the BTO high schools hosted annual college and career fairs. They also established direct linkages to colleges, either through the contacts that administrators and teachers developed with admissions offices or through former students currently enrolled at these colleges. At one school, a graduateÕs success in a college had led to fifteen students being awarded full college scholarships at this college in the following two years. At several schools, we met graduates who had returned to visit with former teachers and talk to students. It was clear that the graduates expected — and received — warm welcomes and pride in their accomplishments. In one college office, we found a graduate engrossed in helping a student fill out a college application form.
The BTO schools collaborated with local community-based organizations, where students were able to participate in service learning and the kinds of extracurricular activities and community service opportunities valued by admissions officers Ð traditionally more available to middle-class students.
In all the BTO schools, administrators raised private funds to sponsor yearly visits to a handful of colleges both in and out of state. These college visits involved overnight trips for significant numbers of students, mostly eleventh- and twelfth-graders. In two schools, an annual busload of students traveled south for a tour of the historically Black colleges. Other schools provided annual visits to northern colleges, including such high-prestige schools as Yale, Tufts, Ithaca College, and Cornell. Students in all the BTO schools visited local two- and four-year colleges (CUNY and others) and colleges in the State University of New York (SUNY) system.
Since most of the students in the BTO schools were the first generation in their families to attend college, administrators in these schools understood that parents’ support for college going had to be built and sustained.
In two schools, administrators talked of parents’ apparent shame about their incomes and their reluctance to giving out accurate (or any) income information on financial-aid forms. Staff expended considerable effort overcoming this obstacle to students receiving critical financial assistance.
In all BTO schools, an individual or group of staff sought public and private scholarships and other funds to make attending college more feasible for their students. For several schools, finding money for undocumented students, who are not eligible for government scholarships, was an extra struggle. (Reluctance of undocumented parents and students to provide personal information was common and understandable.) One school with a number of undocumented students held a workshop addressing issues of college access and funding for undocumented students.
Effective Use of Data
Data-driven reform has become a complex and contested practice, given how the pressure of standardized tests has narrowed students’ learning opportunities. While data collection and analyses are increasingly defined as integral to improving student achievement, administrators and teachers are generally viewed as reluctant users of data. Not surprisingly, a common criticism of college-preparation programs is the lack of systematic data collection and analysis (for example, see Hughes et al. 2005).
School administrators and faculty in the BTO schools viewed the effective use of data as their weakest area of practice. Indeed, all the administrators reported needing to strengthen this area. In spite of this, all the BTO schools did use student data in a variety of ways to strengthen programs and practice. All the BTO schools analyzed their fouryear and five-year graduation rates and regularly reviewed a range of other data to keep track of students and strengthen their instructional programs.
In all the BTO schools, data was used to follow students’ progress and to identify student weaknesses and strengths across different academic subjects. This information was also used to shape tutoring and other academic interventions and to provide feedback to the administration and faculty about how curriculum could be revised, modified, and reinforced.
The BTO schools also kept track of how individual students were accumulating credits. In one school, the principal maintained a cohort file with the program and graduation requirements of every senior. Students were asked to review the file regularly and to sign off as they accumulated the necessary credit requirements to graduate. In another school, the guidance counselor met weekly with all students who were behind in their credit accumulation, again asking them to sign off once they had jointly created a plan for moving forward and catching up.
All but two schools kept track of students’ PSAT and SAT test-taking rates and results. While most administrators were proud of high rates of PSAT and SAT test taking, a principal who had raised money to pay for all sophomores taking the PSATs reported that low scores had greatly discouraged some students and that the goal of encouraging all students to take the PSAT needed to be rethought.
The level of information provided about college opportunities and scholarships varied across BTO schools, as did the sophistication of technology schools employed for keeping track of student data. As several administrators pointed out, a recent wave of retirements among guidance counselors had exacerbated information flow problems, since retiring counselors had taken their expertise and knowledge with them.
Six schools tracked the percentages of students who applied to two- and four-year colleges. However, several BTO administrators expressed concern over their lack of knowledge about whether or not their students followed through on college acceptances. (Our ability to link New York City Department of Education and CUNY data was a revelation to several.) Moreover, the schools rarely knew whether students who entered a twoyear college transferred to a four-year program. Nor did BTO schools have systematic data on how well their students did in different colleges or other post-secondary programs.
Less formally, most administrators and counselors used returning graduates to keep track of the colleges students actually enrolled in and how well they did once enrolled. However, since administrators assumed that those students who did well in college were more likely to return to their high school than those who were struggling or had even dropped out, they realized that this information was likely skewed.
Scholarships and other financial aid awarded to students were sources of pride in all the BTO schools. In two high schools, administrators and counselors knew exactly how much scholarship money had been awarded to students graduating in spring 2006 and, in a third school, the administrator had a list of all the scholarships graduating seniors had received. However, information in this area depended on the efforts of the college counselor and/ or principal, who, being over-stretched, regarded systematic data collection as a low priority. No school had information on how well former students who had received financial aid performed in college, even though this knowledge might influence the decision of a philanthropist or scholarship provider to fund other students from the same high school.
Administrators and faculty in all the BTO schools reported going far beyond their job descriptions to enable most of their students to graduate in a timely manner and enter college. The administrators worked long days and on weekends, and students regularly streamed into their offices, including during their interviews with us. Most were clear that they had reached the limits of what they could do and that data was an area that suffered as they responded to the immediate needs of students. Yet all acknowledged the importance of finding ways to use data to better keep track of student progress both before and after graduation.
The Remaining Challenge: Maintaining and Scaling Up the Success of BTO Schools
It is cause for celebration when any student, against steep odds, graduates from high school and goes to college. It is equally cause for celebration when schools, against steep odds, produce high graduation and college-going rates with students who would not ordinarily graduate and attend college.
The administrators in the schools we visited were courageous, highly skilled, and relentless in developing and sustaining their programming initiatives and interventions on behalf of their students.
When asked, “Is there a way to do all this without being a hero or a heroine?” one BTO administrator laughed, shaking her head, and gave an emphatic, “No!” The only recourse, she explained, when exhaustion threatened, was to ask herself and her staff, “Wouldn't you do this for your own child?” Yet the solutions to “beating the odds” could not always be found within the schools themselves. Increasing enrollments and decreasing support were generating burnout and real or potential faculty turnover, and several BTO administrators wondered how long their staffs could expend the commitment and devotion necessary to sustain high graduation and collegegoing rates.
While BTO schools provide strong examples that high schools can turn students who enter ninth grade with low skills into timely graduates and successful college-goers, several important elements are needed for these schools to continue their success and for their practices to be scaled up to a wider group of New York City high schools. Most important, to stabilize the work these schools are doing and to support other schools that might be able to “beat the odds” requires a better distribution of resources, greater control over enrollments, and a stronger system of district support and accountability.
FOOTNOTES
1 For more detail about the study and findings, see Ascher and Maguire (2007).
2 The Siegel et al. (2005) study was based on 2001-2002 data from the New York City Department of Education’s Annual School Report, the Department of Education’s school-based expenditure report, as well as aggregated studentlevel data from the Department of Education and the City University of New York. A regression analysis controlled for student demographic characteristics and eighth-grade math and English test scores to capture high schools’ contributions to student success.
3 This contrasts with lower rates of special education students in New York City’s small schools noted by other researchers. See, for example, Citywide Council on High Schools (2006).
4 The average for all NYC high schools in 2004-2005 was 2.14; when weighted by student population so big schools don't unduly skew the average, the figure is 3.54. Citywide, the number of violent crimes per school ranged from zero to 14 in 2004-2005.
REFERENCES
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Ascher, C., and C. Maguire. 2007. Beating the Odds: How Thirteen NYC Schools Bring Low- Performing Ninth-Graders to Timely Graduation and College Enrollment. Providence, RI: Brown University, Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
Citywide Council on High Schools. 2006. Annual Report, 2005-2006. New York: New York City Department of Education.
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