Philadelphia and Microsoft Open the High School of the Future

Parents Forum
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Philadelphia on Thursday opened a public high school where students work on wireless laptops, teachers eschew traditional subjects for real-world topics and parents can track their child's work on the Internet.</p>

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<p>Traditional education is obsolete and fails to teach students the skills of problem-solving, critical thinking and effective communication, which they need to succeed in the 21st century, principal Shirley Grover said in an interview.</p>

<p>"It's not about memorizing certain algebraic equations and then regurgitating them in a test," Grover said. "It's about thinking how math might be used to solve a quality-of-water problem or how it might be used to determine whether or not we are safe in Philadelphia from the avian flu."

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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060907/us_nm/life_school_dc%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060907/us_nm/life_school_dc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I don't know whether or not this will work the way they intend but I hope it's a success.</p>

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<p>That sounds like a good idea. But, sometimes that mode of teaching results in the students going on to College expecting to be able to do "special projects."</p>

<p>It seems a bit like "unschooling" to me, but I hope it works out because our nation needs better high schools for sure.</p>

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<p>I think this sort of thing depends on the child. I would have LOVED to gone to a hs like that and prob. would have excelled there and others don't relate to that sort of thing as much. Very interesting.</p>

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<p>This is a really interesting project. It is one of a plethora of new small, specialized high schools the Philadelphia School District has been rolling out over the past few years, something it plans to continue. (Four new public high schools opened yesterday, including a new academic magnet school and a science-focused school associated with the Franklin Institute, Philly's big science museum.) It is located in one of the toughest neighborhoods in the city, and draws 3/4 of its students from that neighborhood. The plan is to require all seniors to apply to college, something that would NOT have been in the cards for most of them otherwise. The District's project manager for this, Ellen Savitz, was for many years the principal of Philadelphia's CAPA (Creative and Performing Arts) HS -- where her tenure produced, among many other successes, a beautiful renovated neoclassical building, and both Boyz 2 Men and The Roots -- she is a first-rate, innovative educator. And the principal was hired away from running a private school in Milan, Italy. This is an attempt at real creativity.</p>

<p>I wouldn't worry too much about whether this kind of education is the best college preparation. For most of these kids, graduating from high school and actually learning something in the process would exceed the current background expectation for them by a large margin. If kids go to college and have trouble with traditional classes, that's still a huge win, and they can fine-tune the program to address that.</p>

<p>Interestingly, Microsoft's material contributions are minimal: $100,000 in cash, no equipment (I hope they're kickin in some software, though). Mainly, it's contributing employee time and expertise, and a first-day video greeting from Bill Gates. It is getting a lot of publicity bang out of that, but it is certainly a gutsy move for Microsoft to stick its brand on an unproven high school whose student population is overwhelmingly poor, African-American, and selected by lottery, not test scores. </p>

<p>I have some ambivalence about the District's overall strategy. Philadelphia has some excellent magnet schools and one really good neighborhood HS; the public school system has actually worked quite well for high-performing students of all ethnicities and economic backgrounds. It has struggled for years with the classic tradeoffs between doing a great job for the kids with the most potential and raising the quality for the average kids. An unspoken, but clear part of the new strategy is re-diffusing the ambitious kids throughout the system, rather than concentrating them in 3 or 4 schools. If it works -- and how can one hope it doesn't? -- it will effectively doom my kids' school, which is the large, traditional academic magnet, and the second-oldest public high school in the country (after Boston Latin). That will be sad.</p>

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<p>JHS:</p>

<p>I love the concept of project-based learning. I know some math teachers who have had great success with that approach. </p>

<p>I don't understand your comment about your kids' school being doomed if this new school succeeds. Can you elaborate?</p>

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<p>Sure. It's an academic magnet school with about 600 kids per class. To have classes that size, the standards aren't that high -- average SAT scores were about 1100 under the old scale. What gives it energy and specialness is drawing kids from all over the city, every neighborhood, ethnic group, income stratum, who really want to be there, and who provide critical masses for all sorts of things that are not possible at smaller schools -- lots of languages, high-quality athletics, music, tons of electives. And out of those classes of 600, you probably have 50-60 kids who are really top-notch students, so the intellectual challenge in the AP-type classes is excellent.</p>

<p>But the school has already been weakened over the years by all of the ills that afflict urban public schools, as well as by a very successful smaller academic magnet that has 150 kids per class and average SATs around 1250. It has survived as a good school largely thanks to the court-ordered end to gender segregation in the mid-80s: There used to be parallel boys' and girls' magnets, both excellent; the girls' magnet still exists, but it is a shadow of its former self, and the former boys' school is about 55% girls.</p>

<p>I fear if you draw off as little as 25% of the kids who go there now, there will be a kind of death spiral: If the school gets smaller, it will lose a lot of its variety and vibrancy. The Latin program, for instance, is barely hanging on now; all classes Latin 3 and up meet in one room during one period. If the school doesn't get smaller, it will be very hard to preserve its academic quality and remarkable freedom from violence and ethnic tension. Either way, it will be less attractive to good students, and less attractive to good teachers, and everyone will be even more tempted to go to the flashy new high school only 10 minutes from home rather than travelling an hour each way to get to the old magnet.</p>

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<p>Hmm.</p>

<p>I do not want to use our hs as a model since its SATs are below national average (though the superintendent claims that it's because the lower 25% participate at a rate well above the national average and thus drag the SAT scores down).</p>

<p>But in terms of size, it has been shrinking for the last several years from 2000 in 2000 to about 1800 now. The school is now divided into 4 small learning communities of about 450, and this strikes me as a good size. The parents argued against a further breakup into autonomous small schools and rejected a Gates Foundation grant. I think 2400 would have been considered at the top end of what was acceptable for a single high school. We have 2 Latin teachers (apparently they are in very short supply, so it was a coup to be able to hire 2) and they teach all those who want to take Latin across all 4 slc. The AP classes are similarly avaliable across all slcs. </p>

<p>I think the danger for your school is not so much a reduction in size per se, but the flight of certain groups of students, which would lead to very different dynamics socially and academically.</p>

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<p>read "School of Dreams" for a blow by blow on this in California.</p>

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<p>Yes, marite, the problem is loss of character, not loss of population per se. Although smaller size would affect capital budget, etc., and be a problem in and of itself -- ultimately the District can't afford both to maintain a huge, old building and campus and to build brand new Microsoft schools for half the students that used to be there. Obviously, the slc approach can be used to maintain headcount and mitigate disciplinary issues that don't exist yet, but an slc approach doesn't do anything to preserve the intellectual character of the school if the good students are no longer there in sufficient numbers.</p>

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<p>Am I the only one, or does this "experiment" sound a lot like the New Math when I was a kid ("Oh, you don't have to learn the addition tables, as long as you understand the concepts") and the phonetic reading fad ("Spelling's not important; we'll give you books that spell words the way they sound. That should be enough")? Those attempts to revise education ended up with very smart kids who were both functionally illiterate and innumerate, and therefore couldn't do the higher level stuff either.</p>

<p>How can you determine if math can help with water quality if you can't multiply or solve an equation?</p>

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<p>Coming from the land of Bill, I have learned to ask when Mr. Gates speaks on a subject.... how does he benefit from the result. Would Bill be so vocal about changing the face of schools IF it didn't involve Microsoft products? Locally Gates grants have the magical powers to appear and disappear the second it gets alittle tough.</p>

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<p>Chedva:</p>

<p>No, it's not the new math. New math was overly abstract. This is very very concrete. You need to be able to multiple and solve equations to measure water quality. But you learn these skills in the context of measuring water quality--or building a catapult or carrying out some other project that is engaging instead of being told that you need to learn the multiplication tables for their own sake.<br>
Project-based learning has its own dangers. There can be wasted time; the teacher must know what is needed and how to guide the students to figure out that they need to learn it. It is not as linear as more conventional learning. It is in fact more in the spirit of vocational education. It works particularly well for students who are concrete learners. Yet, this approach worked well for my S, too, though it was used in his math-enrichment program.</p>

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<p>JHS,</p>

<p>Thanks for elaborating on this high school. I hope it works, especially if it helps students who were likely to fail or drop out.</p>

<p>Chedva and Marite,</p>

<p>I suspect that you may both be right. This high school sounds like it could offer a challenging and interesting curriculum but I think a lot depends on the quality of the administration and especially the teachers.</p>

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<p>DRJ:</p>

<p>I did not experience new math so I can only rely on hearsay. My impression is that there was too much behind-the-scene information, as it were. It's a bit like asking what's in a particular dish and being told not only what the ingredients are but how they're cooked and even how they were grown. And all I want to know is whether the dish contains something I should not be eating.
Project-based learning, however, is like on-time delivery. You learn only (or you think you learn only) what you need to complete a particular project. The trick is to be able to see, once the project is completed that what you've learned can be applied to different problems. Not all students can make that connection. But you are right, a lot depends on good teachers. AND the parents have to buy into the philosophy as well. If they start wondering why Johnny has not mastered equations but is wasting time building catapults (which involves a lot of math!) they will soon agitate against the philosophy and also undermine their children's belief in project-based learning.</p>

<p>When my kids were in 3rd grade they did one math unit based on a book called The Toothpaste Millionnaire. It was about a bunch of kids making and selling toothpaste and trying to make a profit of one million. So the kids in the book and in the class had to learn what ingredients went into making toothpaste, and in what proportions. They had to figure how much of each they would need for particular quantities of toothpaste, then how much they should budget for containers, how much they should sell these for to make a profit, etc... So they did a lot of multiplications and divisions and simple equations. The parents were invited to come and sample the toothpaste (s) (very sweet and probably cavity-inducing!)</p>

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<p>Based on the population this school is serving, I don't think the big risk is that the parents will get upset that Johnny hasn't mastered equations and undermine the project-based learning. Much more significant risks include winding up in the foster care system because your mother is addicted, your father is in prison, and your grandmother gets sick, or attending a school which does nothing but warehouse kids and try to keep them from hurting each other, or losing all interest and dropping out. Or all three, and worse.</p>

<p>At the neighborhood HS for the neighborhood in which this school is located, the drop-out rate between 9th grade and 12th grade is approximately 66%, the graduation rate probably around 25%. In 2005, only 23% of 11th graders scored at target proficiency levels or better on the statewide math assessment test (and for boys it was 14%) -- and that was the third of the kids who had actually stayed in school until spring of their junior year. This year, the number zoomed to 50%, which showed the effect of some serious SLC strategies that had been implemented with that class, but 46% scored "below basic". I have taken that test . . . it is embarassingly easy, what I would consider 8th grade level at most. No mastery of equations required, that's for sure. What was probably the most sophisticated question on the whole test simply required that you be able to tell whether a linear equation had a positive or negative slope.</p>

<p>If these kids stay in school and learn something meaningful -- anything -- they are way ahead of the game.</p>

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<p>I saw this thread and wanted to post to share my experience since I am a recent graduate.</p>

<p>I attend a very good Public Catholic school in Ontario. The school is well know through the community and very praised by the community. Like any school we have people who do very well and those that do not. Yet with a grade 12 class of 500 about 400 will attend post-secondary with more then half going to University. Many would think that a school like this would not need any help...yet a few people did including teachers who wanted a 100% of students going to college.
The sistuation began with a grade 12 University prep class. The first semester the class average was lower then what the teachers wanted and many of the students did not do well on the final exam. So when the new semester began the teachers decide to follow the example of Billy Gate and began project base learning. At first it was overwhelming but very exciting.
It was good at first but when the testing began we all realised a problem. In Ontario students are marked in four areas for every class, Knowledge -which is mainly can you memorize, Thinking and Application- Which is if I give a different sistuation can you apply it, Making Connects- How does this subject connect to the world, and Communication- How well can you communicate your ideas. The problem was that me and my fellow peers were able to apply the knowledge but we weren't quite aware of knowledge. My tests showed how well I was apply make connections on a subject with out actually knowing the subject. We spent to much time with the projects that we lost site of what was important.As marite said with project base learning you learn only what is needed for a project.And now I am fearful as I enter University.
Yet I do not know wheter the problem was the actually project base learning or my teachers lack of guidance on how to run sucessful project base learning.</p>

<p>Looking at this sistuation I am on two sides. I want this students to get a chance at something they would otherwise not attain yet at the same time I worry that they will come out with limited knowledge of the subject.</p>

<p>Hope I provide a students view point.</p>

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<p>JHS:</p>

<p>From the description of the student population, it seems to me that the underlying problem is social, not educational. No amount of money poured into a school will keep a mother from being a crack addict or a father from joining a gang. Unfortunately, if the experiment fails, the failure will be chalked up to crack-brained reforms rather than crack tout court.</p>

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<p>tmacgirl:</p>

<p>Thank you very much for chiming in! A student's viewpoint is very valuable indeed. I think it's very important for students to learn how to extrapolate from projects. So, for example, if you need to learn how much is 3 times 3, you might as well learn the rest of the multiplication tables. </p>

<p>S1 had an opposite kind of experience in later grades when the teaching was more conventional. He did not do well on a science test. When I asked why he did not know how to answer a particular question, he said: "I knew the formula; I just did not know that I should apply it there."</p>

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<p>tmacgirl, if i am understanding your worries, they really aren't a problem at all. The situation you are experiencing kind of reminds me of students who are fluent in another language (say, Spanish) yet placed in a regular spanish class. If the teacher asks them to write an essay, they will excell (they are fluent!). If the teacher asks them to conjugate a verb in the first person, conditional tense, they will be bewildered. Sure, if the teacher is insistent on that teaching style, they may do poorly in the class, but I would wager that they are better at spanish then their peers.</p>

<p>My point is, knowing the application and not being explicitly aware of the knowledge is only a problem if you are subjected to what are essentially memorization quizzes.</p>

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<p>-nevermind-</p>