Had anyone asked students at Jay Cooke Middle School a few years ago, 鈥淒oes your voice count?鈥� or 鈥淐an you make a change?鈥� the definitive answer for most would have been 鈥淣o!鈥� For years, their blighted neighborhood on the north-central edge of Philadelphia has been a forgotten wasteland, suffering from gang conflicts, crime, and poverty. In its midst, the school was no exception. The 80-year-old building was deteriorating, teacher morale was low, test scores lingered well below the state average, and more than three-fourths of students lacked basic skills in reading and mathematics.
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But life within this school has been changing. Many of Cooke鈥檚 950 5th through 8th graders are finding a powerful outlet for expressing their concerns and frustrations, and, in the process, they鈥檙e discovering new motivation for learning.
Now, students seeking to answer those very questions are responding in a loud and resounding 鈥淵es!鈥�
Jay Cooke students used to think no one cared, until a new regime overhauled the school and made believers of them.
鈥淚 never thought anyone would listen to us,鈥� says Leonard Bryant, who graduated from the school this past spring. But the youth鈥檚 view changed dramatically after a yearlong project based on the themes from a book about the civil rights movement. As part of the project, he and his classmates set out to evaluate the problems that plague their own community. They interviewed residents, conducted an inventory of abandoned houses and cars, and presented their findings, shy but sure, to the city鈥檚 mayor.
鈥淲e started to figure out which ways to get action,鈥� Leonard says. And, he adds, 鈥渨e started believing in ourselves.鈥�
Teachers at the school have started believing, too: that all students, despite difficult and varied backgrounds, can learn challenging academic content; that teachers can take charge of the classroom, collaborate with colleagues, and find creative ways to reach students; and that the administration cares about instruction and will provide much of the support they need to improve their teaching.
A 3- year-old effort to revive Cooke Middle School through a more rigorous curriculum and student-centered teaching has enabled many here to flourish. Teachers no longer work in isolation, and their conversations are now more likely to concentrate on pedagogy and course content than on their frustrations with administrators or students. Children appear more interested in school, evidenced, educators say, in higher attendance, fewer discipline problems, and significant gains on state and other standardized tests.
鈥淲hen I came in this school, it was dim and drab, and there was nothing going on,鈥� says JoAnn Caplan, who is in her fifth year as principal.
"[Now] there is a seriousness that kids regard school with,鈥� she adds. 鈥淚鈥檓 seeing kids engaged in a way I haven鈥檛 seen them engaged before.鈥�
Action-Based Curriculum
Attaining such results has been a challenge for middle schools in general, but especially for those beleaguered by urban woes.
Teachers at the school believe that all students, despite difficult and varied backgrounds, can learn challenging content.
At Cooke, 72 percent of students are African- American; 17 percent, Asian-American; 9 percent, Hispanic; and nearly nine in 10 are considered poor. A good number of incoming middle schoolers read below the 2nd grade level. And the latest scores on state tests indicate that, although results are improving, most students still lack basic skills in reading and math.
When Caplan, a seasoned middle school educator with a disdain for indifference and ineptitude, was assigned to Cooke, she came in with a no-nonsense attitude. In an effort to reverse years of academic and financial mismanagement, she looked for an aggressive plan for change. Teachers also were eager to stimulate the academic life of the school. More than 90 percent of them approved Caplan鈥檚 selection of the Talent Development Model, a program for urban middle and high schools created by researchers at Johns Hopkins University鈥檚 Center for Social Organization of Schools.
Coupled with other efforts鈥攖he National Science Foundation鈥檚 urban systemic initiative, grants for educational technology, the division of the school into three small learning communities, and a computer-assisted remedial program in math and reading鈥攖he Johns Hopkins initiative got off to a quick start. It was enough to satisfy administrators of the Philadelphia district when they targeted Cooke for outside assistance three years ago. As an academically substandard school, Cooke had to respond to the district鈥檚 demand for a cohesive improvement plan.
鈥淭his is a school that realized it needed some serious help before the district said officially that it needed some serious help,鈥� says Douglas MacIver, a principal research scientist at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. 鈥淭hey were committed to a fully developed [improvement] plan.鈥�
The Johns Hopkins model combines a standards-based curriculum, hands-on instructional techniques, and intensive teacher professional development to enable all students to master challenging subject matter. The goal is to have all students taking algebra, reading and analyzing high-quality literature, conducting science experiments, and researching historical documents by the 8th grade.
Teachers at the school have access to as much as 38 hours of training in their subject areas and in teaching their students test-taking strategies. While the after-hours training is paid, attendance is optional for teachers under their union contract. All but one staff member has attended the workshops, which are held on evenings and weekends and during the summer. Johns Hopkins has an agreement with St. Joseph鈥檚 University in Philadelphia to give interested teachers graduate credit for their work.
Consistent and extensive professional development in each subject area is critical to this school鈥檚 attempts to move forward, according to MacIver, who helped design the model.
Professional development 鈥渋s even more crucial in a high-poverty school where many teachers without good professional-development opportunities find it very difficult to offer solid content at all,鈥� MacIver says. 鈥淪tudents in those schools have lost years鈥� of learning because of inadequate teaching, he says.
鈥楥lutch and Grab鈥� Assistance
Though Cooke Middle School has a cadre of seasoned teachers, many others are not expert in their disciplines or have limited teaching experience. In what local education advocates have called 鈥淧hiladelphia鈥檚 predicament"鈥攁 term that characterizes the plight of many urban schools鈥擟ooke officials have trouble recruiting and retaining qualified teachers, especially in mathematics and science. Last school year, Caplan was unable to fill three vacancies until February, and two of those teachers, feeling overwhelmed, left before the end of the school year. Four of her 65 teachers were not certified, while four others were considered long-term substitutes. Most of the science and math teachers did not have adequate backgrounds in their subjects.
This is a school that realized it needed some serious help before the district said officially that it needed help.
That鈥檚 when Debbie Ryan and other instructional coaches assigned by Johns Hopkins and the district make the biggest difference, MacIver says. Ryan, a teacher on special assignment for the district, visits math teachers in the school one day a week. She helps teachers write lessons, incorporate carefully crafted games that help students learn basic concepts, and become familiar with the Everyday Mathematics and Transition Mathematics programs devised by the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project.
But Cooke teachers aren鈥檛 entirely satisfied with prescheduled, topic-specific coaching sessions. They have perfected what Ryan calls the 鈥渃lutch and grab technique.鈥� It is the rare occasion when she can walk through a hallway without being spotted.
鈥淚f they know I am in the building, teachers constantly peek out of their classrooms and grab the support they need,鈥� Ryan says. 鈥淭hey鈥檒l say, 鈥業 need help teaching this,鈥� or 鈥楧o you have any ideas for that?鈥� 鈥�
Ryan obliges with a mini-lesson, a suggestion for applicable materials, or a promise to come back with more ideas. Coaches in other subjects are in similar demand.
The attention to teacher support and curriculum is paying off.
After Cooke struggled to phase in algebra over the past two years, all 8th graders are taking the subject, seen as a 鈥済atekeeping鈥� course for higher-level studies. Some will be ready to take a placement exam allowing them to enroll in advanced math in high school. A tracking system, in which some students were steered toward easier courses, has all but disappeared at the school. Teachers say they are excited again about teaching, and are more confident that Cooke is preparing students for a promising future.
Many of the teachers praise the Talent Development initiative for giving structure to the curriculum and consistency to teaching throughout grades and subjects.
鈥淚t completely changed our approach to teaching,鈥� says Joan Pasternak, an 8th grade reading/language arts teacher.
Pasternak鈥檚 class used The Watsons Go to Birmingham鈥�1963 as the basis for the yearlong project. The book, selected from a list of suggested titles from Johns Hopkins, chronicles a black family鈥檚 road trip from Flint, Mich., to the mother鈥檚 ancestral home in the South and the impact the region鈥檚 racial turmoil has on the parents and children.
After reading the book, students designed art, English, and community-service activities around their essential questions: 鈥淒o our voices count?鈥� and 鈥淐an we make a difference?鈥� Pasternak鈥檚 students, who fall under the Business Entrepreneurship Service Training, or BEST, small learning community, also used computers to research and compile their information.
鈥淚t was an amazing experience,鈥� Pasternak says. 鈥淭hey saw how people make a difference ... and they saw how they can make a difference in their communities.鈥�
Gaining Ground
They鈥檝e made a difference within the school as well.
After two years in the program, students at Cooke showed twice as much achievement growth in reading and math as students at a similar school used as a control group. The Cooke students gained an average 14 percentile points.
These students had pipe dreams before. They are now real dreams.
In 1997, the average 5th grader entering Cooke was reading below the 7th percentile, according to results of the Stanford Achievement Test-9th Edition. By the 7th grade, after two years of participating in the Johns Hopkins program, those students scored in the 27th percentile. The increase puts them on track to read on grade level by the time they graduate from 8th grade.
While some of those gains may be attributed to teachers鈥� efforts to familiarize students with different types of test questions鈥攊n the past, many students simply left unfamiliar open-ended questions blank because they found them intimidating or confusing鈥攖he bulk of the improvements can only be chalked up to genuine achievement, MacIver says. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 fake the kinds of longitudinal gains we are seeing in their students,鈥� he says.
Teachers here are making their own recommendations for improving the Talent Development model. One group is writing a teachers鈥� guide for the program that adapts the model for students who are learning English as a second language.
Cooke educators have also conceived and implemented ways to head off potential academic and discipline problems.
Students discuss a variety of social issues鈥攆rom anger to health matters鈥攊n a daily 鈥渋nstructional forum,鈥� which is incorporated into the lunch period. The forums provided an outlet for the boys and girls last school year when students were injured in gang wars off campus. The sessions have also helped extinguish student conflicts.
The school鈥檚 Golden Attitude Club, which accepts students committed to responsible behavior on the recommendations of teachers and parents, has swelled from a handful of members three years ago to one-fourth of the student body. Club members are rewarded with special privileges, field trips, donated prizes, and discounts to local restaurants and retail stores.
But the rising expectations here have provided longer-lasting rewards for students as well, teachers say. 鈥淭hese students had pipe dreams before,鈥� Pasternak says. 鈥淭hey are now real dreams.鈥�
鈥淭hey鈥檝e shown themselves for what they can do,鈥� he adds. 鈥淣ow, they really see that there is an option open to them.鈥�
