City Looks South For Dropout Clues

First of two parts.
BALTIMORE — Darren Farmer spent four years as a high school dropout, hanging out on the streets of East Baltimore and serving time in jail. Now he’s back in class at the W.E.B. DuBois High School. New Haven’s school reform team followed him there to find out the secret to what brought him back inside.

Farmer (at right in second photo), who’s 20, is part of a new wave of dropouts returning to Baltimore City Schools — and staying there — as the city undergoes an aggressive effort to transform its schools.

The district made national headlines last fall when it announced it had slashed its dropout rate by 56 percent and boosted its graduation rate by 10 percent over three years in the poor, urban district. The news gained national headlines in part because unlike in other places, the progress took place without leaving black males behind.

When New Haven school reform czar Garth Harries heard those results, he shot an email to his friend and former colleague, Baltimore Superintendent Andrés Alonso. He asked how Baltimore did it. Alonso invited him to come down and see for himself.

“G‑Money!”

So last Thursday, Harries and three New Haven school officials hopped an Amtrak train to Baltimore to do just that. The trip came as New Haven steams through the first year of a citywide reform effort that aims to cut the city’s dropout rate in half by 2015. Joining him on the coach class seats were Dee Speese-Linehan, the city’s dropout and truancy supervisor; Jaime Ramos, an assistant principal at Wilbur Cross High School; and Tom Fleming, the dean of students at Hillhouse High.

In noticeably warmer weather Thursday afternoon than the temperature back home, the New Haven crew rolled suitcases up the stairs to the imposing Dr. Alice G. Pinderhughes Administration Building that houses Baltimore’s Board of Education.

Upstairs in the board room, the superintendent greeted his visitors.

“G‑Money!” Alonso called out when he saw Harries. He enveloped him in a hug.

The two worked together for four years as top officials under former New York City Chancellor of Schools Joel Klein. Alonso left for Baltimore in 2007; Harries left for New Haven in 2009.

Three-and-a-half years into his tenure in Baltimore, Alonso has gained national plaudits for the early results of his aggressive, no-excuses school reform drive. The 52-year-old Cuban-American has a hearty laugh, a relentless determination to do what he sees as right for children, and an oversize ego that compels some and drives others away. He has closed schools, let go a third of his central office staff, and replaced three-quarters of the principals.

Harries and Alonso (at left and right in photo) now find themselves in similar positions: They both took the helm of school reform drives with urban kids who were far underperforming their suburban peers — in Baltimore’s case, so much so that the state tried to take over control of the schools in 1995. While New Haven’s school district is about a quarter the size of Baltimore’s, the populations are similar: 85 percent of Baltimore students are on Free And Reduced Price Lunch, a measure of poverty; New Haven has 78 percent. The two student populations are roughly nine-tenths racial minorities; Baltimore’s is 87 percent African-American, while New Haven is more diverse. New Haven has 20,800 students; Baltimore has 83,400, a number that recently has been leaping by over 800 students per year.

Based in part on work they did in New York, Harris and Alonso are implementing reforms that shift accountability to individual schools and call for closing those that fail. Alonso said he looked to New Haven as a model for Baltimore’s latest teachers contract, which was ratified in November.

“I told them I wanted ​‘New Haven plus,’” Alonso said in an interview. Another member of the negotiating team said she talked about New Haven constantly at the bargaining table. Like New Haven’s, Baltimore’s contract ended up tying teacher evaluations to student performance. Baltimore also went further by eliminating the step increases in pay and instead allowing teachers to advance in pay through a ​“career ladder.”

Last week, it was Baltimore’s turn to show New Haven the way. Alonso opened the doors wide to New Haven’s delegation to speak with top officials at length about the reforms and see some of the changes at three different kinds of schools.

On the train ride down, Harries instructed his crew to look for three types of observations: those that confirm what New Haven’s doing, pitfalls that New Haven would not want to repeat, and innovative methods New Haven could bring back home.

Their eyes were on how to reach the dropouts.

In the 2006-07 school year, 2,579 kids dropped out of Baltimore schools. That number fell to 1,098 in 2009-10, officials announced last fall. Maryland calculates dropout rates by taking the number of dropouts in a given year divided by the number of kids enrolled. Using that formula, Baltimore City Schools’ dropout rate fell from 9.4 percent to 4.1 percent over three years.

In that same time period, Baltimore’s graduation rate grew from 63 to 66 percent.

Unlike in other places that have posted gains, African-American males were ​“the leading demographic group driving those results,” according to city officials. Their dropout rate fell from 11.9 percent to 4.9 percent.

New Haven doesn’t give dropout numbers by demographic. The latest available data for the dropout rate is from the Class of 2008. Of the 1,554 students in that class, 426 had dropped out by the end of four years. That’s a dropout rate of 27 percent, according to New Haven’s new method of counting. While Maryland’s method gives a snapshot in time, New Haven’s new way of counting aims to give a clearer view of what happens to a class of students over four years.

New Haven’s goal is to cut the dropout rate from 27 to 13.5 percent as well as boost the four-year graduation rate from 62 to 77 percent, by 2015.

Alonso said there’s no one secret to Baltimore’s progress along those lines. It came through a mix of fundamental changes to the school system and programs targeted specifically to dropouts. He said he paid for the changes mostly by reducing administrative costs in central office and freeing up money to send to the schools.

Alonso brought in a funding model that grants principals unprecedented autonomy as well as responsibility. ​“I believe in giving people enough rope to hang,” he quipped. He created more school choice. He dispatched grassroots community groups to knock on doors and bring dropouts back to school. And he created more supports for kids to return to school older than their peers and lagging behind in credits.

“I Decided To Go Back”

Kids like Darren Farmer.

Moments after New Haven officials heard a presentation from DuBois High leaders about the changes they’ve made in reaching dropouts, Farmer walked into the school library wearing a red hooded sweatshirt.

He sat at a table, his left hand revealing a tattoo with his three sisters’ initials. The soft-spoken 20-year-old recounted how he came to be spending 10 hours a day in school, instead of on the streets or in jail.

Farmer said he was 16, in the middle of his sophomore year, when he decided to drop out of Frederick Douglass High School.

“I didn’t like it,” he recalled.

He said after he dropped out, he spent his time ​“doing nothing.” He ended up getting picked up by the cops for possession of a handgun. He served two-and-a-half years in prison.

When he got out in November 2009, he returned to his neighborhood.

“I was looking for work and couldn’t find a job,” he said. Nearly a year went by. Then a teacher reached out to him.

Farmer said he got the call while he was at the house of his best friend, Christine. Christine was a senior at W.E.B. DuBois, a 575-student high school in East Baltimore, near where Farmer lives. The teacher called Christine’s house and asked if she knew any dropouts who would like to finish school.

Caroline Weiss (pictured at the top of the story with Farmer), who teaches American government, said she was on a mission from her principal to help boost the school’s enrollment. As part of Alonso’s ​“Fair Student Funding” model, each school gets funded based on how many students it has on Oct. 1. That puts pressure on the school staff to round up potential students — and to keep them there.

According to the new funding model, principals budget for how many kids they expect to attend the school. They stand to lose money if kids disappear. Principal Delores Berry-Binder said she budgeted for 600 students at the beginning of the year. Her staff hustled to fill those 600 spots, and ended up 36 students shy of the goal.

The system puts pressure on the principal to keep kids enrolled: Because of those 36 missing pupils, she lost $513,000 in funding for the year.

Another reason for a surge in enrollment came from a program Alonso debuted three years ago called Great Kids Come Back. The district spent about $10,000 to hire 12 community groups to knock on 6,000 doors in search of dropouts. The door-knockers were people who knew the neighborhoods; they had credibility in a way a suited school official from a different neighborhood would not. The campaign sent a message to kids that the district wanted them back.

The effort helped bring over 2,000 dropouts back to the schools in three years.

Farmer said knew where W.E.B. DuBois was — ​“I used to always walk up here” — but he had never been inside. He talked to Ms. Weiss for about a week about becoming a student.

One afternoon in September, he walked up to the brick building, alone.

That day ​“felt different,” he said. He opened the door and saw a banner reading ​“Panther Pride,” boasting the school’s mascot.

Farmer enrolled that day and never looked back.

Mr. Attendance

Two big factors have kept him there: a fast-track program that helps him recover credits, and staff like Mr. Chavez.

Keon Chavez, who’s 31, works as an official ​“mentor” at the high school. He monitors attendance and behavior — and manages a case load of 35 students like Farmer, students who are overage, under-credited, and at risk of dropping out.

In the mornings, Chavez mans an attendance station where kids swipe ID cards through a scanner on their way in the door. With the click of the mouse on a laptop, he can find students’ attendance records. He can see if they’re making a pattern of missing school or being late. (Click on the play arrow to watch.)

He checks in every day with kids like Farmer on his caseload. If they go missing, he looks for them. Sometimes that means driving his Honda Accord to their house, knocking on the door, and sitting down at the kitchen table.

When he needs to, he tells them a story from the heart: A story of how he was raised by his grandmother in East Baltimore while his drug-addicted parents were in jail.

“I can relate to certain situations that these kids are in,” Chavez (pictured) said. Many of kids on his case load ​“need a positive male that’s understanding.” He connects with them, and they keep coming back to school.

Alonso said when he took over the school district, he discovered that the biggest achievement gap was between the kids who showed up to school every day and those who did not. Attendance is monitored twice-daily at individual schools, as well as on a district-wide level.

At DuBois High, Chavez checks in with Farmer every day.

Farmer said since he returned to school, he’s never missed a day.

Alternative Paths

Another reason Farmer keeps coming back is that the school has created new options for kids like him. If a 20-year-old kid who’s way behind on credits gets thrown back in with a regular class schedule and no extra supports, he can get quickly overwhelmed with the sheer amount of catching up to do, and may become a risk for dropping out again.

To address that problem, the district has created some options for kids who are overage and under-credited. One program takes place at W.E.B. Dubois, after other kids go home for the day. Farmer and other kids in his situation jump on the computer and take classes online with live human adults nearby to help them through it.

Kids can attend the afternoon session if they have to work during the day. Or, like Farmer, they can pull a double shift.

Farmer shows up at W.E.B. DuBois at 9 a.m. each day and leaves at 7 p.m. He’s taking seven classes at the moment. If he sticks with it, the after-school program will give him enough credits to graduate in May.

“School all day, every day,” said Farmer with a grin. ​“It’s fun, though. I’ve learned a lot I never thought I’d learn.”

Right now, he’s reading ​“A Raisin in the Sun,” building a bridge out of sticks, and learning to speak Spanish.

“I never thought I’d be able to do it. I’m doing it,” he said.

He said he’s getting all 80s and 90s in class. With all his classes, he doesn’t have time to play on a sports team. He’s got his eyes on a goal: graduating in May.

“I’m the only one of my mother’s children without a diploma,” he said. Getting one ​“will mean everything to me.”

In the hallway, the teacher who brought him in said Farmer was in the doghouse for missing one of her classes that week, but ​“overall, he’s made me extraordinarily proud.”

Back On The Bus

As students switched classes, the New Haven visitors stepped out into the snowy street. A gray Board of Education bus awaited them, stocked with 2‑inch-thick binders they’d received with materials about the Baltimore schools.

From his seat behind the driver, Harries debriefed with his team, which had lingered at the school nearly an hour past schedule, soaking in sights in the hallways and classrooms.

Harries said a few things impressed him: A stoplight-themed method for tracking graduates, an incentive for students to bring their peers into school, and the way the principal took extra accountability for keeping track of all the students.

After Mr. Chavez checks kids in each morning, the attendance records are posted on the wall, coded in the colors of a stop light, red, yellow and green. The colors indicate whether kids are in good standing for graduation.

The same stop-light colors are used to remind kids whether they’re on track to graduate. To graduate, kids have to pass a state-required test, log community service hours, and get class credits. Those who have passed those tests get their names posted on a wall in green. Yellow is for kids who have more work to do. Red (not posted on the wall) is for those at risk of not graduating.

Harries said the idea would fit in nicely in New Haven, where schools are making a new effort to monitor whether kids are on track to graduate.

Jaime Ramos at Wilbur Cross liked the idea, too. He stopped to take some notes as Harries snapped a photo of a display board.

Harries said he also liked the way the principal kept tabs on students who are off-site at transitional programs.

Kids who fail their state graduation tests are allowed instead to complete ​“Bridge projects” that target the area of learning they flunked on the test. Principal Berry-Bender said she had a number of students who were supposed to complete these as part of an alternative program. She followed up and found out that they hadn’t been doing so, so she had them come back to the school library and get cracking.

As in New Haven, students in comprehensive high schools who get sent to transitional programs after suspensions or bad behavior are still counted as part of their sending school for the purposes of standardized tests.

In New Haven, Hillhouse and Cross high schools were supposed to get lists of students that technically belong to the school but are currently off-site. The schools should get more information about those students, and should follow Berry-Binder’s lead in following up on them, Harries noted.

He said he was also impressed by yet another effort to lure dropouts back to school: Students can earn credits toward community service hours by convincing their peers to come back to school.

Students aiming for college scholarships through the New Haven Promise program will be required to perform 40 hours of community service during high school, Harries pointed out. Principal Berry-Binder’s method might be the perfect addition to that nascent program back home.

They sped on to beat the lunch rush at the next stop: a place called Success Academy.