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by Melissa Bailey | Jan 10, 2011 1:03 pm

(16) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Schools, School Reform

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.

Melissa Bailey Photo 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.

Comments

posted by: Brian L. Jenkins on January 10, 2011 2:27pm

Kudos to Dr. Mayo,
For years Dr. Mayo has exhausted ideas both locally and outside of the state, to come up with creative ways in which to move the school system forward for the benefit young people.

There are many who believe that when children fail academically, it’s the schools fought, I disagree. Children are in school for five and half hours. However, the last time I checked there were 24 hours in a day, so you do the math. We can’t expect teachers to do miracles with children that come from severe dis-functional environments. The breakdown begins with the family structure, when we can cure that, then we can cure the child. Are there exceptions? Yes, thank God! So let us be careful when we cast blame, for we all are culpable when it comes to educating our community.

Finally, I can vividly recall during the mid eighties, when I was honored to accompany a few members of Dr. Mayo’s staff to New York to observe a fantastic holistic youth program. This is the type of superintendent I know, and this is type of superintendent New Haven is fortunate enough to have. Keep up the good work Reggie and continue to reach for the answer!

posted by: FIX THE SCHOOLS on January 10, 2011 3:33pm

Focusing on national best practices that benefit students is good. That wasn’t always the case in New Haven.

Does Baltimore include the results from its charter schools and innovation schools in their performance numbers? On a pound for pound basis, Baltimore has far more alternative schools than New Haven has.

Brian, I don’t understand your point. It’s not the schools fault because kids are only in school for 5 1/2 hours a day? The fact that they are only in school for 5/ 12 hours IS the schools fault! The people who argue the loudest against lengthening the school day and the school year are the unions and some boards of education.

Alonso said that kids who attend school do the best. Not exactly ground-breaking information for us. So why, when we know that attendance (aka time on task) is critical to closing the achievement gap, are we not significantly increasing time in school and on task?

posted by: Gretchen Pritchard on January 10, 2011 3:42pm

“the New Haven crew rolled suitcases up the stairs to the impending Dr. Alice G. Pinderhughes Administration Building ...”

I think you mean “imposing,” not “impending.”

posted by: robn on January 10, 2011 4:36pm

MRJENKINS,

Seriously?

I don’t expect teachers to be parents either but can you really compliment a SOS who is the highest paid employee in the city by a factor of 2 but who has presided for 18 years over a failing system? Whats your proposal??...that the school system would have been a worse failure without him?

posted by: streever on January 10, 2011 6:12pm

I think Robn is spot-on.

I have met a few good principals—but I’ve also met several who clock out before anyone else and who put zero work into improving their schools. I have heard one say that there wasn’t “anything I can do” about problem kids.

While Dr Mayo may be very intelligent and have a great heart, I think his hiring practices are not where they should be, and he is not actively engaged in finding the highest quality administrators possible.

I have directly interacted with several employees of the BoE who I honestly think are of such a low competence level that it was disturbing. People who could use computers at a rudimentary level—at best—yet who were responsible for technical aspects of the school program.

One vice-principal at Wilbur Cross mass-suspended kids out of rage at a colleague for questioning their authority.

Seriously, I invite all of you who read these stories to meet your kids principal. Meet the vice-principal. Ask some tough questions and see how they answer.

posted by: Positive on January 10, 2011 6:43pm

Fix, the Union has done nothing to block extending the day. The teachers at my school would like the day extended.

posted by: Tom Burns on January 10, 2011 7:30pm

The New Haven teachers union has lengthened the school day, and if it would help, we would do it again—-The school day is further lengthened by after-school programs——-

Some people who post here must not want to see there kids, or want to have someone else take care of them while they are out doing what ever they do

How sad!!!—this is the corporate/business model that they want to instill in our schools—A Cold, heartless, self-serving model to replace our warm, caring, selfless school model——No thanks(make your $$ somewhere else please) Don’t use the children as pawns in your PONZI scheme—-

The business types are the people who send their kids to boarding school as soon as they are old enough so they can be free to do whatever they want without having to develop a relationship with their children———

I personally want to see my daughters grow up——I think most of you do also——AGAIN—-we have lengthened the school day and are open to doing it again if we believe it would be beneficial to our school community—
Have it the way of FIX and we would have school for 10 hours a day—365 days a year—-
cause its all about $$$$ and the business model—-What say all of you parents out there??

Mr. Jenkins—-I agree with you wholeheartedly—

Tom

posted by: RSmith on January 10, 2011 9:00pm

Step one in school reform: bring in new leadership! Real simple and obvious. Only an outsider who takes charge will make the hard decisions that need to be made. And that includes “G Money”, who mark my words will be gone before any of this has time to prove ineffective. Reggie’s had 18 years to improve the New Haven schools and the reality is he has failed and many of us do not want to admit that. I find it amazing he has been in the position for so long and getting pay raises while the system he leads has been so consistently poorly run. It’s our kids he’s failed, not those of the suburbs.

posted by: LOL on January 10, 2011 10:15pm

Three-and-a-half years into his tenure in Baltimore, Alonso has ...closed schools, let go a third of his central office staff, and replaced three-quarters of the principals.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Fat chance of this happening in New Haven. It’s far easier for the honchos of NHPS to blame teachers.

posted by: streever on January 11, 2011 8:12am

Tom, I agree that going to 10 hour school days and some of the other proposals are not realistic or desirable. I also think the teachers and their union are taking a bit too much of the blame.

As “LOL” points out though, school reform is more than marketing. In Baltimore in 3 years the new Superintendent let go of a THIRD of his office staff and replaced 3/4th of the principals.

This will not happen in New Haven, and that is the shame. Most citizens want to see BoE cut at the top, letting go of some of the administrative dead weight. We don’t want to see teachers fired or turned into corporate cubicle workers. We just want to see the principals shaken up—remove bad ones, reward good ones. Replace the bad ones. Let go of the excessive administrators who do poor work.

posted by: Gary Doyens on January 11, 2011 12:30pm

I’m not sure why a trip was necessary to find out what’s working in Baltimore. It starts with political leadership getting their fingers out of the mix; it means dumping old management and getting in new management including the superintendent and top lieutenants and replacing a large number of principals; endorsing charter/private schools and greater accountability on all from students to teachers to parents to those running the system. I already knew this by reading about it online before it ever appeared here.

So, how does New Haven stack up? The BOE central office is dominated by political appointees; and long time New Haven educators who have a history of poor performance. The mayor sits on the BOE and personally chooses the Superintendent rewarding him recently with a $200K plus contract and a car among other perks. At the school level, the BOE just rewarded the principals with a rich contract including bribes to do their job and roll out reform and pay raises on top of the bribes. Even poor performing principals aren’t fired, they’re moved to a different school.

There are some aspects of reform that are good and I hope to see success moving forward but I continue to ask how you get real reform when the people who set the fire, fueled the fire of poor education all these years, are now tasked with and expected to put it out? It appears to me that reform as practiced in New Haven has a leash on it which only allows it to go so far.

posted by: FIX THE SCHOOLS on January 11, 2011 2:37pm

Positive - Perhaps recently the AFT has not made time of day a priority. But it wasn’t ;long ago in prior years that the NHFT WAS very concerned about lengthening the school day - and as a result of previous disfunctional negotiations we have a 6 1/2 hour school day today.

But if teachers DO want a longer school day, why not just ask for it? Would it be so terrible if the AFT actually considered the best interests of children in addition to their members’?

Tom Burns - Lots of the parents who send their children to NHPS aren’t able to go home to their suburban neighborhood at 3:30 in the afternoon like you can. Many hardworking New Haven parents live in single parent households and work 2 or 3 jobs and as a result they don’t get home until late at night. They would prefer to have their child in a warm, safe, structured learning environment than on the streets.

As for wanting 10 hours a day instead of the 6 1/2 that your union negotiated years ago, how about we split the difference and make it 8? And how about instead of 10 weeks of summer vacation spent on a Westbrook beach, how about 5? That way maybe the schools will find the time to actually reinstate recess and also have the kind of time on task that is now only afforded privileged children at places like Foote School, Hopkins, and Choate.

posted by: teachergal on January 11, 2011 7:06pm

Fix…“As for wanting 10 hours a day instead of the 6 1/2 that your union negotiated years ago, how about we split the difference and make it 8? And how about instead of 10 weeks of summer vacation spent on a Westbrook beach, how about 5? That way maybe the schools will find the time to actually reinstate recess and also have the kind of time on task that is now only afforded privileged children at places like Foote School, Hopkins, and Choate.”

I have to agree with Fix on this one. I think many teachers would be willing to do more after school activities if it weren’t more of the same. Teachers and students do not want to read more, solve more math problems, and do more social studies/science. What they really need is to enjoy each others complany, enjoy an open gym, listen to and enjoy music in their library as they study, work on the computers, and enjoy some outdoor activities. That has always been an issue for me and it is why I do not teach after-school activities. The last thing a teacher/student wants to do is more of the same!
I’m sure the priviledged at Choate/Foote etc. have those options but not NH students.

posted by: positive on January 11, 2011 7:12pm

Fix- New Haven can’t pay for all of the schools to run 10 hour days(salary increases). I work in my classroom every day for 2&1/2 hours once my students leave. I work another 1-2 hours a night at home, and 6-8 hours over the weekend, and I’m not the only teacher who does this.

posted by: Leonie Haimson on January 11, 2011 10:30pm

Increasing grad rates through substandard online credit recovery programs is not something to emulate. Who is doing quality control over these programs, and what are the students really learning? We have to be careful that HS don’t become diploma mills, as they have in many NYC schools. We need more information than this reporter gave us to judge.

posted by: Meyer Lemons on January 18, 2011 12:15pm

You sure nailed that on the head Leonie! It’s something that CT need to start paying very close attention to, as high school reforms passed by the General Assembly in 2010 mandate that districts that have a dropout rate over 8% to offer computer based credit recovery options…

Glad to see NHPS digging into exploring real, practical solutions to help reduce our city’s dropout rate, and it looks like there are some interesting lessons to be learned from Baltimore. That said, it’s virtually common knowledge that taking enrollment on October 1 is actually INCENTIVIZES schools to ignore struggling students, as their plight after that first month of school has no bearing on the school’s resources. This was such an obvious problem that last year the General Assembly passed legislation that would move the enrollment census to January 1, so that schools would have more incentive to keep their marginalized students in school longer.

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