What are the results of the money Bill and Melinda Gates have poured into the worst schools in New York City? Success is evident. Restructuring is working.
Gates Foundation
Melinda and Bill Gates donated millions to New York City schools. Skeptics stated that throwing money at a sinking ship would produce no results. They were wrong. Positive results are trickling in as the schools have had a few years to work.
New York City has schools with 3300 students and graduation rates of 31 percent. The schools were filled with behavior problems, truancy, violence and low scores. The money donated by Melinda and Bill Gates was used to break up those schools into smaller schools. Not only were the schools broken up into smaller chunks of 300-600 students but the formatting was changed.
New Format
The New York schools that received the Gates funding were broken up into smaller specialized schools. The schools within schools allowed students to select mini-schools:
- High School of Violin and Dance
- The Peace and Diversity Academy
- Academy for Careers in Sports
- The Food and Finance High School
- Academy for Hospitality and Tourism
- Academy for Visual Arts and Theater
New York City is not building many new schools. Instead, New York is placing schools within schools. One school that had 2400 students in one school may now have six schools with 400 students each, broken up into academies.
Relevant Schools
Dropouts are quick to say major components to them giving up on schools are boredom, poor teaching and irrelevant topics. A common complaint is that school is not relevant to the world they live in. We are still teaching general topics in a world of specialties denying the fact that no one can truly get a "general" education today and retain the volume of information necessary to do so. Schools require memorization in a world that allows working while allowing the use of reference materials.
William Glasser, MD, states that school is the only place that requires memorization without the benefit of looking at notes or a manual when required to work. In the work place, individuals always have access to manuals because they are expected to do well and not commit errors. This is competency. Glasser complains that schools do not allow students to be competent by doing the same. So the question must be asked, "If schools don’t prepare students for the real world—what is the goal?"
Recent Results
Joel Klein, NYC School Chancellor, went to Evander Childs High School in the Bronx to make his announcement proclaiming success. Evander once held 3300 students as one sprawling unit and in 2002 the graduation rate was an embarrassing 31 percent. It was considered New York’s most dysfunctional school. Evander was broken up into three schools within a school and the graduation rate for 2006-2007 was 80 percent. [Julie Bosman, The New York Times, nytimes.com, June 30, 2007] This is remarkable school improvement.
Other Schools
The average graduation rate of New York’s schools is approximately 60 percent. Of the 47 small schools in the project, the graduation rates were 73 percent this year. Eight of the schools in the project graduated at 90 percent or higher. Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn in 2002 graduated 40 percent and in 2007 graduated students at 92 percent. [Julie Bosman, The New York Times, nytimes.com, June 30, 2007]
Discussion Stage
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is looking at this evidence with great interest and satisfaction. While there may still be much discussion about how each school accomplished what, the evidence does seem to show that when students get more personal attention in personal interest areas, they succeed at a much higher rate.
Related articles: The Future of Education, No Benefits To Retention
Read previous articles on Educational Issues.
Copyright article 2007 Barbara Pytel. All Rights Reserved.
