Middle school closes urban achievement gap

The founders of one of the most successful middle schools in America were two of this year's recipients of the UNC Chapel Hill General Alumni Association's Distinguished Young Alumni Awards. Dacia Toll and Doug McCurry, Morehead Scholars who graduated in 1994, opened Amistad Academy, a public charter school in New Haven, Conn., six years ago. They wanted to see if a school tailored to the needs of disadvantaged urban children could close the achievement gap.

It can and it does.

In August 2004 the school was a subject of a PBS documentary which illustrates Amistad's success. Amistad is a school that is 97 percent African American and Latino, 84 percent who qualify for free lunch. Most students enter the fifth grade scoring an average of two years below grade level, yet by the end of their eighth-grade year, they are not only scoring as well as the wealthiest suburban students, in some cases they are even surpassing them.

From warehouse to school

On my last trip to New Haven I asked to visit the school and was graciously given a tour by Pat Sweet, the director of external relations at Achievement First, the nonprofit organization Toll and McCurry established to replicate Amistad's success by opening charter schools in Connecticut and New York.Sweet's background in community development and banking makes her an ideal choice to head the fund-raising necessary to make up the difference between what the state gives charter schools and their operating costs.

Private businesses and philanthropists helped in the initial fund-raising needed to convert a warehouse in a blighted neighborhood into an attractive school. Hanging over the entrance is a huge banner spelling out the acronym REACH, summarizing the goals for students.

R is for RESPECT. Students at Amistad pledge to show respect for their teachers and for each other. This translates into observable behaviors such as raising their hands before speaking in class and keeping the building clean. On the day that I visited, I watched several incidents where teachers were swift to remind students of what constituted respectful behavior. In one fifth-grade reading class, the teacher actually turned a student's head so that he was facing the girl who was answering a question.

"Remember to look at people when they are speaking," she prompted.

E is for ENTHUSIASM. If any of the students were bored the day I visited, I didn't see them. I observed numerous reading, math and writing classes. Hands were always waving in the air and small groups were buzzing with energy. Students who had met their REACH goals were proudly wearing their royal blue polo shirts. Students still missing the mark were wearing plain white T-shirts. Because the uniforms were a reward, they were "cool."

A is for Achievement. The mission statement of Amistad leaves no doubt that student achievement is their raison d'etre. The curriculum is tightly benchmarked to follow state standards, teachers assessing their students each six weeks and using the results to plan instruction. Freed from the normal paperwork and discipline decisions by support staff, the principal serves as the real instructional head of the school, observing -- and teaching -- classes regularly and meeting with parents and teachers when students have difficulties. Students hear from their first day at Amistad that their goal is to graduate from college -- and that all the hard work now will pay off in a brighter future.

C is for Citizenship. Student achievement isn't possible if students don't understand or buy into school culture. Students at Amistad are taught how to be responsible individuals in a community of scholars -- and their allegiance to the procedures of the school shows. I saw one fifth-grade class lining up by rows to go to morning break in the cafeteria. Two rows had filed out when the teacher abruptly called them back to the classroom.

"We have to start over," he said, "because someone was talking in the hall. Alex, you know how your mother has a radio at home with a volume button on it? You are going to turn your volume button all the way off. Now, let's try that again."

H is for Hard Work. Closing the achievement gap takes hard work on the part of teachers, students and parents. The school day is long -- the 250 students arrive at 7:30 for breakfast and leave at 5, except for Fridays when they leave at 1. Mornings are spent focused on reading, writing and math. Students learn social studies and science in the early afternoon and attend enrichment programs in computer science, art, music, sports and other activities for the last hour of the day.

A formula that works

Can a successful urban school in Connecticut be a model for genuine school reform here?

UNC grad Dacia Toll is quick to say that no one aspect of the program is the key to the success of students at Amistad, that the talented teachers are just as critical as the consistency in lesson plans and school procedures, that giving students a belief in themselves and the tools to measure their achievements is as important as getting parents involved in overseeing homework. But Amistad's formula is clearly working, and those of us concerned about the achievement gap have everything to gain by learning what they have to teach.

Kay

McSpadden