A couple years back I attended Joanne Jacobs' kick off meeting for her book Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School That Beat the Odds. Her book covers a charter school in San Jose which goes after students who are doing poorly, but want to improve. You can read my review here. The school's unofficial motto is "We're not good now, but we can do better."
Joanne reports They made it!
"Last night, Downtown College Prep honored the 12 students from the class of ‘04, the charter school’s first graduating class, who earned their college degrees in ‘08. Another cohort will graduate in the next year or two. In all, 75 percent of DCP grads are on track to earn a four-year degree. (Students who attended private colleges were more likely to finish in four years, but the high costs have pushed most DCP grads to enroll in public universities.)"
The students succeeded because the teachers worked with them and pushed them. The school worked hard to keep the students in, but they would kick out them out if the students were not performing. The schools didn't have more money. There wasn't some new program. There wasn't a new law. The students underwent a dramatic transformation because their parents cared enough to sign them up, and to commit to supporting the school.
This kind of process is hard, if not impossible, to legislate.
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Technorati tags: education, Downtown College Prep, charter schools, Joanne Jacobs, Our school
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