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Differences on small school vision emerge
District pushes ahead on plan for 28 new, smaller high schools.
by Sheila Simmons
Is "small" a size or an intimate cultural environment?
Are strong academics the key to success for small schools, or is it equally important to build personal ownership, group accountability, and community engagement?
Whatever the answers to these questions, the School District's multimillion dollar "Small Schools Transition Project" is now underway, promising to create at least 28 new high school options for Philadelphia students by 2008.
Several of the 28 will be new buildings, but most of the small schools are being created by dividing up existing large high schools, making annexes or branches into separate schools, and converting middle schools to high schools.
The District effort to create more small high school choices follows in the path of a national movement that takes aim at high school failure by downsizing big schools to provide a more intimate and manageable learning environment.
Philadelphia's large neighborhood high schools have rebuffed years of reform efforts. Safety issues persist despite zero tolerance policies and growing police forces.
So with three private companies hired as "transition managers," promises of more select magnet schools, and funds taken from the $1.5 billion Capital Improvement Plan, the School District is taking steps to dramatically alter the landscape of its high schools.
But the manner in which the School District is pursuing this highly touted restructuring project has drawn criticism from a number of parties who have high hopes for small schools.
Critics say the District's vision runs counter to national evidence of what has contributed to proven models of small school success. Teachers, principals, students, education advocates and community members - despite the District's avowed outreach efforts - complain of feeling like little more than observers.
Meg Wise, director of Scholars and Civic Engagement for the Philadelphia Education Fund, testified to the School Reform Commission in February that exemplary small schools across the country "succeed because their stakeholders participate in the ways their schools operate day to day and are genuinely engaged in, proud of, and respected by their schools. They are schools of and for the community, and the community was engaged in the process to create them."
Indeed, the District's efforts focus less on the from-the-ground-up, culture-changing concentration of one small school at a time. The District's Small Schools vision more accurately reflects a sort of "Field of Dreams."
CEO Paul Vallas commented, "I look at these schools in this way: build a magnet, and they will come."
Field of Dreams
District officials say the 28 new schools would all have college-preparatory programs and dual-college credit opportunities, and 24 of them would have fewer than 500 students.
Nine would be special-admissions magnet schools, modeled after such exemplary Philadelphia schools as Creative and Performing Arts, Masterman, and even Chicago's Whitney M. Young High School. The remaining 19 schools would boast magnet programs (see School District continues expansion of small high school options).
Fifteen of the schools ("Phase One") are in operation this year, and 13 more ("Phase Two") will be launched in the next three years.
Much of the controversy around the project centered on a series of contracts authorizing the hiring of three private companies to provide support to the first batch of schools.
In February, the SRC approved contracts totaling $1.5 million for the hiring of "transition managers" - three companies that outgoing Deputy Chief Academic Officer Creg Williams defended as "giants" in their industry.
Receiving contracts worth $150,000 per school through the end of June were:
. Kaplan K12 Learning Services, to manage the transition of Lankenau, Parkway Northwest, and Randolph;
. Princeton Review, for services to Lamberton, Parkway Gamma, Sayre, and Vaux;
. ResulTech, for work at Bartram School of Business, Bartram School of Communications, and Parkway Center City.
Another company called SchoolWorks is under consideration as a transition manager for three schools, but an SRC resolution was withdrawn pending examination of an ethics issue.
Vallas said the providers will build the District's capacity to assist schools in transitioning to their new status. He noted that the District is considering additional school management contracts with College Board and K12 Learning.
Transition managers are expected to provide a range of supports, ensuring that the schools are college preparatory, linking them with higher education institutions, and strengthening the quality of the teaching staff. The contracts are expected to be renewed for no more than four years, unlike the District's long-term contracts with education management organizations for school management, CEO Vallas noted.
'Nobody asked us'
Even before the initiative was officially unrolled in a formal presentation to the SRC in February, a chorus of questions began to emerge from the schools and from small schools advocates. Aisha Abdulhadi, a 10th grader at Sayre and member of the Philadelphia Student Union, in January testimony to the SRC, said, "Nobody asked anybody in our community what we think about these contracts."
A month later, parent Darlene Lewis of Thomas Middle School, a school slated to be converted into a small charter high school, complained to the SRC, "I am one of many parents who found out about the closing of my child's school in an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. She added, "The people in the community I've spoken to don't know anything about it."
Vallas said that he'd twice communicated plans to the Thomas community about the charter conversion, and he promised to return.
Although the District continues to defend its planning process as inclusive, complaints continue to be heard from staff and principals at schools affected by the transitions.
Abdulhadi and others have questioned why Kaplan, Princeton Review, and ResulTech were selected as transition managers, rather than nationally recognized experts in the small schools arena such as the Big Picture Company.
Creg Williams explained, "Most had experience in testing, data analysis, collecting information and how to use it to prepare for post-secondary education."
He did not speak to a change in school culture or relationships.
'Big schools in drag'
As the Vallas administration has been developing its school construction and high school plans, interest in moving toward small high schools has become a national groundswell.
The Gates Foundation has poured millions into creating smaller high schools. In New York, Chicago, Oakland, and elsewhere, districts have supported a proliferation of new, smaller schools.
According to High Schools for the New Millennium, published by the Gates Foundation. "Smaller school size - generally no more than 400 students - can help to counteract many of the problems plaguing high schools today, such as overburdened teachers who barely know the names of their students; low expectations for all but the highest-performing students; inadequate support for students needing extra assistance completing their coursework or planning for college; and curricula that fail to engage students in their own learning."
Nationally known small schools advocates place a heavy emphasis on a personalized culture of trust and respect, while the District's plan stresses college preparation.
Advocates are hardly arguing against rigorous academic programs - Gates stresses the three R's: rigorous coursework, relationships with instructors, and relevant learning opportunities.
But leading small schools supporters say traditional teaching styles and relationships cannot go unchanged. Some have expressed a desire to avoid creating what researcher and small schools expert Michelle Fine dubbed, "big schools in drag."
"'Small,'" stresses Fine, "is a proxy for a set of conditions designed to maximize learning."
In Philadelphia - whether the small schools are striving for a different type of relationships or simply college prep - the District's initiative is off and running.