Renaissance Beach: KPLU's Deep Dive into the Turnaround of an Urban High School
KPLU's Sound Effects has created a wonderful, vital piece of work in Renaissance Beach, a story about the turnaround of Rainier Beach High School. It is told thru the eyes of staff and students and is truly compelling.
The turnaround effort — fueled by a $4.3 million federal grant; and centered around a rigorous college-prep curriculum, the International Baccalaureate or “IB” — is still a work in progress.
District officials reported an 84 percent graduation rate to the state for Rainier Beach last year, KPLU has learned. If the state officially confirms those numbers next spring, that would mean the school’s graduation rate will have rebounded more than 30 points in just four years.
Two of my favorite parts are teacher/IB mentor Colin Pierce and Jocelyn Alexander Shaw "Shawshank," a no-excuses teacher from Chicago Public Schools who, if the work is not done, lets the students know her disappointment.
I especially liked Pierce's dogging one student and saying that he believed more in the student than the student believed in himself.
Reporter Kyle Stokes put in the time to get to know this school.
I visited Rainier Beach more than 40 times during the 2014-15 school year, and I can attest the work is not over. Getting students to show up regularly and on-time, especially during first period, has been a challenge. Students who have embraced the more rigorous curriculum have found it difficult to keep up with the added workload. Some teachers have admitted to being soft on deadlines for even important assignments.
It's fine reporting and it's proof that yes, believing in students, supporting students and giving them the rigor that will push them onto better things is possible.
The turnaround effort — fueled by a $4.3 million federal grant; and centered around a rigorous college-prep curriculum, the International Baccalaureate or “IB” — is still a work in progress.
District officials reported an 84 percent graduation rate to the state for Rainier Beach last year, KPLU has learned. If the state officially confirms those numbers next spring, that would mean the school’s graduation rate will have rebounded more than 30 points in just four years.
Two of my favorite parts are teacher/IB mentor Colin Pierce and Jocelyn Alexander Shaw "Shawshank," a no-excuses teacher from Chicago Public Schools who, if the work is not done, lets the students know her disappointment.
I especially liked Pierce's dogging one student and saying that he believed more in the student than the student believed in himself.
Reporter Kyle Stokes put in the time to get to know this school.
I visited Rainier Beach more than 40 times during the 2014-15 school year, and I can attest the work is not over. Getting students to show up regularly and on-time, especially during first period, has been a challenge. Students who have embraced the more rigorous curriculum have found it difficult to keep up with the added workload. Some teachers have admitted to being soft on deadlines for even important assignments.
It's fine reporting and it's proof that yes, believing in students, supporting students and giving them the rigor that will push them onto better things is possible.
Comments
George Washington
http://www.ibo.org/programmes/middle-years-programme/
David Edelman
high schools
The students have passionate, committed, experienced teachers who challenge them with an established, tested, unified international curriculum. In other words, most everything about this story flies in the face of the corporate reformist narrative.
David Edelman
And, I think the overall point is that it takes one-on-one, intimate (I know you) work by staff and teachers. There's no computer that can do that. So yes, that IS personalized learning but not what the ed-reform crowd is talking about.
By the way, I'm not against interactive software per se. My students used it when I taught Read 180, and it was very effective as part of a larger unified program. However, my original point was that corporate reformers have been consistently naive (to put it kindly) about the fundamentally social nature of education. Technology is not a cure-all, any more, for that matter, than a rigorous curriculum is. I obviously think highly of the IB program, but it requires well-trained, experienced, committed teachers who work in a school where they can work with a high degree of independence from administration and collaboration with each other.
David Edelman
Naturally, I would not agree with this but one of the larger (but unspoken) likes of this idea of personalized learning is not only the hope that it truly does address individual needs but that it will help schools/districts cut costs.
No, I also would not agree with that. For the record, use of interactive software in Read 180 is just one part of a larger program that doesn't eliminate teachers but rather requires them--requires them to work closely with struggling readers.
John Dewey's great insight into education was that it is fundamentally a social process. Rejecting the idea that the creative play of education should be reduced to a "routine efficiency prized simply for its external tangible results," he wrote in Democracy and Education, "Achievement comes to denote the sort of thing that a well-planned machine can do better than a human being can, and the main effect of education, the achieving of a life of rich significance, drops by the wayside."
It's interesting the way he linked the social nature of education and democracy. In an age of rising fascism, we might want to think about that.
David Edelman
I'm not that familiar with Green Dot since they're in the LA area, not northern California, but the only "facilitator" job I've heard of with them seems to be special education push-in.
LisaG
--JvA
--JvA
HF
reader
HF, there probably is such info but I have never seen any comparisons among the three IB schools. What I do know is all three are underfunded.
Rainier Beach --
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/international-baccalaureate-changes-outlook-seattle-school/
Last spring: "Of the 19 students who originally began working toward a full I.B. diploma, only seven were on track to earn one on graduation day. Results won’t be known until July, but I.B. coordinator Colin Pierce says that attrition rate is typical for a first cohort, and he says 21 juniors are currently on track to complete it next year."
Chief Sealth --
http://www.seattlefoundation.org/npos/Pages/FriendsofSealth.aspx
"In the past three years ... Chief Sealth High School has graduated 38 full diploma candidates."
Ingraham --
http://self.gutenberg.org/article/whebn0001419787/ingraham%20high%20school
81 IB certificate candidates in 2013-14 school year?
--JvA
- Just Curious
I also wonder what happens after the grant money runs out in 2017? I was involved with multiple initiatives at RB that started out great and ran out of steam due to the funding drying up. I wish Mr. Pierce the best. He seems to be a great IB Coordinator. He needs to be firmer on deadlines with his students, though. I also wish Ms. "Shawshank" the best. That is the type of teacher that RB needs.
I sure hope RBHS gets further funding because regardless of if the kids are graduating with IB certificates more are graduating. It seems to be having an effect on all of the students there not just the ones in IB.
HP
reader