Small High Schools and Early/Middle College High School
New York City, NY

An American Youth Policy Forum Field Trip — January 8-9, 2004

The purpose of this site visit was to learn about (1) the New Century High School Initiative, (2) the transformation of large, comprehensive high schools into smaller learning communities in the Bronx, NY, and (3) the early and middle college high school programs at LaGuardia Community College, Queens, NY.

High School Reform in New York City

The New Century High Schools (NCHS) Initiative is designed to provide New York City students with small, effective high schools that help them meet high standards of academic and personal success. The New York City Department of Education and three private foundations – the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Open Society Institute – have invested $30 million to transform large comprehensive high schools into multiple small schools. New Visions for Public Schools manages this initiative in collaboration with the NYC Department of Education, the United Federation of Teachers, and the Council of Supervisors and Administrators. In 2002, 17 New Century High Schools opened their doors, with 13 of them located in the Bronx as a part of sweeping district-led reform. In September 2003, 42 new high schools opened, and 34 more new small schools will open in September 2004. NCHS are in six of the ten regions and focus on changing the poorest performing high schools.

While each New Century High School has its own identity, they all combine rigorous academic programs with innovative teaching, personalized learning environments, and deep ties to the local community. Students are prepared to take the Regents exams and for college.

The role of the community partner is key to the NCHS model, and each school is designed around the strengths and resources of its partner. Each school is a collaborative effort between educators and community partner organizations who work together on every aspect of the school’s design and operation. Partners provide various types of support to the school, from creating career-based opportunities for student learning, to encouraging student leadership in the school and community, to involving parents, to supporting teachers and curriculum development.

Based on its work over the last 20 years, New Visions for Public Schools has developed a list of characteristics of effective secondary schools. Small school size is the starting point, as it allows students and adults to establish strong personal bonds. Within that framework, New Visions lists the following characteristics that are expected to be evident in every NCHS:

• Academically rigorous program
• Clear focus and expectations
• Personalized relationships
• Instructional leadership
• Student participation and youth development
• Meaningful continuous assessment
• Partnerships with city-wide and community organizations
• School-based professional development
• Family/care-giver engagement and involvement
• Effective uses of technology and information resources
• To determine which schools to open, New Visions organizes a juried process. Teams of school leaders, teachers, parents, and community partners are able to apply for a small planning grant from New Visions and then present their concept to the regional superintendent and teacher union representatives. The proposals are then reviewed by New Visions and outside experts, and a final determination is made.

If selected, a new school will receive the standard per pupil expenditure provided by the NYC Department of Education (DOE). For a school of 180 students, that is approximately $1.435 million, which includes costs for special education. A one-time grant of up to $400,000 ($1,000 per capita) from New Visions covers the first four start-up years. The community partner acts as the fiscal agent for New Visions money and the community partners also donate funding or in-kind services. Other resources may be donated by the borough. Finally, the DOE provides additional funding to support literacy and math coaches.

NYC is doing away with zoned schools and allowing students complete choice. Students have the option of selecting their high school from a wide range of comprehensive, neighborhood, and specialized small schools. The city publishes a thick catalogue that describes each school. Students submit a form that indicates up to 12 choices. Most students will get their top choice, but it is not guaranteed. Many schools require students, with parents or guardians, to attend an information session on the school as well.

Morris High School Campus

Our first visit was to Morris High School in the Bronx, formerly a comprehensive high school that now houses five small high schools. Morris High School was one of the lowest-performing high schools in the Bronx and one of the hardest to reform, said Shael Suransky, Principal of Bronx International School, a NCHS. When he started working at Morris High School in 1997, Suransky said only 80 students from a freshman class of 600 graduated and by tenth grade, half of the students were already lost. The underlying problem, Suransky contended, was that the school was never designed to prepare 100 percent of students for college or high-wage careers; rather, it was structured to help only high achievers. As a result, district leadership selected Morris as one of the first high schools to be transformed into small schools.

Morris High School began its transition to smaller learning communities with the opening of the Bronx Leadership Academy II, High School for Violin and Dance, School for Excellence, and Bronx International High School in 2002. As the new schools were phased in, the remaining students in the comprehensive school formed a fifth school that will eventually be replaced by a fifth new small school. The transition from the comprehensive school to the new small schools is taking place over a period of four years, starting with the freshman class and adding a grade each year. There are approximately 850 students in the four new small schools on the Morris campus, with 700 students attending the “old” Morris High School program.

Each school is completely autonomous with its own principal and staff, a parent coordinator, and guidance counselor. There is no longer a principal or administrator for the entire school, rather the principals of each school work on joint administrative issues as needed. The schools share a bilingual psychologist and a clinical social worker, as well as the biology lab, but each school has its own curriculum and teacher for biology. Common spaces, such as hallways, the gymnasium, and cafeteria are also shared.

To graduate from high school, all students must now pass five New York Regents exams, including English, Math, U.S. History, Global History, and Science. Given that most of the students who attend the schools on the Morris campus perform below the sixth grade level in math and English, the schools face a great challenge in raising student achievement. As the schools are only into their second year of operation, student outcome measures are still limited.

Paulette Franklin, Principal of the Bronx Leadership Academy II, a NCHS, located on the second floor of the building, said students explore the curriculum through the lens of scientific inquiry and are being prepared for ongoing studies in the science disciplines. Partnering with the South Bronx Churches, the school works to provide a challenging, safe, and creative learning environment to awaken students’ natural curiosity about their surrounding environment. Currently the school has 158 ninth and tenth graders who come to school professionally dressed in a uniform of dark slacks or skirts and white shirts. There is strong parental involvement with over 75 percent of parents attending parent-teacher conferences.

Joe Sherman, Principal of the High School of Violin and Dance (located on the fifth, sixth, and seventh floors), came to Morris HS in 1998. His school is in the second year of implementation with 122 students, but is not a New Century High School. Their curriculum is based on musical education, and violin and dance are viewed as fundamental disciplines. Students are accepted to the school if they have an interest in violin or dance; they do not have to have a talent in that area. Sherman believes that if a student can learn how to play the violin, he or she can master any curriculum.

The School for Excellence, a NCHS, on the fourth floor, has 225 students, said Wade Fuller, Principal. This school grew from a program at Morris High School before the conversion, and then became a small school. The school focuses on arts integration, has instructional teams with 75-85 students each, and has extended day activities such as tutoring, chess, and academic and social clubs. Ongoing professional development is critical to success, and Fuller said his teachers use various strategies such as critical friends and a constant examination of the curriculum to determine how art can be included. The school’s partner is the Institute for Student Achievement (ISA), a non-profit organization that works with high schools to enable at-risk students to stay in school, graduate, and go on to college or a career. ISA provides coaches to teachers and administrators, and it has also funded trips to college campuses and college fairs for students beginning in ninth grade.

Because ninety percent of the students come into ninth grade below grade level in English and math, Fuller said they invested in small classroom libraries and a teacher who could ramp up reading, according to the Department of Education requirement. The school’s partner, ISA, helped teachers integrate reading and writing into all courses and projects. For example, students keep a journal in every class, they read to elementary school students on a regular basis, and they have 25 minutes of sustained reading every day. English language learners in the schools other than International High School are given extra help as well.

Interdisciplinary teams are being created to see what reading strategies or diagnostics work, how to simplify the teaching of reading, and then share the knowledge with teachers across the system. Fuller said that by using some of these interventions, they have learned how to increase students’ reading levels from the second grade to the sixth grade in four semesters.

Suransky described the Bronx International High School, which serves an immigrant population from 30 different countries. Students who score at or below the 20th percentile on the Language Assessment Battery and have been in the U.S. less than four years are the target population. Students are allowed to use their native language as needed to help them understand content information. He said students are usually ready to move to full-time English instruction in five to six months. The key components of the school’s design include: project-based interdisciplinary curriculum; English as a Second Language development methodology infused in all content areas; heterogeneous collaborative groupings; extended class periods in core academic subjects; and autonomous teacher teams that collaborate to serve small cohorts of students.

Suransky said that it is the job of all the adults in the building to make sure all students are successful, including the students in the “old” high school. One way to help create this supportive environment is to develop trust among the principals of the small schools. Each week, a building council of the principals meets to discuss issues relating to common space and student performance. As a sign that the small school design is having a positive impact, the number of students graduating from the “old” high school has increased from 77 to 220. Staff believe that because the “old” high school is getting smaller, students are benefiting from the small school environment, and the culture of the school building is changing to one of high expectations and support for all students.

Suransky said, “We are a learning community. We want to learn from each other and share best practices from each school.” Suransky continued by saying that just as a small class size helps teachers know the students, a small faculty allows the principal to know and work closely with the teachers. “With a small school and fewer faculty members, you can get coherence in school that pushes for student achievement,” said Suransky. “You can create an opportunity for instructional focus and leadership and push teachers and help them grow. We are still in the early stages of implementation, but students and adults are learning and growing at an accelerated pace.” He said that one positive indicator is that each school has at least a 90 percent attendance rate, and the number of students who want to attend one of the schools has increased over previous years.

In a group discussion, the principals agreed that there are other positive changes as a result of moving to small schools: the building is calmer and quieter, even though there are more students; there is a better learning atmosphere and higher attendance; security problems have been alleviated; and security and administrative costs have been reduced.

With the shift to small schools, the availability of some extra-curricular activities is limited. For instance, there was a very good robotics team at Morris prior to the conversion, and it is not clear what will happen to that when “old” Morris is phased out. Sports teams will be made up of students from all small schools, and the schools will hire a shared coach. Students from all five schools have already created a teen magazine. The principals constantly think about how they can share resources, as well as intellectual capital. One said, “We try to create campuses where the small schools will collaborate, so the schools aren’t isolated. It’s lonely being a principal, so it’s good to be part of a team with the other principals.”

One goal for the principals is to make sure teachers are talking about instructional practice and student work on a regular basis. They indicated that once you develop an open culture, you begin to trust each other, and it is easier to share teaching practices, what works, and what does not. There is not a large amount of outside professional development brought into the schools; rather, ongoing discussions and review of student work and instructional practice is becoming the fabric of the school. Teachers indicate what they want to learn and work collaboratively to do so.

The NCHS initiative is exploring new models of professional development for teachers, especially when a new school is created. A focus on classroom structure and instructional practice and how to create connections between them is critical. But Robert Hughes, President, New Visions for Public Schools, said that rather than outside professional development, "Reflection on the work is probably the most profound professional development, so we need to determine how best to allow that to happen."

South Bronx High School Campus

South Bronx High School, another low-performing high school, was also targeted by district leadership to be converted from a large comprehensive high school to a campus of small schools. Three schools, the New Explorers High School, Mott Haven Village Prep High School, and the Academy for Careers in Sports, opened in 2002 and 2003.

Despina Zaharakis, Principal of New Explorers High School, had been a teacher at South Bronx High School and talked with other teachers about why so many students failed. She and others wanted to create a school where students wanted to learn and could learn by doing, understanding concepts, and making connections. Zaharakis said that New Explorers is a work in progress. “If something is not going right, we change it. It’s not a rigid bureaucracy that never adapts.” Zaharakis continued that every adult is responsible for the students in all three schools, and that culture permeates the entire building. “We are dealing with humans, and we treat students with respect. In a small school setting, it’s all about personal relationships. Because we have a good environment, we have over 90 percent attendance in all three schools,” she said.

The concept for another small school, Mott Haven Village Prep High School, originated from the Mott Haven Village School, a small preK-8 school, said Ana Maldonado, Principal. Maldonado and her team wanted to keep the school small, with 75 students per grade, and serve lower-performing students (the school attracts students performing at Level 1 and 2 on a scale of 1-5). There are currently 156 students in grades nine and ten. The curriculum integrates humanities and natural science with community service and environmental awareness. Students spend time off-campus and in the community involved in research projects and internships, and 60 of the 80 tenth grade students are actively involved in service-learning. To help students pass the American History Regents exam, the school switched the order of the curriculum, so students now take American History in ninth grade and global history in tenth grade, which is more aligned with the Regents. Teachers work with 14-16 students in an advisory class throughout the four years. Special education students are provided resources needed, but the school is too small for self-contained classes.

The community partner is the East Side House Settlement (ESHS), which provides a counselor and social worker and support services during the school day and after-school activities, such as homework assistance, tutoring, and recreation. ESHS also provides a weekly workshop with outside speakers on the importance of college, as a way to raise the students’ expectations of themselves and prepare them for college. ESHS pays for exploratory college visits and provides grants and support to students once admitted to college to help them persist. The close relationship between the school and ESHS is exemplified when the leader of ESHS serves as principal on the days when Maldonado is gone.

Maldonado said that the way to keep teachers energized is to let them own the school and provide input. The biggest challenge faced, she said, is the emotional difficulties of the students and dealing with their personal issues.

The mission of the Academy for Careers in Sports is to integrate sports and sports- related fields, such as marketing, management, law, medicine, journalism, and broadcasting, into an enhanced and challenging high school core curriculum. All students take the core curriculum, and once they pass the Regents, the curriculum becomes more focused on sports careers. Felice Lepore, Principal, indicated that students are also required to participate in an internship and mentorship, a central piece of the program and part of the graduation requirement. Students take career classes three times a week to explore careers in sports. During junior or senior year, students participate in an internship one-half day a week with employers such as CBS, FOX, ESPN, Madison Square Garden, and the Hospital for Special Surgery. Lepore said that teachers are expected to make special efforts to reach out to families of students and that staff are required to contact the families of a certain number of students. Anyone not willing to take on this responsibility is asked to work someplace else. The school’s community partner is Take the Field, which donated sports fields valued at $2.7 million to the school. The school offers after-school programs five days a week and on Saturdays and used $90,000 from the New Century High School grant to support these activities. Because that grant is time limited, the school will have to raise funds from another source to continue to offer the after-hours programs.

At the South Bronx campus, there is a shared gym, cafeteria, and library. Many after-school activities are also shared, such as the robotics and web-design team. Once the students in the “old” South Bronx High School graduate, each small school will be able to access more space, as only three schools will be housed in the building. Next year, students will be able to take classes in one of the other schools in the building, and the schools will start sharing classes like English as a Second Language. The three schools also hope to hire common positions like a technical support person, and share Advanced Placement classes and teachers, as a way to reduce costs.

During a conversation with the principals, a number of points were made in response to questions:

• Only a handful of students transfer from one high school to another. Once they attend one school, they seem to be happy staying there.
• There is an issue about small schools and space. If schools are successful, then they end up even more overcrowded. There is an effort to organize small school leaders and their community partners to advocate for better facilities.
• The size and buy-in of the staff is critical for small schools. Just as students get lost in a large school, teachers can get lost in a large school.
• The principal leadership academy focuses on relationships between the principals in a building. Each principal is provided a mentor. Weekly meetings with all four principals are held to encourage open communication, to discuss resource sharing and best practices. Principals are held accountable based on Regents exams, individual assessments, and other tests.
• Another issue with small schools is their placement in larger schools, where the environment is not supportive. In some cases, small school students are beaten up, or they can’t eat lunch because of overcrowding and threats by other students. The principals said it is very important the principal of the large school be invested in the small schools. At South Bronx, it was handled correctly. There will be a complete phase out of the old school, and the new small schools have an equal weight with the regular high school.
• The purchasing process is too rigid: it takes too long and “it’s strangling us.”
• The small schools have taken advantage of the school-based hiring option for hiring teachers, which allows a team of union representatives, principals, and parents to select teachers, rather than using the city’s central hiring system. This has allowed the small schools to hire teachers that have the same philosophy and approach as the school.

Core Team Governing Body

The AYPF group met with the Core Team Governing Body in the historic Tweed Courthouse, the new home of the NYC Department of Education (DOE). The Core Team Governing Body represents the organizations and institutions involved in the New Century High School Initiative and meets on a regular basis to discuss reform strategies, align efforts, and solve problems. The Core Team is led and staffed by New Visions for Public Schools and meets every six weeks. One of its critical activities is to review design proposals for new small schools. The team has been meeting for the past three years, and it was very obvious that they work well together and hold common goals.

Present at the meeting were Michele Cahill, Senior Counselor to the Chancellor, NYC DOE; Joe Colletti, Special Representative for Educational Programs, United Federation of Teachers; Manny Korman, Council of Supervisors and Administrators; Robert Hughes, President, and Jennie Soler-McIntosh, Senior Program Officer, both of New Visions for Public Schools; and Constancia Warren, Director of Urban High School Initiative, Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Michele Cahill opened the meeting by briefly describing the Chancellor of DOE Joel Klein’s Children First reform agenda which grew out of a city-wide series of community engagement meetings in the fall and winter of 2002-03. The goal of the reform agenda is to give all schools and the teachers and principals in them the necessary resources and support to improve instruction. The DOE considers the school as the agent of change, but the central office must support their work. To meet the reform’s goals, Cahill said the city needs to help schools:

• develop highly qualified teachers
• create systems of internal and external accountability
• support schools where students are known well by adults in the building
• provide rigorous academics, continuous assessment, pathways to postsecondary education and careers, and ongoing professional development
• encourage a strong youth voice
• engage parents.

As they enter the second year of the Children First plan, secondary school reform is a high priority. Cahill said the goal is to have all students pass the five Regents exams required by the state for graduation. With 240 high schools in NYC, and approximately 300,000 secondary school students (more than there are in 37 states), this is a tall order, she continued. Some data points make clear why: by eighth grade, only three of ten NYC students meet curriculum standards, and only 50 percent of entering ninth graders graduate high school four years later. As a result, Cahill said the most important indicator of student success DOE is looking at is whether youth are moving from ninth to tenth grade.

Cahill said the DOE has worked closely with the teachers union and others to create a new concept of high schools. “Our reform plan is also largely influenced by youth development.” The New Century High Schools Initiative was in place prior to the Children First reform agenda and is the overarching structure that will be used to reform high schools.

“There is fundamentally a problem of supply of good schools in NYC,” said Cahill. New schools are a central and critical element of the reform agenda because currently only about half of the students get their choice of school. Cahill said there aren’t enough good schools available, so the number of good schools must be increased. Eight of the ten lowest performing high schools were in the Bronx, Cahill indicated, which is why DOE started there with the creation of new small high schools.

Cahill listed several advantages to creating small schools as a good strategy:

1. The talent of people, such as assistant principals and lead teachers, is unleashed. Having the option to create a new school is an incentive for many creative and committed educators.
2. A priority is placed on starting with best practices. The planning team focuses on the design characteristics of an effective school and builds a shared philosophy about what works.
3. A core strategy of the small schools is to create pathways to the future, which means creating partnerships. All new schools are required to have a community partner, such as a community-based organization, institution of postsecondary education, or arts organization. (Some of the school development partners include Outward Bound, Institute for Student Achievement, and CUNY Early College High School model.) These community partners bring a wide range of resources to the school.

Cahill said the DOE faces a number of challenges and one of them is financial. “While we believe that small schools will be cost effective if they are done well, it is still an expensive proposition to create dozens of new schools. Early on, it’s a big investment, and in addition to foundation and private funding, DOE is putting in significant money,” said Cahill.

Space and overcrowding are also issues, Cahill continued. “There is the real-time degree of difficulty in a large urban school district. We’ve had to close some large high schools and haven’t been able to replace them with new small schools or high quality options quickly enough to serve all students.” The DOE is reviewing data on enrollment patterns to deal with the issue of overcrowding, but it is a huge logistical issue when there are so many students, she finished.

Another challenge, Cahill said, has been to find leaders for the new small schools; there just aren’t enough well-trained and visionary people. As a result, she said, DOE is offering a leadership academy for aspiring principals for new small schools.

Jennie Soler-McIntosh said that the role of New Visions for Public School is to tap into the interests, resources, and passion of those in the city who are interested in creating a new small school and to support an open process for proposals. For this latest round of grants, New Visions received over 100 concept papers. Interested parties can submit a concept paper and can qualify for a planning grant of $5,000-10,000. New Visions ensures the design principles of each new school supports rigorous curriculum and personalization and a strong role for community partners, including demonstrating how the school will capitalize on the resources and strengths of the partner, said Soler-McIntosh.

New Visions is also working systematically to create a support system for the new schools. The organization works with the regional offices to help build their capacity through technical assistance, and it provides professional development and advice on clarifying the role of the community partner and how to effectively engage the community in the design and implementation process. New Visions also recognizes the challenge of developing a cadre of qualified leaders for the new schools and assigns each principal a mentor as well as hosting networks to allow principals to share information across the city. Each region is also provided funds to support an office for small high schools, which is staffed with experts in community engagement, partnerships, and curriculum.

Robert Hughes said that New Vision’s role as intermediary is critical in the process of creating good schools. “As we go to scale, our role at New Visions is very important to make sure we don’t create lots of new programs, but rather to align the current work with the changes that are needed. It’s not about creating a single school system but a system of effective schools.” Hughes said, “If we don’t have an impact on the relationships in the classroom, then things don’t change.”

Hughes said that New Visions is fortunate in that it can take the time to explore issues in a thoughtful way. For instance, understanding how to solve adolescent literacy requires research, program development, and reflection and then translating what works into practice for teachers. Most teachers are unaware of the body of knowledge on how children and adults develop reading skills and about the importance of adolescent engagement in the reading process. “To get the depth, we need reflection in our professional development.” Hughes also said the only way to get to scale and sustainability is to have community ownership of the school and of the learning – that is why joint ownership and partnerships are so important.

Constancia Warren said the process of designing a small school and applying to the New Century High School Initiative helps to build capacity along the way and strengthen the proposals. By requiring a strong school-community partnership, potential grantees develop a close working relationship in the development phase, and it also filters out those partnerships that are weak. Warren said it has been important for the foundations to be present because they provide an external voice and check on the public agencies. While the regular meetings of the Core Team are the formal part of our work together, the members have created many other partnerships and work closely together on many items. Warren said, “We all use the core team as a sounding board and respect each other’s opinions and perspectives.”

Joe Colletti reiterated that having an intermediary organization help with the reform process has been critical: “New Visions serves as an advocate and keeps us focused on our work.” From the union perspective, it is important to have planning teams at the local level. To enhance site-based management, the UFT changed its rules so that decisions require a simple majority rather than a two-thirds vote, and Colletti said it has been a positive change. The UFT is involved in developing teachers by providing mentors to teachers who are preparing to work in small schools. Colletti concluded that the UFT would like to see more small schools created that have a career and technical education focus.

Manny Korman stated that no organization has stood in the way of change, they are all true partners, and the team representatives agreed. Hughes reinforced this by saying the core team has collectively built capacity across all the organizations and increased support for the reform efforts.

During group discussion, the Core Team made the following points:

• We need help with special education students. Schools have to integrate them into regular classes because the schools are too small to provide self-contained classes. As a result teachers need strategies to help them learn.
• The core team is designing and developing hybrid approaches to capacity building and providing input and assistance where it makes the most sense. Outreach staff positions in the regional offices are jointly funded by the Gates Foundation and the DOE. The Carnegie Corporation of New York funded a module for preparing small school principals. Partners are providing funding to fill in gaps where needed and based on their expertise.
• DOE still faces enormous logistical challenges of putting in phones and computers and setting up classroom spaces for all the new schools. Just being able to add large numbers of people to the payroll for the new schools is a huge human resources responsibility and process, which takes longer than planned.
• It is important to provide professional development to principals who are going through the process of changing a large high school to a small high school so they understand the issues of moving to a campus model.
• With regard to the recent publicity about students being pushed out of high schools because they are not able to pass the Regents exams, resulting in failing schools, Cahill said DOE is monitoring individual data and holding schools accountable for student outcomes. DOE is now requiring all schools to have an explicit process in place for documenting what happens to each student and to maintain and share that documentation.
• Student engagement is key. Data show that by the middle of the year, the lowest performing students have 20 or more absences. That is a clear sign that students are not engaged, but many schools do not collect that information and are unaware of this pattern. DOE understands that multiple pathways and options are needed to keep students engaged and progressing and is looking at models like the Diploma Plus program and early college high school as ways to create new learning options for youth. Other proposed schools will focus on court-involved youth and will partner with community-based organizations that have experience in serving this group of youth.

Middle College High School and International High School at LaGuardia Community College

LaGuardia Community College has an enrollment of 13,000 credit students and 28,000 non-credit students. There are 110 different languages represented, and the average income of students and their families in the college’s service area is $26,000. LaGuardia Community College was just named as one of the top colleges for student engagement.

Gail Mellow, President of LaGuardia Community College, said LaGuardia Community College (LGCC) and the New York City Department of Education have been collaborating for three decades, beginning with the creation of Middle College High School (MCHS) in 1974. International High School was established in 1985. Both LGCC and DOE are always looking for new ways to connect school and college. The middle college high school model, which is evolving into the early college high school model, is a powerful program to help make connections for youth on a college campus, she said. The high school students get an additional benefit because they do not pay tuition for college classes, although that means lost revenue for the college. There is no dedicated funding stream to pay for the tuition of these high school students, so the college reallocates funds from other accounts. The middle college high schools were originally funded by a CUNY/state collaborative grant that has continued, but at much reduced rates. Mellow said, “We need new ways to think about funding for these high school and college connections.”

Mellow said one challenge with the middle college high school model is that some college faculty find it hard to envision working at the high school level and some are less than open to learning from and working with high school teachers. But we have been able to overcome these challenges, she continued. Another challenge has been preparing students for college level work, helping them adjust to the “world” of postsecondary education, and dealing with the personal issues of many at-risk students. To help ease the transition, MCHS provides a coach for a cohort of students, which has been very successful in providing them support and advice. As a matter of fact, Mellow said, college students have asked to be in classes where there is a coach for the high school students because they have seen the value of the coaching, and they want the same supports.

Mellow said that it is hard to find ways to legislate this model when the model is about trust, relationships, and the school and college appreciating the value of each other. “We need to develop the structures for mutual respect, but figuring out how to create legislative structures for that is very difficult,” she concluded.

Burt Rosenberg, Principal of International High School (IHS), gave an overview of both middle college high schools. Both schools serve grades 9-12 and there are approximately 450 students in each. At IHS, the students are English language learners who have been in the U.S. for less than four years and who have failed the English language proficiency test. At Middle College High School, students who face obstacles to success, such as academic failure or personal problems and are referred by their middle school counselors, make up the student body. Over 80 percent of students enter MCHS reading at Level 1 or 2, on a scale of 5.

Both schools are distinct and separate from each other with a separate faculty and separate location. However, they share core beliefs and practices: high standards are coupled with an effective system of student support; learning is meaningful and engaging; and schools are organized in ways that support extended relationships between students and adults. The pedagogy of the schools supports student-centered, inquiry-based approach to instruction, with learning being much deeper than preparation for exams. Our goal is to give students the tools to learn and help them develop their critical thinking and research skills, Rosenberg said.

Periods are 70 minutes long, which allows more depth of topic but requires teachers to do more than lecture. Students sit at tables and work collaboratively on projects. Class size is kept to 25 or less. Literacy development is worked into every class. At MCHS, every teacher is a literacy teacher, and at IHS, every teacher is a teacher of English as a Second Language (ESL). Instructional practices include extended class time, heterogeneous groupings of students, small group instruction, and performance assessments. Students take remedial and regular college classes when ready.

To be successful, ongoing professional development for the high school teachers is required. Continuous evaluation, self reflection, and the refinement of practice is the responsibility of the entire school community. This allows adults to model the practices of a learning community for students. The entire school community is also involved in the governance of the school, which results in a much stronger youth voice and input.

“Our students come with incredible problems,” said Rosenberg. Adults attend to students’ needs, and every student is connected to an adult. Each adult mentors students as part of a four-year advisory. The college setting helps students mature and move from adolescent to adult behavior. Being on the college campus gives the students a sense of their future, concluded Rosenberg.

Aaron Listhaus, Principal of Middle College High School, explained the evolution from the middle college high school model to the early college model. He said there is a need for enhanced academic and affective supports because students continue to have difficulty in mastering academic material and making the transition to and succeeding in postsecondary education. In addition, financial barriers continue to keep many students from completing postsecondary education.

The early college model is designed to allow students to earn a high school diploma and two year’s worth of postsecondary credit within a five-year period. Extra support is provided to help students master the high school curriculum, prepare for postsecondary experiences, and enroll in college, at no expense. College tuition is waived for all students, and college textbooks are provided. While the middle college model allows students to take college classes when they desire or are ready, the early college model is structured with the intention of helping all students earn a high school diploma and two years of postsecondary credit in five years, and the course structure is more defined.

One of the supports in place in the early college model is a seminar class that meets daily. In this class, Listhaus said, the implicit rules of college behavior are made explicit to the high school students. Class discussion focuses on how to budget your time for studying, how to stay organized, and how to work in an environment with much greater freedom.

Phase I of the early college high school encompasses grades 9-10, the high school component. There is a strong focus on literacy and “academic habits of mind” and being on time and prepared. Phase II of the early college high school encompasses grades 11, 12, and 13, which includes the final years of high school and concurrent enrollment in college. Phase III is independent college enrollment, once all the high school requirements have been met, also during grade 13.

Thus far, Listhaus said, data shows that 11th and 12th grade early college high school students out-performed comparable students in course pass rates by about twice as much, and they do better on college placement exams. Almost 100 percent of the students pass the CUNY entrance exams, and there is approximately a 95 percent pass rate for college courses.

While MCHS and IHS have been very successful, there are challenges in setting up such schools with regard to college classes and scheduling, said Cecelia Cunningham, Director, Middle College National Consortium. There are logistical difficulties in assigning high school students to college classes in a way that allows a small cohort of students to be together to support each other and work with teachers and coaches effectively, but not to be so large as to “take over” the college class. It is important that the classes are by intent college classes with some high school students, not just classes for high school students. A good ratio is eight high school students per college class. Similarly, it takes work to identify an appropriate course of study leading to a transferable degree while ensuring there is an adequate cohort of students that can be supported as a small group (otherwise you have students spread throughout the college with no cohort support group or coach). Selecting a sequence of college courses that is appropriate for high school students is also difficult. The sequence must allow students to earn an associate’s degree by the end of the 13th year, but must also take into account the need to balance gateway courses and upper level courses for students who are performing at a lower level.

Challenges at the high school level involve refining the criteria for college readiness and acceptance to the school so that it is not just based on grade point average. The recruitment process needs to consider a variety of measures of college readiness for an at-risk population. Cunningham said, “We do not want to recruit all our students for the early college high school in eighth grade, because many students will not be ready. The timing of when you approach a student about early college high school is very important. Sometimes it is hard to determine when the most appropriate time might be. College ready is not the same thing for every student. Students are ready at different times, so we should not have these arbitrary distinctions and decision points.”

The high schools also have to establish adequate and appropriate support systems for students, which can be very time-consuming and personalized. In addition, the high school must determine which graduation requirements can be fulfilled through college coursework and how to align high school graduation requirements with college entry-level coursework. Other remaining challenges include negotiating between the two worlds, dealing with high school pedagogy vs. college pedagogy, increasing faculty representation on advisory committees, and securing long-term funding.

Teachers employed at the high schools must be certified, to meet state and federal (NCLB) law. IHS and MCHS use the school-based option for hiring so that they have more choice about who to hire. The high schools can also use adjunct faculty from the community college, in which case, they do not need to be certified according to NCLB.

Listhaus said, “We’ve blurred the borders between high school and college, but there is no way to blur the funding lines.” Older high school students taking college classes are not eligible for Pell grants because they are not high school graduates. The Tech Prep program is the only other place for “wiggle room” in terms of helping to cover costs of the program, but it only covers the first few college classes and not the whole path to an AA degree. The community colleges in NY can claim the full time equivalent expense for the students in early college high schools, which will be about $450,000 total, but that still doesn’t cover the entire cost of educating the students.

Another serious issue, said Listhaus, is the NCLB requirement that students graduate high school in four years. The early college high schools are designed to be a five-year program leading to a high school diploma and an associate’s degree. This means that many students will finish their high school diploma in the fifth year, resulting in a low four-year graduation rate, which will reflect negatively on the schools.

Observations and Comments from AYPF Participants

Participants had a number of observations and comments at the conclusions of the visits:

• You need a strong personality to run a small school, but it’s hard to find good people. What is the best way to prepare good leaders?
• The focus on literacy at all sites was impressive.
• The variation in small schools was very interesting. It was good to see there is choice for students.
• The level of involvement by the community partners was so strong; they were well integrated into the school design.
• Issue of scale is a huge challenge, but you should grow the new schools slowly at high quality levels.
• There was a lack of focus on improving large high schools; we only saw a focus on creating small schools.
• The NYC partnerships are very integrated, but what role does the state play in all this? We didn’t hear much at all about the state role, aside from the Regents exam requirements.
• Higher education was not part of the core team in NYC.
• I expected the new small schools to be using new curriculum and teaching strategies, but they used fairly traditional approaches.

Lessons Learned from the Site Visit

• Principals can create a culture in which adults are responsible for all children in a building and that holds all students to high expectations and standards, regardless of which small school they belong to. By sharing common goals and high expectations for every young person in the building, the principals create an environment that benefits even the students who aren’t in a designated small school.
• The size of the school matters as much for teachers as it does for students. Just as teachers are able to keep track of and help students in smaller classes and smaller schools, high school principals can more easily work with a smaller number of faculty. In smaller schools, the principal, or other instructional leader, has more opportunity to observe teachers, to work with teachers on an individual basis, and to encourage teachers to work together to share their knowledge.
• Intermediary organizations play an important role in mediating the reform efforts and providing an independent voice to keep reform efforts on track. Organizations like New Visions for Public Schools are an important ingredient in district-wide reform efforts. It is not to say that a district cannot reform itself without an intermediary, but it is a much easier process with them for several reasons. First, the intermediary can bring expertise to the district and school, through technical assistance, visioning, leadership academies, and access to outside experts. Second, an intermediary can focus on solving some of the tough challenges, such as adolescent literacy, in a deeper, more thoughtful way that is hard for a district or school to do given the daily press of business. Third, an intermediary can serve as an outside force for change and keep pressure on the public education system. Fourth, intermediaries may come with their own resources which can be strategically focused on specific needs of the high schools (professional development, research, leadership development). Fifth, intermediaries can serve as conveners to bring together diverse groups of people or organizations working on various aspects of high school reform and help focus their efforts to be complementary and mutually reinforcing and supportive.
• High schools need new relationships with other organizations in the community in order to provide the type of learning options youth need. Many of the New Century High Schools have partners that are providing relevant learning experiences in the community for youth, informing the curriculum and instruction to make it more applied and linked to real-world problem solving, and providing extra supports and services, such as college awareness and access programs, to youth to help them succeed. The community partner also provides an opportunity for individuals and entities in the neighborhood to participate in the design of the school, thereby bringing additional ideas, social capital, and oftentimes resources. The partnership between LaGuardia Community College and the NYC Department of Education to support the middle and early college high schools is another example of new relationships needed in the high school transformation process. However, most funding sources and existing programs do not recognize partnerships and relationships of this nature, which makes sustaining these programs a challenge.
• Effective professional development strategies increasingly seem to include teacher-driven, reflective activities. While professional development has for years been structured as an off-site activity with outside experts coming in to share their knowledge with teachers, more and more reformed schools are using a different model, that parallels the changes occurring in high school pedagogy. Teachers are increasingly setting the professional development agenda based on what they need to know at that time, and they are helping each other by sharing their knowledge, examining student work, and reflecting on how their instruction can improve student outcomes. Just as students are being asked to work together to solve and reflect on problems that have more relevance to them, teachers are working cooperatively to improve teaching and student outcomes. More than once, we heard that teachers are the experts on improving instruction.
• While the school is the agent of instructional change, the district can facilitate school reform by building the capacity of local schools in the areas of need, by providing targeted assistance based on the needs of the school, and by focusing on high profile and strategic problems, like adolescent literacy. The NYC school district is intentional about becoming a system that supports high performing schools as opposed to a high performing district.

Contact Information

Morris High School Campus:

Paulette Franklin
Principal
Bronx Leadership Academy II
1110 Boston Road
Bronx, New York 10456
718-542-3700, ext. 2360-ph./718-991-0117
franklinbla@yahoo.com

Wade Fuller
Principal
School for Excellence
1110 Boston Road
Bronx, New York 10456
718-542-3700, ext. 4181/718-860-4882-fax
wfuller1@nyc.rr.com

Joseph Sherman
Director
High School for Violin and Dance
1110 Boston Road
Bronx, NY 10456
718-542-3700, ext, 2116 – ph./718-991-0117-fax.
jsherm@nycboe.net

Shael Suransky
Principal
Bronx International High School
1110 Boston Road
Bronx, NY 10456
718-620-1053-ph./718-620-1056-fax
shaelp@aol.com

South Bronx High School Campus:

Felice Lepore
Principal
Academy for Careers in Sports
701 St. Ann’s Avenue
Bronx, NY 10455
718-993-6353, ext. 251-ph./718-993-4713
flepore@nycboe.net

Ana Maldonado
Principal
Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School
701 Saint Ann’s Avenue
Bronx, NY 10455
718-402-0571-ph/718-402-0917
amaldon3@nycboe.net

Despina Zaharakis
Principal
The New Explorers High School
701 St. Ann’s Avenue
Bronx, NY 10455
718-993-3634-ph./718-993-3638-fax
dzahara@nycboe.net

Core Team Governing Body:

Michele Cahill
Senior Counselor to the Chancellor for Educational Policy
New York City Department of Education
52 Chambers Street
New York, NY 10001
212-374-0210-ph./212-374-5588-fax
mcahill@nycboe.net

Joe Colletti
Special Representative for Educational Programs
United Federation of Teachers
52 Broadway
New York, NY 10001
212-598-9235-ph./212-674-0036-fax
jcolletti@aol.com

Robert Hughes
President
New Visions for Public Schools
96 Morton Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10014
212-645-5110-ph./212-645-7409
rhughes@newvisions.org

Manny Korman
Council of Supervisors and Administrators
16 Court Street, 4th Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11241
718-852-3000, ext. 240
manny@csa-nyc.org

Jennie Soler-McIntosh
Senior Program Officer
New Visions for Public Schools
96 Morton Street, 6th Floor
NY, NY 10014
212-645-5110-ph./212-645-7409
jsolermcintosh@newvisions.org

Constancia Warren
Senior Program Officer and Director of Urban High School Initiative
Carnegie Corporation of New York
437 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10022
212-207-6229-ph./212-207-6333-fax

LaGuardia Community College:

Cecilia Cunningham
Director
Middle College National Consortium at LaGuardia Community College
31-10 Thomson Avenue, C232
Long Island City, NY 11101
718-609-2025-ph./718-609-2041-fax
mcnc@lagcc.cuny.edu

Aaron Listhaus
Principal
Middle College High School at LaGuardia Community College
31-10 Thomson Avenue
Long Island City, NY 11101
718-349-4001-ph./718-349-4003-fax.
alisthaus@lagcc.cuny.edu

Dr. Gail O. Mellow
President
LaGuardia Community College
The City University of New York
31-10 Thomson Avenue
Long Island City, NY 11101
718-482-5050- tel/718-609-2009- fax
gmellow@lagcc.cuny.edu
gmellow@lagcc.cuny.edu

Burt Rosenberg
Principal
The International High School at LaGuardia Community College
31-10 Thomson Avenue
Long Island City, NY 11101
718-482-5455-ph./718-392-6904-fax
brosenberg@lagcc.cuny.edu

American Youth Policy Forum   1836 Jefferson Place NW,  Washington DC 20036
Telephone 202-775-9731      |      Fax 202-775-9733      |     Email aypf@aypf.org