Creating a Personalized and Orderly Learning Environment in High Schools
A positive school climate — where students and adults know each other well and where adults express care and concern for students’ well-being, intellectual growth, and educational success — is a key motivational element in the learning process for adolescents. But the large size of many low-performing high schools leaves many students, especially those who are less academically successful, feeling lost and anonymous and prevents the development of an atmosphere conducive to learning. This problem may be exacerbated for ninth-graders leaving behind the more family-like environment of middle school — a critical issue because students attending low-performing schools who do not complete ninth grade successfully and on schedule are at greatly heightened risk of dropping out altogether. MDRC’s studies of three reform models — Career Academies, First Things First, and Talent Development — suggest that changes in the structure and functioning of large high schools can help remedy the impersonality of these schools.
- Student survey data suggest that small learning communities — groups of students who share the same cadres of core-subject teachers — make students feel known and cared about by their teachers. Students in First Things First schools registered higher levels of perceived support from their teachers after the demonstration was implemented than they had before it was put in place, and Career Academy students reported higher levels of teacher support than members of a control group.
- The experiences of First Things First in Kansas City, Kansas, and of Talent Development in Philadelphia indicate that both small learning communities that encompass all four grade levels and separate Freshman Academies followed by communities for upperclassmen can play a role in increasing attendance and reducing dropout rates. While feeling connected to teachers and classmates is only one factor that promotes attendance and persistence, both interventions, with their different small learning community structures, had positive effects on these outcomes.
- The separate Freshman Academy structure may have played a key role in helping more ninth-graders succeed in the critical first year of high school. Students in Talent Development’s Ninth Grade Success Academies received special attention from their teachers, and their rates of attendance and on-time promotion were higher than those of ninth-graders in comparison schools.
- Faculty advisory systems can give students a sense that there is an adult in the school looking out for their well-being. Almost three-quarters of First Things First students reported on surveys that their advisor was either “very important” or “sort of important” in giving them someone to talk to when needed, helping them do better on schoolwork, and recognizing their accomplishments. Training helped family advocates perform their roles more effectively.
- Implementing small learning communities is not easy. School administrators and program operators report that scheduling classes to ensure that they contain only teachers and students within the same small learning community can present a major challenge. This problem is especially marked for students in the upper grades, who may want to take electives offered only by communities other than the one to which they belong.
- Implementing small learning communities is likely to improve the climate of schools but will not, in and of itself, increase student achievement. It may help to do so, but the studies do not provide conclusive evidence on this point. All three initiatives that were studied involved small learning communities. Talent Development improved eleventh-grade math and reading test scores for students where the intervention had been in place longest (although other elements of the model undoubtedly also contributed to these results). By contrast, Career Academies had no effect on achievement, and First Things First was effective in boosting achievement only in the first district where it was implemented and in one school in a second district.
This Issue Focus is an excerpt from Meeting Five Critical Challenges of High School Reform: Lessons on Research from Three Reform Models by Janet Quint, published by MDRC in May 2006.
Key Documents
Career Academies: Impacts on Labor Market Outcomes and Educational Attainment by James J. Kemple (2004)
Making Progress Toward Graduation: Evidence from the Talent Development High School Model by James J. Kemple, Corinne Herlihy, and Thomas J. Smith (2005)
The Challenge of Scaling Up Educational Reform: Findings and Lessons from First Things First by Janet Quint, Howard S. Bloom, Alison Rebeck Black, and LaFleur Stephens with Theresa M. Akey (2005)
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