Turning Around Locke High School
Sam Dillon at the NYT reports on the cost of trying to turn around a failing school. Readers of Donna Foote’s Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches with Teach for America will remember the problems at LA’s Locke High School, a school that has been described as the worst of the worst high schools in America. All the problems were there: poor academic achievement, low graduation rates, violence and gangs.
Dillon sets the scene:
As recently as 2008, Locke High School here was one of the nation’s worst failing schools, and drew national attention for its hallway beatings, bathroom rapes and rooftop parties held by gangs. For every student who graduated, four others dropped out.
There have been changes for the good at Locke since it was taken over by the Green Dot charter school group in 2008. It might better be described as a turning-around than as a turned-around school. But the changes have come at a cost, and that’s the focus of Dillon’s story.
In interviews, Mr. Petruzzi and other Green Dot officials offered a budget overview. Before and since Green Dot’s takeover, tax dollars have financed Locke’s annual operating budget of upward of $30 million, which during the four-year turnaround will total about $115 million, he said.
By then, expenditures will have exceeded that four-year, taxpayer-supported budget by about $15 million, with philanthropies making up most of the difference.
Because much of the money spent to improve Locke comes from private foundations, some folks are wondering if $6 million — the cap set by the Department of Education on federal spending to reform any single failing school– is enough to replicate Locke’s successes elsewhere.
The really interesting part of the story is how Green Dot has spent the money and what they have achieved.
… gang violence is sharply down, fewer students are dropping out, and test scores have inched upward. Newly planted olive trees in Locke’s central plaza have helped transform the school’s concrete quadrangle into a place where students congregate and do homework.
According to the Department of Education blog:
The change is visible throughout the school. Now, students are showing up for school on time. Class attendance has risen above 90 percent. Test scores have increased.
Dillon lists more changes, including a change in the teaching staff:
The school’s principal in 2007 complained publicly that the Los Angeles Unified School District had made it a dumping ground for problem teachers.
Kevin Rauda, a senior, recalled a teacher who read newspapers in class instead of teaching. In spring 2008, only 15 percent of students passed state math tests.
…Green Dot required Locke’s 120 teachers to reapply for their jobs. It rehired about 40, favoring teachers who showed enthusiasm and a belief that all Locke students could learn. The campus stays open each day until early evening for science tutoring, band and other activities.
Security was improved:
In August 2008, Kevin King, a retired police lieutenant hired by Green Dot, toured Locke’s campus and found broken windows, smashed lights, and security cameras that did not work. Teachers’ cars were parked helter-skelter, including on some handball courts; gang members were selling drugs on others.
“Kids couldn’t even go to the bathroom without being pocket-checked or hassled,” Mr. King said.
He put together a new security force to expel the gangs. Green Dot fixed the lights and cameras, painted over graffiti, reorganized the parking, and hired bus companies to transport 500 students who previously walked dangerous streets to school.
Locke was reorganized. The unwieldy 3200 student body was divided into smaller academies within the school.
All of these changes cost money: hiring the bus companies, improving security, hiring more people to administer and staff the academies, building a classroom to house the new architecture academy.
And this is a wonderful cost to cover:
Green Dot has also spent several million dollars for additional classroom space because hundreds of students who had cut school or dropped out now show up for class, [Green Dot Public Schools chief executive] Mr. Petruzzi said.
Wonderful as these changes are, it’s obvious that their impact won’t show up in test scores overnight:
Although state test scores administered in spring 2009, just months after the Green Dot makeover began, showed modest gains, Locke remained among California’s lowest-performing schools. Still, a dozen students said in recent interviews that the school was safer and instruction had improved.
Still leaving the much-debated question: Does it make more sense to put money into turning around failing schools or to just start over? Maybe it depends on which school we’re talking about.
