Many parents, teachers, and educators struggle with providing an appropriate educational environment for secondary school students, particularly students who are having difficulty. The following article discusses this concern and how one community has continued to provide students from a variety of backgrounds an exceptional high school education.

When my son started high school, I had already spent 18 years working as a teacher and a teacher educator in American secondary schools. I took him with me for a few days in my round of visits to a variety of high schools, urban and suburban. I knew enough people that I could probably have maneuvered his entry into any of them. In the end he chose a school where I had worked a decade earlier, an urban public school in a run-down building. Among the reasons for his choice: "I didn't want to be stuffed in a locker, and I wanted someone to make me do my work."

The Oakland Street Academy has no fights, no guns, no violence. It also has no security guards and no metal detectors. Said parent Velma Boden at a recent meeting with school board members, "My daughter cut EVERY day at School X [the nearby large high school]. She has not cut once since she has been at Street Academy."

The Street Academy was an outgrowth of the civil rights movement. It was created 25 years ago by the National Urban League, the Oakland Public Schools, and the National Institute of Education. The term "charter school" had not yet been coined, but there were provisions for a few "alternative" schools, and the Street Academy staff began working on a school environment that felt good to urban, disenfranchised youngsters.

Unlike other public alternatives, it has survived and achieved greater recognition each year. It was named a California Distinguished School in 1991, and its nomination was based largely on the academic progress of its African-American male students. It was termed a "miracle school" in one network news broadcast and has often been used as a site for teacher training.

A critical element in its success is size. With 160 students and 10 staff members, everyone knows everyone, a key element in atmosphere control. In fact, one graduate, now a nurse, said that she was able to finish school at Street Academy because it "felt like an elementary school, with a principal who could watch over everything" (Epstein, 1988). The size issue causes some to dismiss the Street Academy's relevance as a model for other schools, but this reaction seems short-sighted. The more successful secondary schools everywhere do tend to be smaller, and this includes most European high schools and the elite private schools of North America. Elementary schools are all small; high schools could be also. Some argue that America's large high schools are already built and cannot be replaced. But the country is beginning to spend enormous amounts on school-based security measures-metal detectors and stationary police or security guards, for example. Building smaller schools would be cheaper in the long run. In the meantime, the large schools might need to be broken up into small, self-enclosed units.

The second element of its success is its philosophy. The typical American high school was founded on the philosophy of people like Elwood Cubberly, for whom the Stanford School of Education is named. In 1909 he said, "Our city schools will soon be forced to give up the exceedingly democratic idea that all are equal." Instead, he said, "Our schools are, in a sense, factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned into products to meet the various demands of life. The specifications for manufacturing come from the demands of twentieth century civilization, and it is the business of the school to build its pupils to the specifications laid down." Such "hidden" curriculum may still exist. Norm-referenced testing may convince at least 49% of students that they aren't very smart. The daily schedule of 50-minute classes implies to both students and teachers that they are not expected to know each other very well. Instead, like assembly-line products, students have English "welded" onto their brains at 10 a.m., and biology "bolted on" at 11 a.m.

The Street Academy, in contrast, has an egalitarian outlook, implemented every year in a thousand tiny decisions. The school, when offered extra money to become a "continuation school" (generally considered a school for "drop-outs"), rejected the money because students would have received a stigmatizing diploma. Likewise, when offered GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) money for a portion of the students, the staff said "No" with the explanation that "All Street Academy students are gifted."

Each Street Academy student has a "consulting teacher" who is a real force in his or her life. This teacher measures out punishment for minor infractions (for example, late and missed homework); brings the student to "staff meeting" for more major offenses (cutting class or not making academic progress); provides job, college, and medical advice when needed; and keeps in constant contact with the parent about the student's progress. The unstated implication of the consulting teacher system is that each adolescent is worthy of sustained individual attention from a school adult.

The Street Academy curriculum is structured on the assumption that all students should be ready for college. Four days out of five are devoted to an unvarying set of academic subjects which all are expected to complete. Students enroll in three or four academic courses each quarter. Classes are one hour and fifteen minutes long. If a student does not achieve a grade of "C" or better in a class, he or she continues to be enrolled in it the next quarter. On the fifth day, students participate in intensive elective classes. Bicycling class trained for a trip from Northern California to Mexico last year. "Horses on the Hill" takes students to a wealthier section of Oakland to study horsemanship. In "Teachers in Training," youngsters work in an Oakland elementary school classroom as teachers' aides.

The Street Academy practices multiculturalism, which lauds the communities from which its students emerge. A majority of Street Academy staff have always been African-American and Latino. Asian, Latino, Native American, and African-American literature is thoroughly integrated into the curriculum alongside Shakespeare and Chaucer. Racism is explicitly discussed and rejected.

The Street Academy has something in common with the private, elite boarding schools where the children of wealthy parents are ensured school success in a safe, personal, and unbureaucratic environment (Persell, 1979). Those schools assume that each child is worthy of safety, personal attention, knowledge, discipline, and the validation of their class and culture. Large, bureaucratic high schools for poor and working-class children often make none of those assumptions. It is in that sense that Street Academy provides a unique model. It may help to answer some questions about what we should be providing in secondary education for all children.

Sources

Epstein, Kitty Kelly. (1989). Early school-leaving: What the leavers say. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley.

Epstein, Kitty Kelly. (1993). Case studies in dropping out and dropping back in. Journal of Education, 174(3), 55-65.

Persell, Caroline Hodges. (1979). Education and inequality. NY: Free Press.

For More Information

Robertson, Anne S. (1997). If an adolescent begins to fail in school, what can parents and teachers do? ERIC Digest. Champaign, IL: ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education. ED 415 001. Also available online at: http://ericeece.org/pubs/digests/1997/rober97b.html

Robertson, Anne S. (1998). Adolescent behavior: Resources available for additional support. Parent News [online]. Available: http://npin.org/pnews/1998/pnew798/inte798a.html [1998, July].

Teens, sleep, and school.(1998). Parent News [online]. Available: http://npin.org/pnews/1998/pnew898/inte898d.html [1998, August].