Langston: There are a lot of good ideas in there, but the #1 most important thing, I believe, is that they set high standards and they rigorously pursued those standards without excuses.

To hell with every school board who has ever voted to lower standards so as not to offend some angry parent with a big mouth and dumbass kid. To hell with everyone who has ever suggested we move the goalposts so that subpar students didn't fail and feel bad about themselves. Failure has a purpose. It pushes motivated people to try harder. The "everyone gets a prize" mentality cheapens the effort of the students who do bust their asses and focus.

Boobies in thread and best to this point.

Hats off to this school. May it be cloned across the nation. High standards, no excuses.

Wishes there were more charter and magnet schools like that one. The biggest issue our youngest has in school is distractions from other kids who don't want to be there or are apparently raised by wolves. It is hard to absorb lessons when someone is causing outbursts or other distractions all the time. It is better this year because they divided the students up into classes of those who are further ahead and the problem brats. Of course the parents of the problem brats are all butthurt. I can tell a major difference with the youngest no longer coming home complaining about other students disrupting things.

I would be all for uniforms and gender separated schools as an option. They seem like a throwback but it seems to remove some major distractions.

soze: John Dewey: I have to wonder, though, if the parents always gave a damn then why did a)only 4% of the kids read at grade-level and b)the school needed to buy the kids watches to take away the excuse of being late?

Motivational trick to make the kids accountable, not the parents. Both of my parents worked so pretty much from 7:30am-5pm my time was up to me. I got dropped off before school started, and it was up to me to actually show up in the right classroom at the right time.

What you're describing is true for every other student too. There's no employee that brings students into the classrooms at certain times.

The no girls thing is bunk. I went to an all-sausagefest HS and I'm moron who theb and now can barely pass any of my courses!

Seriously, though. Where are the girls now?

Did they just dump them in some other public school in Chicago? How's that school doing now? 2% reading at grade level?

I love the feel good story here, but I feel like there's a good deal missing that might reflect poorly on this plan.

SecretAgentWoman: jspenguin: So what are the girls supposed to do? Did they just kick them out and send them to another underachieving high school?

Get back into the kitchen and let the men lead, apparently. What farking bullshiat.

I'll remember that the next time I see Saint Mary's School for Girls. Or see an ad for Sarah Lawrence College.

"Hmmmm.....totally successful urban school, 100% college acceptance........wait, charter school? Close it down."

So if the Learning environment isn't working you can look at the problem change things and get results?

All kinds of win here.

Yes, this was successful at this school.

Yes, this school removed several of the stumbling blocks other schools have no choice but to deal with.

Yes, this is impressive as hell (I've been to the South Side of Chicago).

Yes, many public schools could take elements of this away and put them to use.

/forwarded this to the entire staff of the high school where I teach
//subject line asked "Where can we get a good deal on watches?"

limboslam: "Hmmmm.....totally successful urban school, 100% college acceptance........wait, charter school? Close it down."

FAIL.

Obama (and his education secretary Arne Duncan) LOVE Charter schools. There as bad as any neo-con dipshiat when it comes to education policy.

ZAZ: #1 reason for success -- the school was populated by lottery from students who wanted to attend a good school and whose parents wanted them to attend a good school.

It doesn't say in the article, but I bet they can toss out people who cause problems or don't put out the required effort.

The_Six_Fingered_Man: SecretAgentWoman: jspenguin: So what are the girls supposed to do? Did they just kick them out and send them to another underachieving high school?

Get back into the kitchen and let the men lead, apparently. What farking bullshiat.

I'll remember that the next time I see Saint Mary's School for Girls. Or see an ad for Sarah Lawrence College.

You're talking about private schools and colleges. This is about a PUBLIC school telling the girls in this area that they're not important enough to even try and get a better education. THAT is farked up beyond all belief.

Props to the school, but they really should nix the gender inequality.

Another triumph of Bush's educational initiatives!

///got no other trolls
////good for them (yeah, you get accepted to community college as long as your application check clears)

Chowder_17: HairBolus: FTA: "Entire Graduating Class of Urban Prep Charter Academy Accepted to College"

That is easy - I can do that for any school by simply making 'college acceptance' a requirement for graduation.

How many students didn't graduate or were thrown out?

What about those of us who joined the military from high school?

Who said you had to GO to college? You just have to be accepted by a college and I hope you realize that there are many colleges that will accept almost anybody. Many Junior/community colleges are set up this way.

StoneColdAtheist: HairBolus: How many students didn't graduate or were thrown out?

Even without the snark this is an important question. With a tiny student body and a "no excuses" attitude, I was wondering the same things.

- Three tardy slips and you're out?
- Disrupt class a few times and you're out?
- Don't turn in your homework and you're out?

I don't mean to be critical of the school's efforts, but there is a lot missing from this short article. More to the point, a small school with highly selective retention policies can show great improvement when it can flush its failures back into the mainstream school system.

So what? The real world works the same way. Fail to uphold the standards too many times, and you're out. No prize will be awarded.

Lorelle: It's nice to read some good news for a change. Congrats to everyone involved with this school.

THIS

The_Six_Fingered_Man: SecretAgentWoman: jspenguin: So what are the girls supposed to do? Did they just kick them out and send them to another underachieving high school?

Get back into the kitchen and let the men lead, apparently. What farking bullshiat.

I'll remember that the next time I see Saint Mary's School for Girls. Or see an ad for Sarah Lawrence College.

SecretAgentWoman wasn't talking about the middle-class girls who get into those schools. She meant what happened to the girls in that inner city neighborhood? I wonder, too.

Is this a new thing to not wear a watch? I remember in the early 90's in high school and 80's in junior high school, everyone wore watches.

HairBolus: Who said you had to GO to college? You just have to be accepted by a college and I hope you realize that there are many colleges that will accept almost anybody. Many Junior/community colleges are set up this way.

And I forgot to say, I bet they have a required 1 semester course titled 'Preparing Your College Application'.

MaritimeGirl: Is this a new thing to not wear a watch? I remember in the early 90's in high school and 80's in junior high school, everyone wore watches.

Now everybody gets the time off their cell phone.

"No such thing as bad student...



...only bad teacher. Teacher say, student do...sad, but fact of life."

I've seen a black guy with a clock before.

The Icelander:
What these clueless managers didn't do is create a culture of innovation at the company. So the "personal projects" people were working on ended up being things like "How High a Score can I get in Solitaire?" and "How can I Duck Out Early Without My Boss Seeing Me?"


My high score in Solitaire (one-card, standard-timed) is 9411.

/don't do it at work, which i think is even worse...

ciocia: Now everybody gets the time off their cell phone

Even the "poor" kids with their touchscreen phones...

/seriously - I work at a Title I School, and the amount of kids with I-phones that get free lunches would turn your stomach...

Arthur Jumbles: FYI - all this media attention, according to the teachers (who really hate it), seems to be hurting the kids. A lot of energy was put into making this senior class successful and the attention is going to their heads. Some of them apparently think they have it made and their motivation level has dropped. This could jeopardize their college admissions.

Irony alert.

John Dewey: The problem with applying their success to other schools is this, people who make decisions will read this article and think, "Wow, if I make the school day longer I'll get similar results." While I think the school day should be longer than it is, and by extending it you will get some (probably small) benefit from it, the longer school day really was just one part of the equation.

I agree with this, people look at a good idea and then take only pieces of the idea and wonder why it doesn't work.

Sure eight hour days, remove distractions, and all the other ideas are great, but lets not rule out the kids want to be there.

ciocia: MaritimeGirl: Is this a new thing to not wear a watch? I remember in the early 90's in high school and 80's in junior high school, everyone wore watches.

Now everybody gets the time off their cell phone.

I have a cellphone but I still feel naked the odd time I've forgotten to put my watch on in the morning before going to work.

Alleyoop: /what every student having a wristwatch may look like

Hahahaha....awesome.

StoneColdAtheist: I don't mean to be critical of the school's efforts, but there is a lot missing from this short article. More to the point, a small school with highly selective retention policies can show great improvement when it can flush its failures back into the mainstream school system.

Maybe this means the mainstream school system should flush their failures as well.

If a kid doesn't want to learn there's no amount of teaching or funding or discipline that will make him. Stop wasting taxpayer dollars on him.

jspenguin: So what are the girls supposed to do? Did they just kick them out and send them to another underachieving high school?

Girls don't need higher education. They can learn everything they need to know at home in the kitchen.

/I keed

Bohemian: The biggest issue our youngest has in school is distractions from other kids who don't want to be there or are apparently raised by wolves.

This is why, after our kids are done at the local elementary school, we'll be enrolling them in cyber charter schools. The local elementary is where the professors form F&M send their kids, and it's the best in the city. The local middle school serves a wider population and is among the worst in the city. (Which isn't saying much. Our city's middle schools are terrible.)

Besides, with the cyber charter school my kids will learn how to set their own goals, complete assignments on their own, and we'll be able to take them on better field trips.

Langston: There are a lot of good ideas in there, but the #1 most important thing, I believe, is that they set high standards and they rigorously pursued those standards without excuses.

To hell with every school board who has ever voted to lower standards so as not to offend some angry parent with a big mouth and dumbass kid. To hell with everyone who has ever suggested we move the goalposts so that subpar students didn't fail and feel bad about themselves. Failure has a purpose. It pushes motivated people to try harder. The "everyone gets a prize" mentality cheapens the effort of the students who do bust their asses and focus.

I read in the Boobies what I came here to say.

The Icelander: Maybe this means the mainstream school system should flush their failures as well.

They do. It's called a swirly.

cookiefleck: By "urban" do they mean "black"?

No, Urban in this instance means inner city Ghetto. Most people in the Ghetto are black, but not all.

I call shenanigans.

Next thing you'll be telling me that eating less and exercising more will help me lose weight.

While I commend the school for its achievements, this is a charter school. Where I live, we have charter schools as well and not just anybody can get into them. You have to apply to the school and prove your worthiness. So I'm assuming that the school in the article got to pick the kids they felt would be the most committed and reject the rest. So ya, you take a small number of kids who are committed to learning and you will probably turn out half-way decent graduates. I'm not saying the school isn't doing a good job. But if they were forced to take all the other kids they rejected then I'm guessing their graduation and college acceptance rates wouldn't be quite as high.

Note the grammatical error in this sentence from the story's lead: "Now, for the first graduating class at the high school, it's mission accomplished."

It's probably most significant that the extra 2 hours wasn't just filled with more study halls. My state requires X number of hours in the school day, but most students only spend half that time in a classroom being taught a subject.

limboslam: "Hmmmm.....totally successful urban school, 100% college acceptance........wait, charter school? Close it down."

Are you just daft, or do you take every opportunity to bash Obama? The president is a big proponent of charter schools. My god, know something before posting.

This is great. It's difficult for Black nerds to get ahead. When I say black "nerds" I of course mean anyone who's ever been called an Oreo, white on the inside, or worse just for wanting to do well, learn things, and prosper.In some neighborhoods, those kids get picked on mercilessly.

It's good that they can voluntarily go somewhere where they can pursue their dreams without being alienated for it.

Jackdragna: My god, know something before posting.

Fark you biatch, don't tell me how to internet!

Cares about the keeeeds

/hotness

jspenguin: So what are the girls supposed to do? Did they just kick them out and send them to another underachieving high school?

Go back to the kitchen?

/ducks

There ganerally aren't any miracles when it comes to educating kids. Charter schools get so much good publicity and their success is never put in the proper context. Every story I read says something like "serving the same population as the city's public schools." Some do, but most don't. If there were a place for public schools to send their chronic problems, then the results could be comparable.

Going through the process of signing up for the charter school lottery is more than some parents in low-income areas would do for their child's education.

If I had kids in the system and was unable to pay for Catholic school, I sure as hell would be pushing my kid into a charter school. But they aren't a panacea.

The Icelander: StoneColdAtheist: I don't mean to be critical of the school's efforts...

If a kid doesn't want to learn there's no amount of teaching or funding or discipline that will make him. Stop wasting taxpayer dollars on him.

I agree. My daughter used to teach at the local high school, and since she was junior she got stuck with the least desirable students. Teaching them algebra was like trying to teach a pig to sing...it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

NCLB mandates college prep classes for everyone that wants it, though, so there is no shunting the right kids into a useful (for them) alternative education.

Life are serious bidness, though, and this will come round to bite us in the arse.