Thursday, December 09, 1999
City high schools 'a failure'
Six neighborhood schools face overhaul
BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Calling their neighborhood high schools “a failure,” Cincinnati Public Schools administrators presented plans Wednesday to overhaul six schools into specialized programs that could include a military academy, “virtual” high school, international academy and a technological school.
High dropout rates and abysmal achievement at Aiken, Hughes, Taft, Western Hills, Withrow and Woodward demand the redesign, Superintendent Steven Adamowski told the school board at its committee meeting at the district's Corryville headquarters.
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HIGH SCHOOL CHANGES
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Proposed changes to the city's public high schools include restructuring schools into “preparatory academies” for grades 9-10 and “senior institutes” for grades 11-12.
Senior institutes would offer specialized programs. Suggestions include:
• Continuing existing specialized programs, which include the teaching professions, health professions, communications, math and science and various careers.
• Launching programs that focus on information technology, university (college preparatory), museum schools, environmental technology, personal fit ness careers/recreational management and virtual high school. At a museum school, students would study at area museums. At a virtual high school, they would take classes online.
• Altering the traditional structure. One senior institute would be open 18 hours a day year-round, offering students a menu of courses. Other options include a K-12 international academy focusing on foreign languages and offering studies in global finance; a 9-12 military academy similar to successful programs in Chicago and Kansas City; a 9-12 Paideia school; and a 9-12 year-round school.
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Two-thirds of CPS ninth-graders don't graduate within four years; most drop out, and some transfer or are held back. And at Aiken, Taft, Withrow and Woodward, less than a fifth of ninth-graders passed all sections of the Ohio Ninth-Grade Proficiency Test; 40 percent passed at Hughes and 30 percent at West High.
“This is an intolerable level,” Mr. Adamowski said of those statistics. High school redesign “is one of the most intractable yet most important aspects of raising student achievement today.”
The plan would restructure high schools to have a “preparatory academy” for grades 9-10 and a “senior institute” for grades 11-12.
Schools would be small. Enrollment would be about 600 students instead of the 1,200 to 2,200 that CPS high schools now enroll.
The preparatory academies would team four teachers to teach 60 to 80 students and would emphasize the core academic subjects. They would offer an accelerated curriculum for students for their grade and would require students to meet standards before moving to 11th grade.
The senior institute would enroll about 250 students and would offer specialized curricula, such as a year-round school, military academy and “virtual” high school.
School board members plan to offer the public three months to offer opinions on the plan.
Changes likely won't hap pen until the 2001-02 school year.
Administrators aim to do a market study asking parents which options they prefer. Board member Lynn Marmer also directed administrators to do an economic study of Greater Cincinnati to determine how the district can align its high school programs with projected job shortages in the next decade.
In a district fighting high student mobility, one school board member worried that restructuring high schools into preparatory academies and senior institutes conflicts with efforts to create more personal, familial learning environments.
“It becomes less familial if students transfer twice during their high school careers,” Catherine Ingram said.
But John Bryant, Cincinnati Youth Collaborative executive director and a member of the committee that produced the redesign recommendations, said overhaul is long overdue.
“Grades 9 and 10 are holding pens for young people until they drop out,” Mr. Bryant said.
Holly Arnold, a Cheviot mother of two whose sons attend Western Hills High and the School for Creative and Performing Arts, agreed: “My oldest son doesn't like school. He has never liked school. Specialized programs might have interested him more in school.”
Strengthening academics at grades 9 and 10 is crucial, Mrs. Arnold said, saying that her son is penalized because he passed state proficiency tests early yet has to sit through proficiency preparation as teachers prepare failing students.
The report completes three months of study by a committee of teachers, administrators, parents and community members.
The committee researched existing effective high schools nationwide, conducted a focus group of students, surveyed the city's high-schoolers and met with local educators.
Another committee is studying high school facilities and whether existing buildings can accommodate redesign recommendations. Kenton Cashell, the committee's chairman and district business executive, said he expects to present a status report within a month and a final report in March.
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