Clark U. helps make Mass. high school a success

WORCESTER, Mass. - The three ninth graders huddled over the algebra problem: Which summer job would be more lucrative for their teacher's son?

"Explain your reasoning. Show all work that supports your effort. Write a note to Mr. Knittle, telling him which is the better offer, and convince him to take that job," the assignment read. "Make sure you COMPLETELY explain how to change this into a mathematical exercise that everyone can understand."

The bar is high at this small public high school, and the hurdles are unusual. The school has earned international recognition and numerous accolades for its ability to take low-performing students and turn nearly all of them into first-generation college-bound teens.

The success of University Park Campus School can be attributed to its partnership with nearby Clark University - one of the oldest doctoral-granting universities in America, and one that counts Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie (Class of '73) among its graduates.

As the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University pursue plans to run two small high schools in the Philadelphia School District, the Clark University model serves as a prime example of how such a partnership can succeed.

As the proposed September 2009 openings approach, Drexel and Penn officials say they plan to look closely at Clark's approach.

The Clark school's success is quite a feat, considering that students from its gritty, poor neighborhood enter as seventh graders reading two grade levels below the norm.

A sign over its front door reads: "The School With a Promise," and one needs to look no further than the older siblings of Angel Mercado, 15, and his two algebra classmates to know that the promise has been realized over the last decade.

Clark supplies a steady stream of student teachers, mentors, training for school staff, and fund-raising assistance, in addition to hosting high school students on its 50-acre campus for college-level classes.

Other factors in University Park's success are its small size, which allows deeper relationships between its 230 students and teachers; its ability to begin working with youngsters in seventh grade; and its dynamic staff who require students to present, perform and collaborate.

The challenge for Penn and Drexel is even greater than that faced in Worcester. The new Philadelphia schools would draw from the same neighborhood that feeds University City High School, where about three-fourths of the students read and do math below basic levels.

"High schools, for the most part, are engines of inertia. You come in low, you leave low. You come in high, you leave high," said Karin Chenoweth, a senior writer at the Washington-based Education Trust, who has visited University Park and written a book that features it. "But at University Park, kids come in at low levels of achievement and leave at high levels. That's extraordinary and demonstrates that it can be done."

Consider the track record of the older siblings of Angel Mercado and his classmates.

Juan Ojeda's sister is a freshman at Pace University majoring in communications. Andreina Perez's sister attends Vassar. And Mercado's brother, Damian Ramsey, valedictorian of University Park's first graduating class in 2003, graduated from Brown University and is currently a master's student at Penn.

Ramsey, 23, is a social-work intern at West Philadelphia High, one of the city's lowest-performing schools, which saw a spate of teacher assaults and fires last year. The experience has made Ramsey all the more grateful for his University Park education.

"I know from firsthand experience what students go through in disadvantaged schools," he said, referring to West Philadelphia's lack of resources and harsh feel from metal detectors and tight security. "So, if I had gone to any school other than University Park, I probably would have had a different fate."

From Massachusetts to Chicago to California, more universities are trying to improve public high schools as they seek to enhance their neighborhoods, create learning labs for education majors, and prove that low-performing students, given the right support, can achieve.

Some are running schools independently, either as charters or lab schools. Others operate schools in partnership with local school districts. Some of the models are offering students - especially poor students - a chance to earn a year or more of college credits while still in high school.

The Thurgood Marshall College Fund, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has paired six public high schools with historically black colleges since 2004. More are planned.

Opened in 1997, Clark's program came about as the 2,800-student liberal arts research university was looking for new ways to revive its neighborhood, the most economically disadvantaged in Worcester.

Already involved in a housing renewal effort, Clark in the mid-1990s had promised high school students who lived nearby free tuition if they were accepted. But first, university officials realized, they needed to stem the high school dropout rate and start helping students prepare for college.

The University Park school started with just 35 seventh graders and grew a grade each year. Its antiquated yet charming 1885 brick schoolhouse, with a pitched roof and pressed tin ceiling, is three blocks from Clark.

Its reputation for excellence grew quickly. Students affectionately call it "the smart school."

But University Park does not choose students based on grades. Admission is awarded by lottery, and only those who live within the neighborhood boundaries are eligible.

The only special consideration is given to siblings. About 100 of the 150 neighborhood seventh graders eligible for enrollment each year apply for the 44 open slots.

Penn Alexander, the elementary school that the University of Pennsylvania has run in partnership with the Philadelphia School District since 2001, also draws its students from the neighborhood, where some Penn staff live. It has become one of the highest-performing elementary schools in the city, an encouraging harbinger of what could be possible if Penn were to run a high school.

While Penn pumps $1,000 per pupil extra into its school at 42d and Spruce Streets, Clark does not give a subsidy to the Worcester school, which operates on the same per-pupil budget as others in the district. It boasts a zero dropout rate and few transfers out.

As University Park's success has drawn educators from around the globe, including Philadelphia, the school has set up a training office. One day this month, 13 principals from North Carolina were there to learn how to start similar schools with local colleges. Teams from Israel and Russia also were there in the last month.

But some educators in Worcester say the school's success is overblown and due to the additional support it receives from Clark, its size, and its parental involvement that - by virtue of having to apply for admission - is greater than at other schools.

"Already you're starting with one foot up in that you have a parent that is concerned and is participating in the education process," said Cheryl DelSignore, president of the 2,600-member Worcester teachers union.

It also has fewer special-education students - 7 percent vs. 19 percent districtwide, she said.

All schools should be treated equally, she said.

Clark gives staff support to other schools in its area, including South High, but not to the same extent.

South High principal Maureen Ciccone said University Park has advantages, but that should not take away from its achievement.

"The teaching that goes on at that school is remarkable," she said.

The summer before seventh grade, students attend a three-week academy. As seventh and eighth graders, they get double periods of math and reading and after-school programs to help bring them up to grade level.

"It's just giving them extra time," said Jeff Glick, a seventh-grade science teacher, as he watched students work on an earth-sciences project after school.

By ninth grade, all students take honors classes.

University Park's test scores are among the highest in the state for schools with similar demographics.

"We expect our kids to achieve. If they have very difficult circumstances in their lives, we don't let them use that as an excuse for not achieving, for not doing their homework, for not getting to school on time," said principal June Eressy.

Teachers say the small size allows them to provide extra help to struggling students.

"I student-taught at a much bigger school. You'd see the kids falling through the cracks, and you felt there was nothing you could do about it because there were so many of them," said Sarah Marcotte, 31, a middle-grades social-studies teacher. "Here, if some kids start to do poorly, there are ways you can help."

Gladis Osorio, 17, stepped to the lectern and began her analysis of poet Adrienne Rich's work. The poet, Osorio told the class, found life in books.

" 'Those pages of print could teach me how to live, could tell me what was possible,' " Osorio said, quoting Rich.

Her long black hair pulled back in a ponytail, Osorio looked up and said she understood how Rich felt.

"I feel like books really do have a life, and they gave me life as well," she said.

At University Park, learning comes to life every day. Lectures are rare. In most classrooms, desks are configured in clusters or are in U-shapes to foster interaction.

"Make sure you're an expert. Talk to each other," algebra teacher Bob Knittle told Mercado and his classmates.

In Peter Weyler's 11th-grade English class, students spent the morning looking through a portfolio of work they had written since seventh grade and reflecting on their growth.

One teacher impersonates Darwin. Another, Moses.

"You've got to know your content and be ready to teach your head off, in interesting ways," said teacher Dan St. Louis, 29.

Textbooks are seldom used. Teachers, who are members of the union and hired through the usual selection process, prepare curriculum, drawing from many sources.

Class size is 22 students at the most. Disruption is minimal. The school has never confiscated a weapon. Teacher assaults? "Oh, God, no," says principal Eressy. Fights are few.

The school's layout - it resembles a rambling bed-and-breakfast - leaves little room for students to hide. The school is so tight for space that it doesn't have a main office. The secretary works at a large desk in the central hallway on the first floor.

Students say the school community acts like family.

No one knows that more than Kimberly Surrette, the oldest of 10 children, all of whom have gone, are going or will go to University Park.

The staff supported Surrette when her father was jailed for seven months during her eighth-grade year, and again when her family was evicted from their apartment during her 10th-grade year.

When Surrette graduated in 2004, she met Clark's admission standards and qualified for free tuition as a resident of the designated neighborhood.

"My family literally cannot pay any money toward my education," said Surrette, 21, whose mother and father are on welfare and disability. "It's been amazing not to have to worry about that."

Now a senior at Clark, she works part-time at the high school where four siblings are enrolled. She plans to student-teach there in the fall while earning her master's degree in education.

"I look forward . . . to giving back to the school that has given me so much," Surrette said.

Her mother, Kelleigh Surrette, described how much the school has meant to her family, which has struggled with poverty, alcoholism and mental illness.

"I'm a little jealous of the relationship that the kids have with their teachers."

High school seniors Ogerta Sema, 18, and Charlyn Valencia, 17, took their seats in the front row of the Introduction to International Relations class at Clark. The class began a discussion on the presidential primaries.

"I just can't wait to get to college," said Sema, an aspiring diplomat and one of 32 University Park students who take classes at Clark.

Students also use the library and other facilities.

The partnership between the college and district has become almost seamless.

"You don't really know where the school ends and Clark begins," said Jack Foley, Clark's vice president for government and community affairs and a member of the Worcester School Board.

High school students are mentored by Clark students.

Clark helps the school raise funds. Alumni have given $140,000 over the last decade, mostly for scholarships.

A handful of student teachers from Clark works at the school at any time. Three-fourths of University Park's teaching staff are Clark alumni.

And 17 University Park graduates have taken Clark up on its free tuition - which, with room and board, is pushing $40,000 a year.

With University Park's first graduating class in 2003 came a painful lesson. Five graduates went on to Clark; all quit. Adjusting to college proved too difficult.

"We underestimated what kids needed to get ready for college. That was a huge lesson," said Tom Del Prete, director of the Hiatt Center for Urban Education at Clark.

They retooled the program.

Now, all high school students must at least audit a Clark course before graduation. In 12th grade, they also take high school classes structured as college courses, with syllabi, lecture, and lots of independent work. And University Park alumni talk to students about what they will face in college, Del Prete said.

Students also must make an appointment with a Clark professor. Sema did.

"They're not as scary as they seem," she said.

Since the change, only one of the 12 graduates who enrolled at Clark has left, officials said.

The school's recent poll of its 150 alumni found similar positive results, said University Park staffer Dan Restuccia. Between 85 to 90 percent are still enrolled in college or have graduated. Half of those who left college plan to go back, he said.

Officials realize that, even with its success, the Clark model isn't the answer for all American high schools.

James A. Caradonio, superintendent of the 23,400-student Worcester district, said he would like to replicate University Park.

"Our problem is, we don't have the money," he said.

Some like bigger schools, he added. They can offer a broader curriculum and more sports and extracurriculars.

Clark University president John Bassett hopes University Park can be replicated in other cities grappling with low-performing high schools. "There's no reason every college in America can't be doing something like this."

Location: Worcester, Mass.

Grades: 7-12

Students: 230

Low income: 76 percent

Minority: 65 percent (largest is Latino, 39 percent)

Number on waiting list: 75

Percentage who pass state graduation test on first try: 99

Percentage of graduates who attend college: more than 95

Dropout rate: zero

School highlights

Source: University Park Campus School

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