In the Bottom 1%: The Challenge of Reforming a Failed Urban School
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.14 (792 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1530936314 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 192 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-05-22 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
"Excellent "just the facts" recap of high school before and after its turnaround" according to Knowedge to Action. For anyone thinking seriously about how to reform education in tough urban environments, this short book grounds the reader in an excellent and mostly "just the facts" portrait of a tough urban high school as seen through the eyes of one of its teachers. Much of the first pre-turnaround part focuses on incidents that highlight the challenges any reformer would face from disruptive students, absent parents, and demoralized, ineffective or incompetent teachers. The second shorter section on the turnaround process and its results highlights a work still in progress with some extraordinary gains but some major weaknesses,
Lincoln High was a school in failure. With help from an eight million dollar grant and a new administration, the school slowly began to improve.. I was hired at Lincoln High after the teacher in my position quit the day before school started because of “working conditions.” That should have been a warning sign. From my first year to my fourth year at LHS, the staff and many students attempted to turnaround the school. Lincoln High was in the bottom one percent of all high schools in the state. In my first month of work I saw students drop out and teachers quit, I was involved in gang brawls in the hallway, and I saw worse test scores than I ever thought possible