Critical Issue: Providing Effective Schooling for Students at Risk

ISSUE: Students who are placed at risk due to poverty, race, ethnicity, language, or other factors are rarely well served by their schools (Hilliard, 1989; Letgers, McDill, & McPartland, 1993). They often attend schools where they are tracked into substandard courses and programs holding low expectations for learning (Oakes, 1985; Wheelock, 1992). If schools are to achieve the desired goal of success for all students, they must hold high expectations for all, especially this growing segment of learners. They must view these students as having strengths, not "deficits," and adopt programs and practices that help all students to achieve their true potential.

OVERVIEW: The question of what it means to be "at risk" is controversial. When children do not succeed in school, educators and others disagree about who or what is to blame. Because learning is a process that takes place both inside and outside school, an ecological approach offers a working description of the term at risk. In this view, inadequacies in any arena of life--the school, the home, or the community--can contribute to academic failure when not compensated for in another arena. Why is there a need to focus especially on at-risk students? The personal, economic, and social costs of academic underachievement are high and growing. Each year, increasing numbers of students enter school with circumstances in their lives that schools are ill prepared to accommodate. Yet from this academically and culturally diverse population must come the next generation of scientists, engineers, and other skilled professionals.

Traditionally, schools have responded to student diversity and poor academic performance with approaches such as ability grouping, grade retention, special education, and pull-out programs--in which students are removed from their regular classrooms and offered remedial instruction in particular subjects (Letgers, McDill, & McPartland, 1993). After 30 years of practice, however, researchers and educators (e.g., Slavin, 1988; Oakes, 1985) now believe these approaches may actually reduce student engagement and learning opportunities while stigmatizing students. (For a summary of the research, see Compensatory Education: Traditional Responses and Current Tensions.") Instead, the most promising alternative approaches focus on student assets (including their backgrounds and prior experiences), varied teaching strategies, and meaningful learning in collaborative settings. Also of critical importance to each child's success is the school's emphasis on high expectations for all students (Benard, 1995).

Today, schools are encouraging the development of thinking skills in remedial programs. They also are embracing schoolwide restructuring programs and heterogenous grouping as alternatives to pull-out programs. Many of these new programs and practices have proven themselves in the classroom (Levin, 1988; Slavin et al., 1989). Schools also are exploring new ways to involve parents and families in their children's education. Research indicates that parent involvement makes an enormous impact on students' attitudes, attendance, and academic achievement. This Pathways issue illustrates what schools are doing to successfully teach and support at-risk students.

GOALS:

• Schools, teachers, and instruction foster resiliency in children by building on students' strengths. (Resiliency is the ability to adapt and succeed despite risk and adversity.)

• Administrators provide leadership in managing change to improve learning for all students. (Refer to the Critical Issue "Leading and Managing Change and Improvement.")

• Administrators and teachers are committed to continued professional development to improve teaching and learning for all students.

• Teachers believe all students can succeed. They communicate this belief to their students.

Diane Jackson, efficacy coordinator for the Detroit Public Schools, talks about the process involved with the efficacy approach. [195k audio file] Excerpted from the video series Schools That Work: The Research Advantage, videoconference #7, Preparing Students for Work in the 21st Century (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1992). A text transcript is available.

• Teachers provide instruction that connects with the students' culture and prior knowledge.

• Teachers use a variety of instructional and assessment approaches that reflect the student's capacity for multiple intelligences.

Howard Gardner, director of Project Zero at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, talks about the theory of multiple intelligences as a framework for thinking about human cognition. [210k audio file] Excerpted from the video series Restructuring to Promote Learning in America's Schools, videoconference #4, Multidimensional Assessment: Strategies for the Classroom (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1991). A text transcript is available.

• All students learn an academically challenging curriculum that develops high-level thinking skills as well as basic skills.

• Students believe their teachers and fellow students care about their welfare.

• Students participate in meaningful, engaged learning and experience opportunities to succeed at school.

• Students construct meaning from content in a collaborative learning environment.

• Parents and community members are involved in educating students and have a voice in important school decisions, such as resources and staffing. (Refer to the Critical Issues "Supporting Ways Parents and Families Can Become Involved in Schools" and "Creating the School Climate and Structures to Support Parent and Family Involvement."

ACTION OPTIONS: Educators can take the following actions to provide effective schooling for students:

• Join with parents and other community members to create a vision of improved learning for all students. (Refer to the Critical Issue "Building a Collective Vision.")

• Engage in professional development activities to improve learning for all students. (Refer to the Critical Issue "Realizing New Learning for All Students Through Professional Development."

• Create a school climate that encourages every child to succeed.

A school climate marked by caring and support,high expectations, and opportunities for meaningful participation can foster resilience and counteract the risk factors in a child's life (Benard, 1995). This effect occurs not only for children in urban schools but in other schools as well.

• Create schools-within-a-school and interdisciplinary teams of teachers to encourage a sense of belonging among students.
  
  Many at-risk students attend large schools or departmentalized schools, where they receive daily instruction from several different teachers. Research indicates students in such schools tend to feel more alienated from their teachers and peers. This feeling of alienation can lead to discipline problems and lower student participation in school activities. To combat these effects, many schools are creating alternative organizational structures such as schools-within-a-school, in which a single school building may contain up to five separate schools, and interdisciplinary teacher teams, in which each team member assumes specific responsibilities for the success of each student.

• Hold all students to high educational standards and communicate the belief that all students can succeed.
  
  Many teachers continue to believe that some students cannot learn. As a result, they do not expect all students to succeed in school. Schools that establish and communicate high expectations and createhigh-achieving learning environments for all students have high rates of academic success (Brook, Nomura, & Cohen, 1989; Edmonds, 1986; Howard, 1990; Levin, 1988; Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore, Ouston, & Smith, 1979; Slavin, Karweit, & Madden, 1989). Such schools engage all students in challenging and meaningful activities that range from solving authentic problems to exploring real-world issues and relating them to students' culture, knowledge, and experience.

• Foster resiliency by building on students' strengths rather than focusing on "deficits."

Resiliency is the ability to adapt and succeed despite risk and adversity. Resilient individuals commonly exhibit the following traits: social competence, problem-solving skills, autonomy, and a sense of purpose and future (Benard, 1995).

• Eliminate tracking of students into remedial or below-standard classes in core subject areas.

Tracking is the process of assigning students to different groups, classes, or programs based on measures of intelligence, achievement, or aptitude. Most elementary schools use these grouping practices to create within-class ability groupings, while middle schools and high schools use them to track students into particular classes or programs of study.

Because tracking historically has limited learning opportunities for poor and minority children (Oakes, 1990), many schools are shifting from tracking toward heterogeneous grouping. This process is called detracking. In a fully detracked school, students typically learn with other students of varying ability or age. Teachers no longer pace their instruction to the "average" student, but individualize learning through personalized assignments and collaborative practices such as cooperative learning and peer tutoring. Successful detracking in middle and senior high schools requires a systemic approach that includes parent involvement, professional development and support, and district and state support.

• Provide all students with opportunities for academic success.
  
  Although schools typically emphasize the development of language and logical skills, research on learning suggests humans possess multiple abilities, talents, and skills. One person may exhibit exceptional talent for hearing and reproducing music (musical intelligence), while another may be particularly sensitive to the moods and motivations of others (interpersonal intelligence). To help students discover and reach their potential, schools must offer opportunities to succeed not only in core subject areas such as reading and math, but also in art, music, sports, community service, work apprenticeships, and helping others.

• Provide assistance as needed for students to achieve success.

For students to remain motivated to learn, they must believe they can achieve success if they try hard. Thus, schools must become professional communities that provide extra help to students as needed. In some successful programs, adults or other students serve as tutors for students needing help. Other programs motivate students by recognizing incremental improvement in addition to high achievement.

• Use assessment tools that accurately measure what students know and can do.
  
  Not only must a school's curriculum reflect the range of student abilities, its assessment tools must fairly reflect what students know and can do. Conventional tests may shortchange students who are not proficient in English, reading, or writing. Alternative and new assessment strategies might include oral interviews, science experiments, or portfolios of the student's work over time.

• Make classroom activities meaningful and relevant to students' lives, culture, and future.
  
  For students to engage in learning, they must view it as relevant to their lives and culture. Teachers must understand and respect cultural differences and incorporate the student's language and culture into the curriculum. Families and communities can provide funds of knowledge about learning experiences outside school. Many professional development programs--such as The Strategic Teaching and Reading Project--and curricular and instructional programs and practices are available to help as well.

Students sometimes see little connection between their education and future. Programs such as Upward Bound and Roosevelt Renaissance 2000 help prepare at-risk students for the transition from school to work or college.

• Engage students in constructing meaning from curriculum content.
  
  Students must be able to apply what they learn in school to the various and unpredictable situations they will encounter through life. The constructivist teaching and learning models suggest that in order to construct meaning from new information, students must be able to relate new ideas to what they already know and use this knowledge to draw inferences and conclusions. In classrooms implementing this approach, constructivist teachers organize information around conceptual clusters of problems, questions, and situations. Activities are learner-centered, and students are encouraged to ask questions, carry out experiments, and make their own analogies and conclusions. Effective practices include reciprocal teaching, in which the teacher and students take turns leading a dialogue to construct meaning from what they read or hear, and problem-based learning, which engages students in solving real-world problems.
  
  Sue Berryman, director of the Institute on Education and the Economy at the Teachers College of Columbia University in New York, talks about the importance of problem-solving skills when students are confronted with a new situation. [480k audio file] Excerpted from the video series Schools That Work: The Research Advantage, videoconference #7, Preparing Students for Work in the 21st Century (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1992). A text transcript is available.

• Involve family and community members in educating students or supporting their personal or academic growth.
  
  Families and communities can help the schools teach and nurture children. Family involvement might consist of parents reading with children, limiting their television viewing, helping with homework, monitoring leisure activities, communicating and listening, praising and rewarding success, getting involved in school activities, and serving on teams that help make curricular decisions. Community involvement might consist of groups and individuals helping families and schools combat substance abuse and violence, strengthening child-raising skills, mentoring and tutoring students, and coordinating social services. (For more information on family-community involvement, see the Critical Issues "Supporting Ways Parents and Families Can Become Involved in Schools" and "Involving the Community in Prevention.")

• Consider adopting or adapting one of the model programs proven to help at-risk students on the basis of identified needs and a collective vision:

• Success for All is a schoolwide restructuring program for preschool through grade 5 based on the premise that all students can learn.
• The School Development Program is a schoolwide restructuring program designed to address the needs of the whole child.
• The Accelerated Schools Project is a schoolwide program that involves restructuring the school organization, curriculum, and instruction.
• Reading Recovery is a one-on-one tutoring program designed to help low-achieving first graders learn to read.

The Reading Recovery program is explained first by the narrator of the videotape and then by Marie Clay, founder of the Reading Recovery program. [615k QuickTime slide show] Excerpted from the videotape Collaborations in Education: Reading Recovery (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1994). A text transcript is available.

Gay Su Pinell, professor of education at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, discusses why early intervention is critical to the success of Reading Recovery. [180k audio file] Excerpted from the videotape Collaborations in Education: Reading Recovery (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1994). A text transcript is available.

• The Coalition of Essential Schools is a network of high schools that use specific principles in their restructuring efforts.
• Schoolwide restructuring models funded by New American Schools include the following:
• The ATLAS Communities project seeks to create a personalized learning environment for all students.
• The Audrey Cohen College System of Education is a K-12 program that helps students achieve a specific purpose every semester.
• Co-nect Schools combine high standards for all students with a focus on technology and project-based learning.
• Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound is a K-12 school design based on the philosophy of the Outward Bound wilderness program.
• The Modern Red Schoolhouse is a K-12 design that emphasizes a core curriculum and allows students to reach individualized goals.
• The America's Choice Design Network works with states and school districts to restructure schools and state education policy.
• Roots & Wings is a K-6 program that is based on Success for All.

IMPLEMENTATION PITFALLS:

Educators and community members may fail to specify the problems afflicting their school and instead search for someone to blame.

In an effort to improve, schools may adopt programs and practices that conflict with the school culture or the participants' vision for the school.

School and community members may underestimate the human and fiscal costs of effectively implementing an improvement plan, especially the time needed for staff development and training. (Refer to the Critical Issues " Realizing New Learning for All Students Through Professional Development" and " Finding Time for Professional Development."

Teachers, administrators, or parents may fear that focusing efforts on at-risk students will divert attention and resources from the needs of high-achieving students.

Teachers may feel inadequately prepared to use effective strategies and approaches with students at risk (Licklider, 1991-92).

DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW:

Some educators believe that students must master basic skills before they can engage in complex thinking or challenging, authentic tasks.

Some educators believe that tracking is the most effective way to meet the needs of a diversity of students.

ILLUSTRATIVE CASES:

Resilience: The Minneapolis Approach

Cooperative learning at Joliet West High School, Joliet, Illinois

Dr. Martin Luther King African-American Immersion Elementary School, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Kanoon Magnet School, Chicago, Illinois

Key Elementary School and Key Renaissance School, Indianapolis, Indiana

Phillips High School, Chicago, Illinois

Middletown Mentoring Program, Middletown, Connecticut

Working Together to Succeed in School, Chicago, Illinois, a community-based parent and student training program

Upward Bound program in Connecticut

Renaissance 2000 at Roosevelt High School, Portland, Oregon

Sites and Schools Using the Success for All Program

Juarez-Lincoln Accelerated Elementary School, Chula Vista, California

Reading Recovery in Upper Arlington City School District, Upper Arlington, Ohio

Noble High School, Berwick, Maine

Walden III High School, Racine, Wisconsin

Minnesota New Country School, LeSueur, Minnesota

CONTACTS:

Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk (CRESPAR)
Johns Hopkins University/Howard University
Center for the Social Organization of Schools
3505 N. Charles St.
Baltimore, MD 21218
(410) 516-8800; fax (410) 516-8890
Contact: John Hollifield, Associate Director
E-mail: jhollifiel@scov.csos.jhu.edu
WWW: http://scov.csos.jhu.edu/crespar/crespar.html

Coalition of Essential Schools
Box 1969
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
(401) 863-3384
WWW: http://www.essentialschools.org/

Education Commission of the States
707 17th St., Suite 2700
Denver, CO 80202-3427
(303) 299-3600; fax: (303) 296-8332
E-mail: ecs@ecs.org
WWW: http://www.ecs.org

Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound
122 Mount Auburn St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 576-1260, ext.10; fax (617) 576-1340
E-mail: info@ELOB.ci.net
WWW: http://www.elob.org/

National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning
Center for Applied Linguistics
1118 22nd St. NW
Washington, DC 20037
(202) 429-9292
email: crede@cal.org
WWW: http://www.cal.org/pubs/ncrcpubs.html

National Center on Education in the Inner Cities (CEIC)
Temple University
933 Ritter Hall Annex
13th and Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19122
(215) 204-3001
Contact: Margaret Wang

National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented
University of Connecticut
362 Fairfield Road U-7
Storrs, CT 06269-2007
(203) 486-4626; fax (203) 486-2900
Contact: Siamak Vahidi
WWW: http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt.html

Organizations offering information on multicultural education

School Development Program
47 College St., Suite 212
New Haven, CT 06520
(203) 737-1020; fax (203) 737-1023
Contact: Cynthia Savo
E-mail: cynthia.savo@yale.edu
WWW: http://info.med.yale.edu/comer

Success for All/Roots & Wings
Johns Hopkins University
3505 N. Charles St.
Baltimore, MD 21218
(800) 548-4998 or (410) 516-8896; fax (410) 516-8890
E-mail: sfa@csos.jhu.edu
WWW: http://scov.csos.jhu.edu/search_lp.htm

References

Date posted: 1996