THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 26, 1996 TAG: 9605280203
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VANEE VINES AND LISE OLSEN, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: 317 lines
Some of the region's most effective elementary schools are beating tremendous odds by getting poor students to achieve even when the chance of success seems slim.
In some cases, they're making greater strides than schools with large numbers of rich or middle-class students.
Trouble is, they seldom get much acclaim for it.
Schools serving children from affluent and middle-class neighborhoods usually post the highest test scores and get the most praise.
A different picture emerges in a Virginian-Pilot analysis.
The newspaper adjusted last year's standardized test scores to account for the influence of poverty. The newspaper used fourth-grade test scores from 181 elementary schools in Southeastern Virginia. The analysis predicted scores based on a school's share of poor students eligible for free and reduced-price lunches.
The results showed what standardized test scores typically do not: How much educators get students to achieve, despite the advantage of wealth or the disadvantage of poverty.
Once poverty was taken into account, the analysis found 67 schools where fourth-graders performed anywhere from 1 point to nearly 16 points above predictions. Seventy-eight schools did much worse.
Many of the 67, like Portsmouth's Westhaven Elementary, serve some of the area's neediest children.
Most of Westhaven's students are poor. Even so, their average score last year was nearly 14 points higher than economic circumstances would predict. What's more, Westhaven students outperformed peers at dozens of elementary schools in the suburbs of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, where children typically come to school well-fed, well-rested and ready to learn.
Some of the top schools serve students from solidly middle-class communities - Trantwood and Alanton elementary schools in Virginia Beach, for example. It would be a surprise if such schools did not score well.
Still, they got their students, who already achieve at notable rates, to do better than predicted.
About a third of the overachieving schools in the newspaper's study are in Norfolk or Portsmouth, cities not always credited for offering quality education.
The analysis also found schools that didn't measure up.
Many failed to do so even when the majority of their students were well-off.
Take Deep Creek Central in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach's Strawbridge and Ocean Lakes elementary schools.
All three had what some might consider a head start. Less than 30 percent of their students were eligible for free and reduced-price lunches. But they underachieved in the analysis.
``I think the public needs to give credit to schools that are making a large impact on students, in terms of gains,'' said James McPartland, a school organization expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
``A lot of schools are doing a great job, considering where the children are starting from. But the job they do is often overlooked because the results may not look extraordinary on the surface.''
Schools that serve children who aren't disadvantaged also should be judged by how much value they add, McPartland said.
``Otherwise,'' he said, ``they often get more credit than what might be deserved. They could be doing little more than coasting.''
The analysis confirmed what education researchers and teachers have pointed out for decades: Poverty has a tight grip on classroom achievement.
And it showed just how much economics tilts the playing field of student performance. After poverty rates were taken into account, nearly 80 of the 181 schools ranked higher.
Others dropped. Judging by raw scores alone, for example, John B. Dey Elementary in Virginia Beach landed in the top 15. It fell to 38th place when the wealth of the families it serves was factored in.
Why? It did less well when its performance was compared with similar schools.
Based on visits to a dozen schools in the top of the newspaper's analysis, those that have had the most success rely on strong principals who stress reading and writing and teachers who make lessons vivid.
Together, they try to squeeze the most out of every minute of the day.
Witness the efforts of Westhaven Principal Helen Taylor.
First of all, Taylor runs a tight ship.
Announcements or other distractions are a no-no during the math period and the schoolwide, 90-minute reading block each morning.
She spends a lot of time in classrooms, making sure teachers stay on their toes.
And she encourages them to call parents to report problems, raise questions or offer help.
The school's nationally recognized reading program, developed at Johns Hopkins, also emphasizes language and critical-thinking skills.
``We've got to be excellent every day,'' Taylor explains. ``Anything else would only be cheating the children.''
The newspaper's analysis isn't perfect.
It used one year of data.
It doesn't take into account parents' educational backgrounds or student mobility - important factors that affect school performance. Such information is not collected uniformly by Virginia's public schools.
Standardized tests, as they're now fashioned, generally measure only basic, low-level skills.
There's also no hard-and-fast way to account for intangibles such as how well a school's teachers and its principal pull as a team, or how hard a school tries to get parents involved.
Despite shortcomings, the analysis recognizes the schools doing a better job of improving student performance.
Here's a look at how they do it.
Common thread: Solid teachers
Most of the top performers in the newspaper's analysis are typical schools with large and small enrollments.
The student populations are racially integrated or, in several instances, predominantly black.
A few of the schools that ranked in the top 20 percent of the analysis have special academic projects or magnet programs that target certain students.
Some have up-to-date computer labs. In others, classroom computers were dusty and turned off during recent visits.
But one of the most common threads the schools share is an experienced, energized staff - seasoned teachers who have taught at their schools for years, often under the same principal.
Many of them have been tapped to be ``mentors'' to colleagues in their school district.
Suffolk's Robertson Elementary fits the mold. On average, the school's teachers have worked there for more than a decade. Nearly half of them have a master's degree.
More than anything, though, teachers in the most effective schools said they tried to make lessons come to life.
``Sesame Street'' has nothing on Norfolk's Tarrallton Elementary teachers, who practically bounce off the walls with enthusiasm - frequently relying on hands-on activities to generate interest.
In a recent lesson on the Civil War, fifth-grade teacher Sharon Flowers used colorful, construction-paper props students could stick on their heads or hang around their necks if they correctly answered vocabulary and other questions related to the war.
Selected students then presented their own drawings in front of the class, explaining key events from the period.
Next, a small group performed a skit on the Underground Railroad.
A few students giggled. They got a big kick out of the ``costumes'' - stuff Flowers had dug up around her house.
``By itself, the paper-and-pencil approach just doesn't cut it with today's children,'' said Flowers, who's taught at Tarrallton for the past 21 years.
``You have to make it real.''
Tarrallton's teachers take great pride in their ability to motivate kids.
Four of them obtained ``out-of-district transfers'' so their own kids could attend that school instead of the one in their neighborhoods.
Another is so impressed with a colleague's gusto that she pays Norfolk tuition so her son can be in that teacher's class - instead of attending school in Chesapeake, where they live.
Expectations high for all
Whether the overachieving schools serve mostly poor or mostly middle-class children, they seem to crackle with purpose.
Teachers and students know they are expected to produce day in and day out.
``I know Mr. (Charles) Clay has high expectations of us,'' said Tarrallton teacher Kim Sawyer, referring to the school's principal.
``The high expectations are there, but so is his confidence in our ability to meet them,'' she added.
``I feel respected; free to implement ideas I have or activities I've thought of. I feel like I'm a professional.''
At Portsmouth's Highland-Biltmore Elementary, students share a similar desire to meet high goals.
The school serves some of Portsmouth's neediest youngsters.
Its teachers say they try to make students feel like winners, even if their home environments might indicate otherwise.
The school is loaded with extra-curricular activities that give students opportunities to excel in traditional, academic ways as well as ways kids find plain fun - like the student chorus or the drill team.
From day one, Principal Charles H. Bowens III pumps the kids up, constantly telling them they can outperform the pants off students at any other school.
And students have soaked up his competitive streak.
Shortly before standardized tests were given this spring, several fourth-graders told a visitor their school would be ``No. 1'' in 1996 citywide results.
``The teachers . . . the staff . . . the principal . . . the assistant principal . . . the librarian . . . the clinic . . . the counselors, all together they make the school a great school,'' said Rico Sutton, a Highland-Biltmore fourth-grader.
``When I step one foot right in the door, I feel like I'm welcome. I feel like I'm ready to learn something and face whatever they put against me.''
Kathleen Gilliatt, who teaches at W.T. Cooke in Virginia Beach, pointed out a key to her school's success.
``A big part of it,'' she said, ``is the fact that we don't differentiate the quality of the education according to the children's backgrounds.''
Parents as partners
Most of the successful schools also benefit from parents who value education and possess a strong desire to help their children learn. Parents like Patti Gilbert, whose 6-year-old son, Kyle, is a kindergartner at Portsmouth's Port Norfolk Elementary.
She visits the school weekly to volunteer in her son's class and two other classes with older children.
``I want to know what he's doing and how he behaves in class,'' Gilbert said.
``That way, I can help him; and I can see whether it's all just Mickey Mouse or if he's not paying attention because he's bored or didn't understand.''
At Larchmont Elementary in Norfolk, most of the parents are college-educated, financially stable and convinced that their kids will achieve.
More than four parents were spotted in classrooms one recent afternoon - observing teachers or reviewing lessons with students.
Dozens of educators interviewed for this article all said they went out of their way to involve parents, community groups and businesses in schools.
In fact, many of them use the same approaches and hold the same types of events to attract parents and gain neighborhood support.
What works for one school may not work at another, however.
What seemed to distinguish schools that managed to engage parents - even if PTA membership rosters weren't exactly overflowing - was a certain mindset.
Jacob M. Wilson III, director of Dunbar-Erwin Elementary in Newport News, put it this way: ``We can't get all the parents involved, but we still try to do whatever we can to accommodate them.''
Dunbar-Erwin is really two schools in one. The primary school is on the first floor. Upstairs, there's a magnet program for third- through sixth-graders at risk of failing. About 95 percent of all students qualify for subsidized lunches.
When attendance continued to drop off among kindergartners, first- and second-graders, Wilson and other staffers spoke with parents to find out what was up.
Turns out, parents simply weren't used to having their children at school by 7:30 a.m.
The staff alerted the central administration.
The starting time for primary kids was changed the following year.
Other factors influence achievement
It's impossible to attribute achievement gains or setbacks to any single factor - poverty included.
A school can always have a bad year. Switching or adding programs; staff changes; and construction projects also can throw off instruction.
Raymond Hopkins, principal of Chesapeake's George Washington Carver Intermediate, says re-zoning helps explain his school's low ranking in the newspaper's analysis.
Last school year, the district switched Carver's grades from 5 and 6 to 4 and 5.
Half the teachers and all of the students were new to the school. The building was under renovation for much of the year.
``It took almost everything I had just to keep morale up,'' said Hopkins, whose two sons previously attended Carver.
``It wasn't a normal situation.''
Others complained about student turnover stemming from the area's highly mobile military population.
At some schools, it's not uncommon for more than 20 percent of the student enrollment to come and go from the beginning of the year to the end.
Their scores may best reflect only what they learned - or didn't learn - somewhere else.
No school has a foolproof way to get good results. That's because striking the right balance is always hard, educators said.
Getting students, parents and teachers to buy into a shared vision is more trial and error than science.
But, taken as a group, schools that are making the grade firmly believe continued success is always around the corner - provided there's sufficient elbow grease along the way.
Said Larchmont Principal Eddie Hall:
``Teachers who don't know how to work with others and work hard to get students to achieve as much as possible - and I mean all of the students - simply wouldn't last here.'' ILLUSTRATION: D. KEVIN ELLIOTT color photos/The Virginian-Pilot
Above, first-grader Ehrick Sotengco shows Westhaven Elementary's
commitment to reading. Below, first-grade teacher Robert Sander
helps Shanice Shields with vocabulary at Tarrallton Elementary in
Norfolk.
Helen Taylor
Graphics
HOW ONE PRINCIPAL DOES IT
Spends a lot of time in classrooms.
Allows no announcements or other distractions are allowed during
math period and the 90-minute reading block each morning.
Encourages teachers to call parents to report problems, raise
questions or offer help.
Has a reading program that emphasizes language and
critical-thinking skills.
What she says: ``We've got to be excellent every day. Anything
else would only be cheating the children.''
Graphic by KEN WRIGHT/The Virginian-Pilot
MAKING THE GRADE
Analysis based on data from the Virginia Department of Education by
VANEE VINES and LISE OLSEN
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
Photo\ D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/The Virginian-Pilot
At Portsmouth's Westhaven Elementary School, third-grade teacher
Morris Barco, left, and Crystal Grant, a second-grade teacher, apply
techniques that helped the school achieve. Westhaven serves some of
the area's neediest children.
Graphic
HOW TO HELP KIDS
1. Read to your child and discuss what was read.
2. Count with your child. Look for ways to play math ``games.''
Example: Ask your child to clip several coupons and then figure out
how much money the family would save by using them at the store.
3. Set aside a place and time for nightly schoolwork - whether
there is assigned homework or not.
4. Review your child's homework after the teacher has returned
it.
5. Limit how much TV your child can watch.
6. Ask your child - or a neighborhood child - to teach you a
lesson he or she learned in school. This will help reinforce skills.
7. Volunteer at a school.
8. Visit the library regularly with your child - or with a group
of neighborhood children.
9. When meeting with educators, ask them to speak in plain
English if they toss out words and phrases most people don't use in
everyday conversation.
10. Find time to talk with a child every day about school and
other matters of interest to him or her.
Graphic by KEN WRIGHT
MAKING THE GRADE
Performance of fourth-grade students at elementary schools in
Southeastern Virginia.
Analysis based on data from the Virginia Department of Education by
VANEE VINES and LISE OLSEN.
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: SCHOOLS TIDEWATER HAMPTON ROADS
ACHIEVEMENT STATISTICS by CNB