The high-tech economy of southern California depends on a steady stream
of employees with strong science and math skills. Faced with high
student drop-out rates, and large numbers of female and minority
students who were alienated from math and science, a group of education,
business, and community leaders took matters into their own hands. They
created a new high school, based on the premise that, given support and
rich opportunities, female and minority students can excel in science
and math.

![](media/image1.jpeg){width="3.8854330708661418in"
height="2.1515748031496065in"}The California Academy of Mathematics and
Science (CAMS) opened on the California State University at Dominquez
Hills (CSUDH) campus in 1990, the product of partnerships among CSUDH,
the California State University's Chancellor's Office, a consortium of
eleven local school districts, and high tech and aerospace industries.
Long Beach Unified School District serves as the managing school
district fiscal agent. Offering an intensive, math- and science-rich
college preparatory education to motivated students, CAMS is bearing out
its founders' premise. Today CAMS ranks in the top ten schools in
California on the NCLB Academic Performance Index; its students score
well above state and national averages on the math and verbal SATs.
Average student daily attendance in 2003-04 was 98%. Attrition is less
than 5% for all reasons, as opposed to a 50% drop-out rate in some local
high schools, and 95% of CAMS students go on to four-year colleges and
universities, including the most selective and prestigious in the
nation. (Approximately 5% attend community colleges.)

Entrance to the school is by application. CAMS faculty and students
canvass all area middle schools, talk to students and parents, and
invite qualified candidates and families to the school for Saturday
interviews. Applicants must have scored above the 65^th^ percentile in
math and science, although English scores may be lower. Successful
applicants have shown a keen interest in math and science, as evidenced
in interviews (including parent interviews), teacher recommendations,
and student projects.

![](media/image2.jpeg){width="3.6366141732283466in"
height="1.8125984251968503in"}Although CAMS winnows about 165 students
from approximately 850 9^th^ grade applicants each year, CAMS does not
rank its applicants for acceptance, but accepts students from each of
its 75 feeder schools including predominately inner-city middle schools.
Its mission is to "defy the odds" and prove that students, especially
those from academically deprived environments, can excel in math and
science, given a setting that features integrated curriculum, teamwork,
and real world applications of learning. Faculty refer to CAMS as a
"talent development program."

Some call CAMS exceptional, charging that it has the luxuries of being a
small high school, selecting its students, and co-existing with a
university. Class size is relatively large, between 30-35 students. The
school receives about \$5,500 per student annually, placing CAMS is on
par with the state average for high schools. (CAMS's base funding is
\$4,400 per student; private donations and special legislative funding
make up the rest.) Many features that the school's founders and current
administrators deem essential to its success are replicable.

For Dr. Kathleen Clark, CAMS principal since its inception, a successful
school has a vision. The CAMS vision was to empower minority and female
students---both underrepresented in the science and engineering fields
that power the area's growth---with science and math skills. With
funding from a California Specialized Secondary Schools Program and
private foundations, a task force of educators and business leaders
outlined a rigorous curriculum. They articulated a philosophy of
student-faculty teamwork, developed an admissions policy for a math and
science specialty public high school. Agreements were signed with local
school districts for staffing and fiscal support. A board of
representatives from school districts, higher education, and the private
sector governs CAMS. A corporate advisory group advises the board on
technology issues, work force trends, and access to philanthropic
support. With both public and private support, CAMS's new buildings on
the CSUDH campus were completed in 2001. Construction on another
building is due to begin February 2006.

![](media/image3.jpeg){width="3.4681102362204723in"
height="2.4354330708661416in"}Designed to expose students to science and
math less as a subject than as a way of thinking, the CAMS curriculum
prescribes four years of math and six of science. They include a 9^th^
grade engineering science survey class that, as intended, often
motivates female students to continue their engineering studies. All
students must pass calculus by the end of 12^th^ grade, often a
stumbling block for minority and female students who wish to take
college level math and science courses. Accelerated English, social
sciences, computer science, and two years of required languages (with
recommended third and fourth years) complete the core curriculum. They
must be ready to negotiate an open campus, accomplish three to four
hours of homework a night, and often ride by bus more than an hour each
way.

Rooted in interdisciplinary work and real world application, the
curriculum is based on state, district, and national association
standards, exceeding district expectations for curricular development.
For instance, the math program is based on the problem-based, recently
published Interactive Math Program (Key Curriculum Press). Students
justify their math solutions both in writing and orally before their
peers. Students often study the same phenomenon from multiple
perspectives, such as comparing systems in a car to systems in the body.
Science classes use robotics and construction projects to explore
theories. English and social studies teachers pose questions at the
beginning of class for students to ponder as they read and discuss the
day's content. In tenth grade English, each student publishes a 100-page
novel based on A Hero's Journey, by Joseph Campbell.

Because CAMS is on the CSUDH campus, juniors and seniors may enroll in
university courses (and some CAMS teachers teach at CSUDH). CAMS
students may graduate with as many as 20 college credits---an advantage
for students applying to selective colleges and/or advancing to early
college graduation. Many of these students receive generous scholarship
awards to help them afford higher education costs.

The school oversees numerous internship and summer programs with
business partners, matching students with professionals from an industry
of the student's choice. Mentors from local industry help bridge the gap
between the classroom and the "real world," inspiring students to think
beyond high school. One mentor who is still in contact with students he
mentored over the years said, "I am most tough on time management, which
I think helped them be successful in their studies."

Teachers work in teams. The same four or five teachers teach all core
subjects to a grade level; a counselor is also assigned to each grade
level team. Teachers have at least an hour and half each week to meet as
a grade level team to plan interdisciplinary lessons and discuss student
progress. Mid-semester progress reports and semester tests identify
struggling students, and an Academic Review Committee counsels parents
and students when a student's grade falls below a C. Struggling students
can request peer tutoring or be assigned to an academic support class
during elective periods, an option five to 10 percent of students take,
particularly in writing and oral skills. Students, parents, and faculty
all said, "No one falls through the cracks."

![](media/image4.jpeg){width="3.1598425196850393in"
height="2.151968503937008in"}CAMS teachers are chosen for their ability
to work in teams, their background in their curriculum area(s), and
interest in an innovative, interdisciplinary curriculum. A "peer
collaboration process" supports new teachers and lets accomplished
teachers share their skills. Teachers described the peer collaborative
as empowering, opening "conversations that we never had before." CAMS
teachers retain tenure from their home districts through "detached
service leave."

Students belong to a cohort, a group, of about 35 ethnically and
geographically diverse students, and take all core classes with that
group for the entire academic year. Within the cohorts, teachers assign
group projects, carefully moving students among these groups to balance
their strengths and needs. Visitors to classrooms note a lot of
conversation and small group work. In a focus group, a student said, "We
build this unbreakable bond. We help each other. We do not want to let
our cohort down. I have personal connections across cultural groups that
I would not have at my local high school." Another student felt safe
with his teachers: "I know I can go to my teachers. Teachers make you
feel comfortable to ask questions. Teachers encourage questions." A
parent described the bond among students: "If the boat makes it, they
all make it."

CAMS teachers do not grade "on a curve," eliminating, the principal
said, some traditional competition. Freshmen attend a required four-day
orientation the summer before entering CAMS, initiating the student
bonding experience. Parents need to support their children's hard work
at CAMS. The teaching method at CAMS is foreign to most families;
however, one parent described, "CAMS faculty won't let a child drop off.
All doors are open."

![](media/image5.jpeg){width="3.696527777777778in"
height="3.102777777777778in"}Apart from academics, freshmen and
sophomores take 200 minutes a week of physical education, and electives
such as team sports, art, chorus, orchestra, robotics, engineering, key
club, and theater are offered. Extracurricular opportunities, such as
cultural clubs, a dance ensemble group, and a multicultural fair are
student-initiated and supported by faculty members. Recently, a CAMS
student wrote and directed a school musical. As members of a small
learning community, students feel they can do "anything" and take
leadership roles.

"Chief Justice, honored judges, teachers, students, family and friends,
we of the law firm SMART would like to call your attention to the
pertinent facts of the case of ...." The four-person SMART law firm and
the four students representing the state of California are CAMS tenth
graders arguing their legal cases, the culmination of their "Halls of
Justice" interdisciplinary project (IDP). This interdisciplinary project
challenges student teams to integrate content and skills from all core
subjects into a written and multi-media presentation with real-world
application. For example, for the Halls of Justice project, the 10^th^
grade faculty listed as many as 30 polemical science and math topics,
such as human cloning, the use of embryonic stem cells, ownership of
space, and water rights. Students choose their top three, and are
assigned to eight person teams: half represent the petitioner and half
the respondent. Each team organizes its inquiry, does research, and
formulates arguments, sharing briefs or documents via digital files.

Each teacher directs three or four student teams, detailing requirements
for student work in each core subject area. For example, in science,
"the mechanical, physical, and chemical component of the argument must
be . . . factually accurate. . . using technical terms, taking into
consideration the audience." In history, students "compare the present
with the past, evaluating the consequences of at least four past
events." Student teams receive rubrics so they know how they will be
graded. Each team designs a team charter which serves as both a work
contract and a peer-grading guide at the end of the project. Student
teams delegate roles, set budgets, outline tasks, and develop timelines.
Since the work may require evening and weekend time and transportation,
parents sign off on student participation. At their "day in court," each
student presents one aspect of the oral argument.

IDPs enrich the educational experience for students, teachers, and
community members. Many teachers find that "The students teach us."
Interdisciplinary projects strengthen students' abilities to
collaborate, evaluate, synthesize, and form opinions, all skills valued
by the world at large. Other current grade level projects are: create a
time machine (freshmen, within the first two months of school), explore
changes in the Los Angeles basin (juniors, following semester break),
and develop business plans (seniors, second semester).

![](media/image6.jpeg){width="4.0in" height="3.043700787401575in"}Many
features of CAMS that the administration believes other schools can
replicate--- academic focus, partnerships, teams, integrated content,
building a positive school climate, real world application---appear in
the National Association of Secondary School Principals' *Breaking Ranks
II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform* (2004). The planning time
core teachers share is an important part of CAMS's academic program that
many visitors to CAMS believe could be replicated in other schools. The
focus on curriculum and partnerships could also be implemented in other
schools.