NORTHWEST

EDUCATION

FALL 2004 / VOLUME 10. NUMBER 1.

A PUBLICATION OF THE NORTHWEST REGIONAL EDUCATIONAL LABORATORY

TRANSFORMING 

HIGH SCHOOL

Plugging into real-world learning 12

Defying the odds at a high-poverty school 20

Literacy lessons for high school 32
ON THE COVER

Spokane’s Lewis and Clark High School is steeped in 

tradition, but there’s nothing old-fashioned about the

school’s focus on teacher leaders and use of data. The

school recently underwent a $30 million renovation 

and modernization by the Northwest Architectural

Company. The award-winning design features a skybridge linking the refurbished 1912 building with a 

new athletic complex, music facilities, and underground

parking. See story, Page 15.

Original photo courtesy of Explosion Illusion Photography
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 1

Web exclusives at nwrel.org/nwedu

17

20

32

36

FEATURES

6 Five Paths to Success 

Throughout the region, high schools are trying different strategies to make

learning more personal, relevant, and challenging.

When Big Seems Small: Southridge High School (Oregon)

Serious Goals, Playful Environment: Coeur d’Alene High School (Idaho)

Wired World: Highland Tech High (Alaska)

Building on the Past: Lewis and Clark High School (Washington)

Classroom Without Walls: Corvallis High School (Montana)

20 Great Expectations

In rural Central Washington, one school shows how to overcome the twin 

barriers of poverty and language.

24 Anatomy of Change

Breaking up is hard to do, but sometimes it’s the best solution. Facing declining enrollment and problems with AYP, Portland’s Marshall High School

begins the process of reconfiguring into smaller schools.

Web exclusive: NWREL and Smaller Learning Communities

Q&A: The head of Oregon’s Small Schools Initiative weighs “revolutionary”

versus “evolutionary” change.

32 The Two R’s: Literacy Lessons for High School

A diploma doesn’t necessarily mean Johnny can read and write. At

Vancouver’s Skyview High School, a dynamic teacher brings passion and

problem solving to literacy issues.

Web exclusive: Practical Advice on Reading Across the Curriculum

36 Gallery

Two students give us a glimpse into their world.

Web exclusive: Governors Take on High School Reform

Web exclusive: Key Lessons From Carnegie’s Schools for a New Society

NORTHWEST

EDUCATION

CONTENTS / FALL 2004 TRANSFORMING HIGH SCHOOL VOL. 10 / NO. 1
2 nwrel.org/nwedu

DEPARTMENTS

3 Forum

4 Editor’s Note

40 Voices

My Take on Teachers

41 Research Brief

The Challenge of Reinventing High School

43 Resources

Web exclusive: Resource Annex

44 Region at a Glance

45 End Note

Web exclusive: Money Matters

Where to look for funding

On the Web

Northwest Education is available online in both 

PDF and HTML versions at www.nwrel.org/nwedu.

Look for Web exclusives, marked with .

Northwest Education is a quarterly magazine of the Northwest

Regional Educational Laboratory. Past and current issues of the

magazine are available at www.nwrel.org/nwedu/.

ISSN 1546-5020

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Carol F. Thomas

Deputy Executive Officer

Dr. Robert E. Blum

Administrative Director, Development and Communications

Dave Wilson

Communications Director

Karen Lytle Blaha

Editor in Chief

Denise Jarrett Weeks

Issue Editor

Rhonda Barton

Assistant Editor

Bracken Reed

Technical Editor

Eugenia Cooper Potter

Contributing Writers

Mindy Cameron, Ben Lansky, Ian McCluskey

Design

a.k.a. design, Seattle

Denise Crabtree

Data Analyst

Richard Greenough

Library Support

Linda Fitch

Webmaster

Vicki Jean Beauchamp

Circulation

Lorelei Aldridge

Statement of Purpose

Northwest Education aims to promote a regional dialogue and to elevate teaching and learning by giving readers the best information,

ideas, and personal stories from practitioners, researchers, and other

experts. 

Copyright © 2004, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.

This publication is based on work sponsored wholly or in part by

the U. S. Department of Education under contract number ED-01-

CO-0013. The content of this publication does not necessarily

reflect the views of the department or any other agency of the U.S.

government. This publication was not printed with government

funds. Articles and information in this publication may be reproduced and distributed without permission for nonprofit educational

and professional development purposes. Please acknowledge

NWREL as the source.

NORTHWEST

EDUCATION 
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 3

Helping Native Students Succeed

I work with the Title VII Native program; my job consists of getting the

Indian parents of our schools more

involved in their child’s education.

I can relate to what Miss Kara Briggs

has been through (“Slipping Through

the Cracks,” spring 2004). I am an

Apache Indian from the Southwest.

Here in the urban area in which I live,

there is so much stereotyping. Adults

think all Native Americans are stupid,

drunks, and uneducated. Our kids

don’t have a chance until the educators

that teach our children are educated in

our cultures. Our dropout rate here is

at 70 percent. We have 78 tribes living

in Wichita and, yes, they all have different traditions that they try to uphold.

American Indian families are seeking

to improve educational opportunities

for their children, including opportunities to study their own languages and

traditions. With better education comes

the hope of a better economic future.

We can help improve our children’s

future—as well as ours—through mentoring and parenting that underscore

the preservation of a way of life based

on spirituality, sacredness, education,

and social responsibility. Without children, a community would fail to thrive

and it would die—a catastrophic

thought and unimaginable in our cultural ways, (but) our children cannot

survive and flourish without our help. 

Anyway, I would just like to say

thank you to Miss Kara Briggs for the

article. I am so glad she made it and fulfilled her vision. 

Michael Gallegos

Wichita, Kansas

Editor’s note: Mr. Gallegos is interested in hearing from others involved in

helping Native children; his e-mail

address is MGallegos@usd259.net.

Promoting Attendance

(I’m) very happy to have found your

Web site today (“Nets & Paddles,”

spring 2004). I am a former teacher

who works in indigenous education.

There are many similarities—invasion,

colonialism, attempted genocide, government policies, contemporary student outcomes, land mass, indigenous

populations struggling to survive in the

“dominant culture,” preservation of

language—between your area and the

Northern Territory.

My colleague and I are currently

working on a project to address the

poor attendance in many of the indigenous schools. Any strategies or ideas

you could share with us, or directions

in which you could point us, would be

greatly appreciated.

Gabrielle Kennedy

Policy Officer

Indigenous Education Division

Dept. of Employment, Education, 

and Training

Darwin, Australia

Editor’s note: Ms. Kennedy welcomes

readers’ responses at gabrielle.kennedy

@nt.gov.au. One useful resource on

attendance is the May 2004 issue of

NWREL’s By Request series. Increasing

Student Attendance: Strategies From Research

and Practice provides examples of what

schools are doing to combat absenteeism. The publication is available

online at www.nwrel.org/request/. 

We want to hear from you! Send

your letters to the editor, article

ideas, and tips on places where

good things are happening to 

nwedufeedback@nwrel.org. Letters

may be edited for length or clarity.

FORUM

NWREL BOARD OF DIRECTORS

John Pugh (Chair)

Chancellor, University of Alaska Southeast

Sharon Parry (Vice Chair)

School Board Member, Idaho Falls School District #91

Dennis Haverlandt (Secretary-Treasurer)

Teacher, Great Falls School District (MT)

Jerry Colonna (Member-at-Large)

Superintendent, Beaverton School District (OR)

Rubén Degollado (Member-at-Large)

Assistant Principal, Hillsboro School District (OR)

Kay Purcell (Member-at-Large)

Principal, St. Rose Parish School, Longview (WA)

Dr. Terry Bergeson

Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction

Susan Castillo

Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction

Dr. Marilyn Howard

Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction

Linda McCulloch

Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction 

Roger Sampson

Alaska Commissioner of Education and Early Development

Dr. John Davis

Superintendent, Bering Strait School District (AK)

Joanne Erickson

Assistant Professor, Montana State University–Bozeman

Jeff Estes

Manager, Office of Science Education Programs, 

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (WA)

Dr. Larry Harris

Dean, Idaho State University

Steven Jacquier

Teacher, Southwest Region School District (AK)

Jerry Keane 

Superintendent, Post Falls School District (ID)

Nancy Larsen

Teacher, Coeur d’Alene School District (ID)

Richard Mauer

Chair, Alaska State Board of Education and 

Early Development

Dr. Richard McCullough

Superintendent, Snoqualmie School District (WA)

Dr. Bill McDiarmid

Professor, University of Washington

Dr. Geoffrey Mills

Associate Dean, Southern Oregon University 

Ted Popplewell

Principal, Oregon Trail Elementary School, Twin Falls (ID) 

Dr. Jan Rauth

Teacher, Longview School District (WA)

Barbara J. Riley

Community/Business Representative, Missoula (MT)

Perla Rodriguez

Principal, Cornelius School District (OR)

Dr. Timothy Skinner

Superintendent, St. Ignatius School District, Ronan (MT)
4 nwrel.org/nwedu

We all have our memories of high

school: mine are stuck back in the

late 1960s in a monstrously large

urban school undergoing cataclysmic change. One of the oldest

and biggest public secondary

schools in Dade County, Miami

Senior High drew a largely white,

economically mixed student population from the expensive high-rise condos on Biscayne Bay

to the blue-collar neighborhoods on the fringes of downtown. While a small percentage of Miami High’s “Stingarees”

were headed for college, the majority would find their niche

in the workforce, well-prepared by vocational courses offered

at the school. What transcended social class and economic

differences was devotion to the state-ranked football team

and traditions that seemed as old as the Alhambra—the inspiration for the school’s Moorish design. 

Midway through my sophomore year, world politics

flipped our world of pep rallies and Friday night dances

upside down. A flood of refugees—some 3,600 a month—

poured into Miami with the beginning of the Cuban airlift.

Overnight, students who were strangers in a strange land

filled the corridors, attending makeshift classes in hallways,

custodial closets, and the auditorium. By the time I was a senior, almost 4,000 students jammed the school’s three floors.

Today, Miami High’s enrollment stands at more than 3,200

and its students are 90 percent Hispanic and 4 percent white.

It earned a “D” grade in 2002 and 2003 from the Florida

Department of Education based on statewide assessment tests.

Though test scores are improving, only 42 percent of Miami

High students scored at or above level three (on a five-point

scale) in math, and just 20 percent reached that mark in reading. Graduation rates are a dismal 51 percent.

While Miami High’s disappointing standings may be

linked to unique circumstances, it’s not an isolated case. In the

21 years since A Nation at Risk concluded that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a

rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a

Nation and a people,” we’ve struggled to make substantial

strides in educational achievement, and have failed in high

schools. As the National Association of Secondary School

Principals points out in Breaking Ranks II, “With the exception

of exit exams, high school policy has changed little over the

last two decades, barely distinguishing high schools from

other levels of schooling and continuing to track advantaged

students into college and disadvantaged students into an

uncertain future with few skills. As a result, although we’ve

learned a great deal over the last couple of decades about

reform in elementary schools, high school reform is still largely uncharted territory.”

In this issue of Northwest Education, we explore some of the

ways that our region is changing that territory: radically reengineering large comprehensive high schools into smaller,

more personalized academies and learning communities;

encouraging all students—not just an elite few—to take

Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses;

tying curriculum to the world outside the classroom; using

data to drive decisionmaking. It’s not an easy journey. We

hear the frustrations of administrators and the complaints of

students. But, we also sense the exhilaration of being on the

cutting edge of a movement seeking to change a model that’s

more than 100 years old. 

It seems appropriate that in an issue centering on change,

Northwest Education unveils some changes of its own. After

nine years, we’ve adopted what we hope is a more readerfriendly design. You’ll also find an array of new departments,

including a “Research Brief ” summarizing pertinent findings

on our theme, some intriguing statistics in “Region at a

Glance,” and “Voices” that reflect what our different constituencies are thinking. Web exclusives at www.nwrel.

org/nwedu/ will allow us to bring you even more information

and resources. We welcome your comments about these new

features, as well as your reflections on “Transforming High

School.”

—Rhonda Barton, bartonr@nwrel.org 

EDITOR‘S NOTE
5

NORTHWEST EDUCATION FEATURES

TRANSFORMING

HIGH SCHOOL

FALL 2004 / VOL. 10. NO. 1

Five schools tackle today’s challenges 6

Mentoring and AP courses thrust migrant students on the road to college 20 

Under the cloud of AYP, Marshall High races toward radical change 24

Literacy isn’t just an elementary school problem 32

Two students show us that high school isn’t what it used to be 36
6 nwrel.org/nwedu

FIVE 

PATHS 

TO 

SUCCESS

Throughout the region,

high schools try different

strategies to make 

learning more personal,

relevant, and challenging.

Picture 100 newly minted ninth-graders, ready to embark on their high school career. Four years

later, that same group will have noticeably shrunk: Only 67 will have completed high school and just 38 will enroll in higher

education. The group snapshot contracts even further as the years roll by: Just 26 will return to classes after their freshman year

and only 18 of our original 100 students will have completed a bachelor’s degree within six years or an associate’s degree within three years. Added to that, one of every three students going on to higher ed will take at least one remedial course in math,

reading, or writing and the figure soars to three of every four new students in some urban community colleges. 

Statistics like that—together with the pressures exerted by the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, high-stakes testing, and the

critical voices of business and higher education leaders—have combined to create a sort of “perfect storm” churning the waters

of America’s high schools. The tide is so strong that it’s become increasingly difficult to ignore.

The five schools profiled in the following pages—small and large, urban and rural—are weathering the storm with a variety

of approaches, from smaller learning communities to project-based learning, standards-based models, and distributed leadership. Some have more favorable socioeconomic profiles than others and not all strategies will work elsewhere. But, together

they offer encouraging lessons for high schools striving to reach higher. —Rhonda Barton 

Photo by Mount Burns
NORTHWEST EDUCATION 

/ FALL 2004 7

18%

Estimated number

of ninth-graders

expected to 

complete higher

education in a 

timely manner 
8

1.

WHEN BIG SEEMS SMALL

In Portland’s suburbs, a large high school 

makes every student feel counted. 

By Rhonda Barton 

BEAVERTON, Oregon—If you’re waiting for the bell to ring at

Southridge High School, you’ll wait forever: No shrill metallic sound signals the end of the class period or the close of the

school day. Instead, kids take their cues from snatches of

Broadway show tunes, the strains of a classical concerto, or a

rock beat blasting out of the public address system. It’s one

small—but telling—sign that this suburban Portland high

school marches to its own drummer.

Built in 1999, Southridge doesn’t look like your grandmother’s high school. A soaring glass atrium crowded with

round lunch tables and festooned with banners and school

spirit signs sits at the center of the sprawling complex. Four

brightly colored wings radiate out of this thriving hub: Each

is a self-contained “neighborhood” with fewer than 500 students and its own team of teachers, counselors, and other

staff members. Freshmen are randomly assigned to the

neighborhoods, which function as smaller learning communities and have their own identity and governance structure.

MAKING IT PERSONAL

While the neighborhood serves as a student’s home base for

four years—the place where he takes language arts and social

studies classes and is assigned to an advisory group—he’ll

travel all over the building for electives that fit neatly into

seven career academies. As sophomores, students choose

from one to three career academy “endorsements”—similar

to college majors—to pursue in their junior and senior years.

To earn the endorsements, students must take a set number

of courses, fulfill a service learning requirement that links to

community needs, and complete an independent senior project. A trimester system makes it easier to offer students lots

of choices.

The blend of neighborhoods and academies—along with a

number of other innovations that personalize learning—is a

formula that seems to work for just about everyone. Less than

1 percent of Southridge’s students dropped out last year;

almost 80 percent enrolled in Advanced Placement and

International Baccalaureate courses; and, in an independent

survey, the average student said he was well known by at least

3.7 teachers. Southridge also met standards for adequate yearly

progress in all areas but one (the exception being a single category where two students did not test). 

Those results have brought Southridge widespread attention and catapulted Principal Sarah Boly into the national

spotlight. Invited to speak in April 2004 at a prestigious

national convention of education reporters in San Francisco,

Boly told the group, “The barriers to changing schools are

essentially systems that promote mediocrity and inhibit high

schools from moving ahead.”

FREE REIN

When Boly was asked to design Southridge from the ground

up, there were no such inhibitions. “I was given two documents: the floor plan of the school and Breaking Ranks” (the

1996 handbook published by the National Association of

Secondary School Principals). Working with a cross-disciplinary team of 18 teachers and counselors from across the district, Boly spent a year researching, planning, and listening.

“The community said, ‘Give our children more options’; students said, ‘Quit lecturing to us, quit boring us, let us design

our own educational programming.’ We simply listened.”

Boly assures people that Southridge wasn’t an overnight

success. “The first year was chaotic,” she recalls with a shudder. “I could feel us going sideways. We weren’t talking about

student work, we were talking about who stole the file 

cabinet and used up all the paper.”

Photo by Bruce Miller
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 9

Despite “every single advantage in the world,” including a

regionally and internationally diverse staff, Boly describes the

data that first year as “abysmal” with huge discrepancies in

achievement among the dominant population and minority

students. “It wasn’t long after Columbine, so most of the data

we were collecting had to do with perceptions of safety ...

(and) it was awful. Only about 20 percent of our students felt

like teachers respected them and 7 percent felt students

respected each other. It appeared that we were headed in the

direction of every other new high school that had been intent

on change but hadn’t paid enough attention to school 

culture, including teacher culture.”

It was a wake-up call. Boly and her staff redoubled their

efforts, instituting critical friends groups and concentrating

on making every student feel connected. By the fourth year,

when the first class of freshmen entered their senior year, the

charge to “break ranks” finally paid off in higher test scores,

lower dropout rates, and a narrowing achievement gap.

Adam Barbay, a senior who started at Southridge the second year it was open, remembers, “There were lots of kinks

to work out—and there still are—but there are so many

opportunities here.” After starring in the school’s musical,

Barbay is headed for Loyola University in Chicago to study

theatre, physics, business, or all three. Seventy percent of his

THINGS THAT WORK AT SOUTHRIDGE

Five-Fingered Votes

“Nothing happens at Southridge without 100 percent buy-in

from staff,” says English teacher Sharon Larpenteur. “We might

not all love it 100 percent, but it won’t happen unless all of us

are willing to give it a try.” In spring, the faculty weighs in on

new proposals using a “five-fingered” vote: Five fingers means

you’re totally in support of the idea, while one finger means “I’m

not crazy about this, but I’m willing to do it.” Raise a fist and it

means you’re not willing to go along. When that happens,

you’re assigned to a committee to find solutions to the issue. 

Skytime and Advisory

Named for Southridge’s mascot (the Skyhawk), Skytime is a

twice weekly, 45-minute student access period. After listening

to announcements, students can use the time to work on a project or “check out” to visit a counselor, make up a test, go to the

library, or consult with another teacher. “Students get the other

teacher to sign their planners, so I can see if they’re using their

time well,” says Larpenteur. “It gives them a place where they

can’t be invisible.”

The advisory program—which meets once or twice a month

for 35 minutes and mixes students from different grade levels—

also helps ensure that kids don’t slip through the cracks. One

teacher is assigned to advise 15 students throughout the course

of their high school career. “I remember when we were forecasting in my freshman year and I was trying to decide whether

to take AP or IB courses,” says senior Claire Newton. “I could

get advice from upperclassmen in my advisory, as well as the

teacher’s.” Junior Damon Runberg adds, “There’s so much peer

pressure to do positive things, like take IB.”

The Learning Center 

When a freshman or sophomore is struggling, he can turn to the

Learning Center for help. The award-winning, voluntary program

provides peer tutoring one period a day with a ratio of one tutor

per three students. Upperclassmen earn service learning credits

for serving as tutors while vulnerable ninth- and 10th-graders

find a support network. Once a semester, tutors and tutees are

treated to a rope challenge course that cements relationships

and builds leadership skills.

Critical Friends Groups

Groups of six to 12 staff members meet once a month to reflect

on their classroom instructional practices with a trained coach.

“It’s a bonding time,” explains social studies teacher Amy

Schuff. “It’s social but work gets done because (the session) is

documented and we’re forced to commit to trying new things

and then report back to the group. My critical friends aren’t necessarily the people I hang out with, but these are people I trust

who I know will be there for me. I think this is our most significant professional development piece (and) makes a profound

difference in our school culture.” 

For more information: www.beavton.k12.or.us/southridge/

home.html

FIVE PATHS TO SUCCESS
10

classmates will also go on to a four-year college while 20 percent pursue a two-year degree. That’s an enviable record in a

school with a population that’s 16 percent low income and

almost one-quarter minority.

“NTLB” 

Boly believes that pushing students to dream—and helping

them realize their dreams—can only happen in an environment where there’s distributed leadership and teacher collaboration. “It’s not just about No Child Left Behind: It’s no

teacher left behind. It’s about identifying a team of teacherleaders who can help lead the whole school,” she says. English

teacher Sharon Larpenteur backs that up: “Sarah has a vision,

but she’s able to reach out. She listens carefully to everyone’s

opinion and crafts a solution that works for everyone.”

The ability to make things work has turned out to be a

mixed blessing for Boly. Instead of retiring this year, as

planned, she’s been persuaded to take on the role of

Beaverton’s assistant superintendent. She’ll face the challenge

of applying some of Southridge’s lessons to Oregon’s secondlargest school district.

2.

SERIOUS GOALS, 

PLAYFUL ENVIRONMENT

Parents fulfill a pivotal role at Coeur d’Alene,

where it’s okay to be a little corny.

By Mindy Cameron

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho—Mr. Casey strides down the hallway,

a velvet cape billowing behind him, a regal cap seated firmly

on his head. “Mr. Renaissance” is on the move. 

In most high schools this would be an odd sight. Here

there is no surprise, only smiles. 

Steven Casey has been principal of Coeur d’Alene High

School for 10 years. For much of that time he has been donning his Mr. Renaissance costume to bring added attention to

the school’s Renaissance Recognition Program. On this

morning he enters a classroom and surprises rookie-of-theyear teacher Tarraugh Carr. He congratulates her, gives her a

Viking mug, and in return gets an appreciative hug.

Running a high school doesn’t have to be all business,

Casey says. Having fun, even being a little bit corny, is part of

his strategy for creating a successful learning environment.

A PUBLIC PLEDGE 

At CHS success is a clearly stated expectation. “Our goal is to

be the state academic champion by 2006,” Casey proclaims.

The goal is posted on a big, bold banner in a visible spot in

the cafeteria. To achieve it, every current sophomore must

pass the Idaho State Achievement Test (ISAT) and graduate. 

That goal is reinforced by asking each incoming freshman

to sign a pledge to graduate. Signatures are posted behind

glass in a hallway to remind everyone what is expected and

what has been promised. 

While the principal may be the most important person at

any school, even the best school leader cannot do the job

alone. Casey credits his leadership team, plus an unusually

active parent group, for successes at CHS. When parents

decided they wanted to be more than a traditional parentteacher organization, they became the Parent Volunteer

Organization (PVO) to emphasize what they do: volunteer.

PARENTS STEP UP 

Parent involvement is instilled throughout the Coeur

d’Alene school district by a policy that says parents must constitute 25 percent of membership on any committee. But at

CHS parents do more than sit on committees. PVO president

THE NUMBERS

Grades 9–12

Total students 1,950

Racial/ethnic make-up

White 76%

African American 2%

Hispanic 5%

Native American > 1%

Asian 16%

Free and reduced-price lunch 9%

Staff 

Teachers 91 

Counselors 4 

Administrators 6 

Support staff 64
Rene Kaufman estimates that as many as 300 actively

involved parents donate thousands of hours each year. They

help out with virtually every school activity, attend student

council sessions and faculty meetings, raise money for minigrants for teachers, and work in the school office. Parents

support the Renaissance Program by soliciting gift certificates

for students singled out for recognition and sending congratulatory cards to those students’ parents.

Casey and Kaufman agree that ongoing parent involvement also helps when district voters are asked to support supplemental levies. This high school, on the outskirts of one of

the fastest growing cities in the Northwest, was built in 1971.

Two years ago it was remodeled thanks to a facilities levy 

supported by 83 percent of the voters.

“There is a direct connection between an active PVO and

community support for school elections,” Kaufman said. Casey

puts it even more simply: “Parents are vital to our success.” 

CHS has a legitimate claim to the “successful school”

mantle. Independent accreditation officials have named it an

Idaho School of Merit in five of the last six years (Casey

winces when asked about that missing year). Its collegebound students score above state and national averages on

both SAT and ACT. On the broader measure of ISAT—taken

by all 10th-graders in Idaho—the school also scores above

state averages. In 2000, Casey was named Idaho’s Secondary

Principal of the Year.

A STUDENT VOICE

Like many high schools, CHS has had to deal with issues

about student dress. According to Casey, concerns about

“skin”—cleavage, short skirts, bare midriffs—bubbled to the

surface. How the issue was handled says a lot about how

things work at this school. 

Casey first went to the students, challenging them to think

about rules that were being applied elsewhere, as well as the

issue of school uniforms. “I asked them what they were willing to give up to appease adults” and other critics, including

some of their peers.

Students came up with ideas, as did staff and parents. A

consensus proposal was put on an advisory ballot that got

overwhelming student support. Among the new rules is one

barring any visible underwear, including bra straps and boys’

boxers that show above saggy pants. “It took a year to work it

out, but it was worth it,” claims Casey. “I have more clout

now because I can say ‘As a school we have decided,’ instead

of imposing my rules.” 

Casey is deliberate about his interaction with students.

Some principals delegate the job of advising student government leaders. At CHS Casey keeps that on his task list, meeting monthly with student-elected leaders. He also holds a

monthly youth forum to engage with students who are not

school leaders. “We talk about anything they want to talk

about,” he says. If students don’t have a lot on their minds

that day, Casey is sure to have plenty of ideas.

THINGS THAT WORK AT COEUR D’ALENE

90% Attendance Rule

Under a districtwide policy, if a student has 10 or more

absences per semester in any class, he loses credit for that

course. The student must then pass a competency exam for

the class in order to get a grade and credit. 

Portfolio Diploma

At graduation, seniors are given a “portfolio diploma” that

includes a description of their senior project and letters of

recommendation that will assist them as they pursue their

dreams beyond the walls of CHS. The senior project is a culmination of four years of work and is a requirement to pass

senior English.

Dual Enrollment

CHS juniors and seniors can enroll in courses at North Idaho

College and receive both high school and college credit. To

be eligible for the program, students must have a cumulative

GPA of 3.0 or higher, be at least 16 years of age, and must

have successfully completed at least half of the high school

graduation requirements.

For more information: www.sd271.k12.id.us/chs/

FIVE PATHS TO SUCCESS

Photo by William M. Berg

Principal

Steven 

Casey 

takes on 

the role 

of “Mr.

Renaissance.”

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 11
12

3.

WIRED WORLD

In an unlikely setting, an Anchorage charter school

connects kids with business and technology.

By Denise Jarrett Weeks

ANCHORAGE, Alaska—It’s as if they’re in a parallel universe:

those teenagers banding together along the promenades of

America’s shopping malls, occupying the same lanes as the

grown-ups but in a separate reality. But here on a busy boulevard in Anchorage, Alaska, there is a shopping-mall-turnedcharter-school where those dual worlds happily collide.

At Highland Tech High, younger folk and older folk interact all the time, creating a richer reality together, says Principal

C.J. Stiegele. She’s seen how easy it is for a teenager to go

through an entire day without talking to a single adult, and

she’s vowed that, at this school, that will be impossible.

Students and teachers are encouraged to think of this technology-focused school as functioning like a workplace, where

collaboration and shared responsibility are expected.

Everyone’s a colleague, though students are to look to their

higher-ranking teachers for guidance. And guidance is abundant. Class sizes are small, so teachers can spend ample time

with individual students. Every teacher and administrator

serves as an advisor, working closely with students to help

them craft their school careers with care.

A steady stream of adult professionals comes to the school

to talk with students about their jobs, and, often as not, they

become mentors to aspiring students. Students themselves

are regularly out in the working world, side-by-side with

adults as they participate in “job shadows” and work on 

community-based school projects.

A CHANCE TO SHINE

Stiegele founded Highland Tech as a public charter school

focusing on academic standards, technology, and character

building. The school opened its doors in fall 2003 to 300 students seeking an alternative to large comprehensive high

schools and tradition-bound teaching. All the students who

arrived that autumn were bright and hopeful, yet most had

struggled to show their promise in traditional school settings,

says Stiegele. By the end of that inaugural year, Stiegele and

her staff had reason to believe that they were doing something right.

Take the sophomores and juniors, for example. Of the 72

students who came to Highland Tech as 10th-graders, 54 percent had failed half their classes at their previous schools. And

THE NUMBERS

Grades 9–12 

Total students 1,450

Racial/ethnic make-up (districtwide)

White 95%

African American <1%

Hispanic 3%

Native American <1%

Asian 1%

Free and reduced-price lunch 21%

Staff

Teachers 71

Counselors 4 

Administrators 4

CONNECTING WITH FRESHMEN 

In this age of high-stakes testing, school leaders are looking

for new ways to create supportive learning environments. 

At CHS a program called IGNITE is one such approach.

Incoming juniors and seniors volunteer for training in the

summer to become mentors for the new class of freshmen.

The idea is to “ignite” good behavior. Having 90 kids connect

with freshmen and establish a sense of belonging has been “a

tremendous help for the school climate,” Casey says. 

Student body president Taylor Neal agrees. “There are

always kids who feel they don’t belong. This school has done

a great job in dealing with that.” 

Another new program focusing on freshmen takes a page

from research that shows the value of smaller high schools.

Casey calls it a school-within-a-school: Working with middle

schools, CHS staff identify incoming freshmen who are at

risk of getting lost in the transition to high school. They’re

placed in a different learning environment with smaller classes that meet in three-hour blocks. The student-teacher ratio

is lower and a counselor is part of the teaching team. 

The added cost of the program is covered by the district’s

recent $1 million “remediation” override levy. Some of the levy

also is used for students who need extra help for the ISAT.

Never an easy job, running a high school today is more

challenging than ever. At CHS Casey cuts through the complexity with one basic rule for administrators, staff, teachers,

and students. That rule: Do the right thing. 
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 13

each of the eighteen 11th-graders had failed at least one grade

level in the past. Despite this and a few new-school kinks—

computers and textbooks didn’t arrive until the second term—

Stiegele proudly points out that 75 percent or more of the

10th-grade students passed all three sections of the state’s high

school exit exam in reading, writing, and math (students can

take the test as early as the 10th grade). The record was even

better for the 11th grade: Everyone passed all three sections.

A STANDARDS-BASED MODEL

The school is the fruit of an idea sown by Stiegele and a

group of entrepreneurs, high-tech professionals, teachers,

and parents who wanted to try the Quality Schools Model—

a standards-based innovation that has been very successful in

rural Alaska—in a small, urban high school.

Businesses and community organizations are key stakeholders, right up there with parents, says Associate Principal

Mark Standley. In fact, the Quality Schools Model was developed by the Chugach School District in close partnership

with some of Alaska’s leading corporations in the oil, transportation, and communications industries. It has attracted the

support of such business-funded philanthropies as the Bill &

Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle and New Tech

Foundation in Napa, California, in part for its emphasis on

making learning relevant to the world of work and for teaching students social skills expected in the workplace.

In the model, achievement is the constant, and time is the

variable, says Standley. “We don’t measure the children by

how much time they spend with us, but by how much they

achieve,” he says.

Students advance to the next grade at their own pace when

they can demonstrate mastery of a set of standards in content

strands, such as reading and literature; numeric literacy;

careers and content literacy; communication literacy; and

personal, health, social, and service learning. Through traditional tests, students must show their mastery of at least 80

percent of those standards to achieve proficiency—90 percent

to reach an advanced level.

Moreover, students must be able to apply, at a similarly

high level, at least 20 percent of those standards in a real-life

context. And what could be more “real” than a poetry slam?

That’s precisely how some students showed their literary

chops last spring, performing their own works in a national

poetry slam via audio- and videoconferences with students

from Alaska villages to the Bronx, New York. 

WALKING THE TALK

At Highland Tech, the teacher-student ratio is 1:22, so every

teacher knows every student. Advisors help students figure

out what their career interests are and how to go about

achieving their goals. The school brings in other adults, too:

professionals from the business world who speak to students

at “business luncheons,” invite students to job-shadow them

at work, and serve as mentors.

THINGS THAT WORK AT HIGHLAND TECH HIGH

Project-Based Studies

Students learn by actively solving problems, a process that

develops their critical thinking skills. Projects incorporate relevant and current issues, as well as the core disciplines. Also,

the work students do in one area can fulfill requirements in

other areas. For example, a student might use the same

research paper to fulfill standards in both social studies and

language arts. In this way, students can move through the

standards quickly. 

Professional Development

Teachers at Highland Tech High receive ample training in the

Quality Schools Model through the Reinventing Schools

Coalition. Additionally, Rebecca Midles has begun training

teachers in the model and helping them with curriculum

development, lesson planning, and instructional strategies.

Staff members get together during summer break to review

the previous year and to see where they can make improvements. “It’s just very fulfilling,” says Midles. “You have a lot of

ownership that way, too.” (To learn more about the Quality

Schools Model, visit the Web site of the Reinventing Schools

Coalition at www.reinventingschools.org)

For more information: www.highlandtech.org

FIVE PATHS TO SUCCESS

Photo by Mark Standley
14

Make no bones about it, the school’s mission is to prepare

these young adults to step straight from high school into

promising jobs and college careers. So, at 13, 15, or 18, these

young people start “walking the talk.” The dress code is

“business casual.” Students take part in job shadows and

internships, and work collaboratively on community-based

projects. Their environment is technology-rich. Students

become adept users of the technologies of today’s workplace,

using Palm Pilots, laptops, multimedia programs, videoconferencing, and the like in the course of their days. 

“Our students not only learn about what we call ‘employability skills’—things like responsibility, showing up for work

on time, dressing appropriately, communicating with

adults—but they start working on those skills in seventh

grade,” says Stiegele, so that by ninth and 10th grade, they’re

ready to apply those skills in a business environment. “We’re

constantly working on the mindset of employability.”

A METAPHOR THAT WORKS

Highland Tech students are encouraged to think of themselves as employees and their teachers as their employers. But,

before you get the wrong idea: “That metaphor is there on

one level,” says teacher Rebecca Midles, “but it’s also there in

the sense that it’s the boss that you wish you could work for.”

The boss here is someone who cares about your emotional intelligence as well as your performance, she says, who has

an emotional connection with you and cares about your

interests and well-being. “You have to have that for students,”

Midles stresses, “so we don’t give that up.” 

But the metaphor packs a wallop when Standley, hoping to

motivate kids, likens their achieving the standards to getting

paid at work. It’s an attention grabber. “If you’re not working

on your standards, you’re volunteering,” he tells them.

Melissa is in 11th grade this year. She says, “One of the

things that’s really nice about the standards is you really have

a big feeling of accomplishment after you’ve completed a

standard. That’s just so cool.”

After mastering a good share of the standards, Melissa

earned a “responsibility pass” which gave her some perks. She

used her pass to go off school grounds to visit the municipal

library, one of Anchorage’s architectural landmarks. “It’s kind

of like an incentive for passing off the levels,” she says.

REAL-WORLD LEARNING

In her previous school, says Melissa, she wrote paper after

paper and took test after test, but didn’t do well no matter

how hard she tried. She was shy and withdrawn.

“The one thing that really wasn’t working ... for me was

the way that they taught everything,” she says. “I couldn’t

learn it very well. ... So, when I got the test it was like, oh my

gosh, I couldn’t remember anything. And my parents were

getting really worried because I kept failing all these tests, and

they couldn’t understand why.

“Well, here, we’re given the opportunity to do things that

deal with technology. We do things like put together

PowerPoints, and we do movies, and we put together skits

and plays. I mean, the opportunities to show that you know

something, and that you can do it, are endless.”

Melissa’s voice is full of excitement and confidence. She’s

not the same girl she was a year ago, she says. Today, she has

plans to be a nurse.

GOING PLACES

“Where you will go” is a sentiment students hear a lot in this

school. It’s not enough to tell students they must master a

bunch of standards levels, says Midles, you have to tell them

why they should and where it will take them in life.

“Explain why you’re teaching that and how it connects to

the real world, and then ... how it’s going to be assessed,

what’s going to be the project, and where they are going,” says

Midles. “There are a lot of students that need to have those

things answered before they can relax and learn. ... You’re

always relating it back to where it’s going to take them.”

THE NUMBERS

Grades 7–11

Number of students 244

Racial/ethnic make-up

White 68%

African American 5%

American Indian/Alaska Native 15%

Asian 2%

Free and reduced-price lunch approx. 50%

Staff

Teachers 15

Administrators 5

Support staff 3
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 15

4.

BUILDING ON THE PAST

An historic school in Spokane emphasizes 

leadership and advocacy. 

By Mindy Cameron

SPOKANE, Washington—On a warm spring day, picturesque

Lewis and Clark High School could be a movie set for the latest teen film. Students are enjoying their lunch break on the

plaza, a few boys are tossing a football on the expansive lawn,

others are milling in an adjacent garden. Around the corner,

tree-filtered sunlight bathes the steep steps and grand entry of

this historic school building so beautifully restored just a few

years ago. 

Lewis and Clark, which sits along Interstate-90 near downtown Spokane, is the oldest and most urban of the city’s five

high schools. While it is steeped in tradition, there’s nothing

old-fashioned about the approach to learning at LCHS. 

After three years at the school—two of them as principal—

Jon Swett is intensely focused on leadership development

and “thoughtful use of data” as keys to achieving goals in two

priorities: academics and advocacy. The academic goal is to

close the achievement gap; the advocacy goal is to support

teachers and students. “You meet the needs of students by

supporting the teachers,” says Swett.

GUIDED BY VISION

LCHS has been recognized for its Advanced Placement programs: Indeed, Newsweek magazine last year listed the school

among the country’s top 4 percent of high schools in a ranking based on the number of students enrolled in AP programs.

The school also exceeds both district and state averages on

WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) in all

areas, including math, reading, writing, and science. 

The challenge is to maintain the school’s reputation for

high achievement while raising the levels of all students.

“What I want to hear is that we have a strategy for getting kids

to standard,” emphasizes Swett. At LCHS, the precise meaning of “standard” is still being worked out, but the goal is to

exceed NCLB and state standards set in the WASL. “I want

the LC standard to mean something,” says Swett, “What do

kids know, what can they do, what can they understand? Can

they tackle a problem they have no information for and come

up with a meaningful response?” 

Swett has organized his leadership team to focus on the

priorities. Assistant Principal Mike Malsam leads a ninthgrade initiative that serves as a pilot program for keeping kids

current in core classes. Assistant Principal Paula Ronhaar

heads the leadership development initiative. 

Swett recruited both Malsam and Ronhaar to LCHS from

other schools in the district to help him achieve his vision. “I

came here specifically because of Jon’s blended leadership

model,” says Ronhaar. “Jon thinks outside the box, which is

unusual in education, and I’ve been in it since 1976. He’s

leading a shift to instructional leaders, and everyone is

expected to have a vision.” 

TEACHERS AS LEADERS

Developing a leadership team starts with the hiring process.

“We need teachers with the capacity to be advocates for kids,”

says Ronhaar. Swett’s formula is simple: Hire teachers who

love kids and their content area, and who are coachable. 

The “coachable” part is essential because LCHS teachers

are expected to be part of the leadership team and to commit

to a common focus. “All the resources are wrapped around

the teacher,” says Swett. “In the classroom, that’s where the

magic happens.” 

One key component of staff training is an education model

created by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, authors of

Understanding by Design. The Wiggins-McTighe model stresses

the importance of approaching any curriculum by beginning

with the end in mind. That means asking the question, what is

FIVE PATHS TO SUCCESS

Courtesy of Explosion Illusion Photography
16

the “enduring understanding”—the big, important idea or

concept—students should take away from a lesson? 

Time for teacher training and collaboration is a challenge.

At many schools the schedule provides little time for teachers

to work together. Thanks to district policy, “we have the gift

of time,” Ronhaar observes. In the 2004–2005 school year, all

Spokane public school students will start late on Thursdays

to allow teachers to work together. 

Malsam uses a business analogy to explain why the school

is devoting so much of that time to collaboration and leadership development among teachers. Teachers tend to be like

independent operators and entrepreneurs, he says. “We’re

trying to turn them into collaborators because the highest

failure rate in business is among start-ups by entrepreneurs.

The collaborative business model is the franchise and more

of them succeed.”

FOCUS ON FRESHMEN 

Changing the culture is also at the heart of the ninth-grade

initiative. It grew out of the realization that the status quo

wasn’t working—especially for freshmen. Malsam notes that

resources are limited, so it’s important to bring a laser focus

to the kids who need it the most. “We focus on the kids as

they walk out the middle school door.” 

Since math is often the biggest hurdle for students making

the transition to high school, LCHS established the Tiger

Academy, a summer program for entering ninth-graders who

are identified based on middle school recommendations.

Along with math, instructors also work on “soft skills”: social,

emotional, and organizational. Tiger Academy is not remediation, Swett emphasizes, “It is a highly rigorous environment.” 

Once at LCHS, freshman learning is carefully monitored.

The first indication a ninth-grader is dropping below “standard” triggers intervention, says Malsam. The teacher calls

the parent and notifies student services, which follows up

with tutoring. 

This “real-time” feedback loop is called a Circle of

Advocacy. In 2002–2003, before the initiative was launched, a

third of all freshmen were failing at least one class. At the end

of the first semester of 2003–2004, the failure rate was cut to

18 percent, even though standards had been raised. 

THINGS THAT WORK AT LEWIS AND CLARK

Focus on Learning

Teachers are expected to post in every classroom, every day,

this statement with the blank filled in: “The enduring understanding of today’s lesson is ________________.” The idea is

to keep teachers focused on the ultimate learning goal of

whatever is happening in the classroom. 

Use of Data

The vision, goals, strategies, and programs developed by the

current administrative team are incorporated into the LC Project,

a 64-page document (available online at www.spokaneschools.

org/lewis_clark/LCProject/index.htm) that includes key data

that are used to measure progress and set goals.

The Spokane School District also systematically collects,

disseminates, and uses data to drive decisionmaking and

influence curricular decisions. By mid-September, each school

in the district receives a data packet with its own assessment

results displayed in multiple formats. A representative from

the district’s assessment office meets with groups of teachers

to delve into the data on their school and their own students. 

Advanced Placement

Lewis and Clark offers nine different AP courses and gives more

than 450 AP exams each year. Thirty percent of the student

body enrolls in AP, and 80 percent of seniors are college bound. 

Leadership Development

All teachers at LCHS are expected to be part of a professional

learning community. They are trained in new approaches to

teaching and learning, and are given time to collaborate on

best practices in teaching, assessment, student advocacy, and

more. 

For more information: www.sd81.k12.wa.us/lewis_clark/

Principal Jon Swett focuses on creating teacher leaders.

Photo by William M. Berg 
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 17

5.

CLASSROOMS 

WITHOUT WALLS

In Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, one high school

uses experiential learning to encourage lifelong

learners.

By Bracken Reed

CORVALLIS, Montana—In the summer of 2000, much of the

Bitterroot Valley went up in flames. Beginning in mid-July

and continuing unabated until the rains of September finally

allowed firefighters to regain control, wildfires blazed

throughout the valley. In the end, more than 356,000 acres of

private, state, and federal land had burned. More than 500

families were evacuated from their homes—many staying in

emergency shelters set up in local schools—and a total of 75

homes were destroyed. 

By the beginning of the school year in September, with

smoke still lingering and ashes still cooling, teachers at

Corvallis High School had hatched a plan to draw on these

traumatic experiences. Trevor Laboski, along with his fellow

science teachers, designed a class that would take students out

into the field to study the effects of the fire on the Mill Creek

and Bear Creek drainages—two particularly hard-hit areas on

the west side of the valley, within the Corvallis School

District’s boundaries.

Now in its fourth year, the project continues to involve

students in a hands-on, field-based study of the effects of the

fire on long-term water quality, soil erosion, and plant recovery in the area. Students visit the creek sites twice a year,

develop an understanding of the scientific methods for studying water quality, and share their findings with the U.S.

Forest Service. But more important, students are exposed to

the idea that learning can be challenging, practical, and powerfully relevant to their lives all at the same time. As Laboski

says, “You don’t have to get buy-in from students with this

kind of project; it’s already there. What could be more relevant than something that just drove you out of your house?”

At Corvallis High, this was no one-time undertaking.

Educational projects involving hands-on, active student

involvement—much of it outside the classroom—are a staple. While many schools incorporate a project-based

approach into their curriculum, few work as hard as Corvallis

at making sure those projects are part of a rigorous and coherent curriculum that is closely aligned to state standards.

THE NUMBERS

Grades 9–12

Total students 2,028

Racial/ethnic make-up

White 85% 

African American 6%

Hispanic 3% 

Native American 3%

Asian 4%

Free and reduced-price lunch 26% 

Staff

Teachers 101

Administrators 5

Counselors 4.5 

Support staff 44

FIVE PATHS TO SUCCESS

Without the layering effect of advocacy circles, you run the

risk of burning out your teachers, Malsam believes. The

advocacy initiative allows teachers to teach because parents

and staff are quickly engaged on behalf of students who need

extra support. 

UPHOLDING TRADITION

There are many ways to tell the story of Lewis and Clark

High School. It is a school with a proud history, including the

recent renovation, a cadre of loyal alumni, strong AP programs, a valuable art collection, and an auditorium and pipe

organ that are valued community resources. 

As Swett tours the building he is obviously proud of all

that. But he is looking forward to writing a new chapter of

LCHS history. He cites increasing enrollment in a part of

Spokane that is not growing. It is the most diverse high

school in the city and is a school of choice for many students

and their parents. 

High expectations are as real here as the freeway just outside the school door. “We have to be good stewards of our

reputation,” concludes Paula Ronhaar. 
18

Principal Sarah Schumacher gives her staff a lot of freedom to

pursue their passions, but she is also a hard-nosed realist who

demands results. And the results are there for everyone to

see: Corvallis students have consistently performed well in all

areas of the state’s Iowa Test of Educational Development

(ITED) and are particularly strong in science, with close to 90

percent meeting the proficient or advanced level in each of

the last three years.

TAKING IT OUTSIDE

Several staff members point to the dynamic leadership of

Schumacher and the messianic zeal of long-time English

teacher Art Rzasa for spreading the philosophy of experiential

learning throughout the school. 

Rzasa, called “the guru of authentic outcomes” by one of

his fellow teachers, has been walking his talk for over a

decade—or rather, hiking his talk, often at an elevation of

11,000 feet. Every summer Rzasa leads a group of 10 sophomores and juniors on a 30-mile backpacking trip into alpine

wilderness. 

The program, called Classroom Without Walls, is now in

its 11th year and is the epitome of the Corvallis philosophy:

It gives students ownership of their educational experience;

it’s cross-curricular; it incorporates the beautiful Montana

landscape; it produces practical, “authentic” outcomes that

can be used by others; and it is supported by a large number

of outside agencies and businesses. 

Students apply for the program in January, and the eightday trip takes place the following July. In between, students

incorporate language arts, science, and social studies into a

thorough, meaningful study of the place they will visit. Each

student is required to create a specific lesson plan that culminates in a peer teaching session and the creation of audiovisual teaching materials that can be used in other district classrooms. While on the trip itself, they’re required to haul a 40-

pound pack, cook their own meals, and camp in tents in

places like the Beartooth Mountains, the Wind River Range,

and the Sawtooths—beautiful, rugged wilderness areas that

form the most breathtaking classrooms one can imagine. 

It’s an experience that calls out to anyone who has ever

stared out a window during sophomore social studies, stricken with spring fever and daydreaming about the freedom of

the great outdoors, while a well-meaning but uninspiring

teacher drones on about names and dates that will be on the

next test. 

DRIVEN BY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

One gets the sense that Art Rzasa was just such a student

himself, and that his own experience as a nontraditional student, alienated by traditional lecture-based teaching practices,

motivates him to share the power of experiential learning

with all who will listen. 

At Corvallis, he has found a receptive audience in many of

his fellow teachers, and a principal who fully supports his

efforts. Schumacher, a former English teacher at Corvallis,

has been here since 1978 and has helped turn the school into

a haven for passionate, adventurous teachers, who aren’t

afraid to think outside traditional teaching boundaries or take

their students outside the building. 

“I believe that kids need to be treated with dignity and

respect,” says Schumacher. “That needs to be a core value.

And part of that is that they need to have teachers who are

exceptional people—people who have passions and interests

of their own, as well as a passion for teaching and for their

subject area.”

A DIVERGENT FLOCK

During Schumacher’s time as principal, the town and school

district have grown tremendously. One result has been the

creation of several new teaching positions at the school,

which has allowed her to put her beliefs into action. 

THE NUMBERS

Grades 9–12

Total students 480

Racial/ethnic make-up

White 97%

African American <1%

Hispanic 1%

Native American 1%

Asian <1%

Free and reduced-price lunch: 37%

Staff

Teachers 34 

Administrators 4

Counselors 1.5

Support staff 2
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 19

“I didn’t want to hire sheep,” says Schumacher. “I didn’t

want to hire people who were easy to lead, necessarily, but

people who had divergent ideas. So I looked at both offerings:

curricular as well as other things they could bring into the

mix of the school that would include more kids in extracurricular or cocurricular activities. I want the school to be a

dynamic rather than a static place.”

The end result, says geography teacher Phil Leonardi, has

been exactly that. “This is a very dynamic place, with talented, creative people. Sarah encourages people to integrate all

aspects of their lives into their teaching and to teach to their

passions. For me, it’s reinvigorated my career. It’s given a

meaning and a sense of purpose to my job.” 

It’s the kind of statement one hears often at Corvallis High

School, from teachers and students alike. In the end, what

people take beyond the classroom walls here is the most valuable experience of all: the sense of being a passionate, lifelong

learner. ■

THINGS THAT WORK AT CORVALLIS 

Empowering students to take control of their own learning by

offering hands-on, experiential, project-based learning opportunities is the foundation of the school’s curriculum. There are

many exciting projects happening at the school, all of which

share some common traits: They are long term; they are

research driven; they include a wide variety of assessments,

including student portfolios and presentations; they involve collaborations and partnerships with outside agencies; and they

result in authentic outcomes that can be shared with others.

They also have full district and principal support. 

Here’s a sampling:

The Riparian Monitoring Project

The post-fire stream monitoring project (see main article) was a

spin-off of this long-term project, which is spearheaded by Jim

Striebel, a 2004 Radio Shack National Teacher Award winner.

Working in collaboration with the nearby Teller Wildlife Refuge

(TWR), Striebel’s science students are part of a “stream team”

that tests the water quality of several east valley creeks. The

project involves the freshman physical science class, the sophomore biology class, and the junior chemistry class, and incorporates stream monitoring into the normal classroom curriculum.

Students collect data in the spring and fall, compare it with previous years, and share it with the TWR and the U.S. Forest

Service. The data are valuable in monitoring the effectiveness of

riparian habitat restoration efforts on the refuge.

The Calf Creek Elk Project

Led by science teacher Trevor Laboski, this project involves the

monitoring of deer and elk activity on a winter game range in

the nearby Sapphire Mountains. Students visit the area twice a

year, creating “transects”: marked-off areas of 100 to 200 feet

each. The students then give a detailed report of everything

they find within that transect. “The object is to give an accurate

snapshot of the carrying capacity of the area,” says Laboski. “In

other words: How many elk can this place support?” Students

then share these data with Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks. 

The Montana Heritage Project

This long-term project is a yearlong, cross-curricular course

involving the English and geography departments, and is led by

Phil Leonardi. Each year the project focuses on a different era of

Montana history. Students conduct oral interviews with longtime community members, create audiovisual materials that are

given to the local historical museum at the end of the year, and

search primary documents such as census records and archives.

Students also go to the state capitol in Helena once a year to

give presentations on their findings.

FIVE PATHS TO SUCCESS Courtesy of Corvallis High
20 nwrel.org/nwedu

GREAT

EXPECTATIONS

A rural school in Washington 

doesn’t let poverty and 

demographics stand in its way.

BY BRACKEN REED

MATTAWA, Washington—On a bright and blazing spring day, Principal Bob Webb sits in his cluttered

corner office and reflects on his four years at Wahluke High School. A veteran administrator with

experience in six different public school districts and five different states, Webb is no stranger to the

realities of the education system. He’s committed and driven and not afraid to go to battle for his

teachers or his students, but he’s also pragmatic. And he can see the writing on the wall. 

A mixture of personal priorities and political struggles is bringing Webb’s tenure here to an end, and

there’s more than a hint of wistfulness in his voice. “I really appreciate the students and the families

here,” he says. “These are the best, most respectful young people that I have ever worked with. They

will do the right thing, and that’s what contributes to their success—there’s a passion for learning.”

It’s a sentiment that’s shared throughout the building. Again and again a visitor hears testimonials about the strong character of the students at this high-poverty, four-year high school: their positive attitudes, their intelligence, their good humor, their willingness to rise to a challenge. When

Webb came to the school, he wanted to tap into that energy. He wanted to challenge the students to

reach higher and dream bigger. 

True grit

Mattawa, Washington, is a hardscrabble town on the east bank of the Columbia River in Central

Washington State. The desert landscape is stark and beautiful here: The river cuts a wide path

through basalt cliffs and sagebrush plateaus, and the broad treeless shoulders of the Saddle

Mountains form a striking backdrop to the town. Located midway between the Wanapum Dam to

the north and the Priest Rapids Dam to the south, the area relies heavily on irrigation to alter the arid

landscape and fuel its agriculture-based economy. 

Set back from state route 243 and buffered by orchards, Mattawa is easy to miss, and must have

always been that way: The name comes from the local Wanapum Indian language and loosely 
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 21
22

translates as “Where is it?”—a fitting name for this dusty little town with its one main street. There’s a provisional feeling here, as if a strong wind could come down the river, up

over the hill, and blow it all away. 

But there is also pride. Even some of the most dilapidated

trailers have tidy-looking porches with pots of well-cared-for

geraniums or marigolds. A tiny restaurant on the main street

seems to slouch to one side, but its sign is carefully painted

and the curtains in the window are colorful and homemade.

There’s an air of taking care and making do—a dirt-floor

town, but a well-swept one. 

It’s this same sense of personal and civic pride, of grit and

determination, of good humor in the face of hard labor that

Bob Webb and his fellow educators recognize and appreciate

in the students of Wahluke High School. And it’s this spirit

that has allowed them to succeed at a level that is gaining

national attention.

Defying the odds

“It’s not if you’re going to college,” says Webb, “it’s where or

when. That’s our daily talk with students. It may be a twoyear school, it may be a four-year school, it might be a technical school, but we talk post–high school every single day to

every kid we see. That’s our expectation and our goal.”

For some, the goal might seem too lofty. According to a

2003 report from the National Governors Association,

“although 76 percent of white youth ... graduate high school

after four years, the graduation rate for Hispanic youth is just

53 percent. Only 9 percent of Hispanics complete a bachelor’s degree by age 29, compared with 43 percent of whites.”

With those statistics, Wahluke High might have low expectations: More than 75 percent of the students are Hispanic, 46

percent are designated as “migrant,” and 64 percent receive

free or reduced-price lunch. Districtwide, these indicators are

even higher. On the 2000 census, 90 percent of Mattawa’s 

residents listed Spanish as the language spoken at home.

At Wahluke, teachers and administrators have refused to

accept any inherent correlation between the national figures

and their school’s performance. “We really see that they have

the same opportunities as any other students,” says Jan

Phillips, a counselor who came to the school at the same time

as Bob Webb. “So, we don’t let them off the hook. The expectation is that they’re going to go to college.”

And go to college they have, in remarkable numbers.

According to the most current data available, 70 percent of

Wahluke’s students graduated, and 54 percent applied to college. Two years ago, 71 percent of the students applied and

were accepted to college, and the school was recognized by

the state college board. 

Also in 2002, the Pathways to College Network, an

alliance of 34 national organizations and funders, chose

Wahluke High as one of six schools to study for factors that

can make college more accessible for minority students. This

Courtesy of Wahluke High School
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 23

year, the National Association of Secondary School Principals

(NASSP) featured the school in their popular publication

Breaking Ranks II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform.

The hidden little town in central Washington is suddenly

finding itself on the national map.

A community, not just a school

What have been the keys to Wahluke High’s success? First

and foremost, says Webb, is a culture of support and respect.

At Wahluke that starts with language: Both Webb and his vice

principal, Dennis Adams, are bilingual, and every effort has

been made to hire bilingual teachers. 

“In an ideal situation we would have more teachers who are

both bilingual and certified in several content areas,” says

Webb. “I’ve hired five bilingual teachers since I’ve been here

and that’s been a godsend. It really makes the connection with

both students and parents a lot stronger, the communication

and trust are there; they feel like this is a good place to be.”

Upon his arrival, Webb also instituted a “prime time advisory period”:

Every adult in the building, except for

the secretaries, has an advisory group

that meets once a week. Each adult is

assigned up to 15 mixed-grade students

who she’ll advise throughout the 

students’ time at the school.

“It bridges a lot of gaps,” says Webb. “It bridges the age gap

between adults and students and between students from different grades, and it bridges any cultural gaps that might be

there. Basically, it gives each student another adult advocate,

another layer of support, and it helps them feel a personal,

one-to-one connection with the school.”

It can be a tough sell to some teachers, Webb acknowledges, but it’s worth the struggle. “Sometimes teachers think

it’s just another role they’re being asked to take on, which

they don’t see as part of their job description,” he says. “But

it works, and as they see that they become more open to it.

I’m not asking them to be an ‘advisor’ or a ‘counselor,’ I’m

just asking them to be a caring adult in the life of a kid—a

mentor, an advocate, whatever you want to call it.”

The actual “counseling” at the school is split between Jan

Phillips and David Garcia, a bilingual intervention specialist.

Between the two of them, they do everything they can to

keep students not only in school and engaged, but also on the

college track. From college fairs to financial aid nights, summer programs to after-school tutoring, bilingual parent outreach meetings to leading students on campus visits, the

counseling team is tireless in its effort to keep the door of

opportunity open for every student, even those without legal

residency.

“It’s tough,” says Phillips. “In this year’s graduating class

43 percent of the students are undocumented and so don’t

qualify for financial aid. We try to do everything we can. 

For those that are eligible, we encourage them to apply for

scholarships—we coach them all the time in what it takes to

do that. For others we encourage them to work their way

through school. A lot of us worked through college, so we

know it can be done. But whatever their situation and at

whatever level they can start, we push college. And they do

want to go. Those that are willing to step out there and give

it a shot have been successful.”

Equal opportunity and academic rigor

Another key to Wahluke High’s success has been, perhaps

surprisingly, an increase in graduation requirements. “Our

district requires five credits in both math and English,” says

Phillips, “which is probably more than any other district in

the state.” The idea, she says, is to keep students engaged in

core academic subjects that will ensure they have reached a

college level. Too often, students have a ‘senior slide’ in

which they won’t take challenging academic classes if they’re

not required. “Our students often come in way under the

high school level in math and English, and so we felt like we

needed to set those higher requirements. Not everyone will

walk out of here at a college level, but we try to push it so they

have to stay engaged.”

Challenging all students to excel has become a way of life

at Wahluke. College preparatory classes, including Advanced

Placement classes, are open to all students based on “interest

and effort” rather than their grades in previous classes. Prior

to Webb’s arrival at the school, no AP exams were offered and

no AP classes were taught at the school. By the 2002–2003

school year, 64 percent of the Hispanic students were

enrolled in AP English classes and 55 percent were enrolled

in pre-calculus classes, a remarkable statistic for one of the

poorest, most rural districts in the state. 

A strong foundation

At the end of the school year, Bob Webb will clean out his

office, pack his bags, and head for Wyoming and the next

challenge in his career. He leaves with a nagging sense of

goals not yet met, but with a sense of pride not unlike that of

the small town he leaves behind. Under difficult circumstances, in trying times, Webb’s leadership has helped build a

strong foundation for future success at Wahluke High. “For

me,” he says, “it’s all about hope. It’s about keeping kids

tuned into the idea that whatever the obstacles are, I can get

past them, I can succeed, I can do this.” 

That’s a message that the tough, little town of Mattawa,

Washington, can well understand. ■

“It’s not if you’re going to college,” says Webb, “it’s where

or when. That’s our daily talk with students. It may be a two-year

school, it may be a four-year school, it might be a technical school, but

we talk post-high school every single day to every kid we see. That’s

our expectation and our goal.”

GREAT EXPECTATIONS
24
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 25

ANATOMY

of

CHANGE

A Portland high school, once full of promise, tries to reverse 

a long downward spiral.

STORY BY IAN MCCLUSKY. PHOTOS BY PATRICIA CORDELL

PORTLAND, Oregon—“Will John Marshall High School

become known as one of the great high schools of Portland?

Of the West? Of the Nation?” pondered Principal Gaynor

Petrequin in the school’s first newspaper, volume one, issue

one. It was September 1960. That summer, the last old residential house had been moved and land cleared on a gentle

hill, looking west across wooded neighborhoods some eight

miles toward Portland’s downtown skyline. Cement had

been poured, bricks laid. Two stories tall on the uphill

entrance, three stories on the downhill side. A giant brick

square, with an open courtyard, and long hallways of freshly

waxed floors, lined by rows of lockers stretching as far as the

eye could see. Librarians had stamped and numbered books,

art teachers inventoried new supplies, and eager students

worked on the layout of the very first newspaper, where

Petrequin issued his front-page “Call to Greatness!”

Now, 44 years later, on the last day of school in 2004, the

final bell rings at Marshall. The dismantling begins. Principal

John Wilhelmi wheels his desk out of the same office where

Petrequin once worked. And as he dollies his desk down the

halls, past the rows of endless lockers, he wonders the exact

same thing as his predecessor: Will John Marshall High School

become known as one of the great high schools of Portland, of the West,

of the Nation?

Marshall—driven by dropping enrollments, poor test

scores, and almost certain strictures under the No Child Left

Behind Act—is reopening its doors in September 2004, not as

one large public high school that Principal Petrequin would

have recognized, but as four smaller academies. Each school

will occupy two wings of the old brick building and has about

15 teachers and 240 students to start, with a cap of 300. 

The four schools each emphasize their own area of focus:

the Linus Pauling Academy explores health, science, and

leadership; the Renaissance Arts Academy concentrates on

visual and performing arts; PAIS, the international small

school, turns to languages and global studies; and BizTech,

modeled after the successful New Tech High School in

Napa, California, trains students for the digital marketplace.

The transformation is backed by a $690,000 four-year

grant from the Oregon Small Schools Initiative or OSSI (see

article, Page 30), which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates

Foundation and the Meyer Memorial Trust. OSSI partners

with struggling comprehensive high schools across Oregon

to create “high achieving and equitable small schools.” It’s a

project of the Employers for Education Excellence or “E3”

for short. And at Marshall High during the 2003–2004 school

year, “E3” became synonymous with survival. 
26 nwrel.org/nwedu

With a lifeline from E3, Wilhelmi and his team of teachers

and administrators are trying to reverse a long downward spiral in just one year. This is the story of how they got there.

DIMINISHING RETURNS

If you went to any American high school, you could have

gone to Marshall High. They had a drama club and band, a

glee club and football. In 1969, they sent one of their girls to

be crowned queen of Portland’s annual Rose Festival. That

year, they lost another four boys in Vietnam. American flags,

now faded, hung over each door. There was the football field

in the back and a yellow school bus out front. Each day at

three o’clock the bell clamored like a firehouse. Stepping into

the double glass doors was like opening an old yearbook.

Marshall was as average as they come. And that was the

problem. “Back then you had a much more homogeneous

student body and teaching staff,” Wilhelmi explains. In 1969,

he graduated from a similar public high school on the west

side of Portland. “The ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to education worked better then, but now we have a dramatic shift in

ethnic diversity, an increased range of socioeconomic backgrounds, and far more challenges with learning disabilities

and English language learners.”

Marshall’s student body had diversified to include Asians,

Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans, and a large

group of Eastern European immigrants. Almost six of every

10 students qualified for federally subsidized lunches. Slowly,

the data began to reveal an increasing gap between Marshall’s

efforts to educate and the students’ academic success. Despite

earnest efforts, at least 20 percent of Marshall’s students still

fell below state benchmark standards in math and reading. At

least 20 percent dropped out. 

The student body had shifted, while Marshall had not. 

“All schools have dropouts,” explains Wilhelmi. “It’s common for the freshman class to be the largest, and then slightly smaller and smaller until the graduating seniors—but at

Marshall, our largest class was the seniors.” Marshall, he

explains, had picked up a bad reputation it just couldn’t

shake. Of the total number of potential freshmen from the

two nearby feeder middle schools, Marshall lost at least half

to other public schools.

“The siphoning off of our best students has been excruciating,” says Tim Taylor, a math teacher. “It used to be that

there were always one or two trouble kids in each class—now

it’s just the norm.” 

“When you’re beat down over time, it’s real tough to ever

get up,” adds Nannette West, the school change coordinator.

She recalls one morning last spring, her students noticed

through the window that Taylor and his class were launching

tennis balls into the air, measuring the distance the balls traveled and the time spent in the air to calculate for velocity. One

of her students muttered in disbelief, “We don’t have students

that smart here.”

The large brick building had been built to hold 2,300 students. By the end of Marshall’s 44-year run as a comprehensive school, it claimed only 949 students. “We were becoming

a small school alright,” says West. “Not by choice, but by

default.”

DESPITE BEST EFFORTS

As early as 2001, Marshall hoped to curb the exodus of students. Their first attempt came in the form of “Freshman

Academies,” where incoming students were allowed a twoblock schedule, teaming up teachers with smaller groups of

students. In 2003, they expanded it to include sophomores,

and built into the schedule some common time for teachers

to plan.

“It began breaking the walls down between teachers of different disciplines,” recalls Keri Troehler, an English teacher.

“We started having math teachers talking to English teachers.”

But it wasn’t enough. “We were doing all we could, but the

only thing we could do to make students’ test scores go up

would be to take the test for them.”

It was Troehler’s second year as a teacher. She had graduated with her master of education degree from Portland State

University and high hopes. She’d been warned about the

“burnout” that new teachers face. But she had no idea it

would be as bad. 

Another budget cut, another teacher shifted, and Troehler

found herself the lone warden of one of the long anonymous

hallways of Marshall. She recalls a dour mood in staff meetings. The ramifications of No Child Left Behind overshadowed all talk.

When President Bush signed the 2001 law, Principal

Wilhelmi saw the writing on the wall. They had to change.

Not just a little, but a complete overhaul.

“We were walking down the NCLB gangplank,” says Gail

Whitted, Marshall’s network administrator. “We had two

more years to comply with regulations and we saw them

coming right at us.” 

With the new policy in place, students could get a free bus

pass, a free transfer—essentially, a free ticket to leave

Marshall. “It was a ‘top siphon,’” says Taylor. “Those with

promise left.”

Marshall had picked up a bad reputation it just couldn’t shake.

Of the total number of potential freshmen from the two nearby feeder 

middle schools, Marshall lost at least half to other public schools.
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 27

Principal Wilhelmi, desperate to save his school, even

wrote to President Bush, stating his case: “For every 30 students we lose, we lose a teacher. You lose teachers, and you

cut programs. You cut programs, and you attract fewer 

students. It’s a vicious cycle downward.”

With no reply from Washington, D.C., he turned to his

teachers and staff. “We can make this change for ourselves, or

have it made for us. But either way—Marshall must change.”

However, Wilhelmi had come to Marshall as an interim

principal, and wasn’t really in a position to make radical

changes. The staff waited for direction. Wilhelmi began to

research successful national models. He saw the anxiety in his

teachers. Troehler remembers Wilhelmi taking her aside and

saying, “Just hang in there. One more year ....”

School let out for the summer. By the end of the

2002–2003 year, more than one-third of the incoming ninthgrade class switched to other schools.

Keri Troehler went home and began searching for smaller

schools. She prepared her résumé. She drafted a letter of 

resignation. 

SENDING OUT THE SOFTIES

While in grad school in 1996 and 1997, Troehler had read

about small schools in textbooks. “But it was on a talking

level,” she describes. “It’s one thing to say, ‘Yeah, this is a good

idea’—another to actually see it in action.”

On October 27, 2003, Wilhelmi, now appointed principal

of Marshall, set things in motion. Based on reading such

books as High Schools on a Human Scale by Thomas Toch, he

drafted an initial proposal to convert Marshall into smaller

schools. In City Kids, City Teachers: Reports from the Front Row,

he had read: “Big buildings need not be our enemy. They can

contain small schools.” Wilhelmi took those words to heart.

Three days later, he received an e-mail from the director

of the Oregon Small Schools Initiative about the E3 grant,

requesting Marshall’s participation.

In early November, he assembled his Stage One FactFinding Team, which he abbreviated to SOFFT, and affectionately referred to as his “Softies.” Within the first weeks, his

Softies began disseminating basic information about the small

school concept. They mailed a letter to parents in various languages and then showed presentations to sophomore and junior social studies classes and to their Freshman Academy.

They presented at middle schools to eighth-graders. Then, in

mid-November, using a Smaller Learning Communities federal grant to cover travel and planning, some of the Softies set

off to Boston to see small schools in action.

The four-person team visited the Boston Arts Academy,

Fenway High School, Mission High School, and the Frances

Parker Charter School. When the team came back, everyone

gathered. The plane had been delayed and they arrived at 3

a.m. By 9 a.m. they rallied everyone to share the news. “After

seeing those schools, I couldn’t go back to a big school,” said

Troehler. “I just couldn’t do it.” 

Less than one month after Wilhelmi drafted his small

school proposal, the Marshall team began brainstorming possible themes for separate smaller schools at Marshall. They

polled the students for suggestions and compiled the results

by early December.

Wilhelmi knew he had to gain wide support from his staff.

So he sent out another dispatch of his Softies, this time to

New York. They visited Union Hill High School, Morris

High School, Brooklyn International School, Bronx

ANATOMY OF CHANGE
28

International School, Wings Academy, and the Julia Richman

Education Complex.

As one team returned, he sent another out, this time to

California, to visit the New Tech High School, High Tech

High School, and the Preuss School. Within the next week,

he and another team flew down to Oakland for more site 

visits. By mid-December, 17 fact-finders from Marshall had

visited 16 schools.

After the holidays, they dove back into planning, attending

several meetings each week. At the end of January, Principal

Wilhelmi, Gail Whitted, and Kara Mortimer went to Lewis &

Clark College for E3 training to prepare for the grant application. They had just two weeks to write the grant, and they

faced more than two dozen competitors. 

On February 6th, they gathered in one room and for the

entire day pored over the complex school change “rubric

forms,” where they had to detail and self-assess their readiness to convert from a comprehensive high school into small

schools. For the next two weeks they revised and finalized the

application. In their own hearts, they knew that Marshall

sorely needed the grant; by reputation, the community knew

Marshall needed the help. But Whitted and the others who

helped write the grant also knew that 28 schools were competing and they had been told only four would be chosen. (In

the end, E3 decided to double that to eight grants).

They submitted their application, but didn’t wait for the

results to continue planning. They were united now and

focused. Through the beginning of March, each of the four

proposed small schools—PAIS, BizTech, Renaissance Arts,

and the Linus Pauling Academy—took all-day retreats.

In mid-March, they got the call from E3. Marshall High

would be getting a site visit. They had been selected as a finalist.

There was no turning back. They had a mission and a

deadline. They rallied with a singular purpose of preparing

for the visit. If they had been running hard since October,

now they saw the finish line. They began to sprint. Meetings

were held nearly every day for planning budgets, human

resources, and IT changes. The BizTech team faxed an application to the New Technology Foundation, applying for

funding to replicate the New Tech school model. The local

newspaper started calling. Wilhelmi and a team presented at

the state capital before the senate education subcommittee.

Then, April 16th, E3 came to visit.

Seven short, fast-paced months had passed since Wilhelmi

drafted his first small-school proposal. Seven months to

With the advent of No Child Left Behind, Principal John Wilhelmi realized that Marshall High had to undergo a complete overhaul.
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 29

totally overhaul a system in place for 44 years. They hadn’t

gotten a lot of sleep, but they did get the grant. 

NAYSAYERS

When the news broke that Marshall would be broken down

into four small schools, students wondered if they’d get to see

their friends at lunch, if they could still sign up for the elective

they wanted senior year, or if the football team would dissolve.

The students were asked to rank their choice of academies.

Wilhelmi divided the student body in fourths by age, gender,

and socioeconomic background. All students received their

first or second choice. Some grumbled. Some went to his

office. Some parents called. But overall it was understood:

Change had been a long time coming, and it had arrived.

“This is a cultural change,” says Whitted. “Students and

parents have to get used to the idea that from now on, school

is a different place.”

While each of the academies centers on a theme, Wilhelmi

emphasizes that the importance is “teams, not themes.”

Eighty percent of students’ courses will fulfill core requirements; the remaining 20 percent will be integrated with the

subject of interest. While some worry that having to pick one

school over another may limit their options, Wilhelmi counters that even in the old system students could only take a

limited number of electives. “If you sign up for ceramics, you

can’t take metal shop,” he says. “That’s life. You have to make

choices. We’re trying to give students something good to

choose between.” He adds, “If they change their mind, they

can transfer after a year, like any public school.”

Eddie James, a junior enrolled in the Linus Pauling

Academy shrugs. “I mean my friends are my friends, whether

they’re down the hall, or in another district. When I’m at

school, I’m here to learn. It’s no big deal, really.”

NEW MODEL, NEW HOPE

“It’s not a question of scale,” says Troehler. “If we made four

small Marshall High Schools, it would probably fail. We’re

making a totally different learning environment.” Cross-disciplinary courses will be redesigned around a project-based

curriculum, and internships and expeditionary learning

encouraged. Smaller clusters of students will spend more

time with fewer teachers, with the potential to help develop

longer-term relationships of tutoring and mentoring. “You

know, they tried this concept a long time ago,” says Wilhelmi.

“They called it Oxford University.” Indeed, under the new

structure Marshall officially becomes a college preparatory

school, aligning required credits for graduation to the

Oregon university system.

“It puts you on the kids’ side,” says Taylor. “You don’t

impart knowledge, you facilitate it.”

As much as this is a change for the students, it’s also

empowering for educators. “It used to be that we were handed our marching orders from on high,” says Taylor. “Now

we’re the on high.” In the last year, Marshall teachers who

confess to once skipping or snoozing in staff meetings have

found themselves spending hours preparing, drafting, revising, and collaborating.

“I finally feel like educators are being allowed to make

decisions on education,” says Troehler. Nannette West adds,

“I’ve been a teacher for 14 years and never talked to the

school board. Now I’ve done it twice.” 

Wilhelmi describes the first new year as being totally consumed with implementing the change; the next year will be

revision, adjusting to what worked or didn’t; and by the third

year, he hopes maybe they’ll be able to look back and see what

happened.

“We will be in flux this year,” says science teacher Kara

Mortimer, “but it will play out—one way or another.” 

ANSWERING THE CALL

This is the challenge, then, the call to greatness ... wrote Marshall’s

first leader. In 1960, Principal Petrequin wondered if John

Marshall High School would become known as a great

American high school, but he probably never imagined its

last day in June 2004. 

As summer break begins, the brick building stands silent

on the hill. The floor tiles are waxed, the rows of lockers still

stretch as far as the eye can see, now open and empty. A yellow school bus is parked in front of the double glass doors.

Outside, a dumpster overflows with poster boards of science

reports on autotrophs, wads of yarn, torn art collages, and a

stray gym shoe. 

Down the hall, a graduating senior writes the final article for

the student newspaper, 44 years and 43 volumes since the first.

Two students help Troehler take down posters. On her door,

she has taped a small piece of paper with a quote by Mark

Twain, advice she offers to her students as they set off into the

world. It is advice that she and the teachers and administrators

of Marshall High School, now known as the Marshall

Campus, have taken to heart: “Twenty years from now you will be

more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did do.

So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour.”

John Wilhelmi moves the last box of files from the principal’s

office. ■

Web exclusive: NWREL and Smaller Learning Communities

ANATOMY OF CHANGE

“It’s not a question of scale,” says Troehler. 

“If we made four small Marshall High Schools, it would probably fail. 

We’re making a totally different learning environment.” 
30 nwrel.org/nwedu

PORTLAND, Oregon—At first glance, blonde and petite Karen

Phillips may not look like the prototypical revolutionary. But

as the director of the Oregon Small Schools Initiative (OSSI),

she’s in a position to fundamentally change the state’s 200

high schools.

Phillips works for E3: Employers for Education

Excellence, the organization charged with the enviable

though difficult task of creating a cadre of new and restructured high schools that are small, rigorous, and personal.

Backed by $25 million from the Portland-based Meyer

Memorial Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation of

Seattle—the largest private investment ever in Oregon’s

K–12 school system—the multiyear initiative will provide

funding and technical support to two dozen existing or new

high schools. More important, it could act as a catalyst to

transform policies and practices statewide.

The first eight “Partnership Schools”—including Marshall

High School (see article, Page 24)—were selected last spring.

A second cadre of sites will be chosen during the 2004–2005

school year. To qualify, applicants must be new innovative

public high schools or existing ones with an enrollment

greater than 700 students. They must meet criteria tied to

demographics and readiness to change. Perhaps most significant, the schools also must have a strong commitment to raise

graduation rates and eliminate the achievement gap by breaking into autonomous institutions of fewer than 400 students;

designing curriculum around active inquiry, performance

assessment, and indepth learning; and incorporating 

attributes of high-performing schools. 

Before coming to E3, Phillips—a home-grown product of a

small high school in Central Point, Oregon, and a former math

teacher—helped orchestrate improvements in the much-lauded

North Clackamas School District. She spoke to Northwest

Education’s Rhonda Barton about her current challenge.

Q:

In traveling around the country and visiting successful

high schools, do you see a pattern emerge?

We find a consistency in terms of outcomes for

students and teachers, not in how they chose to put the

school together. We’re learning that there’s no one right

answer for what these high-achieving schools should look

like: They might be a career-based technical school or an arts

magnet or a school organized around a high-interest area like

the music recording industry. But, they have common 

components:

• A clear mission of the school’s shared vision; a collaborative

decisionmaking process

• Time for teachers to work together during the school day

• Students held to high standards and required to demonstrate levels of skill through performances, portfolios,

exhibitions

• Students active in their own learning

They also have commonly held beliefs regarding questions

such as: Is high school just the end-all or is it the transition

to the next step; and should every child be college-ready?

Oregon is one of just four states (along with Washington, Maine, and

North Carolina) where the Gates Foundation is investing in a

statewide high school initiative. What role does state policy play in

helping or hindering reform on such a large scale?

It can really stop this work in its tracks. The good news is

that in Oregon, our state policies and graduation requirements are incredibly supportive of innovative high schools.

For instance, the policy that just passed a year and a half ago

(that grants credit for learning outside the classroom) truly

gives schools permission to do things in a completely different way ... away from a seat-based (system) where the only

learning that counts for graduation is if you’re within the four

walls of a classroom with a teacher.

LEADING A 

REVOLUTION:

Karen Phillips and the Oregon Small Schools Initiative

Q&A

Courtesy of E3
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 31

I recently heard Constancia Warren of the Carnegie Corporation say

that there’s no way you can solve the problem with high schools “one

school at a time: This is as much about district reform as it is about

school reform.” Would you agree?

It’s definitely a systems change we’re talking about.

Sometimes you can get innovative schools started, but if they

are to be sustained, then you need state policy, district policy,

and financial support from both of those.

How critical is community buy-in in sustaining these schools?

It’s absolutely critical. But I would say buy-in isn’t even

the right word anymore if you’re talking about a case where

you build it and then convince me it’s the right thing. We

want to push it to where our community—parents, business

partners, students—are actually sitting at the table when we

build it, so they’re authors of the changes. It’s the difference

between how you treat your home when you own it versus

when you rent it or when you’ve built it from scratch. 

Your grants, based on school size and what schools need to change, run

in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. How tough is it for a school to

make radical changes without that kind of financial support?

It’s not impossible—we’ve seen examples—but it will be a

challenge without the extra resources to find the time (for

teacher planning) and training. One way schools are addressing it is to build in two hours a week every week to use for

training.

We’re seeing both revolutionary and evolutionary change these days:

cases where high schools radically reinvent themselves or make smaller

adjustments, a little at a time. What are the inherent advantages and

disadvantages of these two approaches?

The disadvantage with the revolutionary approach is that

you’re going so fast you aren’t able to change the culture and

give people time to gain the skills they need to be ready for

this new approach. A great example is 10 years ago, many

schools went to block scheduling but teachers didn’t have

time to learn how to teach in a period that was twice as long

as what they were used to. So they took their old skills, which

might be lecture-driven and might not fit the new model

very well, and gave twice as many lectures. With evolutionary

change, a school can build a solid foundation toward larger

change, but they can also be lulled into a false sense of security (and think) “we really don’t need to be doing more.” The

small schools supported by our initiative will run the gamut

from revolutionary to evolutionary. It’s our job—with our

coaching, research, and professional development networks—to help them maximize the benefits and avoid the

pitfalls of either approach.

If someone were contemplating reinventing a high school, what are the

key areas to focus on?

The staff at E3 has found—through research review and

school visits—that a lot of the work of high school reform

takes place in four general areas:

• Addressing the structure and culture of the school,

because those create the environment in which change and

good teaching come about

• Addressing teaching and learning to be sure teachers have

the skills they need and students are asked to do their work

in more authentic, performance-based ways

• Focusing on community engagement in both designing

and sustaining the school

• Developing leadership

The research for many years has told us—and still tells

us—that the principal is the key piece to this work. But, we’re

finding it’s not enough. Effective leadership really has to be

distributed. The principal can’t do it on his own—there’s not

enough time in the day to run the ship and do this as well.

But also, teacher leaders, student leaders, parent leaders, and

business leaders all need to have part of the responsibility as

well as the power.

For more information about the Oregon Small Schools

Initiative: www.e3oregon.org/small_schools

To learn more about the Carnegie Corporation’s high school

reform efforts, see Creating a New Vision of the Urban High

School at www.carnegie.org/pdf/urbschl.pdf

ON KAREN PHILLIPS’ BOOKSHELF

Here are some of the “bibles” that Phillips and the E3 staff

recommend:

High Schools on a Human Scale (Thomas Toch)—“The most

concise view of what we mean by innovation,” says Phillips.

A Simple Justice: The Challenge of Small Schools (William Ayers,

Michael Klonsky, Gabrielle Lyon) and Other People’s Children:

Cultural Conflict in the Classroom (Lisa Delpit)—“These

address the issues of equity and equal outcomes, not just

equal access.”

Breaking Ranks II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform

(National Association of Secondary School Principals and

The Education Alliance at Brown University)—“This offers

wonderful guidelines; everyone should have it.” ■
32

A diploma doesn’t necessarily 

mean Johnny can read and write. 

A dynamic teacher brings 

passion and problem solving 

to literacy issues.

Image © Getty Images, 2004
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 33

THE 

TWO R’S

LITERACY LESSONS FOR HIGH SCHOOL

STORY BY RHONDA BARTON

PHOTOS BY MOUNT BURNS

VANCOUVER, Washington—Isaac, a blonde freshman with a football player’s build, pores

over a copy of The Outsiders at a sunlit table in the atrium of Skyview High. Urged on by

teacher Erin Rogers—whose conservative black business suit is the only clue that she’s

not a student herself—Isaac and his classmates delve into S.E. Hinton’s world of greasers

and rich kids in high school, dissecting the relationships and motivations of characters

like Ponyboy and Sodapop.

This could be any ninth-grade English class, but it’s actually a new approach to helping high school students become more fluent, comfortable readers. At Skyview and

throughout the Vancouver School District, incoming freshmen who’ve struggled with

reading in middle school now have the opportunity to take a two-period Academic

Literacy Block that focuses on the strategies skilled readers use to understand texts.
34 nwrel.org/nwedu

Isaac’s mom, Lori Bond, knows it’s working. “His reading

level has gone up, from a sixth-grade level to an eighth, and

he has more confidence,” she says. “This doesn’t come off as

a special education class, so he doesn’t feel marked. He can

get the help he needs without feeling segregated.”

A DISTRICT APPROACH

To be recommended for Academic Literacy, students have to

meet certain criteria: get low scores on the eighth-grade

ITBS; fail to meet the reading standard on the seventh-grade

Washington achievement test (WASL); earn low grades in

content area classes; and have a STAR or MAP reading score

of fourth to seventh grade. But make no mistake, this isn’t a

“dummy class,” says Rogers. “I tell the kids they are simply

lacking some skills. This class is designed to help them fill in

those gaps.”

The gaps are painfully evident, both here in Vancouver and

around the country. According to Vancouver’s curriculum

director, Layne Curtis, district officials studied assessments

and current research on reading, and came to the conclusion

that they couldn’t ask high school kids to “read to learn”

without giving them the tools to do so successfully. A pilot

literacy program was launched at one of the district’s four

comprehensive high schools during the 2002–2003 school

year and then modified and expanded to serve roughly a third

of all freshmen in the district. 

A secondary literacy specialist, like Rogers, is assigned to

each of the district’s high schools, splitting her time between

the classroom and mentoring other teachers. The program,

which is in addition to more intensive support for students

reading below the fourth-grade level, is funded through a

combination of Title V money, a Small Learning Communities

grant, state Learning Assistance Program (LAP) funds, professional development allocations, and basic education funds.

While students’ progress is monitored on an ongoing

basis, the most convincing proof of success comes in personal testimonials. “When the program began, a lot of students

weren’t anxious to be in the class,” recalls Curtis. “But

through the course of the year, students have recognized

what they were gaining. We have really poignant letters, written to the teachers, that say ‘it’s making a difference in my

life; my friends need to do this too.’” Although some students

originally stated their intention to opt out of the course at

mid-term, only a very small handful actually did. Most will

continue Academic Literacy in their sophomore year. 

WHAT THE STATISTICS SHOW

The need for high school literacy programs is clear: The 2002

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exams

showed that 26 percent of high school seniors were reading

at “below basic” levels. NAEP scores also reveal that while

fourth-graders’ reading assessments improved significantly

from 1998 to 2002, eighth-graders’ performance remained

flat and 12th-graders’ achievement actually declined. In international comparisons of reading performance, America’s

11th-graders score close to the bottom, trailing students in

Indonesia, Brazil, and other developing nations. 

“These findings confirm teachers’ impressions that many

students who read well enough in the primary grades confront difficulties with reading thereafter,” writes Stanford

University Professor Michael Kamil. He points out that middle and high school teachers have traditionally viewed themselves as content specialists, believing that teaching reading is

a job for elementary school instructors. One way to turn that

around, he suggests, is through ongoing professional development with literacy specialists coaching content teachers on

how to infuse literacy instruction in their teaching.

Pressure is building to face the issue of high school literacy head-on. Under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB),

“We have really poignant letters, written to the teachers,

that say ‘[the program]’s making a difference in my life; 

my friends need to do this too.’”
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 35

every high school student must reach “proficiency” in reading/language arts (as well as mathematics) by the end of the

2013–2014 school year. In addition, 20 states—including

Alaska in our region—now require high school students to

pass an exit exam in order to graduate. There’s fallout from

students’ poor reading and writing skills in postsecondary circles, too: 73 percent of employers rate the writing skills of

recent high school graduates as “fair” or “poor” and more

than a third of undergraduates participate in remedial reading

and writing courses during their first two years of college. 

MAKING READING “VISIBLE”

For Erin Rogers, the need to teach reading to high school students came as a revelation—even after seven years as an

English teacher. “I didn’t realize that kids had problems with

decoding,” she sighs. “For example, when I got back some

WASL tests two years ago, a large proportion of them had the

same question wrong. I thought it was just outside their

scope of experience. But this year, when I gave my literacy

kids the same WASL as a pretest, 85 percent couldn’t answer

the question ‘At what occasion would this poem be read?’”

When Rogers asked the question in class, it became apparent

that the students were avoiding the word “occasion” and that

it had no meaning for them. “Once you tell them it’s an

event, something that’s planned, then they show they really

do know the answer,” she explains. “It was that one word that

held them back.”

In the Academic Literacy class, Rogers and other

Vancouver School District literacy teachers lean heavily on

the Reading Apprenticeship framework developed by the San

Francisco, California-based WestEd. (For more on this program, see Northwest Education online at www.nwrel.org/

nwedu). The model encourages students to read for recreation, gain insights into their own reading processes, and

develop problem-solving strategies. It also calls on teachers to

make their own reading process “visible” to students. Rogers

shared with her class some of the technical texts she was reading for her graduate school courses in ESL. “I remember one

sentence was full of overly technical vocabulary, but once you

eliminated those words, the sentence was very simple. I read

it to the kids and said, ‘Do you guys know what this means?

How do we break it down?’ We diagrammed it, and I told

them I use the same strategies in my studies that they’re

using: highlighting, questioning, looking things up, slowing

down, and trying to pick out the important pieces.”

SPREADING THE WORD

The Reading Apprenticeship techniques—and the writings

of Colorado teacher Cris Tovani—have spilled over into

Rogers’ social studies classroom and into her instruction at

Lewis and Clark, an alternative school that has a satellite program at Skyview. While Lewis and Clark students can take

advantage of a literacy specialist at the main downtown campus,

Rogers “slips reading strategies” into their work wherever

possible.

She’s also trying to convert other teachers to the need to

infuse literacy lessons across the curriculum, though she

admits that’s not going to happen overnight. “We’re trying to

change a paradigm and a way of thinking that everyone’s not

comfortable with moving to that quickly,” she admits. “I

think it will happen. NCLB is forcing it to happen. It almost

has to be grassroots though ... I start with a few people who

trust me, and put out fingers. It might take three or four years

for people to get on board, and not everyone will, but I hope

I can show (them) this is the right thing to do. It’s good for

kids and they really, really like it.” ■

Web exclusive: Practical Advice on Reading Across 

the Curriculum

THE TWO R’S
NORTHWEST EDUCATION

GALLERY

On Achievement

High school reform centers on fundamentals like helping students reach proficiency in

basic skills and improving graduation and attendance rates. But what about the other

end of the spectrum—the high-achieving students at high-performing schools? 

Places like Lincoln High, the oldest public high school west of the Mississippi, can be

pressure cookers where today’s students face demands that their parents never knew.

Two Lincoln students give us a glimpse of that world.

ESSAY BY BEN LANSKY

PHOTOS BY SOPHIE SMITH 

36 nwrel.org/nwedu
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 37

Education is a great equalizer of the conditions of men—the balance wheel

of the social machinery. —Horace Mann, 1848

In all likelihood, you were there for the good old days. The days when jocks

were jocks, nerds were nerds, and high school was an end rather than a

means—the days immortalized in the teen comedies of the 1970s and 1980s.

It’s really not so simple anymore. 

In June, I graduated from Lincoln High School in downtown Portland,

Oregon. For those readers unfamiliar with Lincoln, it’s a public school of

about 1,500 students offering a variety of “magnet” programs such as the rigorous International Baccalaureate program and the International Studies

Center. The student body comes from almost homogeneously white, uppermiddle-class families, and Lincoln is consistently one of the very top-performing high schools in Oregon, as measured by college acceptance rates and

test scores. 

For all intents and purposes, and with few exceptions, you might recognize

your own high school here—the same flickering hallway lights, the same

pumpkin floor tile, the same 1,500 lives spilling haphazardly out of lockers and

backpacks. More significantly, you might also recognize the same tacit alignments and cliques, the same fraternity-style clusters of friends. But, even if

things appear very much like they used to, something has changed. 

Fierce competition for admission to the best colleges—as well as state standards and benchmarks—has created a new breed of student: the paper student. While the cluster of jersey-clad football players across the hallway may
38
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 39

remind you of the typical jocks you might have known

in high school, you’d probably be surprised to learn

that each of them volunteers several hours a week at

community service organizations, most are on the

honor roll, and many are involved in student clubs

such as Model United Nations. And while the bespectacled “outcasts” in the computer lab might echo your

own school’s nerds, you may be startled to find that

these are leaders in their community, politicians, and

prom kings.

Particularly in an achievement-oriented school like

Lincoln, résumés have become a central component of

teen culture. With the swelling contention for college

acceptance, even perfect grades are not enough. Each

of the highest-ranked colleges and universities now

reject hundreds of valedictorians every year. The secret

to success when applying to colleges today has a lot to

do with a person’s achievements beyond academics. In

order to get into the top schools, an applicant must be

truly, deeply, an interesting person. Or, at least, an

applicant must appear to be an interesting person. It is

increasingly difficult for anyone to discern which students are genuine in their passion and conviction, and

which students are simply going through the motions.

The truth is that, when excellence is the standard,

the students who are genuinely engaged, involved, and

committed are indistinguishable from those students

who only present themselves to be. Achievement is a

dazzling thing, on paper, and it is a simple enough

thing to boast of. But what effect does this have on the

individual? 

In April this year, the New York Times ran an article

entitled “New Lesson for College Students: Lighten

Up.” In it, journalist Sara Rimer describes the measures

that the top colleges and universities are taking to slow

down their overachieving students; Harvard

University, for example, offers training to graduate students in counter-perfectionism. And the need for stress

relief is dramatically on the rise: at the University of

Michigan, the number of students seeking counseling

has risen by 22 percent in the last three years. Rimer

herself says it best: “Some college officials see the contradiction inherent in their new efforts to offset stress

and encourage the joys of reflection and unstructured

time. After all, it was multitasking, hyperorganized,

résumé-building behavior that helped some students

get admitted to their schools in the first place.”

How did this happen? At what point did ambition

usurp interest as the measure of scholarship? I certainly don’t know, but it is a frightening thing. The common characteristic alleged by each of the colleges I visited during my junior and senior years as a potential

applicant was that the students “learned for the sake of

learning.” When that is the biggest selling point for the

best schools, it seems that more attention must be paid

to this philosophy at the high school level.

In a public statement in February 2001, President

George W. Bush said, “You teach a child to read, and he

or her will be able to pass a literacy test.” And, despite

his ironic grammatical misstep, that’s true. But that

should not be any person’s rationale for teaching a

child to read. Too many students have similarly lost

sight of the purpose of their educations beyond what is

to be achieved by them. This is not to say that genuine

passion has waned, only that the rise of the résumé has

clouded its distinction.

Perhaps the most important issue facing educational reform is no longer outdated textbooks or overwhelming class size, but the goal of high school itself.

To many students, jocks and nerds alike, at least the last

two years of high school are in fact preparation not for

college itself but for the college admissions process.

Moments of woolgathering, daydreaming, and

improvisation are few and far between. Aimlessness, it

is supposed, cannot be afforded by any student with

hopes of a future. But these years should be somewhat

aimless, as teenagers wrestle with the world and work

out for themselves who they want to be. That allimportant process must be uncompromising to be

complete, and sometimes it takes more than these four

years—it may take a lifetime. 

The résumés of Ben Lansky and Sophie Smith won them

acceptance to Haverford College and Macalester College,

respectively, where they’re currently starting their freshman year.
40 nwrel.org/nwedu

VOICES

Andrew Yager is the kind of allAmerican kid any high school would be

happy to claim. Student Council president, National Merit finalist, all-conference track star, and state speech and

debate champion, Andrew entered the

United States Naval Academy this fall.

The son of a cattle rancher and stay-athome mom in a Montana town where

livestock outnumber people, Andrew

has strong opinions about what makes a

good teacher and about his own education at 120-student Joliet High School.

He shared his views with Northwest

Education Editor Rhonda Barton at the

No Child Left Behind Rural Conference

in Billings, Montana, last spring where

Andrew and a group of his peers participated in a roundtable discussion: 

You can tell the difference between

teachers who are excited about their job

and willing to work at it, and those who

aren’t. Most teachers aren’t. There are

different things that will tell you that:

Teachers who wear a tie to school, they

take their job seriously. I think a lot of

people, if they really saw what was

going on in classrooms, would be

shocked and appalled. I’ve had teachers

who don’t even come to class for days

at a time. They just don’t do their job.

The problem is there’s no incentive

for them to do their job. If they’re in

the union and they’re tenured, it’s

practically impossible to get rid of

them. There’s a lot of apathy from

administrators and state-level officials.

If you’re going to have a good qualified

teacher, it’s going to have to be a selfmotivated teacher.

Instead of focusing on teaching educators to be educators, we need to teach

educators to be scientists and mathematicians and they’ll impart that

knowledge to the kids. All the teachers

who taught me something, who kept

their class disciplined, were knowledgeable about their subject. I think the

big solution there is money. Not just

higher salaries, but pay that’s based on

merit, too. We should pay teachers

what they’re worth because you get

what you pay for. When you pay

$23,000 a year, you’re going to get—in

most cases—a $23,000-a-year educator.

The good teachers give you a lecture

on the subject, explain how it works—

relating it to your own experience,

work with you personally on the subject, and then test based on that. I think

a lot of teachers—partly because

they’re lazy, partly because they don’t

know their subject matter—are content

just to give you paperwork out of the

book. And that’s not what teaches kids.

I think teachers can err on the other

side of it, too. We’re from the MTV

generation but that doesn’t mean we

need to have MTV at school with

hands-on projects and multi-media all

the time. With a lot of hands-on education, teachers focus on the hands-on

and forget the education. So, I think

the teacher who can strike a balance

between engaging kids and teaching

kids something based on their knowledge of the subject matter is an effective teacher. 

What can large urban high schools

learn from small ones like Joliet? Never

having been to a large urban high

school, much less gone there for school,

I guess I’d have to focus on the positive

side of our school. I think one of the big

things is the sense of community:

teachers taking an interest in their students, students taking an interest in

each other, and teachers and parents

cooperating with each other. And, I

think one of the things a lot of rural

high schools have shown is that money

isn’t the issue. My school isn’t rolling in

money, but we use our resources well.

You ask whether I think I’m prepared for the Naval Academy. To be

honest, I’m pretty concerned about the

curriculum requirements compared to

the knowledge base I have now, especially in the sciences and math. At a

school like Joliet, we don’t have the

opportunity to take honors courses.

That’s one of the reasons why it’s

extremely important that our teachers

not teach to the lowest common

denominator but teach to the higherlevel kids. They should expect everyone to rise to the occasion and if you

can’t, go for extra help. ■

Student Voice: My Take on Teachers By Andrew Yager

Photo by Melissa Yager
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 41

The Challenge of Reinventing High School by Rhonda Barton

RESEARCH BRIEF

Each school day, more than 600,000 teenagers show up for

classes in the Northwest’s 1,500 public high schools. But for

too many of them, the promise of a high school education

rings hollow. “More than two-thirds of American kids aren’t

getting what they need or deserve in high school,” declares

Tom Vander Ark, the former Federal Way, Washington, school

superintendent who now heads the education program of the

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “A third of them drop out,

another third leave ill-prepared for college and work: What

we’re doing is a disaster.”

Vander Ark isn’t alone in pointing a finger at a system

that’s failing to meet the needs of a knowledge-based economy and a society with increased educational expectations. A

report by the National High School Alliance, issued in May

2004, concludes that “as a crucial link in the K–16 pipeline,

the American High School is leaking with the magnitude of

the catastrophic Valdez spill.” The Alliance, a Washington,

D.C.-based partnership of more than 40 organizations, identified seven “key levers of change” to address the crisis: 

• Connect K–12 and postsecondary education

• Make college preparation the “default” curriculum for all

high school students

• Improve teacher preparation and professional development

• Ensure all students can read at or above grade level

• Address the high dropout rate

• Promote smaller, more personalized learning environments

• Make state academic content standards more flexible

Failure to make changes comes at a high cost in both personal and civic terms. An analysis by Professor Sam

Stringfield of Johns Hopkins University shows that today’s

young high school dropout earns less than half as much as the

average high school dropout of 25 years ago, in inflationadjusted dollars. In addition, the economic advantage of

obtaining a college education today is more than four times

as great as it was 50 years ago. 

On a broader level, a well-educated citizenry is needed to

fuel the nation’s economic growth. Economist Anthony

Carnevale of the Educational Testing Service estimates that if

current economic and demographic trends continue, by 2020

the nation will need up to 14 million more workers with some

college training than the education system currently produces. 

THE NEW THREE R’S

In summits from Billings, Montana, to Boston, Massachusetts,

the U.S. Department of Education has promulgated its own

high school initiative—“Preparing America’s Future”—which

calls on states to identify strategies, stakeholders, and technical

assistance needed to improve the quality of high school education for all students. At the first of seven regional meetings,

Susan Sclafani, Assistant Secretary for Vocational and Adult

Education and counselor to Secretary Rod Paige, reflected on

the fact that 50 years ago a high school education provided

entrée to the workforce. “There were jobs for people who

didn’t feel motivated or who weren’t successful in their education,” she told an audience of several hundred at Montana

State University last March. “Today there’s just not a place for

young people who come out of school without the requisite

knowledge and skills.”

The remedy, Sclafani asserts, lies in the three R’s that have

become a mantra of the high school reform movement: rigor,

relevance, and relationships. “What we need to do,” says

Sclafani, “is create the communities in (our) schools that say

for every child—including those who come to you not having gone through your school system or who come to you

well behind grade level—figure out what they need and help

them to get there.” 

WHY SIZE MATTERS

Just how to make that happen is fueling a national debate:

Should large schools be razed and replaced by new, smaller

institutions or can they be broken apart into autonomous

units coexisting under one roof? Should the restructuring

happen overnight or over time? Is being small enough? And,

just how small is small? 

While it may take a generation or more to authoritatively

answer some of those questions, research dating back as far as

the 1960s supports the belief that more personal schools can

make all the difference. Diana Oxley, in the Northwest

Regional Educational Laboratory’s forthcoming Small

Learning Communities: Implementing and Deepening Practice,

concludes that, “Research and experience have led small

learning communities and small schools advocates to espouse

a similar basic notion of small unit schooling: An interdisciplinary team of teachers shares a few hundred (or less) students in common and responsibility for their educational

progress; provides instruction for a large part of their instructional day in a physical space devoted to this purpose; and

exercises maximum flexibility to act on knowledge of 

students’ needs.” 

Such environments are more apt to foster autonomy, competence, and interrelatedness: three qualities that consistently come out on top in studies of what people need to thrive.

According to a 2001 study by Kennon M. Sheldon and his
42 nwrel.org/nwedu

colleagues—reported in the Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology—individuals need to feel that they’re the cause of

their own actions; that they’re capable and effective; and that

they have regular contact with people who care about them.

Kathleen Cotton’s often-quoted 1996 synthesis—School

Size, School Climate, and Student Performance—concludes that

academic achievement in small schools is “at least equal and

often superior to that of larger schools.” After analyzing 69

separate studies, Cotton found that small schools exhibit

more positive student attitudes and social behavior; better

attendance; lower dropout rates; greater parental involvement; and higher participation in extracurricular activities. 

Mary Anne Raywid has also written extensively on the

benefits of small schools. In Educational Leadership (1997), she

points out that a number of large-scale studies, involving

thousands of students, document the effects of school size.

“The findings of these studies reveal an unusual consistency,”

she reports. Among the findings: low-income students in

small schools significantly outperformed those in large

schools on standardized tests of basic skills; size had more

influence on student achievement than any other factor controllable by educators; and youngsters—especially disadvantaged ones—learn more in math, reading, history, and science

in small schools than in large ones.

Small Schools: Great Strides, a two-year study of some 150

new small schools in Chicago by the Bank Street College of

Education, looked at a variety of school performance indicators such as dropout rates, attendance, and standardized test

scores. Patricia Wasley and her colleagues discovered that

smallness in and of itself is not enough: for example, it needs

to be accompanied by high-quality curriculum and instruction. However, smallness does pave the way for a variety of

conditions that lead to improved student achievement. 

“Consistent with nationwide findings, our research found

that small schools create communities where students are

known, encouraged, and supported,” the study states.

“Students are aware of their value in these communities and,

as a result, are more inclined to be responsive to teachers and

responsible as students.” In such a setting, teachers are more

satisfied professionally, likely to collaborate with colleagues,

and able to build a coherent program among disciplines and

across grades. 

DEMANDING MORE

Regardless of whether students are bound for college or the

workforce, a challenging curriculum is critical. “High schools

can no longer act as sorting machines, preparing some students

for postsecondary education and some for the world of work,”

says the National Commission on the High School Senior Year

in its 2001 report. “The conditions of modern life demand that

all students graduate from a rigorous academic program that

equips them with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed

in both postsecondary education and careers.”

A strong academic curriculum in high school is the biggest

factor in determining whether students earn a bachelor’s

degree, according to a 1999 study by the Office of

Educational Research and Improvement. Completing a rigorous course of study proved to be a better predictor of success than test scores, grade-point averages, or class rank. The

study, which followed a national cohort of students for 13

years starting in 10th grade, also found that an intensive curriculum had the most impact for black and Hispanic youth.

The High Schools That Work model—designed by the

Southern Regional Education Board—calls for a core of college-prep classes as well as challenging vocational/technical

studies. But the courses themselves can’t exist in a vacuum. In

a study of why some of their sites raised student achievement

more than others, SREB found that besides “clear and high”

expectations, successful schools offered an involved guidance

and counseling system; focused staff development; district

support; and formal alignment with both middle schools and

postsecondary institutions. Students also could rely on “access

to a structured system of extra help and extra time.” 

MAKING IT REAL

While relationships and rigor are critical components, advocates of reform argue that relevance must also be part of the

formula. The American Diploma Project—launched by the

Thomas B. Fordham Foundation; Achieve, Inc.; and the

Education Trust—is weighing in with updated requirements

that align high school curricula with the demands of college

and the workplace. In examining what’s needed to restore

value to the high school diploma, the project suggests that

“state policymakers need to anchor graduation requirements

and assessments to the standards of the real world ... and in

return, colleges and employers need to start honoring and

rewarding student achievement on state standards-based

assessments by using these performance data in their admissions, placements, and hiring decisions.”

Fred Newmann, professor emeritus at the University of

Wisconsin-Madison, argues that schools should promote

“authentic” academic achievement that involves active student inquiry into real-world problems and higher order

thinking rather than mere repetition of memorized facts. “To

maximize the probability that students’ school achievements

have adaptive benefits they must have some value beyond

certifying success in school,” notes Newmann in Issues in

Restructuring Schools (1995). In a study of 24 restructured

schools, Newmann and his colleagues found that “authentic

pedagogy” yields improved student performance regardless

of gender, race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. 

The challenge of creating a new vision for high schools—

one that works for all students—is daunting. But, as the

Carnegie Corporation points out, “this highly compelling

and vital issue is the clarion call of our new century.” Almost

two centuries after the first public high school opened in the

United States, there’s more agreement than ever that it’s time

to retool this critical institution. ■

RESEARCH BRIEF
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 43

Breaking Ranks II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform

(Reston, VA: National Association of Secondary School

Principals, 2004). Executive summary is available online at:

www.nassp.org/breakingranks/breakingranks2.cfm

Outlines strategies for reform that have proven successful in

all types of high schools. A must-read for anyone involved in

secondary education. 

The Comprehensive High School Today, edited by Floyd M.

Hammack (New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 2004).

An anthology of articles that weigh current reform efforts in

their sociological and historical context.

Crisis or Possibility? Conversations About the American High

School, by James Harvey & Naomi Housman (Washington,

DC: National High School Alliance, 2004). www.

hsalliance.org/_downloads/home/crisis_or_possibility.pdf

Offers an up-to-the-minute look at the key issues involved in

reforming the nation’s public high schools. The National

High School Alliance includes many of the major players in

the national reform movement.

Essentials of High School Reform: New Forms of Assessment and

Contextual Teaching and Learning, edited by Betsy Brand

(Washington, DC: American Youth Policy Forum, 2003).

www.aypf.org/pdf/EssentialsofHighSchoolReform.pdf

Looks at reform efforts that incorporate industry-valued,

career-oriented, contextual learning skills, as well as the

assessments that work best with this approach. 

High Time for High School Reform: Early Findings From the

Evaluation of the National School District and Network Grants

Program, by American Institutes of Research & SRI

International (Seattle, WA: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,

2003). www.ecs.org/html/Document.asp?chouseid=4919

Profiles the 21 high schools and 12 grantee organizations that

were originally awarded funding from the Gates Foundation

as part of the National School District and Network Grants

program. 

Leading Effective Secondary School Reform: Your Guide to

Strategies That Work, by Mikie Loughridge & Loren R.

Tarantino (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, in press).

A practical guide to effective leadership for schools undergoing

reform. Emphasizes collaboration, shared decisionmaking,

and the development of professional learning communities. 

“Reform at the Top: Improving High Schools Calls for

Comprehensive Change, Not Piecemeal Tinkering,” by

Susan Black (American School Board Journal, May 2004: Vol.

191, No. 5, pp. 36–38). www.asbj.com/2004/05/0504 research.

html

A concise and up-to-date introduction to the topic with a

good reference list. Addresses the implementation problems

that arise in many school reform efforts.

On the Web

Stanford University’s School Redesign Network has a great

Web site that draws together a multitude of resources on

redesigning large schools to create more personal learning

communities. www.schoolredesign.net

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a major driving force in

the movement to reform the nation’s high schools, has a

comprehensive Web site devoted to this work. www.

gatesfoundation.org/Education/TransformingHighSchools/

The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL)

coordinates assistance to schools and districts around the

country that have been awarded U.S. Department of

Education grants to work toward creating smaller learning

communities. www.nwrel.org/scpd/sslc/

Web exclusive: Resource Annex

RESOURCES
44 nwrel.org/nwedu

Facts You May Not Know

• More than a quarter of the schools in our

region have grade 12 as the highest grade

(1,501 out of 5,408 schools reporting 

enrollment)

• Of the 1,501 Northwest schools with grade

12 as the highest grade: 

° 1,151 are regular schools 

° 34 are special education schools 

° 10 are vocational education schools 

° 306 are other/alternative schools

• Of the 1,151 regular schools with grade 12 as the highest grade:

° Nearly half are Title I schools 

° One-third have free or reduced-lunch eligibility rates of more than 40 percent

° More than one in five are “majority minority” schools: 

– 186 are majority American Indian/Alaska Native (all but eight of 

these are in rural areas of 2,500 population or less; seven of the

remaining eight are in small towns and one is in Anchorage) 

– 23 are majority Hispanic (20 of the 23 are in Central Washington) 

– 2 are majority African American 

– 30 have no single majority racial/ethnic group

Northwest High Schools, by School Size

REGION AT A GLANCE

250

200

150

100

50

0

1–49 50–99 100–249 250–499 500–749 750–999 1,000–1,499 1,500–1,999 2,000–2,999

Number of students (based on grade 9–12 enrollment)

Number of schools

The Big Guys

(Data from fall 2002)

(Data from fall 2001)

High Schools by the Numbers by Richard Greenough

If you’re looking for the largest high schools in the Northwest, you won’t find them in the Seattle and Portland school districts.

Metropolitan-area suburbs dominate the list of places with the biggest enrollments.

School District Enrollment

Marysville-Pilchuck High School Marysville School District 25 (WA) 2,691

South Kitsap High School South Kitsap School District 402 (WA) 2,524

Service High School Anchorage School District (AK) 2,454

Reynolds High School Reynolds School District 007 (OR) 2,422

David Douglas High School David Douglas School District 40 (OR) 2,411

Eagle High School Meridian Joint School District 2 (ID) 2,409

Auburn Senior High School Auburn School District 408 (WA) 2,376

Pasco Senior High School Pasco School District 001 (WA) 2,361

Westview High School Beaverton School District 48j (OR) 2,340

Meridian High School Meridian Joint School District 2 (ID) 2,336

(Data from fall 2002)
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / FALL 2004 45

END NOTE

A chapter ends Photo by Sophie Smith, Lincoln High School student
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