Full Description
The last sixty years have seen tremendous strides in high school education. More young people of all races and backgrounds are graduating from high school, with more credits in tougher courses, than ever before. However, our dropout rate is still too high and far too many graduates are not prepared for college. High school reform for city schools has been particularly challenging where poverty and racism have undermined the high school experience. Educators have relied upon two reform strategies: the curricular strategy focuses on the academic content that is delivered in the classroom, content reformers have adjusted. They also have restructured the high school itself to maximize the impact of the classroom. This book offers an additional strategy, one essential for real change: the cultural reform strategy. Cultural change—a fundamental change in the beliefs, attitudes and expectations of the stakeholders—is difficult to achieve. Yet, without a change in the culture of the high school, curricular and structural reforms will have limited impact on raising student engagement.
The authors illustrate the history of high school reform, and develop a case for the necessity of cultural reform, by taking an intimate look at one very typical urban high school—Dorchester High School in Boston. Dorchester High faced trends, policies, and challenges similar to those of high schools all over the country, so that the lessons learned there should be instructive for urban high schools across America. Gonsalves and Leonard also examine Dorchester High in the context of community partnerships and relationships.
Contents
Foreword
ix
Preface and Acknowledgments
xi
List of Abbreviations
xvii
Chapter 1. Introduction: Reforming our Most Troubled Urban High Schools
1
The History of Dorchester High School 1945 to 2006
7
Chapter 2. Demographics, Discrimination, and Decline:The Destruction of Dorchester High 1945 to 1970
9
Chapter 3. The Fragmentation of Culture and Community: The Long, Slow Decline of Dorchester High School 1969 to 1982
23
Chapter 4. Help Is on the Way: The Community Comes to Dorchester High School 1982 to 1989
37
Chapter 5. Reports from the Circus: The Community Goes After the School Committee 1982 to 1991
51
Chapter 6. Back to Square One at Dorchester High School 1989 to 1995
59
Chapter 7. The Community Returns to Dorchester High School 1996 to 1999
75
Chapter 8. Bruises and Betrayals: The Last Years of Dorchester High School 1999 to 2003
85
Chapter 9. Learning how to Educate Together: The Hope and Promise of Small High Schools 2003 to 2006
109
Lessons Learned for Urban Education
135
Introduction
137
Chapter 10. A Conceptual Framework for Enacting Cultural Reform in Struggling Urban High Schools: Re-engaging the Community
139
Chapter 11. School Culture and School Partnerships
157
Chapter 12. Consider the Challenges of Urban Adolescents
183
Chapter 13. The Ecological Systems Model and the Development of the School Leader
199
Chapter 14. School Values and Moral Authority
209
Notes
223
Bibliography
231
Index
237
