Back to Selection CriteriaBy Michal Smith-Mello
From Listening to Kentucky High Schools
pp. 7-16, published 2002
As shown in Figure 1, High School B actually sent a higher percentage of its graduating seniors on to college than High School A for many years, but our qualitative and our quantitative analyses conclude that High School A is performing well beyond its expected capacity. The 1998 rate of college attendance was 40 percent higher than our predicted rate in spite of a number of demographic factors that are ordinarily associated with low rates of college attendance. What’s more, our case studies found that the school excels in a number of areas that are difficult to capture quantitatively.
Figure 1: Percent of College-Going Graduates, Case Study High Schools, State Average, 1993-98
High School A is located in a county where most of the population resides in relatively small towns. Population trends have essentially followed those of the state, growing significantly during the 1970s but only modestly in the 1980s and into the 1990s. While many young families appear to be present, a significant portion of the population migrated from the county during the 1990s. School leaders believe many young people choose to leave the county because it offers limited economic opportunities. They characterized the local economy as being fairly stagnant and principally blue collar.
As predicted by our model, we found that the limited economic opportunities available in the community may motivate young people to pursue postsecondary education as a path out of the county. That many of the teachers and guidance counselors at this high school are natives of the immediate area, if not the county where the school is located, suggests that, were opportunities available, more would likely stay or return upon completing their education. Nevertheless, many high school students told interviewers that they wanted to leave the county. So, in many respects, this county typifies the state’s recent and troubling demographic and cultural experience, in that it has experienced prolonged losses to net out-migration and its youth do not tend to foresee a future in their home community due to limited economic opportunity.
Many social and economic circumstances in this county mirror the state as a whole. Poverty rates for the county in 1995 were only slightly lower than the state average for all persons, but per capita income was well below the state average of $22,183 in 1998. Just as the state’s industrial profile is atypical for the nation, so too is the county’s. An even larger share than the state’s 19 percent of the labor force is concentrated in manufacturing. About a quarter of the county’s labor force works in wholesale and retail trade, and a slightly smaller segment of the labor force is employed in services. The average weekly wage in these industries, however, trails the state average by more than $50 a week, and the state average has historically been lower than the national average in virtually every industry.
The county’s blue collar industrial profile is not one that draws more educated people. While the portion of the county’s 1990 population that were high school graduates was larger than the state average, the population of college graduates was lower. Thus, these data combined with population trends suggest that educational achievement is rising in this county, but, like the state as a whole, many of its most educated citizens move elsewhere.
Significantly, the student body of High School A is the largest, the poorest, and the most racially diverse in the case study group, socioeconomic factors often associated with lower academic performance, high dropout rates, and poor postsecondary outcomes.(1) Its student body includes roughly 200 more students than High School B, and nearly half of students at the school qualify for free and reduced lunch, a higher rate than at any of the schools we studied. As studies suggest it would, High School A has the highest dropout rate in this study group. Moreover, its ninth graders register the lowest scores on the National Basic Skills test used in Kentucky, the CTBS-5. Its recent performance on the Kentucky Core Content Tests also ranks above only that of High School D. Nevertheless, the intangibles at this school, differences that demographic and test data do not reveal, are considerable. We believe these factors are precisely what encourages an extraordinary percentage of this relatively disadvantaged student body to pursue college after high school.
Ironically, on the surface, High School A appears to be the richest school in the study group, but it spends the least per student. From its clean, well-maintained, inviting appearance to its diverse student population, High School A looks and feels like a remarkable school. Though the school’s physical structure is similar in age to High School D and part of B, its bright, inviting halls, offices, library, and classrooms shine in comparison.
Here, we also found a relatively new and very strong leadership team that has invested significant time, energy, and resources in creating a welcoming, supportive environment for students as well as working to elevate the academic performance and perceptions of students. The leadership team appeared consistently positive, proactive, and focused on the well-being of students. The staff gave the distinct and consistent impression that it had high but realistic expectations for all students.
Through an array of extracurricular activities, inventive exercises, informal mentoring, and a strong guidance counseling program, this school appears to be highly effective at educating students about their postsecondary options and encouraging pursuit of higher education. In classroom interviews, these students offered the most realistic and accurate assessments we found of the cost of college, the benefits of higher education, and the obstacles to college attendance. Though standardized test scores suggest that students from High School A do not emerge from high school with superior academic skills, in all likelihood a product of the deficits they bring to their high school career, the school appears to adhere to a fundamental tenet of the Kentucky Educational Reform Act—all students can learn and succeed. Certainly, a remarkable percentage of these young people are giving college a try, a step that this school environment appears to encourage strongly.
Given the aging of Kentucky’s teaching force, this is a relatively youthful faculty. Teachers at High School A are slightly less experienced than those at High School B and D and only slightly more experienced than the faculty at our sole rural school, which has difficulty recruiting teachers and administrators to the small town where it is located. The relative youth of this faculty and the positive working environment they appear to enjoy may be an important factor, but we have too little information on which to base this conclusion. Furthermore, the case of High School B suggests that highly experienced faculty may encourage higher performance.
We found that High School B performed exactly at the level our analysis predicted based on socioeconomic and school performance variables. A little more than half of its students reported going on to college in 1998. However, in spite of some remarkable efforts and a high level of spending per student, this school simply meets, rather than exceeds, expectations.
High School B serves a largely rural student body in a county that has steadily lost population in recent years due to net out-migration. Part of what has propelled many people away from this county during past years has been an economy in transition. The county’s manufacturing base has lost a significant number of jobs over the past two decades. Unemployment rates have remained consistently above the state average in recent years, so the county continues to struggle to regain its economic footing. Per capita income, however, ranks in the top quarter for counties in Kentucky, and it is higher than in any of the other counties where we examined schools. However, we found the second highest percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced lunches at High School B. Thus, the highest performing schools among those in the case study group are the most economically disadvantaged.
Because the industrial makeup of the county has changed considerably in recent years, earnings have eroded. Wholesale and retail trade and services have become the dominant industries in this county, each employing nearly twice as many people as a once-strong manufacturing sector. Nevertheless, average weekly wages in services are higher than the state average while those in wholesale and retail trade are below the state average for the industry. Average weekly wages for the declining manufacturing labor force of this county are higher than the state average, but jobs are more scarce.
Once a place where blue collar jobs provided high earnings to many, the county has weathered difficult change. For many families, job losses have meant significant losses in income, a factor that may be a key impetus behind the school’s stable postsecondary attendance rates. Many students appear to have learned difficult but valuable lessons from the experiences of families and friends. “Most are going to college because they’ve finally faced the grim reality that they can’t make a living here,” one teacher observed. “About half feel they will have to leave to make a living … there’s nothing here.”
In 1990, data suggest that young people in the county were choosing to become more educated than the general population. The percentage of persons age 18 to 24 who held an associate degree or had some college in 1990 was three times higher than the percentage of the county’s adult population age 18 and older with the same educational background. But the percentage of the population with a bachelor’s degree or higher was lower in 1990 than the state average. As in the county where High School A is located, more educated citizens typically leave the county.
High School B has a number of assets, including a bright, capable new principal; committed and highly motivated guidance counselors; some clearly dedicated teachers; resources that permit the district and the school to spend the most per student in this case study group; the most experienced teaching staff in the group; and many intangible benefits that arise from the considerable social capital found at the school.
But High School B does not look like a success story. Classrooms of varying sizes are located in an aging section of the building that was sometimes uncomfortably warm, sometimes uncomfortably cold, sometimes cramped, and sometimes quite spacious, depending on when the classrooms were constructed. While a newer addition houses offices and a gymnasium, and a nearby vocational/technical school is modern and inviting, the main building where most students spend most of their time is not. Halls are poorly lit, institutionally drab, and generally unappealing. Outside, the grounds closest to the classrooms were sometimes littered with old desks and other debris. In the older, larger section of the building where students spend much of their day in classrooms and the cafeteria, conditions are less than optimum. Doors have been removed from dilapidated, dirty, graffiti-marred restrooms, a circumstance about which students harbor significant resentment.
While some classrooms have been cheerfully decorated by teachers who have created very pleasant spaces, the overall atmosphere of this school was generally unpleasant. Unlike High School A, its overall impression does not reflect pride or commitment to creating an appealing environment for young people. Many students complained about the facility, about dirt, cockroaches, the conditions of the classrooms and restrooms, and the general inattention to cleanliness and maintenance. Even casual observation suggests that these complaints are not unfounded.
Teachers at High School B are the most experienced in our study group. Several members of the faculty reported being near retirement age. Thus, teacher experience may be an important factor in this high-performing school’s makeup, permitting it to draw on the considerable personal resources these veteran teachers have to offer. Some were clearly dedicated teachers who were making a remarkable difference. Interestingly, a number of teachers attended this high school, suggesting that the intangible of social capital, of shared histories, values, and attachment to place, may translate into a strong commitment to the well-being of students and the performance of the school.
High School B’s student population is overwhelmingly white and predominantly working class though it has a sizeable contingent of poor and low-income students. Students at this high school are performing above average on the Kentucky Core Content Tests in every subject area but math. But High School B’s ninth graders do not fare well on the CTBS-5. Fewer than half of them perform at or above the level of the average U.S. student. The dropout rate is slightly below the state average.
We rate High School C ahead of High School D, even though the gap between High School D’s performance and our predictive analysis is not as wide (see Figure 2) as that for High School C. The qualitative differences between these two schools, however, were remarkable.
High School C is located in a rural farm county. Nevertheless, the county’s population grew at a higher rate than the state as a whole during the 1990s; however, the growth is almost exclusively a product of the gradual suburbanization of neighboring counties. A very small percentage of the county’s population growth can be attributed to increased birth rates, so young families are not a dominant presence.
Compared to the other three counties in our case studies, High School C’s home county has the largest percentage of persons who have not completed high school. Similarly, only the county in which High School D is located has a lower percentage of college-educated population, and both are well below the state average. In 1998, per capita income in the county was only slightly higher than in the county where High School A is located and well below the state average. In 1995, this county had the highest percentage of people living in poverty in our study group, a larger portion than the state average. However, compared to the study group, the school’s student body is more affluent than that of our high-performing and performing-as-expected schools, A and B, as substantially larger portions of those student bodies are eligible for free and reduced lunches. It is likely that this agricultural community has an aging, undereducated population that influences its overall profile, as well as its welcoming culture.
Though this county numbers among a few in the state that are being severely affected by the declining tobacco quota, employment opportunities are within commuting reach. Indeed, readily available, entry-level jobs in adjacent counties may be adversely affecting postsecondary attendance. Though this school has considerable strengths, the changing nature of the local economy and the demands of the larger state, national, and global economies suggest that High School C will have to dedicate more attention to encouraging and supporting postsecondary attendance. In 1998, the percentage of students from High School C who went on to college after high school was substantially lower than our analysis predicted.
While a number of colleges are well within commuting distance, no satellites are located in the county. As a consequence, these students do not appear to identify with any specific institution of higher education, a circumstance that may subtly influence postsecondary decisionmaking. Students at High School C, on the other hand, reported plans to go to various institutions in the vicinity, depending upon financial aid packages and individual goals, but none expressed a sense of connection to any of the institutions located within commuting distance.
Teachers at High School C are the least experienced among those in the study group, a profile that likely became more pronounced after our site visits, as two veteran teachers with more than 25 years of experience retired at the end of the 2000 term. The relatively new principal of this school reported that she had already fired two new hires after a year of less than satisfactory performance, signaling her intention to cultivate a quality teaching force in spite of the difficulty of recruiting to this rural county.
Much of High School C’s physical plant is old, having undergone expansion in the past that has now aged significantly. The building is fairly dilapidated and physically uninviting, a circumstance that quickly becomes inconsequential in the family-like atmosphere found here. Most teachers have gone to great lengths to decorate their rooms at their own expense to create a more appealing environment in the aging facility. These rooms are like oases that strongly suggest deep commitment to this school and its students. The only negative student comments were in regards to the condition of the building. When students offered these opinions, however, they were quick to point out the plans for a new building and describe the positive effects on morale they believe it will have, signaling a strong sense of student ownership. Plans are in the works for a new school that will be built adjacent to the current structure.
A combination of factors appears to have adversely affected this school’s performance over the past 10 to 15 years. First and perhaps foremost, the school lacked consistent leadership until the present principal was hired. Over the course of more than 10 years, the school had a new principal virtually every year, and reportedly experienced near anarchy in the year preceding the arrival of its current principal, who has made a long-term commitment to the school and the community. “I couldn’t ask for a better place to raise my kids.”
In her second year as principal when we conducted our site visits, it was evident that she was liked and respected by these remarkably polite and well-behaved students. “I feel like we have established a climate that has been conducive to learning,” she observed and numerous teachers concurred. Clearly, she has also established a strong rapport with students. She appears to know each of them by their first names, as she talks with them in the office, in halls between classes, and in the cafeteria, good-naturedly kidding with them and inquiring about the specifics of their lives. She reported focusing special attention on students who tend to miss a lot of school: “I get a little more personal with them. … I feel like I know teenagers.” What’s more, she believes she is uniquely qualified to lead by example, having overcome considerable odds herself. She reports giving an occasional motivational speech and paying close attention to seniors. “Everyone here has a barrier; they’re learning to deal with it instead of using it as an excuse.”
She, however, is not optimistic about the school’s ability to produce a high percentage of college-going graduates due to the culture of this local farming community. In spite of the considerable social capital that was evident among faculty we interviewed, the principal reports that she was unprepared for the low levels of parental involvement she’s found at the school. Virtually no volunteer hours are dedicated by parents, and few serve on the school council or vote in council elections.
The students of this school, however, have the capacity for higher achievement in terms of college attendance. While far from reaching the state’s long-term goals, the school ranked in the top 50 in 1999 on the Kentucky Core Content Tests, exceeding the state average in every category except 12th grade writing, an area in which their performance was the same as the state average. In this small case study group, their performance was also superior to the other schools in every category but 12th grade writing. While the performance of ninth graders on the National Basic Skills Test is below the national average in all three categories, it is slightly above the state average in mathematics. Interestingly, a significant portion of these students, double the state average, are required to repeat a grade, suggesting stringent academic requirements. Consequently, significant postsecondary potential is being developed in this school.
The principal’s focus, she observes, has been on preparing students for success by elevating expectations, enhancing alternative vocational or technical preparation tracks, beefing up the curriculum, and strengthening the guidance counseling system.
In spite of the important and positive change in leadership this school has undergone, it clearly needs additional resources. As the only principal to more than 500 students, demands on the principal’s time are significant. With an average class size of 29 students, teachers are also under stress. Moreover, a lone counselor serves the student body while dividing his time with other duties. To perform at a higher level, this school needs personnel, as well as computers and instructional materials, according to the principal, a circumstance that will require the commitment of additional resources either at the state or the local level. The community has demonstrated its willingness to support its schools, passing a utility tax, but resources are still limited and from appearances inadequate to the challenge this school faces.
During recent years, High School D’s success rate as measured by the percentage of its students who report going on to college, has fluctuated. College attendance rates have trailed the state average for five of the last seven years for which data are available. Indeed, this school has been in steady decline for years in regard to the postsecondary outcomes of its students, only a small percentage of whom go on to college. High School D sent far fewer students to college in 1998 than our regression model predicted it would based on school and socioeconomic data.
High School D is located in a suburban to quite rural county with a growing population that is a product of positive net in-migration as well as increased birth rates. People, including many commuters, are drawn by employment opportunity, affordable housing, and the small-town atmosphere. The county and consequently the high school lack racial diversity. Economic diversity, however, is marked, according to school staff. The school that is the subject of our study reportedly draws its students from the poorest part of the county. One teacher suggested that “tracking by geography” is at work in this school, as the county’s poorest citizens tend to live in the area the school serves.
Of the schools in our case study group, however, this county has the smallest percentage of people living in poverty, based on 1995 data. Indeed, this is a relatively affluent county, and the student body is comparatively affluent. Nevertheless, county per capita income is below the state average. High School D, however, ranks in the lower tier among Kentucky high schools in regard to the poverty of its students.(2) While substantial, the lowest percentage of students in the study group qualify for free and reduced lunch, half the percentage of those at High School A. In short, the widely held perceptions that faculty and administrators at this school have of acute, widespread poverty are not borne out by the data. Students may be culturally deprived, as faculty comments suggest, but various data suggest that they are not disproportionately economically deprived.
While High School D is located in a county with the highest median household income in our case study group, it has the lowest percentage of college-educated citizens. A higher percentage of this county’s population has a high school diploma than in the completely rural county where High School C is located, but the county has a lower percentage of high school graduates than in High School A and B counties. In spite of the relative affluence of the county, a level of indifference about the far more demanding future on the horizon appears to prevail here. Jobs with local manufacturers who, by the assessments of teachers at the school, seek only “warm bodies,” are readily available. Thus, this local economy provides numerous jobs for uneducated and undereducated young people similar to those held by many of their parents. Without encouragement, which appears scant at this high school, the local economy appears to be yet another force that undermines interest in and commitment to postsecondary education.
Overall, this school has the second most experienced faculty in the study group. The principal, however, reported making a number of new hires in recent years, and one teacher discussed high rates of turnover among faculty at the school.
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See, for example, Deborah J. Wilds, Seventeenth Annual Status Report on Minorities in Higher Education (Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 2000); Patricia McDonough, Choosing Colleges: How Social Class and Schools Structure Opportunity (State University of New York Press, 1997); Laurence Steinberg, Beyond the Classroom: Why School Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need to Do (New York: Touchstone, 1996); and Gail E. Thomas, Karl Alexander, and Bruce Eckland, “Access to Higher Education: The Importance of Race, Sex, Social Class, and Academic Credentials,” School Review (1979) 133-156. Return to text.
Division of Assessment Implementation, Kentucky Department of Education, “High School CTBs Total Battery Compared to Poverty,” 1999. Return to text.