{"id":3377,"date":"2015-06-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-24T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/cw_post\/schools-for-the-future-record-setting-results\/"},"modified":"2020-02-05T12:55:22","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T17:55:22","slug":"schools-for-the-future-record-setting-results","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/schools-for-the-future-record-setting-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Schools for the Future: Record-Setting Results"},"content":{"rendered":"
Students at Schools for the Future<\/a> in Detroit gained an average of 2.5 years across all four tested subjects on ACT benchmark assessments\u2014including a remarkable 5.6 year gain on English Language Arts. What can we say….WOW! Now take a minute to think about the context\u2014SFF is designed for and intentionally recruited older \u201cfar off track\u201d students who have been retained two or more years. DOUBLE WOW. One more thing to consider\u2014this is SFF\u2019s first year of operation. TRIPLE WOW. (Here is a video on SFF<\/a>)<\/p>\n I\u2019ve spent a lot of time understanding how to educate students who are over-age and undercredit, and I do believe there is a bump the first year students feel that teachers care for them, that the school is designed to engage and motivate, and that they understand education has value in their lives. However, I\u2019ve never heard of this type of jump across four subject areas. Furthermore, the five year gain definitely suggests that something is really working at SFF.<\/p>\n In our heavy-handed federal accountability system, students still may not show up as proficient at grade level because they entered with such an skills:age gap (i.e., the ratio of academic skill level to age-based grade level). That\u2019s how enormous skills gaps can be in some cities\u2014with students not yet proficient in elementary school skills. This is often in cities serving large populations of communities of color, especially African-Americans. As our country steps up to the unresolved shadow of racism, all of us in competency education need to focus our attention on a) making sure that sub-populations of students do not ever lag behind at slower paces (unless justified by a special education plan) and b) figuring out how we can accelerate learning (in a way that is always student-centered with deeper learning).<\/p>\n