This Isn't Just a Test

Last Wednesday, I cleared my schedule for 3:30, the time when MCAS scores were scheduled to be distributed to City on a Hill’s 11^th graders.

Two years ago this fall, these 11^th graders began their freshman year achieving far below grade level, with few of the study, problem solving, and social skills that students in more affluent communities have learned by the time they are 14.  Some entered with all Fs on their 8^th grade transcript, but — strangely — had 8^th grade diplomas.  Many entered the 9^th grade at City on a Hill never having passed an MCAS test before.   It wasn’t that this group of new City on a Hill freshman couldn’t learn, it was that many of them attended schools that simply hadn’t taught them.

Between the time these students arrived as freshman until the days they took the test in the 10^th grade, their teachers, tutors, advisors, and administrators at City on a Hill worked with them to fill in the gaps between their academic strengths and challenges.  By the time they sat for the MCAS last spring, an army of well-educated, passionate, and ferociously hard-working adults had intervened on a fundamental injustice:  that most of these young people had reached the age of 14 without access to the kind of education that families living in places like Brookline or Newton are accustomed to.

Now 11^th graders, these students sat to the exams last spring, in March, in May, and in June.  Their teachers and tutors cheered them on before the tests started, congratulated them when they finished, and protected the sanctity and integrity of the testing environment like mother bears protecting the den.  The students knew they would receive their exam results together in our community meeting space, because they had attended last year’s score release and learned firsthand the power of this community ritual.  And their teachers and tutors attended too, even though by now they had closely examined (and made curricular adjustments informed by) the results. 

So when our Principal fired up the LCD projector, these 16-year-old 11^th graders knew what was coming.  They sat on the community meeting benches, close together, holding hands.  First, the Principal showed them the results of the classes before them, naming graduates who belonged to each group, some of whom have attended college, returned, and served as their teachers.  The room collectively held its breath in the millisecond before the class of 2013’s scores showed.  All of them — 100% of the class of 2013 — had passed the ELA and Math exams on the first try.   Over 94% of them had earned Proficienct or Advanced.  Their growth from middle school results was astronomical.

They jumped, they screamed, they cried, they hugged their teachers and tutors. 

A new teacher standing with me at the back of the room commented with awe:  “I’ve never seen anybody get so excited about a standardized test.” 

I answered, “This isn’t just a test.”  As a 10^th grade English teacher I always attended these score releases because I was so proud of my former students’ scores.  As a Principal, I ran these score releases to maximize the whole school community’s understanding of what success can be.  Now, as the school’s Executive Director, I stand to the side while the proud students, tutors, teachers, advisors, and administrators—without a single ounce of condescension or irony—celebrate their legitimate success.  And I am convinced to my very core that more young people deserve the opportunity to experience this magical thing—a community that cares, cares enough to hold everyone to the highest standards, and cares enough to succeed together.

However busy my schedule becomes with the many competing and bureaucratic demands of running a successful high school, I will always clear my schedule for this demonstration of community.

Erica Brown joined City on a Hill in 1998 to teach 10th grade English.  She became the school's Principal in 2003 and has been the Executive Director since 2007.  Ms. Brown received her B.A. in British and American Literature from Harvard College and her M.Ed. from Tufts University.

Yes You Can

During the first week of school, a student caught my eye and burst out a beaming smile. 

It was only 2 weeks earlier, during CoaH’s Freshman Academy that I saw this same young lady shed tears of doubt and fear bursting from her eyes as if a lifelong build-up of deep emotions was trying to escape.

"I can't," she mumbled as she held her head low, lacking any confidence against the test in front of her.

I was proctoring a diagnostic exam, not uncommon at the beginning of a new school year, given to students so teachers can base their lessons on what the students already know. After an hour of test taking, the first student finishing seemed to snowball the entire room of anxious youngsters to turn in their completed exams and leave the challenging environment of their newfound school. But that one young woman was left alone in the corner, amongst empty desks, likely questioning her hope of having the same achievements as her peers in suburban public schools, or even her peers at City on a Hill. After all, high school at City on a Hill is a very new environment with challenges unlike any she has had in her previous years of school.

I may not know her story right now, but I know I will. She likely has one similar to many of her fellow students, who are faced with the alarming statistics of under-achievement for children of their socio-economic and demographic background. Many of these students have been subject to what is debatably the greatest social injustice our nation faces – the achievement gap.

This long buildup of thoughts and emotions prompted me to say:  "yes you can... regardless of any of your past or present circumstances, I believe in you. I know we don't know each other that well, but I believe in you, and you can. We are here to help, and if you accept that help you will go to college, and you will achieve great things. It starts by putting your pencil on the paper and writing the problem."

I share this story not so anyone will pity her situation, or even praise my attempt to inspire her in this newfound community of support. I share this because at the last high school I taught at those same words of encouragement would have been a lie. City on a Hill is a different school because it is rooted in different expectations with the right people and refined systems that produce results – meaning nothing other than student achievement. Hence, I am thrilled to be a part of this community and contribute in some way to its legacy of success, where I am yet to see many other youngsters replace doubts and fear with hope and success just as this young lady faced her fears and finished her test.

Kelin Crane is a first-year Math teacher at City on a Hill, brought to us through the Teach for America program.  He earned his Bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University and is currently working towards a Master's degree in teaching from Boston University.

What Will I Do Today That Matters?

When I was sixteen, I really didn’t like high school. Rather, I was one of those students that acted like I didn’t like high school, but then stood outside the building long after classes were over. I was the type of student who knew exactly how many classes I could miss and still keep honor roll grades. I was terrible at math but became good at memorizing steps and getting right answers. The problem was that I never understood why or how I got certain answers; I just wanted A’s. When things were too difficult and I couldn’t trick my way to an A, I gave up. I dropped pre-calculus after the first quarter and finagled my way through the rest of high school without taking math again.

In my senior year of high school, I didn’t want to go to college. I thought that college would be like high school all over again, and it wasn’t until I met my senior year English teacher, Ms. Simoni, that things completely shifted. She didn’t try to give me the “You can do it! Just work harder!” speech, but instead, she proved that education isn’t just about grades. Yes, getting As was important, but she constantly pushed me to question why reading Emily Dickinson and learning ancient histories were important. It wasn’t just about grades; it was about growing as a person and learning about myself in relation to the world I live in.

The most important question she ever asked me was, “What will you do today that matters?” and it was then that I knew I couldn’t acquiesce to mediocrity. She inspired me to want to continue my education, and thus, I applied to a college that catered to how I learn. My college didn’t have grades or standardized evaluations of academic success, but instead motivated students with the mantra, Non Satis Scire: To Know Is Not Enough. My education became about self-growth, and I was motivated internally to become a better student. This was perhaps the single most important shift in my life, and perhaps this is what drove me to want to return to high school education, despite how much I really, really didn’t like high school.

I came to City on a Hill in August 2010 and am entering my second year in the tutorial program, now as a Lead Tutor with other new responsibilities throughout the school. Sometimes, people are skeptical of my job, and think that I exaggerate the energy and care I put into it, every single day, no matter how tired I am or how infinitely grey February seems.

Everyday, from 8:00 - 4:30, my one goal is to help my students make a little bit more sense of what they’re learning, no matter how many times we have to review punctuation rules, trigonometry, or Toni Morrison over and over again in order for them to really understand. Once they understand, then I ask the hard questions--the types of questions that hopefully spark their desire to learn because they want to, not just because they have to. I push them to ask why, and really understand what they’re seeking.

Of course we work for high grades with the expectation that all are going to college, but I also hope to inspire my students to want to go to college in order to become better thinkers, better learners, and better citizens of the world. It is my hope that they will want to earn not only a high GPA, but will also ask themselves “What will I do today that matters?”

Jess Kim is a Lead Tutor with the CoaHCORPS Tutorial Program, now in her 2nd year at City on a Hill.  She earned her Bachelor's degree from Hampshire College, where she studied critical social theory and poetics.

"A wise educator once told me that students do what we tell them to do."

It was about two weeks into my first year as an English teacher at City on a Hill that I decided to go buy a snack at the local convenience store down the street. On my way I saw three young men in City on a Hill uniforms whom I had never met before walking towards me – seniors, apparently, because they had off-campus lunch privileges – and as we passed I said, “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”

And they replied, “Good afternoon, sir.”

“Good afternoon, sir.”

“Good afternoon, sir.”

I was so stunned I called my dad on my cell phone and told him about what had just happened.

Now, that might not be a particularly moving story to a lot of teachers out there who are used to a modicum of civility from their students, but I taught for the first three years of my career in New York City. I was used to breaking up fights a couple times a day; I would shrug off threats from my students, because the administration would only yell at them and send them back to class; I was told that the solution to a 75% tardiness rate in the morning was to make my class more interesting so that students wouldn’t want to miss it (I can’t really imagine a lesson so captivating that it would internally motivate a student to get up at 6:00am and rush to school).

A wise educator once told me that students do what we tell them to do. And I thought at the time that he was being sarcastic. But looking back on it, the reason the kids in New York fought was because a five-day suspension for staple-gunning another kid in the skull tells him that that is generally frowned upon behavior, but certainly not serious. Having no consequence for tardiness tells kids quite clearly that they should come to school at some point during first period, but it’s okay to take your time.

At City on a Hill, the adults actually tell the young people precisely what they would like them to do. You must wear a belt. If you forget your belt, you have to go home and get your belt. You cannot come late. If you come late, you don’t get to interrupt your first period class, and you have to stay for an hour at the end of the day to make up your work. Learn to write an essay. If you don’t learn how to write a freshman essay, you don’t get to become a sophomore. Here, just like everywhere else, the students do what we tell them to do.

It was a pretty hard for me to fully realize that it was we – the adults – who had failed in that New York school. They were the exact same population of students there that we have here, the exact same socio-economic demographic, but the teachers were largely ill prepared to structure the school. What we do at City on a Hill results in students actually wanting to be excellent students. Because we tell them every day, with every class period, that they should want that.


Dan O'Connor is an English teacher entering his 4th year at City on a Hill. He studied English at the College of Wooster and earned a Masters in Teaching English from Teachers College at Columbia University.