College & Career Readiness at City Charter High School
Rising up: City Charter High School
Getting all students ready for college and careers
2019 | Written by Faith Schantz, Report Editor
One aspect of the American high school that has remained largely unchanged is “tracking”—dividing students into tracks such as “mainstream” or “college prep.” The argument often given for tracking is that it allows teachers to target their instruction to one level, rather than to a wide range of learners in one classroom. Those who need “remediation” will get help. And high achievers won’t be held back by classmates who haven’t mastered the basics.
Despite its longevity, tracking has not been shown to be effective. In fact, a large body of evidence shows the harm tracking inflicts on students in “lower” tracks, without showing significant benefits for higher achievers. Rather than receiving targeted support, students in lower tracks get less of everything that makes a difference—less experienced teachers, less engaging content, less post-secondary information, larger class sizes. How students are assigned to tracks has also been questioned, with some studies showing that—regardless of their previous achievement—students of color and those whose families are economically disadvantaged are more likely to be assigned to lower tracks. The result is wide disparities in outcomes, including graduation rates, college attendance, and completion of degrees.
One school in this region that rejects tracking is City Charter High School, located in Downtown Pittsburgh. The school’s founders, former Pittsburgh public school teachers Richard Wertheimer and Mario Zinga, envisioned from the beginning that all students would learn together. Instead of trying to fit their ideas into the structure of a traditional high school, where separating students by perceived ability is foundational, they designed a structure to fit a different vision of what a school could be.
Many aspects of City High are innovative. But when the school’s CEO and Principal, Dr. Dara Ware Allen, describes it, she talks about values long held by educators concerned about equity. Those values include: 1) knowing students, 2) teaching and supporting them as individuals, and 3) preparing all students for the future.
Allen calls City High “a place where students are known.” Unlike a school that’s part of a system, City High accepts students from 23 districts in the region, although the majority come from Pittsburgh. Once students enroll, however, they stay with the same teachers until they graduate, a practice known as “looping.” The long-term relationships teachers form with students are considered so important that the school doesn’t use substitutes—teaching associates, co-teachers, or teachers from the same cohort cover absent teachers’ classes. Allen says for staff, knowing their students is a school norm. “It’s hard to be part of the culture if you don’t get to know your students.” For students, the benefits are both academic and social as they grow and develop with the same adults around them. Because they know each other, Allen says, a teacher’s “redirections” of a student’s behavior are likely to be different in 9th grade than they are in 11th grade. Or—because they know each other—“a teacher may give a student more grace.”
Students also form relationships with one another on a different level than in other schools, Allen says. No one experiences the stigma of being in a lower track. Instead, like their teachers, they know one another as individuals. Many assignments require students to collaborate, and traveling with a cohort for four years means they have to figure out how to get along. Anonymity isn’t an option, Allen says. As an example, last year the school’s “Kindness Club” posted personalized messages of support on each 10th grader’s locker. “Students can be themselves and they definitely have space,” she says, “but people know who you are.”
Sources: PPS, PDE, City Charter High School, National Student Clearinghouse.
Note: City High doesn’t offer AP courses.
That process isn’t left to chance. The school has systems to help ensure no one slips through the cracks. For example, students work independently on laptops at times in the “technology-infused” school, but they aren’t allowed to zone out or remain disengaged. Along with regular team meetings where discussions of “students of concern” are a standard agenda item, teachers contribute to an email chain called the “Daily News Report” that alerts colleagues to issues as they occur. A student who repeatedly put his or her head on the desk would be sent to the office, “not in a disciplinary way, but sometimes for a pep talk or to see what’s going on,” Allen says. Some students chafe at the unexpected attention at first, wondering, “Why am I being talked to about this?” Allen says, “We try to help them to see that when you come to the office or a teacher’s having a conversation with you, it’s not necessarily for a bad thing.”
Allen also calls City High a place “where students grow.” One of the problems identified with tracking is that it creates a fixed mindset for a teacher, making it harder to see each child’s full potential. At the other end of the spectrum, teachers responsible for a diverse range of learners often face competing pressures both to stay on pace with the curriculum and to “differentiate.” Lacking support, they may end up teaching to a middle that doesn’t exist. By contrast, at City High, teachers have tools and structures that make it possible to meet students’ individual learning needs. The differences are in how instruction is set up and in what teachers teach.
First, in setting up instruction, the school’s staffing model puts more teachers in the classroom compared to other schools. Many classes have two lead teachers, and some also have teaching associates and teachers who provide learning support. Having multiple teachers “allows for students to have their needs met directly in the classroom without the lead teacher having to stop instruction,” Allen says. Teachers have two hours of daily planning time, which is intended to afford time to collaborate.
Second, teaching all students together doesn’t mean the goal is for everyone to be “on the same page.” Before the school moved to its current location, Allen says, the founders looked for a space that would accommodate “flexible grouping”—grouping students temporarily for specific purposes or individual needs. The facility, which is located near the Gateway Center, has some classrooms with break-out rooms for small-group work on assignments and students who need learning support. Students who don’t have IEPs for special education occasionally elect to join learning support groups, she says, reflecting a school culture where students advocate for their own individual needs.
A different approach to content—what is being taught—also helps teachers address a wide range of learners. In some cases, topics within a content area are integrated into one course rather than taught hierarchically. For example, 9th grade math includes algebra and some geometry as well as some trigonometry, accommodating students who didn’t take algebra in 8th grade and students who did. In line with that approach, the math department sometimes challenges the entire school to solve the “problem of the week.” Other classes combine content, such as a Cultural Literacy course that includes both English and History, giving students more entry points into the content and teachers more ways to change up their instruction. And a longer school day and year gives them room to go into depth.
City High doesn’t offer Advanced Placement classes, and Allen says the school has gotten some “critical feedback” on that choice. However, students can take courses at some local colleges and universities, and opt in to an Honors program that she calls “pretty rigorous,” involving higher level work within the same class. Learning tasks that all students are required to complete also help to develop higher-order thinking skills. In keeping with the school’s core belief in “individual responsibility for learning,” all students are required to assess their independent learning as well as complete long-term projects and capstone projects—assignments often reserved for “advanced” or gifted students at other schools.
Planning for the future is also built into the school’s design. With a strong “post high school planning” department, students don’t have to fight for the attention of one overworked counselor. All are expected to complete internships in their career fields of interest. Allen notes that one student with an IEP for special education traveled with an aide to his internship at a sports facility, where the staff there threw him a birthday party. She says the question is never “this person can’t do this, or can’t do that, so they don’t have this experience. It’s what can they do, or what modifications do we need to make” for a successful placement.
One way that students are separated in traditional high schools is by who has access to information, whether it’s about teachers’ academic expectations or how to apply to college or a job. To level that playing field, expectations that are left implicit at other schools are made explicit at City High. Mimicking the professional workplace, the school has a dress code. Lunches are prepared by a chef and served on china dishware. It’s part of “the dignity and value we want students to feel as part of their school experience,” Allen says, as well as preparing them for their lives after high school. To help make college a less alien experience, they learn to study independently, develop research skills in an “Informational Literacy” course, and take some classes that resemble college lectures and seminars. When it comes to holding all students to a high academic standard, students give the school good marks. On a recent student survey compiled for its Annual Report, 88% agreed that “Teachers here have the same high expectations for students regardless of race, gender, or identity.”
The Pittsburgh district has made some changes to promote greater equity for its 6-12 and 9-12 students, such as opening CAS (Centers for Advanced Study) courses to students who don’t have the “gifted” label, offering the SAT and PSAT college entrance exams during the school day, and providing high-level academic programming to all admitted students at Sci-Tech and Obama. Despite these improvements, at its comprehensive high schools, racial disparities in AP and CAS course-taking persist. Not surprisingly, research has shown that the academic rigor of classes students take in high school is the most powerful predictor of college enrollment, persistence, and success.
City High is committed to publicizing its best practices, which Allen says is inherent in the school’s charter. Research briefs are posted on the school’s Web site, and she hopes to share its learnings more broadly. At the same time, she stresses that the elements of the school’s design complement each other, meaning another school couldn’t replicate one element and see the same results. Still, based on the example of City High and other research from the field, there may be things other high schools can do within their existing structures. Teachers can raise their expectations for students and seek out instructional content that is capable of engaging a wide range of learners. Schools can provide post-secondary information and guidance counseling to all students, not just those who are proactive. All staff can model professional behavior and talk about the expectations students will face in higher education and the workplace. And when a student has his or her head on the desk, schools can make sure someone asks what’s wrong.