Or at least, that seems to be the situation in American high schools. According to statistics compiled by The Gates Foundation, and reported on their website Stand Up, one-third of public high school students will not graduate.

You can investigate the statistics for your own state, and even get statistics on any public school in America. I checked Georgia (where I live), and it was reported that the graduation rate is 56%, one of the lowest in the country. Statistics on each school, which is supported by Standard and Poor’s (a division of McGraw Hill), includes Reading and Math Proficiency (%-compared to the state’s results), enrollment, and % of economically disadvantaged enrolled in the school.

The Gates Foundation has funded more than 1900 high schools to help improve the graduation rate, and prepare students for college. You can see a video describing a school in the Bronx, NY, and how students respond to the changes that were made.

I was interested in the approach that is advocated in the Gates funded schools to improve graduation rates, and preparation for college. The Foundation has a very rigorous research and evaluation program to assess this ambitious program. One of the reports focused on the creation of cultures of learning at the high school level. You can download the report (90 pages) by going to the previous link. I found it interesting. One of the emphases in successful schools for African-American and Hispanic students was the focus on relationships among students, and teachers and students, and of course one way to do this is to reduce school size. We’ve known for many years, that smaller schools are more successful with students than with large, campus -type schools. One of the high schools that I taught in many years ago had an enrollment of 3,600 (grades 9-12). To deal with the size, the school was divided into separate “units” of 300 students, with its own faculty, commons area, and lunch area.

In earlier posts, I started a conversation on reform in science education. Improvement in science education must go hand-in-hand with the reform of high schools. Simply pouring money into innovative science curricular without considering the context of the school, will not improve science education, nor will it help the students that need the assistance.

As reported in the Gates studies, size of school is not the real factor. It’s what teachers and students do to change the culture of learning. We’ll talk more about that in another post. In the meantime, travel to the Gates site, and take a look.