Edutopia - September 2007 - (Page 29) C o o l Sc h o ol s practice to engage students in projects with real-world applications, such as research on the local effects of climate change. Educators see their role as preparing students not solely for college but also for work, military service, or myriad future endeavors. Above all, they want Chugach graduates to have choices. Within four years, Chugach shot from the twentieth percentile in reading on the nationally normed California Achievement Test to the eightieth percentile. In 2001, the district won a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award—the smallest organization and one of the first educational institutions to win. Nine other rural Alaska districts have adopted or are considering implementing models like Chugach’s. Now, more than 80 percent of Chugach students who took the state’s third-grade and ninthgrade exams last year passed in reading, and more than 60 percent passed in math. Of the twenty-five graduates the district has tracked since 2001, fifteen are enrolled in college or have already graduated, five work full time, two are in the military, and two are stay-at-home moms. Chugach can legally fund enrollment for students until age twenty-one, though every student over eighteen counts against the graduation rate under the No Child Left Behind Act. “It has made a big difference,” says Pete Kompkoff, the tribal president in Chenega Bay. “Kids are doing more practical things than before. They’re being exposed to the public more. It makes them realize that there’s another world out there besides this isolated village, and everything they learn has to tie into that wilderness out there.” each one depending on his or her level. Palmer ended the day with time for students to work on their independent projects. Besides these targeted lessons, teachers often weave multiple standards into larger thematic units that span content areas and levels. Two of the district’s favorite such projects came from Chenega Bay, where husband-and-wife teaching team Stephen Grajewski and LeeAnn Galusha helped their students create books about two local staples, salmon and blueberries, Way to Learn Day to day, teachers weave independent learning time, direct instruction, and projects into a fluid matrix. One morning last April, Tatitlek lead teacher Jed Palmer took five students to a rocky tidal area to set traps for the nonnative green crab, arriving in Prince William Sound from points south in ships’ ballasts. Through Youth Area Watch (YAW), a district program funded by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, the students planned to count their catch and relay the information to local scientists studying the problem. After the outing, Palmer returned to school to teach a higherlevel math class, where eight or so students worked in books and on computers; he helped them individually as needed. Nineteen-year-old Margie Allen took a quiz on polygons, and Palmer scored it immediately: 90 percent. Allen, wearing the standard Tatitlek teen fashion ensemble of jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, was already halfway through the math book she had started two weeks earlier, determined to catch up after a fivemonth hiatus in Anchorage. (“I had to get out of here,” she says. “It’s too isolated.”) That afternoon, Palmer gave a lesson to all the older students on sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks. For conceptual lessons such as this, Chugach teachers typically give all kids the same instruction, then adjust the expectations for including recipes, images, and stories about the foods’ place in Alutiiq culture. All their students, from elementary school through high school age, contributed to the books, which sell in a museum shop, in a bookstore, and on the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry for $8. Grajewski and Galusha like the standards-based system in part because it empowers kids to own their learning and gives them the opportunity for frequent, incremental successes. Reading comprehension, for instance, is not assessed as a single skill; it’s broken into standards as minute as isolating the initial sounds in words and retelling a story from memory. Once a kid knows the material, Grajewski says, “you don’t have to wait to move up. You can do it now.” “It’s intuitive,” says Galusha. “If you really think about it, this is how it should be done.” The standards-based system also gives students the flexibility to participate in online courses, outdoor projects such as YAW, and educational travel, which is supported by grants. Five or six times throughout their schooling, kids stay for three to ten days at Anchorage House, a district-owned home in the city, where they do job internships and learn to navigate the demands of urban life, a primer that eases students’ often-rocky transition to college or work after graduation. If missing school meant they would fall behind their peers and fail their classes, they couldn’t have these experiences. Taking Charge: Margie Allen carries around her report card so she can track which standards she must complete to graduate. SEPTEMBER 2007 EDUTOPIA 29
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