When the Benjamin Banneker Charter Public School received its scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test three years ago, school leaders realized they had not one problem, but two. Not only did the 2002–03 results reflect continuing poor schoolwide math performance, but they also revealed that Banneker had failed to make adequate yearly progress in math for the fifth consecutive year, pushing the school into the “Corrective Action” category under No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
Through an intense effort, Banneker successfully addressed the first problem—raising math scores and reaching its adequate yearly progress (AYP) target by 2004. But because of how AYP is measured in Massachusetts, the school continued to be labeled as failing. In Banneker's case, the rigidity of NCLB's formulas threatened the very reforms the legislation was designed to encourage.
Banneker and Its Students
Founded in 1995, Banneker is one of the oldest charter schools in Massachusetts. “The Banneker,” which enrolls K–6 students from across the greater Boston metropolitan area (and until this school year served 7th and 8th graders as well), focuses on math, science, and technology. More than 95 percent of students are children of color, approximately 75 percent receive free or reduced-price lunch, and half speak a language other than English at home. In other words, we teach largely the kind of at-risk students NCLB aims to help.
On the whole, students leave Banneker with a drive to succeed, and many go on to excel at schools across the Boston area. But low achievement in math had plagued Banneker for years, and we had been pursuing a solution. But moving into the Corrective Action category shifted the picture. Although unsure of the consequences, school leaders realized that the label was a significant step on a course that, if not altered, might threaten the school's existence.
“Math Everywhere”
Although the impetus behind labels like Corrective Action may be to shake troubled schools out of complacency,complacent was not a word that described Banneker in 2003. The Corrective Action label only amplified the sense of urgency already working within the school. By the 2003–04 school year, Banneker's own internal restructuring process was already underway. Executive Director Lenora Jennings and the board had hired a strategic planner, and the Banneker community was working together to set realistic improvement targets.
When the MCAS scores arrived, Banneker responded immediately. Leaders and teachers assessed the most probable causes for the school's continued low math performance and designed strategies to address them. As a community, we created “Math Everywhere,” an ambitious schoolwide plan to raise math achievement, making this our primary goal for 2003–04.
- Increasing math instructional time by two periods a week.
- Holding family math nights and math contests.
- Providing math-focused professional development.
- Hiring a part-time math coach.
- Creating an internal math assessment, administered in October, January, and May.
- Organizing math tutoring.
Schools in Corrective Action are required to report regularly on steps they are taking to respond to their NCLB status. In January 2004, Banneker submitted the Math Everywhere plan to the Massachusetts Department of Education as the school's Corrective Action Plan. The Banneker community eagerly awaited the 2004 MCAS results.
Success...But With a Twist
The Good News...
- The percentage of students scoring as Proficient and Advanced rose by 11 points at the 4th grade level, 6 points at the 6th grade level, and 9 points at the 8th grade level.
- The percentage of students scoring at the Warning level decreased by 28 points at the 4th grade level and 42 points at the 6th grade level. The percentage of 8th grade students scoring in Warning remained about the same.
...And the Twist
Not all our MCAS news was good news. The school still failed to make what the Massachusetts accountability system considers adequate yearly progress. Here's why.
Adequate yearly progress is measured by subject area using a calculated schoolwide number known as the Composite Performance Index (CPI). The CPI for a particular academic subject in a given year reflects the cumulative performance of all students in the school who were tested in that subject that year.
In 2003, the year before Banneker entered Corrective Action, the school's math CPI was 39.7. In 2004, after the implementation of Math Everywhere, Banneker's math CPI rose dramatically, to 52.2. The CPI range we were required to meet at the end of 2004 to make AYP was between 49.5 and 54.5. With a 2004 CPI of 52.2, Banneker's score was dead in the center of its requirement range. How, then, could Banneker be judged as having missed its AYP target during this crucial year?
Although adequate yearly progress is measured every year in Massachusetts, AYP targets are set for schools in two-year cycles. In the first year, the CPI for that year is measured against the cycle's target range. The CPI for the second year in the cycle, however, is not measured against the cycle's target range. Instead, the CPI numbers of the first and second years are averaged together, and that weighted average is measured against the target range.
Unfortunately for Banneker, 2004 was the second year of a cycle rather than the first. So Banneker's hard-won 2004 math CPI was averaged with the very low math CPI from 2003. Our sizable gains in math achievement were diminished by half in this calculation, and the resulting score of 45.9 fell below the target Banneker needed to hit to officially meet its AYP.
Because of this calculation quirk, Banneker's label shifted from Corrective Action to Restructuring. This placed Banneker in double jeopardy. First, the school faced the sanctions associated with the restructuring category. Under the first year of Restructuring sanctions, a school must create and submit to the U.S. Department of Education a plan detailing how it intends to improve, and in the second year it must carry out those changes in a way that raises test scores. Banneker also faced danger as a charter school on the brink of renewal. The school's charter was set to expire in the 2005–06 school year. At that time, Banneker would face an intensive site visit and external evaluation process, a review by the Massachusetts Department of Education, and a vote by the state Board of Education on whether or not to renew our charter for another five years.
Banneker appealed the Corrective Action label to the Massachusetts Department of Education, but the appeal was denied. In addition, recent charter renewal discussions and votes had made it clear that the Massachusetts Board of Education was holding charter schools to a higher standard of achievement than district schools.
New Obstacles to School Success
Banneker found itself, oddly, in the midst of an initially successful school reform campaign, yet wearing a label that publicly implied a downward spiral of performance.
Banneker's leadership requested a meeting with the Charter School Office and the Accountability and Targeted Assistance Office of the Massachusetts Department of Education to understand what was required of a school in Restructuring whose charter was also up for review. State officials agreed that Banneker was already taking the steps necessary for a school in Restructuring and urged Banneker to continue its internal systemic improvements and its implementation of Math Everywhere. Despite this official vote of confidence, we were still in limbo.
The downgrade to Restructuring did not, fortunately, force a change in Banneker's successful school improvement campaign. But it altered Banneker's landscape in harmful ways. In fact, the label created significant obstacles as we strove to keep raising student achievement and position Banneker as a school worthy of charter renewal.
Public Perception and Enrollment
As the public witnessed Banneker's shift from a school in Corrective Action to one in Restructuring, they believed they were seeing a continuous decline in student achievement. Supporters offered sympathy, critics offered attacks, and the media turned a dismissive eye. Banneker was in a public relations quandary: How could we make our dramatic improvement visible in spite of the NCLB label?
As Banneker's public image declined and uncertainty within the community increased, enrollment began to decline. In 2002–03, Banneker's enrollment was 342 students, and that enrollment held steady throughout 2003–04. When the school entered Restructuring, however, enrollment dropped to 317 students. This decline continued into 2005–06, with enrollment falling to 292 students.
Morale
In 2004, the school community had just completed a year marked by high spirits, commitment, and tremendous momentum to make positive change. And yet the school was left with the bitter reality of not having officially made AYP and with the public perception that accompanied that reality—as well as with increased uncertainty about Banneker's future.
Overcoming the Obstacles
Turning the Tide...
The answer to the question of how to maintain morale was obvious for Jennings: Banneker would celebrate its victory in raising students' math achievement in spite of its “failure” to make AYP. As she announced the MCAS results at our open house in fall 2004, Jennings praised students, parents, and staff for successfully accomplishing their math achievement goals. Although she explained the school's failure to make AYP and the consequences that might accompany Restructuring, she urged the community not to be distracted by these issues, but to continue moving forward, feeling neither satisfied nor defeated by its progress so far. Banneker's administrators and teachers set the tone for the school community throughout our Restructuring year: We continued implementing the plans we had designed for the school, pressing forward with Math Everywhere and launching new initiatives that supported student learning by strengthening our school culture and morale.
Responding to the public's misperception of Banneker's progress was more challenging than boosting morale. Explaining the intricacies of AYP calculations to noneducators is difficult at best—and denying the validity of the Restructuring label is impossible. What would encourage the public and the media to look beyond Banneker's “failure” label and see the reality of our progress? We knew that external validation of our work by a respected source would be beneficial. The publication of an article on Banneker's success inEducational Leadership provided needed validation.
To help change the perception close to home, Banneker shared its story with the local communities, politicians, members of the state Department of Education, and the Board of Education. When a local newspaper published a favorable article about Math Everywhere, the tide of public perception slowly turned. We began to see a new public awareness and positive perception of the school.
...And Tasting Success
When Banneker's MCAS results arrived in fall 2005, we again saw cause for celebration. The school had maintained progress in raising students' math scores, although the gains made during our Restructuring year were not quite as dramatic as those that occurred during our Corrective Action year. In 2005, for the first time, Banneker made AYP for all students and all subgroups in math as well as in English language arts. Statewide, only 63 percent of all Massachusetts schools achieved AYP in both subjects that year. In addition, of the 22 Massachusetts schools in Restructuring for math in 2005, Banneker was the only one to hit its AYP targets for all students and subgroups.
As part of Banneker's charter renewal process, we extensively reviewed data for the past five years of our operation and realized that our school improvement efforts that showed such success with our K–6 students had consistently been less successful with our 7th and 8th graders. We made the hard decision to restructure Banneker as a K–6 school beginning in September 2006, and we requested permission for this restructuring as part of seeking our charter.
In December 2005, Massachusetts Commissioner of Education David Driscoll recommended charter renewal for Banneker. The Board of Education granted Banneker another five-year charter under the condition that the school continue to make progress toward its goals and was not pegged as a school in need of improvement before 2007–08.
No Child Left Behind's AYP calculations had finally caught up with the reality of Banneker's hard-won school improvement—and now reflected that reality. Banneker would remain in Restructuring until it succeeded in making AYP for a second consecutive year, but it was free of additional sanctions. Banneker had succeeded in halting the NCLB Restructuring process.
Implications of Banneker's Story
Banneker's experience offers several implications for educators committed to school improvement and helping students at risk. One implication is that a community's commitment to a mission is a more effective motivator for change than are sanctions. Sanctions can backfire. Traditionally, both the carrot (the lure of rewards) and the stick (the fear of sanctions) make the donkey move. In Banneker's case, the community's deep commitment to our mission of excellent education for all was the carrot that drove us on. The threat of a poor NCLB label was meant to be a motivating stick. But because the law uses a rigid formula for measuring school success and applies sanctions even when there are clear signs of progress, the system kept applying the stick long after the donkey was trotting. Instead of motivating change, NCLB created obstacles that threatened not only our school's improvement but also its very future—and that threatened the sense of hope on which all our improvement plans relied.
Banneker's story also reveals an important truth about NCLB labels. Citizens tend to view these labels with the same respect we reserve for the Surgeon General's warning on a pack of cigarettes or nutritional data on a cereal box. But as our experience shows, these labels are based on one-size-fits-all formulas that don't always fit and are far from infallible.
This chapter of Banneker's history ends with hope. But it's not hard to see how things might have gone differently had our leadership and community been less strong or had any mix of factors caused an unusually bad math year in 2004–05. A school that was hard at work improving might have had to close.
