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Sunday, November 15, 2009

School Gets Mixed Results in Helping Hispanics Succeed

By Andrea Schoellkopf
Copyright © 2009 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
          South Valley Academy was started 10 years ago with the intent of giving poor Latino students the same chance at going to college as their peers in middle-class schools across town.
        To reach those goals, it offers smaller classes, gives students more individualized attention in and out of the classroom and provides a challenging academic environment.
        For some students, it works.
        Yareli Aguirre, a 16-year-old freshman, says it's the close connection to her teachers that keeps her going.
        "They act like they care about me and make me do my best," she said.
        On paper, however, the school's results are mixed. And the most recent statistics, in particular, were not kind to the charter school.
        While its proficiency levels steadily increased over a four-year period, a drop last year meant the school failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress for the first time. And while its math scores were better than those of the schools from which it draws most of its students — Rio Grande and West Mesa high schools — its reading scores were worse than West Mesa's.
        Its four-year graduation rate — 38.7 percent — is much lower than those of the other two schools.
        School founder Alan Marks acknowledges that South Valley Academy still lags behind APS as a whole: "It's not enough," Marks admits. "And I think it's a fair criticism."
        But he argues that, when compared with other low-income schools where students' English language skills are limited, it's a different story.
        Marks also says the lower proficiency scores from last year were an aberration, that many of the school's students graduate in five years and that, of the 28 students who did graduate in 2008, only one or two did not go on to college.
        Ultimate goal
        Marks is a former Rio Grande High teacher who used to take the best and the brightest from the city's poorest schools on tours of Ivy League colleges.
        To help with his new school, he contacted Katarina Sandoval-Tonini, a 1990 West Mesa graduate who had gone on to teach in the Boston public schools after graduating from Stanford University. She returned to Albuquerque and became South Valley Academy's co-founder and teacher, and became the principal last year when Marks stepped down to spend a year with his family in northern California.
        "We had a 70-plus percent dropout rate during the years I was in the large public school in the area," said Marks, who will return to the school next year as a teacher, "and, on top of that, less than 1 percent of kids who started were getting a college degree, and probably no more than 10 percent or 12 percent at most were even going to college at all out of the ones who started in ninth grade."
        Marks wanted to reverse those statistics, keep kids in school and give them the skills they needed for college. South Valley Academy is nearly 100 percent Hispanic.
        "I was lost a lot," said Mariah Griego, a 14-year-old freshman, says of her earlier school experience. "There were too many students."
        While she always knew she would go to college, she said many of her Harrison Middle School classmates did not share that goal. So she chose a school with a reputation for being academically difficult.
        At first, students who were struggling with high school showed up at the charter and were surprised to find that the work was harder and that there was more of it. Many would either drop out, or go to another school and drop out.
        "People would go to our school and say 'Oh, my God, these guys give homework at the beginning of the year,' " Sandoval-Tonini said.
        Eventually, the school gained a reputation as challenging, and it began attracting kids seeking something different.
        With enrollment now at 210, the classes are grouped into sizes of 14 to 18, rather than the 30-plus in larger schools.
        "If you're talking about the achievement gap, making a decision to create smaller schools to deal with the most at-risk population is critical," Marks said.
        The school holds quarterly conferences with parents, students and advisers, and teachers come up with plans on how to overcome problems before report cards came out. Tutoring is offered at lunchtime and after school.
        When South Valley Academy graduates reported they were struggling with an entry-level math course at the University of New Mexico, the charter school arranged to offer at its campus a similar class through Central New Mexico Community College so students would be better prepared.
        Each faculty or staff member acts as an adviser to between eight and 11 students of all ages. The groups meet for about 3 1/2 hours a week during advisory periods.
        "The ultimate goal," Sandoval-Tonini said, "is we want our kids to graduate with a degree."
        In comparison
        So how does it compare to neighboring schools?
        Until last year, its proficiency scores were improving steadily, and South Valley Academy has often outperformed West Mesa and Rio Grande in math. It has had less success in reading.
        But last year's numbers showed a 10 point drop in math proficiency and small drop in reading proficiency.
        What it will take to reverse last year's losses, Marks says, is a return to the school's foundation: front-loading the toughest teachers at the ninth-grade level "where they are the most critical" so students are ready for college prep work.
        That practice is different than in many other schools, which assign the best teachers to the higher grades and to honors classes. Marks says the school made some exceptions to that policy last year and expects the proficiency to rise again next year because those teachers have returned to the freshman class.
        The school's best proficiency rates were achieved the year before — in 2007-08.
        It achieved a 40 percent in reading; slightly lower than West Mesa's 42.8 percent and Rio Grande's 46.4 percent. In math, its 40 percent proficiency rate was much higher than West Mesa's 17.4 percent and Rio Grande's 22 percent.
        Districtwide that year, Albuquerque Public Schools had 60 percent proficiency in reading and 45 percent in math.
        The numbers continued to show a serious achievement gap districtwide: 49 percent of Hispanics were proficient in reading and 30 percent in math. Caucasians had a 75 percent reading proficiency and a 65 percent math proficiency.
        Marks acknowledges that the school hasn't yet closed the achievement gap, but he contends it is beating the odds for low-income students who have limited English skills.
        Many of the students, he said, arrive at ninth grade having been on a path to failure since kindergarten.
        "If students are not prepared going in, no matter how heroic the measures are, it's going to be very frustrating for kids," he said.
        However, South Valley Academy's long-standing practice of not reporting enrollment of English-language learners means the school's proficiency is not compared with that of other schools with large immigrant populations. Districtwide, English-language learners have a 9 percent proficiency in reading and math — much lower than the South Valley Academy's.
        Marks assumes that all or most of his students would meet that classification, but there is no data to support or refute that.
        Sandoval-Tonini said the school is looking to expand to middle school students in the future, or partner with a charter middle school with the same mission, in order to start working with students at a younger age.
        We invite you to share your thoughts by going to ABQjournal.com, where you will also find links to previous Achievement Gap stories and other resources.
       

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