Diane Ravitch on Miracle schools that beat the odds.

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=2712

Malkin,
Thank you for all these extraordinary links to examples of success for students.
What great resources!

http://miracleschools.wikispaces.com/

Lots of hype, very little reality.

A little update on the two BC schools.

Fort Fraser Elementary School

“Fort Fraser Elementary is a small rural school of about 125 students with 12 teachers and support staff. We serve a local population of about 500 people. We also serve the native reserve of Nadleh. Our school is recognized in School District #91 as a pilot site for using precision teaching techniques. We follow closely the Morningside Model of Generative Instruction as developed by Dr. Kent Johnston, director of Morningside Academy based in Seattle, Washington.

Morningside’s Model of Generative Instruction involves a precise measuring of the development of basic skills. A few basic skills include: seeing and saying numbers, seeing and writing prose and seeing and saying words at a specific rate, usually over a minute timing. Charting students’ progress and developing specific interventions to improve students’ progress are both key elements of this model.

We are in our fourth year of implementing this model school wide and have started to gather some very promising results. “

As cannot verified achievement results, because of the small population.  However, the community has an enrich historical past, on educating students to high standards and achievement.

Chase Primary School

“Built in 1965, Haldane was one of three public schools in the Village of Chase: Chase Primary (K-3), Haldane Elementary (4-7) and Chase Secondary (8-12). The grade threes moved over from Chase Primary in 1983 making Haldane a grade 3 to 7 school. Our population grew to over 400 by the mid 90’s, but then declined to around 250 by 2002.

In 2003 Chase Primary School was annexed to Haldane which put our overall population back to over 400 with about 150 at the Annex (K-2) and the remainder at Haldane (3-7). “
http://haldane.sd73.bc.ca/mod/resource/view.php?id=9

No data achievement for the Annex (K to 2), but from what I have read, Open Court is still being used.
http://haldane.sd73.bc.ca/

However data achievement for Haldane Elementary School. Higher achievement in reading and writing for grades 4 and 7, compared to other district schools. What I noted combing through the BC education ministry site on achievement, the math achievement stats are just as low as in other provinces. Isn’t it about time for the powers to be to change curriculum?

Two more English schools:
Elmhurst Primary in Newham, east London, an area of high deprivation. Synthetic phonics (Read Write Inc) is the sole method of teaching children to read at the school and, as a consequence, they have no ‘dyslexics’.
http://www.teachersmedia.co.uk/videos/parent-participation. The headteacher, Shahed Ahmed, says, “More than 90 per cent of our pupils speak English as an additional language and we have 20 per cent mobility’‘. The school ‘has 1,000 pupils and not one of them leaves unable to read’ (TES. Lightfoot. 12/08/11) St Thomas Aquinas Primary is another high achieving school. It uses a linguistic phonics programme, Sounds-Write. The school’s test results show that at the end of three years, of fifty children who started Reception (4-5 yr.olds) and finished Y2 (6-7 yr.olds) 98% had spelling ages in excess of their chronological ages. Of those children, 64% had a spelling age of 9.6 or above. http://www.st-thomasaquinas.milton-keynes.sch.uk/

More “miracle schools” ya right,

Amazing Doug, what a good start in the foundations in the primary grades can do for students futures as well as achievement.

Notice the schools that are doing excellent, are schools that nurtures the foundation over the bells and whistles.

Excellent is an adjective where is the noun? excellent work???

Why is nurtures plural?

Everybody believes in basics. I believe in basics AND bells and whistles.