Rutland Herald (Vermont)
April 11, 2011
HEADLINE: School says more than scores count - School says more than scores count

By Cristina Kumka

Seth Welch was on the verge of dropping out.

The 18-year-old Fair Haven Union High School student already had a job last year when he found himself on the fence.

Wrestling was over and the state champion didn't have much else to relate to.

Welch asked himself how school connected to what he was already doing.

The school knew it had to find out, according to Principal Brett Blanchard, who on Wednesday called his school's success on the state's annual progress measure only a small part in educating kids.

Fair Haven Union High School was only one of four high schools in the state to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress this year. a required assessment of schools under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Colchester High School, Stowe Middle/High School and Concord Graded/High School are the only other schools to meet AYP in reading, math and participation, according to the Vermont Department of Education.

Statewide, 216 schools, or 72 percent, did not meet progress standards in one or more category of students including all students, white students, and students on free and reduced lunch, a measure of poverty.

Nationally, the U.S. Department of Education estimated more than 80 percent of all U.S. public schools will fail to meet NCLB-required standards because the bar of achievement was raised this year.

Schools are required to make their students higher achievers on standardized tests, with the goal of all students 100 percent proficient on tests by 2014.

But according to Blanchard, that goal is far from reality.

What is real, according to Blanchard, is that although his school is ranked among only a few schools to succeed on written tests, that's not how a school's success should be measured.

Last year, Fair Haven was tagged a persistently-low achieving school by the state and federal governments based on test scores from 2007 and 2008.

This year, that's not the case.

We had three straight years of double-digit growth, Blanchard said Wednesday. But that is not the most relevant means to grade a school or its students.

Blanchard said he relies more on stories like that of Welch a student with a job who didn't feel the need to sit in a classroom.

Teachers at Fair Haven instead created a personalized learning plan for him.

Welch was required to show how math, reading and writing worked in a formal business plan. He created a PowerPoint presentation on how school subjects could be used in his work as a mason and found he could do things other students couldn't do especially those who were better on tests than him.

He was able to apply his learning and it was meaningful to him. He now has two to three scholarship opportunities in athletics and academics. He was on the verge of nonsuccess, Blanchard said.

Welch said he decided to stay in school and now plans on going to college.

Last year, my plans were completely different. I didn't want to be in school and they gave me this opportunity and it totally turned a 360 on everything, Welch said. And, he said it makes staying in school easier when you like what you are learning, he said.

On Wednesday, another student walked into Blanchard's office with her biome a presentation of an Alaskan ecosystem without being asked to do so.

It's just a B, Blanchard said of a graded test. We have given it far too much importance. We want students to create learning where we act as the guides ... the structure where students take ownership of learning and at the end they have a project that's meaningful, engaging and has a real world application.

Now we need to talk about meaningful learning, he said.

Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca said there is a place for school rankings based on standardized test scores.

He said he supports the existing NCLB law because it pushes schools to work for every child, including foreign language speakers, those in poverty and those with learning disabilities.

But Vilaseca did say he would ask that the federal government consider what Fair Haven and other schools are doing right, besides pencil and paper.

There are 2,000 dropout factories (schools failing students in the U.S.) that account for 80 percent of all kids who drop out, he said. I want to make sure all kids are successful but at the same time, we need to be more progressive. Is it doing the same thing I did in school in the 1970s?

Vilaseca said higher education needs to better partner with public secondary schools to make learning more relevant to today's world.

How does Brett (Blanchard's) experience with those students factor into the entry requirements for higher education?