A Middle School Raises the Bar and Gets Results

From the Marshall Memo #428

In this article in Principal, New Jersey middle-school principal Tracey Severns describes how her school board, fed up with the increase in course failures at the secondary level, raised the passing benchmark from 65 to 70 percent. Leading her 1,134-student school’s response, Severns decided that the first step was to get rid of some teachers’ and students’ notion that failure was an acceptable outcome after instruction had taken place. “This belief needed to be replaced by an uncompromising commitment to student success,” says Severns. 

Step two was forming a Whatever It Takes committee and repeatedly broadcasting the “Failure is not an option” message to parents, students, and staff. Step three was analyzing the reasons for student failure and developing a strategy for each:

• Attitude problems (students who were able but unwilling) – Students who didn’t finish daily assignments and did poorly on assessments were required to attend mastery skills instead of “fun” classes (home economics, shop, computer graphics) and were pulled out of lunch for mastery skills classes. Students who shaped up were allowed to rejoin their friends and regular classes at the end of each reporting period. For very reluctant learners, Severns convened the parents, a guidance counselor, and the student and developed a contract for success with explicit responsibilities for student, teacher, and family.

• Achievement problems (students who were willing but not succeeding academically) – The school expanded the pyramid of support – homework club, daily after-school tutoring by certified teachers, peer tutoring, mentoring, and a program to celebrate improvement. For all students, the school raised the stakes by requiring summer school for students who failed math, science, language arts, or social studies and barring eighth graders who failed a course from taking part in graduation. 

• Attendance problems (students who were missing too many days) – The school shortened the timelines for administrative action, required parents and students to take part in attendance conferences and write an attendance action plan, and used incentives and consequences around punctuality and attendance. In the most serious cases, the school filed truancy charges and took parents to court. 

The school also implemented an electronic grading system that immediately informed parents if their children received a grade below 70 or missed an assignment. Parents were also able to log in and review their children’s grades in each teacher’s grade book. Students could submit missed homework assignments the next day for partial credit and were given up to three days to retake a failed assessment for a maximum score of 70. Initially, teachers didn’t like the last idea, but soon realized the power of multiple opportunities to demonstrate achievement. “They accepted the philosophy that because we want students to learn and the assignments are worthy, then we shouldn’t accept zeroes or walk away from students who didn’t learn,” says Severns. 

How did all this work out? Severns proudly shares the improvements in student achievement from 2009-10 to 2010-11:

• The failure rate in the school fell by 81 percent – from 207 to 39 students.
• The number of sixth-grade failures went from 66 to 1.
• The number of seventh-grade failures went from 71 to 22.
• The number of eighth-grade failures went from 70 to 16.
• The number of grades below 70% dropped from 2,132 to 863 – a 60 percent decrease.
• The percent of students on the honor roll and high honor roll increased each quarter at all grade levels.
• The percent of rising sixth graders on the honor roll increased by 49 percent.
• The percent of rising seventh graders on the honor roll increase by 24 percent. 

“Eliminating the D” by Tracey Severns in Principal, March/April 2012 (Vol. 91, #4, p. 44-45), http://www.naesp.org