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Once-failing Detroit school makes the grade

It also will have to improve next year to avoid sanctions

BY CHASTITY PRATT and LORI HIGGINS
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITERS

August 25, 2006

For years, Barbour Magnet Middle School on Detroit's east side was the catch-all building that took in busloads of students from overcrowded schools or those whose schools were closed for good.

It did not meet the federal guidelines for annual yearly progress and was considered failing by the government for six years.

Until June, the building was on schedule to be restructured under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The staff and students were preparing to be split up and sent to other schools, having been branded a bad school.

"I know that I put forth all the effort I could. I wanted for these children what I wanted for my own," said Randal Moody, the principal at Barbour for nearly 20 years.

But the staff learned something in June that became official Thursday -- for the first time in years, it had met its Annual Yearly Progress standards and no longer faces restructuring.

Moody said the secret to meeting the standards was in the planning.

He mandated that his teachers meet twice a week to go over state curriculum standards and expectations alongside the district's guidelines to make sure every class is on target. Students were signed up for after-school tutoring and enrolled in a two-week summer MEAP academy.

"Our focus was almost laser-like," Moody said.

Barbour is one of 92 schools in various phases of federal sanctions that made AYP for the first year. If these schools make AYP again next year, they will be removed from the sanctions list.

Some schools improved their status simply by getting more students to take the MEAP test, since federal law requires that schools test 95% of their students to meet the standards.

But in some cases, schools improved because they worked hard, said Sharif Shakrani, codirector of the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University.

Many of these schools didn't meet the academic goals because too few of their subpopulations of students -- including minorities, low-income students, special education students and those with limited English speaking skills -- scored well enough on the MEAP.

"What they most likely have done is attempted to emphasize instruction to these populations, especially in the area of mathematics, which seems to be a problem for these schools," Shakrani said.

But these schools can't rest easy now that they've managed to meet standards this year.

Last year, none of the three high schools in Plymouth-Canton Community Schools met the standards because of low scores among special education students. This year, those three schools made it off the list. Most of the students took the MEAP, while some took an alternate exam designed for special education students.

"The students worked very, very hard throughout the year. Obviously, when it came to the testing, they tried their very best," said Mike Bender, director of secondary education.

"This is something we have to do," Moody said. "If we don't, based on No Child Left Behind, we're going to suffer the consequences."

Contact CHASTITY PRATT at 313-223-4537 or cpratt@freepress.com.

Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.