Large, varied system of alternative schools serves returning students
by Dale Mezzacappa
Philadelphia has created a diverse, privatized system of alternative education designed to recapture disengaged teens, while also launching a first-of-its-kind Re-engagement Center to match those who wish to return with programs that meet their needs.
But it is a daunting task. There are tens of thousands of casualties of the District’s traditional schools, older teens who attended for years but never progressed past a 4th- or 5th-grade reading level or passed many courses.
Once they decide to come back, they are presented with options – the so-called “multiple pathways” touted by the city and District as the best strategy to boost a graduation rate that, at its highest, has barely cracked 60 percent.
“Whether it’s working independently or collaborative group work, every school is different,” said Courtney Collins-Shapiro, the District’s director of multiple pathways to graduation.
Students who have reached an educational dead end find various models for repairing the damage and launching them on a path to success – from working solo on computerized lessons to building academic skills through intense community projects that often dramatize their own lives and struggles (see related stories).
But the District really doesn’t know yet how well these approaches are working.
For the first time this year, the providers all have performance-based contracts, key to which are requirements that the schools significantly increase attendance and rapidly improve student literacy levels. The contracts hold schools accountable for boosting reading skills by two grade levels for each year a student attends – a feat that few traditional schools could accomplish.
“Our first priority is to see the outcomes of the accelerated schools, and then
