CURMUDGUCATION: Miracle School's Secret Sauce

CURMUDGUCATION: Miracle School's Secret Sauce

Miracle School's Secret Sauce

Here's news of yet another miraculous charter school. Can we look closely and see what the secret of their success might be.

Southland College Prep School in Chicagoland had 100% of its mostly-Black graduating class accepted to college. It's the sixth straight year for this achievement, and it's been covered widely in the area. The school is the only charter high school in the state to earn an exemplary rating, and it seems devoid of the kind of nasty undertones of T.M. Landry Prep, another miracle school that turned out to be much less than a miracle.

So if Southland is one of the charters from which public schools can learn something, what can they learn.

Well, there's the usual attrition thing. The 116 graduating seniors started out as 163 freshmen. So between the self-selection process of application and the self-unselection process of leaving the school, Southland gets to have a culture of students and families who are committed to the educational goals.

There's the school day. Southland students are in school for nine hours.

There's the course requirement, which is higher than the course requirement for most schools in the region.

There's the school size, which is small enough for a personal touch. The school serves 530 students, smaller than the small town/rural high school where I taught. However, Southland has a teacher-student ratio of 12-1 or 13-1 or 15-1, depending on who's telling you. Both administration and staff CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Miracle School's Secret Sauce