“Successful” Schools? Looking at MetWest High School and Social Justice Humanitas Academy
For the past two years I have been researching and writing about definitions of “success” and “failure” in U.S. education. As I have done with all of my book projects, I draft posts for this blog to clarify my thinking and learn from reader comments. Then I revise what I have written and those revisions become part of the book I am writing.
A year and a half ago, I posted a series on “success” and “failure” in schools (see here, here, and here). Since then I have written a few chapters for this forthcoming book that answer questions driving this study.
- How have “success” and “failure” been defined and applied to reforming schools and judging programs past and present?
- From where do these ideas of “success” and “failure” come?
- How were these ideas transmitted to Americans then and now?
- Who decides (and how) whether schools “succeed” and “fail?”
- What does “success”and “failure” look like in contemporary classrooms, schools and districts?
- So what?
Now I have four chapters that tentatively answer the first four questions. Last month I began research on the fifth question by looking at two schools deemed “successful” by current metrics but have gone beyond traditional definitions of “success” to carve out a larger, expansive view of what student, teacher, and school “success” look like.
Both California schools are non-special, that is, neither a charter nor magnet in their districts. MetWest High School* with about 160 students is in the Oakland Unified School District. It is a Big Picture school launched in 2002 that combines CONTINUE READING: “Successful” Schools? Looking at MetWest High School and Social Justice Humanitas Academy | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
