Of course our 10th grade assessment results are good. And yes, over the past two years our Economically Disadvantaged (the State's term, not mine) 10th graders have out-performed the state's general population in reading and math and science. And O.K., I'll admit it, the only statewide population that has out-performed Corbett's Economically Disadvantaged students is the one identified as Talented and Gifted. It's all true. And it's good for publicity. And not much else.
Other districts' testing machines are beginning to kick into gear. They are organizing their schools (and their children's days) around maximizing test scores. I hear from moms about students losing their electives, being removed from art and music for extra doses of 'the basics'. I hope it's not true. I hope that if Corbett had to resort to such measures in order to beat NCLB, we would choose to be declared a failing school. Art and music aren't frills, and no societies have every survived without them. If test prep puts the study and enjoyment of our culture out of the reach of kids, then the tests have become too important.
State assessments are supposed to work like a dip stick, a device to check the 'academic oil level'. The oil itself is not supposed to be the point. The point is to keep the motor in good shape. Organizing life around passing the Oregon Assessments is like forcing oil out of the engine and up the canal around the dip stick in order to get a good (albeit false) reading while losing track of what oil is for and where it really needs to be. O.K., painful analogy, but I think it's accurate. Passing the assessments just can't be the point of school. If nothing else, the thought is too painfully boring to endure.
Years ago Corbett made a commitment to pass the 10th grade assessments on the way to doing something really interesting. So what might that be? Corbett students do schooling at a level that the State of Oregon would never think to expect and never dare to require. Every Corbett student pursues a course of study that was originally designed for and limited to the social and economic elite. They participate in a meritocracy in which one earns one's way through commitment, integrity and talent. Everyone starts together, everyone has access.
This year for the first time all Corbett 9th graders are taking Advanced Placement Human Geography. For the second year, all 10th graders are taking AP World History. (Last year about 25% of Corbett 10th graders passed an Advanced Placement exam. That is about twice the rate at which all graduating seniors in Oregon reached the same benchmark last year.) All Corbett 11th and 12th graders are taking AP English, and all will take AP Government before graduation. Over 50 students are taking AP Calculus (five of them are 9th graders), and another 60 are in pre-calculus. This year, Corbett students will take about 10 AP exams per graduating senior...history would say that this is over three times the rate of the second most prolific school in Oregon.
A third of Corbett's high school students are studying the Academic Decathlon curriculum this year. It is an interdisciplinary course centered on the French Revolution. Not all will choose to compete, but we intend to send two teams, one from Corbett School and one from Corbett Charter School, to the state competition. Only 18 students will earn the right to compete. Our goal is to win first and second at the state competition. The first place team will be eligible to represent Oregon at the national competition. The second place team will represent Oregon in the national small schools online competition.
Corbett makes no guarantees that all students will achieve at the same level. We do not fall victim to the Standards doctrine. Our experience is that they will not. But students who attend a school with this level of academic energy tend to make short work of the State Assessments. Our history will bear out the fact that Corbett did not wait for great state test results as a sign that we were ready for the Advanced Placement program. We used to Advanced Placement program to make the State Assessments largely irrelevant.
Corbett's SAT scores have echoed the trajectory of our State Assessment and Advanced Placement results. Over the past 12 years, Corbett's participation in the SAT has doubled and its average score on the math and verbal combined has increased by 100 points. Typically, scores are expected to drop as participation climbs, so Corbett kids are beating a powerful trend by dramatically increasing both simultaneously.
Corbett's most recent development has to do with college placement. Graduates are beginning to show up in interesting schools. A decade ago, Corbett seniors were hesitant to express an interest in schools other than community or state colleges. Today Corbett has graduates at Reed, Harvard, Vassar, Willamette, Smith, Sarah Lawrence, Puget Sound, Whitworth, Warner Pacific, George Fox, Oregon State, University of Oregon, Southern, Eastern and Western Oregon and MHCC. (I'm sure I have left some out, but the point is there.) In a trend that first came to our attention two or three years ago, some students are entering college as sophomores as the result of Advanced Placement scores, saving parents from $20,000 to $40,000 in tuition, room and board and saving students time as well as staving off boredom.
In keeping with our habit of avoiding the latest educational fads, don't look for 'Professional Learning Communities' in Corbett. We are not convening around state assessment results trying to ascertain what we might have done wrong. We do a great job with our kids. If the assessments are valid, they will register that fact. If the assessments fail to capture our work, we can be patient. They will probably come around. And in the meanwhile, we are on our way to something really interesting.
