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Without the pressure of grades, which the school eliminated three years ago, pupils are progressing more quickly, and attendance has improved. This year, for the first time, Linda Vista placed 27 children in gifted-student classes, and next fall will add 24 more. Three multilingual aides regularly visit parents to talk about what they can do to help their children achieve. "The idea behind site-based management is to make the community part of the process," says Nadeau. RJR Nabisco agrees: last April the company awarded Linda Vista a $550,555 Next Century Schools grant to continue its outstanding work.
LOUISVILLE. For years the only high scorers at Fairdale High School were its basketball stars. Good teachers shunned the school, located on the outskirts of town. Today 31% of Fairdale graduates go to college, 11% more than in 1987, and there are nine applications for every available teaching slot. "If you want to be on the cutting edge of teaching," says social studies instructor Jackie Powell, "this is the place to be."
Behind the striking change is principal Marilyn Hohmann and a committee of elected teachers. They have worked together to change the school's 1,200 students, 30% of whom live in public housing projects, from passive recipients of knowledge into active problem solvers. "Covering the material is not the goal," says Hohmann. "Learning how to learn is the point."
The same goes for teachers, many of whom have been grouped together in interdisciplinary programs. Juniors take "U.S. Is Us," a daily two-hour course combining history and literature, led by two social studies teachers, two language-arts teachers and one special-education teacher. These classes include some of the brightest youngsters as well as the slowest, an approach Hohmann calls "teamstreaming." Teaching together takes more time, commitment and compromise, but it is rapidly becoming the norm at Fairdale -- a development that pleases ninth-grade teacher Brenda Butler. "I love the changes," she says. "We finally have an opportunity to voice our opinions and make decisions about student learning."
DADE COUNTY, FLA. During the past three years, 139 of Dade County's 263 schools have voted to join the school-based-management movement spearheaded by former superintendent Fernandez. William Jennings Bryan Elementary School, which embraced the concept in 1987, is an example of a school in mid- metamorphosis, experimenting with change on the one hand while retaining some aspects of more traditional schools on the other.
Principal Nora Brandt, elected by the Bryan faculty to lead them in restructuring, began with the basics, repainting the rundown stucco building and starting a "Bryan Pride" campaign to boost children's self-image and team spirit. To pave the way for improvement, she hired several forceful, imaginative teachers. Today literacy is paramount at Bryan, where the student body is one-third white, one-third black and one-third Hispanic. Teachers stress writing and the classics. Each month 400 children are bused to the Dade County Public Library; parents receive a "reading tips" newsletter.