City Charter High School is the only school in the United States that has four certified librarians and no library.
Before I explain how that works, we need some background. In 2002, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) rewrote Pennsylvania's high school graduation requirements. Those requirements are stated below. Please note the language highlighted pertaining to the "culminating project".
§ 4.24. High school graduation requirements.
Requirements through the 2013-2014 school year. Each school district, including a charter school, shall specify requirements for graduation in the strategic plan under § 4.13 (relating to strategic plans). Requirements through the 2013-2014 school year must include course completion and grades, completion of a culminating project, results of local assessments aligned with the academic standards and a demonstration of proficiency in Reading, Writing and Mathematics on either the State assessments administered in grade 11 or 12 or local assessment aligned with academic standards and State assessments under § 4.52 (relating to local assessment system) at the proficient level or better to graduate. The purpose of the culminating project is to assure that students are able to apply, analyze, synthesize and evaluate information and communicate significant knowledge and understanding.
This reworking of the graduation requirements was quite radical. For the first time, PDE did not dictate how many credits (classes) student needed to pass in order to graduate. The requirements dictated course completion, demonstration of proficiency in Reading, Writing and Mathematics (through the PSSA exams) and a culminating project. Since the culminating project was to be determined locally, each school district defined it as they wanted to. Some districts disappointingly made it a glorified book report. Others used the traditional senior English thesis for this purpose. And some school districts jumped on this opportunity to force students to demonstrate their ability to "apply, analyze, synthesize and evaluate information and communicate significant knowledge and understanding." Those districts believed the graduation project defined what it meant to be a quality high school graduate who is proficient at the skills necessary to succeed in the 21st century.
City Charter High School used the graduation project as a culmination of all aspects of learning in a quality four year high school education. If you could conduct and present this project in a proficient manner than you were ready to graduate or, as they say at City High, "walk across the stage."
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| City High Graduation Project |
The question for most educators is how to implement a comprehensive program like this and have it become an integral part of the school's curriculum? Like anything else, to fully implement a program in earnest you have to create a budget, hire staff and allocate adequate resources to the endeavor. And you have to make it a high stakes event, such as a requirement for graduation. This is how we did it at City High.
1. Put every Freshman and Sophomore into a research class for 250 hours over two years to learn how to conduct research, annotate sources, use data to make conclusions and write up the results.
2. Put every Junior and Senior in a graduation project class for 180 hours over two years to conduct a comprehensive project with the tangible outcomes articulated in the image to the left.
3. Hire a Librarian for each grade level to teach the research class.
4. Make it clear through our behaviors that if you passed every class for four years but failed the graduation project, you would not graduate with your class. In fact, there have been a handful of students who did not complete their graduation project and had to return the following fall in order to get their high school diploma.
Imagine, every student spends over 400 hours learning about research. This prepares our students for success in college and the workplace. Out students will tell you it is the most difficult thing they've done in their life, particularly the presentation of their project to a panel of experts from outside of the school. This was an inspired idea that the Pennsylvania Department of Education came up with. To implement this idea in earnest, City High invests over $250,000 in salaries annually as well as course time, classrooms and technology. It is an investment well spent. You might ask, where did we get the money to pay for this program? When you don't have the expense of running a library (space, furniture, books, librarian) you have the resources to hire research teachers and run a research program.
It would be great to end this post here, but as is typical in public education, the target always changes. If you read the Pennsylvania Chapter 4 graduation guidelines in the beginning of this post, you may have noted that they pertain to the time frame from their implementation in 2002 to the 2013-14 school year. These guidelines were recently reviewed and updated by PDE. The new graduation guidelines eliminated the culminating high school project!
The Pittsburgh Public Schools board is considering changing high school graduation requirements, including eliminating the graduation project, adding more time for biology, and reducing the amount of time for physical education. Pittsburgh is among many boards throughout the state that are looking at changing graduation requirements in the wake of regulations approved by the state Board of Education. After the Class of 2016, the regulations eliminate the requirement for a culminating high school graduation project. Beginning with the Class of 2017, the state will require proficiency in certain end-of-course Keystone Exams or on a state-designed, project-based online assessment for high school graduation. (April 6, 2014 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)The state went back to course requirements and proficiency on standardized tests. On the surface, it is hard for most of us to figure out what PDE has in mind. But, I would suggest that this is a standard move for Pennsylvania schools. No matter what form school reform takes, the traditionalists (PA School Boards Association, PA Association of School Administrators, PA Education Association, PA Federation of Teachers) through their lobbying efforts, always try to turn back the clock.
Most schools remain what they were 50 years ago, factories that filter students, some students make it... some don't. Faculty teach basic skills in a teacher-centered model. And educational innovations (collaborative learning, technology, problem solving, differentiation, project-based learning, graduation projects) are seen as an intrusion. Good schools (schools in wealthy communities) do well and bad schools (schools in poorer communities) do poorly. There is no need to innovate. Some people make it and some don't. High School as a Filter, not a Pump. There is a cynical saying that teachers learn early on in their careers - this too shall pass. Fads, superintendents, school reform come and go. Traditional education will always survive.
I am retired and no longer affiliated with City Charter High School. I don't know if they will continue the graduation project or not. I hope and believe they will. It is an incredibly intensive, authentic piece of learning that is consistent with what our students need when they graduate and enter college or the work force. Maybe for once this too will not pass.
