Khadeem McLeoud, left, and Ahmed Elsayed, right, discuss their academic accomplishments. Photo by Kelly Virella
n the fourth day of school, in the cavernous sunlit lunchroom of the High School for Public Service, about 450 teenagers converge on lunch tables scattered here and there. The seniors and underclassmen jockey for the most coveted tables; the confident prance and flirt; and the adolescent girls giggle and gossip. Amid the din and commotion, a shy, roughly 6-foot-tall young black male named Jean approaches principal Ben Shuldiner to have an exchange that commonly occurs at the school. Averting his eyes, the young man comes to report news of his academic growth. He just demonstrated college readiness on one of his Regents exams. “I brought my score up to an 80,” Jean says. Shuldiner praises and affirms him, in a quiet, terse manner appropriate to the boy’s personality. “Good job,” Shuldiner says, patting him on the back.
In too many majority black New York City public schools, academic achievement competes for the faculty’s attention with distractions like discipline problems. Not at the High School for Public Service. The Crown Heights Brooklyn school is one of 7 majority black New York City schools graded quadruple-A in its 2009-10 progress report. For the past few years, 100 percent of each graduating class of the High School for Public Service has been admitted to college. Their 4-year-graduation rate is 98 percent. Those who don’t graduate return for a fifth-year. And the school-wide attendance rate is 93 percent. More than 50 percent of the parents come to the school’s bi-annual parent-teacher conferences.
What’s really remarkable about the school’s academic performance, is not just that the school is 86 percent black. Of its 450 students, only one might call himself white and he’s from the central Asian country Uzbekistan. Seventy-six percent of the school’s students receive free or reduced price lunches. And when the students arrive as freshman, many are performing far below grade level in reading and math.
In seventh grade, 17-year-old Ahmed Elsayed was a C-plus student. The African-American male didn’t know how to study, was quiet and never participated in after-school activities. Yet by his junior year at the High School for Public Service, he was so motivated to succeed in pre-calculus that he started getting tutoring after school and during lunch. Because he was also the captain of the wrestling team and involved in other extra-curricular activities — such as drama and spoken word — he often stayed up until 1 AM finishing his homework. Now he is an A-student, the president of the student of body, and a future applicant to the Ivy League Brown University. “Joining the wrestling team taught me how to work hard and be committed,” says Elsayed, whose parents are Sudanese immigrants. “It translated into my books, translated into my classes … This school opened me up to all those different windows like wrestling, poetry. All of these things the school offers.”
Khadeem McLeoud, a junior at the High School for Public Service has a similar story of academic and social growth. After earning “B”s and “C”s in sixth grade, he got serious about school in 7th grade, but feels that if he weren’t attending High School for Public Service, he wouldn’t be as active on campus as he is now. He’s the vice president of the school and through participating in Coro – a leadership development program — he’s discovered social justice activism. His GPA is about 3.7 and he’s thinking of applying to The Juilliard School, where he can pursue his interest in drama, voice, and dance, and then to Harvard Law School. “I’ve learned more about policies that happen in New York and that happen around the world period and I just want to be a part of having my own opinions set in what goes on. I believe in peace. And I think lawyers have a big role in achieving peace,” McLeoud says. “I think being a lawyer I can help people.”
A Tour of the High School for Public Service
George W. Wingate High School, site of the High School for Public Service Photo by Kelly Virella
High School for Public Service is on the ground floor of the old George W. Wingate High School at 600 Kingston Avenue. It is clean, orderly, and welcoming. In the main hallway and in the office, samples of student work, including their art, line the pastel blue walls. Each door of the main corridor is painted with the portrait or quote of a notable person, ranging from Ezra Pound to Maya Angelou and Chief Joseph. A quote attributed to Roman poet Virgil reads, “They can … because they think they can.” A small lending library consisting of two-tall bookcases sits in the hallway too, raising the visibility of books and offering opportunities for independent intellectual exploration. No dust bunnies tumble across the floor. No stockpiles of old equipment and inventory pile up in heaps, signalling that this is a wasteland.
About the Author
I did not attend any of these school aforementioned but I was a student like these students no not the have a goal of going to College type but the trouble starter,no pen and no notebook,and I even ran with a little crew back in high school. I had teachers who passed me with just a C but I can say I never really learned anything out of those classes and yes I eventually ended up in a community college which in my opinion was still like High School taking remedial classes over and over because I either dropped or withdrew from them. Students who are like me need Professors who give a fuck and puts us on a studying diet that matches with the way we think or do our work academically that is the only way student like us make it out community college,undergrad,grad,and even attaining our doctorates. But the solution starts at home and our environment you have to reach them and pull them out of these circumstances field trips,late night class sessions,etc; something that will motivate them to attain more knowledge in this world.
Can this school improve a student without parental support?
“They like the school” is simply too simplistic of an answer. Kids like a lot of things. There’s more to it than that. There are kids who enter school ready to do damage. Ready to fight, ready to call other kids the anti-gay f-word, insistent on laughing at other students for having dark skin. My school — another Brooklyn high school, but with a C grade because many of the teachers didn’t fill out the “how do you feel about this school” survey — is also full of highly qualified, hard-working teachers. We have kids who don’t come to school because their parents tell them it isn’t necessary and that they need to go get a job. We have more and more kids entering 9th grade who CANNOT READ. Don’t know what sound the letters make. So passing the English regents at the end of 9th grade is a ridiculous idea for them.
And it’s great that 100 percent of kids get into college – but how many actually graduate? Many NYC kids go to college, and then drop out after a year because they can’t hack it, or they’re stuck in remedial classes (which you have to pay for) and then run out of financial aid. How many of these kids go to for-profit colleges and then have $80,000 in debt?
Yes. Obviously this school is doing something right, but I want to hear about the kids who don’t pass their classes and still go to college. How does the school whorl with them? How do they get parents to come to conferences. 50% attendance is much better than many schools, but it’s still terrible. What can other schools do to replicate that number? Our parents have non-working numbers, say they will attend and then don’t come, think that juniors and seniors in high school don’t need support, etc. How have they converted the parents to buying into the education?
Does everyone take the Regents? Do they report the failing scores or only the passing ones? What is their approach to homework? What about kids who come to school with no pen or paper? Do they have detention? What after school activities, if any, are available? This article is very positive, but it’s not really saying anything that every other school will say. Educators need details.
Having kids in special ed who are eligible for SETTS is not the same as working with kids who have just been removed from D75 or kids who are mandated for 12:1:1 or CTT. Does the school turn away such students? How does the school deal with poor behavior (all schools deal with it somehow, because teens sometimes misbehave). Does the school have a full-time ESL teacher? What’s the technology?
What’s the hiring process like? What are the school rituals? What happens in these 1-hour PD sessions?
This read like a marketing piece. You need more.
I would love to talk with you more about this, because you raise some good points. But your tone seems so harsh that it’s hard for me to see your comment as a genuine invitation to dialogue. When you say things like “this reads as a marketing piece,” I interpret this as a slur against my ethics and professionalism. So while you are asking me some good questions that I’d like to answer, you’re also saying that you have no faith in my ability to do that.
I’m a journalist. My aim in writing this piece is not to set myself up as an education policy expert, nor to explain everything about how schools like this succeed. This is a series and my aim in starting it is to open up a dialogue in the community between parents, teachers, journalists etc. You can contribute so much to that dialogue. I would appreciate it if you would approach the dialogue with some respect for what I have to contribute too. — the ability to expose the public to other people’s ideas.
As the series continues, we’ll be glad to ask some of the questions you raised:
Thanks for sharing those.
Meanwhile, the article answers some of your questions. 98 percent of the students graduate in 4 years and the rest graduate in 5 years, as I say in one of my comments. The article also discusses the remediation rate at the school and the overall problem with remediation in NYC schools.
As for the rest of your first two paragraphs, I’m not sure how the issues you raise relate to the purpose of the series — which is to explore how good majority black schools do what they do. If I’m missing something, please explain it. It seems more like you’re venting about the problems in the schools. That’s legitimate, and as a former teacher of poor children myself — I can understand those frustrations. But it feels to me like we already have plenty of negative talk about our schools, our teachers, our children. We’re trying to create something different here — a dialogue where we can learn to be better — and it would be great if you could help us do that.
Please, please, please forgive me for sounding harsh. That honestly was not my intent. I’m a journalism teacher at my school, so I understand your frustration with my comment about sounding like marketing. It was a low blow, and I apologize. I didn’t mean it as a slur on your ethics, though it certainly does come across that way. I probably did mean it as a slur on the tone of the piece, though perhaps I should have found another way to get that across. I’m sorry. I tend to be a one- and two-syllable writer, so I often come across a little more cruel and direct than I should. This is what reading Raymond Carver does to a person.
I think my harshness of tone also probably comes out of my frustration about articles and movies about miracle schools that don’t mention how many of the “difficult” students are pushed out or not allowed in through a variety of methods. Or articles that tout how wonderful a school is doing in one or two years, but then don’t mention anything about how kids all do poorly in the next few years, because the grades and test scores are a reflection of the students of a particular year, and not necessarily the teaching or the school.
Perhaps one thing I’ve learned from teaching at a new school is that the first two years are basically a wash. You are an unknown entity, so parents and children don’t choose your school, so you end up with the children who have either not gotten into ANY school or the children who have ended up at the school because they didn’t fill out any paperwork and hate paperwork and school. My school, for instance, has improved 12 billion fold since it first opened, simply because those first two classes of kids — the ones with gang members and kids who masturbated in the classrooms in front of teachers or had real pathologies and the ones who came to school high all either dropped out, stopped coming to school (dropping out requires filling out certain paperwork), grew frustrated with never passing the regents or the RCTs, or had children. Those first two years are the crazy years. There’s something to be said about a school that’s simply not young and small. This school is 8 years old. That’s important. The staff have figured out the population a little bit more, kids have CHOSEN to attend that school, which makes them a lot more motivated, and the school has a better reputation, so teens will go in the building with an open mind.
So perhaps a good approach to this series would be to divide schools into categories including how long the school has been around and how selective it is. These also affect the learning culture of the school.
I don’t buy that all kids that start in 9th grade graduate in 5 years. That doesn’t even happen in the most expensive private schools where parents sometimes do their kids’ homework or hire tutors to do it for them. I’ve worked in two of them and attended one myself, so I do know this. The tougher kids who can’t do school to the appropriate standard get kicked out, or they get passed to the next grade because teachers feel sorry for them or don’t want to feel the wrath of their parents or just don’t want to face the kid for a second time. Everyone is gaming the system somehow. That’s a school thing, not a black school thing or a public school thing. So what is really happening? That’s what I was really asking.
Also, I want to say that I really dig the idea of this site. I wish you all the luck.
Great article! When the article say that 100% get admitted to college, what college are you referring to? Are you referring to a community college, HBCUs,technical school or elite university? If I know what I know today I would have went for the elite type university. Choosing a college is like choosing a brand, it matter what college you choose. In corporate America especially for people of color(exclude Asians,Indians) the college choice can make or break your career. Asians especially the Chinese figure this out this a long time ago.For example, some corporate cultures like the financial district basically hire candidates from elite university.It’s rare to find someone who went to a public or state university working on wall street unless you have connections. To be fair getting a college degree is great but our people need to educated about what college to choose.
Dear Kelly Virella
I appreciated hearing about a majority African American school having such success. I would like to make a correction with response to your comment about police presence in the school. We do not have police surveilance in the schools on this campus but all schools have at least one school safety agent. As an educator in a school that is similar in some respect, except we cannot screen the students who attend our school. I believe that the students are performing at a similar capacity. We have students that are level 1 to level 4 which issues that run the gamut. So kudos to Public Service but there are schools with a more difficult population doing the same thing and need to be featured.
Thank you for the clarification and for listening to the show!
As a NYC English teacher for over 50 years, i applaud the efforts and successes of this high school.However., we know that the rating system of A,B, C etc is bogus and also that the climbing graduation rate is also bogus,I have to be skeptical about what this school is really accomplishing. Having 8 advance placement classes in a school of 450 students seems “over the top,” So -here are my questions:
How many pass these advance placement classes?
How many ESL students and special ed students attend this school?How many graduate?
How are teachers selected? How many are new or TFA recruits? Who trains them within the school? Are there master teachers? The principal was 28 when he organized this school. What was his experience running an urban high school?
In addition topublic service, are music, art,socialstudies,science with labs, remedial and advanced
How does the school maintain a 93% attendance rate and a 50 % parent conference
attendance?
Thanks for your questions. As the author of the piece, I know the answers to some, but not all. I’ll try to see if I can get the principal to respond too.
ESL students: 0.8 % of population.
Special-Ed: 6.5 % of population (This is public information.)
Schoolwide Graduation rate: 98 percent of all students graduate, as calculated by a 4-year cohort model. Those who don’t return for a 5th year and graduate.
Are there master teachers: Yes. Mr. Isaac is one of them, with over 20 years of teaching experience.
What was the principal’s experience? A wikipedia page that Shuldiner says is accurate outlines his bio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Shuldiner
Is art, social studies, science with labs offered? Yes.
How does the school maintain a 93% attendance rate and a 50 % parent conference? The kids and families like the school.
Now, a few questions for you. Are you still skeptical of the school’s achievements? If so, why? It’s rare, but not unheard of for majority black schools to achieve these results, as I’m sure you are aware. If the school has fewer ESL and SPED students than others, does that negate its results? Does it mean to you that we can’t extrapolate anything from it? Before you answer, keep in mind the following benchmarks for ELL and SPED in NYC public schools:
1. the median school: 9%, 14%
2. the median majority black school: 4%, 14%
3. the median AA, AAA, AAAA majority black school: 2.5%, 12.1%
4. the median AA, AAA, AAAA majority white school: 1.95%, 13.7%
If I was writing about a predominantly white school would you be as skeptical?
Also, I don’t understand why having 8 AP classes seems over-the-top to you. I took 5 AP classes and would have taken 8 if I could have fit them into my schedule. What can I say? I like to learn.
Like Janet Mayer, I have a few questions. I’m not asking out of skepticism, but because I want to see this success duplicated in other schools. There are other schools schools who have similar structures but don’t get the same results so I think we are just trying to find what that missling element is. Is there a high percentage of Black and other teachers of color? Are there more Black male teachers than usual? (A rare find in most public schools). Do they have police patrolling the school and checking the doors? When I lived in Crown Heights, I found the Black community there to be predominately Caribbean. Is that still true? Many immigrant parents specifically have education in mind when they relocate here. None of these questions detract from the success of the school, I’m just trying to find a more definative reason than “they like the school”. Thanks for your good work.
Thanks for your comment. At 4 pm today, I’m going to appear on WBAI 99.5 FM to discuss this story. It would be great if you could listen and/or call in.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of academic research about why schools like this succeed. But the third section of the story — called “How the High School for Public Service Succeeds” — explains the principal’s hypothesis and many education scholar’s agree with his hypothesis. This section addresses all but two of your questions: the one about police and the one about immigrants.
During my 6 hour visit of the school, I did not notice a police presence. And it would be hard for me imagine why police would surveil a school where 100 percent of seniors are accepted to college.
I did not explore whether the student’s parents were predominantly immigrants in my research, but it’s an interesting hypothesis and one worth researching. Nationwide however, there are dozens of schools like these — even in cities with no Afro-Caribbean presence. So if the families at successful NYC schools are mostly Afro-Caribbean immigrants, there’s still evidence that African-American students can produce those results.
Check out section 3 and 4 for more information. The hypothesis is that schools like this succeed because they do all the things that a good school does — hire good teachers, train them, hold high expectations, provide support and resources, etc. If the hypothesis is true, it means there’s no silver bullet, no short cut for fixing our schools. For a school to be good, it apparently has to be good and when it is, students — no matter their race or income level — succeed.