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Home > About CES > Results for Kids > CSRD Study
Mastering the Habits of a Graduate in a Massachusetts High School
One Boston high school, which serves approximately 400 students and opened as a CES school in September 1998, focuses on a rigorous education for its students in both academics and the arts. All students are expected to master four habits of the graduate: revision, invention, connections, and ownership. The school integrates these habits into regular assignments as well as its conferences with parents and teachers. Teachers write narrative reports about students' progress based on the four habits and students report on their own learning using the habits as a framework. The CES coach from the Center for Collaborative Education, CES' regional center in Boston, supported the school's emphasis on these "habits of the graduate" by creating opportunities for the faculty to reflect on their work and by assisting them with curriculum development.
Students built on what they had learned about revision, invention, connection and ownership as they developed their senior projects. All students carry a full academic load and major in one area of the arts. In order to graduate, students prepare and present a proposal for conducting a community arts project that is judged by a panel including artists and community members. Students begin working on this project in their junior year, including preparing a resume and an artistic biography. They complete the project in the first semester of their senior year. Students with the top-rated projects receive grants to carry out their projects. This project marries traditional academic skills – such as writing clearly and persuasively – with real-world skills such as project design, budgeting, and public presentation.
In addition to completing rigorous, non-traditional assessments such as writing a senior grant proposal and participating in narrative conferences, students at this school also perform well on traditional measures. The school's focus on the habits of their graduates, the school’s writing advisory curriculum, the hiring of an assessment coordinator who analyzed data and proposed actions, and free Princeton Review classes offered for math comprised a coherent effort to raise student achievement on standardized measures. The school has seen a dramatic increase in the percentage of tenth graders passing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) Mathematics and English and Language Arts exams. In 1999, the first year that the school was in existence, fewer than 20% of the school’s students passed the MCAS Mathematics exam and fewer than 40% passed the MCAS English Language Arts exams. These figures lagged far behind statewide averages. In 2001, the percentage of students passing these exams skyrocketed; almost 70% of students passed the Mathematics exam while over 80% passed the English and Language Arts Exams.
In 2001, 87% of the school's first graduating class – the same students who in 1999 passed the MCAS exams in small numbers – was admitted to two- or four-year colleges. Although this group of students performed poorly on the MCAS in tenth grade, over the subsequent two years the students developed the skills necessary to enter college. The school's rigorous set of courses and high expectations helps students build their knowledge and abilities so that they are prepared to go on to college.
Page last updated: November 27, 2002
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