Lesson Learned - The Gates Foundation in Enumclaw High School

Aired Friday, December 2, 2005

By Kirsten Kendrick

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Anchor Lead: This week, in our series Lessons Learned, we've been examining the impact of non-profit organizations on public education; in particular, the effort by the Gates Foundation to transform the nation's public high schools into smaller learning communities. Today (Friday), in the final installment of our three-part Learning Curve series, we take you to Enumclaw High School in South King County. The school has made major changes with Gates Money. But now, it must carry-on without it. KPLU's Kirsten Kendrick reports.

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When you first step inside Enumclaw High, it looks like a typical high school.

But look closer, and you'll see evidence of a major transformation. In the bustling main hall, colorful banners hang from the ceiling. One for each of the six small schools.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated more than two-million-dollars to the Enumclaw School District in 2000 to transform the town's only high school.

But redesigning a large high school is far from easy. Joe Kristof is an assistant principal at Enumclaw.

It's difficult for everybody to move through change. Especially when you're building something that hasn't been built before.

Even though he and other school leaders recognized the difficulty of this task from the start they embraced Bill Gates' vision for creating a new kind of American high school.

Our high schools were designed 50 years ago to meet the needs of another age. Until we design them to meet the needs of this century, we will keep limiting — even ruining — the lives of millions of Americans every year.

Enumclaw began its redesign by creating two so-called Partner Schools — Echoes and Adventure. Students are chosen through a lottery system and have the same six teachers for all four years.

Adam Ihde teaches in Echoes. He says there's more work associated with a small school and that's caused some teachers to leave.

I think there's going to be higher burnout. I think there has been at this school. But I think there's enough teachers that believe in this and believe that it's worth the extra work that they're willing to put out the extra effort.

Parent Kathy Corella says that extra effort paid off for her son, who was struggling in the traditional high school.

The difference in educational format and the smaller classrooms enabled him to succeed in high school. And so what we saw was a real downward spiral turned around.

Megan Hathaway is a senior in the Adventure School. She says it's like a close-knit family.

It's kind of changed my outlook knowing that my teachers know who I am. It's okay if I ask questions. I'm not going to feel embarrassed to talk in front of the class.

Adventure and Echoes each have about 100 to 150 students. Enumclaw wanted to replicate these popular models for the rest of the student body. But resources were tight — even with the Gates grant — and school leaders were forced to strike a compromise. They, instead, created four small school hybrids, with about 300 students or more in each one.

Ashly Carey is a senior in one of these so-called interest-based schools. She says it's just not the same.

It's kinda hard cause I think that the most interest-based schools have taken longer to get to a point where you have six teachers and you get to know them through the four years. And, so, you kind of get jealous sometimes I guess.

Enumclaw surveyed parents to find out what they thought about all the changes. KPLU obtained these surveys through the state Open Records Act. The responses were mixed.

One parent said, I think this is a great step toward more personal attention and making sure kids don't fall through the cracks.

But another said, I feel that the kids are being short changed. I think the small school structure limits (their) choices. I think instead of standards going up, they have gone down.

Enumclaw's test scores tell a different story.

We reviewed the school's results on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning over the past five years. They show that academic achievement at Enumclaw has improved dramatically. In reading, the percentage of 10th graders meeting state standards increased from 58-percent to 84-percent. Similar progress was made in math and writing.

Even with these gains, the Gates Foundation decided not to renew Enumclaw's grant. That's despite the school being cited as a Best Practices example by the foundation in 2002.

Assistant Principal Kristof says the news took him by surprise.

Well, I'm disappointed because I think we've done some really good work. I think we've made some really good progress and I think we are a model for some schools. So, I'm disappointed they didn't see that value to help us continue that work.

Grant or no grant, he says Enumclaw plans to stay with small schools.

Tom Vander Ark is in charge of education giving for the Gates Foundation. He says their grants are designed to get schools started.

We tried to be very clear with the districts here that there wasn't a guarantee of ongoing funding. That it was a five-year effort where we were going to try to help them get as much done as they could and that we're all going to learn as much as we could from each other.

Private money, he says, can only go so far. Once changes are made, public money has to take over.

But, how sustainable is the small schools model given the realities of public education funding? School leaders say they're still hamstrung by a lack of adequate financial support from the state. They rely on levies and bond measures to fill the gap.

That leaves districts with the challenge of trying to design high schools for the 21st century with a funding system that many say is stuck in the past.