The Best and the Brightest

Above, the slides from my second semester project presentation for LMU's Charter School Leadership Academy. The work focused on detailing the experiences of high-achieving students at my school and using those experiences to determine how to help them avoid the "achievement trap."

From the conclusion of my report:

High-achieving low-income students are a very special group of students. Despite a deck that is stacked in so many ways against them, often including alcoholic fathers, a lack of healthy food to eat, little parent academic support in English, a crime-ridden community, young, inexperienced teachers, and countless other obstacles, these students have thrived. Shouldn’t we honor their resilience and perseverance with at least an equal amount of resilience and perseverance on our part? Don’t we owe it to them, this venerable yet vulnerable group of students?

Schools cannot afford to take the high achievement of their BnBs (best and brightest) for granted. Complacency has a price, and that price is the diminished chances of students’ continued success when schools do not give BnBs the challenges and support they both want and need.

The first steps for change have already been given to us through the voices of the BnBs as they cry out to us for something substantially different than the status quo.

1. Hold all students strictly accountable for following the rules.
2. Increase student voice (in decision-making) and choice (electives, after school opportunities, in-class work).
3. Decrease whole-class teacher talk.
4. Increase the amount of face time teachers have with their BnBs.
5. Increase the amount of time the BnBs have to work with each other.
6. Increase accountability for less motivated students to complete their own classwork without copying from the BnBs.
7. Implement a respected system of rewards and recognition for high performance.

Meeting the needs of the BnBs in a sustainable way to avoid the “achievement trap,” while also enhancing rather than damaging the life chances of students who are mediocre or struggling, is a common concern. I believe it can be done.