Students at risk of dropping out of Chicago?s schools are the jury, dishing out punishment to peers who act out.
Giving students control over their situation is one reason the dropout rate for students who have fallen behind two grades or more and attend Chicago?s achievement academies is much lower than the rate for other overage students. For academy students, the dropout rate is 49 percent; for other at-risk students, it is 88 percent.
“Students like the opportunity to have a voice and a say in what?s going to happen to them and each other,” said Eric Mitchell, an instructional specialist in the program. “In some ways, what other students say to them is far more important than what any adult will say to them.”
Mitchell and several others from Chicago?s eight academies came to Baltimore last week for a three-day conference in which they told teachers and administrators from throughout the country about their schools.
The academies are the product of a partnership with Johns Hopkins University?s Center for Social Organization of Schools. The academies aim to motivate students to earn credits and advance to the correct grade level.
Hopkins began its work in 1994 at Patterson High School in Baltimore, a city where only 34 percent of public school students graduate. The dropout rate is the country?s fourth-worst. The program has since expanded to 125 high schools in 15 states and Washington, D.C.
Chicago began its academies in 2003. More than 1,000 overage students who haven?t met the standards to enter high school attend each of Chicago?s eight two-year academies. They learn how to work in student juries and discipline each other; attend career and college fairs; and show off science projects in expositions. Summer school is mandatory for students in their first year.
“You?ve got to give them a reason to read or a reason to learn math,” said Jacqui Thomas, another instructional specialist from Chicago. “For those who don?t have that intrinsically, this is a great way to appeal to their competitive nature.”
The program stopped at Baltimore?s Patterson High but operates in two other city schools: Talent Development High School opened in 2004, and Frederick Douglass High School has used the program for a year.
