The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-23)

B2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, MAY 23 , 2022

education

20. That includes eight schools
    in the IDEA network and four in
    the BASIS network. There are
    also some unusual non-charters
    mixed in with them.
    It took me a while to get over
    my shock at this. I had not
    thought such ambitious course
    and test requirements could
    produce so many schools that
    parents loved. IDEA now has 137
    schools in Texas, Louisiana and
    Florida. BASIS has 34 schools in
    Arizona, Louisiana, Texas and
    the District. If people are looking
    for innovations pioneered by
    charters, this is one.
    The often-overlooked secret
    about such challenges is that
    students who fail difficult AP
    and IB exams often get as much
    out of the experience as those
    who pass. They realize from
    their own academic progress
    and the success of older friends
    in college that they learn more
    when forced to try harder
    courses than when taking easier
    courses as their neighbors do in
    regular schools. Their teachers
    cheer them on and show them
    how much they have improved.
    Conversations with those
    students and their teachers
    make this clear.
    Nadya Martinez, a math
    teacher at sixth-ranked IDEA
    San Juan College Prep, said one
    of her students got only a 2 on
    the AP Calculus BC exam,
    usually too low for college credit.
    But the student had learned
    enough to get a score on the
    University of Texas at Austin
    placement test exempting her
    from all university math courses
    through the second year of
    calculus. The student’s mother
    was sobbing when she called
    Martinez with the good news.
    Garza, the IDEA McAllen
    College Prep principal, said:
    “Students push and focus on
    their subject strengths while
    slowly building power in their
    subject weaknesses.”
    I knew nothing about IDEA
    until its schools began appearing
    on the list. What I have learned
    since suggests that other
    schools, if they are brave, might
    benefit from following that
    example.

school.” IDEA decreed every

student would graduate with a

minimum of 14 AP courses and

exams.

When they launched the

initiative, Torkelson said, it was

at first “a disaster in every way

possible.” Scores were very low.

The schools were asking

teachers to prepare for AP exams

they could not pass themselves.

“We invested in fanatical

teacher training and support,

and we required each new

teacher to take AP exams as part

of their selection process,” he

said. “We often hired teachers

who only scored a 1 or 2 [on the

5-point grading scale], but they

were smart, passionate, and we

knew that if we put them

through rigorous training where

they both learned the content

and the best ways to teach it

clearly, they could succeed.” The

National Math and Science

Initiative, a Dallas-based

nonprofit, provided veteran AP

teachers to lead the IDEA

training sessions.

The percentage of IDEA

students passing AP or IB exams

increased a bit each year. After

eight years, it reached 50

percent. The national passing

rate for all AP students, most of

whom are not low-income, is

about 60 percent. The College

Board reports that the portion of

low-income students nationally

taking AP exams rose from

3 percent in 2003 to 22 percent

in 2018 with no decline in overall

passing rates.

The top school on my first

Challenge Index list, which ran

in Newsweek magazine in 1998,

was the Wheatley School in Old

Westbury, N.Y. Sixteen of the top

20 schools that year were, like

Wheatley, neighborhood public

schools with mostly middle- and

upper-class families.

But several charters, such as

IDEA, had the independence

and daring to impose heavy AP

or IB loads that regular public

school districts would rarely

consider. As a consequence,

charters have taken over the top

of the list. On the new 2022 list

of the top 300 schools nationally,

charters make up 15 of the top

Gama founded the IDEA charter

network in 2000 when they were

25-year-old teachers in Donna,

Tex. They ran the network until

2020. Soon after IDEA started,
      Torkelson read about the BASIS
      schools a nd with Gama decided
      they, too, would require AP or IB
      courses, even though most of
      their students, unlike those at
      BASIS, were from low-income
      families.

Torkelson told me he thought

the move would enhance IDEA’s

reputation, particularly if its

schools ranked well on the

Challenge Index. Not enough

IDEA graduates were being

accepted by top colleges, he said.

Admission officers thought “our

students weren’t smart, they

were just the smartest students

at a low-income, minority

the course guide at a book store,

did the assignments her friends

gave her from the AP course and

passed the AP exam, which

students can take without the

school’s approval.

Reform-minded educators

have increased the portion of

high schools having at least half

of juniors and seniors taking at

least one AP, IB or Cambridge

exam. My research indicates

such schools have gone from just

1 percent of all U.S. schools in

1998 to 12 percent in 2020.

But I never thought schools

would dare require all students

take several college-level courses

and exams, as IDEA McAllen has

done. The first I heard of any

nonselective high school trying

that was in 2001. Married

economists Michael and Olga

Block told me they were

requiring that every student t ake

at least six AP courses and exams

at their new charter school in

Tucson. I listened politely but

threw away my notes of our

conversation because I was sure

parents would never support

such a system.

I finally wrote about the

Blocks in 2004 when I realized

their wild scheme was working.

They were opening more of their

BASIS charter schools because of

increased parent demand.

Tom Torkelson and JoAnn

because it is too rigorous, chief

program officer Dolores

Gonzalez said. IDEA high

schools have an 8^1 /4-hour day.

There are many ways to

compare schools. The Challenge

Index list is my attempt to move

away from ratings that focus on

average standardized test scores,

which are more a measure of

family income than school

quality. I rate schools by

participation in college-level

final exams such as AP, IB and

Cambridge. I want to see which

schools are welcoming average

students into those challenging

classes. Ultra-selective schools

such as Thomas Jefferson High

School for Science and

Technology in Fairfax County

have few or no average students

and aren’t relevant to my

inquiry, so I place them on a

separate Public Elites list.

For each school on the

Challenge Index, I divide the

number of independently

written and graded AP, IB and

Cambridge exams given to all

students at the school by the

number of graduating seniors.

Big schools thus have no

advantage over small ones. I

rank them based on that simple

ratio, which does not include

scores on the tests. Less than

1 percent of AP test takers have

not first taken the AP course.

I started the list to publicize a

message I had gotten from

pioneering educators: high

schools could invigorate learning

by encouraging as many

students as possible to take AP,

IB and Cambridge courses and

exams. A few schools then were

already revealing the potential of

even disadvantaged teenagers to

succeed when given a chance to

do college work with

encouraging teachers. But most

high schools provided few such

opportunities. In some cases

they banned students from AP

courses if they had less than a

strong B average.

I found a student at

Mamaroneck High School in an

affluent New York City suburb

who was denied her request to

take AP U.S. History because her

grades were poor. She bought

At first glance, the
IDEA McAllen
College Prep
public charter
school near the
Mexican border
doesn’t look like a
national
education leader.
It resembles other high schools
in poorer parts of Texas. Seventy-
seven percent of its students are
from low-income families,
Nearly all of them, like their
teachers, are Hispanic.
Yet IDEA McAllen, with 393
students in a 10-year-old, two-
story red and blue building, is
the new No. 1 on the list of the
nation’s most challenging high
schools I have been putting out
since 1998.
It has by far the highest
percentage of disadvantaged
students of any school that has
ever made the top of what I call
the Challenge Index.
Why is that? Principal Robert
Garza IV, who like his students
grew up in the Rio Grande
Valley, said: “Parents know that
when they send their children to
school, they will receive
instruction from the hardest-
working teachers and leaders.
And thus, they know that their
children become the hardest-
working students.”
It is hard to imagine a high
school in America where parents
would not erupt in anger if the
IDEA network’s demands were
placed on their children.
Freshmen at IDEA McAllen each
take three Advanced Placement
courses, including the
exhausting three-hour college-
level final exams written and
graded by independent experts.
IDEA McAllen students must
take a total of 11 AP courses and
exams to graduate. Juniors start
the International Baccalaureate
diploma program while also
taking APs. By the end of senior
year, all students have taken six
IB exams (some longer than
three hours) and written an IB
extended essay, a research paper
that must be 4,000 words long.
So far this school year, only
seven students have said they
are leaving IDEA McAllen

How does a high school full of kids from low-income families become best in U.S.?

Jay
Mathews

I STOCK

To view the Challenge Index of the nation’s most challenging high

schools, go to j aymathewschallengeindex.com.

“Students push and

focus on their subject

strengths while slowly

building power in their

subject weaknesses.”

Robert Garza IV,

IDEA McAllen College Prep principal

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