Talent Development model focuses on at-risk high school students
By Carol Chmelynski
08/23/05 -- “Our students succeed because we refuse to let them fail. That’s our motto,” says Lois Powell Mondesire, principal of Strawberry Mansion High School in Philadelphia.
The school is one of 83 across the nation that uses the Talent Development reform model, which seeks to transform the ninth grade and improve the academic achievement of students in large, nonselective, comprehensive high schools.
Before implementing the model, participating high schools were characterized by low student engagement, low ninth-grade promotion rates, and continued problems in the upper grades.
The Talent Development model focuses on five features: small learning communities, advanced English and math coursework, extra-help sessions, professional staff development, and involving parents and community members in activities that foster students’ career and college development.
Each participating school has a team of facilitators and coaches to implement and support the Talent Development reforms. Daily attendance and punctuality are stressed, too, Mondesire says.
At Strawberry Mansion, all ninth graders are in a Ninth Grade Success Academy, which features a core curriculum, student/teacher teams, a double dose of English and math, a freshman seminar, and credit recovery opportunities.
“The academy is designed to enable students and staff to work together to effectively diagnose and address individual student needs,” Mondesire says.
When students successfully complete the ninth grade, they enter a career-oriented academy in the 10th grade. They can choose either the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts or the Academies of Law and Business.
Laura Schulz, a Talent Development facilitator who spent the last seven years working with Strawberry Mansion, calls cultural changes at the 1,000-student school “miraculous.” There have been fewer fights and arrests at the school since the Talent Development model was implemented in the 1999-2000 school year.
Schulz says the model worked so well because the principal, teachers, parents, and students embraced it.
Strawberry Mansion’s implementation of the Talent Development model had been supported by a Smaller Learning Community grant from the U.S. Education Department. When that grant ended June 30, the Philadelphia school district and Johns Hopkins University agreed to provide continuing support “because of the positive results,” says Ellen Eisenberg, the former director of the Philadelphia Talent Development High School Program.
“It’s a fabulous program when implemented right,” says Eisenberg. “It is a way of personalizing education, and that changes the culture and climate in the school. It focuses on organization, curriculum, instruction, and research. But it takes time.”
A nonprofit education and social policy research organization called MDRC conducted an independent evaluation of the Talent Development Program at the invitation of the organization that created it, the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk, based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md.
The evaluation focused on the first five high schools to begin using the model in Philadelphia, including Strawberry Mansion. It followed 20 cohorts of ninth graders for up to four years.
Results show the Talent Development model produced “substantial and pervasive educational gains for students.” For example, attendance increased an average of nine days per year for each student. For a high school with 500 first-time ninth graders, the program was found to help an additional 125 students pass algebra and an extra 40 students advance to the 10th grade.
According to the study, “the positive effects seem to be driven by two main factors: the intensity of the intervention and the blend of structural reforms, which created smaller, supportive learning environments and instructional reforms, which helped students catch up and make progress on core academic subjects.”
But while the study found that many students benefited from the program, Philadelphia schools still face tough challenges in preparing all students for graduation, postsecondary education, and employment.
“Even in the Talent Development schools, the typical ninth grader still misses about 40 days of school per year, nearly a third will not be promoted to 10th grade, and more than half will not graduate in four years,” states the study.
“Creating smaller communities of learners to overcome the anonymity of the large urban high school is necessary, but it may not be sufficient,” says MDRC President Gordon Berlin. “High school reformers must also tackle what gets taught and how it is taught.”
James McPartland, a Talent Development director with Johns Hopkins, says, “We’re making some progress, but we’re still losing a lot of kids.”
Noting that the program costs about $250 to $350 per student, McPartland says the federal government should provide more funding for high school reform. “It’s not too late to help high school kids,” he says.
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