L.A. county school with disadvantaged ethnic populations scores record achievement.

Ashby, Nicole

For her first Christmas at Ralph J. Bunche Elementary, an inner-city school in Los Angeles County, Principal Mikara Solomon-Davis gave the teachers framed inspirational quotes, which they hung in their classrooms. One quotation stood above the rest, becoming a motto for the entire school: "Let's give the historians something to write about."

Seven years later, following the staff's innovative and persistent efforts to create a culture of excellence, Bunche has made history. In 2006, it became the first school ever in the Compton Unified School District to win the esteemed California Distinguished School Award. It was also the first in the district to earn the state's Title I Academic Achievement Award, an honor it has held for the past three years. Bunche has merited these recognitions particularly in light of serving mostly disadvantaged African-American and Latino student populations, of which four in 10 are nonnative English speakers.

Proving that neither poverty nor limited English proficiency is necessarily the cause of poor performance, Bunche has doubled overall the percentage of students in grades 2-5 doing math and reading at grade level--from 39 percent in 2003 to 84 percent in 2006, and from 34 percent to 65 percent, respectively. In fact, according to Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) measures for the last three years, Bunche is on par with schools in the more affluent districts Santa Monica and Torrance. Even more impressive is that virtually no achievement gap exists among its subgroups, which means nearly all of the students are performing equally well.

"Everybody is addressing this economic divide as the biggest crisis our country and our world are facing," said Principal Solomon-Davis. "If you want to solve that, you have to educate the people on the downside of that divide ... this way they can lift up themselves and their communities, which is true empowerment."

It was the quality of education that children in impoverished schools were receiving that compelled Solomon-Davis to become an administrator. After teaching three years at a school in Compton, where she had been assigned by Teach for America--the national corps of teachers that places recent college graduates in high-need areas--she set out to unravel the systemic causes of inferior schooling. Believing she could effect change better at the leadership level, she enrolled in Columbia University's Teachers College in New York City to pursue a master's degree in education.

"I was totally impassioned by teaching], but outraged by what was happening," said Solomon-Davis, who abandoned her plans for law school in favor of the calling to teach.

In 2000, she returned to Compton, a city notorious for its gang violence and abject poverty, this time hired to lead the faltering Bunche Elementary. Undeterred by the issues in the community, which she viewed simply as obstacles to overcome, Solomon-Davis first worked on raising the level of expectations regarding not only what the children could do, but also what the teachers, parents and she could do. "You really have to create a culture of 'no excuses,' which in essence results in a culture of excellence," she asserted.

Those who were not committed to the new changes left that year, thus opening the door for a new crop of teachers. Amber Young, another Teach for America placement, came to the school in fall 2001 and stayed well past her two-year pledge. Now the interim principal until Solomon-Davis returns full-time from maternity leave, Young has become one of the major players credited with the school's progress.

"I do believe what is happening here can be replicated. I don't believe that this is an anomaly," said Young. "It's definitely challenging. It's a lot of hard work. But our children deserve the hard work."

That is why the school has a strict hiring process: to ensure that new teachers are committed to the school's mission, she said, and that they understand a culture of "whatever my kids need, I'm going to do." Before a selection is made, applicants are interviewed by a panel of faculty members and parents and must do a mock lesson to demonstrate their instructional skills.

Given the importance of high-quality teaching to student achievement, resource teacher Angella Martinez says she is always astonished when others ask about the staff's formula for success as if it were a secret. "We get questions like, 'What are you doing with your [English Language Learners]?' We're kind of like, 'Well, it's what we do with all of our students--good teaching.'" Martinez, a Teach for America alum who came to Bunche at the same time as Young and who is now responsible for teacher training, said the staff work hard to address the needs of every single student, "so it's not ... a blanket lesson."

The result is instruction that Young describes as "wonderful, engaging and differentiated," which often includes manipulatives such as Skittles candy, to illustrate a lesson on fractions.

At Bunche, the devotion to teaching extends considerably beyond the regular school day. Nearly all 21 teachers stay after school several days a week to tutor students from 2:30 to 4 p.m., while some stay later as part of another program that allows working parents to let their children remain at school until 6 p.m. to receive homework assistance and participate in extracurricular activities in a safe environment.

What's more, these educational opportunities carry over into the summer with a program that substitutes as a day camp for many of the children who cannot afford other summer enrichment experiences. Solomon-Davis, who initiated both the after-school and summer programs, said these efforts have provided invaluable time for remediation and intervention, as proven by the number of participating students who score high on the state exam.

Behind the scenes, there is a lot of teacher collaboration taking place, which is fostered in weekly meetings, where faculty members analyze data, share best practices and brainstorm about future projects for improving student achievement. One extraordinary endeavor borne of these sessions is the adoption of the College Bound initiative designed to introduce children early on to the possibility of higher education. Support for the initiative is evidenced throughout the building, with every classroom and office adopting a college name and their doors decorated with related paraphernalia. For instance, the computer lab is referred to as "Cal Tech" (for the California Institute of Technology) and Young's office is under the banner of the University of Virginia, Solomon-Davis' alma mater. Also, at the beginning of the year, the school hosts a pep rally, at which children wear their classrooms' college colors and get their faces painted with, for instance, a little wildcat's paw to symbolize Northwestern University.

And, in a further attempt to familiarize the students with college life, they are taken on tours of area campuses, primarily those of the University of Southern California and the University of California-Los Angeles, the latter being the institution from which the school's namesake, Ralph Bunche, graduated and went on to become the first African-American to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. Financial aid representatives are also invited to Bunche Elementary to speak to the parents of fourth- and fifth-graders about various resources for funding a college education.

Next to improving teacher quality and raising expectations as measures for closing the achievement gap, Solomon-Davis says that increasing accountability for student progress through constant assessments is equally important. "You have to measure on a continual basis [to know] where you are in terms of reaching your goals," she said.

Every Friday students at Bunche take a teacher-developed skills test to check their mastery of the material taught that week. The staff receive the results the following Monday. Based on the same scale as the state's accountability report, student performance is rated from "far below basic" to "advanced." The specifics of the outcomes, discussed in grade-level meetings, inform teachers where they need to adjust instruction.

At the same time that students are working to achieve the state and school's goals, they are also trying to reach their own. At the start of the school year, all of the children fill out a goals sheet that lists their short- and long-term plans--from what they will accomplish this year to where they will attend college. The sheets, which are decoratively attached to their photos, are posted on the classroom walls, keeping company with the framed quotes Solomon-Davis gave the teachers as well as other reminders of the school's vision for success.

Martinez says that hearing the children talk about their dreams has made her proudest. "Hearing them say, 'When I'm in college, I'm going to take this class,' or 'When I become a doctor, I'm going to work at this hospital'--those sorts of things, where they're thinking about their future, about their community, about their place in the world, and they know that they're valued."