Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
TwitThisEast Side Elementary
Four years ago, Emily Baker was at wit's end. The principal at East Side Elementary in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was struggling to hire and retain enough teachers to just keep the doors open. Small wonder. The school's inner-city kids brought huge problems with them. Many came from unstable homes and it wasn't unusual for children to arrive at school hungry or in dirty clothes. At the same time, too many were woefully unprepared for the classroom. Kindergartners routinely didn't know the alphabet or how to count, and they had trouble catching up to grade level as they grew older. Not surprisingly, standardized test scores for the East Side students were among the worst in the state.The newest teachers, especially, felt overwhelmed. And that gave Baker her biggest problem: Every year, about 20 percent of her faculty either transferred or resigned. "We were pretty much labeled as a bad school with bad children," says Baker, now in her eighth year as East Side's principal.
Fast-forward to today. Teacher turnover at East Side is now down to five percent. And test scores are rising steadily. Last year, East Side students outgained the statewide average by about 30 percent on reading and math tests.
What triggered the turnaround? Go back to a day in 1999. Jesse Register, superintendent of Hamilton County schools, was staring at a new education report, and he was furious. Nine of his elementary schools in inner-city Chattanooga had been listed among the state's worst performers. Register immediately called a meeting of his top elementary school officials. "He was waving papers and ranting and raving," says Ray Swoffard, now an associate superintendent for the school district. Register was holding test data that showed a huge gap in performance between the county's urban and suburban schools. Swoffard remembers Register's exact words: "If I don't have the folks on board to close the gap, I'll get the folks."
His first step was to use federal funds already in hand, along with foundation grant money, to hire a consulting teacher and two assistant principals for each school. The former would train teachers in ways to instruct kids who often lacked discipline and self-control. The assistant principals, among other things, would monitor the classrooms, ensuring that teachers established control in the first critical weeks, and also quickly pre-empt student confrontations at the first signs of trouble.
9 Medical Myths Busted
Video: How to Eat Healthy While Traveling
10 Great Gift Book Ideas
How to Cope With a Depressed Spouse
Joke: I was leading a tour through Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico…
Advertisement 
