WASHINGTON – Take risks, challenge students to take more rigorous courses to prepare themselves for college, and imagine your school as a hub of academic excellence and equity for all students.
Such were the bits of advice offered Wednesday during sessions of the College Board’s Middle States Regional Forum and the College Board Forum 2010 in Washington, D.C.
Though the events—which drew some 2,500 attendees, largely high school guidance and college admissions counselors—were heavy on promoting the College Board brand and the organization’s college prep products, it also drew veteran experts as well as up-and-coming educators who are on the front lines of school innovation and reform aimed at taking the whole “college readiness” mantra from being a buzzword to a reality.
Rashid Davis, principal of the upstart Bronx Engineering and Technology Academy (BETA), cited research that showed the most important factor in academic achievement was for school administrators to reject the “deficit thinking.”
He also said it’s important to invest in staff training and development so that educators can actually put the idea that every student can succeed into effect.
” It’s not just about believing students can succeed, but knowing how to make that happen,” Davis said at a workshop titled Expanding Access: Increasing Achievement for Underperforming Students. “You have to become a completely different person.”
Davis related how at BETA, which opened in 2004 as one of the “school-within-a-school” projects funded by the Gates Foundation, taking Advanced Placement courses is a requirement, not an option. So far, he said, the policy has paid off once the students enter the realm of higher education.
