EDGEWATER CASE STUDY

• Findings
• Conclusions

Findings

Context

Edgewater High School in many ways meets and even exceeds all the preconceived images and notions of a typical wealthy, suburban high school. Located in affluent Devon County, approximately 30 miles west of a major urban city, Edgewater High School is divided between separate campuses--with East Campus housing grades 9 and 10 and West Campus housing grades 11 and 12--and serves a total of nearly 2,800 students. The High School District serves several affluent communities in northern Devon County. According to the Edgewater High School District, teachers averaged 16.3 years of experience and $55,000 in annual salary districtwide in 1995. Both figures are well above state averages and likely contribute to each other. Approximately 81% of the teachers have at least a master's degree; several hold doctorates.

Of its 2,800 students, just over 2% were reported as low income by the Edgewater High School District in 1995 and less than 1% were classified as LEP. The overwhelming majority of the student population is white at just over 87%, less than 2% are African American, under 4% are Hispanic, with the remainder listed as Asian/Pacific Islander. Over 60% of the Class of 1996 took the ACT with a composite score 22.8, and over the past five years the graduation rate has been consistently maintained at approximately 95%. Over 70% (and inching upward) of the students report being in a college preparatory program with the remainder in a vocational or general education sequence.

For the most part, the East Campus is the focus of this study as this is where nearly all of the essential school activity and involvement has been located and, thus, this building will be referred to as Edgewater High School in this report. The drive to Edgewater (East Campus) is impressive in itself as the route follows the street that parallels a good deal of the rolling expanse of the exclusive and nationally recognized Medicina Country Club. On one side of the street is the Medicina Country Club; on the other, Edgewater High School.

The physical plant of the high school is impressive in several respects. The sheer size is impressive as is the upkeep--fully carpeted, no litter, and no graffiti. One of the first stops on the school tour for visitors is in the main entrance hall where one wall is lined with pictures of distinguished Edgewater alumni--former graduates who have distinguished themselves in assorted careers from the theater and the arts, to engineering and science, to finance and business. All the pictured illuminaries are high-profile, college-educated individuals. Privilege and entitlement emanate from the whole display. In addition to the traditional array of secondary classrooms, the school houses a fairly large theater capable of seating 500, which, with spiraling enrollments, is barely adequate for present demands and will be undergoing a major renovation and expansion project starting in the summer of 1997. Significantly, the entire vocational education area underwent a major renovation in 1992 and reopened as the Applied Technology Center (ATC), an area comprising nearly 12,000 square feet of laboratory and classroom space. During the renovation, all of the old woods, metals, auto, and electricity shops were removed. The ATC now houses technology-based areas including a technology (computer) lab, an audio/video production studio, a multimedia presentation room, a communications lab, a transportation/automotive systems lab, and a manufacturing production lab. The latter two are basically updated auto and wood shops. In spite of these lush settings, there are currently serious problems with the ATC. Approximately 10% of the teaching staff have assignments in the ATC. Less than 25% of the Edgewater students have ever been involved in any way with the renovated ATC area, and the number is quickly sliding to 20% with no sign of stopping there. This is in spite of a dramatic and consistent increase in overall school enrollment over the past years. On more than one visit to this area, doors had to be unlocked and lights turned on. In a school that simply does not have enough space to put all of its students, this is a telling indicator of the current status of the vocational education program.

The reasons for this decline are multifaceted but clearly link to the larger community. Like Oakfield, Edgewater is highly tuned to its community's expectations for its schools, and it is abundantly clear that the community expects a heavy emphasis on a college preparatory curriculum. For all teachers and administrators interviewed for this study, this was and is a paramount fact that shapes the choices they make and the programs they institute: "It all comes down to the parents and the community. They like what we do here. They see a good school that is functioning well. It's difficult to make big changes when everyone is behind what is already in place, and we have always been college prep oriented." The parents in this affluent and upwardly mobile community have a clear, almost singular, vision for their children that includes a quality college or university education, if not immediately upon graduation, then shortly thereafter. This means that they also have a clear and fairly singular view of what Edgewater High School's curricular offerings and instructional programs should look like and what the high school should offer. This has had a profound influence on the essential school reforms as well as on the vocational education initiatives in the school.

Essential Schools and Edgewater

From its entry into the Alliance, Edgewater was always different from the other member schools; not just different in the way that all schools have important differences from each other, but a "distinct" kind of difference. Of the original ten member schools, Edgewater was the only suburban candidate school. Compared to nearly any school, but especially to the other Alliance downstate schools, Edgewater enjoyed an enviable position. The school was and is successful by every recognized measure. IGAP scores as well as other standardized measures were consistently high. In fact, ACT scores placed Edgewater in the top 10% nationally. The school enjoyed the warm and enthusiastic support of its community. Finances were not a serious problem so budgetary battles over a new initiative would not be an impediment. Over the years, Edgewater has been able to attract an exceptionally able faculty and has had a stable administration. (The principal is a prime example. Now in his 27th year at Edgewater, this individual has risen through the ranks, starting first as a social studies teacher, then department chair, then assistant principal, and since 1994, the East Campus principal.)

Compared to the other schools in the Alliance, Edgewater looked like an exceptional candidate. While most of the other Alliance schools were drawn into the effort by the lure of additional funding, Edgewater had ample resources. It had a gifted faculty out to maintain a cutting edge presence in the highly competitive world of suburban education. The essential school initiative had union backing that eased its entrance into the school, and this alone was a highly contentious issue in the other schools. In the early days, at least, it looked like Edgewater would not have to fight through a lot of the battles the other member schools would have to and did. Thus, by comparison to the other member schools, Edgewater looked promising. If anyplace, Edgewater should have provided a prime field for essential school ideas. Yet, this was far from the case.

Edgewater's initial contact with the Alliance came just before a brief but extremely bitter teacher strike in early 1989. One of the key issues for the teachers' union concerned what they viewed as heavy-handed administrative actions. As one of the teachers noted,

This was a real rocky time period in our district. We had the strike, and there were hard feelings all around. Everyone was pretty bitter. We [the teachers] felt like we were being pulled from one thing into another. Whatever bandwagon came down the road, the administration wanted us to jump on it. When individualized instruction was big, we got involved. When responsive education was big, we got involved. When values education was big, we got involved. There was never any option. It was all by administrative fiat." An Alliance cadre member who had visited the school on several occasions commented, "They had a major labor problem, and there was a lot of distrust. The principal did not trust the superintendent. The teachers were bitter and angry. They felt they could trust the principal more than the superintendent, but there was something between them and the principal as well.

Given these circumstances, the decision to look at Alliance membership and another round of possible changes may seem a bit incongruous. However, in this case, the school, and in particular the union leadership of the school, was prompted to do so by the then president of the Illinois Education Association (IEA), who was also a member of the Alliance cadre. Having worked closely with the Edgewater Education Association (EEA) over the years and especially during the strike, the IEA president convinced them that this was an opportunity not only to take control of a reform initiative themselves but also an opportunity to hold the administration's feet to the fire. As the then interim director noted, "I think she [the IEA President] saw some potential with essential school ideas and wanted to give it a test in a controlled environment, one where she had confidence in the teachers' union. At Edgewater, the essential school initiative basically turned out to be a straw man. They knew that the superintendent who was there was pushing for this as the next big thing he could do, but they were going to make sure they controlled it. The whole idea of the essential school program depends on collaboration, but the idea of collaboration was seen as a threat to the union." While clearly Edgewater's motives for membership in the Alliance were hardly driven by a fervor for the nine common principles, it must be kept in mind that there were always multiple reasons for schools accepting Coalition/Alliance membership. Some of them were, inevitably, less than noble.

At Edgewater, the essential school issue became a bargaining chip for the union in dealing with the administration during the immediate post-strike years. Both sides finally hammered out an agreement couched in terse labor/management language that specified exactly what the union leadership had originally proposed for their essential school effort--a small and entirely voluntary pilot program in grade 9. Particularly important to the union was a contingent agreement that no teachers outside of the pilot program would be expected or required to participate in essential school activities nor would any special exemptions or concessions be given to those who did choose to participate. The pilot program itself followed a classic school-within-a-school (SWIS) design, with five core academic teachers responsible for 110 students who were block scheduled for these classes. All the teachers involved volunteered for the assignment. Students were to be selected randomly, although from within a constricted and bounded population with both high-level and low-level students excluded. As the principal explained,

We select from a pool of students who meet a set of characteristics. If they are below intro level algebra, they will not be in. Or if they are above algebra and ready for geometry, they won't be in. If they have an elective that meets during that block of time, then they will not be in the pool for the essential school program. Then, there are parents who do not want their children to be in a group program like this. They feel that they won't ever see anyone else or never make a new friend. So they don't want them in there." From its inception, the essential school pilot program never drew more than 110 students and, in recent years, this number has declined considerably as the eligible candidate pool has shrunk.

According to program evaluations done by Alliance personnel, across the years, little effort was ever made to extend the program beyond the parameters of the original SWIS model. It was noted in a 1990 report that,

The Steering Committee is operating within narrow constraints and consists of the EEA president, one teacher, the principal, an assistant principal, and the Alliance coach. Perhaps connected with the strike, there is a `we-they' feeling to all interactions. . . . By the design of the Steering Committee, there has been no open invitation for all faculty to be involved. Some faculty members feel information is channeled carefully, even secretly. Workshop and conference information is not shared, and some faculty feel deliberately excluded from all facets of the process.

The former interim director of the Alliance added,

From my interaction with the school, I predicted that they would have a hard time getting out that little school-within-a-school. I was very disappointed with that model. But it was a union move. It's now this little isolated program inside of Edgewater. It's not going to get any bigger. It's never going to influence the school. It's been encapsulated inside of a shell. It was perceived as a threat, so they sealed it off.

With little change apparently on the horizon, in late 1991 the Alliance coordinator, wrote to the Steering Committee expressing his concerns. Specifically, the state coordinator cited three areas of concern to him and the Alliance cadre. First, the school had provided "no indication that the essential school program will grow from its past and current scope and size. . . ." Second, there were questions about the level of commitment from both faculty and community for essential school efforts. As noted by the state coordinator, "The Steering Committee is not representative of a broad spectrum of the school. . . ." Finally, concerns were raised about the school's budget requests by the state coordinator in December 1991: "It is not readily apparent how activities for which money is allocated reflect efforts to expand the program into the rest of the school. The fact that the bulk of the expenditures ($35,000) is for only five individuals adds to these concerns."

Unlike the conciliatory missive received from Oakfield in response to a similar query, the Edgewater's "specific and considered responses" to these questions is almost aggressive, and certainly defiant. Edgewater responded to the first area of concern in January of 1992 with a letter, signed only by the principal and EEA president, noting that, "The Steering Committee and staff view the pilot program as an initial three-year [emphasis added] effort. During this three-year period, the existing pilot would continue as begun. . . . Plans to implement the pilot program into the tenth grade will be reviewed for year four. . . ." As well, the letter noted that the Steering Committee had increased in size and now included the EEA president, three teachers, and four building administrators plus the Alliance coach. The letter concludes noting, "A goal of the Steering Committee has been for involvement in the essential school program to be teacher-initiated not administrator-initiated. . . . [It was] stipulated that all teachers would have the opportunity to participate in, plan for, and/or teach in the essential school program. Our commitment, however, has been for this participation to be voluntary."

For all intents and purposes, this ended the matter. The Alliance showed no further interest in prodding Edgewater to make more significant changes; Edgewater clearly was not about to move beyond the grade 9 SWIS originally implemented. Rather than lose a powerful and influential member school and possibly incur the wrath of the IEA president and the Alliance cadre member, the state coordinator basically conceded defeat in a letter to Edgewater in February 1992, noting contritely, "you gave us new understanding of the difficulties involved in changing a successful large suburban school. I know that most of our doubts regarding your program were clarified. Indeed, the Cadre has instructed me to release all pending funding for your school."

Not surprisingly, year four came and went with no expansion of the essential school program into grade 10. Last year, the Steering Committee was officially dissolved. As the last teacher-coordinator noted, "Many people were getting committeed out. And I just thought it was one more committee. We still hold ourselves as an ad hoc group, so whenever something needs to be discussed we can be called together. I am now a representative on the district's Curriculum Council, so if someone has an essential school proposal they want to forward, they can bring it to me and I take it to the Council." Along with the dissolution of the Steering Committee, all indications are that this year will be the last one for the grade 9 essential school project. As one of the teachers explained,

One of our big problems right now is that we [Edgewater] have a mushrooming population. We are filled to the brim. But the actual enrollment in the [essential school] program has been going down. . . . It was a union agreement that brought it in, and now the classes are smaller than classes throughout the school. When it [essential school] was voted in, it was voted in with that caveat that it doesn't adversely affect other classes. And this year, we can say it does. So I feel that the program itself is in serious jeopardy." Interestingly, though, there appears to be little distress about this. While the five core academic teachers seem to have genuinely enjoyed their experience, the pervasive feeling is that it is time to move on to something else. As one commented, "I don't think it will last beyond this year. But if it evolves into something different, that may be the best thing. It may allow some other things to happen.

Vocational Education, Tech Prep, and Essential School Programs

Almost in diametric opposition to Oakfield, vocational education at Edgewater has always been perceived by the majority of staff as largely marginal to the more central mission of the school that is clearly oriented to preparing students for college. This is not surprising given the affluent, suburban location of Edgewater and the aspirations and expectations of the community that it serves. In spite of the, as one respondent noted, "incredible facilities" of the renovated ATC, this area of the school and its curriculum remain on the fringe of where the action really is. After numerous visits to the school, the ATC was consistently the one relatively quiet, uncrowded, and underused area in a school otherwise bursting at the seams with students, activity, and the need for space. More telling, building administrators and core academic teachers consistently referred to the ATC as "down there" and had only the vaguest ideas of what was happening "down there" in either instruction or curriculum. When asked about the instructional program, one building administrator noted, "Our courses down there follow the Tech Prep model, [Researcher: `What is that?'] Well, as I understand it, there is a curriculum that Tech Prep has established. I'm not sure what it's all about, but our curriculum is designed along the models that Tech Prep has espoused."

The ATC renovation project, as impressive as it is, may be more the result of the affluence of a district whose plans need not be curtailed by fiscal constraints and which feels a pressing need to maintain an edge over other competing suburban schools than a deep commitment to vocational education or vocational education reforms. Especially at the East Campus, the vocational education classes and Tech Prep program is limited by other structural and organizational factors. Tech Prep exists primarily on paper, as students considered Tech Prep at East Campus are simply those enrolled in any of the vocational classes offered in the ATC.

A primary reason for this is that students have prescribed course requirements in grades 9 and 10 that offer little room for electives of any kind. Course discretion is exceptionally limited, in stark contrast to the West Campus that houses grades 11 and 12. As one teacher added, "Students have to take two years of math, two years of science, two years of English, and one year of social studies (a world history class usually taken one semester in the freshman year and the other semester in the sophomore year). If they take a foreign language and one study hall and two years of PE, that doesn't leave them any time for many electives." As one ATC teacher noted, "With the core curriculum our kids have to take, they have a max of three semesters of Tech Prep here. There's something wrong with the way we are set up because they get all kinds of electives when they go to West Campus." Thus, beyond the curriculum in courses specifically located in the ATC, the Tech Prep experience offered students at East Campus is largely nonexistent. The general education requirements hold for all students--two years of English, math, and science and one year of social studies. However, the options available to students for meeting these requirements is mindboggling. In the most extreme example, there are no less than nine different math "tracks" available, all with their own course titles and curricula. Every possible synonym for "applied," "general," and "advanced" appear to have been used.

[As a quick aside and in fairness, this situation does change dramatically once students reach West Campus. West Campus has close linkages with the Davea Career Center, the local vocational center. Typically, students involved with this program spend approximately a half day at school and a half day at the center. Multiple program areas are available for students and, upon completion, the student receives a vocational certificate. There is also an articulation agreement with the College of Devon, the local community college, through which students may receive credit for business education and industrial technology courses offered exclusively at West Campus. Nevertheless, "honors" and AP (Advanced Placement) classes still clearly outnumber these combined offerings.]

Given the lack of centrality, importance, or opportunity of vocational education at Edgewater's East Campus, it is a curiosity that early on in 1988 while exploring possible membership in the Alliance, vocational education became an issue that moved to the forefront of Edgewater's concerns. As the former interim director of the Alliance recalled,

The vocational issue and where voc tech fit with essential school programs was an issue for most of the schools. Back then the issue of losing faculty was a big issue, especially at some schools . . . or any other district with labor difficulties. But usually the vocational education issue was limited and easily addressed. The only concerted effort to study it was at Edgewater. At other schools, it was never a specific subtopic but only one of many issues that came up.

This last piece is important. Compared to the other Alliance schools, only Edgewater carried the vocational education issue as far as it did. For the others, it was most often a single question raised early on, but that was the end of it.

In his role of assisting or "coaching" Edgewater through the exploration phase of candidacy leading to Alliance membership, the interim director took seriously their concerns about the role of vocational education and initiated a series of conversations with various individuals at the Coalition to get a sense of their stance on this issue. (The length of the following quotation will hopefully be excused by its saliency. It may well represent the only substantive report of the Coalition's early stance on vocational education outside of a few scattered and shallow references in Horace's Compromise [Sizer, 1984].):

I talked with [Bob] McCarthy about it and I talked with Susan Lusi about it. At the very beginning, the Coalition was a shoestring operation. McCarthy had just come on two months before me. It was basically Ted and Grant Wiggins and a bunch of kids just out of Brown and Susan Lusi was one of those. She was working on the Methos project and I called her up and we had a nice long conversation about this. And then I called Ted and we talked about this as well. I'm not sure I know what the early Coalition line was on this but I know what I got out of those two conversations. What I understood from those two conversations was the purpose of the Coalition was to teach kids to use their minds well and to teach to depth of understanding. And that there was nothing in the basic nature of a vocational curriculum that would prevent you from doing this. In fact, there were some excellent examples of vocational schools that were highly proficient in that high caliber education using that kind of vocational thing. There was some conversation of German schooling and the kinds of learning being done in factories rather than remaining in schools. They [Sizer and Lusi] were open on the question. They did not see any reason why an essential school could not include vocational education because the test of an essential school is not whether you teach vocations or not, it's all those things in the nine common principles.

Clearly intrigued and engaged with these ideas, the interim director sent a memo to the Edgewater principal and EEA president outlining a rigorous activity he devised for a study group at Edgewater to use to guide their explorations of this issue (see Appendix B). Notably within this document prepared in 1988, the interim director discussed his interpretation of some of the more philosophical dilemmas confronting the essential school concept and its relationship to vocational education:

It seems to me that our difficulty comes from defining the problem in the wrong way. We fall into the trap of thinking about curriculum as we always have. That is, when we consider curricular issues, we just naturally think in terms of subject areas. Thus, when we think of simplifying course offerings, we naturally think of eliminating content disciplines. This combines in our minds with a common perception that Vocational Education is not a core discipline. It is a small jump to the conclusion that vocational programs are inevitably doomed unless we can somehow make them more "core-like" . . . . On the other hand, the foundation of the essential school is its intellectual focus. However, we must be careful here: Intellectual focus does not mean prodigious mastery of traditional subject disciplines. It does mean that all which happens in an essential school must contribute to training students to use their minds well. . . . [T]he inherent value of Vocational Education is not necessarily lower than that of the other disciplines; the relative importance of all must be determined within the context of each school. Thus, we can stop apologetically trying to justify vocational courses by shoehorning in a few elements of "important" subjects. Instead, we must work to assure that the learnings gained in all courses articulate the school's intellectual purpose.

For Edgewater, however, the salient issues did not concern the philosophic dimensions of essential school ideas and their intersection with vocational education, but the more pragmatic concern about the preservation of jobs. Not surprisingly, Edgewater never responded to exercises dealing with the role of vocational education in an essential school, and the whole issue simply vanished from the horizon. (At present, this whole issue is barely recalled by the Edgewater participants. It was for them a minor issue, raised by the union for other ends.) As devised by the union, Edgewater's essential school pilot project had no connection to or involvement with the vocational education or the vocational education reforms. For them, essential school ideas focused only on a small group of volunteers from core academic areas. Vocational education never surfaced again in conjunction with the essential school reform, nor were there any further attempts to connect the essential school effort to the existing vocational education program or Tech Prep reforms.

Conclusions

Especially in counterpoint to Oakfield, the Edgewater case illustrates how radically different the same reform initiative can look in different contexts. Although bundled together under the rubric of essential schools and members of the Alliance, the two schools and their approaches to essential school changes could hardly be more different. Yet, at Edgewater, the essential school effort and vocational education reforms may share more commonalties than they did in Oakfield. Unfortunately, most of them are negative. Edgewater offers the interesting scenario of a school where both the essential school ideas and vocational education reforms have largely been marginalized and encapsulated into small, struggling programs. Neither commands either the respect or attention of anyone other than a small minority of the faculty, students, or community. Both are shrinking as student enrollment shifts to other areas of the curriculum whether through changes in interest or structural impediments. Because of these factors, both the essential school program and the vocational education reforms continue to exist in a parched environment. The possibility of either gaining enough momentum to seize leadership for all-school change seems ridiculously remote.

In Edgewater's case, the vocational reforms would seem to be in a more viable position, if only because of the existence of a fairly well-developed (if small) extension of Tech Prep reforms at West Campus. For essential school reforms, there is nothing to connect to beyond the small encapsulated program at grade 9. While there is talk by the zealots of essential school "ideas" spreading through both campuses, this translates in reality to a few (I could find three) interdisciplinary classes--a combination of algebra and chemistry imaginatively labeled, algistry--that have sprung up. Even so, there is no evidence that essential school ideas had much of anything to do with the development of these courses. Nevertheless, there are some conclusions that can be drawn about essential school programs and vocational education reforms at Edgewater (East Campus). Once again, although discussed separately, these conclusions are highly interrelated and interconnected.

If It Ain't Broke . . .

Clearly, one of the most potent and troubling conclusions to be drawn from this case was that at Edgewater there was never any real intent to become an essential school. Nor, for that matter, was there ever any real interest in the whole school change advocated by the vocational education reforms. Harsh as it may sound, self-satisfaction rarely leads to the kind of self-reflection and criticism necessary to institute major systemic change. By every measure, Edgewater was and is a successful school, enjoying strong community support and strong approbation for its current, traditionally based programs. A vocational education offering, as one piece of this traditional picture of a comprehensive high school, fits comfortably into the background. The Coalition SWIS never did, but with abundant resources it could be maintained. As one external evaluator from the Alliance noted in 1993,

The impression becomes one of a school not altogether convinced it needs restructuring. I can't shake the feeling that Edgewater does not think its [sic] broken. Therefore--why fix it? Early on, Edgewater talked about bringing in the essential school program because Edgewater is on the forefront of education, cares about its students, and is committed to providing quality education to its students. I have the feeling that Edgewater is committed to being the best possible traditional high school it can be.

These sentiments were echoed by another evaluation team in 1995: "While the pilot has had some indirect influence on practices throughout the school, the essential school movement does not pervade this building. This school offers a good example of a suburban school with high self-esteem [that is] not convinced it needs to restructure at all."

At least part of East Campus' half-hearted involvement with both essential school and vocational education reforms relates directly to the competitive, even cutthroat, environment of the suburban high school. In this environment, it is all important to retain an edge, to beat back any and all competitors in any and all arenas. For example, it is clear that Edgewater is an unwieldy size, and it would seem to make some sense to have two four-year high schools with unified programs rather than the current arrangement. This is most unlikely. As one respondent noted, "There was talk once about splitting into two high schools but that will never happen. We wouldn't be able to field the same caliber [athletic] teams or students for competitions in music, drama. No one wants to dilute that with a smaller talent pool to draw from." An administrator added, "If Carthage [a neighboring district] puts in a rugby field or adds Russian to its foreign language offerings, you can bet we will too. It's not unheard of here for parents just to pick up and move to another district that they think offers better opportunities. The pressure is always on, and we've got to respond."

For Edgewater, membership in the Coalition and Alliance was a prestige move, a means of distinguishing itself from other neighboring high schools, a means of demonstrating to its ever vigilant (and quick to criticize) public that it was at the forefront of educational innovation. The content of the ideas was not that important; the school was already adjudged wildly successful by every measure. It was the direct association and affiliation with Brown, Sizer, and the University of Illinois that was of significance. As with the portraits of distinguished alumni in the entranceway (and making about an equal contribution to the school), Coalition membership was another trophy to be displayed--a public affirmation of the legitimacy of status quo at Edgewater. The trophy status of both the essential school initiative and vocational education is most dramatically revealed in the Edgewater's school report card document. Most school districts merely Xerox the pages of dry statistics sent from the state for public use. Not Edgewater. The document is a glossy publication with full color pictures and multiple pages that herald the school's successes and triumphs. An entire page is devoted to Edgewater's essential school involvement, prominently highlighting the Coalition. Another page features pictures of the renovated ATC and its cutting-edge computer technology.

Community Expectations

The community at large and the parents in particular play a significant role for Edgewater. Clearly as noted above, Edgewater looks as it does and goes about its business as it does because of community expectations. As one respondent noted, "The community is everything here. Keeping the parents happy, satisfied--these are really important things that school has to attend to. The community plays an important role in this school and you can't rock the boat too much or they are going to be unhappy, and if they are unhappy, everybody's unhappy." Another teacher noted, "Parents expect that their kids are going to do well; that they are going to get accepted into the college or university of their choice. One of our most important missions is making sure this happens by providing the best possible education we can."

If community expectations are expressed in the current curriculum structures and instructional practices of Edgewater High School, then these expectations clearly focus on the traditional academic offerings of a college prep track. Overall, this has had the effect of marginalizing the essential school program and, to a lesser extent, vocational education and its reforms. As one of the ATC teachers commented, "If you walked into this school and just asked someone, `Are you [this school] doing Tech Prep?' I don't think that many would say, `Yes, we are.' We're isolated in many ways from the mainstream here. But that's the way it is. Parents see the new technology center and think that this is great but my (emphasis in original) kid is going to college."

In much the same manner, the essential school program was viewed as something less than the fast track, something less than desirable. The limited pool of students from which the program could draw contributed to this image as did the isolated and solitary nature of the singleton grade 9 program. As the principal noted,

Any time you have a program like this, the parents get worried and start asking a lot of questions. What's it all about? What are you doing there? Is it values stuff? You get people coming out of the walls. I think that's been a challenge for the teachers and the district. In some instances, kids haven't had a good experience in the program. Then their parents tell others and give it a negative message. Before you know it, you've got a problem on your hands.

You Can Lead a Horse to Water But . . .

What may be most distressing in the Edgewater case overall was the loss of a sterling opportunity to explore in-depth the connections and interrelationships between vocational education and the essential school initiative. The conversation started by the group exercise could likely have been interesting and revealing. Unfortunately, it was never attempted. Although the vocational education issue was raised at other candidate schools, Edgewater had pushed it the furthest and, in the end, that was not very far. The issue was buried by the pragmatism and politics of union/management power struggles that were reverberating throughout the district. As the former interim director for the Alliance commented,

That was the only time any of the schools I worked with really looked like it was ready to wrestle with these issues. But their understanding of the role of vocational education in the essential school [initiative] was never internalized. It was all a union flap over job security--really disappointing. The only other school that I know of who dealt with this was Chicago Vocational School (CVS) but [the State Coordinator] worked more directly with the Chicago schools than I did.

Over the years, the structural arrangement of classes and increases in the course requirements for students at Edgewater's East Campus precluded much opportunity to engage vocational electives. As one of the ATC coordinators noted, students had available a maximum of three electives over their two years at East Campus. In this tightly constrained system where degrees of freedom were minimal, vocational education courses became the big losers.

Summary

Unlike Oakfield, where the essential school reform clearly owned the agenda for whole-school change, and vocational education reform was left to try to find a way to fit into this overall picture, at Edgewater, both reforms were diminished and encapsulated by the larger dominant design of the traditional, comprehensive high school. Neither attained real viability and/or visibility beyond being used as occasional public relations vehicles for the district.

The reasons for this include all the usual impediments to schoolwide change already well-documented in the literature. The sheer size of Edgewater and its ungainly organization into separate campuses makes communication, integration, and coordination exceptionally difficult, especially for reform efforts aimed at schoolwide change. In the vocational education reforms especially, the progress and innovations that were achieved at West Campus did not translate to a significant advantage for East Campus. In fact, there was a distinct sense of separation rather than continuity between the two. As one ATC teacher at East Campus noted, "We're worlds apart. We deal with a whole different set of circumstances here. Most of our faculty [at East Campus] is close to retirement. Some who have already retired have not been replaced." While it is unlikely that the ATC will be closed, it is clear that the vocational program and vocational education reforms are not high priorities for the school, let alone the vocational education reforms.

Added to this, the school's continued success and community expectations do not augur well for any sudden upsurge of interest in these areas. Reforms advocating schoolwide change, whether essential school or vocational education reforms, would appear to stand slim hope of success in schools already adjudged to be successful and to be meeting community expectations.