Southgate High School's one-time reputation as an academically prestigious school serving an affluent white community faded over a period of 25 years prior to restructuring. By the mid-1980s, the school's population had become ethnically and economically diverse, while its teacher population had remained relatively stable (and mostly white). Students were achieving poorly on local proficiency tests, state assessments, and the SAT; daily attendance was a problem; and a substantial number of students failed to complete high school.
In the late 1980s, the school began a restructuring campaign aimed at bolstering the school's record and demonstrating its responsiveness to a changing student population. The school affiliated itself with the Coalition of Essential Schools in 1988, and in 1992 competed successfully for one of the state's "demonstration school" restructuring grants. Its plan for restructuring encompassed several features envisioned in the state's reform blueprint, Second to None (California High School Task Force, 1992): an integrated core curriculum in the 9th and 10th grades, multiple modes of student assessment, small-scale interdisciplinary groupings ("houses") to increase "personalization" for students, and the development of program majors in the 11th and 12th grades.
By 1992, interdisciplinary houses had replaced the conventional department organization for grades 9-11, each enrolling about 400-450 students and serving as home to about 12 teachers. Common characteristics of the house program, as detailed in school documents, combined principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools (e.g., "student as worker" and "personalization") with various structural arrangements (e.g., a counselor assigned to each house; interdisciplinary teacher teams at each grade level).
School leaders--the principal and a small group of activist teachers--viewed these structural changes as support for the three principal goals specified in the school's written restructuring plan: To prepare students with an "academic foundation," to produce "quality citizens in a changing society," and to equip graduates for a "productive work life in the 21st century." In support for its emphasis on work preparation, Southgate's reformers cited national statistics on rates of college attendance and the general inattention given by high schools to the transition from school to work. Although school reports do not provide data on college acceptances or postsecondary employment, low mean levels of academic achievement suggest that many of Southgate's graduates enter the workforce directly from high school. The school maintained,
Our vision is that all our students will demonstrate that they are prepared for a productive work life when they (a) can integrate academic and applied knowledge and use this knowledge in practical ways; (b) have habits of initiative and responsibility; and (c) have a personal plan for the future. (Southgate High School House Plan, 1988-1993, p. 5)In retrospect, the prominence of work preparation in the school's restructuring plans most certainly reflected the influence of the district's Director of Secondary Education, who was an energetic advocate of career academies. Although the school's vision was broadly stated in its House Plan, specific goals to prepare students for a productive work life centered on the development of a "broad based partnership academy program." In 1991, Southgate joined with members of the local printing industry association and with a nearby community college to introduce a career academy that was focused on graphic arts. The academy began with three teachers and a 10th-grade cohort of approximately 50 students, adding teachers and students in each of the successive two years to fill out the planned three-year program. Industry partners supplied equipment, materials, and expert assistance--and a substantial amount of public attention--to launch the program. This graphic arts academy was the first of several envisioned for the school. (A related visual arts academy began in 1992.)
The restructuring movement forms a crucial context for interpreting the evolution of vocational reform at Southgate. In the early stages of restructuring (from approximately 1988 to 1991), the principal and teacher enthusiasts urged the faculty to help rebuild a school structure and to engage students in a more "meaning-centered" curriculum. Unlike the conventional department structure, they argued, a house structure would enable cohorts of students and teams of teachers to know one another well and to pursue academic study through interdisciplinary projects.[2] Teachers were to operate more often in the mode of "coach," akin to an apprenticeship model; curriculum and instruction were to enable students to "use their minds well"; performance-based assessments were to take the form of "exhibitions" and "portfolios"; and advisory activities were to prepare students to pursue well-informed paths toward future work and education.
In this context, a career academy that combined college preparation with work experience would appear to find a natural home. In its goals, its emphasis on an integrated curriculum and "active" modes of learning, its use of performance-based assessment, the mentoring roles adopted by teachers toward students, and the emphasis on collaboration among teachers, the career academy seemed to embody the school's reform aspirations. Further, the academy appeared to develop quickly along the proposed lines in its first year, potentially serving as a visible model of new possibilities for curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
This is not to say that a progressive view of vocational education--or indeed, any view of vocational education--had been widely promoted by Southgate's reformers or discussed and debated by Southgate's staff and community. Rather, the academy emerged as the result of successful entrepreneurial activity spearheaded by the district, with visible and energetic support from the principal. Despite its apparent potential for stimulating discussion and experimentation in the school, the academy remained largely peripheral to more "mainstream" reform debates and developments in the school. The principal's expressed enthusiasm manifested itself most clearly in advocacy with the parent and business community, less visibly in strategies for building widespread support and understanding within the school.
Although academy teachers at Southgate were nominally attached to one of the academic "houses," and although they relied to some extent on the assistance and support of the house head and house counselor, they remained separated from the discussions and decisions occurring elsewhere in the school. The academy was physically separated from most of the academic classrooms, occupying space in remodeled shops at the edge of campus. It was programmatically self-contained--the academy's full-time teachers supplied instruction for academy students in all four of the core academic subjects and in the technical areas associated with graphic arts. Students left the academy only for physical education and the occasional non-academy elective. The founding academy teachers were enthusiastic about the program ideas and about the opportunity to work as a team, but were also fully occupied with the pressing demands of the program development, working long hours on the school-based curriculum and on the external relationships with printing firms that would enable them to supply structured work experience for students. Initial enthusiasms and early achievements both suffered as the program grew and as divisions emerged among an expanded staff. Throughout, the teachers' gaze was fixed inside the academy, not on the wider school community.
At the same time, the pace of restructuring at Southgate proved uneven and the atmosphere tumultuous. The vision put forth in proposals and other school documents presented a substantial challenge to well-established traditions of high school teaching; such traditions (including departmental organization) found reinforcement not only in the habits of mind and deed that pervaded school life, but also in the various externalities to which the school responded--ranging from community expectations to state curriculum standards, university admission criteria, and teacher licensure requirements. Among a faculty of nearly 100 teachers, enthusiasm for these sweeping changes varied widely; even the enthusiasts expressed uncertainty about how to proceed in practice. Staff turnover among teachers was high during these years. (Of 95 teachers employed at the beginning of the 1991-1992 school year, 46 had left and been replaced 18 months later.)
In summary, Southgate provided an environment in which the structure and practices of the conventional high school were open to question, and in which questions about the purposes, content, and clientele of vocational education were being re-examined. At the same time, the rapid pace and escalating uncertainties of restructuring tended to heighten divisions among the staff and render dispassionate conversation difficult. The organizational and physical isolation of the academy staff resulted in few opportunities for informal discourse, while structured forums for discussion and exchange were rare. Still, one could find advocates for the academies among teachers throughout the school, and most teachers reported some knowledge of the academy's purpose and structure. Certainly the answers to our three questions of fit were not immediately self-evident.
[2] For an extended discussion of the issues surrounding the effects of reform on departments and departmentalization, see Bowe, Ball, and Gold, 1992; Siskin and Little, 1995. For an analysis of the tensions surrounding subject specialism in restructuring high schools, see Little, 1995.