“The Rise of the Phoenix”: Empowering Learners to Create Their Own Learning Cultures and Transform Their School

Abstract

An account of a persistently failing New York City high school’s rapid transformation. Urban Assembly School for Green Careers had a 39% graduation rate in 2013 and ranked in the bottom 1% of high schools citywide. As a transformation strategy, the school employed an innovative educational design known as Learning Cultures, which distributes responsibility for learning to learners. After the first year of implementation the graduation rate rose by 11%. After two years of implementation the school received a “well developed” rating on its external quality review. After 4 years the graduation rate doubled. This report describes the school design and provides an account of educational outcomes.

Keywords

school reform curriculum reform school culture school turnaround professional development achievement gap academic achievement urban education self-organized learning

Introduction

Omar is a sophomore at Urban Assembly High School for Green Careers (hereafter, “Green”) located on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. It is a day in the Fall of 2013, and I’m meeting with Omar, a sophomore, one of his peers, and a group of teachers to demonstrate an Academic Intervention, a pedagogical format I developed in which a teacher guides a learner to identify behaviors that interfere with learning and helps them to make a commitment to new behaviors that will support positive academic development. I am a teacher educator, a scholar of literacy education and pedagogical science, and a long-time school reformer. The Intervention is one of the components of a comprehensive educational model I have developed, called Learning Cultures, through over 25 years of work in more than 20 NYC K-12 schools. Learning Cultures is the program being used at Green as a transformation design.

Green opened in 2009, graduating its first class in 2013 with a 39% graduation rate, placing it at the bottom 1% of high schools citywide on measures of student achievement, and earning the school an “F” on the New York City Department of Education’s (NYC DOE) annual report card in 2012–2013.

In the fall of 2013, Green became one of six schools in a network-based school turnaround initiative. Working on-site to guide program implementation, I have begun what will become a 5-year partnership in my role as an external service provider. The effort at Green is part of a network-sponsored project begun in 2011, called the McCallister-Learning Cultures Initiative, when I was recruited by the director of The Urban Assembly, a non-profit organization with a mission to advance students’ economic and social mobility through public education, to implement my model in a number of the network’s failing middle and high schools.

Unlike conventional classical transmission pedagogical practices that are based on instructed learning and didactic lessons, Learning Cultures practices are designed to stimulate intellectual and psychological development by empowering learners to direct their own learning.

Adan, one of Omar’s peers, is joining us for the Intervention conference. At one point in the meeting, I ask Adan to offer his opinion of one of Omar’s exceptional talents. “He’s a good writer,” Adan explains.

“What makes him a talented writer?” I ask.

Adan explains, “He writes things that make everyone laugh.”

I turn to Omar, “I don’t understand. Adan says your writing is so good that it can make your friends laugh, but your DRP score¹ says you read at a second-grade level. That information doesn’t sync. It isn’t possible for a person who can only read at a second-grade level to have the writing skill to make kids your age laugh. Can you help me understand the disconnect?”

Omar smiles at me and, with an emotional expression that is both apologetic and daring, he asserts, “Miss, school reading kills my vibe.”

“I understand,” I respond. In five words, Omar summed up the Achilles heel of failing schools. Vibe is a distinctive feeling, similar to an aura or chi; it’s related to the soul or the spirit; it’s a person’s nature or lifeblood (Mirriam-webster.com, 2021). With his comment, Omar sums up the fundamental problem of present-day educational practices: they completely kill vibe. What if schooling practices were created to harness vibe instead of kill it? If vibe is a force that energizes motivation and intention, how can it be harnessed in the service of learning?

Below I report my collaboration with the leadership, teachers, and learners of Green to implement Learning Cultures. I will begin by introducing the school. I will then explain why conventional education practices fail to harness learning. I will provide a description of the Learning Cultures program and describe how it was used to transform a failing school into a high-functioning learning organization within the course of a single year.

Urban Assembly School for Green Careers: A Microcosm of the Universe of Persistently Failing Schools

There are estimated to be more than 5,000 persistently failing schools in the United States (Duncan, 2009), interfering with more than 2.5 million childrens’ right to an education on equal terms (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954). These schools consistently record low performance on standardized tests, high dropout rates, low graduation rates, and serve disproportionately large populations of disadvantaged children (https://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/low-performing-schools/index.html).

Green is a microcosm of the universe of persistently failing schools. In this school, 95.6% of students are Black or Hispanic, 23.6% are English language learners, 23.8% of students receive special education services, 15.1% of students are overage, and the majority of students live in poverty. Results from the school’s annual environmental survey of 2012-2013, which provides ratings by students, parents, and teachers in the categories of academic expectations, safety and respect, communication, and engagement, According to the Survey, the school ranked 0.0% citywide on measures of academic expectations for students, 12.5% on student engagement, 14.3% on safety and respect, and 11.1% on attendance. Annual teacher turnover was close to 50% three years running. In 2012–2013, 39% of the staff reported feeling unsafe working at the school. 100% of staff believed that order and discipline were not maintained and that the behavioral support they needed was not provided. From 2009 to 2013 the school experimented with several different instructional program designs. In 2013, measures of academic achievement were dismal. The majority of incoming 9th grade students had failed their state math and reading exams in middle school. A nationally norm-referenced assessment of reading comprehension administered in Fall 2013 indicated the average score of students at every grade at the school was below the 3rd grade level. 0.0% of students met the City’s Math College Readiness standard, and only 34.7% met the City’s English College Readiness Standards.

Rethinking Educational Conventions

School failure can be understood by examining the flawed assumptions that underlie common schooling practices concerning what learning is, how people learn, and how they should be taught. Learning is result of the organism reacting and adapting to the environment. Human beings have an extraordinary ability to control their own adaptive responses through conscious awareness and the capacity to regulate their own thinking and direct their own actions. Executive regulation—the intentional management of thoughts, emotions and actions—is the central causal factor in psychological development, enabling the individual to choose and direct their own expereinces (Tomasello, 2019) and to take what they need from the enviornment and transform it into psychic energy (Csikszentmihalyi, 2009).

Educational methods in modern schools are not centered around the learner’s intentions or subjective experiences, but instead center around the teacher’s intentions. The teacher determines what should be taught and how it should be learned. It is understandable why schooling practices are almost universally teacher-centered all across the globe. Prior to the Cognitive Revolution in the 1970s, not much was understood about the internal mental mechanisms of the learning process, and it was mostly assumed that in order to learn, the child had to be taught. For most of written history, knowledge has been viewed as a commodity that can be transferred from one person to another through classical transmission modes of pedagogy, such as telling or demonstrating. The view of learning dominating schooling practices throughout the last century are based on behaviorism, which views learning as simple stimulus-response conditioning (Skinner, 1965, 1976), and nativism, which conceives of knowledge as being contained in intra-mental modules that are genetic and develop through environmental stimulation (Chomsky, 1965; Fodor, 1983). It has long been accepted that stimulation for learning flows from teacher to learner. The teacher takes responsibility to teach by telling or directing, and the learner takes responsibility to remember what was taught. The pedagogical “technology” of memorization is deeply ingrained in school cultures the world over, dating back 5,000 years to the scribal education practices of ancient Mesopotamia (Delnero, 2012). It is not surprising that the activity of memorizaton still dominates classroom practice. It is estimated that 75–78% of interactions between teachers and students are low-level memory tasks intended to teach students to memorize and remember content (Elmore, 2018).

The Cognitive Revolution paved the way for the emergence of a new, multidisciplinary science of the mind (Kandel, 2009) and shed light on previously hidden biological and psychological processes involved in learning and psychological development. While it was once thought that stimulus from the environment was the single force shaping behavioral response patterns (Skinner, 1965, 1975), it is now understood that we select, create and modify our environments to get what we need according to our genetic propensities (Plomin, 2018). Higher-level learning is a self-initiated process (Kandel, 2007), governed by our emotions (Kandel et al., 2009), enabled by our participation in social interactions (Vygotsky, 1978), and shaped by the ways in which our personal and shared intentions govern our social behavior (Tomasello, 2014). Given the primacy of self-direction in learning, the intentional states of the learner—their aims, desires, and goal-oriented actions—are a promising target for a new form of pedagogy capable of igniting vibe. Learner intentionality is the central focus within the Learning Cultures model.

Assumptions about what students should learn is another flaw of conventional educational practices. The curriculum of the modern school is organized to teach basic literacy, numeracy, and content from a narrow band of subjects. While these curriculum aims were adequate in the 20th Century, life in today’s rapidly changing, digitally connected, globalized world demands new forms of learning—so-called 21st Century learning skills (OCED, 2009) or global competencies (OCED, 2018). In addition to basic literacy and numeracy, children need to learn how to process, manage, and analyze vast bodies of information; to use constantly evolving forms of information communication technology; to self-regulate to new social situations; to be socially aware; to think critically and creatively; to know how to solve problems and think innovatively in challenging situations; to apply persistence and self-determination in learning and solving problems; and to communicate with others from across multiple cultures in other languages from all corners of the globe (LMTF, 2013).

The Learning Cultures Model

The McCallister Model, or Learning Cultures, empowers learners to direct their own development by setting personal learning goals and self-selecting curriculum activities. The methods are designed around three primary aims: (1) to provide learners with fundamental freedoms of thought, movement, expression and association as an existential medium to support self-expression and self-regulation; (2) to promote personal intentionality and self-determination in the service of formal learning and intellective development; (3) to foster full and free forms of association, and through social interaction, to harness the capacity of shared intentionality and cooperative problem solving. Since learning is a self-organizing process, learners benefit from maximal freedom speak, move, think, affiliate with others, and to exercise self-determination in the choices they make about what to learn and how to learn it. But freedom alone will not ensure that learners have adequate opportunity to access and internalize knowledge of the canons of their culture. The environment must be deliberately designed to bring about targeted forms of learning defined by discipinary standards. Within the Learning Cultures model, freedoms are constrained by responsbility to adhere to explicit norms that, through compliance, result in intended learning outcomes. Learners achieve not by being told what to learn, but by self-regulating to the ways of thinking and being that are of value to the greater social-intellectual collective of the school community.

The Learning Cultures model unfolds around first-order changes that are designed to transform the day-to-day situations of the classroom and second-order bureaucratic changes designed to secure them into place and transform the infrastructure of the school.

First-Order Changes

Traditionally schools organize curriculum into a prescribed “conveyor belt” of sequentially-organized knowledge that is presented didactically (Calkins et al., 2007).The Learning Cultures curriculum materializes instead through cultivated forms of classroom life that give rise to discursive pedagogical interactions between learners. The social echo-system of the classroom is organized around simple social practices I call formats. Jerome Bruner (1983) coined the term “format” to describe the predictable, recursive routines of the social world that provide a scaffolded context for young children to acquire language competencies as they participate socially with increasing autonomy.

Based on the assumption that development is an outcome of the interaction of a person within the social environment (Cole, 1996; Vygotsky, 1978), Learning Cultures formats are deliberately designed situations that support desired outcomes in predictable ways. Classroom formats, such as independent work time, small group- and one-on-one lessons, and small-group reading lessons are familiar routines in most classrooms. But the formats of the Learning Cultures model are designed to shift the locus of action from teachers to learners. Rather than teachers, learners decide what to read, write and talk about. Formats stimulate growth along targeted developmental pathways by supporting autonomy, requiring collaboration, providing competence feedback, and maximizing engagement. Instead of serving as the authority who transmits information, the teacher is now a social participant, coaxing learners to exercise their intentions and direct their own learning.

Procedures for each format are specified in an assessment rubric. Rubrics are like rules to a game that learners play. They outline procedures and roles that learners and teachers follow. Rubrics perform a special linguistic utility. They are a certain form of speech act, known as a status function declarations, which carry deontic power (Searle, 2010). By describing the conditions of a possible world, they bring that world into being. Like game rules, marriage certificates, graduation diplomas, or parking tickets, they elicit a sense of obligation in the people who use them. Social norms specified in the rubrics are the new instrument of pedagogy. As learners conform to transparent norms, they achieve academically. The curriculum is now a body of rights to be granted, rather than a linear sequence of lessons to be taught. When they take on their assigned social roles, learners are required to perform higher mental operations—they argue and reason cooperatively and shift and share perspectives. In the process of doing these things, they make assertions, defend positions, define terms, and make inferences. The purpose of these situations is to develop and enhance the capacity to think. Learners use rubrics to guide behavior, teachers use rubrics to teach expectations, and school leaders use rubrics to provide teachers with both competence and corrective feedback.

Classroom schedules are programmed entirely around formats so that every minute of the school day amplifies learner intentions. The formats recur on a daily basis all year long, so that each day, all day, learners have opportunities to respond and adapt to situations in generative ways. Because the formats are recurrent and predictable, learners anticipate the need to be intentional, independent and cooperative. Over time, deliberately patterned social behaviors result in the creation of powerful learning cultures in each classroom and across the school.

Step into a Learning Cultures classroom and you will notice the same routines and procedures in every subject area and grade level. Each classroom schedule is structured into an Activity Block of 60–70 minute. The Block begins with a whole-class, 10 minute Lesson during which time teachers present procedural and content lessons. Lessons are designed to be engaging by relating standards-based content to learners’ interests and experiences.

After the Lesson, learners transition to a 40–50 minute Work Time. During Work Time, learners enjoy fundamental freedoms. They may sit where they wish, express themselves freely, choose collaborative partnerships, and select activities. They plan and design their own projects and set their own goals to complete them. I work with teachers to identify curriculum activities that support self-directed, personalized learning.

During Work Time, teachers meet one-on-one with students in the Conference format. Every student has a Conference twice a month so that they can receive individualized attention from their teachers, systematically reflect on their progress, and plan how to meet their goals. The combination of competence feedback, opportunities to relate personally to teachers, and autonomy to pursue their intentions provide just the right conditions to support learner self-determination (Deci & Ryan, 2017).

The Cooperative Unison Reading format (CUR) (McCallister, 2011) also occurs during Work Time in reading and content subject classes. CUR is a method of small-group reading instruction played like a game according to three simple rules: (1) Read aloud in sync in a voice others can hear; (2) Stop the group if you have a question or something to say; (3) Be promotive (be nice). When questions arise, the group discusses the idea or challenge, and begins rereading only when a shared understanding of the idea is achieved. CUR causes learners to internalize the values of questioning and problem solving. Each week, in every classroom, about five learners assume the role of group leader. They choose texts they are interested in reading with others, such as magazine articles or blog posts. The remaining learners sign up to read the texts that most interest them. Leadership rotates each week so that every learner has opportunity to lead a group and select a text to read with others. Each week creates new opportunities for learners to work with a different group of peers and to access new perspectives on topics that arise in the formal curriculum. CUR provides a pedagogical approch to reading instruction that eliminates in-classroom forms of curiculur segregation created through ability grouping practices, and effectively eliminates the proven deleterious effects of such practices on minority learner achievement (Lleras & Rangel, 2009). Thus, CUR offers a way to eliminate a pernicious school tradition that contributes to structural inequality.

The Activity Block concludes with the Share format. Two learners take turns to stand before the class, to share their work, and to get feedback from peers. In reading and content subjects, learners share a challenge they have overcome. In writing classes, learners read a piece of writing they are in the process of composing and receive feedback from peers about how to better achieve their desired purpose. Each learner shares their work once or twice a month. The Share fosters a sense of relatedness and interdependence between learners, provides them with competence feedback, and reinforces the understanding that every person has the capacity to grow and develop.

Second-Order Changes

To replace deeply engrained, maladaptive practices and cultural norms in chronically failing schools, the existing educational infrastructure must be replaced by a new infrastructure based on planned change (Peurach & Neumerski, 2015). The second-order changes of the McCallister Model restructure bureaucratic systems in order to freeze into place first-order changes in classroom practice. To achieve this ambitious aim, the program is executed through a Year-long Implementation Guide. The Guide specifies tasks to be carried out on a week-by-week basis in order to achieve planned change. When executed with fidelity, the Guide restructures classroom and bureaucratic systems and results in significant achievement gains within a year. When followed year-after-year, it creates a self-sustaining system of renewal and institutional development that enables the school to evolve into a cohesive learning culture.²

Distributed Leadership

Responsibility to execute planned changes is distributed to staff leads, who manage programs in the areas of Assessment, Curriculum, Professional Development, Code Blue (a system to identify and respond to learners who are not making academic progress), Community Engagement, and School Culture. Job descriptions detail roles and responsibilities for each lead. As leads execute their responsibilities, they activate leadership roles that function to (1) stage planned change linked with improvements in teaching and learning; (2) engage the whole school community as participants in the change process; (3) actively monitor and adjust the course of change; and, (4) maintain and sustain the momentum of change. The distributed leadership design alleviates the burden normally associated with the need for the principal to independently carry out systems-wide work since, as Rowan et al. (2004) point out, “…the principal alone can’t carry the day because problems of school reform are too large and complex for one individual” (p. 26). School leadership take part in a lateral training program, bringing together principals and teacher leads from participating schools to receive support to execute their program-related responsibilities and to share experiences.

Framework for Professional Development

The Framework for Professional Development (McCallister, 2012) is a comprehensive school-wide system of support for teachers to learn how to undertake radical shifts in practice. The Framework includes the following components:

Classroom labsite and inter-visitation opportunities

On-line learning from 7.5 hours of explainer videos produced by the author that cover each of the Learning Cultures formats

Professional-development self-assessments using the rubrics as a norming tool

Teacher evaluations by school leaders

Teacher-to-teacher feedback using the rubrics as a norming tool

Study groups that focus on the Learning Cultures Cannon, a reading list of articles and papers that unpack the philosophical and theoretical ideas implicit in the model

The Framework is instrumental in building professional development capacity necessary to secure planned first-order change. Teachers who demonstrate promise in adopting new practices are identified as candidates for technical support from me, the external provider. These teachers host recurrent labsites in which I demonstrate practices and coach teachers. As expertise develops amongst teachers, so do the number of new labsites offered in the school. Teachers are expected to pursue a course of self-determined professional learning based on evaluative feedback and self-identified needs.

Teacher Evaluation

Learning Cultures rubrics guide teacher evaluation. Administrators use the language of the format rubrics to identify needs and suggest corrective action. At Green and other schools, I demonstrated to the principals how to use the language of the rubrics to write teacher evaluations. The formula is simple. It starts with an assertion: “In Learning Cultures classrooms… [insert language from the rubric that describes what teachers and learners should be doing].” Then an observation: “In your classroom, I observed… [insert description of what was observed].” Then corrective feedback: “In order to achieve effectiveness… [insert a directive of necessary changes in practice].”

Teacher evaluation begins prior to the first week of school to ensure classroom environments are prepared according to set criteria. Teachers are observed in the first week of school to ensure the formats are implemented with fidelity. Corrective action is taken immediately in classrooms where this is not the case. Through frequent cycles of rubric-based observation, teachers are provided consistent, on-going competence and corrective feedback. Teachers use feedback to make their own determinations about how to use components of the Framework for Professional Development to create a tailored course of professional development.

Discipline, Behavioral Supports for Learners, and School Culture

Since the social milieu is the medium of higher-order learning, positive social norms are a defining aspect of any learning culture. A program called Keepers of the Culture (McCallister, 2013) helps achieve this aim. A series of procedures that learners follow are designed to establish a strong sense of civility across the school culture and to ensure every learner feels security and safety necessary to exchange their thinking with others.

Each year all learners take part in the Social Contract Talk, which outlines the rights and responsibilities of each member of the learning community in relation to the NYC DOE Discipline Code. The Code is approached pedagogically, with a discussion of the long historical struggle for children to have the right of a free public education, the fact that every child’s K-12 education represents a public investment of over $250K, and the huge impact of education on lifetime earnings.

Learners consider what should happen when a peer does not live up to their responsibilities, and suggest a course of action. The principal considers input from learners in creating the ‘Ladder of Self-regulation,’ which is posted in every classroom and used as a tool by teachers and learners to correct problematic behaviors and to self-regulate to positive social norms. The Ladder substitutes for the ubiquitous set of “classroom rules,” typically created by teachers, one classroom at a time, eliminating the need for students to norm their behaviors to multiple teachers’ rules.

When a learner misbehaves, the Ladder is used as a tool to help the learner self-regulate to norms and positive changes in behavior. In instances where learners act disruptively or in ways that impede their own or others’ rights to learn, the Ladder is followed in this typical manner—1st response: peer reminder; 2nd response: teacher reminder; 3rd response: move seat; 4th response: behavior self-reflection; 5th response: behavior conference with teacher; 6th response: call home; 7th response: principal referral). Instead of responding punitively, the Ladder provides a way to respond pedagogically to misbehavior.

When teachers face challenging behavior problems in their classrooms and require support, a system of “On-Call” is instituted. Teachers and paraprofessionals are made available to respond to requests for “On-Call” support by classroom teachers. When they respond, “On-Call” staff are enlisted either to cover instructional responsibilities of the teacher while she/he addresses disruptive the behavior or to address student behavior directly.

Behavior and Academic Interventions are one-on-one meetings with learners whose problematic behaviors impede their achievement progress, avoidant or passive learners who appear to be failing to develop academically, and learners who habitually fail to meet their responsibility to learn. The Intervention protocol borrows from the principles of cognitive behavior therapy in that they support learners to take initiative to identify and change distorted behaviors (e.g., Beck, 1996). Protocols for these formats help learners gain insight into their own behavior, take responsibility to change, and make an action plan to follow. As an outcome of the Intervention, learners are given a “Promise Card” outlining their commitments. They are expected to keep their Card with them at all times, and their teachers are given copies of the Card. According to the principal, approximately 1,000 Interventions were conducted each year.

In addition to serving as the school’s discipline program, Keepers of the Culture is a civics program and system of student government. Its implementation results in a culture of rights that children learn through the process of exercising them. Each year learners who have been nominated by their classmates to be capable of upholding others’ rights to learn are nominated to the Keepers Corps, an assembly of learners who (a) conduct Interventions with their peers; and (b) take part in training peers in how to appropriately participate in the formats.

Keepers of the Culture is a comprehensive behavioral system used to rapidly secure positive social norms across the whole school community, eliminating a chronic problem of failing schools.

Assessment and Progress Monitoring

Frequent cycles of formative, curriculum-based assessments provide on-going evidence of patterns of achievement. The system brings attention to learners who have “flat lined” and appear not to be making adequate achievement so that academic interventions can be planned. Assessment data are used to inform the creation of daily “Workout Plans” for learners, which outline activities that develop intellective competencies. Assessment data also provide a source of competence feedback for learners and teachers. Assessment measures include periodic (three times annually) reading comprehension assessments, and curriculum-embedded assessments in reading, writing, and math fluency administered every 6–8 weeks (Fuches & Fuches).

Instructional Accounting

Since equality of educational opportunity for every student depends on sufficient opportunity to participate in the formats, a system of Instructional Accounting is instituted. The school leadership determines how many of each format each teacher will complete over the course of the year, then do periodic “opportunity checks” of archived format assessments in each classroom to ensure students’ rights are being met.

Outcomes

The Learning Cultures Initiative at Green from 2013 to 2017 was a success. The Implementation Guide was executed by the principal and teachers with competence and determination.³ After 1 year of implementation, graduation rates climbed by 11% and students doubled their pass rates on the State Living Environments and English exams. A year-and-a-half into the Learning Cultures turnaround, 100% of teachers reported feeling safe in the school and believed that discipline and positive behavior were maintained. In 2015–2016 the school received a “well developed” on its quality review, one of only 7% of schools city-wide to receive that high rating. In 2017 the school graduated its first cohort to have had the Learning Cultures program for four years in every class with graduation a graduation rate of 83%, more than doubling its 2013 graduation rate. 31% of students’ achievement scores indicated they were ready for college; and 51% had a 90% attendance rate.

In the third year of implementation, the principal left the school. Mid-year changes in school leadership often introduce serious disruption into the system. But with first- and second-order systems secured within the school’s institutional DNA, the leadership transition at Green was smooth, the Learning Cultures program continued to function well, and student achievement continued on a robust trajectory of growth. Programmatic consistency through a leadership transition in a highly-successful school turnaround initiative suggests an alternative narrative to the dominant view that successful school transformation is dependent on a unique or incomparable leader. Rather, it proves that success can be achieved with a strong school design in the hands of a capable leadership and a system of distributed responsibility.

The consistent implementation of the Learning Cultures school culture and student discipline program (Keepers of the Culture) resulted in a significant decrease of suspension rates over time. According to the principal, there were 184 suspensions in the 2013–2014 school year, 217 in 2014–2015, 114 in 2015–2016, 80 in 2016–2017, and 16 in 2017–2018. The 2016 school survey indicated that 88% students felt positive about school safety; 98% felt positive about social-emotional learning in the school; 91% strongly agreed the school encourages them to continue their education past high school; 85% strongly agree that adults in the school help them plan to meet their future goals.

By their nature, public school reform initiatives spring from education systems that consist of powerful political establishments that have nothing to gain by overturning the status quo. In 2014 a new chancellor was appointed to head the NYC DOE, and a new director took the helm at The Urban Assembly. Despite program success in dramatically raising achievement across all participating schools, the network ended support for the McCallister-Learning Cultures Initiative in 2015. Green continued to use the Learning Cultures program practices without network support and with diminishing levels of external technical support through 2017–2018. In 2018–2019 the school used program assessments and instructional materials without technical support. In 2019–2020 the school officially discontinued the program, but apparently still continue to incorporate the Learning Cultures protocols of CUR, Work Time, Learning Conferences, and Keepers of the Culture into the school-wide curriculum (LaBua, 2020).

Achievement trends at Green rose and declined in relation to program fidelity. Graduation rates were on an upward trajectory until 2016–2017, when they reached 57% citywide, but then began to decline to 41% in 2017–2018 and 29% in 2018–2019 (NYC DOE School Performance Dashboard https://tools.nycenet.edu/dashboard/#dbn=03M402&report_type=HS&view=City).

The Rise of the Phoenix

The principal of Green Careers from 2013 to 2016 described the transformation of Green Careers as the Rise of the Phoenix (Decker, 2019). Perhaps it is an apt metaphor for a school that rapidly rose from the ashes of failure to the triumph of success in the astonishing pace of a single year. A transformation so dramatic and rapid has not been documented in the school reform literature, which currently reports a minimum period of five years to successfully turn around a school, a budget of $250K to a million dollars a year to do so, and scant evidence on record of any successful turnaround effort (Backstrom, 2019; Dragoset et al., 2017). Perhaps the story of Green potentially makes for a good myth. But characterizing it in this way would be inaccurate. The transformation of Green was the result of the application of a theoretically and scientifically informed intervention, not a mythical miracle.

In the 70 years since it was created, Title I, an educational a civil rights program created to provide disadvantaged students with opportunities that are adequate to enable them to achieve their potential and meet basic academic learning standards, has failed to demonstrate any effect in closing the achievement gap. The effort of the leaders and teachers at Green and the other schools in the McCallister Initiative were champions of the rights of learners in their schools. They implemented an innovative Title I program and demonstrated, finally, that sufficiently intense educational inputs can make a difference in closing the achievement These leaders and their schools offer hope that their successes can be replicated by others.

Some suggest that the schools we have no longer meet society’s needs and that they have become obsolete. It is increasingly recognized that all schools need to be transformed, not just those that are failing. While this account tells the story of transformation in a persistently failing school, it is a story that holds relevance for schools everywhere whose institutional cultures are trapped by the forces of ancient pedagogical traditions. If we can succeed in lifting the school from the ashes of obsolescence and transforme it into an organization that provides learners the opportunities they need to direct their own development and achieve their potential, then the Rise of the Phoenix could be a fitting metaphor for 21st Century education.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my appreciation to Richard Kahn, founder of The Urban Assembly network, and Jon Greene, former Director, who spearheaded the McCallister-Learning Cultures Initiative, and for the Petrie Foundation, and former director Beth Lief, for providing funding support for the Learning Cultures Initiative. I would also like to acknowledge Kerry Decker, principal of Green from 2013-2016, and Maddie Young, the principal of Green from 2016 to the present, for their competence in leading the implementation of the Learning Cultures model in a highly challenging urban school context.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author served in the capacity of a paid external service provider in her support to the school.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Cynthia McCallister

Notes

Author Biography

Cynthia McCallister is associate professor of Literacy Education at New York University. Through over 25 years of applied research in New York City schools, she has developed the McCallister Model, an pedagogical design for human flourishing and rapid school transformation that has been used to transform multiple failing schools into high performance learning organizations. Dr. McCallister is the author of A Pedagogical Design for Human Flourishing: Transforming Schools with the McCallister Model (Routledge, 2011) and Unison Reading: Socially Inclusive Group Instruction for Equity and Achievement (Corwin, 2011).

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