Julia Steiny: Intro to a School Changing the Game (Part 1)
20.05.12
Typical it is not. In my 20-plus years of visiting schools, I’ve never seen anything like it. Business and industry have been screaming for better-prepared students for the STEM workforce – science, technology, engineering and math. But this school delivers incredibly well-prepared kids – in all subjects! – using a set of such unusual strategies, I’ll be spending the next three weeks examining them.
About AMSA
AMSA opened in the fall of 2004 with 300 6th and 7th graders. It grew by a grade each year, to grade 12, graduating its first class last spring.
But as the original 7th-grade class finished 8th grade, fully half of them chose to go elsewhere for 9th grade. School leaders were dumbstruck. The same drop happened the following year, leaving, curiously, 62 kids in each of those classes. Apparently, parents liked AMSA’s rigorous middle-school curriculum, but didn’t trust that a new charter could make their kids maximally attractive to colleges. Mid-Massachusetts also happens to be home to some of the nation’s most prestigious private schools, like Phillips Andover Academy.
Source: GoLocalProv