Schools That Think

"We measure students' thinking by how they perform and by what they have in their portfolios," says Stein. "We measure progress, and we reward students by what they have in their portfolios. There's no way to test out of the fifth grade. Students don't move on until they complete their portfolios. It's just like the real world. A contractor gets paid when the job is done and the building inspector says that it meets code. That's what a portfolio does. Why is that method commonplace in business but radical in school?"

Loren Brinton, 17, came to RMSEL in ninth grade, after years of being told that he needed special education, which meant having to leave his classroom for special instruction. "Dealing with that kind of stigma for so long lowered my self-esteem," Brinton says. "I learn more with a hands-on approach so this place really clicked for me."

Brinton says that his graduation portfolio -- which will draw from all four years of high school -- will include the results of a four-week miniexpedition: During their senior year, students design and carry out two expeditions. For one, Brinton, an accomplished snowboarder, worked for a California snowboard maker and designed his own board. For the other, he plans to develop a business plan for his own snowboard-clothing company.

"I think RMSEL is like life," he says. "It's taught me to be self-directed, and that teaches you how to learn. It doesn't just teach you."

The Transformed School

North Jackson Elementary School, Jackson, Mississippi
Principal: Joyce Pully
Grades: K-5
Number of students: 500
Founded: 1981
Mission: To reenergize public education through the application of high standards and nontraditional teaching techniques, and the supportive training and development of teachers.

Talk about change.

When principal Joyce Pully walked into North Jackson Elementary School on her first day on the job in 1994, the school was the very model of old-fashioned American learning: Students sat quietly in neat rows; teachers stood at the front of the classroom to teach; and learning was straight out of state-adopted textbooks.

Walk into that school today, and here's what you'll see: In a fifth-grade classroom, you might find students lying on their backs, coloring on paper taped to the bottom of their desks, while classical music plays quietly in the background. After 20 minutes or so, the teacher stops them and says, "You don't know this, but you're working the way an artist named Michelangelo painted during a period of time called the Renaissance. It's what we're going to be studying for the next three weeks."

Rote learning, rote teaching, rote education are gone. In their place are innovation and excitement at the prospect of discovery. That current runs through every classroom, where about 500 students, all African American, are actively engaged in creative learning.

The magnitude of the change at North Jackson Elementary School in six years is staggering -- testimony to what is possible in education reform. But even more remarkable is that all of this change took place within the context of the school that was. Working with the school's existing staff, students, and budget, Pully has pulled off an educational triumph: She has brought innovation and systemic change into a tradition-rooted, bureaucracy-bound setting.

"I came into a setting that was very traditional," recalls Pully, 52. "It was highly structured, and it was very orderly. Now it's chaotic. Children sit in our classrooms and learn. They aren't sitting there reading page 64 of a textbook, learning what some author wants them to say. They're exploring, researching, and writing. It's not a regurgitation of facts anymore."

What's happened at North Jackson is a tale of transformation worth noting: The vast majority of U.S. children go to traditional public schools -- and will for the foreseeable future. If change doesn't happen in those schools, then the kind of learning that is needed for the 21st century simply isn't going to happen.

In the case of North Jackson, Pully says, she was fortunate in what she found when she came to the school. She had worked for 10 years as a teacher and a principal in northern California. In her last 3 years as a principal in Sacramento, she had turned around a failing school. At her new job, Pully found a well-run school and a dedicated staff that was committed to teaching students well. And at one level, they were doing just fine: Students at the school consistently scored above the district average on standardized tests.