Seattle, Washington— Principal Eric Benson ducks his head into a ninth-grade English class just as seven students are settling themselves into a cluster of chairs pushed to the center of the room. From these "hot seats," they set out to lead a class discussion about Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. Their teacher watches from the sidelines, ready to add a question or comment to keep things moving, but giving students the lead.
Benson tells a visitor that this is a typical classroom scene at Nathan Hale High School in Seattle's Lake City, an older neighborhood north of downtown lined with affordable homes, apartments, and a smattering of small businesses. "Our model is the teacher as coach," explains the soft-spoken principal who doesn't have to whisper to keep from interrupting the class. A few students glance in his direction, but they're not distracted. Kids are accustomed to seeing their principal often; indeed, in this four-year high school with an enrollment of about 1,000, Benson knows virtually every student by name. He continues: "You don't see a lot of classrooms where the chairs are lined up in rows with kids listening to lectures. We try to engage students to use their minds. Basically, that's the goal."
It seems to be working. Nathan Hale is widely praised for the success of its diverse student population, which is currently about 40 percent minority (11 percent African American, 18 percent Asian, 6 percent Hispanic), with 22 percent of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch and 12 percent needing special education.
But although improvements have been dramatic—including a steady closing of the achievement gap between minority and white students, a reduction in the dropout rate, and a sea change in school climate during the past 10 years—every success seems to trigger new questions, fresh challenges. So it's fitting that the principal happens to overhear this class of ninth-graders discussing a thorny philosophical question: What is contentment? In the context of high school reform, it's a question with no easy answers.
Old-timers remember the day in 1992 when Benson arrived as principal. Sandy-haired and wiry of build, he had a dozen years in teaching and school administration under his belt, but Hale was his first principalship. "Before showing up, he had checked out a school yearbook and studied all the faculty photos. He knew us all from Day One," recalls language arts teacher Elaine Wetterauer, a 25-year veteran of teaching at Hale. It was a small thing, but it counted. In his typically low-key way, Benson let teachers know that he cared about them. "He's an exceptional leader," says Wetterauer, praising the principal for both his depth of knowledge about education and his ability to lead through collaboration.
A decade ago, Hale High shouldered a tough image. "This was known as a thug school," admits Wetterauer. "There were problems." Because Seattle Public Schools gives families a choice of where to enroll their children, a bad rap means low enrollment. And negative perceptions are slow to change. "Through all those years, there were great kids and great teachers at the school," Wetterauer stresses, "and we [teachers] tried hard to improve the school's image. But we felt trapped."
Instead of arriving with his own agenda, Benson issued an invitation to the faculty. "He said, 'Let's get out of the building. Let's see what else is out there,'" Wetterauer recalls. It was another low-key idea with a big pay-off. "In 25 years," she says, "I'd never been encouraged to look at other schools, to explore alternatives." One fall night in 1992, Benson invited any interested teachers to join him for dinner at the University of Washington to hear Theodore Sizer and John Goodlad, prominent educators with powerful ideas to share about school reform. Eight Hale staff members attended. It turned out to be an auspicious evening—and has become the first entry in "The Trek," a logbook the school maintains about its ongoing journey toward excellence.
Eventually, Nathan Hale joined the Coalition of Essential Schools, an organization Sizer—the author of Horace's Compromise and Horace's Hope—founded in 1984 to promote school reform. Although Coalition schools adhere to a set of common principles, each charts its own course toward school improvement.
At Hale, the overarching strategy has been to promote a more personalized learning environment to foster success for all students. The transformation has been guided by a design process that involved the entire school community. School improvements are ongoing, and many challenges remain. But gradually, the school has reorganized around key features, including:
"It's all about personalization," summarizes Benson. "If you can get to that point, then you might have a chance to close the [achievement] gap."
When he first came to Hale, Benson noticed that discipline was getting in the way of learning and teaching. Walking the hallways, he would overhear "foul language, a lack of respect. There were fights. Tensions." Suspensions and expulsions were handed out regularly—especially to students of color.
The school staged a three-hour summit. "We brought in facilitators and focused on relationship issues," Benson recalls. By the day's end, students agreed to participate in a campaign focusing on two themes: decency and trust. Today, school hallways and classrooms are adorned with signs bearing the slogan that students coined and agreed to live by: "Respect: Give it and get it."
Teachers aren't the only ones who appreciate the resulting change in school climate. Current students are quick to praise the atmosphere at Nathan Hale. "You won't find another school like this one," attests Jamal, an African American 11th-grader who has rebounded from a rocky middle school experience.
"In middle school, my grades were low-down around 1.9 (grade-point average). I hung out with the thugs, the smokers. Now I'm carrying a 2.4," he says. "I still have my homeboys, my friends, but we branch out. We don't just stay in a clique. We all know everybody in this school. People will help you here. There's a lot of love."
A 10th-grader named Chanel, also African American, appreciates the mentoring program that matches each student with an adult staff member for all four years of high school. "You can talk to teachers here," she adds, "and they'll give you extra help. Theyflexible. They want to help you succeed, even if you didn't have the best grades before you got here."
In a recent special report exploring the relationship between school discipline and race, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer singled out Nathan Hale for its positive and equitable school climate. Between 1996 and 2002, the number of African American students at Hale receiving a suspension or expulsion dropped from 150 to 20. In a 2001 survey, 84 percent of Hale students said they felt safe at school, up from 55 percent in 1994. "When it comes to erasing the discipline gap," wrote Post-Intelligencer reporter Rebekah Denn, "Hale's approach may be as promising as it gets."
Through ongoing staff conversations about successful schools, Benson and his colleagues have concluded that effective high schools share two qualities: They're small, and they started out small. For Hale, built 40 years ago in the boxy design of a typical American high school, becoming new again wasn't an option. In 1997, when the school became a full member of the Coalition of Essential Schools and was moving forward to implement its reform agenda, Benson even tried to convince the district to close the building and reopen it after a yearlong hiatus. Then-Superintendent John Stanford refused the request, but agreed to a compromise on enrollment. "I asked if he could limit the number of ninth-graders coming in," Benson recalls. "He told me, essentially, that nobody wanted to go to Hale anyway, so limiting enrollment was not going to be a problem."
Becoming smaller has turned out to be a wise move. Benson credits the more intimate scale as being an effective strategy for boosting student achievement, particularly for students of color. (See Measuring Up.)
With only 1,032 students, Hale is considerably smaller than Seattle's Garfield or Roosevelt high schools, each with about 1,700 students. And these days, Hale has one of the longest waiting lists among high schools in the district. The irony isn't lost on Benson. He now has to be vigilant to prevent enrollment from creeping up. Another irony provokes strong opinions on campus: While the school has made a deliberate effort to recruit students of color and help them achieve success, white families are increasingly selecting Hale as their school of choice. Benson appreciates the school's jump in popularity, but says, "We don't want to become a white, North End school."
The freshmen academies, established in 1998, were one of the school's first steps toward making the school "feel" smaller. The three ninth-grade academies, each limited to 90 students, are carefully balanced to include students of mixed abilities. There is no tracking. Instead, the inclusion philosophy means that each academy—Red, Blue, and Green—includes students who are gifted, behind grade level, in special education, and learning English. "It's the whole gamut," says Benson. Student assignments receive the level of attention more typically found in a good elementary school.
"We look for a balance of gender, ethnicity, skill levels, everything," says Tina Tudor, coordinator for the ninth-grade program who is responsible for making academy assignments. The underlying goal, she says, is to give all students equal opportunities to experience success. "If students have only been in low-tracked classes up to now, they've had few models of success in their classrooms," she says. With a more inclusive approach, she adds, "more class time is spent on instruction, which benefits everyone."
Each academy is assigned a teaching team of four to teach the core subjects of English, history, science, and health. Teachers have to apply specifically for these slots, agreeing to participate in team teaching and collaborative planning. Typically, academy teachers loop up with their students to the 10th grade, where integrated studies focus on biology, history, and language arts. Freshmen spend the first three hours of the school day in their academies, where teachers get to know them well and personalization is more than a noble goal. It's a fact of life.
Health teacher Devora Eisenberg, in her fifth year at Hale, says the academies create "a sense of community. It's definitely working." She knows the benefits of small schools firsthand, having graduated in a senior class of 18 students. "When it's smaller, you develop relationships that go beyond the superficial level. It teaches you to be more compassionate," she says.
Academy teachers are given planning time to work in their teams—an essential ingredient for the system to work effectively, Benson believes. "Collaboration is key. Historically, teachers have had very little contact with their colleagues, and kids have seen no connection from one subject to the next." In the academies, however, "these kids know that all the teachers on their team are keeping track of them," he says. Teaching a mixed-ability group is demanding of teachers. "You have to differentiate," Benson explains. "You aim for high levels and support those who need extra help." Students who are struggling because of low skills can elect to take focus classes in the afternoons that provide them with extra help. Students ready for more challenge can pursue optional assignments that take learning into more depth.
Planning time gives teachers a chance to coordinate projects, focus on individual students, or compare ideas about teaching strategies. A consistent approach is used throughout the academies for details such as how and when homework is assigned and collected. "It's set up the same way in every class, so there's not a lot of time spent getting used to teachers' different styles," Tudor explains. "Consistency is a key to success for our students. They hear that everyone is expected to do the same work, that the teachers have the same expectations for all of them. It's fair."
A uniform homework procedure is the sort of small but significant step intended to bring success within every student's reach—regardless of background or academic history. "Many students find themselves in a whole new role here: being someone who completes his or her work on time," says Tudor. Most students realize early into their ninth-grade year that they are being offered a chance to start fresh. "They see that high school does not have to be the four worst years of your life."
Some students arrive with a rocky history. They may have been unsuccessful in previous schools. They may have bounced around because of family issues or the bad breaks that often come with poverty. They may be adept at using distracting behavior to take attention away from low academic skills. "A lot of these kids have attended many schools before they get to Hale," says Tudor. "They've never had time for relationships to develop, never had time to finish their academic work." She describes a typical experience: "If they're struggling academically, their first reaction may be to think, 'How do I get myself out of this class?' But in the academies, there's no changing around schedules or class assignments. There's a commitment to stick it out. The message they get from the teachers is clear: We're in this together. We will not cycle you out," Tudor says.
Around Seattle, some 85,000 radio listeners regularly tune into 89.5FM for their daily dose of news and music. Callers are often surprised to learn that the broadcasts emanate from Nathan Hale High, where shows are produced by a "staff" of about 40 students. The 30,000-watt station, a campus greenhouse and horticulture program, and the integration of technology were among the features highlighted when Hale earned the status of "Cool School" in a past issue of Teen People magazine.
Broadcasting teacher Gregg Neilson, on the Hale faculty since 1977, calls the radio station a good example of "project-based learning. It's a way to keep kids engaged, interested. We give them opportunities for success so that they can apply what they know. They learn to write in English class, but they tend to be more engaged when they know that what they write will be heard by 85,000 people." Neilson adds, "They also learn to work together as a team," whatever their academic background or race. "They don't want to let each other down."
Yet even within this positive, team-building environment, voices of dissent are heard from time to time. A girl now in her junior year says she enrolled at Hale for a chance to work on the radio station, and it remains one of her favorite classes. But she chafes at the school's inclusion policy. "You can only go as fast as the slowest person in the class," she says, "and it can take forever sometimes." The girl, who is white, says she would prefer to be taking all honors classes. "But teachers at Hale consider an honors track elitist," she says, "and racist."
Principal Benson acknowledges that the girl has hit on a hot-button issue. "It's an ongoing discussion. We do honors here," he points out, "but it's offered within the inclusive classroom. It's that idea of differentiated instruction," in which learning goals are high but teaching strategies are targeted at the needs of individual learners.
Hale veteran Elaine Wetterauer, also aware that there are dissenting views, elaborates: "We want to offer all kids work that is challenging. In English, students read books in inclusive classrooms that we used to offer only in honors classes." Things Fall Apart is now standard sophomore fare. All sophomores also study Othello. Wetterauer's 11th-graders read Middle Passage.
Under the old system, Wetterauer remembers, a sorting process took place that wasn't always equitable. "Sure, honors classes tended to attract the brightest kids. But some were only there because their parents wanted them to be—it was an entitlement issue. A lot of minority parents didn't know to ask for honors classes for their kids. They didn't realize it was an option. To close the achievement gap," Wetterauer insists, "you have to expect more of all kids. It has to be rigorous for all. That's the only way it's going to be fair."
At Nathan Hale, teachers do much more than pay lip service to a motto like "high expectations for all." Within their critical friends groups—through which 85 percent of the faculty participate in professional development—teachers push each other to examine their own practice. "We are much more intentional about meeting the needs of all kids," says Wetterauer, who has taken the intensive training required to become a critical friends coach. Looking back, she sees how far the staff has come. "It used to be, you'd hear teachers complaining. It was 'the kids this ... the kids that ...' Now, we don't blame the kids [if achievement scores don't meet goals]. We ask ourselves: What can we do as teachers to improve student achievement? To meet the needs of all learners? We're much more collaborative. Our goal is to close the gap. We don't always agree about how to accomplish that," she admits, "but you don't hear anyone dissenting about the value of helping all kids succeed."
Changing the culture and practices of a comprehensive American high school "is a hard nut to crack," admits Benson, who has earned high praise and hefty awards for doing just that. In 2001, Benson won Seattle's highest honor for a school administrator: the Thomas B. Foster Award, which comes with a $50,000 prize.
Although he's pleased at the school's progress, Benson knows that the finish line remains always just out of reach. He doesn't have time for complacency. At the end of a busy lunch hour spent monitoring the cafeteria line, Benson pauses to exchange greetings with a student. The boy, who has Down syndrome, tells Benson about the role he played in a recent classroom video about Rosa Parks. His pride is obvious, his smile dazzling. "Acceptance may be the real story here," Benson says as the boy heads off to his afternoon classes. "This has become a more personal place for kids. When that happens, then the other stuff—closing the achievement gap, differentiating instruction—all of that can start to fall into place. But you have to win their hearts first. Then you can do the rest of it." 
Supporting students who have not traditionally enjoyed academic success has been a goal of school reform efforts at Nathan Hale High School. Here's a look at key indicators that show the school is making progress in closing the achievement gap.
Washington Assessments of Student Learning (WASL) for 2001 showed Nathan Hale students of color still lagging behind their white classmates on key indicators, but outperforming students of the same race from across the Seattle district. For example:
On other measures, as well, Nathan Hale students are showing improvement. Between 1995 and 2001:
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