Flanagan's island

Policy Review, Summer 1994 by Jendryka, Brian

"The real factor is the linkage between the school and home. We're all reading from the same hymnal," he says. School teachers are trained to teach 40 pro-social behaviors that supplement the skills children learn at home. For example, McGinnis and his staff see about six kids a day because of discipline problems. The principal's swift response results in children losing their privileges for the day. Such incidents are greatly reduced on Friday night, when basketball games or other school events take place.

Between the school teachers, family-teachers, and the point-card system, the kids at Boys Town soon learn that it is in their best interest to stay caught-up in class. Otherwise, there are too many lost privileges. "A teacher assigns homework, and it gets real expensive for a kid not to do it. It's not impossible, but it's just darn hard to squirrel out of it," McGinnis says.

Class size and individual attention also are strong features in the educational system. At the middle school, average class size is eight students; in high school, it is 12. Many classes are taught by two teachers or a teacher and an assistant. Kids are placed in grades according to their age, not academic achievement, thus raising expectations for those who are behind. Tutoring, positive reinforcement and the fact that all the children are behind in some regard helps diffuse self-esteem problems. "A lot of kids come here with a whole lot of anger, a whole self-esteem checklist," McGinnis says. "Overdoing the positive is kind of the glue that keeps them together. "

PLAYING CATCH-UP

Boys Town's graduation rate is even more impressive considering that most children arrive two or three years behind academically. At least 10 percent of the 9th graders, for example, start out reading at a 3rd- or 4th-grade reading level. But Mary Curtis, director of the Boys Town reading center, has found that many children can raise their reading levels by four grades in less than a year and a half.

The key? High expectations. Teachers set the reading level above the level of the students, reminding them that learning from mistakes is simply part of the education process, says Daniel Daly, Director of Program Planning, Research, and Evaluation at Boys Town. "We don't work on psychology, we work on reading," he says.

This approach flies in the face of the conventional solution of "dumbing down" the curriculum for poor-performing students, Daly says. The result in some urban schools, for example, is that "teachers have to show films for their kids to get any information because they can't read. "By contrast, Boys Town educators consider reading an essential building block o a successful education. Not being able to read is like a cancer, Daly says. "When a kid hits 15 and he can't read, it's virtually a terminal illness. He's damned to a life that's going to be substandard."

VOCATIONAL SKILLS

The high school is also well-designed to teach the children the hands-on skills they will need after graduation. All students at Boys Town High School are required to take four pre-vocational courses in keyboarding, computer literacy, career development, and home management, which teaches them how to do everything from fixing a leaky kitchen sink to cooking for themselves to changing a car's oil. After they have completed this sequence, many students take additional vocation-oriented courses in such fields as automotive services, computer skills, health services, and construction.