ISTEP success story

It can be done. Even schools with the poorest kids in the toughest neighborhoods can boost student achievement. Just ask the folks at Theodore Potter School No. 74 in inner-city Indianapolis.

With Monday's release of Marion County's 1999 ISTEP scores, Potter's third graders boast the highest overall passage rate in Indianapolis Public Schools.

Although other IPS schools also made gains, Potter's turnaround was nothing short of stunning. On the 1998 test, 25 percent of the pupils passed the math portion of the exam; this time it was 84 percent. Last school year, 35 percent passed language arts; this year 75 percent did. The percentage passing both jumped from 14 to 66. Potter's third graders also claimed the district's highest total battery score.

A small class is part of the explanation, says Principal Linda Burchfield. Because the school had only 32 third graders, no child was ignored in test preparation efforts. And prepare they did. The students were smothered with reading and language arts instruction in the final months of second grade and the weeks leading up to the fall ISTEP. The school's reading and math specialists were assigned full-time to the third grade for the first 9-week period. That means every student got an extra period of math and reading every day prior to the test.

Further enhancing the language initiative was the addition last year of an Orton-Gillingham multi-sensory phonics program, used with about a third of the poorest readers. Designed for children with the reading disability called dyslexia, the approach has been found to work wonders with inner-city youth with language deficits.

Has Theodore Potter stumbled upon some magic formula that can be used in every school to increase test scores so dramatically? Yes and no.

A sound and intensive reading and math program in the early grades clearly works. Of the 10 highest performing elementary schools statewide last year, all emphasized reading and writing and seven of those used intensive phonics.

But there are other variables: Excellent teachers, minimal staff turnover, a school with a management style that boosts morale, which Potter has.

Two things Burchfield can't control are the school's poverty and mobility rates, which are among the highest in IPS. Already this year, more than 50 percent of the student body has turned over because the families are unable to maintain stable housing. That's why the smothering approach is necessary to bring the transient kids up to speed.

IPS remains the lowest performing school district in Marion County and disappointing scores at higher grade levels suggest much work is yet to be done. But bright spots like Potter inspire hope.

Yes, it can be done, but it takes a huge amount of work and wise use of resources. And that's how a miracle occurred on East 10th street

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