A Year at Locke

August 19, 2009

A YEAR AT LOCKE

The real test

The state test results released Tuesday for Locke High School weren't the sort of thing its new operator, Green Dot Public Schools, is accustomed to seeing: Not a single student scored as proficient in geometry, for example, and only a few percent tested at the next level down, basic.

May 28, 2009

A YEAR AT LOCKE

Where change begins

The freshman-only academies of Animo Locke 1 and 2 are crammed into rows of rundown portable classrooms on separate campuses. Their courtyards are parking lots. Cafeterias? Folding benches under tarps on the blacktop. The students arrive from Watts middle schools that left them unprepared for algebra, which, according to California's curriculum goals, they were supposed to take in eighth grade.

May 10, 2009

A YEAR AT LOCKE

These exams also put teachers to the test

At any point during the academic year, the teachers and principals at Locke High School know precisely how much progress their students are making toward satisfying state standards. Several times a year, all students take benchmark exams, with the results loaded into a computer so that teachers and administrators can analyze their progress within a day or so.

April 6, 2009

Opinion

From 'camp' to class

The students are rapt as they watch a seven-minute video about Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death reviled for his cruel pseudo-experiments on concentration camp inmates during World War II. Seeing this, they can better understand the atrocities experienced by Elie Wiesel and chronicled in “Night,” his sparely phrased but haunting account of death and life under the Nazi German regime.

March 21, 2009

Editorial

The Advance Path Academy: learning that clicks

Teachers call Kendle Malbrough "The Philosopher." The Locke High School senior embellishes the margins of his math papers with musings on the intersection of religion and science. Ordinary conversations lead him to flights of theory on all manner of topics. Why dinosaurs grew so big. What the planet would look like over time if humans were to disappear.

December 1, 2008

Editorial

Locke High School's progress

The lesson was polling. Math teacher Fernando Avila acted as pollster, the students as respondents and the four corners of the classroom their opinions: strongly agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree, strongly disagree. The topic: How Locke High School in Watts had changed since being taken over by charter operator Green Dot Public Schools.

September 8, 2008

A YEAR AT LOCKE

Day 1

Green Dot Public Schools, the charter operator that has gained a big reputation for small high schools, a college-prep curriculum and fast growth, opens its latest newsmaking venture today: a reinvented Locke High School. The teachers have been hired and trained. The students are preregistered, their textbooks in hand. The center quad has been replanted. Everything is ready.

Graduation Day at Locke High School