‘Schools Within Schools’ Pay Off in Philadelphia

The walls haven’t been painted in 30 years, and the clocks are right only twice a day. But within the tumbledown confines of Abraham Lincoln High School, a group of teachers and students is showing just how simple--and inspirational--school reform can be.

The program is called the Environmental Technology Academy, one of more than two dozen career-oriented “schools within schools” nurtured by a nonprofit, business-backed partnership called the Philadelphia High School Academies.

On one recent afternoon, the teen-agers in Roger Meyers’ class were donning chemical-resistant suits and oxygen tanks, part of their training in hazardous waste management. They’ve been studying the basic science of chemical pollution and are now learning how to clean up a hazardous material spill--gaining an Environmental Protection Agency certification in the process.

“It’s a dirty job,” a sweaty Sharmeka Scott said as she peeled off her suit after a run around the schoolyard. “But I plan on making a career out of environmental accounting. This is the best education you can get.”

Like many of the 4,000 students in the Philadelphia Academies, the 17-year-old Scott travels a long way--90 minutes in each direction--and accepts a longer school day in order to participate. But for the most part, the sacrifice is worth it: More than half of all academy graduates go on to college, and another third find jobs in their fields. Dropouts are rare.

At a time of national soul-searching about education and job training, when even extreme solutions--such as turning over the operation of public schools to private companies--are getting a serious hearing, the Philadelphia Academies demonstrate how much can be accomplished with just a few corporate dollars wisely spent.

The business community in Philadelphia does not provide an extraordinary amount of financial support--far less than it should, some people say--but it does contribute a great deal of manpower, equipment and service.

Just as important, companies, school officials and teachers have found a structure for working in harmony that their counterparts in other urban school systems, including Los Angeles, might want to emulate.

The designers of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s LEARN reforms have not chosen to extensively emulate the Philadelphia effort. But nationally, the academies have become a model for reforming troubled big-city high schools. An Environmental Technology Academy student, Matthew Fleming, addressed the Washington bill-signing ceremony in early May for President Clinton’s “school-to-work” legislation.

The 24-year-old program has spawned a host of imitators in California and elsewhere. Some of them, such as the academies at Pasadena High School, are considered highly successful. The California Department of Education provides a little more than $3 million a year for academies in 45 high schools around the state.

But the Philadelphia Academies remain unique in crucial respects. Only here is the program overseen by an independent, nonprofit corporation, Philadelphia High School Academies Inc., which acts as advocate, fund-raiser and mediator among corporate sponsors, school administrators, teachers and students.

The basic concept behind the academies is almost embarrassingly obvious: Carve out semiautonomous programs of 100 to 200 students within massive public high schools and give them a practical, vocational focus that makes traditional academic work more relevant.

Then get the businesses in that sector to support the effort, not only with money but with equipment loans, job placement services, expert advice and a variety of smaller favors. And remain flexible at all times, particularly in regard to how businesses participate.

“This is good old-fashioned education: We’re breaking the large high school down into smaller, more manageable units,” said Natalie S. Allen, president of Philadelphia High School Academies. “The unique role we play is that both sides (the school system and the business community) view us as a spokesperson, a way to speak to the bureaucracies.”

Since it began with the Electrical Academy in 1969, the Philadelphia Academies have grown to include 27 separate programs in 10 career areas at 18 high schools. Nearly 4,000 students--up from just 850 six years ago--are now enrolled, with an expansion to 5,000 set for September, 1996.

All of this is being accomplished on a remarkably meager budget. Philadelphia High School Academies will spend about $1.5 million this year, mostly from corporations, while the school district pitches in by allowing slightly smaller classes and paying academy teachers an extra $600.

Allen says the total extra annual cost is about $400 per student, less than 10% of the $4,800 that the 208,000-student Philadelphia School District spends on each pupil.

Like other major urban school districts around the country, Philadelphia is plagued by budget shortfalls, political infighting, crumbling facilities and the overwhelming social problems of the inner city.

Flight to the suburbs has reduced the proportion of white students in the district to 22%, with African Americans now accounting for 62% of the school population. The dropout rate, which has been declining, stands at 7.4% of eligible students per year.

At the academies, many simple, inexpensive things make an enormous difference. Take the telephone, fax machine and photocopier in the office shared by the Environmental Technology Academy and the Horticulture Academy at Abraham Lincoln High. They are hardly groundbreaking innovations, but most public high school teachers have no easy access to such tools.

“It gives teachers a sense of ownership, makes them feel they’re being treated as professionals,” said David Kipphut, a science teacher and director of the two academies.

The design of the academy program nurtures a close relationship between students and teachers and a sense of pride in both. Students enter in the ninth grade and spend four years with the same group of 75 peers and 15 teachers. An integrated curriculum mixes traditional academic study with practical vocational work.

“We’re really a family here,” said Dennis Fischer, 17, who will attend Temple University in the fall.

He and five fellow seniors fairly bubbled with enthusiasm about the academy one recent afternoon, describing how other students in the high school--particularly those in a rival school-within-a-school affiliated with Temple--were envious.

It was that sense of family, and the feeling that teachers really cared, that were most important to Alexander Perez, a 1976 graduate of the Electrical Academy who is now an electrician and construction supervisor with the Philadelphia Housing Authority.

“When I was in junior high, I was what they now label ‘at-risk,’ ” he said. “I came from a gang-infested neighborhood, my grades were horrible. . . . But when I got to the academy, they stressed a sense of belonging, and there was a sense of caring by the teachers. When people care about you, you start to think differently about yourself.”

The specific training Perez received at the academy was ultimately useful as well, helping him gain admission to the apprenticeship program of the electricians union.

The academies were conceived as vocational education programs that would prepare students for jobs directly out of high school, and they specifically targeted “at-risk” students.

But that focus has changed in recent years. Admission remains open to any student in the school system, but applicants must have passing grades and attendance in junior high school. High achievers who once would have shunned anything with a vocational orientation are now drawn to some of the academies, notably the Environmental Academy.

And most academy graduates today go on to some form of post-secondary education, rather than moving directly into the work force. Their career choices often stray far from their academy specialties.

“It’s a neat program. I really enjoyed the Environmental Academy--but I wouldn’t want to make it a career,” said Robert Kenny, 18. “I want to be a teacher.”

The skills and experiences the academies provide are broadly applicable. An elaborate mock interviewing project with local companies, for example, gives all academy seniors a chance to practice their presentation skills, get feedback from corporate executives and establish contacts that might be useful in the future.

For this kind of effort, the independent academy organization is crucial; teachers and administrators would not have the time or resources to do it.

Having an independent point of contact is viewed as a tremendous asset by the business community, which is loath to get involved in the complex political battles and administrative bogs that mark big-city school districts.

The academy “staff oversees the processes very, very closely,” said John Leonard, president of Cigna Group Insurance, a major Philadelphia employer that contributes $50,000 a year as well as staff time and services to the program. “The thing I appreciate about it most is the attention to detail. Very little room is left for wandering.”

The danger, of course, is that as the academy program gets larger, such attention to detail could become more difficult. And relations with the school system and the teachers union--remarkably smooth so far--could become more complicated if the academies were to emerge as a de facto shadow school district.

Indeed, a broad reform effort in Philadelphia--the “charter schools initiative,” which is based in part on the academy model--has stumbled, in part because of resistance from the teachers union.

Funding also remains a problem for the academies. The Philadelphia School District this year must cut $30 million out of its $1.3-billion budget (on top of a $60-million cut last year), and that could make it more difficult to pay for the extra teachers the academies need.

Many private-sector benefactors--including Cigna, IBM, Unisys, Pennsylvania Bell and the Philadelphia Electric Co.--are facing fiscal pressures as well.

“Raising money in Philadelphia is tough,” said J. Lawrence Wilson, chairman of the academy board and chairman and chief executive of Rohm & Haas, a chemical company.

Despite the academies’ stellar track record, Allen, president of the academies organization, must spend much of her time raising money--although $1.5 million seems like a drop in the bucket for a big-city business community.

“If this works, why not support it like crazy?” Cigna’s Leonard asked. “It’s still not as appreciated as it might be.”