October 28, 2008 University Park Campus School: A triumph in Worcester Play video

(NECN) - Chet Curtis is joined by Paul Grogan, President and CEO of the Boston Foundation to kick off the third annual series of public affairs programming. The theme, State of Education: Making the Grade in Massachusetts.

Over the next eight months NECN and the Boston Foundation will focus on challenges and achievements in public education, from pre-school to college.

Joining Chet and Paul to discuss the issues are four people highly invested in shaping the way we learn. Mitchell Chester, Commissioner of education for Massachusetts, Keith Motley, Chancellor of UMass Boston, June Eressy, Principal of University Park Campus School in Worcester and a Milken Award winner, and Charlie Baker CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and a founding member of leaders for education.

It's one thing to talk about achievements in education, it's another to see success in action. NECN's Peter Howe visited The University Park School in Worcester, and brought back some lessons we can all learn from.

University Park Campus School in Worcester, Massachusetts, is a school whose academic achievement would be a success anywhere ... and a triumph in a neighborhood like Worcester's South Main section.

University Park serves a neighborhood where children face plenty of challenges. About one third of families are at or below the poverty level or are headed by single mothers, and at University Park about 70 percent of children come from families where they speak

At University Park, the 240 students put up amazing numbers: 100 percent of 10th graders passed the most recent state English, math, and science tests, the MCAS, with 78 percent ranking advanced in math, the top rating. 28 percent earned advanced in English, 20 in science. Numbers like those have made University Park the top-ranking Massachusetts school serving urban, low-income students for english and math. And over 95 percent of graduates attend college. Almost all of them are the first generation of college students in their families.

"You know, we do a lot of nurturing and building up, building up of skills, both academic and social skills to get them to college,'' Jody Bird says.

Students remember Ms. Bird's class years later, like senior Bernadine Mavhungu. "We had her for biology a couple of years ago and the little projects she make us do that were very unconventional I learned the most, and I learned it very easily,'' Mavhungu says. "I didn't even notice I was learning.''

University Park isn't a charter school, but a regular public school for neighborhood students with regular city funding. What it does have is:

- one, it's much smaller than other Worcester city high schools, and as a result, students from the neighborhood have to apply to get in through a purely randomized lottery process.

- and two, a key ally, Clark University. Clark helped found the school in 1997 and gives full scholarships to University Park graduates.

Clark president John Bassett considers University Park one of Clark's greatest achievements: "We've learned that you can raise the bar, kids can get over it ... The very large impersonal high school, particularly in an at risk neighborhood, doesn't work very well. One of the things that's really important at this school is the feeling on the part of the students that the teachers and principal really care about their success. Every teacher in that school knows every student in that school.''

Jonathan Torres, a UPCS senior, says, "There's actually a program where we have tutors from Clark University help us out and talk to us about colleges and everything. so it's like seeing them in college and talking to them about it it's a big help to us because we're going to go in college prepared or know what's going to be there,''

Bassett says: "You do need to raise the bar for kids from poor neighborhoods. In America, we set the bar too low, and kids with potential to achieve a lot are not asked to achieve much. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. They don't achieve much.''

School principal June Eressy completely agrees: "I think a lot of the problem we have is feeling sorry for the kids because the teachers perceive them as being disadvantaged ... Overcoming that mindset that these kids can't do homework because they have too much on their plate or we can't expect them to go to a four year college.''

Kim Surette is a University Park graduate, class of 2004, who's now back teaching for her Clark master's degree. Four of her nine siblings, all younger, now attend University Park. "I come from a family that receives government assistance,'' Surette says. "There's a history of drug abuse, mental illness, every other thing. I've been homeless. I've had one of my family members in jail. But you come to this school, and they tell you, you're going to do this. You're going to pass the MCAS. You're going to excel on your A.P. tests. ... The gift that we have to give to you is we are going to give you these high expectations, you're going to succeed in school and then you're going to be able, regardless of the hardships, you're going to be able to go and succeed.''

University park is 11 years old this year, and it's inspired the creation of an institute, the UPCS institute, that's gotten support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to teach people from other states and countries how to apply the lessons that have been learned here in other urban schools. (Video of visiting group from North Carolina talking with Jody Bird.)

Students can tell you the number one most important thing: "The teachers aren't just here to like get their work done and get paid,'' says senior Melanny Dominguez, a daughter of immigrants from Colombia and Brazil who just became a U.S. citizen. "They actually care about us having a future and us going to college. They go that extra mile.''

Agrees 9th grader Anthony Hodges (A-Hodge to his friends): "If you need help you just come after school. The teachers will be here. They'll help you on your work. If you need anything, they'll do it for you. That's why i love this school.''

Asked what he hopes will be here in 5 years for students that isn't here now, senior Binh Tat says: "Actually I hope it doesn't change at all because being a small school with limited resources, it lets the teachers connect more with the students and get more personal with the students. So I just hope it doesn't change at all.''

"We know we probably aren't in the best neighborhood,'' Bernadine Mavhungu says. "We don't have the best resources. but over here I think we don't see ourselves as any different from the kids who are in like a Wellesley school or something. We think we're just at the same level and we can make it just as far as we want to.

"We don't really think of the things that hold us back,'' she says, "as much as the things that can push us forward.''

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