Looking for effective schools? Try Struthers and Bloomfield

Two of the Mahoning Valley’s 50 public high schools are starting 2008 with bragging rights for nationally-recognized academic excellence.

Struthers High School and Bloomfield High School stand out as the only two high schools in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties to make the first ranking of America’s Best High Schools by U.S. News and World Report and School Evaluation Services.

The rankings, published this week in the national news weekly magazine, are based on detailed statistical analyses of about 19,000 public high schools across the United States.

SES, a K-12 education and data research and analysis business, calculated how well students perform on state achievement tests. It also looked closely at each school’s scores in relationship to its proportion of student poverty. Only those schools that “significantly exceeded” state averages won honors. Both Struthers and Bloomfield won bronze medals, or third-tier awards. Considering that only 1,500 schools made the list, the bronze medals in no way diminish the distinction and the honor due these centers of effective learning.

The accomplishment is particularly noteworthy in Struthers To the average observer, the financially challenged city school district might be the last place to find a model for academic achievement. After all, it was only five weeks ago that Ohio lifted the Struthers district from its 32-month shackling under fiscal emergency.

During that time, more than $1 million was slashed from its budget and 23 teaching positions cut. But Struthers proved that an exemplary learning environment can take hold even amid fiscal challenges. Struthers opened a new 90,000-square-foot high school five years ago this month (largely through outside funding), which includes information technology and manufacturing technology labs, special classrooms for students with multiple disabilities and state-of-the-art science and computer facilities.

Of course, brand spanking new buildings packed to the gills with 21st century resources do not alone an effective learning climate make. Teachers and staff who initiate creative programs, who monitor students closely and who go out of their way to ensure students succeed and graduate mean more than a laboratory stocked with the snazziest new computers.

The proof is in the achievement. Last year, for example, 49 percent of the Struthers senior class earned academic letters. The high school moved from effective to excellent in the state Report Cards. And in 2006, Struthers was one of only a handful of schools in Ohio to earn a Blue Ribbon Award from the national No Child Left Behind program that honors public schools that demonstrate strong gains in student achievement.

Other honorees

In northern Trumbull County, Bloomfield High in the Bloomfield-Mesopotamia Local School District also earned the national bronze medal honor. Officials there credit close student-teacher interaction as a key factor in its performance.

In neighboring Mercer County, Pennsylvania, Grove City Area High School won tier-two Silver Medal honors while Commodore Perry High in Hadley and Lakeview High in Stoneboro earned Bronze medals. In Lawrence County, Union Area High School in suburban New Castle took home Bronze honors.

As one can easily see, few similarities emerge in the profiles of these districts. Struthers, a medium-sized high school in an urban setting with 650 students and Bloomfield, a tiny rural school with about 125 students, could not be more different in outward appearances. But each rose above its respective challenges —fiscal crisis and diminutive size — to exert a common will to succeed.

Teachers, staff, administrators, policymakers and students in these honored schools should hold their heads high and continue their winning ways for other high schools of all shapes, sizes and demographics in the region to emulate.