Kipling Elementary leapfrogs more affluent schools
As fourth-grader Georgi McCoy wraps a measuring tape around partner Brian Fox’s waist during a math lesson at Kipling Elementary, she can’t help but make an observation.
“Your waist is bigger than mine!” says Georgi.
“Your waist is bigger than mine!” says Georgi.
The kids at Chicago’s Kipling Elementary are being measured in lots of ways these days — and not just with measuring tape.
(Jean Lachat/Sun-Times)
The kids at Chicago’s Kipling Elementary are being measured in lots of ways these days — and not just with measuring tape.
They took two diagnostic tests in the last two weeks to help detect strengths and weakness. Last year’s state tests picked up a problem in measurement, underlining the need for Georgi’s measurement lesson. And teachers carry around 3-inch-thick binders with even more test results on all their students.
But on one Illinois measurement, Kipling shined last school year. The school of 85 percent low-income kids in Chicago’s far south Washington Heights neighborhood leapfrogged over close to 400 other schools to land at No. 937 statewide among more than 2,200 Illinois public elementary schools.
To some, Kipling’s state ranking, based on a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of average third- through fifth-grade math and reading scores, may not sound like much. But this neighborhood school tucked among squat and simple one-story homes outranked some far more affluent public schools in Oakbrook Terrace, Lombard and Plainfield.
Nearly 82 percent of Kipling kids passed state tests last school year.
Kipling’s small size, with two classrooms per grade and only 450 kids — all in navy and white uniforms — is one key, said parent Darvell Montgomery. “It’s almost like a private school because it’s so small,” he explained.
Principal LaWanda Bishop also credits a seasoned and stable staff. While some troubled Chicago schools are struggling to hold on to teachers or are tossing them all out and starting over, 80 percent of Kipling’s teachers have worked here at least five years. Six of 31 teachers have won prestigious national certification; 92 percent have master’s degrees and 87 percent have been teaching for at least five years.
Bishop herself reflects the school’s stability. She was a Kipling counselor for four years before becoming assistant principal for one year and then, for the last three years, principal.
She inherited a school so well-behaved, one teacher couldn’t believe how quiet the hallways were during her job interview four years ago. And they remain that way to this day.
“There’s an environment here that has been developed over the years,” said third-grade teacher Ellen Houze, a 10-year Kipling veteran. “This principal was mentored by the previous principal, so everything transitioned smoothly.
“We have a small building and many of the teachers have been here for many years. Everyone gets along. We discuss things.”
Teachers meet virtually daily with the fellow teacher of their grade to make sure they’re at the same point in their school-written pacing charts. They pull apart a battery of test results, and swap effective strategies for tackling weak spots reflected in data. Often, a reading specialist joins them or helps in their classrooms.
The assessments help teachers divide kids into flexible groups by skill level and then “differentiate” their instruction in daily small-group work. Struggling kids also get Saturday tutoring by members of a local church, many of them retired teachers. Plus, they are supported in extra afterschool classes.
A huge stable of computerized programs — Jumpstart, Reading Blaster, Sesame Street, Storybook Weaver and Study Island — meets kids at their current skill level and pushes them forward.
Audio programs also are part of the mix. Third-grader Autumn Jenkins enjoys reading stories by listening to them via headphones clamped to her ears. Says Autumn: “There’s no distractions.”
Bishop wonders if one computerized program that hones phonetic skills, called Earobics, played a role in this year’s standout third-grade reading scores, which jumped by 12.7 percentage points, to 86 percent passing state reading tests. The third-graders who produced those results were the first to have used Earobics every year since first grade.
Kipling teachers are urged to move kids beyond the basics and into the kind of higher-ordered thinking tapped in the toughest Illinois Standards Achievement Test questions.
Fourth-graders were asked to measure not only their partner’s waist, head and height, but also to find the “mean and mode” of classwide measurements.
And, teacher Dedria Jackson challenged them with a word problem requiring kids to figure out how many yards long a certain block was, based on six street lights stationed every 50 yards, including one at each end. To complete the problem, kids had to show their work in the kind of “extended-response” answer demanded by some ISAT questions. Few kids got it right (answer: 250 yards), but they weren’t deterred.
“These are the kind of problems that are going to give you headaches,” warned Jackson, one of the school’s nationally-certified teachers.
At Kipling, just meeting state ISAT standards isn’t enough.
“I ask teachers not just to push the below [state standards] babies to meets,” Bishop said, “but to push the meets babies to exceeds.”