Portland's Roosevelt High gets $7.7 million to propel a turnaround
Published: Wednesday, July 07, 2010, 6:38 PM Updated: Wednesday, July 07, 2010, 6:50 PM
View full sizeMany students at Portland’s Roosevelt High are working this summer to catch up on missing credits so they can earn diplomas. Raising the school’s chronically low graduation rate is one main aim of a large federal grant awarded Wednesday to help Roosevelt improve. Students (seated from left) sophomore Amanda Schulte; Tormie Gurule, a senior holding his 7-month-old daughter, Angel; and junior Lea Evans, get help from (standing from left) Melody Wymer and Samir Raad, academic support coordinators with the SUN Community Schools program.The award, announced Wednesday, is part of a $33 million Obama administration package to help 10 of Oregon's worst-performing schools in seven districts reverse chronic low achievement through federally mandated strategies.
Roosevelt High, Oregon City Service Learning Academy, Madras High and the other winning schools had to agree to hire new principals, begin evaluating teachers in part on their students' academic gains, extend the school day or school year, and revamp teaching techniques.
It's part of an aggressive national effort by the administration to target the bottom 5 percent of schools, particularly high schools with high dropout rates, and award them massive grants that force drastic changes. If it works -- and doubters abound -- by spring 2013, the Oregon schools will deliver markedly higher reading, math, writing and science scores and dramatically improved graduation rates.
Roosevelt High, where achievement problems date back at least three decades and where the on-time graduation rate was just 39 percent last year, will see big changes in the coming school year. Bigger changes will come in fall 2012, when the three small academies now on the campus will merge into a comprehensive high school.
"Seven point seven million dollars is an incredible investment in this school," Portland
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