Challenge sought for bright kids

With sanctions looming over schools not meeting goals on the Idaho Standards Achievement Test, plenty of money is being spent on helping struggling students.

But some teachers and administrators are concerned the focus on bringing those students up to proficiency is hurting students at the other end of the spectrum – students who are high achievers, or even students who are considered average.

“In the smorgasbord of education right now, the low-performing students are first in line,” said Jim Facciano, advanced learning coordinator for Coeur d’Alene schools. “As the line goes through the smorgasbord, by the time the top kids get to the table, there’s not a lot of food left.”

The Coeur d’Alene and Lake Pend Oreille school districts are both intent on bringing a new program to their high schools aimed at top students. Both want to offer International Baccalaureate diploma programs. Either could be the first in Idaho.

The internationally accepted diploma program is offered at nearly 1,300 schools worldwide, including 426 in the United States. Facciano said students who graduate with an IB diploma are often accepted by colleges as sophomores.

The program has six core academic areas: English, foreign language, science, math, history and the arts. Students also must complete an extended essay, take a Theory of Knowledge course, complete community service requirements and participate in extracurricular activities.

Coeur d’Alene’s school board in September gave Facciano the OK to send a letter of intent to apply for the International Baccalaureate program. This fall, district teachers and staff will attend IB seminars and conferences.

Superintendent Harry Amend said the board in November will hear recommendations from those who attend the conferences and “give a final yea or nay to funding” the IB. Most likely, Amend said, funding would come through a supplemental levy sent to voters next spring.

Coeur d’Alene could offer an IB diploma program by fall 2005. Only one of the district’s high schools will offer the program, Facciano said, because of the resources required. The other school likely will specialize in Advanced Placement courses.

The district has an open enrollment policy so students could move from one school to the other, and even students from outside the district may participate. Eventually, the district could offer an IB program for elementary and middle school students.

The Lake Pend Oreille District is trying to build up its Advanced Placement program before looking further into the IB program, Superintendent Mark Berryhill said.

Private donors have given $148,000 to do both, Berryhill said. The donors, including local businesses, wish to remain anonymous at this time, he said. If this year proves successful, Berryhill said the donors have pledged to continue funding the programs, which include an effort to enhance math and science programs at the elementary level.

Berryhill said it will be at least two years before Sandpoint High begins offering the IB program. This year, 10 teachers will be trained to teach AP courses. Next year, Berryhill said, 10 more will be trained for AP classes, plus another 10 for the IB program.

Both programs fall under the district’s so-called “Upper Quartile” program, which targets the top 25 percent of students.

“Data across the nation indicates that our upper quartile students show the least amount of growth,” Berryhill said. “That’s certainly true in our district. As a nation, we spend a lot of money on the middle and lower quartile students, but we don’t spend enough on the upper quartile.”

Berryhill said his statement might be construed as elitist, but that the reality is that the needs of upper quartile students aren’t being met.

Without a challenge or a push, Facciano said, above-average students often become average students.

“The number one motivator of kids is expectations,” he said. “You raise the bar. You say, ‘Look guys, you can do better.’ And they do.”

The IB program alone won’t meet the needs of all students, he said.

“There are still going to be kids who aren’t really IB material or aren’t interested in IB, but whose needs aren’t being served by the regular curriculum,” Facciano said. He calls those kids the “‘tweeners.”

Facciano said an advisory committee has surveyed students and parents on the district’s advanced learning programs and is forming a strategic plan for the next two to six years.

The Coeur d’Alene district has honors and advanced language arts classes for grades 7-12 and accelerated math for grades 6-12. They are working on adding honors language arts for the sixth grade and plan to add advanced courses in science and social studies.

Both high schools have honors and AP courses. Both recently started offering an academic Honors Academy. Lake City High also is offering a Fine Arts Honors Academy. Students who graduate from the honors academies receive special diplomas.

Most of the district’s current advanced learning programs admit students based on achievement, Facciano said. As the district reshapes its offerings, Facciano said there’s a move afoot to open the programs to more students.

“In our new approach, our improved approach, we are going to try and include some criteria for ability, not just achievement,” he said, “and find those underachievers who through boredom or the system have become average students.”

Coeur d’Alene’s Amend said a “truly great district” is one that provides remediation to students who need it and one that a student can’t drop out of. But, he said, it must also provide “academic rigor.”

“Until a district wears that badge, academic rigor that addresses the kids at the top, then it can’t call itself a great district,” he said.