Part I: Teaching for the Workplace PATRICIA CLARK IS THE CREATOR AND DIRECTOR OF THE
HEALTH AND BIO-SCIENCES CAREER ACADEMY IN OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA.ESTABLISHED IN 1985, CLARK’S HEALTH ACADEMY IS OAKLAND’S FLAGSHIP FOR AN EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENT CRISS-CROSSING THE NATION FROM PENNSYLVANIA TO CALIFORNIA.
CAREER ACADEMIES ARE SMALL, INNOVATIVE SCHOOLS OPERATING INDEPENDENTLY WITHIN LARGE, COMPREHENSIVE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS. THEIR IDEA IS TO REACH OUT TO YOUNG PEOPLE WHO ARE GETTING LOST IN TRADITIONAL EDUCATION AND TO
GIVE THEM A FRESH START. CLARK: ...those students would have been shut out of college preparatory curriculum. And that's the biggest crime in this country, for me. You
know, it -- it's capital punishment for kids who don't deserve it. We act as if students have to have chosen good parents to be successful in our education system. OAKLAND’S 28
CAREER ACADEMIES ATTRACTS STUDENTS BY OFFERING CONCENTRATED STUDIES IN PROFESSIONAL FIELDS SUCH AS HEALTH, BUSINESS, LAW, MEDIA, AND ENGINEERING..ONCE HOOKED, STUDENTS STAY MOTIVATED BY SEEING THE IMMEDIATE RELEVANCE
OF THEIR COURSE SUBJECTS AND BY THE CHANCE TO LAND PAID SUMMER INTERNSHIPS WITH LOCAL BUSINESSES. THESE INTERNSHIPS PROVIDE INVALUABLE WORK EXPERIENCE TO URBAN YOUTH AND POSITIVE CONTACTS WITH POTENTIAL EMPLOYERS. THEY
ARE GIVEN TO ACADEMY JUNIORS WHO MAINTAIN A “B” AVERAGE. PATRICIA CLARK IS PLAYING A MAJOR ROLE IN SPREADING THE ACADEMY CONCEPT THROUGHOUT THE OAKLAND SCHOOL DISTRICT. I CAUGHT UP WITH HER AT THE END OF A TYPICALLY
HECTIC DAY. SMITH: What’s the essence of the career academy? CLARK: It's a little red schoolhouse with a focus both on the future and on the present. Because students need more
than just the focus on the future. They need to know that the work they're doing right then matters, that it's quality work, that it's useful work that it -- it has an impact in their own lives and the lives of their
community. SMITH: Why did you start the health academy? CLARK: In 1985 when we first started, the district was really in disarray, there
had been a big report that came out of U.C. Berkeley that said in 19 years of looking at school districts, they had never seen a worse district and the CEOs, the local CEOs, this is very hospital intense area. There
were over seven hospitals in Oakland, came to the then superintendent and said we need some kind of program to help get kids ready for health careers. We can't hire your students. You know they -- the average graduate
graduated with less than a 9th grade education.They were hiring people who came in from over the hills. This was a very multi-ethnic community, that celebrates its diversity. But the hospitals were full of many white
people serving people of color. And so they wanted there to be something and they weren't too sure what it would look like. They wanted some kind of high school for the health professions. We were aware of the program
in Texas. We were aware of Philadelphia academies and we were looking around for what it could be. And there were two partnership academies in California at the time. And we thought the model made sense, the -- the
idea of the model was that you were going to have a -- a school within a school for students. The -- a smaller learning community but it was going to have a focus on careers which means I translate that to mean the
focus is on the dreams and aspirations of the students so that their learning was meaningful to them, that they could see where they were going. It was going to include opportunities for them to have internships in the
work place, have mentors. Which then means that there's a larger community caring for those students, that there's a lot of adults that they're involved in. And I remember saying to the principal two things at the
time. First question I asked him was: is this good for the school as a whole? He couldn’t really answer that and I had to go prove that to myself. And what sold me on it was talking to students in academies and
having them say to me how much -- you know just seeing their excitement, the sense of belonging that they had, the sense of focus that they had. And I also remember saying to the principal teachers are very isolated.
In the business world people tend to work in teams. They tend to work together. If we're going to create a society that's a sharing, caring society that can meet high standards, then we need a new way of looking at
school and this was going to be school that wasn't just in the classroom. It was going to take place in the work place, it was going to be in the community. And students were going to have a lot of adult role models in
their lives to inspire and help them persist. SMITH: Tick of the three of four key elements of your program. CLARK: Our focus is science
so there's a great deal of emphasis on science, mathematics, technology. We also offer English and history. So they're taking all the college preparatory classes, they're taking lab classes as well. And they're -- by
the time they finish most students have done between 200 and 500 hours of paid internships in the hospital. They've done a hundred hours of service learning. They've completed as much as six years of science when the
average student in this country takes two years of science. They've completed four years of mathematics when the average student in this country takes two years of -- of math. They’re very well prepared for whatever
future they chose. Both for entering in a high quality job because they have the job experience, and we work with employers so they know that. And they’re prepared for life-long learningAnd that's what we hope that
they discover, a passion for learning -- that the world of the future -- we don't even know all the jobs that are going to be there. Health -- health care is changing so rapidly. When we started in 1985, there were
over 2000 job categories at Kaiser hospital which is our -- a large hospital close to us. That's going down to 36 some because so much is team work, cross training now. You used to be a particular kind of technician.
Now you're a technician that could -- a clinical technician that can work in several clinical areas. And so the health care of the future is going to involve more home care with an aging population that we have. It's
going to involve more public health. It's -- as all the new technologies -- the types of technical skills that are needed in health care increase every single year we've been involved. SMITH: Is this a highly specialized education? CLARK: It's, no, it, it isn't a high stakes decision when a student chooses to enter a career partnership academy.
There should be both breadth and depth, there should be the opportunity for students to explore a great deal. And they should get transferable skills. I mean if -- if the student graduated from the health academy and
decided I want to be a lawyer, they're going to have had a rich education. But they're perfectly prepared to go and be a lawyer, they're perfectly prepared to go and be an engineer. SMITH: You get the depth with these double lab courses and extra English but where do you get the breath? CLARK: We get the breadth by exploring the whole range of
health care and by including health in our other subjects. For example in history, the history of surgery is just phenomenally fascinating to kids, you know. And I mean it -- it's gory, it -- it's varies in different
cultures. It's all kinds of things. So students can learn about the history of health care. They can learn -- they can read great health literature. And -- and argue important ethical issues. They can look not just at
how you do something but why you do something. They can look at multi-cultural issues around health care issues. This -- for example a speaker who was here yesterday, who was talking about organ transplants. So many
issues came up that were the kinds of things that make for great unit in English and history. SMITH: Industry says it's had to go from mass production to customized production,
Is that what you're saying about education. CLARK: I'm saying education has to do the same thing. SMITH: Can we as a society afford to
reshape our education that way... Even the city of Oakland, can it afford it? CLARK: It isn't a question of afford. It isn't more -- it isn't more costly to do this. It, we can't
afford not to do this. ...let's say there were no high schools and we had to design how we were going to educate and train our young people for success, for success now and for success in the future, we couldn't have
designed a worse system. High schools for most students in this country are places where there -- there's very little meaning in what the students are asked to do. The places where students don't feel cared for and
don't' feel a sense of connectedness. They’re places where students drop out from and they're voting with their feet.If we don't design a new way of learning, a new way of educating and training our youth, a new way
of engaging them in the community, then we're going to get the society we deserve. And we see it happening in other countries, we have to have it happening in America. Part II: Motivating Students for Success SMITH: What’s your dream? CLARK: That we graduate students who are well prepared for
college and for life long learning, that we graduate students who are well prepared for high quality entry level jobs. That we graduate students who are active and healthy citizens who are going to contribute to their
communities. That's the key objective. SMITH: Are there any academic requirements for the students to get in? CLARK: No. The main
entrance requirement is interest and we ex -- and we're also committed to taking the full range of students. We are very careful that we take -- we put a special emphasis on taking the students who need the program the
most.I mean when we first started there were six levels of tracking in this school, and we were taking mostly students from the bottom two tracks because everyone was worried we were going to cream the best students.
We felt they were all the best students. And if this was going to work, then let's serve the students who need it the most. Because those students would have been shut out of college preparatory curriculum. And that's
the biggest crime in this country, for me you know. It's capital punishment for kids who don't deserve it. We act as if students have to have chosen good parents to be successful in our education system, that they have
to come in well prepared before they even start schools to be successful. SMITH: Do you think all the kids do it? CLARK: Can all the kids
do it? Yes, all the kids can do it. I mean we try to talk -- tell students you don't have to have good grades to get in but you have to have high expectations of yourself. You have to have dreams of what you want to be.
SMITH: Is this a neighborhood school? What’s the core of the student body? CLARK: Our group is mostly students from the inner city. In,
at Oakland Tech we're approximately 60, 65 to 68% African American. I haven't checked exactly this year. Around 20% Asian, mostly south east Asian. About -- we have Hispanic students, we have Caucasian students, we have
Native American student or students, we have a couple. And then we have students who list themselves as “other.”And one of the things we've learned in being a -- a learning community is that the relationship of
students become very close and cut across ethnic and class lines. You know that -- that you do -- our students aren't just learning, book learning. And aren't just learning technical skills, they're also learning how to
survive in an international society. They're learning to have relationships with students of many different cultural groups, they're learning deep cultural understandings. I think it's part of getting ready for the work
force of the future. SMITH: What kind of commitment and obligation do you get from the student? CLARK: You don't have to be achieving to
get in but we're about achievement and so you do sign a contract and your parent signs a contract. SMITH: What’s in the contract? CLARK:
The student signs a contract that they will keep their grades up to a 2.5 or better. And that they will also have at least 90% on time attendance. Now we're... we don't think those are high enough standards. But we're
saying, we're starting where our students are starting and we're saying that we're expecting students to raise that bar and we encourage them to. But, but every student signs a commitment to that. SMITH: A lot of people describe the students who come in to the academy as at risk: low income, broken families, poor neighborhoods, lots of drugs. How would you describe them? CLARK: I think it's the wrong term. And the term -- SMITH: What's your term? CLARK: It changes sometimes but the -- it's --
it's disenchanted, it's away from the enchantment of education. I think the biggest thing I've learned from listening to students is that they want to be challenged, that they want to feel that what they're asked to do
in school is worth doing, that has connections with what they want for the future, that's meaningful work and that no one is expecting little of them. I've learned from students that -- that remediation doesn't work.
I've learned from students that they want to be challenged and supported to meet that challenge and that my students aren't any more at risk than any student in this country and -- and our students are capable of
excellence, every single one of them is capable of excellence. And -- and a lot of it is having adults that believe they are. And that don't lower the standards and that help and support and push them to meet those
standards. SMITH: ...an enchantment, what does that mean? CLARK: I mean anyone who loves books, you know who can remember that thrill of
a great book. Or anyone who loves learning or who fell in love with science or fell in love with history, that's enchantment. And we sell our kids short, especially in urban schools because they don't' have the supplies
sometimes, they don't have the books to read, they haven't had a chance, the opportunity to be exposed to the richness. They -- they haven't known how much education matters. How it opens doors to other ways of
thinking, to the whole world. I mean, I can go to Africa in my books. I can go other places. You want that for every student, you want them to know the power of education and you want them to be empowered. To do
whatever they want, to be whatever they dream. SMITH: What you seem to be doing is trying to make education relevant to the kids’ lives. CLARK: It is, it's a new way of looking at school. School doesn't just take place in the classroom. I can learn sociology of work in the hospitals. I can learn the history of technology in industry. I can
learn about -- a lot of vocabulary. I can learn the importance of math and science. So that it makes a difference, what I am studying in school. I can't learn that if I am just sitting in a classroom. SMITH: What are the keys to making education relevant to these kids? CLARK: What we know is that you don't learn things just answering those questions at the end of
the -- the book. So it has to be through an approach that's challenging, that poses problems and poses real problems to students, that there is still a high academic content to what they are doing but it -- it's a
focused effort around solving a question. Sometimes it's what you call, you've heard in -- in educational-ese, essential questions. You know where what are the essential questions we're going to try to solve here.
We're a health academy so one of our essential questions for several years was how do we improve the health care for students and their families at Oakland Tech. And then we could build curriculum around that. Where you
looked at the kind of things you could be doing in biology classes, the kinds of things you could be doing in a computer class, the kinds of things you could be doing in English. What sort of things could we be reading
that would help us think about some of those issues. Could we look in history classes at what other cultures do around that. And then we actually come together and do an integrated project that actually in this case
resulted in a school based health clinic now being at this school and its resulting in there being school wide health risk assessment that we're doing with our hospital partners. And is resulting in a new class next
year where students are health educators, and -- and health peer counselors. Is resulting in a student run health education center that we have students writing the business plan for right now. There's rich academic
content in all those things. There's ways to take all the things we need to learn but have them also result in something that's meaningful, that is of use, and that students value and take a sense of pride in.
SMITH: Does this kind of education take a special teacher or a teacher with a special attitude? CLARK: The biggest thing we learned about teaching
and working with kids is that it's true that if we're willing to re-think the -- the traditional role as the teacher as -- as the giver of knowledge to students and to put more focus on students as learners, as active
learners and teachers as coaches and facilitators, where students can take ownership and feel a sense of powerful craftsmanship about their work, that then achievement rises. That -- that it isn't this thing where
students just sit and listen to the teacher pour knowledge into their brains. That doesn't work. So it takes a -- a teacher willing to want to do that. It also takes a teacher willing to want to be part of a team.
Part III: A Community of Learning SMITH: You talk about a community of learning, what’s that mean?
CLARK: That means that we are supporting each others' collective aspirations that -- that we're willing to change and grow together. That this is where we all belong. We feel good about
each other, we celebrate each other's accomplishments. And, when I say we, it's not -- we're not just the teachers -- it -- that we feel that. The students and the teachers are in this together. But it's even bigger
than that. There's the industry partners, there's the mentors, there's the families, the parents are an active part of this too. SMITH: How important is your sense of family in
this academy to the way kids achieve? CLARK: It critical. I mean when we look at traditional American education as opposed to a sense of being part of the -- a smaller learning
community, the typical student in the past, they could be in a school of 3000 students. They can pass through never having felt known by an adult in that school. Never having anybody notice when they've shown growth in
something. You know, all they have to show for it is a report card that includes some successes, some failures.We know the difference between when a student’s moved from a C to a B in something and -- and we all talk
with them about it and it isn't just that if -- if I do well in Mr. Deleeuw’s class, it might be Miss Steele that's saying to me oh you really came up in physiology. That, that's part of it I mean. It -- it's, it's
right away paying attention to how students are doing. Celebrating their accomplishments. And -- and celebrating them together. And -- and paying attention when students are in need. And remembering that very often the
student who is resisting the most, isn't doing it because they're turned off to education, it's because they're afraid of not succeeding. And if we pay attention to that and -- and help the student learn to believe in
themselves and know that they can do it. They're capable of anything. SMITH: Is small size and intimacy an essential ingredient? CLARK:
It's essential that students feel known and cared for. If -- some of that is going to mean changing how we block time in schools so that teachers spend longer amounts of time with smaller numbers of students. Students
and parents have a right to feel that a teacher knows them well. Teachers are going to be -- to do a better job of teaching that young person and helping them be successful if they know them and can support their
success. They know what their strengths are, what the areas they need to work on...and that doesn't happen when I get you fifty minutes a day with 150 students every day. And you just pass through for a semester. And
you're on what they call the shopping mall school.... I guess what I’m saying is that students and parents have a right to feel that the student will be known and cared for.
SMITH: They have to believe in the kids... CLARK: When you're talking about students, I mean when you talked about students who many of whom live in single parent households or
many of them who haven't necessarily had professionals in their own home or people who go to work every day. Then yes those students -- it's important to those students to know that somebody believes in them. It may be
less important to the student who comes from a whole family and has had somebody telling them every day how wonderful they are. But -- but yes, for many of the students it is important that someone believes in them. It
doesn't have to be everybody and sometimes it can be a mentor from the work place. And sometimes it can be one teacher and sometimes it can be a neighbor. But you know for many of our students, I -- I guess that's true
that they need to feel believed in. And then they take it over and believe in themselves. SMITH: What do you say to a skeptic who says this sounds great. You make kids feel good,
you give them confidence, but it’s just a way of watering down education? CLARK: ...all our students can meet the standards of students in competitions around the country. You
know we -- we’ve sent students to national science competitions. We’ve sent students -- our students in this school -- when the Santa Barbara awards in engineering each year, our students in this school have been
national merit scholars. Our students can meet those academic standards but more than that, our students can do authentic performance. And by that I just mean our students can be involved in major community projects
where they’re making a visible difference in this community in positive ways. Our students can hold their own in the work place. And I challenge you to come in and visit a student in their internship, and except for the
fact that maybe they look a little younger, knowing that that student's an intern as opposed to somebody who works there all the time. Our students can meet the standards. They can raise the standards too.In 1988
when we graduated the first class from the health academy and it has continued since, over 80% of our students legitimately met the entrance requirements for hard four year colleges and they had the SAT scores to
legitimately get in, not as special admits. That's the kind of proof that people look for. SMITH: You've had ten years of graduating classes, how many of those kids actually
graduated and what percentage went on to higher education or the kind of jobs you'd like them to have. CLARK: We've had over 600 wonderful students go through and- and of them at
least 90% have gone on to community colleges, four year colleges or to good paying jobs.I don’t know of one of them -- I don’t know of one of them that’s in prison or on welfare. And I do know that they’re -- even
the students that maybe have a baby right now or maybe are working in a job that’s -- is an entry level kind of job. They still have aspirations. When they come to see me they're still going back to school, they're
still in school part time. They're -- they're actively involved in the community. Many of them are working in local hospitals, many of them are working for community based agencies. We have many students who not just
have graduated from college but are in medical school or graduate school. We have former students who are nurses. We have a student who's come back and been our mentor coordinator and our industry liaison, who is a
nurse who graduated from that first graduating class. We now have students who are teachers now in Oakland. SMITH: ...how does that compare with the typical Oakland city high
school graduate? CLARK: It's not just Oakland. It's the country. You know if, if right now in Oakland 60, only 65 % of the students who enter 9th grade graduate. And we can't
afford that. Not just in this community, but we can't afford this in this country. The average drop out now drops out of 9th grade. SMITH: And what about your kids? CLARK: They persist. You know they -- they've learned how to learn. They've learned how to work together as a team, they've learned the importance of finding other people who are studying
hard. They've learned how -- what we hope for them is they don't need us when they leave here. You know they -- they should be able to say not only did they not need us but they're also going to take responsibility for
others and help support them along the way. They -- they're models for others. SMITH: What was your most difficult moment. CLARK:
Sometimes it's very lonely trying to change a system. It's, especially when you've got a vision of what it could be. ... but my dream is that we have communities of learners for every student in this country. That every
student gets to feel cared for and supported toward success. That every student has opportunities to spend time in -- in work places and community environments where they learn that education really matters. Where they
have adults helping them serve an apprenticeship for adulthood. We can't just keep kids locked away in the great hormonal suit that tends to be our high schools where it's just pure culture that informs them. We need
students to realize that they can matter in the community that they can make a difference, that they have value and if they're willing to work hard enough that anything is possible. It isn't going to happen just in
classrooms. We need to have schools that have rich connections with industry partners, in opportunities for students to be part of the community, not locked away from it. SMITH:
Looking back over your 12 years with the academy, what's your greatest satisfaction, your greatest thrill? CLARK: Like any teacher, any teacher anywhere, there’s a lot of joy in
having students come back. You know there's a lot of joy in having students come and bring their children and -- and there’s a lot of joy in -- in having students come and tell their stories. The -- the kid who was
dyslexic who now has his masters in psychology and you know comes back. The young man who's been accepted to medical school but wants to come and teach for a year here before he goes. The young woman who read at the
fifth grade level, and it was the lowest level of general math as a tenth grader, but got accepted to Howard Medical school. Putting her on a plane, that's joy. But it's also joy to walk into one of the local hospitals
and see one of my former students who used to not have a place to sleep sometimes and used to ride his bike at night and be really tired here. And sometimes he had to miss school because he had to work, you know just to
eat. To walk into a hospital and see him working there. That's joy. Um there's joy every day. [Back to top] |
