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HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES 'Chartering' A New Course For High School Students By Ken Gewertz
Next year at this time, Michael Goldstein hopes to be welcoming students to his new public high school in Brighton-Allston. Known as the MATCH School (Media and Technology Charter High School), it will use film, computers, photography, and other media to teach students the basics and prepare them for college. The school will be small, with a population of no more than 160, and will require students to commit to an exted school day, stretching from early morning to dinnertime and sometimes beyond. "I see it as a trade-off," said Goldstein. "It will be a lot more work than traditional high schools, but it will be more fun and more interesting. Teens sp countless hours consuming media – wouldn’t it be wonderful if that time were constructive?" Goldstein got the idea for the MATCH School when he took a Graduate School of Education (GSE) course called Charter Schools: Threats or Opportunities for Public Education, taught by Katherine Merseth, lecturer on education, in the spring of 1998. At the time, Goldstein was a Master of Public Policy student at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), specializing in educational policy.Getting the Show off the Ground Goldstein came to education by an unusual route. A graduate of Duke University, he has worked as a journalist, writing articles on everything from basketball to Amish courting rituals. He has also worked in the theater. In the early 1990s, he was an assistant to Broadway producer Richard Frankel, handling finance, marketing, advertising, and other responsibilities on such shows as Marvin’s Room, Smokey Joe’s Café, and Stomp!. He sometimes discusses his school plans using theatrical metaphors, comparing the hiring of a principal and teachers for the MATCH School to casting parts in a play. "It’s the same idea: you need incredibly dynamic individuals and a diverse ensemble, as well as a long, intensive preparation to get the show off the ground." Goldstein is now struggling with the all-important problem of finding a venue for his production, having identified Allston-Brighton as the ideal location for the venture. He is looking for approximately 15,000 square feet and is willing to think creatively about making renovations or sharing space with a compatible organization. Merseth’s course, which combined a theoretical approach with nuts and bolts concerns like financing and legal issues, helped Goldstein resolve some of the contradictory ideas about public education that had been floating around in his head. He began to realize that under the Massachusetts charter school legislation of 1993 (amed in 1997), he could design and build his own high school. "Rather than try to change the course of the giant ship of public education, I could take a much smaller group of students and try to get them ready for college," he said. "It was a wonderful notion." Goldstein had lots of help designing his school. He went to Merseth, GSE Instructor Richard Weissbourd, and other experts for advice and spent many hours on the phone talking with media professionals, community activists, and parents of prospective students. "It was amazing to me how responsive people were to someone who was basically a stranger calling them up and saying, ‘Hi there, I want to start a new public school. Would you help?' " But of course, not every idea for a charter school gets the go-ahead. Goldstein’s proposal was one of five chartered this year out of a field of more than 30. He described the process as a rigorous one, ing with a brutal cross-examination by members of the Massachusetts Department of Education. "They attack all the weak points in your proposal, but that’s actually useful because it helps you shore them up later." Essential to Goldstein’s idea for the new school is its small size. His research convinced him that there was no proven large-scale method for helping at-risk kids to improve their school performance. "It’s depressing for the larger picture, but I became convinced that despite the hype, these large-scale ideas like buying kajillions of computers or installing metal detectors really don’t make students smarter or safer. The best way to turn kids around is on a one-at-a-time basis." Goldstein points to the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado as an example of what can go wrong when schools are too big and impersonal. "What it comes down to is that you have a lot of kids that no one really knows. The key to a good experience in school, I think, is having a relationship with a network of caring adults."Not a Trade School Technology is another important element of the new school, but Goldstein doesn’t see computers and other high-tech devices as a silver bullet that will save education. Nor did he design the MATCH School as a trade school to produce technology-savvy workers for the new millennium. "Technology does offer a lot of promise," Goldstein said, "but you can’t let the tail wag the dog. The goal isn’t to produce people who can design Websites, but to get them into college." Accordingly, the school’s first priority will be to teach mathematics, English, history, science, and foreign language, but teachers will have the option of teaching these subjects in innovative ways that employ media and technology. Asked how this process will work, Goldstein responds: "A group of students in a science class might be given the assignment of making a radio documentary about the solar system. A given student in that group might care less about the solar system, but creating the product will be fun, and that will promote learning." On the other hand, a teacher might decide that the best way of teaching a subject might be to use traditional methods, and that too will be acceptable within the context of the school, Goldstein said. "We’ll say to the teachers, ‘Here’s what the kids need to know. There’ll be a lot of flexibility about how to get there, but we’ll hold you responsible." Merseth, former director of the Interfaculty Initiative on Children, also has high expectations for the MATCH School. But as the mentor whose course on charter schools has stimulated not just Goldstein’s effort but a number of other entrepreneurial efforts in education, she takes a broader perspective. "One of the paybacks of teaching for me is seeing students achieve what they want to achieve. They have a lot of energy and enthusiasm and I’m glad I have the opportunity to help them," she said. Another of her former students, Evan Rudall, EdM ’97, founded Roxbury Community Preparatory Charter School, and other former students, like Goldstein, are working on similar projects, in various locations and various levels of completion. Weissbourd, a specialist in literacy who is affiliated with the KSG’s Wiener Center for Social Policy, is excited about the innovative teaching methods that the MATCH School will promote. "A lot of kids aren’t going to learn in the traditional ways, and so we have to find ways to make learning exciting through ways that they find exciting," he said. Weissbourd calls Goldstein "a very clear-headed, thoughtful person," and has high hopes for the school he is creating. "This is a school that I imagine will take off and have long waiting lists. I hope it becomes a flagship school," he said.
Copyright 1999 President and Fellows of Harvard College |
