WHAT IS THE SPCCS' "SECRET SAUCE"?
Or, more staidly put, what is the “Catholic School Advantage?”
It is generally believed that improved test scores lead to college and thus increased opportunities throughout student lives. While that is somewhat true - it is not true for all students, especially those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. Teaching test preparation, to the detriment of much everything else, just doesn't lead to long-term success.
Recent research is proving this point. In an American Educational Research Journal article, Lori Noll (University of Pennsylvania) reports on her study of a urban charter high school of over 400 students with a strong “college-for-all” ethos. The school’s leaders “considered student achievement the civil rights issue of our time and their purpose for existing,” says Noll, “assuming that improved test scores lead to college and thus increased opportunities throughout students’ lives.” After a seven-month ethnographic study of the school and a follow-up a year later, Noll concluded that there are “critical gaps in this logic.” The reason: students’ track record once they got to college. A year after the dramatic “signing day” ceremony in which hundreds of students in this charter network were lauded for their college plans, 13 of the 35 “focal” students Noll studied most closely as seniors were no longer enrolled in a postsecondary institution, six had transferred from four-year to community colleges, two had moved from one four-year college to another, and only one had transferred from a community to a four-year college. “For many middle- and upper-class students,” concludes Noll, “high test scores and college-going are expected side effects of a well-rounded education rather than its purpose.” 1
This is the SPCCS not-so-secret sauce; a well-rounded education for all.
SPCCS is a mission-driven school, not a tuition-driven school. The mission is to provide a well-rounded education to every child, regardless of their family’s economic status. SPCCS teachers do not teach to a test - they teach children how to become high-functioning members of society. While academic rigor and discipline are demanded and students encouraged to aspire to college, these outcomes are not demanded to the exclusion of all other aspects of student character and personality that are just as equally important to success.
Catholic education as provided by the teachers at SPCCS takes - and has always taken - a holistic approach. Here, children are taught to think critically, to follow their own pathway, act on their own beliefs and preferences as guided by the tenets of Catholic Social Teaching and the Gospel as regards why and how they make and implement their decisions. This approach develops the whole person and teaches the interactional skills, attitudes, dispositions, values and principles that students can use throughout their lives - in and outside the classroom- preparing them for post-graduate education and beyond.
Doesn’t your child deserve a heaping helping of the SPCCS Secret Sauce too? Learn more about the school here and our admissions process here. Then come by for a tour and see what we have to offer your family.
Taken from: Marshall Memo 950 “A Weekly Round-up of Important Ideas and Research in K-12 Education” August 29, 2022 http://www.marshallmemo.com and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAsLqNodYNk referencing: “Accountability and (In)Congruence in a No-Excuses School College-Going Culture” by Lori Noll in American Educational Research Journal, February 2022 (Vol. 59, #1, pp. 112-145); Noll can be reached at lorinoll@gse.upenn.edu