“The Rise of the Phoenix”: Empowering Learners to Create Their Own Learning Cultures and Transform Their School

Cynthia McCallister

doi:10.1177/1056787921991513

“The Rise of the Phoenix”: Empowering Learners to Create Their Own Learning Cultures and Transform Their School

Cynthia McCallister

Teaching and Learning

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

An account of a persistently failing New York City high school’s rapid transformation. Urban Assembly School for Green Careers had a 39% graduation rate in 2013 and ranked in the bottom 1% of high schools citywide. As a transformation strategy, the school employed an innovative educational design known as Learning Cultures, which distributes responsibility for learning to learners. After the first year of implementation the graduation rate rose by 11%. After two years of implementation the school received a “well developed” rating on its external quality review. After 4 years the graduation rate doubled. This report describes the school design and provides an account of educational outcomes.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	379-394
Number of pages	16
Journal	International Journal of Educational Reform
Volume	30
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/1056787921991513
State	Published - Oct 2021

Keywords

academic achievement
achievement gap
curriculum reform
professional development
school culture
school reform
school turnaround
self-organized learning
urban education

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Education
Social Sciences (miscellaneous)

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10.1177/1056787921991513

Cite this

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title = "“The Rise of the Phoenix”: Empowering Learners to Create Their Own Learning Cultures and Transform Their School",

abstract = "An account of a persistently failing New York City high school{\textquoteright}s rapid transformation. Urban Assembly School for Green Careers had a 39% graduation rate in 2013 and ranked in the bottom 1% of high schools citywide. As a transformation strategy, the school employed an innovative educational design known as Learning Cultures, which distributes responsibility for learning to learners. After the first year of implementation the graduation rate rose by 11%. After two years of implementation the school received a “well developed” rating on its external quality review. After 4 years the graduation rate doubled. This report describes the school design and provides an account of educational outcomes.",

keywords = "academic achievement, achievement gap, curriculum reform, professional development, school culture, school reform, school turnaround, self-organized learning, urban education",

author = "Cynthia McCallister",

note = "Funding Information: I would like to express my appreciation to Richard Kahn, founder of The Urban Assembly network, and Jon Greene, former Director, who spearheaded the McCallister-Learning Cultures Initiative, and for the Petrie Foundation, and former director Beth Lief, for providing funding support for the Learning Cultures Initiative. I would also like to acknowledge Kerry Decker, principal of Green from 2013-2016, and Maddie Young, the principal of Green from 2016 to the present, for their competence in leading the implementation of the Learning Cultures model in a highly challenging urban school context. The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2021.",

year = "2021",

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doi = "10.1177/1056787921991513",

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“The Rise of the Phoenix”: Empowering Learners to Create Their Own Learning Cultures and Transform Their School

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