The Revolutionaries of San Mateo

An amazing thing happened two weeks ago at Hillsdale High in San Mateo, Calif. Nearly a dozen ninth graders spent lunch in their history classroom to discuss, with great vigor, key strategies of various World War I battles. And they were doing it voluntarily. They crunched Fritos in between mentions of the Western Front, and gulped Gatorade as their peers spoke of trench warfare. The group referred to themselves as the British Army; in a week, they would be reenacting a WW1 battle on school grounds. The mock battle was part of a freshman history project, but for these kids who ditched lunch to talk history instead of play Grand Theft Auto, the assignment had clearly become all-consuming. Was their water-balloon arsenal big enough to soak their foes? "We'll all have to fill up our stockade at home," surmises a "general" in a Bob Marley T shirt. Will their squirt guns be powerful enough to drive "German" forces back into the eucalyptus trees lining Del Monte Street? "We can hold our guns at a slight angle for maximum squirt," offers a "lieutenant" in polka-dotted sneakers. The most fantastic aspect of this conversation was not that tap water would serve as bayonets. It was that a history lesson--the mere thought of which has lulled many a high-schooler to sleep on their desk--was engaging enough to drive Hillsdale's kids into battle.

This WWI campaign would have not been possible if it weren't for another battle: Hillsdale High vs. The Antiquated Public School System. Hillsdale is the latest experiment in American education, and is one of many large public schools that are adopting a smaller class system in hopes of ending a 30-year slump in U.S. high-school academic scores. It's quite a task, especially when one considers that Hillsdale, a school 20 miles south of San Francisco that draws from San Mateo's affluent hillsides and its industrialized flatlands, had the lowest AP test scores in the district less than 10 years ago.

The school of 1,200 wasn't being destroyed by drugs or gang violence. Like many big suburban schools around the nation, it was simply collapsing under its own weight. "It was near impossible to really reach the 300 kids moving in and out of our classes everyday," says history teacher Greg Jouriles, the man behind the war games. "The other teachers and I read about school reform in books like 'Horace's Compromise' and were talking about it. But reform usually happens in schools that are deeply troubled, and Hillsdale was not that. Still, we thought maybe it is possible to convert a suburban school."

And so began a teacher-led reform to turn Hillsdale into a public learning institution that would push all its students--not just the honor roll--to become high achievers destined for four-year colleges. In 2003, under the guidance of Stanford University's School Redesign Network and with the approval of the district, the teachers and administration began the task of cutting the school into three small, autonomous "houses" with four core teachers to every 100 students. They'd start with the ninth grade, and agree to adopt a common learning rubric in order to create consistency between subjects like algebra and social studies. To finance the reform, Hillsdale would sacrifice electives like ceramics and rely on a Small Learning Community (SLC) grant from the district. Then they would wait four years to see if their first class to graduate out of the new SLC system had really benefited from the radical conversion. 

By the time the Hillsdale class of 2007 threw their caps in the air, they had earned $2.6 million in scholarships over four years--the highest amount in San Mateo's Union High School District. Fifty percent of them met University of California eligibility requirements, a huge leap from the class of 2003's 16 percent. And as for the school's sagging test scores? They jumped too, from last place among the district's six high schools to third ("and rising," says English teacher Greg Lance). "I strongly believe this is a movement," says Lance, who helped lead the school's conversion. "Comprehensive high schools say we offer all this, and if your kid has the initiative, they'll find it. But what if they don't? That's why there needs to be an educational movement like a civil-rights movement. I think Hillsdale offers a lot of potential."

Nationally, smaller schools show some sign of higher graduation rates, but only a few schools like Hillsdale have shown significant achievements gains after making the change. Still, educators around the country are intrigued. Groups from as far away as New Mexico and Iowa tour Hillsdale to witness how a giant school can splinter--and thrive. It's even more impressive when visitors realize how diverse Hillsdale is, both socioeconomically and ethnically. Over 30 languages are spoken on the Hillsdale campus, and when you walk down the main quad at lunchtime, you'll find Pacific Islanders, Latinos, African-Americans, Anglos, Arabs, South Asians, Vietnamese and Bulgarians. "The idea was and still is to shrink the world of students and create more coherence," says Hillsdale principal Jeff Gilbert of the school's overall strategy. Gilbert was a teacher at the school before the conversion. "For the student, that means fewer teachers to interact with, and more time with those teachers. On the flipside, the teachers have more time to collaborate with each other. They have more time to meet and make much more individualized plans that are appropriate for each student. It's not rocket science. Talk to anyone about when they learned best, and it's when they knew and trusted the teacher and were engaged."