Best Practice High School
 
 
 

In the once-infamous Horner Homes area of Chicago's near west side, an experiment in public secondary education is unfolding in the shape of Best Practice High School. With fewer than 500 students, interdisciplinary thematic instruction, and teacher leadership, Best Practice is a radical departure from the typical urban public high school.


Richard Riley, former Secretary of Education, could have had Best Practice High School in mind as his model when he called for changing the American high school to fit the needs of today's youth and today's society:

"High school teachers. . . have to be given the opportunity to raise their professional standards. They have to be masters of their field whether it is history, physics, technology or music. . . . I also believe that we need to find ways to create small, supportive learning environments that give students a sense of connection. That's hard to do when we are building high schools the size of shopping malls. . . . We can create schools-within-schools. . . and make sure that every high school student has an advisor for all four years that the student can count on all the time."

Best Practice provides students with just such advisors through a lunch-time advisory period. During the advisory period, 15-18 students meet with a teacher for 30 minutes to discuss student progress and any problems. Students are selected to attend Best Practice by lottery, with students from the Best Practice network schools getting first priority. The network feeder schools have all been working with National-Louis University faculty for several years under Joyce Foundation and Annenberg Challenge grants to implement teacher development and parent involvement programs. About 25% of students come from the surrounding neighborhood and nonnetwork schools across the district. Most of these applications stem from recommendations by counselors or parents. Almost two-thirds of the school's students are African American (62%), and over a third are Hispanic (35%). Most of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch (76%).