| 1/18/2008 3:00:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| CAPE GRANT: Fourth-grader Haley Consley, left, gets help with her math problems from Emily Kugler of Madison during an after-school tutoring program at Southwestern Elementary School on Thursday. (Staff photo by Ken Ritchie) |
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| Alex Buschermohle, a junior from Hanover College, helps fourth-grader Brandon Davis, with his homework. The program is possible because of funding from a CAPE grant administered by the Community Foundation of Madison and Jefferson County. (Staff photo by Ken Ritchie) |
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CAPE program making a difference
Pat Whitney
Courier Staff Writer
The results are in. And the news is good.
Education remediation efforts for at-risk children in the community, made possible by funding from the Lilly Community Alliances to Promote Education, or CAPE, are making a big difference in student performance.
And providing some side benefits as well.
"We know it's working," said Louise Markel, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Madison and Jefferson County, which manages the funds. "ISTEP scores are improving."
But improved student attitudes toward school are also raising eyebrows.
The foundation is in its third year of the five-year CAPE initiative.
CAPE supports tutoring programs in all nine elementary schools in Jefferson County: Lydia Middleton, Anderson, Rykers' Ridge, Canaan, Deputy, Dupont, E. O. Muncie, Southwestern and Pope John. Students who can't pass the ISTEP and who have been identified as struggling in one or more areas in the classroom are invited to participate in the program.
Principals agree that the one-on-one attention is driving the success. The program is so popular that at Southwestern, there's a waiting list of 10.
The CAPE grant provides funding for the $750,000 Jefferson County Learning Network, a program that helps about 300 elementary school children at risk of failing to keep up with their classmates.
"We are working on finding ways to continue the program after the grant expires and have created a new endowment with the $40,000 in investment earnings from the Lilly-funded CAPE grant," Markel said.
Schools provide the education intervention either during school hours or in after-school programs, as determined by each school.
Dupont and E.O. Muncie base their programs on the research-based and widely-used Voyager instructional package. Voyager provides effective instructional materials with diagnostic and performance measurement tools that make tracking student progress and communication with parents much easier, according to a site visit report by the CAPE committee.
"Clearly, the Voyager is an asset to the intervention," said Karlyn Lamb, principal at both Deputy and Dupont elementary schools. "We were told that we would get results with the CAPE-funded intervention and it was true. Without Voyager, we would be very hard-pressed to help students get the proficiencies they need."
At Deputy, where his third-graders had historically done well on the ISTEP, last year only about 40 percent passed. After the pull-out tutoring sessions during the day, the number of students passing this fall jumped to 66 percent.
"I would like to see that number increase to 80 percent next time around," he said.
The program at Deputy serves 16 to 20 children. At Dupont, at-risk students in grades two through four receive the tutoring five days a week for about 120 days. An instructional assistant meets with a maximum of four students for the 40-minute sessions during the school day.
The CAPE steering committee, which makes regular site visits, reported that the programs were successfully assisting many students in need of remedial attention who might otherwise have gone unserved. It concluded that the approach of treating each school as a unique learning community appeared to be working well.
The schools use CAPE funds to fill gaps in Title I and other federal and state programs. Funding amounts vary each year according to the changing socio-economic or academic status of each school. Primary fiscal challenges in each school include finding a balance between providing transportation, staff and instructional materials. The schools are continually refining their programs based on a comparison of various test scores throughout the year and a reassessment of individual students' deficiencies.
After school at Southwestern Elementary each Tuesday and Thursday, there's a buzz of activity in the cafeteria and in a few of the classrooms and even in a hallway - any place where 35 students and their tutors agree on a spot that's conducive to learning.
"We work hard to match the tutor with one, two or three students that we feel would work well together," said Principal Miriam Matthews. "Tutors consist of middle and high school teachers, Hanover College students, retired teachers and members of our staff. And the 10 college students are not necessarily education majors."
Hanover College junior Seth Blakeslee, of Milford, tutors fifth-grader Brendon Smith twice a week - and not just to satisfy in-service requirements or at the suggestion of his fraternity Lambda Chi Alpha, which promotes community service, he says.
"I'm always taking and getting," said Blakeslee, a theology major who plans to do mission work as an optometrist. "I wanted to give back and thought this was a good way."
Seventh-grade teacher Laura Chitwood is one of several teachers who tutor after a long day of teaching. She finds extra benefits from helping Heath Harper, Slater Franklin and Daniel Earle do their homework and working with the Houghton Mifflin Voyager after-school curriculum and test-ready materials.
"It makes it nice when you know the students and their struggles by the time they get to the middle school," she said. "And, for them, it helps erase the fear factor of moving up in school when they see a familiar face."
Harper, 11, and many of the other students being tutored say they enjoy the one-on-one attention. All seem to find comfort in the consistency of having the same person sitting at the same table at the same time twice a week.
"It really helps improve my grades," he said. All agreed that getting their homework done with help from a teacher was a plus.
Matthews said a transportation issue last year has been resolved.
"Thanks to Title One grants this year, two buses provide transportation to get the students home," Matthews said. "Many of the children who are in the program wouldn't be able to attend if their parents had to pick them up. Some don't have cars. Some of the students live as much as an hour away."
CAPE funding at Pope John allows the school to hire a licensed teacher to provide remediation in English, language arts and math, focusing on Indiana standards.
"Students who did not pass the ISTEP last year and later had tutoring all passed on the next attempt," said Pope John faculty program coordinator Colleen Burdette. "Last year, we also served students who scored within five points above on the ISTEP. But this year, we've revised that bubble to include students who scored 10 points above. We are not only interested in making sure that students just pass the ISTEP, but that they continue to make progress.
"We know that the tutoring is working - not only from improved test scores, but also we find that the students are happier and have more confidence in their abilities," she said. "There was one boy last year who continually struggles in the classroom and doesn't really like school. He had such a positive experience with his tutor who, by the way, was going to be his teacher this year, that he couldn't wait to continue learning from her.
"That experience being successful - just for an hour - carries over to the next year and beyond. Just a little success can build up and go a long way."
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