The+Metropolitan+Regional+Career+and+Technical+Center

= =

Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center District:State Operated School; main student source is Providence Author:Cynthia Kirchner



Introduction
The Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center, commonly called the Met.,is a unique school that inspired a dramatic change in schools across the country. It is only fifteen years old and it was founded on the ideas of an individual learning plan for students. The school uses a variety of different techniques to challenge, inspire, and encourage its students to do their best. The program is unique, one of only twelve and it was the original and prototype. This school requires that the student and their families submit an application to the MET to be considered to be a student. The school does not have as much structure as a "normal" public school would. They do not grade students by their tests and such but by a two page report about the student and their progress addressed to the parents from an adviser. The students' progress is evaluated by a board, through presentations of the student's individual portfolios. The school has about 29 students to every one teacher. It is a state run and funded school that is based out of Providence, RI. The Met is located in the Lower South Providence Region on Public Street. The school requires an application to get in and the school is required to accept seventy-five percent of its incoming class to be from the Providence area, and the remaining twenty from other areas around Rhode Island. This report is intended for the general public to view and evaluate the MET based on the data collected from various resources such as SALT surveys, Information Works.com and from the school's own home website. The report will evaluate the effectiveness of the unique program that is the Met, by looking at the demographics, academics, environment, and school climate.

Demographics and Academics
Since the population of the Met comes from all different places around Providence and Rhode Island on would suspect a great deal of diversity of ethnicity and backgrounds. As the student population is predominantly Hispanic, forty-three percent, White, twenty-eight percent, and African American, twenty-six percent, one could say the the population is very diverse. The population also includes two percent of each Asian and Native American students. The area of Providence that the school is located in is also a very diverse area, as compared to the rest of Providence. The poverty level, as indicated buy the percent of students participating in the subsidized lunch program, is relatively high, sixty-four percent eligible, as compared to the Rhode Island state average, of seventeen percent of the child population living under the poverty line. This indicates that the population of students would be under outside stress and might be a lower performing in academics as this is shown to be a leading factor in classroom difficulties. = = This graph depicts the rate at which students are meeting, or missing, the specific standards set by the state for achievement on the standardized testing. The graph clearly shows that while the students at the Met are mostly proficient in reading they lack proficiency in mathematics. The graph shows the achievements of the students by ethnicity as well as by poverty level, and shows what one would stereotypically think. That the impoverished students did better overall as well as the Caucasian population, while the African American and Hispanic students performed at a lower level of proficiency. This could be an indicator of outside education for the more financially fit families or a sense of discrimination by the establishment. However the latter is not indicated in any other data nor in any reviews that are available to the public.

The school is not making the improvements needed to meet the state requirements, in fact they are labeled as making insufficient progress by the state in their scores in Math and exceeding the standard in English Language Arts. The state set the bar at sixty-three point two for the math on the NECAP's (New England Common Assessment Program) and the school only achieved a forty-seven point one, in the English language arts department the state set the bar at seventy-five and the school achieved a seventy-nine on the test. The exam was taken by ninety-nine point four percent of the school's junior class which shows that these numbers are highly accurate, especially when one considers that the state only set the bar at ninety-five percent. Although the school is ahead of the bar, as compared to the state average they are far behind. The English language arts score for the state is eighty-five, and the school is even farther behind the state average score in mathematics, which is a sixty-six. despite these dismal numbers the graduation rate of the school is ninety-four point nine percent, with the bar at seventy-nine point two percent. This is a high rate of graduates from the program, especially considering the scores of the exams themselves, but not surprising considering the fact that the school's drop out rate is three percent below the state's drop out rate of sixteen percent. This could perhaps have something to do with the teachers as the atmosphere of the school it's self.

Environment and School Climate
The climate of the school can make or break a school, whether they are having problems academically, which sixty-eight percent of the student reported, if they can find themselves comfortable in the school they are more likely to succeed. While all parents, students, and other concerned members of society would rather not see any crimes or safety risks at all, the Met has relatively low scores. Fifty-one percent reported having personal issues or family issues, seventeen percent reported having been robbed on at least one or more occasions at the school, five percent reported that teasing/harassment was an issue, and ten percent reported that they were offered drugs for sale at the school. The overall school climate score for the school was eighty-one as compared to the state rating of sixty-seven, showing just how safe/comfortable the students are in the school.

The graph shows how the students view the climate of the school, how they feel while at the school. In general the students felt like there was the occasional negative interaction between students, but that the about or these interactions has gone down since 1998 but stayed the same from 2007. The students also believe that the establishment is enforcing the rules with more vigor since '98 and again stayed the same since '07. The teaching techniques, according to the students, has not changed at all since '98 according to the results of this survey. The students overall felt as though they had a decent quality of school life most of the time, according to the graph.

The school offers a special working program for the students to do work in the community or intern in the community for school credits, and sometimes pay. The school approves of the work and it is like a work release program in which they choose any field that they feel that they can gain valuable knowledge and wisdom for doing. This gets the students into the community learning if they want to do certain jobs and getting involved. The community is also rather involved as compared to other schools in Rhode Island.

Conclusion
The Met, while on the breaking edge of new methods and techniques in teaching is still a work in progress. This is not surprising considering the fact that the school is still extremely new in relation to other schools in the area.The school, although far behind in the academics is far ahead of many schools in school climate and safety. The programs may be developing in academics, and they certainly need to do so to meet standards, but they are creating a friendly and supportive environment for students, introducing them into the ways of the professional world through their internships and interests program.