P.S. 124, Osmond A. Church Elementary School, Queens, New York

           Did Shakespeare hate women?

            The seventh-graders wondered. They had finished reading “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and they couldn’t agree. Heated arguments inspired the students to read more of Shakespeare’s plays to try to answer the question. Some ended up answering yes, some no, depending on which plays they relied on, but the end result was that the seventh grade of Osmond A. Church Elementary School, otherwise known as P.S. 124 in Queens, New York, spent a lot longer on the Shakespeare unit than had been planned by their teachers. “It took on a life of its own,” said principal Valarie Lewis.

            To interest twelve-year-olds in formulating such a question, and then allow them to push their teachers for more time to read and use primary documents as evidence, is a feat worthy of any school. But P.S. 124 is a school that would be written off by some as incapable of nurturing such intellectual discourse.

            About 40 percent of the students at P.S. 124 are African American, 23 percent Latino, and 33 percent Asian (mostly new immigrants from India and Pakistan). More than 70 percent of the students meet the requirements for the federal free and reduced-price meal program. Toward the outer edge of Queens, so close to Kennedy Airport that the planes sometimes sound as if they are landing on the roof (some at the school call it “Hanger Number 13”), P.S. 124 had almost 200 students from nearby homeless shelters in 2005-2006, though that number dwindled to about 30 afterward. With more than 1,000 students, the old brick building is officially overcrowded, which is reflected in the fact that it needs to have four lunch periods.

           To some those statistics would almost guarantee low academic achievement.

           And yet, as a result of steady improvement over a number of years, the school posts higher proficiency rates than the state as a whole and much higher than New York City.

           Read the rest of the story about Osmond Church School at http://www.achievementalliance.org/files/OsmondChurch.pdf.