Fort Riley Ware Elementary School

            With a largely inexperienced staff, children under constant wartime pressure, and a largely absent or stressed parent body, Fort Riley’s Ware Elementary School manages to post very high proficiency rates on the Kansas state tests. “We’re the only school in Kansas that received Kansas Confidence in Education Certificate of Merit Awards for reaching the standards of excellence in grades three, four, and five on state reading and math assessments,” assistant principal Jennie Black brags. This is quite a turnaround from earlier in the decade, when Ware was identified by the state as one of the lowest performing schools in Kansas.   
            The story of how Ware has become such a highly functional school provides important insight into what it is that educators can do to exploit the factors they can control rather than bemoan those they can’t.