The Lantern

10/17/07

By Mark Miller

Imagine a high school where students are not called freshmen or sophomores because that indicates “butt time in the seat,” as President and CEO Carl Kohrt of Battelle said.

Imagine a high school where students have a say in how the school is run, so they are not just what Kohrt calls, “chickens in a coop.”

Imagine a high school where students are not graded on problems, but on their mastery of the subject they are studying, because the real world is not just about science or arithmetic problems.

Now imagine this school actually exists. Metro High School, located on Kenny Road in Columbus, opened its doors in the fall of 2006, the realization of a goal shared among Ohio State, Battelle and the Educational Council.

Metro is a small, public high school that emphasizes math, science and technology, commonly referred to as STEM education. Metro is dedicated to preparing its students for college, and in the process is striving to be a “catalyst for change,” Kohrt said.

“We want this to be the start. Ten years from now, we want 50 schools who can claim their roots from the Columbus Metro School,” he said.

Metro is already on its way to realizing this goal, said Marcy Raymond, Metro’s principal.

“The state of Ohio House Bill 119 has considered funding five additional STEM high schools,” Raymond said. This came after the state studied several STEM schools around the country, including Metro.

The “change” Kohrt refers to is the way Metro students are taught.

“Everything is designed to make learning relative to (the students),” Kohrt said. “It’s the idea of relevance, and then integration.”

Metro requires 11th and 12th graders to spend time in the community learning outside their classrooms. This includes independent or group research projects and community internships at “learning centers” around the community, including OSU, the Columbus Museum of Art and even Battelle’s laboratories, Kohrt said.

This unique style of education can certainly be attributed to Metro’s successful beginning, but not enough can be said about the students who attend.

“Students are progressing even faster than people anticipated under the self-paced curriculum,” said Joseph Alutto, executive vice-president and provost of OSU. “The students are responding extremely well, regardless of where they’re from.”

Raymond said Metro is open to students in any of Franklin County’s 16 school districts, with the largest number of enrolled students coming from the Columbus Public Schools.

In Metro’s first year, 190 applications were received for the new freshmen class of 100, according to a report given to the Board of Trustees by David Andrews, dean of the college of Education and Human Ecology. In its second year, Metro received 300 applications for 100 freshmen spots.

Applicants are chosen by lottery in keeping with the school philosophy that it will teach all ability levels.

“One of the primary determinants for student applicants is whether they and their parents agree that the goal is to get to college,” Kohrt said.

Metro School began almost as a coincidence.

“Involved in (Battelle’s) founding purpose was the idea to use science to solve problems and then return our money to the community, especially to education,” Kohrt said. Battelle, an international science and technology enterprise, has provided many of the financial resources Metro School needed to start up and is involved in developing the curriculum as well.

“Five years ago, we realized we had done a lot, but with no strategy,” he said. “We put together a strategy at that point for using our experience, knowledge, and money in starting interesting math and science K-12 programs.”

At the same time, Andrews and former university President Karen Holbrook were working on developing a high school outreach program.

“By coincidence, I was sharing ideas with Karen (Holbrook) and a seed grant had just been given by the Gates Foundation to the Educational Council,” Kohrt said.

The Educational Council is a partnership of the county’s 16 school districts.

The three parties became partners and in January, 2006, unveiled their plan for Metro High School. Since then, “the Metro School has become a unique model for education,” Alutto said.

The future of Metro School looks bright. John Ong, an Ohio State trustee, reported at the latest board of trustees meeting that after touring several similar schools around the country with a Gates Foundation group, Metro School was perhaps the best model of what needs to be done.

“My personal measure of success is whether the outcome will have impact,” said Kohrt, “(and) I think this is something myself and others involved will be very proud about in the future.”

Mark Miller can be reached at miller.3837@osu.edu.miller.3837@osu.edu

 

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