HOW TO BUILD A BETTER HIGH SCHOOL

摘要

Morgan wilbanks was in for a series of shocks when he transferred to the Jefferson County International Baccalaureate (IB) School in Alabama at the beginning of his sophomore year. The little-known school near Birmingham, which tops NEWSWEEK's list of America's Best High Schools, is on the leading edge of a growing movement to make secondary education much more rigorous. Wilbanks, then 16, found himself taking tough courses right from the start. In his Advanced Placement (AP) European-history class, teacher Jeffrey Clayton gave startled students this initial assignment: memorize the map of Europe and be able to draw every country, along with 10 capitals, 10 rivers and 10 bodies of water. And that was just a warm-up. Clayton and other teachers told Wilbanks that he would be tackling nearly a dozen similarly demanding courses before he received his diploma. A few of the school's 325 students fled, prefer- ring a less strenuous life at a regular public-school. But Wilbanks, looking back this month a few weeks before graduation, says it was a "great experience" that prepared him well for the University of Alabama— where he'll major in chemistry and aim for medical school.