Henry Ford Academy: Awards and Recognition
2005 National Charter Schools Week Celebration
Henry Ford Academy was chosen as one of eleven exemplary charter schools nationwide to host a visit from senior U.S. Department of Education officials as part of a national effort to highlight the contributions of public charter schools.
2002 Governor's Cup Award
The Academy received this award, given each year to the high school in each athletic league in the State that has the highest percentage of Merit Award winners among its graduating seniors. Students earn Merit Awards for exemplary performance on the MEAP.
2002 Administrator of the Year
Academy Principal Cora Christmas won the Michigan Association of Public School Academies' (MAPSA) "21st Century Miracle Worker"Award for her administrative style and vision that bring real-world experiences into Academy classrooms.
2002 Governor's Excellence in Practice Award
The Academy received the Michigan Governor's Excellence in Practice Award for its Senior Mastery Process (SMP).
2002 Dissemination Grant Award
The Academy received a grant from the State of Michigan to disseminate its best educational practices.
This grant was used to provide a several free conference sessions in conjunction with the annual statewide charter school conference. Sessions focused on developing community partnerships and linking learning to the real world.
2001 Summit Award
The SMP also received a Michigan Association of Public Schools Summit Award for its strong links between the classroom and the real world.
2001 NCA Accreditation
In April of 2001 the Academy was granted full accreditation from the North Central Association, which was renewed in April of 2002 and 2003.
2001 MacConnell Award
The Academy, along with architect Steven Bingler, was awarded the James D. MacConnell Award by the Council of Educational Facility Planners International.This international award recognizes an educational facility for outstanding community involvement and innovative planning and design.
2001 Innovative Curriculum Development Program Grant Award
The Academy received funding from the State of Michigan to develop the ninth grade curriculum and to document its development and implementation process for State Department of Education officials.
2000 Michiganian of the Year
The Detroit News named the Academy's Chairman, Steven K. Hamp, Michiganian of the Year, in part for his role for designing and implementing the Academy and its role in national educational reform.
1999 NAB Distinguished Performance Award Finalist
The State of Michigan chose the Academy as its nominee for the National Alliance of Business Distinguished Performance Award.
1997 U.S. Department of Education
Technology Innovation Challenge Grant The Academy works with the University of Michigan's Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education (in the School of Education and College of Engineering) as part of the Primary Sources Network (PSN).The PSN is a program funded by the Technology Innovation Challenge Grant program, and is focused on incorporating the use of museum objects and other primary sources into classroom teaching and learning, especially in science and social studies with the Academy as a model. Schools across the country use these two courses, which use the Academy curriculum as a model.
Educational Model
Henry Ford Academy is a public charter high school created by Ford Motor Company, The Henry Ford, and the Wayne County (Michigan) Public Schools. It was launched in 1997, and currently has 500 students in grades 9-12. Located on the campus of The Henry Ford, the Academy is the nation's first charter school developed jointly by a global corporation, public education, and a nonprofit cultural institution. Designed with the mission of preparing students to meet the challenges of the 21st century, the Academy is an innovative curriculum and performance assessment centered model for education reform.
The Academy's ninth-grade Museum Campus is located among thousands of irreplaceable artifacts on the nine-acre Museum floor and includes classrooms, two labs, a multi-purpose room and lockers. The tenth-, eleventh- and twelfth-grade Village Campus is located three-quarters of a mile away in Greenfield Village, whose eighty-five developed acres accommodate one of the most significant collections of historic structures in North America. The Village campus has classrooms for three grades of staff and students, including twelfth-grade classrooms that are located inside train cars, science and computer labs, a dining hall and satellite library. Classrooms have moveable walls and are fully wired for technology and laptop access. The Academy shares common spaces, such as a 600-seat theater, a multi-media facility, outside spaces for physical education and student activities, and parking with the Museum.
The work to prepare students to meet new and often unforeseen challenges requires a distinct and innovative approach to teaching and learning. In addition to attending school in a specifically designed learning environment that directly reflects our teaching and learning philosophy and experiencing a curriculum based on the infusion of extraordinary primary sources in the Museum and Village, HFA students are responsible for conducting themselves appropriately while being in constant view of the public and with daily access to irreplaceable artifacts. This responsibility, and the trust and expectations that accompany it, is often cited by parents and teachers as a critical element in preparing Academy students for success in college and the working world. The Academy's mission is four-fold:
Five Developmental Areas
From its inception, Henry Ford Academy was designed to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to succeed and flourish in both higher education and our global economy. To better define this, the Academy design team embarked on an extended series of interviews and conversations with teachers, university professors, Henry Ford Museum staff, educational researchers, and professionals from Ford and other businesses about the kinds of student outcomes they would like to see from an ideal high school. The data from this exercise were then matched against leading edge educational research in this area. The result was the creation of what we call the Five Developmental Areas, which represent the knowledge and skills student are expected to have acquired upon graduation:
1. Academic Content. The curriculum provides rigorous, college-preparatory content to all students in core disciplines of math, science, language arts, and social studies, as well as in the areas of art, drama, foreign language, and the Senior Mastery Process.
2. Technology. Students use technology as a tool to learn, work, and accomplish tasks, not only through the use of hardware and software but, more importantly, they learn how to make decisions about the appropriate technology to use for the task at hand.
3. Communication. Oral and written communication skills are reinforced through the Academy's performance-based learning approach, which involves students demonstrating mastery through a variety of means: presentations, group projects, discussion, written materials, and tests. Teamwork teaches students the flexibility and tolerance that comes from working with a diverse group of people to accomplish a task.
4. Thinking and Learning. The Academy focuses on helping students develop critical thinking, problem solving, and lifelong learning skills, as well as the ability to apply what is learned in the classroom to the real world. Academy students develop an understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses in learning through extensive opportunities for personal reflection, enabling them to transfer what they have gained to new situations and challenges.
5. Personal Management. Taking responsibility for one's actions, managing one's time wisely, and presenting oneself in a professional manner (including being in dress code and wearing badges) are all expected and required of every student. This area is particularly important as the Academy is literally located in the public eye.
Student Demographics
By accepting students through a random lottery process with no entrance requirements other than Wayne County residency and the eligibility to enter ninth grade, the Academy draws students from diverse cultural, educational, and economic backgrounds. Sixty-five percent of Academy students come from Detroit, while the remaining 35% represent 26 of the 34 communities in Wayne County, making it one of the most diverse high schools in the Michigan. The Academy receives nearly five applications for every available ninth-grade slot, and maintains a waiting list for grades nine and ten. Students are chosen via random lottery; as a result, the entering ninth-graders students have attended more than 65 different public, charter, private, and parochial middle schools, or were home-schooled, giving them a wide range of previous educational experiences. In fact, more than 70% of Academy ninth-graders enter the school with math proficiency scores below grade level, 65% enter with reading proficiency scores below grade level, and more than 50% of entering students have below-grade-level scores in both math and reading. Despite this deplorable lack of academic preparation, 88% of Academy graduates have been accepted into post-secondary institutions.
By Michigan law the Academy is not allowed to provide transportation for its students. Many students take public transportation, others are brought by parents/guardians, and some carpool with students who have cars. Considering the lack of provided transportation and the geographical spread of Academy students, we are particularly proud of our daily average attendance rate of 96%. Academy students report their ethnicity as follows:
- 66% African American
- 23% Caucasian
- 4% Hispanic American
- 2% Middle Eastern American
- 1% Asian American
- 1% Native American, and
- 3% of students consider themselves to be "multi-cultural"
Helping All Students Succeed
It is crucial that the Academy provide all students with highly structured programs to facilitate their ability to catch up or accelerate beyond their expected grade level. The Academy has implemented a remediation program for students with skill deficiencies in math and reading. Activities include school-day classes in basic math and reading/writing skills and an after-school program. While the majority of students enter the Academy with below-grade-level proficiency in math and reading, some students do score at the top of the charts. These students have the opportunity to participate in the ACE (Accelerated Curriculum Experience) Program, which allows student to take higher-level math, science and language arts classes and spend more time in dual- enrollment classes as juniors and seniors.
Building Community through Partnerships
A strong sense of community has been created within the Academy that values tolerance, compassion, diversity, and learning, as well as a community of support outside the school. Academy classes take place among the exhibits in the 9-acre Museum and 80 historic structures on the Greenfield Village campus. Partnerships with Ford Motor Company and The Henry Ford, as well as with other organizations, including universities and governmental agencies further integrate Academy students within a broad learning community.
The Academy's partners, Ford Motor Company and The Henry Ford, have committed significant resources in the form of employees who volunteer their time as adult partners, guest lecturers, curriculum developers, and Board of Directors members. The Ford Motor Company Fund contributed financial resources for planning, start-up and operational programs. Other institutions, including Wayne County RESA, the University of Michigan, the College for Creative Studies, and Lawrence Technological University have made a significant commitments to the Academy by supporting the development of the innovative curriculum, providing unique learning opportunities for students and helping students see educational goals beyond high school. A substantial number of local government and community organizations, from the City of Dearborn mayor's office to the public library, have also contributed to the success of the Academy. Parents also play a significant role in building the Academy community.
Making the Connection Between the Classroom and the Real World
Ford and Museum employees and members of the community interact with the Academy staff to develop projects that will help students make the connection between they learn in the classroom and how it applies in the real world. This experience culminates in the Senior Mastery Process in which all students prepare for and complete an extended exploration of their career interests, design and conduct a substantial action research project, engage in an internship associated with that research, and present their findings in a formal defense.
With some guidance, students are responsible for finding their own adult partners, no small task for seventeen-year-olds. All Academy graduates have completed the rigorous Senior Mastery Process, even those designated as having special needs. Academy seniors have secured placements in more than 400 companies over the past five years, in such diverse areas as in hospitals with physicians, nurses and midwives, with law, high-tech and art and design firms, with local radio station as DJs and music producers, in educational institutions from elementary schools to universities, with governmental agencies from HUD to the U. S. Military, athletic training with The Detroit Lions, and with our partners, Ford and The Henry Ford.
History and Background
The Henry Ford Academy has a unique history, distinctive founding partnership, and extensive portfolio of results that distinguish it from other models in the national education reform landscape.
History Is Bunk
In 1916, Henry Ford uttered the phrase "History is more or less bunk" while testifying in a libel lawsuit against a major urban newspaper. Seizing on the opportunity, opposing counsel misconstrued this remark in newspapers around the world, suggesting that Ford did not see the importance of history, and opposed the teaching of history in school. In fact, Ford's statement was referring to history textbooks of the era, which were confined to a memorization of wars, treaties, and an endless series of dates. Henry Ford felt that the teaching of, and learning about, history had to include some understanding of the people, lifestyles, and values of the time, and that history should be experienced. To Ford, a true education could not take place behind schoolhouse walls, but must instead be hands-on and make a connection with the real world. Ford was so ridiculed for the phrase that he decided to respond by creating a collection of artifacts that illustrated the importance of American experience and ingenuity. In 1929, he created a high school on the site of this collection to allow young people to learn about and experience American history first-hand.
These early efforts became The Edison Institute (named after Henry Ford's great friend Thomas Edison) and blossomed into a K-12 school system. As the collection continued to grow, it became clear that the artifacts had value beyond their use in a K-12 school system, and The Edison Institute was renamed The Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village.Today it is known simply as The Henry Ford. This early school system reflected Henry Ford's firm belief in the concept of learning through doing, which he believed encouraged innovation and ingenuity more than mere book learning.
The Edison Institute
The Edison Institute was a unique 40-year educational experiment that tested Ford's theories about learning by doing, connecting education with the real world, and learning within a community. During this time, the K-12 Edison Institute flourished inside a major cultural organization that attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. Students took science classes in Edison's Menlo Park Lab, practiced agricultural science on a working historical farm, and learned of the history of flight in the Wright Brothers Bicycle Shop where the first working airplane was built. They also made extensive use of the surrounding Ford Motor Company facilities, as engineers, machinists, designers, and other Ford employees interacted with students. All the while, a great deal was discovered about object-based learning, about how students learn best outside the traditional schoolhouse, and more specifically, about how a cultural organization can support formal education. Unfortunately, The Edison Institute closed in 1969, and for more than 25 years the lessons learned lay dormant in the archives of the Museum & Village.
Reconnecting With Our Past: The First Henry Ford Academy
Discussions about starting a high school based on The Edison Institute and using the vast resources of the community began among senior staff at The Henry Ford, Ford Motor Company, and Wayne County Public Schools in 1995. These three respected, powerful and resource-rich organizations took a risk and joined together in 1996 to resurrect this notable educational experiment. The lessons learned from The Edison Institute experience were reviewed and updated, reflecting current best practices and innovation. However, the core issues remained the same.They include:
- How can the concept of "object-based learning" support an academically rigorous, holistic high school experience?
- How can communities break free of the "900 square foot" mentality of the traditional classroom and change the notion of where "school" takes place?
- How can student learning be linked to the real world?
- How can education be genuinely connected to the community, making "public" education a truly public endeavor?
"Life is a process of education. The result of that education is what we call experience.
Or, to say it another way, education is what remains with us at the essence of experience.
The earth is the schoolroom in which the work is carried on. Whatever else we may call
education, in whatever other schoolrooms it may be pursued, if it does not give
experience or help us to analyze and profit by experience, it is not education."
-- HENRY FORD, 1937
- How can cultural organizations, as prominent members of urban communities, be a part of the answer to these questions?
- And, most importantly, how can a model be created that is specific enough to take advantage of particular community resources, yet universal enough to be replicated in and personalized by communities around the nation?
Thus began the Henry Ford Academy, the nation's first charter high school developed jointly by a global corporation, public education, and a nonprofit cultural institution. The Academy is currently entering its eighth year of operation, and has 440 students in grades 9-12. The ninth grade campus is located in glass walled classrooms among the exhibits of the Henry Ford Museum. The Museum's nine-acre exhibition area houses exhibits that document 300 years of American life in the areas of industry, transportation, communication, agriculture, decorative arts, and domestic life. Museum artifacts include the Kennedy presidential limousine, Ford's first vehicle, the chair in which President Lincoln was assassinated, one of the original copies of the Declaration of Independence, and the Rosa Parks bus. The tenth-, eleventh- and twelfth-grade campus is located three- quarters of a mile away in Greenfield Village, whose eighty-five developed acres accommodate one of the most significant collections of historic structures in North America. The Village has more than ninety historic buildings, including Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratory complex, the Wright brothers' home and bicycle workshop, and a courthouse where Abraham Lincoln practiced law. Surrounding the Museum and Village are the Ford Motor Company's World Headquarters and global Product Development Center, with over 50,000 employees, as well as the University of Michigan-Dearborn and the Henry Ford Community College.
Scope Sequence
Scope sequence details in PDF format.
Academy Design Framework
The original Henry Ford Academy, launched in 1997, is a public charter high school that combines the strengths and resources of The Henry Ford, Ford Motor Company, and Wayne County Public Schools. Widely acclaimed for its design and careful preparation of college-ready students, additional Academies are now being planned for selected major U.S. cities. Each Henry Ford Academy will be based on the following design framework.
Partners In Learning
Central to the design of a Henry Ford Academy is the commitment to public school as the center of a tightly knit, growth oriented community. The business and community partners of the Academy are critical to its ultimate success. These partners bring together their financial, material and human resources to support the development of powerful, authentic learning experiences for students, and by extension, the further enhancement of their own organizations. Academy partners provide students with work-based tools, projects and contexts; contribute time and experience through mentoring, tutoring and serving as Adult Partners in the Senior Mastery Process; and support a wide variety of core and co-curricular programs. Most significantly, the host institution shares its physical space and overall professional community with staff and students on a daily basis. The strategic use of shared resources enables both the Academy and the contributing partner institution to identify and take advantage of underutilized community assets.
Public School in a Public Space
Academy students learn in a real-world environment that deeply embeds the school within a content-rich public setting. HFA Dearborn students attend classes and participate in learning experiences in the midst of The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, an open environment containing millions of irreplaceable artifacts and documents, and 1.6 million visitors and over 1,500 employees and volunteers. Students and teachers interact daily with the objects, exhibits, historical presenters and curators that form the essence of The Henry Ford. This content-rich environment provides students with the opportunity to work with and learn from the myriad unique resources contained within its walls. Teachers incorporate the analysis of artifacts, presentations from curators or historical interpreters and on-site exploration of relevant exhibits into their lesson plans. These teacher-facilitated lessons help students develop their own abilities to respond to and learn from the environment through which they move every day. As a result, students develop a broad understanding of the content and skills associated with core subjects, as well as the ability to think critically, consider multiple sources of information reflectively, and communicate their developing understanding effectively.
In addition to its collection of historic objects and experts, The Henry Ford provides students with a truly public high school experience that has a tremendous impact on their personal and academic development. Academy students are expected to learn and work in this diverse and mature setting, interacting with people from all over the nation and the world and maintaining high standards of personal conduct. Their very presence in the larger organization exposes them to a much broader spectrum of people than you would find in the traditional, stand-alone high school. Furthermore, students are frequently called upon to provide assistance to visitors, collaborate with museum staff on joint events and serve as unofficial ambassadors of the organization simply by their presence on-site. This has a direct impact on the expectations for their behavior, social interactions, language and personal appearance.
The Work Place As The Learning Space
With its location in the center of a major cultural institution, HFA Dearborn provides students with opportunities daily to observe how adults live and work to meet the responsibilities associated with their careers. They witness the demands those adults face as they meet deadlines, plan and accomplish various tasks and goals, implement new strategies, collaborate with colleagues, continue learning long beyond formal schooling, and gain pleasure and a sense of accomplishment from a job well-done at the end of the day. In a very real sense, the adults with whom students interact model the essence of life-long learningÑ through their own needs and interests as well as through their engagement with students. This consistent multi-generation interaction reinforces the connections between what is emphasized in the Academy curriculum and what students will find in the world beyond their classroom. Frequently, students gain an awareness of careers that receive little to no exposure through the media, but which may prove to capture their interests or draw on their developing capacities and provide a viable goal for the future. In addition to attending school at The Henry Ford, Academy students have multiple opportunities to participate in the working community as full-fledged members. Many students hold jobs on vacations or during the summer break from classes. Others fulfill their Senior Practicum placement by working in one of the departments that make up the larger organization that supports Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. At times, the placements have been so successful that students have continued to work as part or full time employees of the Henry Ford long after they have graduated.
Authentic Achievement
The Academy curriculum provides students with a structured approach to developing deep knowledge that emerges from thoughtful, discipline-based inquiry and that addresses the value of that knowledge beyond the classroom. Graduates of the Academy are expected to demonstrate a high level of individual mastery in each of the Five Developmental Areas: academic content, communication, technology, personal development, and thinking and learning. Core classes, elective classes and co-curricular activities all are designed to reinforce some or all of the Five Developmental Areas so that students begin the process toward successful accomplishment from the very first day of school. All students must demonstrate they have attained the standards required of Academy graduates by completing the intensive Senior Mastery Process (SMP), a requirement for graduation. The SMP is the capstone to the Academy experience and is built to ensure that all students have indeed prepared themselves for the demands they will face as citizens of the 21st century global community.
Student Success
Henry Ford Academy is a nine-year-old charter high school enrolling 460 students in grades 9-12. Located on the campus of The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, the school shares the 9 acre Henry Ford Museum and 90 acre Greenfield Village with 1.5 million visitors and 1,500 employees. School performance outcomes include student diversity, attendance rates, standardized test scores, and retention and graduation rates.
Diverse student body. Students are chosen via random lottery; entering 9th graders have attended more than 75 different public, charter, private, or parochial middle schools, or were home-schooled, giving them a wide range of previous educational experiences. Almost 70% of students come from Detroit; the remainder comes from 26 of the 34 communities in Wayne County (MI). Racial diversity is 66% African American, 22% Caucasian, 4% Hispanic American, 2% Middle Eastern, 1% Asian and 1% Native American. 4% of students are multi-ethic. 10% of students receive special education services and 26% are eligible for free/reduced lunch.
While the percentage of students at HFA-Dearborn eligible for free/reduced lunch may be lower than expected, students' scores on pre-enrollment assessment tests demonstrate the students' high-risk nature. Since the Academy began administering these tests in 2002, about 63% of 9th graders have entered the Academy with math scores two or more grades below expectation, 79% enter with reading skills below grade level, and 53% with both math and reading skills below grade level. An extensive remediation program includes school-day and after school programs to help students accelerate to grade level performance.
Student attendance averages 96% over nine years of operation (with annual attendance rates ranging from 95% to 98%), a figure which continues to impress us given the distance many students travel to get to the Academy and the lack of effective transportation infrastructure in the Detroit area.
Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) scores for Academy students evidence significant success when compared to their peers in Detroit (where most Academy students come from), and Dearborn. Numbers indicate the percentage of students earning a 1 or 2 on a scale of 4 (indicating proficiency as defined by the State of Michigan).
Below are MEAP scores for the Class of 2005 (the most recent data available) in percentages of students passing the test with scores of 1 or 2 on a scale of 4. All MEAP scores were obtained from www.schoolmatters.com.
Iowa Test of Educational Development (ITED). The Academy has administered the ITED to students in the 9th and 10th grade, starting with the Class of 2002. ITED results help the Academy gauge 9th graders' academic abilities and implement appropriate curriculum differentiation to meet the needs of all students. The students' 10th grade scores are compared to their 9th grade scores to determine individual student and class growth. Mathematics is the area in which the Academy has seen the highest diversity of scores, with scores ranging from 2.8 (second grade, eighth month) to 16.8 (perfect score). Below are the ITED scores for all Academy cohorts. The ITED was not administered to the Class of 2001.
ACT Scores. 65% of Academy graduates have taken the ACT college entrance exam. Scores on the ACT for the past five graduating classes are near national medians for each year, averaging 21 for the last four years. During those years, scores have ranged from 11-31. At present, changes are underway at the Academy that will require all students to take the Explore exam, PSAT and ACT.
Graduation and Retention Data. HFLI just completed an exhaustive compilation and study of Academy student information with the goal of prototyping a first generation longitudinal student database for use in all network schools. This work included a detailed analysis of every student who has ever attended the Academy since inception 9 years ago. One outcome of this work was to assess retention data over the life of the Academy. Using a strict retention calculation that counts every student who left (moved out of state or enrolled in another school or dropped out) against the Academy's graduation rate, the Academy has a cumulative graduation rate of 60%. When adjusting for students who are known to have re-enrolled in other schools the Academy graduation rate jumps to nearly 90%. The graduation rate for the class of 2005 was 87% using the single student database methods being piloted by the state of Michigan. This method is similar to the method used by the Consortium on Chicago School Research in its report on graduation rates issued last year. Results by year are presented below.
Post-Secondary Acceptance and Scholarships. 83% of Academy graduates have been accepted into post-secondary institutions, 54% of which are competitive institutions. These institutions include Univ. of Michigan, Albion College, and the College for Creative Studies, Howard University, Michigan State Univ., Prairie View A & M, Purdue University, and University of Illinois. The percentage of students receiving scholarships has increased from 20% for the Class of 2001 to 35% for the Class of 2005, which earned $350,300 in total scholarships. Data for the Class of 2006 is still being collected and analyzed.
Post-HFA Graduation Success. Like many of the earliest charter schools, HFA-Dearborn did not initially create systems to track graduates' success from college, but is now moving aggressively to create this capacity with the help and guidance of HFLI. Efforts to identify college and work progress of past graduates are underway, and all new Academies will be expected to provide college transition support and maintain long-term data on college and work success. An increased focus on college awareness with planned activities for both the student and the family has been extended to the 9th grade year, and a college preparation framework for each school is being developed as part of the Academy model. Increased investment in college counseling resources is also a key part of the strategy. The Academy's cumulative college acceptance rate of 83% of graduates is significant measure of success, but going forward the long-term goal for all schools in the network is a 100% acceptance to competitive 4-year colleges and universities.
