Wayne S. Montague, principal of Hope’s Leadership Academy, speaks to educators during lunch at the school yesterday.

The Providence Journal Kathy Borchers

PROVIDENCE — Hope High School was in the spotlight again yesterday as two dozen educators from across the country visited the school as part of a two-day tour to investigate Rhode Island’s new high school diploma system.

The members of the American Youth Policy Forum met yesterday with state education leaders, including Robert Flanders, chairman of the Rhode Island Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education, state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters and Colleen Callahan, director of professional issues for the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers.

The team spent the afternoon at Hope, meeting with the school’s three principals, visiting classrooms and speaking with students and teachers. The afternoon ended with a discussion about high school reform with Supt. Donnie Evans.

“We’re very interested in proficiency-based graduation requirements and how they are being implemented,” said Betsy Brand, director of the American Youth Forum, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “We’re interested in Hope because of its history as a low-performing school that moved to three smaller schools.”

The visitors included educators and education policy-makers from Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Arkansas, Michigan and Washington, D.C. Today, the team will visit Shea High School in Pawtucket and Coventry High School.

Yesterday, Brand praised McWalters for having the courage to buck the tide of high-stakes testing and implement proficiency-based graduation requirements, which ask students to demonstrate mastery in specific skills by taking end-of-course exams, completing senior projects or developing a portfolio of their work. Students have to complete two of the options to graduate this year.

“Rhode Island has been — and is — a leader in looking beyond a single high-stakes testing system,” Brand said. “The challenge is for districts to think creatively about how you create a proficiency system within the framework of No Child Left Behind.”

At Hope High School yesterday, the three principals — Wayne Montague, Arthur Petrosinelli and Scott Sutherland — recited what has become a familiar storyline: McWalters, disheartened by the school’s chronically poor performance, placed the school under state control three years ago. He ordered Hope to break into three smaller learning communities, each based on a theme. From there, the high school hired 52 new teachers, cracked down on discipline, helped teachers craft entirely new curricula and gave teachers ample time to plan together.

Today, Hope High School has an individual learning plan, called the I-Pass, which has received national recognition and has been adopted as a model by the state. The school has developed partnerships with a half-dozen area colleges, which have not only helped the district revise its curricula but also have provided real-world learning opportunities for students.

But Hope’s leaders were frank about how far the school has to go. Petrosinelli, technology school principal, said he was stunned when the math scores were released recently and hardly any students in the building met proficiency.

He said, “I don’t think that the scores truly reflect what’s happening here.”

That said, Hope High School got to work: the entire faculty reviewed the test scores and many teachers have actually taken sample math questions to see how hard the New England Common Assessment is. In fairness, faculty members pointed out, this is the first time that Rhode Island students have taken the NECAP, and most schools haven’t had time to align the new test with classroom instruction.

“We have to find a new way of teaching math,” Petrosinelli said. “I hate to say it, but we have to find a way of teaching to the test.”

“Do students know that the test is meaningless?” one of the visiting educators said.

Yes. Unlike what happens in other states, students are not graded on the NECAP, although it will count toward the high school graduation requirements. The state requires only that students take the test to graduate; they don’t have to pass it.

The visiting team also heard from several students and teachers, who told them that Hope High School has undergone nothing short of an extreme makeover since McWalters intervened three years ago. Hope, which students often called “hopeless,” was a school spiraling out of control before the new leadership team took over.

“What would you change about the school?” one visiting educator asked.

“I’d change going home every day,” said senior Ari Bzisbon, adding that he’d like to spend more time in school.

Another student said she would like to have more support for students who speak English as a second language while a third student said the school needs more computers so students can keep electronic records of their portfolios.

A couple of visitors struggled with the notion that Hope answers to two masters: the district and the state Department of Education. Sutherland explained that it isn’t always a perfect marriage, adding that the district’s goals are not always the same as the school’s.

Sutherland gave the following example to underscore his point. Hope High School, along with 10 other high schools, chose the portfolio as part of its new graduation requirement, but the district has indicated that it wants high schools to adopt senior projects instead.

In a portfolio class, every student raised their hand when asked about their plans to attend college. When asked about that afterward, Sutherland acknowledged that not every student who wants to go to college will have the grades and the skills necessary for admission. But Sutherland said that the school is asking more of its students and trying to prepare them for the real world.

“What do you do about the graduation requirements when students move?” a visitor said.

Both Sutherland and Evans said the district’s high rate of mobility — a third of all students move at least once each year — poses challenges that smaller school systems don’t have to face. When a student transfers to Hope during senior year, the school tries to find alternative ways to measure proficiency, such as performance on a district test.

Could Hope High School have turned itself around so quickly if it had a traditional leadership structure, with one principal and two assistants? Sutherland said yes, but that reform would have happened at a slower pace without six administrators. Each of the three principals, for example, has a primary area of concentration: Sutherland is the point man on curriculum, Petrosinelli focuses on discipline and Montague has been very involved in creating partnerships with the community.

At the end of the day, the visiting team seemed taken with the new Hope High School.

“I was a teacher for many years and from what I’ve seen here today, I’d want to come here,” said Jimmy Jeffress, a state senator from Arkansas.

“This is the kind of leadership that I never got. I commend you and the state for what you’re doing. I’d be willing to come out of retirement to work here.”

lborg@projo.com