Providence-St. Mel School: How a School That Works for African American Students Works.

A portrait, using grounded theory qualitative methodologies, was constructed of a K–12 school serving urban, African American students, one producing high achievement. The primary data were observations complemented by questionnaire responses and document analyses. Consistent with conclusions in the effective schooling literature, this school has strong leadership, accountability, academic focus, and orderliness. Other aspects of schooling seemed also to support achievement, many consistent with aspects of teaching and learning emphasized in the educational psychology literature. The theory emerging from this study is that the high achievement in this school is caused by multiple factors, including decidedly psychological ones. This article is a portrait of a school, one serving urban, African American students, one with graduates who achieve at high levels. The portrait was composed by researchers steeped in educational psychology and its perspectives, working with the school’s administration to do so. One motivation for this study was to begin to fill a gap that was highlighted by Hilliard and Amankwatia (2003). Their major conclusion was that African American students can excel, with the key ingredient being good teaching. Hilliard and Amankwatia also observed, however, that little is known about the schooling that positively affects African Americans. They called for qualitative studies to document just what goes on in classrooms and schools that are very effective with students who do poorly in traditional classrooms and schools. Such work could be the basis for a theory of effective teaching and schooling that subsequently might be tested in quantitative designs. Thus, in this study, we constructed a case study—intending to produce a theory grounded in data