Public School Success Story

The Great Rogers Experiment

Rogers H.S. of Spokane has been amazingly successful with their federally funded Student Improvement Grant program.  What they have accomplished needs to be shared, as proof that with sufficient additional support our public schools can be successful at addressing the needs of underachieving students. 

Here are some of the details:

Rogers’ $3.7 million federally funded grant: 

  • allowed Rogers to extend its school year by two days

  • gave the school more administrators, counselors and specialists

  • made the school day 30 minutes longer

  • a half-hour mandatory third-period study hall, called “ROW time”  (Responsibility, Ownership, Willingness)

  • students finish homework, retake tests and get one-on-one tutoring

  • intervention teachers use the school’s data dashboard to find students with missing assignments

  • students are summoned to an extended ROW classroom to work through lunch

  • hammering away at math retakes, persuasive essays, world history assignments, dialectical journals and literature papers

As a result:

  • fights are down

  • Fs are down

  • attendance is up

  • more students are taking Advanced Placement classes

  • math standardized test scores have soared

  • three times as many books are being checked out from the Rogers library

  • the graduation rate is up to 86%

You can read about “The Great Rogers Experiment” for yourself at: