Excellence at Blake
Reprinted from "Parent News"
December, 2003/January, 2004
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We talk a lot about excellence at Blake. It is the first descriptive word in our mission statement. It is laced throughout our admissions material, and it occurs in the annual goal documents of almost everyone here who writes them. Excellence was so prominently featured in the way we described ourselves in the periodic Independent Schools Association of the Central States self-study (that forms the basis of our accreditation), that the visiting committee urged us to define more clearly what excellence means in each area of our work. They also encouraged us to measure it to the extent possible.
How do we measure excellence at Blake? What sort of calipers do we use to gauge the success of our work? Can we quantify the smile of a child? Is the emerging sentience of those entrusted to our care something we can weigh? I must begin by making clear that I believe the most significant elements of a child’s experience at Blake can be measured only over the full lifetime of that individual. Our influence cannot be reduced to a number, a mere set of facts or even a multi-dimensional analysis.
Yet we cannot ignore the call for such objective measurement. Our constituents, even those who believe that the truest benefit of Blake is ineffable, have a legitimate and appropriate interest in some measures of our excellence. So I drop any pretense of Midwestern modesty and cite a catalogue of achievements in the following paragraphs to add to the warrants for our success.
Many, many families in the Twin Cities want for their children what Blake has to offer. In 1990, we enrolled about 1,060 students, admitting three-quarters of those who applied. Today our enrollment stands at 1,316, and we admit approximately half of those who apply. The standardized examinations that we administer point to success, to the degree that such limited indices can. The median scores on the SAT I for members of the class of 2003 were 650 verbal and 660 math (placing us in the 92nd percentile nationally), and the median ACT score for that class was 29 (95th percentile nationally). Most of the ERB measures show our students to be in the top decile of all students in the nation.
Our graduates are admitted to many of the most selective colleges and universities. Perhaps even more tellingly, in a recent survey we conducted of our young alumni (classes 1985-2002), 85 percent of the respondents rated their satisfaction with their student experience at Blake as very high (38 percent) or high (47 percent). This is consistent with our generally low attrition rates. Each year only five percent of those enrolled the year before do not reenroll (excluding graduates) and only about half of this attrition is truly voluntary. The national average attrition for independent schools is twice ours.
Blake engages in an extensive bench-marking exercise annually with 40 of the best independent day schools in the country. This group, known as the Joint Research and Planning Office, produces a voluminous report that compares Blake’s numbers on almost anything that can be quantified (square feet of building per student, scores on the AP science exams, etc.) to the low, high, mean and median values from the other schools. Our results show us to be among the strongest, best run schools: not in every area, for we do have our challenges, but in most.
Our state championship athletic teams (37 state championship teams or individuals in 28 years), the national champion debaters, the regionally acclaimed artists (vocal musicians, instrumental musicians, visual artists and actors) and the widely-recognized leaders in service learning, cannot be calibrated in quite the same way, but must be a factor in any definition of our success.
This paean to Blake’s good work is inevitably incomplete for it does not capture what Blake means to the student who in attempting to deliver his eighth grade speech freezes, becomes teary but finally perseveres with the encouragement of all 300 of his Middle School classmates. It does not represent the way we provide support when life takes an unexpected turn, as it did for a senior whose physical injury this summer almost paralyzed her, but who is now back at school giving eloquent testimony to the strength she and her family drew from the love and support of this community. It does not put the tape measure to the value of the relationships &151; student with student, student with teacher, parent with parent &151; that arise out of a shared commitment to a pursuit of excellence, however defined.
John Gulla
Head of School
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