Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 5, 1993                   TAG: 9309030081
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THOSE DARN YOKELS

Which Virginia school system produced the highest percentage of sixth-graders who passed the [1992] Literacy Passport Test last spring?

If you thought Fairfax County, the system that likes to think it does everything so well it shrugs off comparisons to the yokels downstate, think again.

Tops was Radford, where 85 percent of sixth-graders passed the reading, writing and math portions of the test. . . . At 79 percent, Fairfax tied for fifth with Harrisonburg. At 67 percent, Arlington sixth-graders tied with Spotsylvania County for 16th place.

This was the third year in a row that Radford kids scored highest on the Literacy Passport Test, which students must pass to be classified as ninth-graders.

We called Richard Glass, principal of Belle Heth Elementary School in Radford, to find out what's going right down there.

Some basics: Radford has about 13,000 people. Radford University is there, and a hospital serves the mountainous region. Glass says Radford also has a fair number of low-income housing projects. There are no private schools. The school system is about 86 percent white and 12 percent black. Belle Heth sixth-graders switch classes like high schoolers. The average elementary school class has 21 students; the biggest has 23. There is exactly one student whose primary language is not English.

Children in the lower grades still get basics such as phonics. Fourth- through sixth-graders are exposed to the "whole language" method that combines reading, writing and spelling instruction, although Glass says spelling scores have dipped and he might bring back primers. The elementary schools also use new math-teaching methods that emphasize the manipulation of blocks.

Cynics will attribute Radford's success to favorable demographics, and Glass agrees the university and hospital lure many families that prize education.

But he also believes that smaller class sizes (and presence of student teachers from the university) allow more personalized attention, and that an emphasis on writing skills pays off. Also, the staff examines test scores annually to spot weaknesses.

Radford's approach and test scores speak well for smaller classes, team teaching and a fanatic devotion to basic schooling. Maybe we high-falutin' Northern Virginians can learn something from downstaters, after all.