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Attendance Would Be 100% is a collection of writing on high school redesign; it is also an artifact of redesign. It documents the challenge presented to this year’s seniors at the Margarita Muñiz Academy to envision high school from the student perspective.

The authors of this book are the first graduating class of the only dual-language Spanish- English high school in Massachusetts. They have been trailblazers of biliteracy, with the courage to build a revolutionary school and challenge the doubts about multilingual education in this country. Muñiz Academy graduates are bilingual, so this book is, too. We hope this will inspire you to tap into your own bilingualism, whether that means languages you have already learned or are still looking forward to learning. (In the meantime, you might tap into the multilingual world surrounding you for assistance.)

Margarita Muñiz students share the unique experience of charting a new course for education in their hometown and state. So the call for high school redesign in Boston by Mayor Marty Walsh and Superintendent Tommy Chang last spring emerged as a timely opportunity for their senior project. The best experts about schools must be, without a doubt, students—and this group of students in particular—so why not ask them how to redesign high school?

At first, my students had doubts that anyone was interested in their opinion. But as we studied the history and changing purposes of school, they realized that it’s the students for whom and by whom high schools should be redesigned. Their revolutionary spirits were roused. They had opinions and wanted their voices heard.

Having opinions, however, was not enough. Ending academic tracking, starting the day later, and making classes smaller were great ideas, but these ideas needed to be rooted in research to grow into authoritative proposals. Students had to identify ways to enter the conversation about education—a conversation which, more often than not, is a vast and confusing one.

With the help of 826 Boston tutors, we brought this conversation alive in our classroom. Starting in October, tutors and students researched, read, and discussed different perspectives on what works and what doesn’t in secondary education. As students’ annotated bibliographies took shape, so did their depth of understanding for these issues.

Next, students took their research into the community. Equipped with questions and phones set to record, students conducted in-depth interviews with experts in their areas of research. These interviews turned out to be pivotal moments in our project, not only because they allowed students to take their own learning outside of the physical classroom, but also because these same experts welcomed and respected students as researchers and scholars.

When it came time to synthesize our research, students became aware that there are no silver bullets. No single solution can close the achievement gap, raise the graduation rate, or guarantee college success. And, as we learned in January, even the most promising proposals might run into a budget crisis. “Why are we working on redesign, if there is no money to even keep schools going as is?” students wanted to know when we learned of the imminent Boston Public School budget cuts. They were becoming cynical. “If only money grew on trees,” one student wrote in her proposal. But money, we reminded ourselves, is not enough. We need ideas, too. And if we put off change until there is enough money, nothing will ever change.

So we focused on our solutions. As students worked on their proposals, their writing became the antidote to their cynicism. They knew they were writing about real issues for a real audience—you! Of course, ideas alone won’t redesign our schools. But we are confident that this book full of ideas will inspire you to help move the mountains necessary to make them happen.

Ms. Laura Gersch
Humanities Teacher
Margarita Muñiz Academy
April 2016