The little district that could: How one Kansas district keeps a near-perfect ...

CAWKER CITY, Kan. — Barbara Palen works her way around her classroom at Lakeside Middle School in this tiny farming community (population: 469) some three hours northwest of Topeka. The 14 fourth-graders are starting a new math unit, and Palen wants to know how their parents use measurements.

One boy quietly offers that his dad, a farmer, takes measurements when putting up a fence.

Another explains that his dad fixes cars and trucks and has to measure under the hood.

“And he lets you help him sometimes, doesn’t he?” Palen asks. “So if you learn measurement, you’ll be able to help him more. That’s so cool.”

For the next eight years, all 14 of Palen’s students are likely to pass state math and English exams. All are likely to graduate from high school, and almost all will go on to higher education. District staff tell stories of previous graduates who run successful local businesses and who’ve become surgeons or cancer researchers.

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