(Vol. 4, No. 1 - Spring 2000)
Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road
In The Wizard of Oz, the yellow brick road led to Emerald City, a
powerfully imagined place where everyone achieved their heart's desire.
For the past four years, we've tagged along as a small but growing band
of school reformers have traveled JCPS's version of the "yellow brick
road," searching for their own Emerald City -- a place where every
teacher believes every student can succeed in school, and is well-prepared
to make that success possible.
As the district's relationship with the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
draws to a close, it's "goodbye, yellow brick road" for us. Since
1996, our team of education writers, supported by the foundation, has chronicled
the progress of the district's journey -- with all its fits and starts --
toward standards-based teaching and learning. [These stories are archived
at MiddleWeb.]
Our special focus has been the middle grades, that critical, make-it-or-break-it
time in every student's school career when one of two things usually happens
they gain the skills, knowledge and maturity they need to survive and prosper
in high school and beyond, or they falter, too weighted down by poor skills
and low expectations to complete the journey.
During our travels, we've enjoyed the companionship of some smart, dedicated
Louisvillians who understand what it might mean if schools could only break
the cycle of failure so many JCPS adolescents find themselves trapped in.
We've met accomplished teachers who were restless to improve, teachers who
have come to see that standards-based reform is about much more than "high-stakes"
testing and accountability. Because they've done the hard work asked of
them in professional development programs and applied what they've learned
through trial-and-error in the classroom, these teachers have reached students
whom many believed could never achieve.
What have these teachers learned to do? They can design a curriculum that
covers the most important content students need to know. They can teach
the curriculum in many different ways, tailored to the learning styles and
needs of each student. They can help students understand what "good
work" is and why the content they are learning is important. They can
look at student work and the results of their own lessons and use what they
learn to improve their teaching. And the best of them can also help other
teachers grow -- fueling a new spirit of accomplishment in their schools,
and the understanding that schools aren't helpless in the face of poverty
and social dis-ease; that educators really are called to make a difference.
These teachers have been able to make these changes, in part, because of
other talented and inspired educators within the school -- a core group
of administrators within the central office who "get it" and have
the power or influence to do something about it; creative thinkers within
the Gheens Academy, who have helped reshape and sharpen the focus of professional
development in the district; principals who know how to lead, not just "manage";
talented teacher- coaches whose persistence and willingness to go the extra
mile convinced many more teachers in the system that professionalism is
about getting better, not just getting to the end of the day.
We've also met many community members and reform advocates on our trip down
the yellow brick road -- "outsiders" who care enough about the
future of all of Louisville's adolescents that they put up with suspicious,
indifferent school managers who don't yet understand that school reform
is community work, not "school district work." They ask hard questions
about school and student failure and refuse to accept the doctrine of "acceptable
losses" when it comes to kids.
With all these folks in place, you might well ask, why hasn't JCPS found
the Emerald City? The district has made progress, to be sure -- as some
of the assessment data in these pages indicates. But the JCPS middle schools
still lag behind their counterparts in many regions of the state, and the
performance gap between poor and middle class students hasn't narrowed much.
The simple answer? Not enough accomplished teachers. Not enough principal
leaders. Not enough inspired support people and central office administrators
who "get it" -- who not only believe that greater gains are possible,
but know how to achieve them. Other folks like ourselves who have observed
the district's journey toward reform speak of a lack of clear direction.
A muddled vision at the top.
Knowing vs. doing
District leaders believe -- and rightly so -- that the success of the system's
reform efforts depends on good professional development. Teachers need to
know what to teach, how to teach it, how to determine whether kids are learning
it, and what to do if they are not. JCPS teachers, like teachers everywhere,
are all over the map when it comes to these skills and this knowledge. They
have much to learn, and professional development is the way they learn it.
JCPS has poured many hundreds of thousand of dollars into professional development
over the last decade. Those investments have yielded some returns, without
a doubt. But they have not produced dramatic changes in the achievement
of the district's students. Why not?
Current research on effective professional development is unambiguous: If
you want to improve teaching, you must make each classroom a laboratory,
where teachers take what they are learning and -- with the support of coaches
and mentors -- try it, refine it, and absorb it into their professional
practice. The professional development experts at the Gheens Academy (and
others in the JCPS leadership structure) are well aware of this research.
The summary of a good professional
development "design" on page 6 was prepared by Gheens staff. And
it's right on the money.
So why, earlier this school year, did one long-time researcher in the JCPS
middle schools observe that, in its planning, the district seems to lack
"a clear recognition of the depth of support required at the schools
to ensure strong school-based professional development that will lead to
improved curriculum and instruction and student achievement"? Why is
it so difficult for the school system to act on what it knows to be true?
We don't pretend to have all the answers to that question. But part of the
answer has to do with "leadership" and "expectations."
Powerful forces
The Clark Foundation began its relationship with the Jefferson County Public
Schools in 1989. Over the next six years, the foundation made a series of
grants to spark reform at three of the district's lowest performing middle
schools -- Iroquois, Southern and Western. In 1995, when the district adopted
standards-based reform, Clark made larger grants and JCPS pledged to give
these schools extra attention.
A decade (and several million dollars) later, these three schools remain
at or near the bottom in achievement among JCPS's 24 middle schools. In
1998, the Clark Foundation commissioned a study of the reform efforts at
these schools. The results, which have not been widely circulated or reported
on in Louisville, raised serious questions at the Foundation about the likely
payoff of future investments in JCPS middle grades reform. Ultimately, the
concerns raised by the report and disagreements about the future course
of reform led to a mutual agreement to end the Clark-JCPS relationship this
year.
We won't attempt to summarize the report by consultant George Perry, based
on 80 interviews and a thorough review of data and historical records. (To
obtain a copy, contact us.) We
will quote from the August 23, 1999 cover letter to Supt. Steve Daeschner
written by Foundation program director M. Hayes Mizell:
"What is particularly troubling is that for ten years the Foundation
has supported a wide variety of intervention efforts. Some of these were
instigated by the school system, some by the Foundation, and some by the
schools. Yet, we have failed to achieve the results we have all sought.
This tells me that our efforts have either been misdirected, or they were
too weak not to be swamped by powerful systemic forces."
Based upon our own observations, we suspect the latter explanation is closer
to the truth. We believe that after years of trial and experimentation,
a core group of educators has emerged in the school system who know what
it will take to make all schools successful. But they have frequently been
stymied by "powerful systemic forces" who resist the dramatic
changes required.
That's a leadership problem. And underlying the leadership problem is a
problem of expectations. Too many JCPS leaders buy into the myth that kids
who are socially and economically disadvantaged cannot excel. "Do a
little better," perhaps, but not excel.
In the story "Leader of the 'Band',"
Supt. Steve Daeschner describes a process he calls "band analysis."
Using various achievement and socioeconomic data, Daeschner groups middle
schools into "performance bands" and looks for schools that have
moved beyond the performance levels typical of their group or that have
failed to perform even at the level of schools with similar student populations.
The "overachievers" are praised and the "laggards" are
called on the carpet.
Daeschner's approach is not all bad -- it does turn the heat up on the very
worst performers. But it also sends a not-so-subtle message to schools with
mediocre performance that "so long as you can do about as well as other
schools with the same kinds of kids, you're doing okay."
This kind of message runs counter to the whole purpose of standards-based
reform. It perpetuates the notion that disadvantaged kids are unlikely to
reach the same standard of performance as kids with "better demographics."
Admittedly, this is a common public perception, and one that's shared by
many educators. But, examine the performance of high-poverty schools in
Brazosport, Texas, where
educators have raised student scores on the state's accountability tests
above the 90th percentile -- in every grade and every socioeconomic group.
How did they do it? Leadership and high expectations. Gerald Andersen, the
Brazosport superintendent, says the district's path to results began with
a review of core beliefs: "We believe that all children can learn.
Excuses for low academic performance based on socioeconomic or racial differences
are unacceptable."
That kind of common vision seems to be missing in the Jefferson County Public
Schools. The district has the know-how, the resources, and the hard-won
savvy about what works and what does not. But the Emerald City still seems
far away.
Of course, as fans of The Wizard of Oz know, the answers weren't
really hidden in the Emerald City -- or, for the purposes of our analogy,
in a new program or project or a reshuffling of staff. As Dorothy learned,
the power to change things comes from inside ourselves, and we use it or
we don't. Real leaders understand this. And blaming outside forces for our
failure to act or lead -- well, that's what the Wizard did. And who wants
to be the Wizard?
As the Good Witch Glinda tells Dorothy: "You've always had the power."
-- John Norton, editor, Focused Reporting Project
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