Month: November 2009

In Search of 21st Century Joe Clarks

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, high-stakes testing

When I’m flipping through the cable stations late at night, unable to sleep because something or another has my mind going a thousand miles an hour, there are a number of movies for which I will always stop and watch.  Braveheart, Thank You For Smoking, the original All the King’s Men, Bull Durham, Tin Cup, Roadhouse, 10 Things I Hate About You, and She’s All That tops among them.

The remote also cools down when I stumble across Lean on Me, which I happened to catch again late last night.  We all know the movie I’m talking about, the 1989 film starred Morgan Freeman and told the story of Joe Clark and his transformation of Eastside High School in Paterson, NJ.  The story has become urban legend by now.  About 30 percent of Eastside’s students were passing the state proficiency exam.  New Jersey had just passed a law stating that any school with less than a 75 percent passage rate faced state takeover.  So in a move of desperation, Paterson turned over its most troubled school to “Crazy” Joe Clark, giving him seven months to more than double the passage rate and avoid state control.
In the biopic, Clark is dogged, even possessed, in enacting his version of school improvement.  Focusing on discipline, accountability, self-respect, and responsibility, he quickly brings a new culture to the school.  That culture brings about a change in attitudes and actions from the students.  (He actually appeared on the cover of Time magazine with a baseball bat, not unlike DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her broom.)  In the 11th hour, facing possible jail time and certain termination because of personality clashes and violation of the fire codes, the movie Joe Clark reveals that the school surpassed the 75 percent proficiency mark.  Takeover averted.  Possibly the state’s worst public school transformed in a matter of months into a performer.  From dropout factory to postsecondary pipeline.
If only it were that simple.  But why, you may ask, is Eduflack writing about a movie from the late 1980s that has almost been forgotten in recent years?  President Obama and EdSec Duncan’s visit to Wisconsin on Wednesday has really got me thinking.  By now, we’ve all heard the chattering that the visit is being used to advocate for mayoral takeover of urban school districts in crisis, calling for changes at the top of the systemic education pyramid to bring about real change at the foundations.  In recent months, we’ve heard the detailing of successful takeovers in Chicago, New York, and Boston, along with promising takeovers in cities like Washington, DC.  With the success of charter schools in Milwaukee (and to a lesser degree, of vouchers), it only makes sense that the city will be the next test for mayoral takeover.
Yes, we can point to mayors who have been tremendously successful in using their bully pulpit to bring about a new world of thinking in the public schools.  But the story of Joe Clark and Eastside High should make us remember that there is only so much that can be done at the top of the foodchain.  A mayor’s support for a superintendent only goes so far in school transformation.  It ultimately takes the support and efforts of the teachers and the principals to bring about the sort of lasting change sought by Duncan and funded through RttT, i3, and other new programs.  And we are rarely talking about principals and building leaders these days.
So it begs the question, where are the next generation Joe Clarks?  What school districts are empowering their principals to “take no prisoners” and do whatever it takes to fix a broken school, restore order, and deliver improved student achievement?  Where are the breeding grounds for such school leaders, where they develop the instructional leadership, the vision, the executive management, and the passion to take on the schools that need it the most?  How do we embolden incoming cadres of principals, ensuring they see their jobs as more than building managers and more than the middle ground between the superintendent and the teachers?  And how do we give the right people the authority to shake things up and truly toss out what wasn’t working, even when facing strong defenders of the failed status quo?
Year after year, we hear about the modern-day Eastside High Schools, the dropout factories, the persistent contributors to the achievement gap, the schools where too many students are written off before they even arrive for their first day of school.  As we focus on how to move forward with lasting school improvement, it seems we need a whole mess of Joe Clarks to implement a new way of thinking, a new way of teaching, a new way of motivating, and new way of achieving.  Without it, all the fresh paint and duct tape in the free world can’t truly heal the schools that need help the most.

“Disrupting” High School Failure

Eduflack Achievement gap, Gates Foundation, High School, Students

Can you legislate graduation rates?  Today, the Washington Post editorial board called on the state of Maryland to raise the compulsory age for school attendance, essentially using state law to require students to stay in Maryland high schools until the age of 18 (it is 16 now).  The move, following on the heels of a similar policy adopted by the Montgomery County Board of Education is in direct response to the latest data showing a growing dropout rate in Maryland.  The full editorial can be found here.

Eduflack is all for any measure designed to improve high school graduation rates, but can you really legislate the problem away?  And if so, why just raise the dropout age to 18?  Why not require by law that every student stay in school until they earn a high school diploma or reach the age of 21?  Why not mandate a high school diploma in order to secure a driver’s license or buy a beer?
We don’t take such steps because such a “stick” approach to high school reform simply doesn’t work.  Despite the best of intentions, requiring an intended dropout to stay in school for two extra years rarely results in that “a-ha” moment when he finds his calling in high school, puts himself on the illuminated path, earns his diploma, and leads a successful life.  It leads to two more years of resentment, coupled with two years of wasted resources at the school and district level.
Talk to anyone who has succeeded in high school improvement efforts, and you will hear that the secret to true high school transformation is not about maintaining the current course.  To boost high school graduation rates, we need to make classroom learning more relevant to at-risk students.  We need to personalize courses, connecting directly with students.  We need to bring real-life into classroom learning, through internships, speakers, and any other means that link high school with life.
As part of its efforts to invest in meaningful high school reform models, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has regularly touted the successes of the high school reform model offered by Big Picture Learning.  While the Gates model for high schools has shifted over the years, its praise for Big Picture has been unwavering.  But the Big Picture model has been one of those “best kept secrets” in education policy.  Those intimate with the details are true believers, but many are unawares of what the Rhode Island-based organization is truly doing in schools across the world.  (Full disclaimer, Eduflack worked with Big Picture’s founders on their October policy event.)
Last month, Big Picture held its coming out in Washington, DC, educating the policy community on how the Big Picture model fits with the current call for school improvement and innovation.  Touting the need for “disruptive innovation” in school improvement, Big Picture leaders focused on the importance of a student-centered curriculum, a close relationship with teachers, and real world internships to best serve those students at greatest risk of dropping out.  And working in more than 130 schools, Big Picture knows of what it speaks.  More than eight in 10 BPL schools receive Title I funding, while 66 percent of their students are eligible for free and reduced lunch.  Such measures are usually the early markers of dropout factories and graduation problems.  But at Big Picture schools, more than 92 percent of students earn their high school diplomas (compared with 52 percent nationally).  And 95 percent of their students are accepted into college, the first step toward achieving the President’s college-educated Americans goal by 2020.
The true measure of Big Picture’s effectiveness, though, may best be found in what others were saying about them in DC a few weeks ago.  According to Congressman George Miller, the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, “Big Picture is engaging students in discovering the level of context they understand, and how they apply it, and how they appreciate it, and how they can connect it to the next task in education, life, and experience.”  
And Harvard Business School Prof. Clay Christensen, the author of Disrupting Class and the godfather of the concept of “disruptive innovation” said: “I think that the Big Picture schools are about as great an example of integrating opportunities to feel success with the delivery of curriculum as exists in America.  By knitting together the delivery of the content they need to learn, with projects that allow them to use that they learn and feel successful, they’ve just done a wonderful thing; and I think it is a beacon for all of us.”
High praise from two who know a little bit about the topics of school improvement and comprehensive reforms.  So how does it translate back into what our states and school districts are looking to do through Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation to improve our schools and reform those so-called dropout factories?  Big Picture co-founder Elliot Washor summed it up best as part of their October event: “In our quest to improve public education, we often overlook the importance of the student perspective.  Based on our experiences, students thrive in high school when they see the relevance to their current interests and future plans.  Every student can earn a high school diploma with the right classroom and practical instruction.”
The data is there, and folks like Bill Gates and George Miller have recognized the benefits and impact.  Perhaps there really is more to high school improvement than increasing the compulsory age for school attendance.  Relevance and an increased focus on the students surely can’t hurt.