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When is Enough Enough?
- 10-7-09
- Categorized in: Education
Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott decided that he had had enough.
This week he ordered Pearce Middle School in Austin "closed." Now, mind you - this does not mean that the building will actually be closed or shuttered up. It means rather that it will be repurposed - new plan, new people, new mission, turned around, transformed into really a new school.
Scott made this decision under state law because Pearce had been academically unacceptable for 5 years in a row, 8 out of the last 10! Sheesh, that's enough to have been bad not just for the entire stay of one child in a family but up to, say, all 3 or 4 siblings!
Only 39% of the kiddos passed the minimum bar on the science test this year, and almost none of those passing were commended. The school hasn't been above the minimum bar in all subjects since 2003.
So, why's Austin a'moanin' again?
The new superintendent and the editor of the newspaper are carrying on a long-standing tradition here in the Capitol City of pointing fingers at the state. The editor has actually called for a celebration for the school. Why? Well - you see - the school did make some gains in 2009. The school barely got above the state's minimum line in a few subjects.
In my view, that's hardly enough.
The school district has utterly failed to transform this school. We know from KIPP, the Yes Academy, and other good public schools that high poverty schools can be made to work. But, that won't happen if districts play the "marginal game," that is, changing out the principal every so often, never making fundamental change, and risking it all on the hope that they can somehow barely get enough kids over the minimum to escape the unacceptable rating.
This approach is a game of Russian roulette with kids, and it does not work. Most kids do poorly; most drop out; and very few make it to college or a good job.
The good folks in Austin ought to stop blaming Robert Scott for holding them accountable for what they ought to be doing on their own. No, there should be no celebrations, Arnold Garcia and Maria Carstarphen, for getting a few more kids to pass TAKS in the school's 5th straight year of being unacceptable. The town should celebrate when each and every Pearce graduate shows up at the steps of the high school ready to study a solid curriculum at grade level. That'll be the time for the champagne.
Please do not compare public schools to KIPP schools and the Yes academy. These are entities that get to place special conditions on their students. Some of these include Saturday school, dress codes, and behavior codes. If these are not met, they are removed from these schools.
And where do they go then, Sandy?
It's a sham to use tems like, high standards, and, rigor, and expect that all schools will magically function to perfection. It's to easy to just say, "Now go do it." It's harder to make the magic happen.
It's true, a very few schools magically turn around. In research they are called, outliers. They may serve as models, but they are not any sort of grounds for expectation any more than we expect all students to play quarterback like Colt McCoy. He could give some pointers at a camp, but he can't make you into another Colt McCoy.Â
Chris Barbic of Yes put it best, himself, when he called these magic principals, "rock stars."
That's because they're unique. They're different. They're outliers.