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Lessons from a city school superintendent
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One of the realities of the way that schools are organized in America ... [has been] the assumption that you find the best teacher you can, provide the teacher with a classroom and materials, and say, "Go in, close the door, and do the best you can with your children."
[We are] breaking down that structural isolation by creating periods of common planning time for groups of teachers; providing coaches who can work with them around issues of instruction and curriculum; and getting them to use data as a means of reflecting on what's working. When that's done well, the feedback we have from teachers is that it's the most powerful professional development they've had.
What insights have you gained from your efforts to turn Boston's large high schools into smaller schools?
Small is beautiful only if you ... take advantage of [it] ... to have the informed conversations about ... what it will take to get all students to higher standards.
It's going to take several years to get people comfortable with [the restructuring we've done]. I do believe that if that effort is successful, we will begin to see lower dropout rates and more students being successful in ... continuing their education beyond high school, which really is the ticket to opportunity in this day and age.
What aspects of the federal No Child Left Behind law have been helpful or problematic?
The underlying policy direction is on target. That notion of getting all students to a much higher standard, which we used to expect only of a select few, is what is necessary to give students real opportunity.
The requirement that data be reported by subgroups – by race, by free and reduced-price lunch, [etc.] – that's very important and tremendously useful ... in understanding the achievement gap and having strategies for closing it.
The focus on having highly qualified teachers for all students is a very important policy direction. [But the way it's measured should include] what goes on in the classroom.
[Another] problem is that if you don't make "adequate yearly progress" [for one subgroup of students], you get the same "did not meet AYP" label as if you do not meet it [for many subgroups]. It makes it very difficult to help parents understand what these labels really mean.
If you could get everyone to go along with one radical proposal for change in the school system, what would it be?
Frankly, while it's a huge cost, I think that there has got to be more time built into the work year for teachers, and the school year for children ... [with] targeted, good use of the time. I'm always struck by the international comparisons. Many of those countries that do better than we do have an eight-hour school day. It's not a radical idea, but ... it would make a huge difference in terms of the opportunities students have to meet much higher standards.
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