The public schools' last hurrah?

• Author: Shenk, Joshua Wolf
• Position: A plan to save the school system: includes a related article on Nativity Preparatory School in Roxbury, Massachusetts - Cover Story

In 1983, Education Secretary Terrel Bell released A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform. It was a stark and angry report, concluding, "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war." The effect, Bell recalls, was "electrifying." Newspapers trumpeted the story. In statehouses, governors like Bill Clinton, Richard Riley, and Lamar Alexander pushed wide-ranging reform packages.

Thirteen years later, Bell laments, we've seen "some improvement ... but not enough." The origins of his landmark report provide a clue as to why: Bell wanted President Reagan to announce the study himself, appoint a panel to conduct it, and personally give members their assignments. The White House demurred. Such an action, Bell remembers being told, would undermine Reagan's efforts to abolish the Department of Education and slash federal education funding. In other words, the President was too busy disengaging from education to engage it.

The moment was both sorely disappointing and sadly predictable - another mark of the persistent failure of national leaders to elevate schools to the top of the country's agenda. "Look at how George Bush aroused the public over Saddam Hussein's invasion and conquest of Kuwait," Bell says. "He just wouldn't leave it alone. He went after it with all his heart." But schools have never commanded the same zeal. [Bush] is die one who said he wanted to be the education president," Bell says. "I'm a lifetime Republican, but I kept waiting" for Bush to make schools a top priority.

Bill Clinton has kept us waiting too. In Arkansas, he made education reform the centerpiece of his govenorship. Now that he's in a position to arouse public opinion, Clinton has faltered. His daughter attends the lovely Sidwell Friends School, a private school in Northwest Washington. But just miles from Sidwell, public school children go without books in schools packed to twice their intended capacity; they endure leaking roofs and putrid bathrooms.

The problems of public schools extend well beyond crumbling infrastructure. If children had top-notch teaching staffs, administrations that used funds efficiently, and effective curricula, maybe they would be doing all right. But they don't and they aren't. Meanwhile, confidence in public schools - even the "better" schools - is withering. Nearly 50 percent of Americans don't think a diploma from their local high school guarantees basic skills in math or reading. Six of ten parents would send their kids to private schools if they had the money. Support for public schools is "fragile," reports the public interest polling firm Public Agenda. And half-baked solutions such as vouchers are gaining popularity.

The loss of public schools would be a severe one. The purpose of education is not just to prepare successful workers and citizens, or to ensure equal opportunity. Those are vital functions; whether we perform them well determines the social and economic health of our country. But public schools, at their best, do something more. They provide a common space where, in a country fissured along lines of race and class, children of all backgrounds meet, interact, and learn to understand each other.

A recent USA Today poll shows that education is now Americans' most serious concern - above crime, the environment, and the economy. You would think our leaders would feel this sense of urgency, and that the subject of schools would dominate campaign rallies, television talk shows, and oped pages. This, of course, is not the case. It's no coincidence that the people who set the agenda - including activist Marian Wright Edelman, politicians Clinton and Al Gore, professional moralist Bill Bennett, movie director Robert Redford, and journalist Jim Lehrer - chose private schools for their children. This is true for the vast majority of the American elite.

It's hard to fault parents for seeking the best education for their kids. But these prominent Americans, by neglecting the crisis in public schools, are guaranteeing that the conditions that made them flee the public system will last, and possibly worsen, for the next generation.

There is no simple blueprint to revive poor schools, no formula for good ones. But there are five fundamental characteristics found in successful schools: A dynamite principal who has ample authority and support, and who is held accountable; classrooms filled with high-quality teachers; a curriculum that demands excellence; parents who are actively involved in the schools; and financial support that reflects education's vital importance.

1. HELP, NOT HINDRANCE, FROM ABOVE

   At Roper Middle School for Science, Mathematics, and Technology in upper Northeast Washington, D.C., Principal Helena Jones walks her halls with the presence of someone who is both feared and loved. Rounding a comer, she sees two girls scuffling in front of a row of bright yellow lockers. Jones puts her hands on her hips and brushes back her bright red blazer. Her voice booms across the granite floors. "Where are you supposed to be?" The girls answer by going there.

   Scuffles are an exception here. Roper is a flowering bud on a withering school system. The 600-some students are black (except for three Hispanics) and overwhelmingly poor; many of them, Jones says, come to school with "cold, callous hearts," numbed by violence and absent or abusive parents. But the school defies the odds. Its dropout rate is zero. Ninety percent of its graduates go on to complete high school, compared to a citywide rate of 50 percent. And tests show Roper students among the best in the city.

   Jones, a vigorous woman with the physique of Grace Jones and the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt, is the primary reason. No matter is too small to warrant her attention and no task too ambitious. When she sees a scrap of paper on the floor, she picks it up. When "downtown" is slow to make a necessary repair, "I cuss them out and yell and then cuss some more" until she gets action. To upgrade her school technologically, Jones and her teachers sought and won grants from the Commerce Department and such companies as Kodak and Bell Atlantic.

   Helena Jones's story shows the enormous good that an energetic, effective principal can do. The first and most important job of school administrators is to hire good principals, give them the support they need, and then hold them accountable for the success or failure of the school. In Wyoming, Ohio, for example, where I attended school in the eighties, die central administration is spare - just one superintendent and a few support staff for 1,683 students. The system's principals largely decide for themselves how to spend the money they have. And they do well. Though its spending per pupil is 9th in a county of 22 districts, Wyoming is ranked highest in every measure of performance.

   In many districts, however, central administrators seem less concerned with getting good principals than obstructing them with cumbersome regulations. These bureaucracies suck up money that should be spent on teachers, books, and maintenance. In New York City schools, for example, only about 30 cents of every educational dollar goes to teachers and materials. hi Milwaukee, the figure is only 26 cents on the dollar.

   Where does the rest of the money go? Teachers and principals have a hard time figuring it out. "When I hear bureaucrats speak at various functions, I look at them and say `How are they affecting my classroom at all?'" says Shannon Carey, a fifth grade teacher at Stonehurst Elementary school in Oakland, California. "The assistant superintendent for elementary education ... the only time I hear from her is when she is giving me some survey [to fill out]." Indeed, paperwork seems to be administrators' best friend: They produce-and demand - piles of it. Complicated federal and state regulations are as much at fault as self-serving bureaucrats. But the memos and regulations are about as relevant to classroom instruction as high-minded political theory is to horsetrading on Capitol Hill.

   "Most of the curriculum guidebooks put out by the central board just sit in an office somewhere," says Deborah Meier, the celebrated educational innovator and former principal of the Central Park East school in East Harlem. Bulky discipline codes, she says, assume "there's one right way that fits all situations. It's pointless ... if I don't agree [with the rule], I won't enforce it."

   Meanwhile, principals and teachers are not receiving the basic support they need. Liesl Frischmann, a teacher at Paul Junior High in Washington, D.C. ordered 18 reams of paper in September for photocopying; six months later, she's only gotten three reams. Unless she pays for copying out of her own pocket, her kids go without handouts. This story, unfortunately, is typical.

   Theoretically, centralized purchasing saves money (through bulk purchases) and prevents corruption. But school boards regularly pay prices above those charged by stores like Staples. And corruption is rampant in the central offices themselves. In New York City, one city investigator found $620,000 worth of supplies missing from a school warehouse.

   When principals and teachers are given sufficient authority, schools can shine. At Central Park East, Deborah Meier was allowed to design her own curriculum and decide on the allocation of resources The results were dramatic. One study showed that 80 percent of Central Park East high school graduates went on to college - compared to only 15 percent in East Harlem...