(Inspired by the
theme of the documentary Waiting for
Superman, 2011.)
My
name is Marisa Ridley. I was recently appointed Chancellor of the New York City
District School Board (NYCDSB). The politicians who appointed me were finally
so concerned about the horrible state of American public education at the
elementary and high school levels that they really needed to do something
radical. Not that they knew what to
do, however. That’s where I came in. I was deemed to be their radical solution
to a problem in public education that had grown so out of control that it could
easily be likened to an accelerating bus rushing down a steep hill without any
brakes.
It had been a well-known fact for decades that the
costs of public education were escalating uncontrollably. No matter what
measures were taken by politicians to invoke educational reform, nothing seemed
to work. Since the postwar era, the costs just kept climbing; yet, these costs
could not be justified by the matching achievements of youngsters in the public
school system. No one in a position of authority seemed to be able to reduce
these spiralling costs that had grown so out of control and, worst of all,
these same authority figures had simply no idea why the kids were not learning
or achieving. It was a problem that was very complex with many facets to it.
As the new
Chancellor of the NYCDSB, a position that could be likened to a master
superintendent of all superintendents of the Toronto District School Board
(TDSB) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, it gave me the ultimate power to make
massive changes to the American public educational system that could be
supported by the politicians who had appointed me. Of course it would be a
matter of time before the parents (taxpayers) whose youngsters’ achievement
levels were suffering as to whether I would end up doing what was considered
“right.” Would I be the “superwoman”
everyone was looking for—the one who would rescue this badly failing public
school system?
As any
problem-solver knows, one must first and foremost understand the problem with
its many factors in order to even begin to solve it. The factor that seemed to
be the most obvious was the huge bureaucracy that the public educational system
had evolved into over a period of decades. To illustrate, there are many
sub-school districts within New York City. These were all funded by a
combination of federal and state injections. The multiple layers of authority
in the public school system often cause confusion as to who has authority to do
what. Conflicting curricula are expected to be adhered to by all teachers, yet
some teachers have found it practically impossible to cover more than half.
Conversely, a few great teachers not only cover the complete curriculum, they
can cover a good deal more as well.
In the
postwar era, the public school system was designed to do certain things, like
streaming students into particular areas of study based possibly on
pre-high-school test scores, but sometimes on other subtle and subjective
factors. Some students were deemed high achievers before they even entered high
school, so they were streamed into strictly academic programs. Some students
were deemed lower achievers, so they were streamed into more technical, practical
programs. And, some students were found to be somewhere in the middle and they
were streamed into partially academic and partially practical programs. Because
of the streaming that happened even before students entered Grade 9, their
fates were already pre-determined. The high achievers were seen as university-
or college-bound after graduation; the lower achievers were meant to go right
out to work in the factories or as apprentices in the trades; and the middle
achievers were meant to go to work in offices or stores and did on-the-job
training as part of their work. This kind of streaming, though somewhat
arbitrary, did what it was designed to do and did it well for a long time.
I believe the trouble started when the postwar era was
well over and we were pretty much into the 1990s (or possibly as early as
1985). The school system had not changed while the world around it was changing
rapidly. It was still using the old streaming method to decide students’ fates
in high school. By the early-to-mid 1990s, personal computers were becoming
popular in homes and offices. A great need in business developed for personal
computers to be able to communicate with each other. Computer networking
technology was forced to advance as well. But individual schools didn’t use
computers yet except in the individual offices and on the school boards. These
were most likely large file servers (in the schools) or mainframe computers (in
the school boards), which could store and process massive amounts of data about
students and teachers, as well as other employees of a school board. Maybe no
one knew computer technology was going to take off like it did and become so
popular.
What I had to do first was decide the most pressing
problem and work on each issue. It was obvious to anyone with an eye on public
school-board statistics that overall, American kids, even in the elementary
schools, were not learning well enough. They could not read past the Grade 3
level, and their math skills were equally appalling. Why? It was obvious that certain schools in the NYCDSB were great,
but they were few and far between. Why?
The bulk of the public schools were just pushing the kids through elementary
school, despite their poor reading skills, and sending them on to middle school
and then to high school. The fact that these kids were being pushed through the
elementary grades adversely affected their achievement levels so that, by the
time they got to Grade 9, they were still reading at a primary grade level and
were now barely passing their school subjects. Since reading is an essential
skill in all school grades and subjects, this was an area that definitely
needed work. Without reading, a student could not progress and would most
likely drop out of high school. In fact, many of the NYC public high schools
were considered “dropout factories” for this reason.
By the time I came onboard, there were so many schools
in the NYCDSB that were considered “dropout factories” that I could not, in
good conscience, ignore it. This fact would have to change. How though? Was it the
principals who ran the individual schools that made this happen? Was it that
certain teachers in these schools didn’t care about the kids’ educational needs
and just gave up on them? I did not want to believe that we had teachers in the
public school system that simply did not care enough to at least try and teach
their students something every day, no matter what it was or how small.
However, it seemed to be true; there were actually teachers being paid a
full-time, contract salary that were either not performing their jobs at all or
were performing them very poorly. Why?
Had they just given up on their own abilities to teach their students or were
they just content to lie back and collect a salary that they clearly didn’t deserve?
I needed to know to what extent this was true. If it was, it certainly merited
being changed on a massive scale. However, I was not sure what I would be able
to do yet because of the big and powerful teacher unions that could keep
teachers (especially tenured ones) on the payroll until they retired. Why?
As it happened, there were tons of teachers in the
NYCDSB that were considered lazy or unproductive. They were the ones who would
ostensibly come to work on a daily basis but did very little to create a
cheery, welcoming environment for the kids in their classes. This fact was
possibly more obvious in a high school where the kids changed classes and
teachers every period. But it was
true in the elementary and middle schools, which shocked me. I had to ask
myself, Why would a man or woman who was
fortunate enough to get through college or university for four years and then
teachers’ college come to a public school to work only to give up on his or her
huge responsibilities to the kids? Wasn’t
there any accountability to the principal of the school? Wasn’t there a
performance appraisal process that could filter out these bad teachers and get
rid of them? These issues didn’t make any sense to me, but I resolved to
find the root cause.
Another big issue, perhaps the biggest, was the power
of the biggest teachers’ union in the nation: The American Federation of
Teachers (AFT). This union did not
support any issues that included firing individual teachers or getting rid of
surplus teachers. All American teachers had to belong to this union, and they
were forced to abide by the union’s directives; otherwise, a teacher could not
expect any protection from the union if the need ever arose. The big problem
was that AFT had a lot of money, which they used to back federal politicians
who, once they were elected, had a lot of authority over the public education
system and could make changes that would favour the union that had helped get
them into power. But it seemed to me to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is,
the teachers’ union helped to get certain politicians into power using union
money and now, the politicians had to protect the union’s interests in return.
This was a situation that needed to change, but was highly unlikely. I did not
see how I could bring about real change without the unions on my side. I needed
them to be on my side because they were the ones who directed their teacher
members to vote on union issues that would arise from time to time. If the
members were directed by their union not to vote at all, or to vote against one
of my directives that affected them, I would lose, it was that simple. How was
I, by myself, to execute the massive educational reforms that the politicians
in power had wanted me to invoke if the teachers’ union was not also on my
side? It was a catch-22, in which I would be the chronic loser. Was there any
real solution?
I eventually managed to execute some massive
educational reforms, as I was hired to do. I ended up closing 23 of the worst
public schools in New York City, I fired at least 23 principals (who are
considered “managers” and thus can be fired) and I directed and assisted other
principals in other schools to fire 50 teachers who were considered very poor
or unproductive, based on their personal track record with their kids. But of
the 50 teachers who were fired, 33 had to be rehired with back pay. Why? Who knows? I did what I
thought was the fairest thing to do within my power. And since I had a lot of
power, I felt this was a huge advantage.
What I couldn’t do was massively change the essential
structure of the huge bureaucracy, which now managed the many-layered public
educational system in New York City except to offload a good part of the work
from the head office down to other places like certain schools and the
principals of those schools. [ASI5] In the
process, I received a lot of flak from the various people who were affected,
and I wasn’t very popular with these people for putting my directives to work.
All I know is that I had the power to do something about this horrendous
situation and a real chance to help kids move forward in life, and I did what I
could to change things. For that I am proud that I actually made some changes
that made a difference
in the NYC public school system.[MJO6]
But what about the kids? Would they be better off as a
result of my radical educational reforms? Would they have something to look
forward to when they came to school every day? Would they have any hope for a
better future because of obtaining a better education that should prepare them
properly for a highly technical and skilled future work environment? If not,
then I hadn’t finished doing what I’d set out to do. If so, then these kids
would have a chance to go to a great school that had great teachers that were
both able and willing to give them the time and instruction that they most
richly deserved. This meant that they would
be better prepared to compete in a global marketplace with kids from other
countries for any of the future technical and/or engineering careers that they
may want. In any case, whatever career they chose in whatever field they chose
it in, every kid would have choices and that is really what a full and happy
life is all about, isn’t it?
To give every kid every chance at a good and thorough
public education, it had become clear that a kid’s home environment should not
be held against him or her. Living in spirit-crushing poverty, crime-ridden and
drug-infested neighbourhoods and broken homes with single parents—or worse,
abusive parents—would be, unfortunately, enough to prevent a kid from getting
the good education he or she would need to break out of this vicious cycle.
For families that live in poverty, kids who have truly
caring parents can still have a tough time. These parents want to give their kids
the best educational opportunities possible. Instead, they have to be subjected
to a school-by-lottery procedure that randomly determines who can go to the
best schools. It’s the only “fair” way of giving kids a real chance at an
education when the number of applicants to any particular school by far
outweighs the number of spaces available. No one thinks this is fair, but it’s
the only system we have.
After all is said and done, where are our kids going?
Are they going to be able to go to good public schools and get a decent
education so they can have decent lives? I’ve asked myself that question many
times, but who knows how long my time in office will last? I was appointed to
it and can just as easily be removed from it. I hope that while I’m able to do
something of value, I can at least make sure that each kid, no matter what his
or her economic circumstances, can have fair and equal access to a public
education system that hires only kind and caring teachers and has a way of
getting rid of the teachers who do nothing but harm the public educational
system. Am I only talking about American public schools? No, I’m talking about
public schools throughout Canada and the United States. Hopefully, because of
the radical educational reforms being done here, other countries will then be
encouraged to follow our public educational model for their children.
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