New Superintendent Jermall Wright came to Little Rock after successful stints in Mississippi and Birmingham, getting a great reception from Mayor Frank Scott Jr., school board members, and business leaders.
Now, the hard work begins. From decades studying urban public schools, here are my ideas about how Wright can improve those in Little Rock.
First, get to know folks. Education requires relationships. Build relationships with your principals and as many teachers as possible, but also invest time getting to know the governor, Mayor Scott, and Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key. Spend Sunday mornings in churches and Friday nights in temples and mosques. If the only time people see you is when you want something, you are not going to get anything.
As legendary Oakland school superintendent Marcus Foster wrote a half-century ago in his classic “Making Schools Work,” in school controversies, no side is all right or all wrong, so make friends with all sides.
Second, interview your predecessors. Ask who they could trust, and who was effective. Different leaders will usually agree on who to work with, and who to work around.
Third, stay a while. As Rick Hess showed in “Spinning Wheels: The Politics of Urban School Reform,” in many cities every three years a new superintendent arrives, announces flashy initiatives to pad their resume, and then moves on to the next job before anything changes. Knowing this, teachers and principals pretend to support the new boss, while quietly waiting them out. Don’t be that guy. Instead, stay long enough to build credibility.
Fourth, use data. Data can’t make decisions, but must inform decisions. I will put in a plug for my colleague Sarah McKenzie, who runs the University of Arkansas Office of Education Policy. Sarah has the best education data around. She’s here to help.
Fifth, highlight success. As Charles Payne shows in “So Much Reform, So Little Change,” many educators do not believe “those kids,” meaning low-income children of color, can learn. Generally, if people don’t think the job can be done, they won’t try to do it. Find Little Rock’s top teachers, listen to them, and highlight their work.
Sixth, influence hiring and promotion. Talent matters, yet in many systems people get jobs based on who they know, not what they know. Instead, recruit widely. In the 1990s, my old friend Rod Paige made the Houston Independent School District one of the best big city systems in the country by recruiting great teachers locally and nationally.
Seventh, help principals hold teachers accountable. Terminating teachers should be unusual, but not impossible, which is how it is when principals lack training and legal help. When I checked some years back, fewer than five of Little Rock’s 1,600 teachers were on an improvement plan to get better or get out. Investigate to see if that remains true. At the same time, you get what you pay for, so do all in your power to raise teacher pay.
Eighth, build relationships in early grades. Most teachers loved school so much they never left, but many blue-collar folks (including me) hated school, and so do their kids. To break the cycle, build relationships. Educators could do home visits to meet parents at the start of the school year to set expectations, and show they care. Encourage “looping,” where a teacher has the same kids for two or three years. Do regular Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) testing to guide individual academic plans for kids to achieve on grade level by fifth grade. Slash achievement gaps in elementary school when a kid has one teacher. Too often in older grades, each kid has seven teachers, each teacher has 130 kids, and no one feels responsible for anyone.
Finally, small down big schools. Big high schools offer choices that usually work for advantaged kids who get their mentoring at home. They usually fail for disadvantaged kids, who need a more personal touch. As evaluations by Howard Bloom and others show, New York City raised achievement and graduation rates dramatically by dividing big high schools into small schools whose principals know all their kids. Often a single large school building now holds five small schools.
Leaders like Marcus Foster and Rod Paige proved that successful urban school leadership is possible. You can too.
Robert Maranto is the 21st Century Chair in Leadership in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, and a former school board member. These views are his alone.
Print Headline: Advice to the chief
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