By Jackie Larson, KERA 90.1 Commentator
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-564560.mp3
Dallas, TX –
A website touting itself as an expert on helping companies decide which cities to expand to has some choice words to say about the plight of urban school districts. Expansionmanagement.com says "Most metros of any size are usually characterized by an underperforming urban school district surrounded by a ring of good-to-excellent suburban school districts. The underperforming school district is almost always the namesake school district and is characterized by low graduation rates and even lower test scores. Unfortunately, those school districts have a negative impact on the reputation for the entire metro area."
To his credit, the Dallas Independent School District superintendent has an ambitious goal: Dallas will be the best urban district in the country by 2010. Dr. Michael Hinojosa puts the onus on the district's 225 principals, who have traditionally had a lot on their plates with facilities, staffing, testing and behavior of the district's 160,000 students.
He joins education reformers nationwide saying instruction is both meat and potatoes of education. Instruction - curriculum, testing and classroom teaching - often falls to the tyranny of the urgent, relegated to assistant principals and district curriculum directors.
There's no escaping the challenges urban educators face. The blame for low performance can't go solely to the estimated one in ten Dallas principals whose schools have been ranked academically unacceptable by the TEA (Texas Education Agency). Still, who better to put in charge of improvement in instruction? The principal is often the best-paid and most highly educated staff person on the campus. Not necessarily an expert at AP (advanced placement) calculus, the principal should be able to model what great teaching looks like and how to engage students in real learning.
Hinojosa's not just a lone cry in the wilderness of urban education. In an American School Board Journal article, Policy Forum statistics estimate just one quarter of today's principals possess "essential instructional leadership skills." If this ratio holds true for Dallas and the rest of Texas, it's time to apply his effort to make principals more accountable for student learning across the blackboard.
Here's why I think his approach can work.
Set forth in a Dallas Morning News article, Hinojosa's new guidelines say DISD principals will devote 40 percent of the school week to observing teachers, and will have another 10 days added to their contracts for curriculum training and analyzing test results to determine where more work's needed.
Carrot-and-stick incentives mean gains in student achievement can bring about the coveted "highly effective" status and a cash bonus help from a $22 million federal grant, while principals unable to deliver positive change may be more easily removed and candidates will be weighed for classroom experience and problem solving skills.
Dallas educators have demonstrated the ability to produce pockets of student achievement. For example, Dallas schools were named among the best in the state in the December 2006 edition of Texas Monthly, which cited superior student performance in reading, math, science, writing and/or social studies. Dr. Hinojosa recently created a revolving blue-chip committee of ten Dallas principals who have raised the instructional bar at every campus they've been at, which gives the district a think-tank to draw on and may put old-fashioned peer pressure to work in a different way in the city's schools.
If the principals all embrace the challenge, the resulting surge of learning could make Dallas a role model for other districts around the country, urban and otherwise.
Jackie Larson is a writer from Dallas.
If you have opinions or rebuttals about this commentary, call (214) 740-9338 or email us.