Believing in Ourselves: Urban Middle School Reform

Believing in Ourselves

Part II - The Reform Context

PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER

Most of the districts in the Clark network acted like the large bureaucracies they are. That is, they didn't show enough knowledge about the individual schools' situations to be able to relate to them in more than a perfunctory manner. Their own agendas often sent conflicting messages to schools. Their necessary attention to district-wide issues, such as budget cuts or reorganizations, often changed priorities for schools with little sensitivity to their impact.

These actions weren't intentional barriers to reforms. They reflect two seemingly countervailing behaviors endemic to large urban districts.

One is ingrained habits in the relationships with schools, habits that inhibit trust and innovation. In some districts, the central office kept tight-fisted control of funds under the Clark project, only gradually allowing schools to use the resources for their own priorities. The central office could not let go. In others, the opposite was just as unfruitful -- an apathy toward the struggles of the schools aside from appointing committees (with endless meetings) or filing the required foundation quarterly reports. The central office had other things to do.

Some sent waves of reform plans on paper over to the schools, seldom asking anyone other than token teacher representatives what those in the classroom thought and believed about needed changes. All of these habits displayed a lack of trust and/or respect -- a real division -- between central office agendas and the realities of the schools.

The other behavior that was ingrained in the districts was instability. The constant turnover of personnel from the superintendent down through the principalships undermined the creation and sustenance of a vision for middle grades change. Of the 12 principals in the schools at the end of the initiative, only one was in place before the project was started; the other 11 schools adjusted to 27 different principals over the five-year project. Each of the five districts had two superintendents during the project; one district got its third in 1995. Coordinators for the project changed even more often in three of the districts.

The constant evaluation allowed a perspective to develop: districts are at different stages of being able
to move from bureaucratic habits to a reform agenda.

Tensions with school sites and instability of leadership are typical of school bureaucracies. The important point is how willingly school systems face the problems these create and do something about them. Over the years, the constant evaluation of the Clark program allowed a perspective to develop, one that realized districts are at different stages of being able to move from bureaucratic habits to a reform agenda.

The five years of the Clark initiative also made it obvious that significant change only happens when it goes beyond a few points of light and becomes a district ethos. Again, the differences among urban districts in their ability to conduct and their commitment to systemic reform are as telling as are their common problems.

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from Believing in Ourselves: Progress and Struggle in Middle School Reform. By Anne C. Lewis. Published in 1995 by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.