(Vol. 1, No. 1 - Fall 1996)
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INTERVIEW:
LBUSD Superintendent Carl Cohn
"We have failed students by not holding them to high standards,
whether it's dress, behavior, or academics."
Superintendent Carl Cohn has led the Long Beach Unified School District
through a series of reforms during his six-year tenure in the school system's
top post. With school board support, Cohn decentralized the district administration,
shifting more decisionmaking to local schools and area superintendents,
at the same time strengthening the district's curriculum and testing programs.
A parallel focus on discipline and order led Cohn and the board to begin
LBUSD's high-profile uniform policy for middle schools -- soon to be expanded
to high schools.
In 1993, with a two-year grant from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation,
the district began a push to raise student achievement in its middle schools;
an effort that gained further momentum in early 1996 when LBUSD agreed to
match a second, $1 million Clark grant and use the funds (and the district's
new academic standards) to help fulfill a promise that, by the year 2001,
most middle schoolers would complete 8th grade ready for high school academic
work.
In late May, as the 1995-96 school year drew to a close, we asked Cohn about
the district's new focus on standards.
Changing Schools: Why are the Long Beach schools turning
to academic standards?
Cohn: This generation of youngsters in our schools today
is going to face extraordinary competition in the world of work and for
seats in our higher education institutions. It's our duty to really do a
much better job of making them competitive than perhaps has been done in
times past.
We've been having a debate in California about eliminating special preferences
at the University of California and abandoning remedial coursework in the
CSU system. But the real battleground for change is what we do in K-12 education
to eliminate the need for these kinds of programs. And the only way to get
there is by adopting standards as early as possible that youngsters are
expected to meet and having consequences that mean something if they aren't
met.
So that's what we're doing with our 3rd grade initiative that says children
will not be promoted unless they're reading at grade level, and our 8th
grade initiative that says they won't go onto to 9th grade unless they meet
academic standards.
CS: Do you see a connection between the new academic standards
and other actions the district has taken, like the school uniform policies?
Cohn: We see standards as part of a discussion about student
dress, student behavior, and student academics. We don't isolate academics
off over here and say, well, that's the mission of the schools, while dress
and behavior are not a key part of that. I think parents feel the same way.
When we look at our young people in Long Beach, we see youngsters who don't
dress well, we see youngsters who at times don't behave well, and we see
youngsters who aren't learning very well. Part of the reason why that's
happening, in my judg-ment, is that we as adults have failed them by not
holding them to high standards, whether it's dress, behavior, or academics.
CS: How much does the public know about the district's
new standards? Has the district done its job in getting the word out?
Cohn: I don't think the community is at all aware of the
academic standards at this point. And I think we've got a lot of work to
do to make them aware. I think if we want to realize the standards, we've
got to better engage our parents in supporting what's going on in the classroom.
CS: Do the standards cover the basics as well as more advanced
skills?
Cohn: Yes. Any school system that fails to pay enough attention
to the basics is fatally flawed. It's ignoring the public's values and what
parents really hold us accountable for. It's not that I have any problems
with developing higher order thinking and problem solving skills, but we
need to listen to the results of The Public Agenda Foundation. Their national
study on public attitudes toward education is called 'First Things First.'
That pretty well sums up the way most people view the schools' responsibility
to teach the basics.
If you can't deliver on the basics, it is totally fraudulent to make promises
that you can somehow teach higher skills. It's our job to make sure we're
teaching both.
CS: How will you know whether the standards are taking
hold and making a difference in student achievement?
Cohn: Basically, we'll be looking for evidence that youngsters
are meeting those standards. We've hired a new testing and assessment person
who is absolutely top-notch, and we are moving toward a testing program
that will be based on our standards.
But the real key, I think, will be our new system of certifying classrooms.
It's a tool designed to make sure that every teacher is focused on delivering
rigorous academic content effectively - whether the teaching is traditional
or non-traditional.
CS: How does the classroom certification program work?
Cohn: At the end of each year the principal has to certify
that each and every classroom offers a rigorous academic challenge. And
if it doesn't, she or he has to identify that classroom and design a plan
to address that situation.
To me, the essence of accountability in a school system is naming names,
which we are often reluctant to do. The tendency is just to say everything's
improving, and we had this professional development training and therefore
we hope that it takes, and that's how we're going to get better.
Now, for the first time, you had a memo from each principal that actually
identified classrooms where things were not up to speed and included the
principal's description of what will happen in the next year, either to
go through the steps to remove a person or to get the assistance they need
to improve.
CS: This certification process puts a lot of pressure on
principals.
Cohn: I try to find the right mix between accountability
and unproductive anxiety. I would hope that the overall message is this:
We are an organization that will no longer merely move you to another principalship
if you do not improve.
We've made a good many principal changes in the last year and a half, so
the message has been underlined, I think. And it wasn't all about academics,
it was also about who can lead and who can't. That's probably what's most
important.
CS: How would you rate community support for the Long Beach
schools?
Cohn: Everything is relative. If you look at us as the
third largest school system in California, and one of the 45 largest in
the country, and then you looked at levels of conflict here, this would
seem like Sunny-brook Farms.
But I think there's a lot of dissatisfaction with the public schools in
our community. One reason is that people feel left out of the process, in
all parts of town. Our annual survey of parents tends to be fairly positive,
but I still have some real concerns about how we respond to parents across
all of our schools.
I think parents are desperate for communication; they really want to know
and be a part of what's going on. Our elementary schools draw rave reviews
all over town for staying connected with parents, but it's just not happening
in middle schools. That needs to change.
I think it's time for us to take a fresh look at what we're doing. We need
to work on how well we listen to parents; we can't always solve their problem,
but we can listen to and respect what they have to say.
CS: Is long-lasting school reform really possible? It seems
that so many things have to fall into place in a system that's under a lot
of stress just running the schools day to day.
Cohn: At times I think school reformers make school reform
way too complex. It's fairly simple. Change what goes on in the classroom
and change the extent to which parents support what's going on. If you do
those two things, you can lead schools.
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