(Vol. 1, No. 1 - Winter 1996/1997)
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Louisville's future depends on
schools that work for all kids
By John Norton and the FRP Team
As we twist and turn through the maze of colonial-style townhouses in the
dim twilight, it's easy to imagine we're driving through a middle-class
development somewhere in east Louisville.
But first impressions are deceptive in this cluster of formerly private,
now government-subsidized apartment buildings not far off Newburg Road.
A closer look reveals the worn lawns, the woodwork in need of paint, the
battered screen doors and aging cars parked along the curbs.
We're here to meet with a group of teenagers and talk about school. We wind
our way through the look-alike streets, stopping every block or two to ask
directions, and finally pull up in front of a brick-faced two-story building.
Later the teens will tell us about the drug dealers who ply their trade
on nearby street corners and the recent shooting that took place just a
few hundred feet from here.
On a tiny concrete stoop, one of the community's concerned mothers is settled
in a beat-up folding chair with a pack of Kools and a cell phone at her
side, standing watch for the meeting about to take place upstairs. The second-story
apartment is actually a county police "substation," although local
residents say the police are seldom here. Police bicycles gather dust in
the backroom. A map of the area with the drug sellers' territory marked
in blue is taped to one wall; anti-crime brochures are stacked on a small
desk.
Nearly a dozen teenagers have crammed themselves into the tiny living room
and kitchen area. Most of them are members of a new neighborhood youth board
that's organizing in the area. A U. of L. student who serves as advisor
to the group occasionally peeks through the closed blinds to check out what's
happening outside. It's hot; the temperature on this late October day reached
an unseasonable 80 and even at dusk the un-airconditioned apartment is stuffy
and depressing.
As a photographer tries to snap pictures in the dimly lit room, the group
of young African American women-ranging in age from 12 to 18-sit on makeshift
chairs and talk about school, life in the projects, and what education might
mean to their futures.
The girls' descriptions of daily life in this fractured community are matter-of-fact
but chilling. Eight people killed in the last two years; three bodies dumped
nearby; random gunfire, sometimes directed at the very police apartment
where they're sitting. Some are defiant, but
most have a edge of fear in their voices.
What would they do to make the neighborhood better?
A chorus of answers: "Get rid of the drugs." "Get rid of
the guns." "Stop the men and women from fighting." "Make
more jobs for teens. Maybe if they had a choice they wouldn't sell drugs."
Schools have to work better
Like most kids, these teens are not yet at a point where they can evaluate
the quality of their own educational experiences objectively. The teachers
they liked were kind to them; a few describe teachers that challenged them
to work harder in school. Some are in honors classes; others know they didn't
get the preparation they needed in elementary and middle school to succeed
in high school but have difficulty describing how it might have been different.
Whatever their academic shortcomings, these students' faith in the future,
in getting jobs good enough to buy their way out of their current predicament,
is palpable in the room. One wants to be a nurse, another a lawyer. With
the certainty of a 15-year old, Tia knows she will be a successful businesswoman
with her own string of companies. Kristin, blessed with good looks and a
perfect complexion, will be a "supermodel," but plans to go to
medical school on the side, to "have something to fall back on."
Whatever their dreams, their chances are better be-cause they've recently
become involved in the Neighborhood Youth Board program, whose staff works
hard to help kids develop self-reliance, social skills, independence from
peer pressures, and a clearer sense of what it will take to finish high
school successfully, get into college, qualify for a good job.
But there's only so much they can do on their own, even with the NYB program's
support, to prepare for the future. For all but perhaps the most talented
and most determined, the eventual success of young people like these depends
heavily on the commitment of the Jefferson County school system and the
larger Louisville community.
"Schools have to work better for these kids," says Lynn Rippy,
director of the Louisville Youth Alliance. "Education's their only
hope for getting out of here-or staying here and making this neighborhood
a place you'd want to live in. If these kids with all their dreams and their
street wisdom can't get the education they need to have a decent life, what
does that say about us as a city, as a community?"
Who we are
Our team of education writers and reporters
has been asked by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation to take an independent
look at the Jefferson County Public School system's multi-year campaign
to raise student achievement in the district's 27 middle schools. This is
our first report.
The story about the Newburg teens helps underscore the critical importance
of the school system's efforts. Most young people either "make it or
break it" in middle school. They gain the skills they need to finish
their educations and find good work, or they drop out, go on the welfare
rolls, get involved with crime, or end up in dead-end jobs.
The middle school, which replaced junior highs in most U.S. communities
during the 1970s and 1980s, grew out of a belief that kids on the emotional
roller coaster of adolescence required teachers who could provide lots of
nurture as well as instruction. And most middle school teachers would agree
the theory's sound. But critics of middle school worry that academics often
take a backseat to counseling and self-esteem building.
The Clark Foundation believes that a good middle school must find just the
right balance of academic challenge and support. Kids in urban schools,
where 14-year old dropouts are all too common, can't wait for high school
to get the skills they need to succeed. Middle school may the last chance
for many of them. They need teachers who know their subjects and know how
to teach in ways that get them interested in learning.
The Jefferson County schools have a cadre of teachers who meet this level
of skill and knowledge, and many more who are committed to reaching it.
But in a school district with many low-achievers, with significant poverty
and a culturally diverse student body, the challenges are great and the
schools, at present, aren't fully prepared to meet them.
Last year, the Jefferson County Public Schools accepted a $2 million grant
from the Clark Foundation to help push forward middle school reform. The
district also drew support from a coalition of Louisville community and
business leaders who agreed to raise several hundred thousand additional
dollars as a "community match."
"We are basing our reform upon (a) belief that every child-that's every
single child, regardless of race or gender or socioeconomic background-can
learn at high levels," Superintendent Stephen Daeschner said recently.
Standards can help keep everyone on track
School and community leaders agreed with the Clark Foundation that the best
way to make sure students leave 8th grade ready for high school is to sharpen
the focus on what students need to know and be able to do. They also agreed
that a well-thought-out set of academic standards in every subject could
help keep teachers and students on track toward higher achievement.
Standards aren't a new idea in Kentucky. High academic expectations underpin
all of the programs growing out of the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act.
The creators of the much-discussed KIRIS tests use a widely publicized set
of academic standards to decide what will be tested and to develop test
questions.
As several stories in this issue of Changing Schools report, JCPS's
middle schools have been slow to adapt their teaching to the KERA standards-or
to create compatible district standards of their own. The first serious
districtwide conversation about standards took place in August during a
three-day conference attended by nearly 1,000 JCPS middle school teachers.
The recent disappointing KIRIS reports on middle school performance in Jefferson
County could intensify that conversation. But there's also the risk that
the rush to "prep" the schools before the next round of KIRIS
testing in April might sidetrack the standards discussion. As the teachers
in Anne Lewis's "Roadmap" story on page 7 point out, the transition
to standards-based classrooms will require some fundamental rethinking on
the part of many teachers. But expecting teachers to be deeply reflective
in the current crisis atmosphere is asking a lot.
Many JCPS educators agree with the Clark Foundation that while standards
aren't a cure for everything that ails today's urban middle schools, they
can provide a solid foundation for positive change. Using that perspective
as our guide, over the next year and a half, we'll be reporting on the Louisville
education and civic community's efforts to raise the academic achievement
of all of the city's young teens.
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