An American High School in Cleveland

It was Henry David Thoreau that said “No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails…” Perhaps it should be said no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its schools, its best schools and its worst. For the past 30 years I have lived in Montgomery County, Maryland. Our schools are considered by most to be among the best in the United States. For 17 years I worked in the Prince George's County, Maryland Schools, considered by most to be among the worst in Maryland. Using the Thoreau test, I was well qualified to render an opinion about the State of Maryland, but maybe not America.

But then I spent a year as an educational consultant in Cleveland Ohio.

I want to tell you about an American high school in Cleveland. It is not unique. In fact, when it comes to education for minority children in America’s inner cities, it is closer to the rule than the exception. The school is located minutes from beautiful downtown Cleveland. It is in a neighborhood in which the homes are marketed for $25,000 dollars or less. Many of the homes have boards in the windows although they are still occupied, and the roads in front and surrounding the school are filled with potholes.

One hundred percent of the students receive free or reduced meals, the government’s official benchmark for being really poor. All (100%) of the students are minorities. Cleveland does not have school attendance zones. Students can attend any school they want to, until it’s full. The students that attend this school are here because it is convenient to get to, they have been expelled from other schools, or they can’t get into any other school.

Ohio grades its schools in three general areas, Achievement, Gap Closing, and Graduation Rate. The schools get two grades for Graduation Rate (four and five year). For the year prior to my arrival this school received a “D” for Achievement and a grade of “F” in all of the others. The four year graduation rate was 53.4%. The five year rate was 62.7%.

At the beginning of the school year this American school had twenty four staff vacancies, seventeen vacancies at the end of the first semester, and eight at the end of the year. The school had 64 teaching positions, so on the first day of school, almost 40% of the classes had substitute teachers or no teacher at all. Imagine the effect this had on the school and classroom environment. Students that were already behind fell farther behind in core subjects and foreign languages.

This school in the heart of one of America’s major cities did not allow its Principal to appoint Department Chairs. The school district did not allocate any funds to compensate department chairs or a testing coordinator. As a result, communication was poor, subject and departmental coordination was non-existent, professional development was uninformed, record keeping was laughable, and morale was terrible.

A foreign visitor would walk away from our American school saying there was a serious lack of urgency by the staff to be where they were supposed to be. Teachers and administrators were habitually late to school. This resulted in large numbers of students in the halls due to missing teachers and locked classrooms, or because of large groups being moved to other classes due to missing substitute teachers. The persistent absences and tardiness of the staff had a direct negative impact on the morale and discipline of the students. The constant lack of supervision contributed to a culture in which the more powerful influence was exerted by the students themselves.

Student attendance averaged less than 80%. The school was able to document the fact that many enrolled students were attending other schools. Many others had dropped out, confirmed to be not returning by their parents or other responsible adults, but the school was not allowed to remove them from its enrollment. Student tardiness was rampant.

Communication efforts in the school were ineffective. Administrators, staff and students were constantly uninformed or misinformed of day to day events. The public address system functioned poorly and was inadequate for the purpose of communicating information to everyone in the building. This created an obvious, permanent safety hazard.

Our American school did not keep inventory records. There was a serious lack of knowledge relating to budget and purchasing procedures. The lack of department chairs made it very difficult for teachers to collectively assess their needs and request needed materials.

The school did not have access to a computer program or application to create a master schedule. The master schedule was not completed until the week-end before the first day of school. As a result, student schedules were incomplete and filled with errors on the first day of school. Hand written copies of the master schedule were distributed to the staff.

Expectations for student behavior was low. Disrespectful behavior by students toward themselves and adults was common. Profanity was commonly used as well. Trash and other litter was constantly in the halls. Fighting was common.

A discipline policy that outlines and defines student activity that will result in suspension did not exist. Consistency was lacking. Procedures were not in place to ensure that the staff is made aware each day of students that have been suspended or expelled. Procedures were not in place to ensure that Special Education students received manifestation hearings each time they were suspended once they reached ten total days of suspension.

To be sure, there were some very good teachers providing good classroom instruction in our “typical??” American school. But generally speaking, subject presentation failed to elaborate on critical attributes of the subject matter, failed to stress important factors, did not encompass the writing process or include reading comprehension elements, and failed to relate content to prior learning. In many cases lesson plans were either unavailable or not current. Lesson objectives were not clear and measurable or non-existent. Assessments did not consistently occur or were not evident. While there were notable exceptions, classroom environments were not conducive for teaching and learning. “Principles of Learning” were a major concern. Clear expectations, accountable talk, academic rigor, and self-management of learning were very rarely seen.

In 1896, in the case of “Plessy vs. Ferguson” The United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities. They said there was nothing wrong if they were “separate but equal”. On May 17, 1954, Thurgood Marshall convinced the court to reverse that ruling in the landmark “Brown vs, Board of Education of Topeka” case. The court decided that separate schools were “inherently unequal”.

The students, teachers, administrators, visitors, and parents of our American high school in Cleveland would say,

“Damn right”.