Still Waiting for Superman

Last weekend I was a passenger in my car as my daughter drove me and her dog, Langston, back to her apartment in New York. I was reading the Washington Post when I noticed a story about the graduation rate at Duval High School, a school in Prince George’s County, Maryland.The same County and school system that I spent my entire seventeen-year education career in. I am very familiar with Duval. Its demographics are very similar to the school I spent nine years in as Principal. I know some of the people on the staff. Immediately, I knew that this story would be personal.

I began to reminisce when the story began by recounting a visit the school got from central office staff to inform them that the school had a new goal: a graduation rate of 95.4%. I know from my own experience that to achieve a number like that in a public school like Duval is possible only if you cheat. I know this because it would not have been possible in my school either. Two-thirds of my students were living in poverty, so were Duval’s. That fact is manifested in many ways. Chances are, at least fifty percent of the freshmen that arrive at Duval are two or more years below grade level in reading, and three or more years below grade level in math. Just like mine were. According to the article, only 8 percent of Duval’s students were proficient in Algebra 1 and 23 percent were proficient in English. By the time I retired, our students were scoring at more than 80% proficiency in both subjects, and we struggled mightily to maintain a graduation rate above 80%. There is no way in Hell that Duval could achieve a graduation rate of 92.3%. It is very likely that they lost at least 20% of those kids in their freshman year by either academic failure or dropping out.

As I continued to read the article, I began to get angrier as I learned that administrators and staff responded to the pressure and made their goals. The Superintendent “paraded through high schools with banners and pompoms, in a New Orleans-style dance line.” He would soon sign a new four-year contract.

So how did this “miracle” happen? Was it some world-changing pedagogical breakthrough? A sociological discovery that solved the riddle of cyclical poverty and eliminated the destructive effects of institutional racism? Maybe even a groundbreaking method for mass motivation of adolescents? Well… No. Apparently, you can get a 90% graduation rate if you change enough grades, dumb-down enough “credit recovery” packets, and falsify enough Community Service hours.

Why? Why do good people do stuff like this? It doesn’t benefit the students. Education is preparation. An unearned diploma is meaningless. If you go to college and you can’t read, write, think, or count, you will fail. If you get a job and can’t do the work, you get fired. It is educational malpractice to send a young person out into this world unprepared. It doesn’t benefit the administrators and the staff at the school either. According to the Post, Duval had three counselors fired, an assistant principal resigned, and the principal retired. So why do people do it? Fear. Fear of a poor appraisal. Fear of getting fired. The ultimate irony is if you end up as a scapegoat, you get fired anyway.

But Duval was not alone. There were other high schools in the county that used similar tactics, got similar results, and staged similar celebrations. The State of Maryland investigated the entire school system. Prince George’s County’s position was that no one from the central office ordered wrongdoing. The investigation ordered by the state did not find any evidence of wrongdoing by the Superintendent or his lieutenants.

When I finished reading the story I started to discuss it with my daughter. I told her how often people from the central office would come to my school with directives that I knew were often impossible or potentially disruptive. There were times when their directives would be counter to goals and objectives that had been mutually agreed on by all the school’s stakeholders from the beginning of the year. I knew that as Principal, I would be ultimately responsible for everything that happened in that building. For that reason, there were “directives” received from the central office that were simply ignored. If I knew they were wrong, or not in the best interests of my staff and students, I simply didn’t do it.

I also told my daughter that I never considered any “promotion” to a central office position. I had no dreams of being “director” of anything and I certainly had no desire to be a Superintendent. When she asked me why I felt that way I told her that I believed that as soon as you left the school building your job was more about politics than education.

There is a great misconception in America that in order to fix a school system you need a “great Superintendent”. Superman. News Flash… Superintendents cannot fix schools. Superintendents are politicians, not educators. Principals and teachers and counselors and parents fix schools.

The best Superintendent I ever had understood this. During my nine years as a Principal I had seven Superintendents. This one was different. We (high school principals) had monthly meetings with him alone, there were no other people in the room. We sat in a squared circle. He had hand-picked most of us, and during those meetings he simply asked us what we needed, what our problems and issues were. He listened, took his own notes. All my issues were resolved in 24 hours. He did not give us ridiculous goals and mandates. He understood his role was to pick the best people to run his schools, make sure we had the resources we needed, make sure we had the support we needed, make sure we were accountable for results, and stay out of the way.

I’m glad my daughter was with me when I read that article in The Washington Post. It made me angry, it made me sad, and I needed to vent. She knows me, understands me, and listens well. What happened at Duval High School is happening all over the country, and its wrong. Unfortunately, it will continue, as long as the powers that be are… still waiting for Superman.