Appreciating Clark Kent

Talking to Paul Pratt about Berryhill School this week made me ponder our vision of school reform.

The education documentary  "Waiting for Superman"  gave us an image of reformers flying in,  shaking up old systems and bringing hope to the children of the inner city.

Pratt

Pratt,  a 60-year-old principal,  evokes mild-mannered Clark Kent more than his alter ego.  He retired as a principal in Clover, S.C., 11 years ago, then came to the school on Mecklenburg's western edge.  It stands out as one of Charlotte-Mecklenburg's most successful high-poverty schools,  but Pratt says his edge is neither flashy nor dramatic.  He and a core group of strong teachers just keep coming back,  year after year,  building relationships with students,  parents and each other.

"I've been here 11 years because I want to be,  not because I have to be,"  Pratt said.

It's a pattern I've seen before:  When you find schools that beat the odds,  the key seems to be the front-line educators,  not a reform program.  Unfortunately,  that's what makes success so hard to replicate.

Last year I looked for the highest-performing high-poverty school in CMS and stumbled across Windsor Park Elementary,  where principal Kevin Woods and his faculty had managed to stay under the radar and out of the CMS reform vortex.

Former Superintendent Peter Gorman got national acclaim for his strategic staffing program,  which brought in new principals and gave them money to provide hiring bonuses to recruit high-performing faculty.  But a close look showed the most significant gains were at two schools run by veteran principals who had a track record with urban schools,  Suzanne Gimenez at Devonshire Elementary and Nancy Guzman at Sterling Elementary.

Just months before Gorman left,  Berryhill was added to the strategic staffing program.  Gorman and the board had just decided to close troubled middle schools and move those students to eight elementaries,  including Berryhill.  Instead of bringing in a new principal,  Gorman kept Pratt but provided money for recruitment bonuses as he sought middle school staff.

Pratt was blunt when I asked if strategic staffing had helped Berryhill succeed:  "No."  He hired his new teachers through normal channels,  he said,  and used the extra money to award bonuses to the teachers who had stuck with the school.

Every five years or so,  CMS searches for a  "superman"  with the charisma, energy and vision to rally our diverse community around public schools.  We need those leaders,  and the superintendent's job demands extraordinary skills.

But it's good to remember the work being done by all those Clark Kents outside the spotlight.

Stop waiting for Superman?

You don't know if school transformation has taken root until the third principal.

That's one of the intriguing statements Eric Guckian,  executive director of Charlotte's New Leaders office,  tossed out when he filled me in on the group's latest thinking.  He was quoting Jennifer Henry from the national office,  and the comment represents a shift in strategy for a group that was founded to recruit principals for urban schools.

We all know the  "heroic principal"  scenario, which is a staple of the reform movement:  A charismatic leader charges in to turn around a failing school.  Sometimes that person founders quickly and quietly departs.  But sometimes,  when all goes well,  that leader energizes the staff,  inspires the students and creates a  "beat the odds"  school.

Then,  inevitably,  the successful leader is promoted or moves on to a new job outside the system.  And almost as inevitably,  the school slips back toward mediocrity or worse.

Guckian

That's why Guckian says his group is shifting from what he calls  "the insurgent model"  --  an individual jumping in to shake up the school  --  to an approach based on  "flooding the zone" with a team of like-minded leaders committed to a long-term change. The Emerging Leaders program offers two years of leadership preparation for teachers who may go on to become principal interns,  academic facilitators or informal school leaders,  part of a school team designed to carry on a vision even if the principal departs.  Developing talent from within is now emphasized over finding stars from outside.

"We believe that the unit of change is the school,"  Guckian said.

Principals remain important to New Leaders' work with Project LIFT and other high-poverty Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools. But there's a growing acknowledgement that they can't do the work alone,  and that life-changing results don't come quickly.

CMS features prominently in a recent Wallace Foundation report on cultivating the kind of principals that urban schools need.  Much of the report reinforces the notion that there's more to the task than hiring an outstanding individual.  It outlines efforts in CMS and elsewhere to evaluate, coach and support principals.

"In successful schools, leadership and authority don’t reside in any single person or position," the report concludes.  "The most enduring improvements occur through the consistent, shared exercise
of leadership by many in the school community and the district central office."

But the Wallace Foundation report also uses bad information to support the "principal as savior" model,  citing an article that CMS Deputy Superintendent Ann Clark wrote on the CMS strategic staffing plan for the August School Administrator journal  --  a cover story illustrated by an image of principals literally parachuting in to save schools.  The Wallace report quotes Clark on the importance of a great leader,  and sums up strategic staffing: "The results so far: Nearly all 24 of the participating schools have been successfully turned around, with single-year state test scores up as much as 20 points."

It's just not true to say all,  or even most,  strategic staffing schools have been successfully transformed by the principals then-Superintendent Peter Gorman brought in for three-year turnaround efforts.  As I reported in August,  actual results are mixed and often discouraging.  Early gains have  proven tough to sustain,  especially after principals move on.

Three years seemed like a long time to wait when Gorman rolled out strategic staffing.  Now that he has left CMS and most of the original principals have moved on,  it's starting to look like the "three principals" standard might be the real test.