We are all bystanders

Like everyone else, I have been shocked by the story of the Richmond High School girl who was gang raped for two hours on campus during the homecoming dance. The more I read, the more angry I feel.

I can’t, nor do I want to, imagine the mindset of the attackers. As troubling are the reports of up to 20 bystanders who witnessed the attack, but did nothing to stop it. While those twenty people may very well be tormented with the knowledge that they should have acted to stop this terrorization, the story doesn’t end with them.

Ultimately, we (our communities, our leaders, and we citizens) could have stopped this attack. Stories about a decaying community and crumbling schools in Richmond, and countless communities in California, often the poorest and most diverse communities, have been in the newspaper for 15 years. But the politics of marginalization and denial have allowed us to simply watch while these communities fall apart. And desperate people do desperate things.

Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, Kevin Fagan describes the Richmond attackers as a collection of drop-outs, former students and “mediocre students at best,” who were in the middle of an on-campus drinking binge. He wrote about the cultural environment that made their rage possible, including “the poverty-driven frustrations of inner-city Richmond,” the 9^th most dangerous city in America where 18 percent of families live below poverty level.

This attack could have been prevented. The conditions that allowed for this attack were recognizable, and could have been corrected. If schools in “marginalized neighborhoods” were given appropriate resources, this attack may have not happened. During this era of slash-and-burn state budgets, there should at least be a re-direction of resources to support these most marginalized communities.

In a very real way, this attack was fueled by an under-funded budget. Our school communities at most risk should get more resources during challenging economic times, even if that means at the expense of better-off communities. But, instead, the budget gets cut. If they had more counselors, lower class sizes, more interventions, more security, or perhaps if they had just built a god-damned fence around the place and installed lights, this girl might not have been attacked.

According to all of the stories, the teachers at Richmond High are doing an extraordinary job helping students to pick up the pieces. Yet while I write this, West Contra Costa teachers are in the middle of an ugly contract fight. They already make $9,000 a year below the state average, and the district is asking for more cutbacks. Fagan’s article reported that one of the attackers had once thrown a flaming paper ball at a teacher in the classroom. Why would anyone want to teach in Richmond?

Are we really willing to stand by and watch districts like Richmond, Oakland, Compton and (name your community) blow up?

At some point during the next few months, we’ll start hearing about massive shortfalls in the state budget. Progressives will call for more revenue. Republicans will go hide in a cave, blocked by a sign that reads, “wake us up when the knives are sharp.” Democratic leaders will shrug their shoulders, and give in to another year of massive cuts, even though there are billions of dollars of potential tax revenue available. More communities will be destroyed. More lives will be shattered. More Richmonds.

And we’ll all be bystanders. Watching the attack but not doing anything to stop it. Again.

Charter Blues

A writer on “San Leandro Progressives,” a Yahoo group that I hear from, has posed the question of whether San Leandro should develop another charter school. Here we go again. What masquerades as educational reform in the guise of a charter school really rips away at the fabric of public education.

In California, charter schools can only really exist at the expense of “mainstream” public schools. Every time a kid goes to a charter school, the neighborhood school loses money. The inherent difficulty is that every student does not cost the same to educate. But California’s emphasis on ADA doesn’t adequately fund the “more expensive” students (students in resource and ELL programs.) Also, neighborhood schools don’t often have the flexibility to easily shift students, teachers and classrooms. Unexpected shifts in attendance rip little holes into the district budget.

Charter schools get to pick and choose which students fit their charter. In other words, they can leave any kid behind. And they don’t usually accept the kids that cost more. Students with learning disabilities and physical disabilities, and students who are ELL (English Language Learners,) cost more because they require more staff support. (“We’d love to take Junie, but we just don’t have the facilities to accommodate her.”) Charter schools don’t have to take these kids. “Mainstream” schools do. The result is that the “mainstream” school is left with a higher percentage of students who cost more to educate, but are not compensated fully for the additional expense.

Charter schools often have required parental-participation responsibilities in order for their kids to attend. Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of encouraging parent participation. But what about the families who are simply unable to fulfill these obligations? Parents in single-parent, double-job families, or families where someone requires long-term care often don’t have the option of meeting a charter school’s participation requirements. So, their kids won’t have the same school opportunities, and they end up being stuck in the school where there are no such requirements.

Finally, charter schools lean hard on their teachers and parents. Without Union approved contracts, teachers are often asked (expected) to work 50 - 60 hours a week, must often be available for evening phone calls or extra tutoring sessions (without compensation), and survive without a whole lot of administrative support. Sure, fresh-out-of-teacher-school, school-reformer-type teachers are often anxious to take on the challenge. They just don’t last very long.

For a school to have long-term success, there really needs to be a good balance of new teachers and veteran teachers. If teaching is a career, you have to find some out-of-school balance in your life. It’s hard to find that balance when you’re working 50-60 hours a week. Call me lazy, but I actually believe that I can do my best teaching if I have a life outside of the classroom.

And finally, there is the problem of administration. Somebody has to watch where the money comes from and where it’s got to go. Each school is a little different, so there’s not really a how-to manual. The same person has to be the boss (no favorites, please), politick the parents and keep everyone smiling. In a charter school, that’s usually one person. And that person is probably looking for another gig. When that person exits stage right, the new challenge is finding a worthy replacement, and maintaining a sense of school identity and organizational memory.

In the end, I can’t help but seeing charter schools as a means for the slow disintegration of the neighborhood public schools. I lump them together with No-Child-Left-Behind, vouchers, and the crisis of pathetic funding as direct attacks on our kids. But despite all of the attacks on our schools, I still believe that the public school is perhaps (or should be) the last great institution – the only place in a multi-racial, multi-cultural community where we can all come together with a common cause and support each other.

It's the "Principal" of the thing!

A few years ago, when a friend told me that he was going to get his school administration credential, I remember saying that was great, we need good people becoming prinicipals.  But I also told him he was out of his mind, that I would never wish the job on any friend.

 

Being a principal is an impossible job.  You get all the responsibilities of running the school, including student achievement, school climate, employee relations and community spokesperson, but very limited power.  Long hours, low budget, and everyone expects you to live up to their very specific expectations.

 

So, what qualities make a good principal?  How can we measure success?  In my head, the answer is we need some combination of circus skills in your basic principal – some combination of juggler, high wire act and ringmaster.  However, it’s best to avoid the people who see themselves as lion-tamers and dart-throwers.  Those are the types that can run a staff ragged.

 

I believe that a principal can do more harm in a school than good.  A bad principal can easily marginalize parent groups, divide a staff or shove students into a box.  Then run.  And leave Pandora’s box open for the next unlucky person to come on in and take the job.  But a good principal’s best gift to a school community is to simply encourage the good things that other people are doing.

 

With all that said, I think it’s the duty of people in a school community to expect and demand good principals.  I actually believe that experienced staff members need to take it on themselves to train principals how do their jobs, which is awkward, because the principal is the “supervisor” in the relationship. 

 

Awkward, but necessary.  The teachers, office workers, counselors, aides and custodial staff are the folks who have been in the school community the longest, and also the people who will last the longest.  Teachers carry school culture and remember school history.  Staff members develop working relationships with each other that last long past the principal’s tenure in a school. 

 

A good principal should inspire the people around her or him to add their talents to a mosaic – which becomes a shared vision for how the school should be serving the community.  That’s the basic job description for a quality principal.  The more you impost, the more the staff, parents and students resist. The principal who recognizes this basic truth about the way a school functions is the one who fits the school the best.