From hyperbole to hyperbowl to Tidy Bow

Leadership, Sept, 2001 by George Manthey

THE SOLUTIONS TO WHAT TO DO ABOUT LOW PERFORMING SCHOOLS ARE CLEAR.

Compare these two lessons, both of which took place at approximately the same time across a corridor in an "underperforming" school.

1. In a dimmed classroom students are reading words authored by either Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton -- the sentences are presented on projected 35 mm slides and are printed in an impressive gold font symbolic of their importance to our country's history. Students discuss in small groups the reasons they would attribute the statement to Jefferson or Hamilton before making their individual selections.

2. A teacher reads a sentence from a Paul Bunyan story and asks the class whether the statement is "hyperbole or regular." The students shout responses until "hyperbole" turns to "hyperbowl" turns to "tidy bowl." The teacher stops them and explains that the lesson is important because they are working on the state standard, "Use literature to understand cultural differences."

The first thing that needs to be done to support "underperforming" schools is to stop using that term. Schools are inanimate buildings. Buildings don't over or underperform. It is people who underperform or overperform. Would we be willing to call each person involved in the lessons above under- or overperforming? It might seem like a minor point until it is you that is labeled "underperforming."

This year an independent review was conducted of 50 randomly selected action plans from the first round of schools participating in the Immediate Intervention/Underperforming Schools Program. The authors of this review made the following conclusion:

"One overarching and disheartening conclusion to be drawn from review of the action plans is that most of them are doomed to fail. The problems faced in the communities in which these II/USPs are located are pervasive and severe. They extend well beyond the province of education and the capacities of the schools, even under the best of circumstances, to respond to them. The problems in the schools are but a reflection of the broader social deficits that are presented by overburdened parents for whom economic pressures mitigate against effective and active support of their children's education. It is impossible that actions taken solely within and by the schools would in some remarkable manner bring about the kinds of changes that would be required to boost school performance into the ranges expected in the larger state system of education" (Katherine McKnight and Lee Sechrest, "Evaluation of the Quality of Action Plans," Evaluation Group for the Analysis of Data, University of Arizona, March 2001).

Unfortunately, it is not "plans" that this conclusion dooms to failure; it is students -- especially students of poverty (roughly three of seven Hispanic or African American children). The main problem with this conclusion is that in schools with students, teachers and administrators who are underperforming there are students, teachers and administrators performing at the highest levels. How can this be if "it is impossible that actions taken solely within and by the schools would in some remarkable manner bring about the kinds of changes required to boost school performance ...?"

In fact, all across our country there are schools that defy the conclusion of the authors of this report. In Florida, Kentucky, Texas, Massachusetts, even in California there are schools where a majority of students of poverty are performing at high levels -- levels far beyond what too many Americans believe possible for those faced with "social deficits."

ACSA President Don Iglesias recently told me that he's tired of hearing about problems and wants to hear about solutions. The solutions to what to do about high-poverty, low-performing students have been made very clear from the various studies of high-performing, high-poverty students.

Each of these studies reaches remarkably similar conclusions. These schools are characterized by strong leadership (not necessarily, though most often from principals); incredibly high expectations of their students, teachers, parents and leaders; and by precise instruction of specific objectives that is modified based on ongoing assessment of student performance. Those are characteristics that repeatedly lead to success and are completely within the "province of education and capacities of schools."

Try this: make the statement at any gathering that children of poverty are just as intelligent as children of wealth. Look deeply into the incredulous faces you'll see. Before you lies a fundamental problem -- a conclusion that students of poverty can never be expected to perform at high levels, except for a very few remarkable exceptions. They can do better, perhaps, but not ever "well."

To bust through that problem requires faith, fortitude, precise instruction, abundant feedback and the beliefs that any child is capable of performing at a high level, that any teacher is capable of outstanding instruction, and that any school leader is capable of providing the support necessary to make sure students and teachers succeed. To learn about schools where this statement is not hyperbole, check out the following Web sites: