The public schools' last hurrah? - a plan to save the school system: includes a related article on Nativity Preparatory School in Roxbury, Massachusetts - Cover Story

Washington Monthly, March, 1996 by Joshua Wolf Shenk

In 1983, Education Secretary Terrel Bell released A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform. It was a stark and angry report, concluding, "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war." The effect, Bell recalls, was "electrifying." Newspapers trumpeted the story. In statehouses, governors like Bill Clinton, Richard Riley, and Lamar Alexander pushed wide-ranging reform packages.

Thirteen years later, Bell laments, we've seen "some improvement ... but not enough." The origins of his landmark report provide a clue as to why: Bell wanted President Reagan to announce the study himself, appoint a panel to conduct it, and personally give members their assignments. The White House demurred. Such an action, Bell remembers being told, would undermine Reagan's efforts to abolish the Department of Education and slash federal education funding. In other words, the President was too busy disengaging from education to engage it.

The moment was both sorely disappointing and sadly predictable - another mark of the persistent failure of national leaders to elevate schools to the top of the country's agenda. "Look at how George Bush aroused the public over Saddam Hussein's invasion and conquest of Kuwait," Bell says. "He just wouldn't leave it alone. He went after it with all his heart." But schools have never commanded the same zeal. [Bush] is die one who said he wanted to be the education president," Bell says. "I'm a lifetime Republican, but I kept waiting" for Bush to make schools a top priority.

Bill Clinton has kept us waiting too. In Arkansas, he made education reform the centerpiece of his govenorship. Now that he's in a position to arouse public opinion, Clinton has faltered. His daughter attends the lovely Sidwell Friends School, a private school in Northwest Washington. But just miles from Sidwell, public school children go without books in schools packed to twice their intended capacity; they endure leaking roofs and putrid bathrooms.

The problems of public schools extend well beyond crumbling infrastructure. If children had top-notch teaching staffs, administrations that used funds efficiently, and effective curricula, maybe they would be doing all right. But they don't and they aren't. Meanwhile, confidence in public schools - even the "better" schools - is withering. Nearly 50 percent of Americans don't think a diploma from their local high school guarantees basic skills in math or reading. Six of ten parents would send their kids to private schools if they had the money. Support for public schools is "fragile," reports the public interest polling firm Public Agenda. And half-baked solutions such as vouchers are gaining popularity.

The loss of public schools would be a severe one. The purpose of education is not just to prepare successful workers and citizens, or to ensure equal opportunity. Those are vital functions; whether we perform them well determines the social and economic health of our country. But public schools, at their best, do something more. They provide a common space where, in a country fissured along lines of race and class, children of all backgrounds meet, interact, and learn to understand each other.

A recent USA Today poll shows that education is now Americans' most serious concern - above crime, the environment, and the economy. You would think our leaders would feel this sense of urgency, and that the subject of schools would dominate campaign rallies, television talk shows, and oped pages. This, of course, is not the case. It's no coincidence that the people who set the agenda - including activist Marian Wright Edelman, politicians Clinton and Al Gore, professional moralist Bill Bennett, movie director Robert Redford, and journalist Jim Lehrer - chose private schools for their children. This is true for the vast majority of the American elite.

It's hard to fault parents for seeking the best education for their kids. But these prominent Americans, by neglecting the crisis in public schools, are guaranteeing that the conditions that made them flee the public system will last, and possibly worsen, for the next generation.

There is no simple blueprint to revive poor schools, no formula for good ones. But there are five fundamental characteristics found in successful schools: A dynamite principal who has ample authority and support, and who is held accountable; classrooms filled with high-quality teachers; a curriculum that demands excellence; parents who are actively involved in the schools; and financial support that reflects education's vital importance.

I. HELP, NOT HINDRANCE, FROM ABOVE

At Roper Middle School for Science, Mathematics, and Technology in upper Northeast Washington, D.C., Principal Helena Jones walks her halls with the presence of someone who is both feared and loved. Rounding a comer, she sees two girls scuffling in front of a row of bright yellow lockers. Jones puts her hands on her hips and brushes back her bright red blazer. Her voice booms across the granite floors. "Where are you supposed to be?" The girls answer by going there.