Commentary: School superintendent needs backing from New Orleans

New Orleans CityBusiness, Dec 1, 2003 by Mark Singletary

An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal last week praised the work of a crusading city council member from New York. The gist of the article was this lady had the will and the bravery to take on the unions that controlled education in the nation's largest city.

The writer described some awful situations New York students must overcome just to learn to read and write. The most salacious of the condemnations dealt with the lack of power school administrators have in assigning teachers to specific schools and the abusive rules support staff have created to ensure they don't have to do much work.

The crusading council member was further frustrated by a lack of cooperation from the mayor's office. The school system in New York is a function of city government.

Here it's different. An elected board independent of city and parish oversight governs our school system.

The recently released school achievement scores show our problems are as severe as any in the nation. But we have a crusader, too.

Anthony Amato, our new superintendent of schools, doesn't wear a cape. But if you spend any time with him, you'll get the feeling he likes to leap tall buildings and bludgeon all sorts of bad guys.

During a recent meeting where Amato spoke, I had the chance to look into the future of New Orleans schools. There is passion in Amato's eyes. He's mad. He's upset. And, he has a plan.

During his presentation - it wasn't a speech - he talked about existing situations that make it hard to believe Orleans Parish school children do as well as they do now. That means it could be worse.

Amato says when he first got to New Orleans and was touring the schools, he was appalled by the facilities. We've all heard the stories about rundown buildings, little or no security and other generalizations about neglect and indifference. Amato didn't speak in general terms; he was quite specific.

He talked about young boys who had no working restroom facilities in their schools. I'm sorry, I meant our schools.

These young boys have to urinate in a hole in the floor in their bathrooms. If that doesn't send a message that these kids aren't important, I'd hate to see one that does.

In another tale, Amato spoke of an audit process that selected 50 checks at random from the payroll system. Five of the checks, 10%, were issued to dead people. The clerk knew the people were dead but removing them from the check-writing program was someone else's job. That person no longer works for our school system.

Another audit procedure was implemented to help alleviate payroll fraud. Check recipients now must sign for their paychecks. According to Amato, 1,750 checks have not been signed for by intended recipients. This year's big news about all the missing money from the school's payroll funds now looks like a solvable problem.

Amato talked like a man who is thinking about his students. He talked about saving these students. He talked like a man who isn't satisfied having children attend his schools and leave without learning to read and write.

He talked about two specific plans.

Like all good plans, these have acronyms. The first is SOS or Save Our Seniors. Amazingly, we let an inordinate amount of seniors drop out of school just before graduation because they find out too late they lack a credit or an attendance record that will let them graduate. Until now, there hasn't been an intervention plan to stop the bleeding. It was always someone else's job. Now, advisers whose job depends on successful intervention are assigned to these students.

To help make saving seniors less difficult, Amato is also implementing SONG or Save Our Ninth Graders. This plan reaches out to at-risk students as they first enter high school. The theory is if we show students some compassion and attention as they enter the system, they just might believe it when we say we care.

Amazingly, Amato is concerned about having enough support within the school system to give his plans a chance. That is as shocking as the story about the boys' restroom facilities.

Amato needs some muscle behind him. Amato needs to know where we stand.

If we don't stand with him, we will lose him. If we lose him, things might just go back the way they were when he took over our schools.

Nothing would please me more than for the new leadership at Greater New Orleans Inc., the mayor, the governor and anyone else who wants to, to link arms, march down Canal Street and pledge their support. Not just for Amato, but for taking back the system.