AIM PROGRAM "BEGINS with the END in MIND!"

Fix failing schools

Calloway's Detroit plan aims to serve students better

April 3, 2008

When Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Connie Calloway took the job, she said she'd be a leader driven by sound data, not by tradition or community pressure.

Calloway's decision to remove all the teachers and administrators from five larger schools that will be broken up into smaller independent schools honors that early promise. Frankly, she'd be irresponsible to continue DPS' defensive stand against reams of national data showing why smaller schools work and why many Detroit schools lead more students away from education than into college.

Calloway's call is a solid one that would be made stronger by collaborating with the Detroit Federation of Teachers, whose members, like it or not, remain the foot soldiers of any plan for change. The potential of this plan ought not be spoiled or overshadowed by turf battles or tense labor stands. Detroit school board members should ensure that DPS is transparent in its obligation to find spots for displaced staff members, but, more important, develop a fair process to ensure that the new schools get visionary teaching talent.

Critics who say Calloway's plan tars teachers with the schools' failure ignore the urgency facing DPS. Each of the schools in question lagged behind both state and federal graduation averages. The knee-jerk reaction would have been to just shut 'em down. The better choice is to try a trend that seems to be working elsewhere.

The schools will each be broken down into three to four smaller schools, reopened with no more than 450 students each, and specialize in areas such as technology or engineering.

The real stunner in Calloway's decision isn't the unanswered questions about what happens to the teachers and administrators at those old schools. It's this: Why has DPS settled for these failures for so long? Hasn't anyone in the district ever heard Einstein's definition of insanity -- "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result"?