Samples
A Better Place to Grow Up (Chapter 15)
CHAPTER 15
No magic wand
It's May 16. Call it a day of reckoning. With the school year nearly complete, Lisa Angstreich, a McCormack Baron vice president, convenes a meeting to discuss the progress made at Jefferson School. She scheduled three hours.
Richard Baron is there. He's the developer and visionary who raised $3.5 million to refurbish the school. So is Chris Lee, a Southwestern Bell executive whose company had contributed more than any single donor -- $750,000 to place computers in every classroom and wire the school to the Internet. And Jim Laffey and Linda Espinosa, of the University of Missouri at Columbia, who have been working with the teachers to improve their classroom skills.
Principal Ann Meese passes out a sheaf of papers that describe the progress Jefferson's 367 students had made over the 1999-2000 school year.
She regrets that reading scores aren't better; that the school hasn't gotten a better grip on student behavior, that she hasn't moved more quickly to dispatch underperforming teachers.
"I guess everyone thought I would wave a magic wand," she says.
Actually, no one in the room had any illusions that Meese would perform miracles in the 1999-2000 school year. They would like to have seen more progress, yes.
But Meese's humble report shows that she and the students at Jefferson have taken several steps forward. The painstaking Success for All program has been rooted firmly in most classrooms. Students who had been showing no progress at all are inching forward.
Final reports would show that by the end of the school year 24 percent of the students were reading at grade level, among them Howard Small . That's 3 percentage points below the previous year. But many who fell short of grade level still managed to take leaps of a year or more. One of them was "Tonya," the fourth-grader whose poor writing skills had demonstrated to Meese what an uphill battle she faced. Meese says the Success for All coordinators had told her it usually takes a school three years before students begin to move up a grade level or a grade level and a half in one school year. She hopes that 80 percent of students will be at grade level by 2003.
The numbers tell another tale, too. Some teachers are doing much better with Success for All than others. They need to be encouraged and rewarded. Others simply can't cope. Several teach the lower grade levels, the most crucial years when it comes to reading.
"We're not making much progress" with some teachers, Laffey says. "If we have those same teachers under the same conditions, we'll have the same problems."
Meese starts to explain that it would take 100 school days to build a case against some tenured teachers. That means getting into the classrooms, observing and outlining expectations. But Meese had been besieged most of the year, putting out day-to-day fires that come with dealing with too many unruly students and with teachers who lack the skills to keep them on task.
At that point, Baron interrupts -- politely, but emphatically. District administrators promised that they would help rid the school of ineffective teachers. But Meese needed to ask. "Just transfer them out of the school," Baron says. "Go down and say they aren't cutting it."
That, of course, does not address what teachers might take their place. Who would come to Jefferson School at the low wages the St. Louis district offers to take on such a formidable task? And Jefferson can't simply settle for people who are willing. They have to be able.
For a good part of the afternoon, they talk about incentives and bonuses -- perhaps $5,000 a year per teacher. That might amount to as much as $75,000.
Not to worry, Baron says. "This is peanuts compared to what we've already done. We cannot spend any more time talking about the reasons why things can't happen. I'll go get the resources to make it happen. We've got the infrastructure here. Now we've got to improve the quality."
Baron turns his gaze to Lee, the Southwestern Bell executive who has been listening quietly.
"No one is asking you to write a check today," he says. "But what about funding teacher incentives? Would Southwestern Bell be willing to help out?"
Lee smiles and says he'll look into it.
Friday, June 2, couldn't come soon enough for Howard Small . Promotion Day. Nothing could compare to the anticipation, except maybe his first trip to Six Flags when he was 5. And this is going to be better because back then Howard was too little to go on the scary rides.
Grade school promotions generally don't get nearly the attention of high school or college commencement exercises. But at Jefferson, promotion is a big deal. The school holds a banquet at the Salad Bowl restaurant in midtown and everyone dresses up.
Students have been practicing for weeks for the ceremony, singing songs, reciting poetry, writing personal reflections. And for Howard and his family, it's an even bigger deal because so many of his family members have attended Jefferson. Howard's mom, Toni McNeal, has attended 10 Jefferson ceremonies for children, cousins, nieces and nephews.
On Thursday, Toni and her daughter, Nikia, took Howard shopping for a new outfit at Sears. Howard picked out a snappy herringbone double-breasted jacket, black crew neck shirt and pants, and shiny wing-tip shoes. A gold chain completes the ensemble.
Howard went to bed at 6:30 that night in the hope that Friday would come quicker. But it turned out to be a long night. There was so much to remember -- the hand motions for when the class sings "Wind Beneath My Wings," jumping in at the right time when it's his group's turn to recite a verse, and, of course, delivering his personal reflection. For that he'd have to stand alone with a microphone in front of all his friends and a bunch of strangers -- AND NOT MESS UP!
He had put together a short, sweet statement. "The reflections I am about to say is that I will miss Jefferson and the teachers in it. I will miss Mrs. Spencer and the other teachers that taught me."
With all that rolling around in his head, Howard didn't really fall asleep until 5 a.m. At 6, he awoke from a dream. His grandmother, who had died in September, was at the promotion ceremony watching him perform. She was smiling.
Howard arrives at the Salad Bowl barely on time. A fifth-grade teacher, Karen Jones, lines the children outside the banquet room by size. That means Howard, the smallest of his 34 classmates by several inches, gets to lead the procession inside.
Flashbulbs pop and video cameras roll as students stand in front of the head table and deliver their poetry. Next come the reflections. There's a sympathetic murmur as the first student gets so flustered that she stops and puts down the microphone and takes a moment to gather herself. Then Ashley Westbrook follows, poised and smiling. She talks about how her teacher, Mrs. Spencer, is like her second mother and that her classmates are her sisters and brothers.
Soon it's Howard's turn. As he accepts the microphone and turns toward his audience, he's not looking nervous at all. In fact, he's adopting a bit of a swagger. He's tossed humble Howard overboard. Suddenly he's Will Smith. "My grandmother took me to school when I was a 1-year-old baby and let the teachers squeeze my cheeks," he intones. "I'd cry as loud as I could till they finally let me go."
As his audience roared, Howard describes how each of his teachers took turns trying to keep him in line without enjoying much success.
"My fifth-grade teacher was Mrs. Spencer." (Pause.) "She was the baaadest teacher on the block. If you did some stuff, she'd dust your butt." (Pause and a smirk.) "But I got away with a few things. That's all I've got to say."
Howard's mom watches it all unfold through the lens of her video camera. "That's Howard," she says, shaking her head.
It's a tough act to follow. But the Jefferson class of 2000 meets the challenge, first with a soft rendition of "Wind Beneath My Wings," then at Karen Jones' urging, a more stirring reprise. Tears flow down the cheeks of Kiauna Jones as she sings, setting off the parents and the teachers.
Toni McNeal puts down her camera and flees to the women's room. When he's finished singing, Howard picks up a red carnation and begins searching for her. He raps on the women's room door until it opens.
"Mommy, you should have stayed there. Everyone's crying."
Then he grabs his mother around the waist and weeps.
