Partners In Education:
We Can't Do It Alone

Carol R. Johnson, Ph.D.
Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools

Thank you for inviting me to join you this evening. Thanks also to St. Thomas and Peter Hutchinson for their efforts on the planning of the Downtown School. We are pleased that this partnership is moving ahead. When I first agreed to speak, December seemed a long way off and, of course, I was confident that by then I would have things under control. Well, here we are and it has barely been three months since I began this exciting, new opportunity and daily, moment by moment, I am learning and understanding the complexity of what is required for us to be successful with all of our students.

Early this fall, the 29th edition of the Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll reminded all of us that for over a decade education has been near the top of the nation’s agenda. This is encouraging news for those of us who work in education because it reflects that not only those of us who do this work - but business leaders, community leaders, politicians and the media - consider a good education essential to sustaining our democracy, keeping our economy strong, our streets safe and improving our quality of life.

We live in a period of strong economic growth, low unemployment and increased international communications. Despite these very positive signs, it is clear that we also live in a time when families, educators and the community are deeply concerned about the academic performance of our students and the ability of public education, as currently designed, to address and meet the challenges of the future. This concern is significantly heightened in urban centers throughout this country, especially among poor students and students of color.

Anchors for Achievement

Today I would like to discuss four anchors that I believe must be well established, connected and working in tandem if we are to alter the current performance of our children. These anchors are: 1) students, 2) families, 3) educators and 4) community. These anchors are important because neither I nor any individual department or school district can achieve success alone. We do need the collective energy and wisdom of everyone in the community and, today, I will focus my comments on how this partnership fits together.

First, I do feel a need to say something about the success of public education, given our tendency to focus primarily on the failures. While we are a long way from the success we must achieve, we have made progress. Author and educator Gerald Bracey argues that, over the last few decades, schools have been blamed for many things. In the 1950s for falling behind in the space race; in the 60s and 70s for not delivering on the promise of a quality, integrated school community; and in the 90s for limiting America’s competitive standing in the global marketplace.

Let me speak to some positive accomplishments. A larger percentage of students are attending K-12 schools than at any other time in our history. Despite much of the rhetoric you hear, 85% of the students in school today are doing better than their parents or grandparents. There are a number of ways to document this assertion. Findings from the 1997 Condition of Education report found that high school graduates from low-income families were more likely to go directly to college in 1995 than in 1972. Parents’ education levels have increased dramatically since 1970 and, for example, the percentage of fathers with less than a high school education declined from 43% in 1970 to 19% in 1990; for mothers, 38% to 17%. A recent study on family characteristics and test scores found that a parent’s education was strongly related to student achievement.

The number of students graduating, the number of students taking advanced placement exams and the number of students continuing to enroll in some post-secondary programs beyond high school has continued to increase. Between 1984-1995, the number of students taking advanced placement exams increased dramatically, rising from 24 students per 1,000 11^th and 12^th graders to 66 students per 1,000. These increases were true for both genders and all racial/ethnic categories during this period.

Seven of the nine trends in reading, math and science tracked by the NAEP are at all-time highs. David Berliner, in the Manufactured Crisis, points out that scores on the GRE are up 16 points higher on quantitative and 12 points higher on analytic; the verbal score is holding steady - and that is despite a 100% increase in those taking the tests. While there clearly are schools and teachers that need to be improved, American schools and American educators have never worked harder or been more focused on producing high quality results.

A higher percentage of teachers in Minnesota have advanced coursework or degrees than at any time in our history, and teachers in Minnesota are required to get the equivalent of 12 graduate credits every five years to maintain their license. There is an unprecedented focus on defining, measuring and reporting on results, even when those results have been unfavorable.

Often those assailing public education refer to SAT scores as evidence that schools are failing. In fact, since the early 1940s there has been a huge increase in the number of students taking the test and, even with that increase, when you factor out demographic changes, specifically the increase in non-English speaking students, verbal scores have dropped only about 5% and quantitative scores have remained the same. The proportion of students scoring above 650 on the SAT is at an all-time high. In 1920, the dropout rate was 80%; in 1950 in Minnesota it was 50%; in 1995-96 in Minnesota it was 11%. Nationally in 1995, the dropout rates were 12.5% Hispanics, 6.5% Blacks and 5% for whites.

But knowing that we have success in some places for some children is not sufficient. There are, in fact, two different stories about public education in America. The first story is that some students are doing very, very well; the second story is that many students are not. The failure rate, in particular of our students of color, is the single most important challenge before us. But neither I, nor the school district, can change this alone; so let me talk about the anchors I mentioned earlier and what is required for us to be successful. The challenge is to simultaneously continue to provide rigorous opportunities for students doing well, increase significantly the number of high achievers and work toward dramatically changing the performance of those who are failing.

Family and Parent Involvement

First let me talk about the role of the family. America’s educational system in the past began with the family. Much of the motivation, encouragement and impetus for achievement came from the family. As the fabric of the American family has become more frayed due to divorce, increased families headed by single moms, dual careers and mobility, as well as other changes, schools have been expected to assume greater responsibility for providing meals, after-school supervision and supportive guidance. While schools have taken on this increased responsibility, no amount of schooling can replace the essential role that families play in helping students to value education and work hard to achieve. We need families and parents who read to their children, who get them in bed at a reasonable hour, who monitor their television viewing and the music they listen to, who ask them about homework assignments, who get them to school every day on time and who attend school events when their students perform.

Last year, Dr. Samuel Myers’ (of the Humphrey Institute) analysis of the statewide 8^th grade Basic Skills test confirmed significant education disparities between white students and African American, Hispanic and American Indian students. He concluded that students’ attendance, mobility and early intervention were among the significant predictors of those who would be successful on this test and those who would not. Some of us in the education community were surprised that poverty did not surface as a significant factor. Many of us had observed first hand the accompanying difficulties students and families in poverty seem to have: unstable family lives, inadequate nutrition and health care, and fewer early learning experiences. We have increased our efforts to improve student attendance. Just last night at Ramsey, I had a senior high 11^th grade student who said the principal and a teacher came to City Center to pick her up one day when she skipped school in 8^th grade; today she is doing well at Washburn. We do know that poor children can learn and are achieving in some schools.

A National Assessment of Educational Progress report identified five characteristics of students who, despite their income and family circumstance, appear to succeed in school. These poor, high achieving students had these characteristics in common:

• They live with both parents.

• They expect to go to college and graduate.

• They arrive at school on time.

• They attend classes.

• They have limits on the amount of time they are out on school nights.

What are the behaviors of parents of successful students? Some 60 years of research on child development define three dimensions of parenting that seem to differentiate effective parents from ineffective ones. They are: acceptance versus rejection, firmness versus leniency and autonomy versus control. Acceptance refers to whether children feel loved, valued and supported by parents. Firmness is about the consistency of parents setting limits. Students raised in this way know what parents expect and know the consequences of non-compliance. Autonomy refers to the ability of families to encourage the child’s sense of individuality, solicit their child’s opinions and communicate that self-expression is acceptable. These characteristics require parents to be engaged versus disengaged, to know what their child is doing in and after school. These behaviors foster self-love, self-control and independence in the student.

Laurence Steinberg and a group of researchers, in a book entitled Beyond the Classroom, found that specific types of parent involvement have a greater impact on student performance than others. They found that attending school programs, extracurricular activities, teacher-parent conferences and back-to-school nights boosted students’ performance in school more than simply checking over homework or encouraging students to do better. They determined that the former activities sent a stronger message of the importance of education, reinforced the view in the child’s mind that school and home are connected, and they found that teachers paid closer attention to students whose parents they encountered at these events. Parenting is hard work and, even when you do your best, there are no guarantees.

Extensive parent interviews revealed how parents of successful students "worked the system." Parents of students who were more likely to be unsuccessful tried to handle the problem themselves at home, giving their child a more demanding schedule and being vigilant over homework. By contrast, parents of successful students began by phoning the school and setting up appointments with the teacher, guidance counselor and/or principal. They also followed up on certain homework assignments, but emphasized with the school that their role was to help the school solve the problem, not solve the problem themselves. Steinberg defines this difference as an emphasis on systems work versus homework. This resulted in the students believing in the school’s willingness and ability to support them in achieving success.

Schools & Educators

But achieving success is not solely about what parents do. It is also about what happens in schools – what teachers, principals, administrators and others do. Schools sometimes have made it difficult for parents to monitor their child’s academic progress. Schools must become more welcoming and inviting places for both parents and the community. We need teachers and staff who know their students and the unique cultural environment that those children experience. Teachers must know their content; they must be knowledgeable and skilled and must have a repertoire of different instructional strategies to use with the diverse group of learners that arrive. They must give students many opportunities to respond. Sometimes we fail to call on students because we don’t want to embarrass them . That communicates the wrong message – "I am not expected to perform in this class." Our students don’t need pity. They need us to expect much for them. Teachers must give frequent and specific feedback to both students and parents and be willing to give students a chance to correct mistakes. Parents must be invited to participate in the learning process and students and families must see the teacher as truly caring about their success. Building relationships with students and families in the community is essential to communicating a sense of personal regard to students and their families. Students work harder and learn better when they believe their teachers and other staff genuinely care about their success.

Minneapolis has new teachers’ and new principals’ contracts that emphasize competence and accountability. Standards of effective instruction are defined – what teachers and principals must know and be able to do. Every teacher and principal must have a Professional Development Plan that is linked to the District Improvement Agenda, the document that describes the goals that direct the district’s efforts to improve student achievement. And the Professional Development Plan is monitored by the building principal and a group of colleagues who work with the teacher to ensure success. No longer do new teachers work for three years and become tenured. The new contract spells out specific steps to achieve tenure which include the personal plan, standards and assessment implementation work, a professional portfolio and an action research project. These changes were initiated and supported by the teachers’ union and are a significant departure from many teacher contracts in the state and nationally, because teachers have a key role in determining who remains in the profession.

Let me say a little about the leadership that is necessary. Leadership is needed at the building level, the board level and at the district level. And yet, we live at a time in our history where leaders are frequently mistrusted by citizens and destroyed by the media. So, attracting and recruiting quality leadership in schools and on school boards in public service is sometimes difficult. And yet the need for courageous, ethical leadership has never been greater.

The school system also must be a place where teachers are given the materials, support and academic freedom to do their very best. Systems must be in place for adequately responding to the needs of students who do not speak English or who have had limited schooling prior to arriving in the United States. Almost 80 languages are spoken by our students. I talked to a teacher at Sanford. We have children who are entering 7^th and 8^th grade that don’t know what it means to go to school. We cannot expect teachers to work miracles when the challenges require systems planning and targeted resources to address inequities.

We have been asked to do everything - teach about safety, drug education, gang prevention - and yet we are going to be held accountable most of all for students’ academic learning. Students are with us for a very short time. To achieve success we must define the results we want, clarify responsibilities, and then be sure our teachers have the tools to deliver. Some of our students enter the race on time; others late, with many barriers and handicaps that limit their ability to catch up. The standards are for all of our students, but the teaching techniques and strategies may not work effectively or equally for all of them. Our history of supplemental and compensatory programs has not demonstrated that we have invested sufficient and/or focused effort on the results we want. The traditional models of staff development have not always transferred research to practice. This change will require intentional conversations about teachers’ beliefs, values and practices. Today we deliver a product that varies based on income, gender and sometimes marital status of the parents. Tomorrow we must be able to prepare students so that 80-90% leave us prepared to do well in many different aspects of life. While we are not producing widgets, we are creating our own destinies.

As a school district we are working toward:

• Defining the results we want and then focusing our work and our resources (time, energy and money) on achieving those results.

• Not blaming parents but focusing on what and how we can assume responsibility.

• Building relationships and getting to know our communities by reconnecting and inviting in families and agencies that can support our work and becoming more accessible and responsive. Our area offices are designed specifically to support these collaborative efforts.

• Expecting every one of our 7,500 employees to come to work every day determined to contribute to student learning. Our facilities, food services and transportation are all part of the team.

• Acknowledging that we cannot do this alone; demanding and counting on others to respond to the social service needs of our students.

As a district we must promise to work with students as individuals, expect high standards, provide opportunities, and create safe and caring places for them to grown and learn.

Students

I have talked so far about parents and teachers. Let me talk for a moment about the most important variable in this equation – the student. No matter how invested families–or teachers–are in a student’s success, ultimately, students must own their own learning. For too many of our students, learning is not important. They believe that they do us a favor by merely showing up. And when they show up, it is too often for the social, not the academic, experience. They fail to see the connection between hard work, individual effort and academic achievement. They are smart enough but many of our students are not emotionally engaged in learning. They do enough to get by.

The preponderance of messages students receive doesn’t encourage time spent on high academic achievement. Many are distracted by other demands on their time. Few youth-oriented television shows celebrate academic achievement. In fact, too often students are encouraged to admire those who fool around, are athletically successful, or do well in the entertainment industry. (In fact, smart kids on TV, like Erkel, are portrayed as nerds - different, but not usually in a positive light.) This is in contrast to the late 50s when Betty, on Father Knows Best, or Wally, the oldest son on Leave It To Beaver, were clearly the smart, likable heroes. Would we allow a stranger to come into our home repeatedly, day in and day out, to influence our children’s thinking without our consultation? That’s exactly what we allow the TV and the entertainment industry to do daily. Many of our children have unrealistic expectations about what it will take for them to be successful in the future. They see grandiose images of athletes who make $125 million (Kevin Garnett/Minnesota Timberwolves) without taking the ACT and SAT.

The average American teenager has about 120 waking hours each week, assuming he/she sleeps an average of seven hours each night. Subtracting approximately 30-35 hours for school and another 25 hours for eating, household chores, transportation and personal care. This leaves about 60 hours. If a student works 15-20 hours weekly, participates in extracurricular activities for 10-15 hours weekly, watches television and socializes for another 10-15 hours, there is simply very little time left for academic pursuits. According to the Steinberg study, students in other countries spend considerably less time hanging out with friends, socializing, working part time or being engaged in extracurricular activities and, consequently, achieve at higher standards (Steinberg, 1996).

There are ethnic differences in these patterns within the United States. Steinberg and his colleagues found that, compared with their white, African American and Latino peers, Asian American students who have consistently out-performed other students spend less time on after-school jobs, are less likely to devote long hours to extracurricular activities and are more likely to devote time out of school to academic pursuits. Asian American students also spent half as much time socializing as other students did. Socializing with friends, in this study, was correlated with lower school grades. Steinberg postures that part-time employment and extracurricular activities of 20 hours or more reduce the amount of time for studying and undermine the commitment to school.

They found that peer influence and the circle of friends impact whether students’ performance is mediocre or excellent. Steinberg suggests that Asian students find it more difficult to break into more socially oriented crowds and so drift toward academically focused peer groups. The opposite is true for Black and Latino students. It is much more difficult for academically oriented African American students to find the necessary peer support for high achievement. African American social scientists Fordham and Ogbu refer to this phenomena as "acting white," which connotes an anti-intellectual belief system among some Black youth. One of our schools has a pep fest and academic lettering for students.

A growing body of research by Claude Steele and others suggests that society’s stereotypical notions about performance can limit the intellectual performance, particularly of women and African Americans, in mathematics. Other researchers attribute depressed standardized test performance and unwillingness to work hard on an early developed belief that you are either born smart or you’re not. If you aren’t, then there is very little effort that will matter. Given these preliminary conclusions, it seems imperative that we begin to identify strategies that, early in the schooling process, alter or support students’ own beliefs systems about themselves, so that when educational opportunities are presented they are able to identify themselves with achieving academic success.

Since returning to Minneapolis, I looked at a list of the top 20 students on the academic honor roll at a high school in Minneapolis. Over half of those listed were students of Southeast Asian heritage. These are students who came to America only within the last eight to ten years. They had been through a major cultural change. They didn’t speak English; their families spoke no English; and many of them had not seen their own language in a written form. Yet they were surpassing by leaps and bounds most of our American-born, English-speaking students. While today Asians make up only about 3½% of our population, 40% of Asians over 25 years of age have already earned a college degree. That compares with 24% whites, 13% blacks, and 9% Hispanics. Twenty-five percent of the undergraduate students at Stanford and 20% at Harvard are Asian. (Kiplinger Letter, 1996)

We must examine for our schools what values and policies have worked to create such high achievement for some of our students, and not for others. There are clearly some school and non-school environmental factors that impact student performance and beliefs about what it takes to be academically successful. It has been said that you cannot motivate people; you can only create conditions in which they motivate themselves. We must understand what it takes to create an environment where the child perceives himself as in control of the learning:

• We must work to be sure that our staff is competent and caring.

• Our schools are places where students expect to be challenged and are given daily, relevant work.

• Our schools must respond to the individual talents and needs of students.

• The culture in our schools must shift from an environment where achievement is expected for a small percentage of students to an environment where the majority of students are affirmed and rewarded for academic achievement. (Example: Edison students receive academic letters and there are pep-fests for the Academic Excellence Award ceremonies.)

• We must standardize the experiences students have from classroom to classroom.

Community and Values

The fourth anchor is community. We need to reconnect students with our community’s values about learning. This will take more than schools, parents and students. We need the business community, the faith community, arts and community organizations, and the media. Today’s messages to our youth seldom emphasize hard work. Students must hear the messages of hard work and high academic achievement over and over and throughout this community. The Search Institute work on assets and the research by Steinberg both affirm the need for students to participate in supervised, structured and organized activities that range from piano lessons, athletic and sporting events, and arts activities to scouting and community service. Steinberg suggests that even when parents fail to be involved heavily in these activities, students benefit from contact with other caring adults and/or parents of their peers who boost these values.

For a long time, those of use who worked in public education believed that we shouldn’t teach values. That was something for families or private schools. In fact, we do and should teach values every day. These are the values that are common and important to us if we are to live and work together in a democracy. These are the values of honesty, respect for other people, respect for other people’s property and caring about others in need. These values transcend race, income, gender and are ones that I think we all can agree upon.

We need our business community to be willing to mentor, tutor, offer students meaningful work and volunteer experiences, and help both students and teachers to see the connection between their school work and their futures.

A few weeks ago, I spoke to over 100 Minneapolis clergy at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church. I invited them to think about how the faith community could contribute to student achievement. Among the suggestions I offered were:

• Echo our messages about the importance of education.

• Establish a lending library to young readers.

• Encourage families to turn off the television and radio and talk to each other.

• Ask students in the congregation what help they need to prepare for testing.

• Create a parent or student "tip" sheet in the church bulletin focused on learning.

• Increase opportunities to read during Sunday School, Vacation Bible School or other activities.

• Sit with their children as they watch TV and monitor what they watch.

• Make Wednesday night a "Family Wednesday," where activities engage children and adults intergenerationally to talk together, sing together, read together.

We need our government services, the city and county to ensure that there are safe places for children to be involved in recreational and team building activities and to ensure that families are supported. We need them to establish policies and programs that provide adequate and stable housing, transportation and employment. (Example: A Burroughs social worker changed a bus schedule for a 6th grade student who moved 20 times since kindergarten. A Shingle Creek kindergarten teacher with 37 students {½ day program} has lost ten kids since September 2 and gained ten new ones.)

And we need our health partners to provide affordable health care to families and to educate our community about the early interventions that impact children’s growth and development.

Send The Right Message

An old geometry teacher, Sister Terrence, taught me once that the "shortest distance between two points is a straight line." That straight line, it seems to me, is the interaction between students and teachers. All of our efforts must focus on supporting that relationship and sending a message to our children in this community that the time they spend in school learning is precious and critical. Sometimes we focus on indirect things that are important, but nonetheless indirect. (Example: school boundaries, site-based management, athletic programs or school start times.) All important - but not as important to learning as direct instruction in classrooms and students’ willingness to work hard. Unless our voices are united, loud and clear, they won’t receive a message powerful enough for our children to hear, given all that tries to influence them.

We are approaching an unprecedented moment in our history, a time when we are expected to educate and prepare the most diverse student population that we have had since the early immigrants arrived in the first part of this century. At the same time, our youth are exposed to powerful messages that influence their beliefs, values and engagement in learning. Our best and only hope for achieving success is to mobilize all partners in this community so that the messages they receive are repeated numerous times in schools, in community centers, in churches, synagogues and mosques, at their place of employment, in scouting or in the parks.

These are the messages we need to send:

• What you do here today is important and will influence your lifetime success.

• Being smart is about working hard and putting in extra effort.

• We believe in your capacity to achieve.

• Everyone in this community – families, teachers and citizens – will work together to ensure your success.

Thank you for your support.

Minneapolis Public Schools Mission
We exist to ensure that all students learn. We support their growth into knowledgeable, skilled and confident citizens capable of succeeding in their work, personal and family life into the 21st century.

Minneapolis School District Facts*
1997-98 unless indicated

Enrollment

Enrollment Projections

Number of Schools

Average Class Size

Personnel

Student Plans for Post-Secondary Education

Socio-Economic Status

Race

Language Groups

*All data supplied by Minneapolis Public Schools.

Carol R. Johnson, Ph.D., is superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools and a respected leader in Minnesota education for more than 20 years. This speech was given to the Town and Gown Forum of the University of St. Thomas, December 3, 1997.

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