In September
2003, a friend called and suggested I look at an ad in the newspaper. St. Louis
Public Schools was looking for a director of communications.
For the three
previous moths, the school district had been in about as complete upheaval as
could be imagined. The reform majority on the school board hired a New York
management consulting firm that specialized in massive restructurings to run
the district. The day the firm arrived to take over, the school district
disclosed that it had a huge budget deficit (illegal under Missouri law). By
the time I saw the newspaper ad, more than 700 people in the central
administration office had been dismissed (think about that number for a
moment), bus and cafeteria services had been outsourced, school closings were
underway, and curriculum changes were being implemented wholesale.
You can imagine
the headlines. The protests. Parents up in arms. District employees up in arms.
Teachers doing wildcat strikes. The non-reform minority on the board leaking
school board discussions to the media. School board meetings that were
borderline riots (a “good” meeting, one administrator told me, was one where
fewer than five people were arrested).
My entire
experience had been in corporate communications. What did I know about urban
public education?
I applied for
the job. I was one of 10 people selected for interviews. All 10 candidates were
told to arrive at the same time. We sat in a conference, and were called out
one by one about every 10 minutes. Looking around the table, I could see I was
(2) the oldest, (b) one of four whites, and (c) the only male. I was called
last.
Three people
comprised the interview panel – the administrative vice president to whom the
communications job reported, the acting superintendent (from the management
firm), and one of the management firm consultants. They followed the standard behavioral
interviewing script until, without warning, the acting superintendent threw the
script up in the air and yelled, “Why the hell do you want this job?”
My answer must
have been sufficient. An hour later I found out I was hired, and needed to be
at a teacher focus group that afternoon. The job would start the next morning.
When I walked in at 8 a.m., I found out that two television stations and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch were waiting for
interviews – about the teacher sickout that was underway. When I asked who on
the staff could give me information and a position statement, the secretary
said the superintendent was at a breakfast and the other key staff people had
left the building, because they were afraid I would ask them to be interviewed.
“You’ll have to wing it,” she said. An hour later, I was told that there was no
communications budget – it had been eliminated as a cost-saving measure (the
year before it had been $1 million+).
Every day
produced multiple crises. A school board member got into an argument with a
high school principal than almost came to blows. Another school board member
attached an administrator. A school experienced food poisoning, blamed on the
outsourced contractor. And then there were the usual incidents associated with
an urban school district.
I think I have
some insight into what it must be like working at the Trump White House.
I visited most
of the schools in the district. I was constantly talking with teachers,
principals, central office staffers, parents, and news media. I attended school
board meetings packed with 400 people inside and more than 2,000 outside. I saw
teachers who were performing daily miracles with no resources, and teachers who
were showing up simply to get a paycheck and a pension. I attended public
meetings of the teachers union, because it was inevitable I’d need to respond
for the district.
I learned a lot.
Perhaps I learned too much. But one lesson that stuck with me was to be aware
of a certain phrase. If you heard anyone say “But it’s for the children,” you
knew that it wasn’t about the children at all, but about some other agenda. (I’ve
also learned the same is true for the school district I live in; this may be a
universal truth.)
So when I see
what just happened during the Betsy DeVos confirmation hearings in Washington,
I have a reaction based on the experiences in my own school district, which I
described last week, and the experiences I had with St. Louis Public Schools.
When its
contract expired, the management firm wasn’t rehired. The harsh things it did –
school closings, layoffs, contract outsourcing – likely saved the district
financially. A couple of years later, the Missouri Department of Education
removed the district’s state accreditation and appointed a board to run the
district. Within just the past few months, the district once again became accredited.
Charter schools (and
a voluntary transfer program involving the suburban school districts) have had
an impact on St. Louis Public Schools. Yes, they’ve siphoned funds away. But
they’ve also forced the district to compete, consolidate, and improve
academics.
Children in the inner
city deserve far better school systems than they’ve been given.
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