Simon Rodberg: Too many directions for DC schools

DC public and charter schools enter winter with winds buffeting them from many sides. The mayor’s nominee for DC Public Schools chancellor, Dr. Lewis Ferebee, brings a reputation from Indianapolis for aggressive innovation. The previous chancellor’s main initiative is still evident in “social-emotional learning” bulletin boards up around DC public schools. Meanwhile, the DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education has just released new report cards rating schools on a five-star scale — the first time both charter and regular public schools face the same rating system, which is different from the Public Charter School Board’s own rating system.

The DC Council wants in on the innovation act, too. At-large Council member David Grosso is pushing a bill, unanimously passed by his Committee on Education and given initial approval by the full DC Council, to improve sexual-assault prevention in schools. The bill requires teachers “to provide age-appropriate instruction to students on consent, child abuse, personal boundaries, and healthy relationships.” And Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh has won approval to a measure adding teeth to the Healthy Schools Act she led toward passage in 2010; fewer than a quarter of the city’s schools now meet its requirements for physical activity. Will Grosso’s bill, if it wins final approval, face the same ineffectual fate?

As a former DC principal, I can tell you, without a doubt, yes. And that’s not because schools shouldn’t, or don’t want to, teach students about consent. DC International School, which I led for four years, saw the need to do so, but not because of policy: Schools don’t do things because of policy. Or rather, schools don’t do all the things policy directs them to. There’s no way they possibly can. DC leaders will continue their frustration — and DC schools will continue to struggle — without a fundamental recognition that expectations for our schools are too numerous and too broad.

These examples are specific to DC, but the dynamic is the same across the country. Rather than recognize the need for a different, more focused school paradigm, we set too many goals, in too many areas; then we blame schools for failing to deliver, with ensuing calls for a change in leadership or other reforms.

Take the Healthy Schools Act. It required (is there a word for a “requirement that nobody follows”?) an average of 45 minutes per day of physical education for eighth-graders. It did not provide more money to hire PE teachers or extend the school day. It did not reduce the importance of English for eighth-graders in DC’s public schools, only one-third of whom scored on-track for college and career readiness on the 2018 PARCC exam, or math, where students did even worse. So schools, when faced with the choice between English, math and physical education, didn’t choose PE, even though the law said they had to. At my school, we had PE every other day, and English and math every day. There just wasn’t enough time to do it all.

We did, however, complete the Healthy Schools Act-required Health Profile, a 22-page form asking questions such as where vegetables are placed in the cafeteria and which nutrition curriculum is used. These forms are where the city gets its numbers on how many schools meet requirements for physical activity. We told the truth; I’m guessing the schools that said they meet the requirement might be padding their numbers.

Grosso’s bill against sexual assault will surely lead to a similar questionnaire. That’s one thing policy is good for: creating paperwork for already-overwhelmed school leaders to complete. Meanwhile, the paperwork that we and parents actually care about — the new five-star report cards that rate all schools — doesn’t mention health, sex ed, or social-emotional learning. Instead, most of the rating comes from standardized test scores in English and math. We’ll complete whatever forms we need to, but in the actual school day, we know that we’d better put our time toward core academic skills.

In DC, competing requirements come from the multiple political entities: mayor, DC Council, chancellor, charter board, State Board of Education. But the larger problem comes from the citizenry. We want schools to make kids respectful sexual partners who are healthy, literate and numerate. We require, to graduate high school, art and music, math higher than Algebra II, lab science, foreign language and community service. The city’s high schools are still in recovery mode from last year’s graduation scandal, in which Ballou Senior High School and others were found to have passed students who seldom attended school. But no wonder administrators found ways to pass students: We want graduates (and that “we” is not just school leaders, but society, as well). Can those students actually speak a foreign language and do math higher than Algebra II, all while regularly volunteering in their community and showing up by 8:45 a.m. every day? Can you?

Schools are asked to do the impossible — or rather, directed by high-minded policy to do the impossible — and then blamed when they can’t. It’s not their fault. It’s not even policy-makers’ fault. It’s that we, the citizens, can’t figure out what’s most important for schools to accomplish, and we haven’t accepted that we can’t have it all. When contrary winds blow this winter, don’t be surprised if schools respond to onerous policies by going in surprising directions, and not down the path any one politician imagined.

Simon Rodberg was principal of DC International School and, before that, assistant principal of Alice Deal Middle School in DC. He is now writing a book on school leadership.