Turning Urban Schools Around
By Cheryl Riggins Newby
Some of America’s urban schools have become chronic
underachievers. These schools, despite the best efforts of
countless teachers and often-heroic administrators, have acquired
long histories of ineffectiveness. To turn around such schools,
according to the U.S. Department of Education, the principal
must gain control of the learning environment and culture of
the school and completely reform the school’s way of
doing business, top to bottom, through a coherent, systematic,
and effective vision
After years of accumulated
bad educational habits have become counterproductive, for
many schools it’s time to call
in the turnaround principal, an educator who is willing to
ask the difficult questions and build new habits of effectiveness
to replace yesterday’s no longer effective habits.
When they go into a
school to reverse years of habit, experts like Anthony Palano,
the veteran principal of Martin Luther King, Jr. Multicultural
Institute, a PK-8 school of nearly 950 students in Buffalo’s
inner city, leads his school with a passion and commitment
toward excellence. After 17 years at the helm, little escapes
his notice and no one escapes his focus on achievement.
Palano started turning
his school around by focusing on the state of the school
when he first took over the principalship: “Seventeen
years ago, I was sent to a school that was out of control.
We had only 14 percent of students passing the tests. Well,
I personalized that because I wouldn’t allow myself to
be in a school that was failing so many children. We had 20
eighth graders who were over 15 years old! Something needed
to change. I didn’t need central office to get me going.”
Counteracting the negative
impact of low expectations was the first order of business
in Palano’s plan. “We
look at data, grade by grade, teacher by teacher. We sit down
with each teacher and plan both long- and short-term goals.
We build our instructional program based on our kids’ strengths
and weaknesses.” The bottom line, he says, “is
that there is no substitute for a teacher’s skills. He
or she must understand our goals and be able to look at data
to identify the skills that need teaching.”#
Cheryl Riggins Newby
is the National Association of Elementary School Principal’s Associate Executive Director for
the Leadership Academy and Urban Alliances. For more information
about NAESP’s Urban Initiatives, call 800-386-2377
or visit www.naesp.org.
