Finding Common Vision

Type: Research
Author(s): Richard Clark, Linda C. Powell, Neill Wenger
Ordering Information

Introduction

In November 1993 we returned to Marshall High School for our third visit as part of the School Change Study. Marshall perseveres in the context of a community where poverty, violence, racism, and other social ills conspire to make the task of educating children monumentally difficult.

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A Brief Description of the School

Located in the large, eastern city of Jefferson, Marshall is a large, urban high school with 150 faculty and about two thousand students. Since the district has hired few new high school teachers in the past decade, the faculty consists of very senior people. About 45 percent of the staff are African-American, a statistic that becomes more significant as one looks at the student body, which is roughly 99 percent black.

Marshall is considered to be a comprehensive, neighborhood high school, even though students from other geographical areas in the city attend the school. Marshall serves the students who remain after others have chosen to enroll in magnet programs created by the district as a means of integrating schools.

The large, city school system in which Marshall functions, while committed to decentralization and strengthening of instruction, is a victim of the bureaucratic problems facing all large organizations.

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Recent Restructuring Efforts

Marshall is part of a district-wide school revitalization effort initiated by the foundation-funded Metropolitan School Restructuring Collaborative (MSRC). The main thrust of the MSRC has been to break down Marshall and the other schools like it in the city into smaller units called "charters," which enable the teachers to know students better than they could before.

Two charters, the Overland Charter and the Business Institute, were modeled after the school district's highly successful academies. These academies are externally funded, career-oriented programs within schools that draw students from various parts of the city.

The Overland Charter was designed to provide the entire educational program for a heterogeneous group of tenth- through twelfth-graders who participate in classes organized around integrated, thematic units. The Business Institute provides the entire educational program for students interested in business careers. In subsequent years prior to 1992-93, an externally created charter, an Auto Academy, was added in addition to the locally developed Overland and Business Charters. A third comprehensive charter, focusing on communications, was also created. During our visit, conversations were under way regarding the creation of additional charters.

Marshall is also affiliated with the Coalition of Essential Schools, through the state's Re:Learning initiative and through a direct linkage established between the Coalition and its district in 1992.1 Since 1992, the MSRC has also functioned as a Center for the Coalition and a link with Re:Learning in the state.2 Marshall's linkage with the Coalition, however, has been primarily in connection with the Overland Charter.

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Still "Thriving in the Midst of Chaos"?

In the spring of 1993 we described Marshall as "thriving in the midst of chaos."3 We suggested the school still needed to give attention to issues we had identified the previous fall: thinking in depth about the nine Common Principles, changing pedagogy to reflect the demographics of the student body, and determining how best to provide leadership and structure for the school. We were particularly concerned about conflict within the school stemming from competition among the charters, which function as sub-schools within Marshall.

We concluded from our visit that the main task facing the school was creating a setting where there is freedom to grow and where there are the supports necessary for enabling people to take advantage of this freedom. We quoted Tom Peters:

To thrive "midst" chaos means to cope or come to grips with it, to succeed in spite of it. But that is too reactive an approach, and misses the point. The true objective is to take chaos as given and learn to thrive on it.4

In short, after watching the school from 1989 to 1993, we concluded that Marshall needed to find ways to thrive on chaos instead of continuing to struggle in the midst of chaos.

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Focusing the Snapshot

With these thoughts in mind, we returned to Marshall to produce our third "snapshot" of the school. As a snapshot, it does not seek to provide a comprehensive picture of the complexities of school life over time; rather, it is an attempt to capture the experience of learning and teaching at Marshall at one point in the school's change process. As part of a study of five schools, it is also intended to contribute to the overall understanding of whole-school change.

The purpose of this snapshot is also to provide a mirror which teachers and administrators at Marshall can use to help them seek greater understanding of the challenges they face and to develop ways of addressing those challenges. Thus it is written for consideration by two audiences: the school being described and the people interested in school reform of the type advocated by the Coalition of Essential Schools and the MSRC.

Unlike previous snapshots, which were based on observations and conversations from one visit, this snapshot is based on two data-gathering efforts by Neill Wenger and Barbara S. Powell at Marshall during 1993-94--the first in November 1993 and the second in May 1994. Documents describing classroom and school-level reform efforts were also collected from the school. It also reflects continuing interaction by the author with the Jefferson school system. During their visits, the two researchers observed classes and interviewed students, teachers, administrators, and parents.

This snapshot focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on Marshall's Overland Charter, which attempts to use the nine Common Principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools as the guideposts for its educational program. (See Appendix B for a list of the nine Common Principles.)

The first part of the snapshot summarizes events that occurred in the district-wide context of the school in 1993-94. The second and third parts, which correspond with the two visits that inform this snapshot, describe the challenges, problems, and progress at Marshall in the fall of 1993 and in the spring of 1994. To encourage and guide discussion about the issues raised by these visits, suggested questions are provided for the Marshall staff and for the reader throughout the snapshot.

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The Context of Marshall: Events in the District, 1993-94

At the district level, the 1993-94 school year in Jefferson was dominated by a variety of challenges and changes.

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Challenges Facing the District

The superintendent's resignation in August initiated a difficult selection process that went on for many months. After his resignation, an acting superintendent served the district throughout the rest of the year. While the board conducted a national search for a new leader, the board president and other members became more outspoken on day-to-day matters within the district.

In May 1994, as the board narrowed its selection field to a pool of three, conflict erupted between various local officials regarding the selection of a new superintendent. The mayor and a group of local citizens supported one candidate, while the teachers' union and the administrators' union supported a different one, and the board objected that people were interfering with their conducting an orderly search. In mid-June, the selection by the board of the candidate favored by the mayor ended a dispute that was beginning to have racial overtones.

During 1993-94, a judge ruled on a long-running desegregation suit, finding that Jefferson's schools had failed to provide education of a satisfactory quality, particularly for its students of color. As she announced the panel to address academic quality in Jefferson, the judge said,

[I tried to] put together a team of experts that I think can come into [the city] and do what has to be done to develop a plan which will, once and for all, eliminate the disparities in academic achievement and bring about academic quality in the city.5

Financial woes continued for the district, with new cuts of $29 million being called for on top of the major reductions from the previous year. Credibility of financial projections continued to be a problem for the district when, after projecting a $30 million deficit for 1992-93, the district ended its fiscal year with a $12 million surplus.6

Violence in and around the schools continued to be a major concern in Jefferson, as in other communities around the country.

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Reform Efforts within the District

Several major actions connected with reform efforts occurred in the district during this same period.

The acting superintendent secured school board approval of a twelve-point strategic plan, based on work by a community-school task force. She and the board expressed pride in the inclusiveness of the group which developed the recommendations. Among other things, the plan continued work on high school reform. Specifically, it called for the initiation of collaboration by clusters of schools and for the development of full-service schools. People working in schools throughout the city demonstrated little interest in, or awareness of, this planning.

The assistant superintendent for high schools announced a requirement that all students be enrolled in schools-within-schools by the fall of 1995. She described those sub-schools using a set of criteria slightly different from that previously used in the district. For the second year in a row, her office audited existing implementation--an act seen by some as indicating her support for the reform and by others as an indication that all the central administration can do is check on compliance with rules. Along with the MSRC, her office also took the lead in providing assistance to schools on implementation problems around matters such as rostering classes. In the spring, in efforts to equalize financial support for leaders of charters, the assistant superintendent also announced a controversial reallocation of the money paid for charter coordinators.

Amidst transitions in the MSRC (the founding leaders of the MSRC resigned in August 1993, and an acting director was not appointed until midway through the year), a new Teaching and Learning Collaborative was created within the MSRC, and efforts were begun to staff centers that would provide support to schools seeking to implement reforms. One of these centers was located at Marshall. The MSRC funded a large team from Marshall and other schools in the district to attend the Coalition of Essential Schools' Fall Forum in Louisville, Kentucky, and continued to work with the Coalition and the state's Re: Learning offices. It also sponsored several workshops during the year, including a large Celebration of Charters in early spring. Teachers College Press published a book edited by one of the former leaders of the MSRC, which included chapters by teachers and others engaged in reform work in Jefferson.

An independent evaluation agency released a report in March 1994 which noted that the charters being promoted by the MSRC had a positive effect on student attendance and promotion from grade to grade. While the report emphasized continuing implementation problems, it was a big boost for advocates of breaking the high schools into smaller units.

Meanwhile, the union raised questions about the legitimacy of the board of the MSRC and expressed its continuing resistance to certain elements of the reform plan. The local AFT affiliate objected particularly to the notion of charters within the schools that would be semi-autonomous and thus possibly engage in practices that upset long-standing practices, such as seniority rights for teachers and traditional roles of department heads in high schools. This conflict arose as the MSRC and some of the people working in the schools, in interpreting provisions of the union contract, advocated treating charters as if they were schools. To do so would mean that seniority for transfer would be determined by charter rather than by building.

As the year progressed, the acting director of the MSRC had some success in mediating conflict that had arisen between his organization, administrators in the district, the union, other reform organizations in Jefferson, and the primary funding agency. With the help of the funders, he also made progress in reconstructing the MSRC's board. The district and collaborative had to pay a high price for the time spent resolving (or at least calming) their differences.

Eight ethnographers working in Marshall and other high schools reported in May 1994 that at each school where they had been, the perception was that there was no support forthcoming from central sources for school-based reform work. Much of this perception may have been created by the extent to which central figures (the MSRC, union, and school district) were concentrating on their own issues rather than on the needs of the school. In any event, reform progress, which had been stalled the previous year by the inability of the bureaucracy to adapt to a supportive role, continued to be inhibited rather than assisted by many district-and school-level administrators.

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Reflections on the Context

As we turn our attention to Marshall High School, we emphasize that the scenes we are describing in the school occur as part of the broader ecology of the Jefferson school district. They also occur in a city and in neighborhoods faced with the many serious social and economic problems confronting urban settings throughout the country.

While organizational and leadership issues dominate the larger school system, teaching, learning, conflict, and survival are the matters of immediate concern to the people in the Marshall community. While the new leader of the school district will have a potentially significant effect on the direction the system takes, the problems of whether students will attend school and how they will behave when they do attend school are of much more immediate concern to the teachers and administrators of Marshall. Grand designs about providing social services occupy city planners, but such questions as, How can students be helped to learn? and, Who will take care of the children of the children who are attending the school? are central for those at Marshall.

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Events at Marshall: Fall 1993

In spite of the general optimism with which people approached the year, we quickly learned during our fall visit that many of the elements that had led us to view the scene at Marshall as chaotic persisted.

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The Impact of Early Retirement

As 1993-94 began, two thousand professional educators had retired from the district in response to a state early-retirement plan. At Marshall, these retirements led to a number of changes, including an entirely new administrative team. When school opened for the year, Donna Foster was the new principal. She had previous experience at Marshall, but, as one teacher noted, it was experience at a "pre-restructuring" Marshall High School.

Several years earlier, prior to a stint as an administrative assistant to the superintendent, Donna had spent fifteen years as a teacher. For two of those years, she had served as English department head at Marshall. Donna was the third principal in three years for Marshall and, like her predecessor, she was appointed as "acting principal."

One of the new assistant principals had taught for seven years at Marshall, left the previous year for a six-month stint as assistant at another school, and returned in 1993. In the perception of several of the staff at Marshall, neither assistant had much experience with schools involved in serious reform. In fact, in the fall, the assistants openly shared their views that the climate of the school as a whole was suffering as a result of the focus on developing charters. In any event, it was to Donna and her new team that the task of helping the school "thrive on chaos" fell.

Many at Marshall greeted the new principal and the new year with hope. Not only had Donna been a peer, she was familiar with the restructuring work connected with the Coalition of Essential Schools and supported by the MSRC. During her time in the central administration, Donna had established many contacts who the faculty hoped would help them get the support they needed.

One teacher reported Donna's first communication with the teachers:

After receiving her appointment in the summer of 1993, Ms. Foster called in groups of teachers. She told us that "group after group had the same things come out in their lists of what were the critical areas--it was hallway safety and discipline."

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Dealing with Ongoing Violence

We learned, as had the new principal, that the chief concerns of most teachers were, indeed, related to safety. We asked a longtime teacher and union leader at the school what she would say if an old friend asked her, "What's this place really like?" She replied,

Murder. Right at the moment people have very negative feelings about the school, and rightly so. This is a school where you take your life into your hands when you enter the building. You don't know what is going to happen from one moment to the next. Yesterday a teacher's arm was broken by a student; he body-slammed her. He didn't even know her. He was not a student who she taught. Yesterday one of my current students and one of my former students were beaten with iron pipes outside of the school building. A carload of boys jumped out of their car and started beating them. No one yet knows why....

An off-duty policeman was shot one-half block from school at what they call The Stand. That's where people go to get sandwiches and sodas.

A carload of young men, armed with guns, pulled up in front of the school--this all happened yesterday--and started firing randomly out of the car windows. The principal was called by the police and told, "Hold dismissal," because it happened right before school was supposed to let out. Our own police officer, who is stationed in the building, took off after these guys. Somehow he caught one of them with a gun. Yesterday was a very exciting day. But these things happen all the time.

When I am teaching in my classroom--I have doors like we have in the library, old-fashioned double doors with glass panes. While I am teaching, groups of young men that I have no connection with--I've never taught them; they don't know me--come as a group and throw themselves against the door. They have this mission to break down my doors. It happens so much that my students ignore it. [She laughs.]

When asked the same question, an administrator at first said that the friends would be surprised, because the school was much better than its reputation.

However, he continued by telling us that the changes in the community, such as the heightening of violence, fighting in school, kids bringing in weapons out of fear of retaliation or out of the need for protection, have led to metal-detector searches on a random basis.

When we asked students about their impressions of the school, some picked up on the violence identified by the adults in the school. One told us,

I'll say, when you come to this school, only the strong will survive. I'll see people on the street and they'll say, "Marshall, that's the baddest school. You going there?"

When we asked about their impressions of Marshall, students also reported positive things happening as a result of the new principal. Consider, for example, the following dialogue involving several Marshall students:

"Ms. Foster's like a Joe Clark."

"Not really. She's not really strict. But she pulled the school together like Joe Clark."

"She knows what to do."

"She's more realistic."

"You can tell a phony."

For one student we interviewed, the difference between the fall of 1993 and the previous year could be quantified. He reported,

Last year 60 percent of the kids were in the halls, 40 percent in the classrooms. Now it's doubled to 80 percent in the classrooms. If kids are found in the halls, they are put in class, so I say about 95 percent of the kids be in class. Even if they aren't learning, they still know something before they leave the class.

Students and others at the school shared a belief that they get a bad rap from the media. As one said,

Every time you see something on TV about Marshall, it's about somebody getting stabbed, somebody getting shot. The media show the bad stuff, but they never come inside the school and see what's really good. The year before last, Tom Brokaw came, and it was the only time I saw something positive about Marshall.

In spite of this criticism of the media, most interviewees had some concerns regarding safety at the school. For several, the question of what to do about this problem dominated their thoughts about school improvement.

One suggestion was to hold assemblies for the students. The following is a description of the "violence assembly" we observed at Marshall on November 17.

A "Violence Assembly"

Ninth-graders assembled in the large auditorium at Marshall for the second anti-violence assembly planned by the assistant principal, Pat Holmes.

As the students took their seats, fifteen adult advisors remained standing in the aisles. Prior to the start of the assembly, while standing on the stage under the banner which read "New Year ...New Attitude. Marshall High School," Pat said to the advisors, "Give me the name of any student who misbehaves."

She then turned to the students and told them the purpose of the assembly: "It's not an entertainment show. I am talking to nine out of ten of you. The ones who have not been in trouble. We're talking about your education, violence, and drugs."

Reacting to the students who continued to talk, Pat said, "I know there is a wise guy, sitting in his seat, who says he doesn't need this."

As if to prove the assistant correct, one boy began taunting a large girl sitting next to him, saying, "Free Willy, Free Willy." He obviously had more negative thoughts than the publicizing of the popular movie about a whale.

The assembly officially began with the students reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. There were three adults and an ROTC student on the stage, but they were not the only ones we heard from during the assembly.

The first adult told the students about a group she called MAS. She urged students to come to the office before a conflict reached the fight stage. To make her point, she described a recent fight in the lunchroom:

One person looked at another. The first person took off his jacket. The second took off his jacket. They got into a fight when they didn't even know each other. It was just the way they looked at each other.

Speaking over the din of student conversation, she continued,

A student at Marshall was killed over a basketball game. Let me tell you, death is permanent. You don't get to come the next day and talk about how good you look. On TV people die, and the next week they are on a TV program.

She chided a student for ducking down in his chair, then gave way to the next speaker, who explained the school's peer mediation program.

This speaker explained four levels of discipline: suspension, arrest, transfer to discipline schools, and expulsion. She warned the students, "If you punch, you should be suspended."

A sergeant in the ROTC followed with a description of ROTC and of the Student Assistance Program (SAP). He asked, "How many of you know what drugs and alcohol do to you?"

No hands went up.

He continued, "How many people have seen loved ones inflict pain? Drugs take your life, dignity, self-respect."

It was hard to hear him, as students continued to murmur. He held up a yellow SAP card and assured the students, "We have to help you help yourself; to identify who needs treatment."

The sergeant was followed by a woman whom some student greeted with boos as she was introduced. She tried to explain about a group called Rites of Passage, which provides drug and alcohol education in classrooms.

Then Chris, representing the student organization, Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE), tried to speak. He paced back and forth on the stage, talking about drugs in the back hallways of Marshall, telling the students there would be a panel on racism in room 250, and assuring them that there were other ways to earn money than to sell drugs. Finally, frustrated with the inattentive audience, he ran across the stage, up the side aisle, and out of the auditorium.

Identifying himself as the school ombudsman, the next speaker said, "I am like the school lawyer. This is your school. The only way it's going to work is if you make it."

In response, a student shouted out, "Shut up!

Struggling to maintain his composure, the ombudsman continued, "A lot of you females won't have a husband because there won't be any black men around."

The girls cheered loudly.

He muttered, "Think about it," and strode angrily off the stage.

As if surprised, a student turned to another and said, "Look at him; he mad."

Assistant principal Pat Holmes chided the students, "When you're older and more mature, you'll think back on this moment."

Then Pat introduced a speaker from the Jefferson Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network by telling the noisy, inattentive students, "He did not have to come here today. This is not his job. I will not introduce him while there's talking. He's a guest! You treat him like one!"

Then, first to the advisors and next to the students, Pat exclaimed, "I want the name and book number of students who are misbehaving. Remember, you're not anonymous."

The final speaker told the students his aunt had died that morning, and began an emotional recital about his personal history as a drug dealer, gun runner, and prisoner in the state pen. The students laughed as he described foul practices that he had witnessed in the prison.

It's a joke, until the handcuffs are slapped around your wrists. There are 150 people here [pointing to a section of the one thousand in the ninth grade at Marshall]. The person sitting on your left or right will not be here in June.

The speaker went overtime, and the assembly was over. The ninth-graders, school security staff (NTAs), advisors, and speakers filed out past the police officer stationed at the back of the auditorium.

Later, as we talked with Pat, we learned that part of the reason the assembly was conducted by grade level rather than by charter was because kids identify with their charter and "a lot of Marshall High School spirit is not there."

An Anti-drug Video in Student Advisory

As it happened, we had a chance to observe the same issue being dealt with in two other ways in the school. During a student advisory period, we watched as students saw an anti-drug movie on Whittle (Channel One) TV for the entire time. As the program began, there were eleven students in the room. One was listening to his walkman, two were sleeping, several were talking, and one was watching.

The film features a white, thirteen-year-old freshman girl who dates an African-American boy. The boy lures her to a party in a fancy house where people are smoking crack. The girl takes up with a drug dealer she meets at the party. As her drug habit takes hold, her ability as a basketball player deteriorates. She asks her mother what she would do if she had a kid on drugs, but the mother is not helpful.

As the film continued, students tuned in and out. Given the plot and characterization, their behavior was understandable.

The teacher left the room. By this time, four students were watching the video. As the thirteen-year-old in the video was stumbling around the basketball court, one student in the class advised, "Take her out of the game."

The scene shifts to a bunch of white kids, lolling in a haze of smoke, surrounded by drug implements in what, if the students were not already fully aware, would serve as a good lesson in how to prepare and do crack.

As the film wound down, one student predicted that the protagonists were going to meet in the deserted hall of the school, fight, and drop the drugs. They did.

One student in the advisory room commented that the children in the movie show no respect for their mothers. Another responded that black students would not treat their mothers that way. There was no other discussion of the video.

Peer Connections to Stem Violence

The third setting we observed was a meeting of a Peer Connections student group within the Overland Charter, which was followed by a meeting of these Peer Connections counselors with ninth-grade students. Seven seniors met with their advisor, Michelle Sommers, to prepare for their first meeting with a group of ninth-graders from their charter. Previously they had participated in a peer counseling retreat at Princeton with young people from many different schools.

As they prepared, the students commented on some of the recent changes at Marshall. They liked the new principal and spoke favorably of the new charter that had been created for students interested in teaching or medical careers. However, they were critical of the elimination of the ninth-grade Institute, a program that was originally developed to personalize ninth grade in order to ease students' transition into the high school. The students saw the elimination of the Institute as having contributed to this year's ninth-graders being more disruptive and less respectful of their school.

All in all, they felt that Marshall was "what you make of it." Some felt that too many students were just playing around, and others said the school was "too violent."

The day after their planning period they met with twenty-five ninth-graders in the school's community room. Michelle and two of the other Overland teachers were also present. While some of the senior counselors set up sodas, bagels, and assorted junk food on a table in the back of the room, the ninth-graders filtered in somewhat reluctantly. They picked up some of the food, then sat in metal folding chairs, which were arranged in a circle. The seniors, some with food still in their hands, moved into the middle of the circle and began to speak.

One said, "I'm here for you. If you have any troubles in your classes, feel free to speak to me." Another added, "I'm like a shoulder you can lean on. This is my partner, LaTesha."

After others had introduced themselves, Michelle intervened and suggested that the seniors needed to tell the group what their purpose was. The seniors got right to the point: "The purpose is to get your act together in class. Some teachers feel you're too wild."

Michelle expanded on their comments:

Some of you are feeling your little hormones. With the violence outside, we want to keep Marshall a peaceful learning environment. Some of you will need special loving care.

The seniors then explained that they had been trained as peer counselors to help these freshmen who had been identified as not taking their education seriously. (Actually, about twice as many as were present had been identified, but since the average attendance rate for ninth-graders in Marshall runs below 50 percent and this was a group which had more problems than the average, the turnout was a little better than could have been expected.) Some of the seniors shared the troubles they had experienced as ninth-graders, and then offered testimony to the way Overland, like a family, had been helpful to them.

Michelle asked Allie, a ninth-grader, to step forward. Allie said she had cut Mrs. Stenger's class. A senior acknowledged that he had not gotten along with Mrs. Stenger either. He said,

I talked to her instead of cutting her class, and we worked it out so I transferred to Earl Miller's class. What you need to do is talk and work things out. You have a problem--come to us. Don't just come to class and sit there. Think!

Allie turned to Mrs. Stenger and said, "My name is Allie Brown. I'm on your roll."

Mrs. Stenger replied, "Pleased to meet you."

Everyone laughed.

The conversations continued, with the seniors alternating between telling stories about their own difficulties and offering advice to the slouching but attentive ninth-graders. The seniors exhibited impressive maturity as they made this first attempt at connections with the younger students. They made it clear that in no way were they perfect, but that they knew talking things out would work, because it had become a tradition within the Overland Charter.

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Personalized Instruction in Charters

The fourth Common Principle states that schools should personalize teaching and learning. To accomplish this increased personalization for its more than two thousand students, Marshall assigns all its students to a charter. One goal of these smaller units is the creation of settings in which each student is well known. Another goal of these settings is to improve instruction.

Close-ups of Overland Charter Classrooms

The Overland Charter takes personalization of instruction, as well as other Coalition Principles, seriously. The following "close-ups" of the researchers' observations in classrooms present some examples of instruction in the Overland Charter.

English. Students in Mrs. Stenger's class are gathered in a circle, some leaning back, slouched over, with blank stares. Engaging them with her usual, bustling energy, she remarks that their body language does not communicate that they are doing well on their projects.

She asks one of the students to review the story the class is considering, August Wilson's Two Trains Running. Helped by a couple of other boys in the class, Anthony summarizes the story. Occasionally adding a comment, Mrs. Stenger makes the review, ostensibly for informing us newcomers to the group, serve the dual purpose of a review for the entire class.

Anthony indicates that the story is a metaphor for the condition of race relations in the 1960s. He suggests that one of the events in the story symbolizes the feeling that some people had that you need to take what you want, because it is the only way you can expect to get it. Other events represent the concept of "going through the system" to get what you want.

One student in the class comments that if you looked at all of Wilson's plays together, you could see the changes in race relations over time. As the conversation continues, the students focus on the alternative ways of getting what is wanted or needed. Mrs. Stenger then asks them if the main characters represent two ways of getting things:

Which of these two ways, as African-Americans, do you identify with? Are you more like Sterling and Hambone [the ones who got theirs by taking it], or like Memphis [the one who got his by using the system]?

She assigns students the task of writing their answers. All have their writing materials and begin writing. When finished, the students begin discussing their papers in the circle, taking turns reading their responses, and making comments, such as: "I think it depends on the situation. I'm like both of them. If I can get in trouble, I won't do it ...but if I think I can get away with it, I'll do it." "I think both. If I know I can have it, then I'll go through the system."

Several more suggest they would go through the system, and one latecomer asks for and receives clarification about the topic of conversation. Then Anthony says, "If I want some, I ask for it. But I'm not going to ask many times until I take it."

Mike adds, "If somebody's standing in your way, you got to."

Then Donnell joins with Mike and, in unison, they say, "Go around before them."

And Mike provides an example, "Like, if you are standing in a long line at the movies. If the line is long, try to sneak in. If you get caught, then go through the system. Stand in the line."

Students continue to read their responses, with some taking the point of view that they would stay within the system. Others say that they would try the system first and only "take it" if the system did not work. Some indicate, simply, that they would take one position or the other.

Mrs. Stenger asks for a show of hands, "Does everyone agree that they are a mixture of both characters?"

All but one of the twenty-one students raise their hands.

Mrs. Stenger continues the conversation by asking them to talk about what they use to decide when they will stop asking and start taking. After a few student comments about this question (and the arrival of another student), Mrs. Stenger asks them to consider the system they have to go through to pass the class.

Jeff says, "You have to do the work."

Rose responds, "If you can't do the work, then cheat."

The class breaks into laughter at this comment, and Rose hastily explains, "Wait! I'm not saying I'm cheating!"

Mrs. Stenger then says, "Here's the point: The school represents a system. You can go through or outside of it."

Mark responds, "But the system, peer pressure, parents, they cause the cheating."

Another student joins in, suggesting that it depends on what you want to be: "If you want to be in the government, then go through the system. If you don't have goals, then be like Hambone and take what you want."

Alicia responds,

People can do things illegally so they can have a future. For example, I know a boy who sold drugs so he could go to college. If he had gone through the system, it would have taken too long to get through college.

Mrs. Stenger suggests that Memphis, and the students who agreed with him, are people who are willing to wait. But one of the girls in the class, indicating her agreement with Alicia, says,

Going through the system can take too long. Like modeling school, if you can't do it right away, you can't wait. Time is hard on your looks, and you end up looking bad before you get out of modeling school.

The conversation begins to heat up. One girl mentions the dilemma a female faces about whether to sell her body. Several males suggest that is wrong--that they should work at McDonalds before they do that (clearly a solution within the system).

Mike says emphatically, "Hold up! Say no more. A man wouldn't sell his body--he'd sell drugs."

This remark causes Mrs. Stenger to jump in: "There you go! [To the others] Put your hands down; this is my turn."

The room is in an uproar as the conversation focuses on sexism--a topic which clearly is an ongoing one in the class. The issue becomes defined as whether it is right for a female to sell her body in order to take care of her children. The room is in a frenzy. Everyone wants to talk. Males argue it would be wrong because it would set a bad example for the children. Females argue it is necessary because of basic needs--food, clothing, shelter.

Mrs. Stenger takes the energy of this discussion and converts it to another writing task. Switching from a participant in the discussion to a facilitator of instruction, she tells the students to write their position on their paper: "Do you agree with the woman's point of view or the man's about doing what you have to do? Write it, don't say it....5-4-3-2-1--Write!"

As students try to ask questions, the teacher redirects them to the task of writing. Moments ago, loudly engaged in debate, the students now write quietly. In contrast with students in other classes we have observed, these students expressed themselves in complete sentences. Not only have they been stimulated to write, they know they are expected to write well.

In order to fit in another activity before the end of the first half of the two-hour class, Mrs. Stenger then asks the students to hand in their papers and tells them they will talk about them later.

As she returns self-assessment essays students had written previously, she comments that she wrote notes if she disagreed with their perceptions. She asks for a show of hands of students ready for their major project (ignoring for a moment a comment by one of the boys in the class that was calculated to reopen the earlier discussion). Next, she asks the students to turn in project folders, including cover pages they had prepared as homework, and returns the class to a consideration of Wilson's Two Trains Running.

Continuing to give attention to process and content, Mrs. Stenger talks with the students about the difference between debate and dialogue. She suggests that debate is intended to "solidify your position," while dialogue is a sharing and exploration of ideas.

Mrs. Stenger returns to the original comments the students had written about the alternatives set forth by Wilson, and draws their conversation to a close:

As of 1969, the author sees two choices. All of the discussion today is connected by what Wilson said that relates to your lives. August Wilson believes that individual lives are affected by the forces of history. What historical event do you think has had an impact on your lives and your family? Write it down; don't tell me!

The bell rings and, predictably, Mark says, "Saved by the bell."

Mrs. Stenger responds quickly, "You are not saved!"

The students remain and finish the assignment, then take their break. The two-hour block enables the teacher to keep the students on task. Interestingly, as we left the class, we realized that it was a multi-age (ninth- through twelfth-grade) class. There had been no obvious differences in contributions from students of different ages. The core of the class was built on the content of a thought-provoking play that related directly to the lives of the students and served as a base for thoughtful writing.

English. In another of Mrs. Stenger's classes, three groups of six students surround young playwrights/actors from the community. The students had written their own setting and opening dialogue for a play.

In one group, the students take turns reading the first page of their plays. Then the playwright reads aloud from the beginning of several plays. He asks, "How does the scene evoke the mood?"

Students talk about how the mood might be different if the scene were a country road, surrounded by dark trees, instead of the familiar urban neighborhood. Continuing his conversation with the students, the playwright explains how dialogue can reveal relationships between characters, and discusses, with the students, how exotic materials should be. He tells the students, "The theater shows what's special about the everyday."

In another group, the students act out the scene one of them had written. The playwright working with them talks them through an analysis of what they have just acted.

These students prepared carefully for these discussions. Each brought to class several pages of manuscript--most were neatly word-processed. The students in this class know they will be expected to meet high expectations. Such is the case. Talking about Mrs. Stenger's class, one says,

I've been in her class for two years, and I be striving to get an A and I never get an A. She don't give out grades. You got to earn the grade you get. So if you ask, "Why did I get such and such?" it's because of how you did on your work.

English. A banner in Earl Miller's classroom displays statements related to the year's essential question for the charter: "What is community? What is good about our community?"

This is another two-period class with twenty-eight of thirty-three enrolled students present. The day's agenda is on the chalkboard next to a complex diagram regarding student grading. For their first task, the students work in small groups, writing summaries of a scene for an author's talk show. As they write, Mr. Miller squats in front of desks, reading rough drafts, and smiling, asking questions, and making comments, such as, "Keep pushing this. You're doing a fine job. It's a great question. I want that answer."

As the writing continues, he is interrupted by five phone calls. Some of the students become disengaged, one files her nails, several do nothing, and a boy taunts a girl about her mustache. Other students, however, continue on task. In one group, three girls take turns reading their scene aloud. In another, a girl checks the summary she had written and asks the rest of the group if they agree with her interpretation.

After warning the students that they have five minutes to finish up their work, Mr. Miller calls on the groups to share their scenes. The first group does so animatedly. The second talks about the substance of their reading.

Mr. Miller then shifts the class to the second task. He tells the students how they can estimate their grades by combining results from classwork/homework, attendance, tests/quizzes, and writing projects. He stresses the way process and product are both considered in grading. The students give him their complete attention. Like the students in Mrs. Stenger's class, they know this teacher has high expectations of them.

Physics. Students explain "concept maps" and begin to create hypotheses about motion. In an unusual move, Mr. Bishop has students write out their preconceptions and explain these views to their peers. The students take their tasks seriously. At one point in the class, Mike is explaining a concept map prepared by his group. Hank criticizes the lack of detail in the presentation, as well as Mike's reading behavior, and makes a few more negative remarks. Shanda, a girl in Mike's group, explodes, interrupting Hank: "Not all people learn as fast as you do, and we did not have enough information to cover all the things you are talking about."

This reaction provokes a discussion which Mr. Bishop enters, and eventually the group reaches an accord that lets them go on with the processes in the class. Mr. Bishop concludes by reminding them, as had Mrs. Stenger, about the qualities of dialogue, as opposed to confrontation. Attention to essential elements of building and maintaining a community carries over from one class to another.

Mr. Bishop closes the class by commending the students for their "good work, good questions" and stressing that they are just starting their work on motion. The students turn in their concept maps and are reminded that when they come to class next, in two days, they are to bring a one-page, written description of the day's lesson.

Social Studies. The chalkboard in Ms. Johnson's class is full of thought-provoking ideas about the status of women in Egypt and the ancient East. Taking turns reading paragraphs aloud, the students discuss a dittoed handout on Cleopatra. As the reading progresses, the students listen attentively, then begin to ask questions. Ms. Johnson answers some of them and then asks, "What do you think about Cleopatra?"

The students mention how weird it was that she married her brother and ask if that wouldn't cause problems with the children. They engage in an animated conversation about the implications of such a marriage.

The discussion is cut off by the entry of the Chapter I reading specialist, who passes out another ditto sheet that requires the students to arrange some of the major events in Cleopatra's life in chronological order. Students work on this activity quietly for ten minutes, and then, without any discussion of the events, exchange and correct papers.

The class concludes with Ms. Johnson telling them to collect their homework sheets before they leave.

Uneven Instruction in the Charters

Some of the other classes we visited in Overland and in other charters were promising; some were disasters.

Students offered us testimonials for a number of their teachers in the Overland Charter. One student said that the previous year she had got an F in Spanish from a teacher at another school. This year, she said, her Overland teacher breaks things down so she can learn it. She added,

He makes it fun, and you learn at the same time. He'll talk to you in Spanish. Everybody says, "What?" then he'll say it over again. Then when you hear him say it, you know what he is talking about. When we get loud, he asks us to quiet down. Everybody quiets down, even though that class is a big class.

Another student chimed in, "He can leave us in there by ourselves and we finish our work. Nobody acts up. "

Donna, the principal, described the unevenness of instruction to us when we talked with her.

I observed an excellent class last Friday. First of all, I walked in, and of the twenty-four students seated there, twenty-three were male and one was a female. I asked myself, "What is this?" Then it dawned on me: it was a class in the Auto Academy.

The teacher had this great lesson with this classroom full of guys. I looked around and said to myself, "The media won't show this picture of African-American males sitting in a classroom really engaged in a teacher's lesson." But that's what was really going on there. He had great rapport with his students. They were about to go into an anthology of African-American writers. I looked through it. It was this nice, brand-new book with all these great authors listed. I thought, "Wow! What I could do with this book!"

And then I went on and visited the Communications Charter, where their whole theme was puppetry, and the kids were writing scripts for a puppet show. Then I went to Overland and the kids were writing scripts with a local playwright helping them. And I said, "This is great stuff! This is excellent, excellent teaching." And I went into one math class that was good. So that's what excites me.

And it also is what leads to my total depression when I go into classrooms where there is nothing happening. And you wonder how, in this same building, you have such extremes. And it's sad to say, where there's not a whole lot happening, many times, it's in a class where the person is not in a charter.

The unevenness of instruction which the principal observed between charter and non-charter classes may be due to one or more causes. Teachers who work together in charters tend to develop agreement regarding standards of instruction and to uphold their commitments to each other. Also, the process of organizing charters--beginning with volunteers and continuing until the only teachers who do not join these small units are the resisters to change--may have an effect within the school similar to the effect of creating magnet schools in the district in the comprehensive high schools. That is, the people "left over," like the leftover schools, may be those most in need of support and least apt to succeed without substantial assistance.

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Conflicts Among the Charters

Just as charters appear to be providing settings for more personal attention to students and for improved instruction, they are a continuing source of conflict within the entire school.

In the fall, conflict between teachers took various forms. Some teachers refused to talk with us because they perceived us to be aligned with one of the charters, and thus against them. Students testified about the continuing differences among groups of students in different charters. As noted previously, administrators concerned about the conflict felt it necessary to generate cross-charter meetings to build a school spirit. The creation of charters to improve interpersonal relations seemed to be contributing to conflict.

Not only were there examples of interpersonal conflict at Marshall when we visited in the fall, there were signs that this conflict masked a failure to develop a school which was sufficiently different to enable it to be a healthy host for a collection of charters. In the fall, the school was mostly charterized; most students were assigned to charters rather than remaining in an "unaffiliated" status.

Still, no real changes had been made in the organizational structure of the campus, in order to accommodate this significant change in the way students were assigned for instruction. Teachers were still organized in schoolwide departments; students were in schoolwide classes. Administrators' responsibilities cut across the entire school. One rostering office was supposed to support the whole school (although some of the charters, out of frustration, assumed more of this responsibility).

Many teachers were assigned to more than one charter. Even though Overland has a distinct location for much of its instruction, classroom areas for other charters were spread throughout the building.

Thus we found Marshall in the fall of 1993--still in chaos, and still exhibiting evidence that students can learn to use their minds well, no matter the extent of the violence and confusion which persist in the world around them.

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Events at Marshall: Spring 1994

In the spring of 1994 we returned to Marshall for a short visit to look again at some of the issues raised by our visit the previous fall. We also met with representatives from Marshall and other schools in Jefferson to help us understand the progress being made in the overall reform efforts in the city.

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Transition in Leadership

During our visit in May of 1994, the principal was doing the same thing her predecessor had been doing when we visited the previous spring: making a list of schools she would consider applying to. In our conversation, she pointed out,

[All my hopes for the school were] predicated on me being here next year. As we speak, nine people from the school who are on my selection committee are downtown getting instructions in "how to interview for your new principal," because this is an acting position and everyone knew that it was an acting year....

During the interview what I am going to stress is that this has been an exploratory year for me. Next year there's some real changes that have to occur. There will probably be a very different kind of me.

The projection that the Marshall faculty would see a very different "me" if she were selected as the permanent principal reflected, in part, Donna's concerns that she had not been able to place as much emphasis on instruction as she would have liked. Speaking of what she had learned from the year, she observed,

An experience I will take into next year from this year is how to better work in instruction, because so much of my time this year has been just the cultural shock of realizing how much student social issues take away from instruction. So it's only been by past reputation and basic faith in people that I've been assuming that the instructional program is OK and that teachers are doing what they're supposed to be doing. And, for the most part, that's probably true. But, next year I really need to pay more attention to what is really happening instructionally at Marshall.

She explained that she needed to pay more attention to instruction so she can respond more knowledgeably to questions and criticisms from parents. She also said she wanted to find out, from among teachers, "Who has high expectations, who doesn't. And, those people who don't, can we kind of, 'up' their expectations a little bit?"

Looking back on the year, she concluded, "Ah, but the social situation and the climate of student violence have really taken a lot of my attention away from instruction this year into really trying to maintain a safe environment."

By June, Donna had learned that she would be continuing at Marshall for the next year, a situation which would lend some continuity to the office. However, she learned of her appointment on the same day the local paper reported that the board had selected a new superintendent for Jefferson. People familiar with urban systems are aware of how such appointments tend to produce more changes in staffing, and therefore, it may be premature to assume that there will not be more changes before 1994-95 is over.

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The Ongoing Issue of Violence

Several people confirmed the report by the principal that violence continued to be a problem throughout the year. There were two developments in regard to student behavior which seem worthy of particular attention.

The assistant principal who had tried to use cross-charter, schoolwide assemblies as a vehicle to deal with violence in the fall was now focusing on peer mediation.
Student behavior within Overland was different from that reported by other charters in the school.

Dealing with Students' Behavior

Assistant Principal Pat Holmes told us that the peer mediation program was one way to prevent violence. During the year, there were two training sessions which developed skills in one parent, six teachers, and twelve students. Emphasizing that the programs were designed to encourage students to talk about their problems instead of fighting, Pat told us,

Most of the fights are one-on-one and sporadic, impulsive. Lots of time things are brewing beforehand. We encourage teachers, when they hear something, to fill out a form [for peer mediation]. The problem is, there is nothing in the budget to compensate teachers to be assigned to the mediation center and to be present at a mediation.

Pat did not suggest other approaches to dealing with violence, and he did not link the mediation approach to charters in which students are better known by their teachers and by one another.

For the principal, a part of the problem of dealing with student behavior was a lack of resources for sufficient security staff (NTAs). She worried that students roamed the hallways and that some "kids can run real fast." One of the problems created by the hall walkers, as a teacher had told us in the fall and Donna told us in the spring, is that "they do nasty things like kick teacher's doors, or just open the door and yell some profanity into the room."

Finally, she was frustrated that when someone from the school caught the students, the most that could be done was to give a three- to five-day suspension. Unlike the assistant principal, Donna connected the development of charters with a possible solution to such disruptive behavior:

What I'm finding is that teachers in charters are willing to protect their areas, but they really feel as though their hands are tied when students who are not in their charters are in their area creating havoc. Therefore, one of the things I'm doing now is looking at rooms for next year. I'm making sure that all charters are together, so that students do not have to travel a whole lot outside of their own areas.

Behavior in the Overland Charter

Such an approach seems supported by the reports given by the teachers in the Overland Charter, which is mostly housed together, in comparison to those given by people from other, less closely connected charters. Overland teachers still worried about student behavior in the school, observing that when other kids roamed their halls, the behavior of the Overland kids is adversely affected. Still, one of the Overland leaders stressed that this year, especially the last half, was markedly more safe than the previous year. Generally, Overland teachers suggested, there was a trend away from disruptive student behavior, toward constructive learning activity. Some Overland teachers took heart in the progress they saw their ninth-graders making--progress toward becoming active learners instead of "bumps on a log." Others spoke with enthusiasm about student progress in their particular courses or in public performances that revealed the progress they were making.

As he described his experiences as a peer counselor, an Overland student, Rod Jones, provided us with a student's perspective on the changes that were occurring in school climate:

There are a couple of girls I call my "little sisters" now. They always come up and give me a hug and let me know how they are doing in the morning and what classes they got. It is good it turned out that way because I didn't have that in the ninth grade for me. I was on my own, because my mom had just died that year. Before I went into high school from eighth grade, she died. I went to a magnet school, but I spent the whole year there and in July, they sent me a letter saying, "We feel as though your academics has [sic] dropped; we want you to go to your neighborhood school." I came to Marshall and was in "non-affiliated" at first.

As an unaffiliated student, Rod said he had little help as a tenth-grader at Marshall. Rod said that at the end of that year, however,

I talked to the counselor, Mr. Jordan; he's the Overland counselor. He talked to me. I saw all the selections. I didn't want auto shop and all that, you know, and wood shop. I read Overland and they were telling me, "College preparation."

For Rod, who was now assisting the ninth-graders to become more productive citizens, the choice of Overland had allowed him to continue work begun in a Coalition-affiliated middle school that also focused on student projects and group work, which he finds to be fun and challenging. It had also helped him, he said, to

look towards college, instead of just going to class, like, with the regular students who just go to class and the teacher'll give them a piece of paper, and, you know, the same old everyday. You get a book, textbook, and read to yourself. For Rod and for other students from Overland with whom we spoke, the changed behaviors and the changed performance in classes were definitely linked.

Schoolwide Reflections on Violence

While emphasizing the importance of knowing students, a teacher from another charter addressed her response to safety problems in the school:

Violence is certainly a significant issue in this school and across the city. Tension is emerging, especially since it has gotten warmer. There are things that go on that in past years I would have confronted. Now I walk away from them because I don't want to be hurt. In this particular society, they want to hurt anyone. I don't want to get hurt.

Another non-Overland teacher told us that there were many significant issues for her, but the biggest concern was violence. She described the extent of the violence:

It's happening all over the city. Not just at Marshall; things are happening all over. It's a free-for-all--a spontaneous chain reaction--five or six fights, different skirmishes. Like you might see in a coliseum somewhere. We're understaffed and under-policed. It's gotten worse. It's a national thing with kids in the Midwest and kids doing things in places we didn't hear about.

In short, while some Overland teachers saw hope, others in the school saw the school as a place where violence is growing and as a place that is a victim of external forces over which they have no control. While many Overland teachers and teachers from other charters, charter-based students, and the principal saw promise of better learning conditions in the increasing personalization of charters, others saw only increased police and security forces as a solution to the problems.

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The Challenge of Finding Unity within the Charters

Although the progress toward achieving the district goal of assigning all students in Marshall and other high schools to charters was thwarted somewhat by financial and other support issues during 1993-94, the Jefferson school district has increased its emphasis on charters, which exhibit potential as a means of increasing personalization within the school.

Pat Holmes, the assistant principal, whose support of charters was slight in the fall, was more positive in the spring:

We're moving to all charters We have a section of comprehensive; we want them to be charterized. We want a charter around the arts. There are statistics that prove that charters are good for schools and good for students. The Collaborative did the research.7

Jealousy and competition among the charters persist, however. For a consultant who works with the school, the problem is framed as one of "finding unity in a school of many parts; finding common vision in a school of many parts."

What the consultant and many of the people at Marshall seem unable to do is conceive of finding strength in a campus with many semi-autonomous schools. By seeking unity, many are looking for a continuation of school as it has been known, rather than the creation of a new, pluralistic setting. In a sense, the struggle for continuation of a single school mirrors the struggle in the greater community between forces that seek a single culture and those that envision multiple perspectives making a stronger national fabric--the difference between the melting pot and the fruit bowl as metaphors for viewing our multiethnic society.

Whatever metaphor is used, community requires understanding among the participants. Effective work at Marshall hinges on teachers knowing the students well and on knowing--understanding--each other well enough to plan together. As it is, either faculty do not know each other well enough to develop a common vision, or the absence of a common vision keeps them from knowing each other.

Within charters, one of the big tasks is maintaining the momentum established when the charter is formed. Overland's continuing faculty assign themselves as mentors to the new teachers and thus keep the focus on the ideas which are driving the change. Given the large turnover in the school system between 1992-93 and 1993-94, this support of newcomers has been a major, but constructive, task for Overland's faculty. As one mentor told us,

I mentor the new teachers, Martha, Alina, and Harold, and I see a lot of good, because not only do I talk about, you know, the nitty-gritty of survival, but also we talk about the Principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools.

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Instruction in the Charters

For some teachers in the charters, professional development exists only in the form of expert-led workshops and seminars. For other charter teachers, it has taken the much richer form of ongoing dialogue concerning how to improve student learning.

Classroom Close-ups

At Marshall there is continuing evidence of excellent instruction within the charters. In the spring, we witnessed the benefits of the continuing conversations among members of the Overland Charter, as a member of the group, who joined recently, tested a teaching technique that was new to her.

World History. Martha Hardy was helping students prepare to teach a class on a variety of topics which were listed on the chalkboard:

The Qin and Han dynasties in China
Life in America before the coming of the Europeans
Community
The Greek city
West African kingdoms
Central African countries

Ms. Hardy helped the students think about how to pace their lessons, how to take into account items such as reading announcements at the start of the period and developing a clear objective for the class. The students will be teaching before this class, or, if time becomes a problem, before another teacher. As the planning for the sessions continue, students and teacher explore some of the questions: Who will correct quizzes? Will they count on the students' grades? Where can the students find the information they will need as the basis for their class?

English. In this class, we find a more sophisticated and complex version of the same approach being used in Earl Miller's classes that have been studying novels. On the chalkboard we see the assignment:

Common Group Project Part II
1. Task: Teach your novel to the class in an interesting, interactive way. Each lesson must:

explain the plot
discuss the issues and meaning of the book
have a part that gets everyone in the class involved
focus on an excerpt of the book
have a collectible writing activity
fill 30 minutes (up to 45)

Five students in one group are "teaching" Lord of the Flies. Amy begins with a summary of the plot. She uses a large chart which the group has prepared and taped on the board. The chart includes black circles depicting the various deaths in the book and green lines showing relationships among the characters.

Following Amy's narration, Roberta, another group member, shows a video of several sections of the story, to help explain the characters. Just as they had listened attentively to the narration of the plot, the class pays close attention as she plays the video segments. As the mournful sound made by blowing on the conch shell is heard, she explains, "That's the conch. That's Ralph. Whoever holds the conch gets to speak. That's Jack with no shirt on. Ralph sets the rules."

After the second video episode and a brief student comment about it, a third student informs the class, "Now we're going to do journals. Your choice is written on the board."

On the board he has listed,

How does this book describe community? [Community is the Overland theme for the year.]
If you were chosen to play the part of Ralph or Jack, who would you be and why?

Jeff tells the class he believes that the second question is much more interesting, then opens the floor for discussion. Students begin to talk about whether they would choose the first or the second topic. One student comments, "I thought this was a community. They came to an island and formed a community."

One of the presenters responds, "After what you saw, is this what you would call a protective community?"

Pointing to the book, another student says, "That's a community right there! People have different views within a community."

As is too often the case in conventionally scheduled school settings, the bell rings at this point in the conversation between the student "teachers" and the people who are beginning to inquire into lessons about community which could be gleaned from the novel.

An Overview of the Overland Charter

The rich instructional repertoire of Overland teachers was displayed during our brief spring visit. We learned how Michelle, the physical education and dance teacher, had received compliments from a state department of education official for the way in which her program integrated the arts with academic subjects. Like other performance teachers, she gets good mileage from the motivation her students develop from preparing for various public exhibitions of their progress. She told us about her students' performances with professional entertainers and about an upcoming show for health and physical education teachers from several states. The previous evening they had performed tap and jazz numbers at a dance festival held at another city high school.

Mrs. Stenger's playwrights were the subject of a local newspaper article because of their ongoing, joint project with a suburban high school. The collaborative program represents another example of Mrs. Stenger's varied approach to instruction. The discussion about the article began with Mrs. Stenger's asking, "So how do you feel about the title: 'Divided in Life, United in Art'?"

As is often the case in her classes, the students moved into a thoughtful conversation. This time the conversation was about the differences between the two communities and between the approach the Marshall students took to their plays and the approach taken by the suburban students. The Marshall students tended to see their work as more about "real life," and the works of the suburbanites as more about "fantasy" things. Marshall plays were about violence, life in the streets, child abuse--things they considered to be real. The suburban students wrote about Santa Claus and "thinking through watching a smoke ring."

Conversations About Senior Projects

We gained more understanding of the instruction in Overland as we talked with students about the senior projects they were being helped to prepare. In addition to our observations of the teaching techniques we witnessed in our visits, these conversations helped us learn how the Overland teachers mentor their students.8

Sam Smith, one of those seniors, told us that most of the charters in the school have senior projects, but that he thinks Overland's are particularly demanding. He reported that they had to address three topics: how to revitalize the community, how to revitalize or make something in your community, and how to create a new community. He talked enthusiastically about his own project, which he said would cost $65,000, half of which would be matched by Overland:

I'm revitalizing a house on my block. It's next door to me. What I'm doing is using the first floor. I want to buy the house and rehabilitate it, you know, 'cause the copper was stripped off the front. The people, the drug addicts, tore it and sold the copper. And, it's nothing but just the wood, you know. It's boarded up now, but I want to buy it and then rehabilitate it. The first floor will be used. I'll have a deacon come in, on Fridays, every Friday. He'll speak to, like, drug and alcohol addicts and try to help them with their problems.

The second floor will be used for only teenagers. I have a mentor in real life, and he's going to come in and he's going to talk about STDs and AIDS and HIV with all the teenagers of the neighborhood.

We're going to have brochures to pass out, and they'll be able to discuss pregnancies, so you don't have to go to school to learn about health and all that.

And the third floor is going to be for little children of the neighborhood. You know, so they can have a safe place to play video games and ping pong.

As Sam confidently laid out his plans, our interviewer had to interject, "Is this for real?"

Sam admitted,

No. This is like on paper. But, like, people actually call, say if I was to call you and tell you about the project like I just did, you'd say, "Well, I can give you maybe a thousand dollars." I have to cover the eight different questions we were asked, including a description of the community, the area we want to revitalize, the budget, how we will manage the project, etc.

Sam said he was surprised at the community response to his project:

When I surveyed people and told them what it was about, they actually thought I was doing it for real. And it really made them jump to it. 'Cause, you know, there's a lot of people on the corners who respect me from when I was a kid, and my dad and I talked to them. I told my school mentor I would like to do it someday--actually buy the house and rehabilitate it.

Sam explained how his science teacher worked with him as a mentor to prepare the various phases of his project. He patiently told us of the difference between his mentor from a local business, who helped him in "real life," and the work of the physics teacher, who helped him get ready for his year-end presentation before a parent, an eleventh-grader, and two Overland teachers: "We all, all the seniors, have a mentor that's in Overland to help us with the project as we go along--to tell us what's right and what's wrong and how it's going."

From this activity, which he needs to complete satisfactorily (he told us it would count for 20 percent of his final term grade), Sam said he had learned, "Never stop short. Don't think that you can't accomplish something. Don't ever be lazy."

And, thus, Sam, an early push-out from a district magnet program, told how this project and the other Overland activities had helped so that he is ready to attend a nearby state college where he will major in sports medicine. He told us, "I'm excited. I'm the first one in my family to go straight on to college from high school."

Terry said his senior project, a grant proposal for a community center for teenagers, was the most significant part of his high school education. Another senior, Shawna, a young woman who had moved from Miami to Jefferson while in high school, shared her excitement about her senior project with us. Speaking of her grant proposal, she said, "[It has] taught me a lot and is preparing me more." She gave us a specific example of how work in the Overland Charter had been helpful to her:

I've learned to write a monologue. We describe a person in our community, in school, the neighborhood, or work. We had to write a monologue using things she would have said. I interviewed Ms. Kornish. I had to stand in front of the class and dress like her. She's always saying, "Keep your legs closed."

I did a monologue on teen pregnancy. I was in a conference room with a podium, looking like Ms. Kornish, how she wore her hair. I had to use my mind to become the person. You had to put more into it. You have to get the information and go into them. You have to use your brain.

Other students shared their experiences of using their minds well at Marshall. They gave examples such as participating in a classroom performance of Harlem Renaissance, graphing equations in algebra, and learning in other classes that the whole group has to succeed for one person to feel success.

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Quantitative Data on Student Success and Failure

Even with all these signs of student progress and evidence of creative teaching, in the spring the adults at Marshall focused on their frustrations with the ebbing support and continuing interference from external agencies. Also, in spite of the attention to reform we observed during our visits, student performance indicators for the school continued to be low. Consider, for example, some of the data (see tables on page 22) recorded on a schoolwide and charter basis.9

The information in Table 1 needs to be examined carefully. It does not reveal a full-year pattern; by the third marking period, many of the students who began the year were gone. Because of the rapid decline in enrollment by grade, totals can also be misleading. Not reported in Table 1 are attendance figures which are closely related to course passage. Moreover, schoolwide information masks the success or lack of success of charters within the school.

Table 2 reports progress for students in charters during the same time period. It also includes a comparison of charter and non-charter student attendance. Where charters outperform the group of students as a whole, a "+" has been inserted.

In every instance of comparison of the results reported in the two tables, charter students outperformed non-charter students. However, before charter teachers begin to celebrate too loudly, there are some concerns that must be recognized. Overall performance is very low. For example, it is not much to say that charters do slightly better than non-charters, when half the students in the ninth grade fail English or when 35 percent of the ninth-graders are usually absent. Also, while 20.8 percent of Marshall's students are enrolled in special education, only 16.2 percent of the charter students are in special education. The higher percentage of special education students may, by itself, be enough to account for the difference. Nevertheless, the data are so persistently more positive for charters in their direction and so in keeping with findings in all schools in the district, that one has to conclude that there is some positive effect of the charters.

It is also worth noting that more than one-fourth of the Marshall students are still not in charters, even though people at the school tend to speak of their school as "fully charterized."

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District/Central Support: the Myth of the Evil Forces

For many of the adults at Marshall, the external supports (the district administration, the school board, the union leadership, even the remnants of the MSRC) seem to have become the enemy. Their heroes are gone, and they are left at the mercy of the evil forces.

One of the teachers at Marshall told us about the myth of the school.10 This myth is built around an early principal who went on to become a superintendent of considerable national prominence in another city--a superintendent killed in racial conflict. During the reign of this principal, Marshall had flourished; then, during the term of Iris, his successor, Marshall had fallen into disfavor and appeared to be on the closure list. Another teacher described the time following the leaving of this principal:

We have a time when, systematically, things were cut from the school: Cut a music teacher. Cut a language teacher. Cut this. Cut that. Cut the art department. Cut this. Cut that.

The principal [Iris] retired and Andy Washington was appointed to replace her.

Washington comes in and there's this moment of change and rebirth. OK? The place gets painted. It gets new windows. Suddenly we don't think we're teaching in a place that is going to be closed. I mean it was even, we were wondering, are they cutting us to the point where we're not going to exist anymore.?

Washington comes in; we are an intensive school site for the MSRC restructuring work. We start this restructuring effort. But it was a battle and a push. We had this moment where we create this energy in Overland, the second year of the program in particular. This absolute energy. We're noticed by national television. We're written up in the local paper. The kids are doing senior projects. We're taking this to [pause] the ends of where we can take it.

Then the principal, Washington, left on a career-ending sabbatical. The discontinuity of the myth began again with the appointment of the first of two acting principals. The external support mechanisms which Washington seemed so adept at accessing turned sour.

Teachers told us that the money which had been coming from the MSRC and the district to help reform is being taken away. Actually, the district provided less per charter during 1993-94 than they had committed to the funding foundation to provide. They took an amount which had been provided for leadership for existing charters and spread it over the greatly expanded number of charters that existed by the end of 1993-94. Perhaps most frustrating for the charter leaders at Marshall, other school-within-a-school programs in the district, such as career-oriented academies and motivation programs that pre-dated the work of the MSRC, continue to receive adde

d district funding support beyond that given to the "home-grown" charters.

Teachers and administrators also expressed their frustration over being required to produce eighty-page school plans for the district, which they doubt anyone will use productively. School staff complained that the union claims that seniority cannot be tampered with to allow flexibility in charter staffing, yet they can remember earlier years when seniority rules were changed in the district. Marshall leaders suggest that trying to institutionalize charters into a sick system will not produce sound reform. They (the evil forces in the continuing legend) will somehow prevent new progress.

A comment by one teacher reveals the depths of Marshall staff members' frustration:

We believed that we could be full professionals. We're, like, nobody knows what to do with us. We're like monsters that were created. We are empowered, knowledgeable, classroom teachers .

[A central office administrator] will not talk with us. She will not talk to a teacher. I can't call her up and have a conversation with her...That was not true of the earlier people--that is part of the shift. We believed this. We went for the education. We took courses at the university. We took courses from the collaborative. We got involved with the Coalition. We took courses from Re:Learning. I mean, we have become more knowledgeable and we're here.

Now what? There's no place. Our voices are being shut out from all. There's no Governing Council, so there's no place to share this with our colleagues. We have a lot of knowledge about what works in integrating curriculum across the disciplines. We have a lot of knowledge about arranging the school day. We have knowledge about planning backwards.11 We know the ins and outs of the system and the contract. We have knowledge about outcome-based education. We've been living this!

Make no mistake. Teachers at Marshall emphasize that if it comes down to having to choose between their union and the board, they will support their union. However, they are frustrated by what they see as their union's role in closing them out of a chance to use what they have learned. They feel abandoned by a district that encouraged them, and by leaders from the MSRC who pushed them to take risks. They object to rules that seem to say their charters have to have 396 students--no more, no less.

The teachers see the move by the district toward standardization and control as just what it is: a perversion of the earlier ground-up, passionately felt commitment to new communities exhibiting caring for students and giving attention to the development of students' intellect. They know that the process of generating charters is necessarily painful and chaotic, if diverse groups of teachers are going to build a mutual understanding of the programs required for their students. They worry that school- or district-mandated charter structures created without sufficient teacher input in their conception and planning will fail and will pull down their own early efforts as well.

Marshall educators even feel betrayed by the foundation that paid for the reform effort, but, they believe, that also agreed with their union and the district that none of the Marshall teacher group could be included on the continuing governing board of the MSRC. During the fall, several of these teachers met with the foundation leadership and were encouraged to speak out concerning their objections to union and district positions on charters. In midyear, as the foundation sought to work with district, MSRC, and union officials to calm the conflict among them, these foundation leaders failed to object when the district and union agreed to exclude references to charters in district work plans and to keep members of the Overland Charter out of the MSRC's ongoing advisory structures.

The bargaining agreement reached between the district and the union in August 1994 seems to have restored charters as a term that can be mentioned. The agreement also seems to have addressed, at least slightly, some of the concerns about seniority and personnel transfers. However, the damage done during the year will be hard to erase.

The court-appointed panel pursued recommendations for improving the Jefferson district during the spring of 1994, but, Marshall staff asked us,

Where are all the charters in this? We haven't been invited to participate in those discussions! There's this whole big thing going on now from the court. And, here we are now. We've been laboring for the past five years to improve instruction, and we're not part of these conversations.

Later they told us that one panel member had talked with several leaders of the Overland Charter, but they still wondered if there should not be more awareness by this powerful panel of the six-year reform effort in the comprehensive high schools.

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Why Persist?

For many at Marshall, their myth has broken down again. The external agencies are no longer providing the encouragement and support that allowed them to advance. New heroes have not emerged to help them regain their initiative. The "community" mentioned in the essential question in the Overland Charter eludes them and the school as a whole.

But the faculty and administration at Marshall continue the battle. Why?

One teacher told us that, for her, "school is about enhancing children's lives and not our lives." Her comment leaves us to ponder why a trade-off--rather than the possibility that both teachers' and students' lives could be enriched--has to be considered.

Another teacher explained that he stays with teaching at Marshall because his teaching changes kids' lives and opens up more options for their future. He said,

I know it works. I've seen it work. I've seen it have a profound effect on a large number of students. My teaching, the program, it works. It changes lives of students; it gives them other options. It helps them see larger pictures, gives them skills, and keeps kids in school who wouldn't have stayed. It makes socially unfit kids more socially fit; it can do remarkable things.

It is for the opportunity to do more of these remarkable things that the teachers and administrators continue to seek progress in the midst of the chaos within and around their school.

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Notes

Re:Learning is a partnership formed by the Coalition of Essential Schools and the Education Commission of the States in 1988. It offers a framework for states and schools to work together to support school reform and seeks to allow changes initiated by school-based professionals to influence state policy reforms.
Through the Centers project, the Coalition of Essential Schools has created several "Centers" around the country to serve as permanent local resources for Essential school reform. The MSRC serves as one of these Centers. These Centers are politically and financially independent, and they are closely allied with Re:Learning.
Richard W. Clark, "Thriving in the Midst of Chaos," Studies on School Change (Marshall No. 2), Coalition of Essential Schools, Brown University, Providence, November 1993.
Ã¦Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988 ), pp. xi-xii.
Dale Mezzacappa, "Judge Names 7 to School Reform Panel," City newspaper, March 26, 1994, p. A19.
Dale Mazzacappa, "City Schools Ending Year with Surplus," City newspaper, October 26, 1993, p. B1. li>Ã¦Marshall began claiming that is was fully "charterized" in 1991-92. Each year since then, some people at the school have insisted that all students are "in charters," and other people have acknowledged that not all students are so assigned. District audits confirm the assistant principal's report here. Also, the evaluation of charters references was performed by an independent non-profit research group for the MSRC, not by the MSRC itself.
The mentoring of students by teachers was consistent with the mentoring of new teachers by continuing members of the Overland community.
Information in Tables 1 and 2 is taken from reports prepared by the School District Office of Assessment for students who received report cards during the third report period in 1994.
Cultures have myths which help maintain continuity. Often, as at Marshall, these myths are built around stories of heroes. Each of the high schools we have studied as part of the School Change Study seems to have such heroes and myths --a subject that may warrant further investigation.
"Planning backwards," a term used in Essential school reform, refers to envisioning the school's goals for students and then planning the educational program accordingly in order to achieve them.

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Table 1

Percent of Marshall Students Passing Major Subjects

(Report Period 3 -- April 1994)

Grade	# of Students	% of Students Passing Major Subjects
Grade	# of Students	English	Social Studies	Math	Science
9	862	28	35.8	35.5	33.4
10	496	45.6	49.6	52.4	45.9
11	359	55.4	61.1	60.1	57.9
12	194	71.6	77.9	69.7	74.4
Total	1911	42.8	48.4	47.6	44.5

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Table 2

Comparison of Charter and Non-Charter Students Passing Major Subjects & in Daily Attendance

(Report Period 3 -- April 1994)

Grade	# of Students enrolled: Charter/ Total	% of Students Passing Major Subjects				% of Students in Daily Attendance
Grade	# of Students enrolled: Charter/ Total	English	Social Studies	Math	Science	Non-Charter	Charter
9 charter	556 / 862	29.5 +	39.1 +	38.4 +	37.8 +		65.0 +
9 non-charter	556 / 862	25.1	29.4	28.6	23.9	58.0
10 charter	394 / 496	49.4 +	50.7 +	54.1 +	50.5 +		72.5 +
10 non-charter	394 / 496	31.5	45.1	44.6	23.4	61.6
11 charter	276 / 359	58.1 +	66.4 +	63.3 +	64.2 +		75.8 +
11 non-charter	276 / 359	46.1	43.2	47.7	32.8	65.7
12 charter	156 / 194	77.1 +	84 +	73.5 +	77.8 +		77.8 +
12 non-charter	156 / 194	48.8	48.4	45	50	57.3
Total charter	1382 / 1911	47.0 +	53.2 +	51.2 +	50.3 +		71.1 +
Total non-charter	1382 / 1911	31.8	35.6	35.7	26.2	59.9

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The Marshall research team was headed by Richard W. Clark, senior associate at the University of Washington Center for Educational Renewal and the former deputy superintendent of the Bellevue (WA) School District. The other members of the Marshall team were Janet Miller, professor at the National-Louis University (formerly National Teachers College) at the Beloit (WI) Academic Center and author of Creating Spaces and Finding Voices: Teachers Collaborating for Empowerment (1990); and Neill Wenger, a cognitive psychologist who has taught in elementary school, consulted for the Pew Foundation, and is currently co-authoring a multimedia textbook .

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This resource last updated: June 27, 2002

Database Information:

Publication Year: 1994
Publisher: CES National
School Level: High
Focus Area: Leadership
STRAND: Leadership: the change process

Finding Common Vision

Table of Contents:

Introduction

A Brief Description of the School

Recent Restructuring Efforts

Still "Thriving in the Midst of Chaos"?

Focusing the Snapshot

The Context of Marshall: Events in the District, 1993-94

Challenges Facing the District

Reform Efforts within the District

Reflections on the Context

Events at Marshall: Fall 1993

The Impact of Early Retirement

Dealing with Ongoing Violence

A "Violence Assembly"

An Anti-drug Video in Student Advisory

Peer Connections to Stem Violence

Suggested Questions: Violence and Other Problems

Personalized Instruction in Charters

Close-ups of Overland Charter Classrooms

Uneven Instruction in the Charters

Suggested Questions: Instruction

Conflicts Among the Charters

Events at Marshall: Spring 1994

Transition in Leadership

The Ongoing Issue of Violence

Dealing with Students' Behavior

Behavior in the Overland Charter

Schoolwide Reflections on Violence

Suggested Questions: Changes in Spring 1994

The Challenge of Finding Unity within the Charters

Instruction in the Charters

Classroom Close-ups

An Overview of the Overland Charter

Conversations About Senior Projects

Quantitative Data on Student Success and Failure

Suggested Questions about Spring 1993 and Fall 1994

District/Central Support: the Myth of the Evil Forces

Why Persist?

Suggested Questions: District Support

Notes

Table 1

Percent of Marshall Students Passing Major Subjects

Table 2

Comparison of Charter and Non-Charter Students Passing Major Subjects & in Daily Attendance