Griego: Reformer: Reject 'it's not possible'

Published April 21, 2005 at midnight

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If there is any task in high school more bewildering than making a master schedule, I have yet to find it.

The schedule maps out which teachers are teaching what classes at what time and with how many students. It is a logistical nightmare, yet North High School Assistant Principal John de la Garza tackles this task with the kind of zeal I can only attribute to his background in accounting.

This week, de la Garza has been working on the schedule with Paul Ruiz, a senior partner at The Education Trust, the Washington, D.C.- based nonprofit that is North's partner in academic reform.

Ruiz has questions. How many advanced courses does North offer and who is enrolled in them? How many students were passing at mid-year in specific classes? Where are the most effective teachers placed? How many classes are on the schedule because teachers want them or kids choose them, but that do not meet the requirements of colleges and employers?

Ruiz calls this an examination for effectiveness and efficiency. Faculty and staff must know where the school is before they can decide where it needs to go, he argues.

For example, a study he conducted at an out-of-state high school turned up such horrors as: Of 542 African-Americans at the school, just 20 were in advanced or honors classes. Of 1,208 Latinos, 72 were in advanced classes. Of 417 white students, 43 were in advanced classes.

"Why do you think that is?" I ask him.

"Lack of attention," he says. "We are not minding the store. Period."

North adminstrators have already started making next year's schedule more academically meaty. Teachers support academic reform and have been brainstorming better ways to do things, French teacher Bobby Fischer among them.

Fischer, who has been teaching at North for 10 years, once told me it is a mistake for parents to assume that the educational bureaucracy will always do what is best for children. Like all large systems, he said, it often does what is simply convenient.

On Wednesday morning, he stopped by de la Garza's office to see what he and Ruiz were doing with the sche-dule.

Ruiz explains that they are looking for ways to make the master schedule better, adding, in characteristically blunt fashion, that "better is not what you want. It's what the kids need.

"Let's look at foreign languages," he says, as Fischer takes a seat. "How many (advanced placement) classes do you have?"

"One," Fischer says. "In Spanish."

"Well, if I'm the principal, I might say, one is not good enough. By 2007, 2008, I want three AP classes in foreign language. So, how are we going to get there?"

"We need more teachers," Fischer says. "We're losing a Spanish teacher this year. That leaves us with two Spanish teachers in a school that is predominately Hispanic. That means we can only offer a maximum of 10 classes."

"Folks!" Ruiz exclaims. "Is this smart when colleges have a foreign language requirement?"

"No," Fischer says, "but no matter what we would like to do, we are given X dollars for Y number of students and that's all the dollars we have. That's the reality we live in . . .

"So, we have 35, 45 freshmen packed in classes and we know some will drop out. You are talking about kids who can't do third- or fourth-grade math and you start doing conjugations and it's Greek to them, and they are out the door and on 32nd Avenue. That's the reality. Unless downtown gives us more money, we are going to have two Spanish teachers and one French teacher next year."

"For me, that's a red flag," Ruiz says.

(Allow me to interject and state the obvious. The issue of underprepared kids stuffed into classes is a nationwide phenomenon, and it isn't limited to high school.)

"Look at this," Ruiz says later in the conversation. He pulls out a graph with North's enrollment numbers. At the beginning of the school year, North had 575 Latino freshmen, but only 170 Latino seniors.

"Doesn't that scare you?" Ruiz asks. "Where did they go?"

"There is not a day that goes by that I don't go over this internally, that I don't feel angry about it," Fischer says. "This happens every year. We go through reforms and studies and committees and everything else and none of it works. It makes me wonder how the school board cannot sit back and question itself."

It's the same everywhere, Fischer says, bringing up a recent New York Times article that said reforms there do not appear to be working. Ruiz counters that New York is actually a mixed picture.

"My point is, I don't want colleagues to say it's not possible," Ruiz says. "Don't paint yourself into that corner."

"I see these kids every year," Fischer says. "They come in with their pants' legs creased, they are so excited. They think they have a new chance. By mid-September, in two or three weeks, they've lost that spark. They are sitting in classrooms with third- and fourth-grade preparation and they don't know what the hell is going on."

"And we don't change things," Ruiz says, pouncing. "The adults don't change anything. Sir, we can't just walk away and say, 'You don't have shoes, so you can't join our club.' "

"Right," Fischer says, nodding. "I know."

But, Ruiz isn't about to let this go.

"Who teaches literacy in this building?"

"The English department," Fischer says.

"Why?" Ruiz asks. "Isn't there English in science? Isn't there English in social studies?"

Fischer gives him an of-course- there-is look.

"I'm serious," Ruiz says. "I'm pushing you as a colleague here. . . . What I worry about is that we throw up our hands and say, 'We teach content,' when what we teach are kids.

"The other problem is that we tend to intellectualize the problem. We say we want to do it and they won't let us. Who is they?"

They go back and forth, Ruiz pushing, Fischer pointing to the enormity of the challenge. He tells Ruiz that when he worked in Cherry Creek schools, his students assumed they would be going to Stanford.

"We don't have that here," Fischer says. "Some of our kids can only see as far as this weekend."

"I know," Ruiz says, his voice rising, impatient. "I know."

"So, we have to do something," Fischer finishes.

"Who's we?" Ruiz asks.

"Me," Fischer says. "And I do. From day one I talk to them about college, about low-paying jobs."

Students do succeed. He tells Ruiz about North senior Alejandro Rodriguez won a full-ride scholarship worth $42,000 a year to elite Williams College in New York after graduation.

"And to what do you attribute his success?" Ruiz asks.

"He figured it out," Fischer says.

"So, teachers had no influence? You're telling me teachers in this building did not help him figure it out?"

"No," Fischer says. "We did."

"Then find out how you did it and do it again," Ruiz says, emphatic. "We have the concept of college. Mom may have never graduated from high school. How can we expect her to share that experience? We have to do it. In the lives of these youngsters, sometimes we are the only difference.

"I am appealing to you as a colleague. The way in which we message kids makes all the difference. If we message that they or their parents are the problem, we might as well pack our bags and go home because that's who is coming into this school. Don't ever relent on the belief that they can do better."

It's an amiable, but often tense conversation. Fischer welcomes the opportunity to be heard. Ruiz says he knows the task is difficult. Fischer offers different ways to approach the problem - he has taken on an extra class for his advanced students. Ruiz applauds him, then he pushes some more. Fischer pushes back.

I understand teacher wariness. They have a formidable responsibility and are easy to blame when things go wrong. But, I also understand much better than I did when I started this project why The Education Trust focuses on teachers as agents of change.

They can be the constant among variables. How they are assigned, trained and supported by administration, how their talents are used and respected, and their attitudes about who can and can't learn are critical to student success.

In his classroom later, Fischer goes back to the dollars and cents of the problem. Fewer students mean fewer teachers and fewer course offerings.

"That's the reality," he says. "But I know we can't keep doing the same thing. Or we can, and we can keep losing kids."

As he speaks, the bell rings and his freshmen students take their seats. Twenty-four are enrolled in the class this semester. Eight show up.

griegot@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2699

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