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9486 in the collection
Rancor Over New Principal
Ohanian Comment: Students have a good idea for protesting what they don't like at the school: Dress in orange.
Teachers across the country should dress in black--until NCLB is scrapped.
The new principal of Annapolis High School weighed in with a warning even before summer vacation ended: All backpacks must be see-through so they can't be used to conceal weapons.
It was just the beginning. On the first day of classes, her commanding voice came over the loudspeaker: Students needed to dress appropriately, to be on time, to never let her catch them sleeping in class -- and to expect punishment if they broke these and other rules.
By the end of that day, student accounts of Deborah Hall Williams's debut were causing a buzz around dinner tables in Maryland's historic capital. Parents who had grown accustomed to the easygoing style of the former principal wondered why Williams was coming on so strong. Annapolis High needed a first-rate educator, not a warden, parent Jan Hardesty recalled thinking.
Three months later, that unease has escalated into an emotional community dispute. It is a controversy that illuminates a common concern in the nation's non-urban school systems -- what to do about the academic achievement gap that divides many schools along socioeconomic lines.
In this case, however, it has taken a personal and nasty turn. Dozens of students dressed in orange one day to indicate they felt like prisoners. A group of parents launched a "Save Annapolis High" Web site that is rife with anti-Williams missives.
The Annapolis City Council held a public hearing, where black church and civic leaders said the opposition to an African American principal revealed troubling racial divides. And a state legislator has demanded answers from the Anne Arundel County schools superintendent, Eric J. Smith.
Her detractors say that Williams, a Prince George's County principal before she took charge of the 1,684 students at Annapolis High, is forcing radical change on a school that needs improvement but not an overhaul.
Williams's supporters say the principal should be applauded for paying more attention to at-risk students and for starting to push them onto the college track. They see her tough demeanor and strict policies as necessary to reach students who could fail in life if they don't succeed in school.
Williams is quick to acknowledge that her management style "is different from what many of the folks here are used to." But Smith said he hired Williams for the Annapolis High job -- after reassigning a longtime, popular principal -- to help tackle the academic achievement gap between affluent, mostly white students and lower-income, predominantly black and Hispanic classmates.
The average combined math and verbal SAT score for white students at Annapolis High last school year was 1,094, well above the 1,026 national average for all students. The school's black students averaged 897. On a statewide exam given to 10th-graders last year, 77 percent of the white students met Maryland standards for reading; 34 percent of black students reached the standards.
Smith came to Anne Arundel County 18 months ago with a reputation for his work on narrowing similar achievement gaps in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida. "The data that we have from Annapolis High School is absolutely appalling," he said. "To me, this is the issue that has to be addressed. This is the one that should be center stage."
One Building, Two Schools
The debate over Williams is intensely personal. But it underscores an issue in America's public schools. In the past several decades, as jobs and families migrated to the suburbs, inner-city schools became poorer and less economically and racially diverse. With some exceptions, they are also the least academically successful.
At the same time, suburbs became melting pots of diversity, and their school systems inherited challenges that urban students and educators had long known. And in many of these suburban communities, where such superintendents as Smith fight to keep families from switching their students to private schools, the public school often functions as two schools within the same building. There's an unspoken elite class of student, typically affluent and mostly white, taking Advanced Placement or other college-prep courses. Then there are the others, often low-income or minority students, routed into regular classes. These academic divisions accentuate social barriers, educators say.
Annapolis High draws some of its students from million-dollar waterfront homes and others from public housing complexes. By the early 1990s, fistfights involving white and black students became so frequent that then-Principal Joyce Smith created TEAM Day, short for "Together Everyone Achieves More." The annual, one-day beachside retreat tried to ease conflicts through games and bonding exercises.
"This is a very, very common pattern across the country," said Gary Orfield, a professor of education and social policy at Harvard University.
Educators have been aware of the academic achievement gap for decades, but it lingered as a back-burner issue. Then, in the 1980s, a few governors, including Bill Clinton in Arkansas, began to introduce high-stakes testing programs and to demand that school systems be accountable for the performance of all students.
In this environment, shrinking the divide between rich and poor, between racial and ethnic groups, is a driving obsession of such superintendents as Smith. At the same time, Smith and other public school leaders embrace elite curricula -- such as the International Baccalaureate program -- to reassure parents of high-end students that their interests are being served.
When he surveyed the landscape in Anne Arundel County, it didn't take long for Smith to zero in on Annapolis High.
He selected the school to be one of two magnet sites for the rigorous IB program, seen by many as a ticket to top colleges. He recruited an assistant principal who is Hispanic and fluent in Spanish, recognizing the school's small but growing Latino enrollment. And he hired Williams, shifting then-principal Joyce Smith to an administrative job with the school system.
Eric Smith said he saw in Williams a passion for educating all students, an ability to relate to the disenfranchised and a willingness to work "16-hour days, six days a week."
Williams defines her mission this way: "We're all moving to eliminate that perception that there are two schools here, [and to] make this a united school."
Climate of Divisiveness
Sharon Tolson, whose daughter is a ninth-grader at Annapolis High, said she was appalled by the new principal's overbearing rules and gruff manner. "Kids are more worried about, 'Am I going to get in trouble?' than, 'Am I going to do my homework?' " Tolson said.
Tolson and several other parents grew angrier as they swapped stories throughout September and October. They demanded to meet with the superintendent. Hardesty, one of the most outspoken critics, said she is aware of Smith's goal to narrow the achievement gap but cannot understand how requiring see-through backpacks or subjecting teenagers to Williams-style authority will help.
"If you could say to me, 'This is going to work,' OK, I'll buy it. Because every kid should succeed," Hardesty said. "But they brought in someone who is a very flawed person."
After the controversy surfaced publicly, several political and religious leaders in Annapolis came to her defense. They noticed that parents criticizing the principal, who is black, are predominantly white and that most of those supporting her policies are black.
Gabrielle Martinez, a cheerleader and student government member at Annapolis High, said during a school board hearing that a climate of divisiveness has affected her education. "I have spent more time in my classes talking about who does and who does not support her, instead of learning," she said. The 15-year-old fought back tears when she asked, "Why is everybody attacking her?"
Four miles away, her TV set tuned to the hearing, Valerie Pringle, whose daughter is an Annapolis High sophomore, placed herself firmly in the anti-Williams camp. "They don't understand what we are trying to say."
— Vikki Ortiz
Rancor Over New Principal Divides Annapolis High School
Washington Post
2003-12-07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41851-2003Dec6.html
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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