How a school stays 'on mission'

By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist | June 22, 2005

MEG CAMPBELL said the measure of success of a school is when the
administrators and teachers have the courage to ask themselves a
simple question: Is this classroom good enough for my child? ''If you
can answer 'yes,' then we're there."

Campbell is basking in reflected glory. All 20 of her seniors at the
100-student Codman Academy Charter School have been accepted to
college. The success was the subject of a Page One piece in the Globe,
complete with a large picture of some of the happy seniors. No matter
what one thinks of charter schools, and there certainly is enough
national data to question their overall effectiveness, the photo was a
beautiful snapshot of a city and achieving youth of color.

It is also a snapshot representing several success stories among
smaller schools in Boston, both charter and public, which serve
largely African-American and Latino students. Statewide among all
schools, 31 percent of African-American and 37 percent of Latino
10th-graders were in the failing category for math in the 2004
standardized tests. In English language arts, 23 percent of
African-American and 31 percent of Latino 10th-graders were in the
failing category.

Failing percentages were generally in the teens and single digits for
African-American and Latino 10th-graders at Boston public schools that
range between 144 and 425 students. Such schools include Fenway High,
Boston Arts Academy, TechBoston Academy, Muriel Snowden International,
Health Careers Academy, and Excel High. That compares to much larger
Boston nonexam public high schools where a third to half of
African-American and Latino students failed math or English in the
2004 tests.

Like many educators around the nation, Campbell is careful not to
praise size alone. Nationally recognized educator Deborah Meier, who
ran Central Park East in East Harlem and Mission Hill School in
Roxbury, recently said of small schools started two decades ago,
''about half are mediocre or worse than mediocre, and half are better
than mediocre."

To be excellent, Campbell said, ''You have to have a paradigm shift, a
mind conversion of what's possible for the kids," she said. ''There
are fabulous people in all schools, big and small, great people doing
great work. But the culture of expectations is uneven. You have to
have a culture where every adult is 'on mission.'

''You have to have school relationships where the parents are not
written off. We almost use an early childhood model of parent
involvement. We've had 11 parents even take our Saturday classes. When
they come in the door, we ask the kids what their dreams are, then we
ask the parents what their dreams for their kids are and then we tell
them, let's plan because you can't do it alone and we can't do it
alone, either. We have to do it together."

Being ''on mission" at Codman means a school that is open from 8:15 to
6 p.m., with mandatory Saturday morning classes. Being ''on mission"
means giving youth out-of-the-box experiences away from test-driven
education, with sailing lessons, acting and production lessons at the
Huntington Theater, competing in Shakespeare competitions, courses on
the African diaspora taught by Robert Johnson of UMass-Boston, and
winning a grant from the History Channel to help develop a women's
historic walking trail in Dorchester. It means having holistic
connections to the community. The academy has a working relationship
with the Codman Square Health Center in facilitating talking groups
among ninth-graders. ''You can spend money on security or you can
spend it on prevention," Campbell said. ''I'd rather spend it on
prevention."

It means insisting on the small things of respect, such as knocking
off foul language in the hallways and telling students that anytime
they meet an adult, they are to walk up to that person, shake their
hand, and look them in the eye. ''If you don't have that basic skill,"
Campbell said, ''There are a lot of doors you cannot walk through."
She said that after a recent visit of 15 principals from New York, one
of them told her she was stunned because ''I didn't hear a swear word
all day."

Finally, it means a faculty that walked youth from tough neighborhoods
through their own doubts and helped them make up for lost time on
academic preparation, making career connections through internships
and helping on college applications. Not everyone who started at
Codman finished. Eight of the original 32 students found the rigor too
tough, and four have been held back for grades. That just makes the
Page One photo all the more reason for not just the youth, but for the
whole city to smile.

''I don't have a doubt this could be done in so many places," Campbell
said. ''The question is, are we as a nation willing to invest in order
to do it?"

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.