The shadows continue to lengthen across the scarred landscape of America’s large urban school systems. The recent forced capitulation of Los Angeles Superintendent Roy Romer is yet another grim milestone on this long and lamentable progression. The very people who drove Romer from office endlessly denouncing him as the “leader of a failed system” now artfully seek to dodge blame by hypocritically hailing his accomplishments and marveling at his “legacy.”
While the sun sets for Romer, it remains bright and high in the sky for Denver’s new superintendent, Michael Bennet, but familiar danger signs can already be seen.
Bennet’s beginnings have been highly impressive. Quite evident is a rare combination of intelligence, energy, savvy and passion for his task. Greatly supported by an immensely popular mayor, and broadly affirmed in other political, labor, business and media circles, Bennet has seriously undertaken the consuming but vital outreach to his many constituencies. Forthrightly, conceding the gaps in his knowledge and experience as a “non-traditional” superintendent, Bennet has reached out to people across the country who can give him thoughtful insights into solving the enigmatic riddle that is urban education.
So, if all these things are so right, what are these “danger signs”?
The dangers for Michael Bennet are precisely those constrictor-like economic and political trends that for decades have crippled urban districts across the country. To allow today’s relatively sunny skies to blind us to these dangers is a grave disservice to Bennet and to those children on whose behalf he took the “toughest job in Colorado.”
The economic vise and the attendant annual budget crisis that grips DPS reflect a Catch-22 that has long plagued urban systems. Real or perceived deficiencies in the schools cause parents to leave, taking their children, their share of the tax base, and their allocation of state funding with them. This in turn further weakens service quality and acts as a trigger for the next wave of departures.
Bennet well understands this malign calculus. He knows he must hold his population just to maintain stability, and he must “grow” it if he is to have any chance to reverse those historic indicators of decline.
Events, however, conspire against Bennet, as illustrated by the recent controversies that began with the decision to close Manual High School – a move made almost inevitable by low student achievement and unsustainably high per pupil cost, both factors driven by the school’s inability to hold its own population. Yet, these factors were little grasped by the general public. What people remember are the splashy media images of marching students, protesting parents, and a pervasive aura of “customer dissatisfaction.”
Denver’s very real success stories – the impressively reconstituted Bruce Randolph School and, above all, Bennet’s relentless commitment to student achievement in general and intense focus on literacy in particular – deserve to be better known, better understood and better supported. However, these stories do not always make good copy, and by their nature require time and patience – commodities often in very short supply in city systems.
Of all the innumerable interest groups that quite properly attain political expression within DPS, there is not a one that in and of itself is unreasonable or unsympathetic. However, taken together their very diversity and frequently conflicting viewpoints can turn their collective voices into a cacophonous invitation to systemwide paralysis. All have a built-in tendency to strongly favor reform – of the other fellow, but not in any manner that might adversely impact their own non-negotiable entitlements. At times this Anvil Chorus seems to be singing an aria that sounds like: “Fix everything, but change nothing.”
In just seven months Michael Bennet has engaged his stern challenges skillfully and aggressively. He is a man in a hurry. He knows that he needs to be. He also knows that public education in America cannot be accounted a success if our city systems fail.
Bennet is in a struggle with history – a history that of late has not been kind to urban children. We all have a great stake in how his struggle turns out. We all need – in every way we can – to step into the breach and stand beside him. We need to do this not later, but now.
William J. Moloney is Colorado’s education commissioner.
