Memoir and Perspectives of an Urban Public School Principal on Public Education Reform: A Primer on School Leadership and Public Schools Advocacy

By Jackson Windom III and Joh H. Windom

Memoir and Perspectives of an
Urban Public School Principal on
Public Education Reform
A Primer on School Leadership
and
Public Schools Advocacy

Book Summary

The book contributes to the national discourse on public education. It develops the reader's perspective in a framework defined by the state constitutional mandate to educate our youth as a compelling state interest, the public's trust, prevailing myths imbedded in education issues, and the public education bureaucracy as an agent of state government. The impact of the bureaucracy, labor management agreements, and certification programs on school leadership and classroom teaching is illuminated by analysis, argument, and practical experience. The book concludes with recommendations for reform and an appeal for broad support of our public schools.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477128305

Jackson Windom III

The author and collaborator were educated in the St. Louis Public Schools and are third generation educators descended from Christopher Columbus (CC) Jones, their maternal Grandfather, who served as Principal, Lincoln School, Edwardsville, Illinois, for 48 years. Jackson gained extensive experience in leadership and as a military trainer and instructor prior to entering public education as a school administrator. John has more than 40 years of experience in public education ranging from the classroom through leadership at school, district and national levels. The bothers collaborated in their development of perspectives related to contemporary education issues and proposed education reforms.

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Copyright © 2012 by Jackson Windom, III and John H. Windom, Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Jackson Windom, III

2978 Clearview Drive

Saint Louis, MO 63121

[phone]/578-2164

[e-mail]

John Windom, Jr.

7335 Huntington Drive

Saint Louis, MO 63121

[phone]

[e-mail]

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

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Contents

Introduction

Saint Louis Public Schools: A District In Crisis

Chapter 1

National Discourse

Chapter 2

The School As An Organization

Chapter 3

School Governance

Chapter 4

Accountability

Chapter 5

Professionalism And Philosophy

Chapter 6

Education Philosophy Development

Chapter 7

The Vision

Chapter 8

School Climate

Chapter 9

In Loco Parentis

Chapter 10

School Discipline

Chapter 11

School Handbooks

Chapter 12

Effective Instructional Leadership

Chapter 13

The Middle School Counselor

Chapter 14

Professional Development

Chapter 15

Pruitt Military Middle School Academy (Pma)

Chapter 16

Improving The Delivery Of Education

Chapter 17

Professional Development At Pma

Chapter 18

Development Of The Climate At Pma

Chapter 19

Administration Of Discipline At Pma

Chapter 20

My Approach To Governance At Pma

Chapter 21

The Pruitt Military Academy Staff

Epilogue

Appendix A

The Technical Core Structure: Mediating Influences On The Techncal Processes Of Education

Appendix B

Pma Values And Norms

Appendix C

Pma Staff Creed

Appendix D

Values-Based Decision Making: Guiding Principles

Appendix E

Closing The Gap Between Theory And Practice

Appendix F

Traits Of Exemplary Teachers

Appendix G

Effective Teaching: A Practical Guide

Appendix H

The Education Achievement Gap

Appendix I

Appendix J

Bullying

Appendix K

Academy Program Highlights

Appendix L

Roster Of Founding Faculty And Staff

Appendix M

Key Leaders And Building Representatives Of Local 420

Appendix N

About The Author And Collaborator

Author and Collaborator

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Jackson and John at Pruitt Military Academy

Dedicated to our parents, Professor John H. Windom, Sr. and Frances L. Windom, and our wives, Charlotte and Celestine, all dedicated teachers; our sister, Alice, a research scholar and lecturer; the staff of Pruitt Military Academy; the employees of the Saint Louis Public Schools; and the children that are our national treasure and future.

Special Thanks

I am indebted to my sister, Alice, for her review, editing, and rigorous critique of manuscripts. She brought the view of a scholar and avid reader to bear in order to make this book written primarily for a target audience of educators, particularly those in the public education bureaucracy, more readable for the lay but concerned public. Her comments were valued and served to improve the none traditional approach to writing about public education that distinguishes this book as a reference for practitioners of the art based on my lessons learned as a school administrator and leader. As a robust collaboration with my brother, John, it is a contribution to the national discourse intended to inform and serve as a reference for supporters and advocates of a constructive approach to public education reform. He brought perspectives from school, district, and national-level leadership experiences to bear on the issues. Any difficulty in readability and clarity of argument, however, is attributable to me as author, not the sources of suggestions and constructive counsel that I received.

The Wind beneath Our Wings: Educators All and a

Family Legacy

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Dr. John H. Windom, Sr. and Mrs. Frances L. Windom

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Introduction

SAINT LOUIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS:

A DISTRICT IN CRISIS

Era of Voluntary Desegregation Program

When I embarked on my public school career in the summer of 1984, the Saint Louis Public School (SLPS) district, Saint Louis, Missouri, and the State of Missouri were parties in the Voluntary Desegregation Plan under Federal Court Supervision. It affected Saint Louis City and selected school districts in Saint Louis County. The adopted solution to desegregating the public schools in the affected school districts involved interdistrict voluntary transfers of students between Saint Louis City and specified county districts and the establishment of magnet schools in the SLPS district. Magnet schools incorporated themes that were intended to attract white students. The integration of magnet schools was to be assured by the management of specified ratios of African-American and white students. Active recruiting of white students was undertaken by the magnet schools, and an office was established in Saint Louis County under the Voluntary Plan to coordinate interdistrict transfers and aid in the recruiting of white students to attend magnet programs. The enrollment of African-Americans in the county districts far exceeded the enrollment of whites in magnet programs, and there was not broad public support for their presence in those districts. The political opposition to the plan and its execution were considerable. Strong opposition existed in the state government over the expenditure of funds required by the desegregation program, and it affected the school leadership climate in the SLPS district. A succession of SLPS superintendents faced well-publicized and formidable leadership challenges and responded to them in ways that affected me professionally and informed my perspective of the public education bureaucracy.

Era of Dr. Jerome Jones, Superintendent

1983-1990

One of the magnet programs established in the district was the military specialty at Pruitt Middle School. It began serving students in the summer of 1983 under the leadership of Dr. Maurice A. Grant, Sr., commander and principal. Dr. Jerome Jones was the superintendent of the Saint Louis Public Schools. A public dispute between him and the teachers’ union president was marked by an illegal walkout that fostered divisions that lasted for years between teachers who picketed and those who didn’t. My wife’s participation in that job action allowed me to observe its impact on attitude, health, and morale. The turmoil within the district gained national attention when Dr. Jones and Ms. Evelyn Battle White, the union president appeared on NBC TV’s The Today Show to be interviewed by Bryant Gumbel. The union president unleashed a barrage of commentary that eclipsed constructive exchange. Bitterness prevailed between the district’s administration and the union for the remainder of Dr. Jones’s tenure. The impact on teachers’ morale was adverse, and it undermined collegiality within some of the district’s schools. Teachers returned to work only after the superintendent issued a deadline accompanied by a threat to fire those who remained absent.

Dr. Jones continued to exacerbate nonproductive tensions by establishing a policy that required school administrators and teachers to be evaluated on the basis of students’ test performance on the California Achievement Test. Principals and teachers viewed the policy as patently unjust. It had the effect of diminishing teachers’ ownership of school programs, undermining staff morale, and causing staffs to focus almost exclusively on readying students for testing. The valuation of students was guided by their ability to perform well on tests and not by their dignity and worth as individuals. There simply was not sufficient time in the school day to be overly concerned about their character development. Evaluating staff performance based on students’ test results marked the beginning of the bottom-line accountability movement in earnest within the district. Yet it paled in comparison with what was to come under the Missouri School Improvement Program and the No Child Left Behind Act in the form of the valuation of students’ scores on the state assessment as the core of accountability and accreditation.

Era of Dr. David A. Mahan, Superintendent

1990-1996

Dr. David A. Mahan succeeded Dr. Jerome Jones. He rose through the district administration ranks of the SLPS. His tenure was characterized by diminished tension between the administration and the union. He was well known and respected by district administrators. Media and political criticism of the district’s performance continued unabated under his leadership. School administrators did enjoy a period of respite from the labor-management tension that characterized his predecessor’s tenure, but teachers’ morale had not recovered from that bitter period. There were pockets of improvement at the elementary and middle school levels but very little at the high school level as was evidenced by the Vance Report completed and publicized as a comprehensive assessment under his successor.

Era of Dr. Cleveland Hammonds, Jr., Superintendent

1996-2003

Dr. Cleveland Hammonds, Jr. arrived during a period of ongoing media criticism of the Saint Louis Public Schools related to students’ test performance. The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, the major daily newspaper, gave front page coverage of the Vance Report prepared by an agency hired to complete a comprehensive assessment of the district in order to establish a baseline for measuring Dr. Hammonds’ leadership effectiveness. I viewed his public comments on the report’s findings as an unjust repudiation of the district’s teachers. When afforded an opportunity to review and comment on the report, I discovered that the agency had only addressed high school performance in their comprehensive assessment of the district; elementary and middle school performances were ignored. I wrote a memorandum on my findings and forwarded it to the district. I was thanked later by the assistant superintendent, Dr. John Ingram, who was responsible for instruction in the district. Nevertheless, the damage had been done to morale within the district, and no effort was made by the district or the media to correct the broad indictment by the consultant’s report or the related publicity.

The negative publicity did not help ongoing efforts to recruit white students for enrollment at magnet programs. Poor test performance continued to plague the district during Dr. Hammonds’ tenure, and the media soon resumed its blitz of criticism. An editorial in the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, the city’s only major newspaper, dated Wednesday, September 27, 2000, was titled "City Schools Monument to mediocrity [sic]; it focused on the allegedly wasteful acquisition of a ten-million-dollar building to serve as the district headquarters, and the district’s provisional accreditation rating was attributed to marginal improvement in test scores. Dr. Hammonds’ leadership banner against that background of criticism became Destination Accreditation" in the quest for full state accreditation. The district responded at all levels with enthusiasm and effectiveness. His leadership was enlightened and appreciated by school administrators. He introduced school-based management as a school leadership innovation and improved the quality of professional development for school administrators. Additionally, he continued the improvement in labor-management relations begun by his predecessor, Dr. Mahan. Public and political momentum in support of having the district declared as having achieved a unitary status (integrated) increased. That meant ending the court’s active supervision over the district, diminished funding by the state in support of the desegregation plan, and the foreseeable end of the interdistrict transfer program. The Voluntary Desegregation Program ended in 1999.

The accountability movement achieved its zenith as a destructive force in public education under the Missouri School Improvement Program and the Federal No Child Left Behind Act. Both programs imposed unreasonable expectations on school districts by emphasizing high-stakes testing and threatening administrators and teachers with the loss of employment and the closing of schools if specified annual performance targets were not achieved. One school board member publicly stated that twenty-five principals should be removed from their jobs. The hostile and stressful working conditions contributed to the voluntary exodus of seasoned professionals from the schools into retirement at the earliest opportunity.

Tension between the superintendent and Mayor Francis Slay worsened when the latter characterized spending practices in the district as resembling those of drunken sailors. The mayor’s influence over the district’s administration was increased when his four-member slate of candidates for the board of education ran for vacancies and won. The execution of their agenda in support of his call for change produced tensions and public hostility at board of education meetings that diminished the leadership climate in the district. City and state politics converged in support of hiring Alvarez & Marsal, a restructuring firm with no education bureaucracy experience, to take over the SLPS when the district experienced fiscal difficulties in meeting obligations attributable to a shortfall in anticipated revenues from the state. Obligating funds against anticipated revenue had been a historically acceptable practice. State fiscal problems, however, had adversely affected funding school districts. Dr. Hammonds departed the district with an unceremonious shove from the heavy hand of local and state politics bound together at a time when the district had made considerable progress toward achieving full accreditation.

It was noteworthy that prominent members of the Saint Louis business community who participated in the Principal for a Day Program inaugurated under Dr. Hammonds uniformly expressed surprise after shadowing principals for a day at how uninformed they were about the excellent quality of the education taking place in the district’s schools visited by them. They gave vocal assurance in public assembly that they would be comfortable as informed ambassadors of the district in conveying a positive image about their observations to the public. That program was yet another testament to Dr. Hammonds’ leadership, insightful innovation, and astute response to the politics of education in Saint Louis. He made a difference that enhanced the quality of education and professional pride during his tenure, and he departed the district with the respect of many principals who enthusiastically supported his quest to gain full accreditation.

Era of Alvarez & Marsal, LLC.

2003-2004

Alvarez & Marsal was the restructuring company retained at a cost of millions to takeover and run the Saint Louis Public Schools. They terminated employees, eliminated offices, consolidated functions, closed schools, sold real estate, restructured the district’s staff, and outsourced cafeteria and buildings and grounds maintenance functions to private contractors. Considerable institutional memory was lost, and the quality of support provided schools was diminished. The reliance on a private contractor for custodial services adversely affected school climate as the custodial services function became an exercise in managing expenses with a view toward reducing costs, not contributing to school culture and climate. The contractor reduced the size of the custodial staff during school hours as a cost-saving measure and assigned work priorities without consulting with the building administrator. The effect was diminished response to staff requests for assistance and stress induced in the custodial staff by efforts to respond to competing priorities emanating from the contractor and principal. Such issues had to be resolved by meetings with the contractor, and they accentuated a diminished sense of ownership, unity of purpose, and collegiality related to school programs within the custodial staff attributable to serving two masters.

The restructuring team took a stance toward the teachers’ union that consultation, not bargaining, was required under the law (a positioned overturned much later by the court). The absence of education experience on the restructuring team was addressed by their retention of an education consultant located in a distant state. The vast majority of that consultation occurred over the telephone according to the head of the restructuring team. He expressed displeasure over the lack of on-site presence and direct contribution to restructuring efforts.

During the Alvarez & Marsal era, board of education meetings open to the public were held in auditoriums or a high school gymnasium and attended by standing room only crowds. The meetings were characterized by rancorous exchanges with community members who resented the dictatorial systematic dismantling of the district and its sanction by the mayor’s four-member slate that controlled the board. They were viewed by the public as the mayor’s handmaidens tasked as his agents to create conditions in which charter schools could flourish in support of re-gentrifying Saint Louis City. The public schools were cited often by the mayor and the only major daily newspaper as the major reason for the city’s economic decline and shrinking population. Relevance was not attributed to local crime issues, the state’s fiscal misfortunes, and the downturn in the national economy.

Era of Dr. Floyd Cruse, Interim Superintendent

2004

Dr. Floyd Cruse was appointed as the interim superintendent as the restructuring team concluded its business in June 2004. It was my good fortune to retire after a twenty-year career in that month and leave the new education order to new district leadership. Mr. Herbert Buie, assistant principal and founding faculty member, succeeded me as principal and commander, Pruitt Military Academy. Mrs. Janet Anderson, an academy teacher, was appointed as his assistant.

The Beginning of My Career in Public Education

It was in the aforementioned leadership climate that I began my career in public education after retiring from a twenty-two-year career as a regular army officer, Chemical Corps, United States Army. I enrolled at the University of Missouri—Saint Louis prior to my retirement and completed requirements for certification as a secondary biology teacher and principal of grades seven through twelve. My first appointment in public education was as a biology teacher at the Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps Academy, Cleveland High School, Saint Louis Public Schools. I taught there for approximately one month before being interviewed for an appointment as an administrator at the district’s newly established military middle school, Pruitt Military Academy. I was selected to fill the position of military advisor and instructional coordinator. It was a personnel economy appointment (my characterization) that comprised two distinct roles and major responsibilities for the instructional program, and it was a dual role unique to the military magnet program. I was privileged to be a member of its founding faculty.

The remainder of my twenty-year-career as a public school administrator was spent at the academy. I declined more than one offer to become a principal at other middle schools because of my passion for the program, my sense of loyalty to the staff that I had guided and developed as a professional team, and the industry and loyalty that distinguished their support. I am indebted to my district superiors, Dr. Savannah Young and Dr. John Ingram, that they respected my wishes in that regard and allowed me to remain at Pruitt. I served successively during my tenure as the assistant principal and principal. I succeeded Dr. Maurice A. Grant, Sr., principal and commander and the founding faculty leader, upon his retirement. I remain indebted to him (deceased at this writing) for my appointment and the freedom he granted me in guiding the staff in developing and implementing the academy’s instructional program. We enjoyed a great professional relationship, and it culminated in his recommendation to Dr. Cleveland Hammonds, Jr., superintendent, that I be appointed as his successor.

I was the only member of the academy’s three-member leadership team that had a military background. Three other members of the staff had prior military experience, and they were the military science teachers. Each of the district’s magnet middle schools had a unique theme, a shared regular program curriculum, a specialty staff, and an instructional coordinator. Our respective specialty programs were to be structured to provide learning experiences that were developmentally appropriate and responsive to children’s interests in the themes; the themes were the magnets that supported recruiting for enrollment. The specialty component of a program could be distinguished clearly from the regular program or the two programs could be merged; the extent of merger was a derivative of staff participation in the specialty. The military experience that could be offered