By Tom
In case you missed it, there was a wonderful article in the Seattle Times about Asa Mercer Middle School, named after the guy in the picture. Asa Mercer – the school, not the guy – went from being the poster child of woeful, inner-city education to one of the best schools in the Seattle School District. In only six years.
So how did Asa Mercer accomplish this turnaround?
A strong administrator, dedicated teachers focused on a common vision, good curriculum, a belief that every student can achieve and really hard work.
This is exactly what I found in the schools I visited last month in New York City. And although Mercer is a regular public school, they've found the same answer to the same problems as the charter schools I've visited. Not surprisingly, the principal at Mercer was a former teacher at a NYC charter school.
What this shows is that there's no secret to successful schools. Nor is there a shortcut.
It also shows what happens when we learn from what works – no matter where it's working – and apply it to other schools.
Our students deserve no less.
It shows consistency and focus on a common goal. They way to get to the goal will depend on the school, but the key of shared focus and shared dedication is a key factor.
Yes, Tom, I didn’t think you were saying it was well funded. I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to hop on my soapbox about how stupidly underfunded schools are. My “you” in “can you see it” was the plural You going out to anyone who read my comment.
A triple hawk? That is awesome. I like to imagine him carefully parting on each side and combing up and down.
Mark, you’re right. There are many elements of what I saw at Mercer that I’d like to see implemented at my school, or my daughters’ school, but not all. The three excellent teachers I saw were all very different, but what they had in common was an obvious enthusiasm for what they were doing, respect for the students, the place, and the work, and absolutely clear lessons.
I think what Mercer’s success teaches us is that you do what’s right for the children in your building. For me, the takeaway is that central administration should stop dictating these district-wide policies and practices, and should start supporting strong and talented building administrators.
The key then is “how” to get to be like Mercer. Strong leadership? I’m for that. Data driven instruction? If we define data properly, sure as well. But how to get from here to there is the key. The formula may seem obvious and simple, and I think any school district in the nation could identify the formula. How to get there is the trouble.
And I still resist the idea that we should all be just like the successful schools. It is like the “business model” always ascribed to education by outsiders. I even look in my own department. There is teacher in particular who is a rock star. Kids love her, and they learn and learn hard when they are in her room. So, we package up what she does and make the rest of us do it… except what makes her successful is her manner, her disposition, her relationships–not the worksheets she uses or the comments she writes on essays. I’d argue that in most cases, if the other twelve English teachers in my dept. changed to be just like her, we’d see poorer performance from students because the critical element of Mrs. T’s success (that element being Mrs. T herself) transcends her choice of writing prompts or vocab worksheets. Therefore, I resist any implication that simply doing what a successful school has done is The Way to Fix Everything. Could I learn a few things from Mrs. T? Already have, but I’m not her little clone, and our classrooms are incredibly different, but both highly successful (and the data bears that out).
BTW, Asa is sporting a triplehawk, very common among young people these days who choose to simply shave two parallel stripes from the temple to the back of the neck. His appears in need of a touch up.
Kristin- I think we can all agree that schools in general are under-funded. I was referring to resources in a relative sense. In other words, I don’t think Mercer is any more or less under-funded than any other school in Washington.
I also worry about sustainability. Especially the issue of whether success can withstand a change in leadership.
Is Asa Mercer sustainable? I often hear about these schools around the country where the perceived-impossible occurs, but then the results fade.
Will these results last beyond one or two years? I ask because I do not know much about the school, and my school showed huge improvements for a short time, and then we plateaued at a bit lower level.
Tom, let’s think about the reality of your comment “as well-funded as any school in the state.”
Okay, are you thinking about it?
Think a little longer.
I think the resounding conclusion is “not adequately funded.” “At all.”
I think Washington State – and our elected officials should lose sleep over this – is not funding public education because it doesn’t have the courage to raise taxes.
Let’s get real. Washington is NOT adequately funding public eduation. Thank you Tim Eyman and those who feel they should save $100 to put gas in their Lincoln Navigator instead of putting $100 more into public schools. I’m sorry for pointing fingers, but this has moved into the absurd. We have families who can’t feed their children, and we have families in the suburbs who complain that airplane flight paths create noise over their bucolic suburban dream – the dream they paid high dollar for – the dream for which they expect urban centers like Seattle to fund freeways, airports, and emergency services for.
We have overloaded classrooms. We have teachers who might or might not be able to work for free to help break the cycle of poverty. We have small neighborhood businesses like my local bookstore (Santoros – your bookstore of delights at http://www.santorosbooks.com/) who regularly give me hardbacks for the price of paperbacks in order to serve public education. We have local foodbanks who contribute food to people like the child in my class whose family doesn’t have enough to eat over the weekend.
Let’s face the facts, Washington. Our public services have been trimmed to such an extent that our children suffer. My students are hungry. Their parents go without healthcare, insurance, or stability, and I’m teaching in one of Seattle’s more affluent schools.
Tom, you’re absolutely right that resources are not the problem. They’re a huge problem, but they’re not THE problem. THE problem is when you have a weak administrative leader, a weak staff, or a weak community.
Mercer Middle School has no resources. Let me be blunt: it’s a poor school. What it has, however, is what matters. It has strong administration. It has a committed, like-minded staff. It has a parent population, like any parent population, who wants to see its children succeed. It has a student population, like any student population, of kids who see a warm house and a full fridge in their future. This is what is has.
So what are the rest of us lacking?
That is a peculiar hair style. I don’t even think you can use “historical context” as an excuse.
I have never been to Asa Mercer. At least not recently. (I must admit that as a teenager I was in a horribly untalented garage band that practiced nearby; we used to hang out at Mercer after rehearsals and cause trouble.)
Kristin, you’d know more about resources within SPS than anyone else, but it’s my understanding that Mercer is as well-funded as any school in the state. I don’t think resources are, or ever have been, the problem. I think things really did change for the better when the staff started doing the things described in the original article.
Mark, the closing line refers to teachers shedding their prejudices, figuring out what works and doing it.
Kristin’s right. If union teachers at non-charter Asa Mercer can make it happen, the rest of us really have no excuses.
And am I the only one who thinks Asa Mercer bears a striking resemblance to an Oompa Loompa? What’s up with that hair roll?
Yesterday I spent my morning observing classes at Mercer – lucky me. Here’s the thing: I saw no disruptive behavior. I saw no students who weren’t prepared to learn. I saw no chaos, wasted time, or wasted energy.
Students entered the classroom, sat down, knew what to do, and did it. Their teacher instructed, coached, encouraged, waited for 100% of their attention, and assessed their skill level at that moment.
We cannot continue to make excuses. It is being done, and it’s being done at schools that aren’t charter schools, that aren’t schools filled with privileged students, and that aren’t schools filled with carefully selected motivated students. Mercer is a public middle school, filled with the children who live in the high-poverty neighborhood surrounding the school. It’s a school staffed by unionized teachers.
It is also a school where everyone on staff seems to agree to work really hard, respect every child, and use data to improve student performance.
Mark, I can tell you that there are many teachers who are doing more with less. That’s true. But I think what Tom is pointing to are the decisions made at the building level – beyond the daily decisions of the teacher. The fact is that the administrators at Mercer have made clear decisions about what is and isn’t acceptable, and teachers have either agreed to do what’s necessary or gone elsewhere. That strong leadership has resulted in – in my opinion – one of the best traditional public schools in the nation.
What’s the takeaway? The takeaway is that building-level administration is more important than most districts think. Building-level administration that is made up of smart, strong leadership can create a culture and develop a staff of teachers who do the impossible, create a high-poverty, high-performing urban school.
And I have to say, education groups and policy makers better pay attention, because our students…students like my two daughters…deserve no less.
My response: this implies that if a school is failing that they merely get ahold of “A strong administrator, dedicated teachers focused on a common vision, good curriculum, a belief that every student can achieve and really hard work.” This seems to imply that “failing” schools are willfully not doing this. Also, that simple formula leaves many factors out of the equation: time, resources, access to resources, infrastructure…all things that when absent can undermine the elements of the not-so-secret formula.
Also, the closing line disappoints me a little. I’m hoping that the “our students deserve no less” is directed at policymakers who ought to make better decisions about funding and allocation in order to provide students access to this simple formula–not to teachers who are already doing more with less.