An Interview with Andy Smarick: Rebuilding Urban School Systems

Michael F. Shaughnessy - July 15, 2009
Senior Columnist EducationNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University
Portales, New Mexico
 
1)     Andy, first of all, tell us about your experiences and education.

I’ve had a pretty varied set of professional experiences in K-12 education.  At the state level, I worked for members of a state legislature and served on a governor’s education commission.  At the national level, I was a congressional aide, worked in the White House at the Domestic Policy Council, and was a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Education.  In terms of more “on-the-ground” work, I helped start the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and I was a co-founder of a college-prep charter school for disadvantaged kids in Annapolis, MD.

I’m a total product of public education.  After public school kindergarten in western Pennsylvania, I attended Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland.  I went to undergraduate and graduate school at the University of Maryland.

2)     Now, what is this book you are writing all about?

It’s about rebuilding America’s urban school systems.  I think we need to create healthy industry systems if we’re to ever have consistently successful urban school districts.  I think we can do this by applying the concepts of chartering—like new starts, school closures, and replications—across all school sectors.

3)     What do YOU mean by turnaround and how do you define “failing schools”?

This term has been poorly defined for too long.  Ideally, a successful turnaround would mean taking a school that was persistently very low performing and getting it to consistent very high performance in a reasonable amount of time.  Incidentally, if we use this definition, the number of successful turnarounds is extraordinarily small.

As for “failing schools,” you could approach this in a number of ways.  Any school that can’t keep its students safe must certainly fall into that category.  So too any school that, year after year, has large portions of its student body failing to meet state standards.  The federal “restructuring” designation captures this set of schools relatively well.  Ideally, though, we would have clear, reliable growth measures so we could evaluate all schools based on improvements in student performance.  We’re not there yet, but we’re getting there.


4)     What is Arne Duncan doing right and what is he doing wrong?

He deserves credit for talking about failing schools, advocating for charters, pushing for better use of data, and nudging the left to be more open to performance pay for teachers.  Also, though the education components of the stimulus legislation weren’t put together very well if reform is the ultimate goal, Secretary Duncan has been using his bully pulpit to push states and districts to do the right thing.  There’s no doubt whatsoever that he cares greatly about reform.

On the downside, I believe he is entirely too sanguine about our ability to “turn around” America’s lowest performing schools.  Turnarounds have a terribly low success rate in education and other industries.  Instead, we need to be willing to close failing schools and open new schools (that have the characteristics that produce success) in their place.  If we ignore the evidence on turnarounds, we could very well waste several billion dollars in the near future.  Along those lines, Secretary Duncan recently encouraged several superb charter start-up organizations to get into the turnaround business, which I think would be a terrible mistake.  Don’t push the few bright spots on the urban schools landscape into a historically unsuccessful activity that could ultimately compromise their terrific work.

I was also very disappointed that Secretary Duncan didn’t fight to protect the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program.  Worse, his department released the positive evaluation findings late on a Friday so few people would notice that the program was working.  I’ve also been disappointed that Secretary Duncan hasn’t said anything about the continuing decline of faith-based, especially Catholic, schools in our inner-cities.  These schools often do outstanding work with the most disadvantaged students, and yet the schools are disappearing.  With the paucity of great schools in these communities, we don’t have the luxury of allowing any of them to close.

Finally, unlike the secretary, I’m not convinced that national standards and assessments are the answer.  We are rushing headlong into this, and we could spend enormous sums of time and money bringing this about without significant gains in student learning.  You can have national standards and still have failing schools, low-performing teachers, misguided collective bargaining agreements, and much more.  I’m concerned that with all of the momentum building behind national standards that it’s not getting the critical eye that it deserves.  At this point, it is looking like the classic “bad idea whose time has come.”
 
5)     Andy, I used to teach in the South Bronx. I thought the school itself, was neat, clean, well kept, and we had good supplies. However, the neighborhood was in shambles. What can the government do?

I’m all in favor of helping these neighborhoods in as many ways as possible, such as improving housing strategies and creating jobs.  But I also believe that we’ll never fully turn around our inner-city neighborhoods until we get education right.  So I’m not part of the camp that argues the inverse—that we can only have successful urban schools if we solve poverty and the other ills of US cities.

There is no doubt that kids in these communities come into school with a wide array of challenges.  Teaching in these areas is extraordinarily difficult, and those who do it well deserve enormous thanks and praise.  But just because it is hard doesn’t mean that we should be excused for not doing it well.  The purpose of public education, in my opinion, is to take all kids, no matter their circumstances, and lift them up to high levels of achievement so they can succeed throughout life.  So, I readily concede that urban schooling is just about as tough as it gets, but I’m emphatic that we have to get it right.

I worry when the first reaction to a struggling school is, “the students come from a difficult neighborhood.”  That statement, though true, doesn’t do anything to help those children learn more.  In fact, taken too far, that statement can contribute to the kind of low expectations that depress achievement.

6)     And, I used to teach in rural Nebraska, where they “consolidated“ schools.  What should be done about “failing schools“ in rural areas?

Entirely too little attention has been paid to this issue.  There are struggling schools throughout rural America, and those underserved kids deserve better, just like urban kids deserve better.  Getting the human capital—great teachers and principals—to choose rural Nebraska or West Virginia over Chicago or New York City is a challenge.  But that’s where I would start.  

7)     Are charter schools the answer? Or do we need more merit pay or vouchers?

All of the above.  And more.  

But we have to be careful to support not just good concepts (which these are) but good policies as well.  For example, not all new charters will be great.  So you need great authorizers, and you need to be thoughtful about new starts, closures, and replications.  Merit pay must be done in concert with improved teacher preparation programs and better teacher evaluations.  Voucher programs need to ensure that participating private schools are high-quality.


8)     I believe it is difficult for most schools to keep up with the technology. What do schools have to do to keep up with all of these changing platforms and various technologies?

I’m conservative on this front; that is, I’m not in favor of chasing new technologies just for the sake of being on the cutting edge.  Some technologies will be great for our schools, and some will not.  Even if you find promising innovations, it’s a major challenge to implement them properly, train adults to use them well, and so on.  This is much more difficult than merely buying laptops for all students, declaring victory, and then calling it a day.


9)     What is the basic premise of your book?

We’ll never have successful urban school systems until we 1) focus on school quality instead of school sector—i.e. it shouldn’t matter who runs the school as long as it is excellent; and 2) continuously use the systemic innovations of chartering—new starts, replications, and closures—to build a dynamic, nimble, self-improving education industry

10) What have I neglected to ask?

My favorite blues guitar solos: Texas Flood (Stevie Ray Vaughan), Crossroads (Cream), Since I’ve Been Loving You (Led Zeppelin), and One Way Out (Allman Brothers Band).