by AFT President Sandra Feldman
December 1997

Two years ago,
children in PS 154
were among
the lowest-achieving
students in the city.

A critical question in American education is how to provide poor children in failing and mostly urban schools with a good education. Voucher advocates have given up and argue that we should just rescue a few children by subsidizing their tuition at private schools. But how can we have a public policy of saving a few kids and ignoring the rest? If a school is that bad, no one should be stuck there.

Instead, we must--and can--educate all the children by turning around schools that are disorderly and unsafe and where kids are not learning. Close them if necessary; rethink everything about them--and do it fast.

This is not just talk. It's what Chancellor Rudy Crew, with the support and collaboration of the United Federation of Teachers, is doing in New York City. Schools that were performing so poorly the state threatened to take them over are being redesigned. Most are starting to improve, and some have made remarkable progress.

I recently visited PS 154 in central Harlem, where scores in a state-wide reading exam have risen 19.5 percent since the redesigned school opened in September 1996. (This figure is solidly documented, unlike the claims made for some private school voucher programs.)

PS 154 looks the way a good school should. The hallways are bright and clean and filled with the terrific work of children. There are no graffiti, no torn-up bulletin boards. Classroom doors stand open, and you can hear the sounds of children and teachers working together. They look busy and intent on what they're doing.

Most of the students are poor. They come from a public housing project across the street, and nearly 95 percent are eligible for Title I funds. Some have very serious problems, but the majority are average, normal-to-bright, big-city kids--and they are thriving.

A Dirty, Disorderly Place

Two years ago, the children in PS 154 were among the lowest-achieving students in the city. The school they attended, this same school, was dirty and disorderly. It was always short of books and supplies, and the adults--teachers and administrators--were frequently at odds with one another. There was no vision of what the school should be like--or any hope of making it different and better.

How did all this change? First, PS 154, which had been neglected and starved for support and resources by its local sub-district, was taken over by the chancellor. The chancellor's office, together with the United Federation of Teachers, assisted PS 154's administrators, parents, teachers, and other staff in redesigning the school. The idea was to draw up a plan whose every part would contribute to improving student learning. Ultimately PS 154 chose, as a centerpiece, "Success for All," a reading program that has proven very effective in inner-city schools, and they organized the rest of the education plan around that program.

Teachers who wanted to be part of the new PS 154 were invited to apply; others transferred to schools elsewhere in the district. In all, 50 percent of the teachers stayed on. The rest were mostly new, young teachers who were eager to work in the redesigned school. All of the teachers--both new and experienced--got extra training to prepare them for putting the education plan into action.

Working Together

As for the leadership, the final and all-important piece, the school got an excellent new principal. She and the school's talented union building rep were able to work together and help teachers and parents follow through on every detail of the redesign.

This is a story about one school--and it's only the first chapter. But there are many stories like it, and more to come. In fact, as I was writing this column, the state education department and the Chancellor announced that PS 154, along with 14 other schools , was being removed from the state's list of low-performing schools--a major accomplishment in a relatively short period of time.

But there's another angle--an important one: Vouchers divide a community; they pit the few families who "win" the voucher lottery against the many who do not. They encourage people to give up on neighborhood schools and take scarce resources out of these schools. The rebuilding of PS 154 demonstrates something very different. Many groups made a commitment to fix this school so all the kids in the neighborhood could get a good education. Together, they achieved what none of them could have done alone. And in helping a community get back its neighborhood school, they made the community stronger.