S. Renee Mitchell
Commentary
The Oregonian
Monday, April 30, 2007
Job of fixing city schools is left to us
The one thing I hope Portland learns about the unexpected departure of school Superintendent Vicki Phillips is that we need to stop denying our own self-importance.
Portland keeps hoping that some educated outsider will move here, pull a few magic tricks out of his of her bag and save our shrinking school district from imploding.
We keep thinking that if the Portland Public Schools just implements the right reforms, hires the right leaders and opens or closes the right number of schools, then we'll finally have a school district that can actually accomplish its stated goal:
By the end of elementary, middle, and high school, every student will meet or exceed academic standards and will be fully prepared to make productive life decisions.
If anybody could have pulled that "rabbit" out of a hat, it was expected to be Phillips. Her new employer, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, considers her to be one of the nation's best educational visionaries.
But Phillips is no magician. She spent just shy of three years testing out her reform-minded experiments. And still, too many of our students can't spell abracadabra.
Now, even before the school closures, K-8 reconfigurations and the specialized academies have enough of a track record to prove their worth, Phillips is leaving the district for a high-profile job that will likely pay her more than $350,000 a year.
Clearly, Phillips is better off since her encounter with Portland. And in some ways, we are, too. And yet.
Our school district is still shrinking. It's still failing low-income kids and students of color. And it still can't guarantee that any of the key reforms in the most dramatic shake-up the district has seen in a quarter-century are the best choices.
Certainly, the problems our public schools are having did not begin when Phillips arrived. Nor will they end when she leaves July 1.
In the past 10 years, at least three superintendents, numerous school board members and countless principals, teachers and students have come and gone. The common denominator during the district's successes and failures is staring back at you on the other side of any mirror.
Whether you have a student in the Portland Public Schools or not, it's you. Whether we get another take-charge superintendent or one who more easily caves to parental pressure, it's you.
Whether you're still upset that Phillips closed your neighborhood school, didn't listen to you in a public meeting or was too abrupt with radical changes, it's still you.
You, visiting the schools and helping struggling students learn how to read. You, helping weed to school lawn or grout tiles from the latest student art project. You, volunteering for site-council meetings, organizing an auction and even running for school board.
Phillips, who came here saddled with complaints about wasteful spending and lax administrative oversight while running 11,500-student Lancaster City School District, was never Portland's deliverer.
But, at least one thing she managed to do well was stir things up enough to get parents to form a city-wide watchdog coalition called the Neighborhood Schools Alliance.
The two-year-old parents group, which has made numerous demands and gotten some results, provided enough of a platform that one of its founders, Southwest parent Ruth Adkins, is running for Portland School Board. The members also say they'll be participating in the next superintendent search.
Parental involvement is one of the best predictors of a public school's success. No matter who ends up in charge or how many leadership transitions the district goes through, it will never change its need for one key element: you.