Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > July > 09
Sunday, July 9, 2006
My review of Joanne Jacobs’ “Our School”
OK, I’m way behind on this, but I’ve just posted my review of Joanne Jacobs’ book “Our School” here at Get on the Bus. The book has been out since late last year and I so much wanted to read it that I accidentally ordered it TWICE from Amazon (so Joanne already owes me one for notching the book up Amazon’s rankings a couple extra places).
But I’m one of those people who is always buying more books than I have time to read. I was already reading two other books at the same time when I decided I couldn’t wait any longer to get to “Our School.” I put the others aside, and launched into to it. To my delight, the book is a breeze to read. I had it finished in just a couple days (incredibly fast for my usual slow reading style).
So go here and check out my take.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, Journalism
Our School: Chasing dreams by rewriting the rules
Diminutive Selena gripped two sides of a basketball with uncertainty before finally giving in to the shouting principal/coach on the sideline, begging her to shoot.
She shot-putted the ball forward … and watched it sail wide of the backboard by two feet.
Selena was one of the key players on the most unlikely girls basketball team ever to win a high school game — a team that “Our School” author Joanne Jacobs hilariously describes as “the shortest basketball team in America.”
“Our School” is not about sports, but this team — eight girls hovering around five feet tall, among the few at their school who could muster the C average required to play — is the perfect metaphor for the academically undermanned students that San Jose’s Downtown College Prep charter school promises to someday send to college.
The Lady Lobos are mostly Mexican immigrants who know little about the game they’ve decided to play and are short of skills needed to succeed. But with enough “ganas” — Spanish for desire — perhaps they can somehow pull out a victory.
Likewise, “DCP students enter the school academic losers,” Jacobs writes. “They don’t know how to play the game. By the standards of middle-class high schools, DCP students aren’t really in the game. But they keep working, they get better. If they stick with it, they’ll win a college education.”
Jacobs is the education reporter and former columnist for the San Jose Mercury News now nationally known for her popular education blog, www.joannejacobs.com. “Our School” is her book chronicling the years she spent observing as two idealistic teachers attempted to write their own rules and build a high expectations high school for low performing kids in an impoverished, gang-ridden inner city.
The book is both a pleasingly written, novel-like tale of kids who struggle — and mostly win — against tough odds and something of a guide for would-be school charter school developers, complete with a “how to start a charter school” chapter as an appendix.
For the motivated teacher, or otherwise inspired individual, who has thought of breaking out on their own to start their own charter school, Jacobs’ book is really a must read. The “Lessons Learned” chapter alone is filled with telling stories and sage advice from DCP’s founders.
For instance, they sorely underestimated how much catching up their entering ninth graders would need on very basic skills after years of neglect in the school system. It wasn’t enough to set high expectations and seek to inspire them. The kids, plain and simple, needed to know how the speak English and multiply. As a result, DCP ended up much more structured and regimented than anyone ever expected because that’s what the kids needed.
The school leaders also had to come to terms with the necessity of tossing kids out, especially for misbehavior. DCP throws out a lot of kids, a detail likely to catch the eye of charter critics, who complain that other public schools would love to have that nuclear bomb in the war to maintain discipline and order. “Our School” makes the point many times that discipline is a key. The leaders believe rules must be enforced consistently and unwaveringly, and they don’t hesitate to expel even kids they like who fail to get with the program.
DCP’s success is undeniable by the book’s end. Just as the short kids on the girls basketball team work hard, get better, begin to compete and finally actually taste real victory, so their classmates, too, are reborn in academic success. All that stick with DCP to the end go to college and the school’s test scores ultimately rank among the best around.
Still, the future of the school is far from certain. Teacher turnover is heavy. By its very nature, Jacobs tells us, the school tends to attract young dreamers to its teaching staff — not the types to work at one school and retire 30 years later. By the book’s end, one of the founders is even working on getting out.
Sustainability is a big question for charter schools, even excellent ones like DCP.
I also wonder if “Our School” won’t someday be viewed as a period piece, unique to the early days of the charter movement when the romantic vision was that pioneering teachers would break free from bureaucracy and reinvent education.
In fact, the “mom-and-pop” charter schools — truly independent and run by local folks — may be a dying breed. An ever increasing share of charters are run by national management companies, such as Edison Schools and Heritage Academies, and more recently, non-profits and school districts themselves.
Even so, as the charter movement continues to grow, Jacobs has done a nice job encapsulating what these new public schools are supposed to be about and how they are different from traditional public schools. It’s a good primer for the average parent — those who’ve heard of charters but not really sure what they are exactly. And the story is an enjoyable ride right to the end.
“Pulled by my mother’s dreams, I walked barefoot across the border from Mexico,” Selena’s begins her college essay. “I was six years old.”
But with wild basketball misses behind her, on track for a diploma and a college scholarship awaiting, Selena will cross the commencement stage ready to chase her own dreams.
Note: I corrected Selena’s story at the end here. She has already earned a scholarship, but has not yet graduated.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
