Jan
6
By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN
At Indiantown Middle School in rural Martin County, many children who grew up in poverty, speaking Spanish or Kanjobal, an unwritten Mayan dialect, are earning better writing scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test than some schools in affluent communities such as Wellington and Boca Raton.
In a perfect, egalitarian world, that accomplishment would not be noteworthy. But in real-life Florida, it approaches the miraculous.
A pile of gloomy evidence suggests that despite increased spending in poorer schools and a host of reform initiatives, public schools have not become the great equalizers the American Dream promised. In a recent study, the U.S. Department of Education concluded that more than three decades of higher spending in poorer schools nationwide under the Title I program has not significantly narrowed the gap between rich and poor.
And an analysis I conducted with another reporter, William M. Hartnett, for the Dec. 16 edition of The Post demonstrated that family income was a better predictor of test scores than any other factor we examined, including class size, suspension and absentee rates, teacher experience and teacher education. We found that at schools like Indiantown Middle, where about 90 percent of its 450 students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, only 37 percent of students on average scored in the top three of five achievement levels on the FCAT. But Indiantown Middle, one of Florida’s 10 poorest middle schools, nearly doubled that percentage in 2001. Only two other schools in the state exceeded expectations in math by a greater margin.
Though the school’s reading scores fell short of the benchmark to rank it an A, Indiantown Middle is exceptional, one of the state’s best by measure of obstacles overcome. The school has helped turn students into “little miracles,” in the words of eighth-grade teacher Consuelo Macedo.
But how?
INNOVATIONS THAT WORK
Principal Debra Henderson believes there are several reasons for Indiantown’s unusual scores. She cites an innovative schedule, begun three years ago, that assigns students to only two classes a day – math and reading. Students change classrooms only once a day. All other topics – history, science, government – are folded into the two primary subjects. Ms. Henderson also mentioned the school’s small class sizes and daily curriculum meetings, where teachers discuss the school’s intensive reading lessons. In the first year of the new lesson plans, the staff returned 10 days early in the fall, to learn the best and latest teaching techniques.
Other poor schools have tried different innovations – school uniforms, military-style teaching drills, academic pep rallies. Like Indiantown Middle, many poor schools stress high expectations for their students, some making the point with doggedly optimistic names like School of Success and Smart School charter. Even so, many of the poorest schools’ test scores have remained dreadful.
Few reforms seemingly have been strong enough to beat back the dragons of disadvantage, and it does not seem that any strategy or initiative alone could cause Indiantown Middle’s exceptional scores. The school’s answers, unfortunately, are as obvious as they are elusive: strong leadership, talented teachers, supportive parents and eager students.
Though all principals praise their teachers’ dedication, few have had the opportunity, as Ms. Henderson has had, to re-staff their schools. When she took over three years ago, some teachers considered Indiantown a temporary post, leaving as soon as positions came open in the more affluent coastal schools. She persuaded the school board to let her start over. Those teachers who did not want to stay got transfers. Only the truly committed were chosen to stay.
The school’s new teachers speak of their positions in the language of a crusade, not a job. Pam Peterson-Daly said her mission is to give her students the same advantages her own children enjoy. As an eighth-grade teacher, she relies on the Sunshine State Standards for most of the year, teaching her kids surface area to equations. But after the FCAT in the spring, Ms. Peterson-Daly spends most of her time urging on her best students to college. She knows that the kids, who write business letters for their illiterate or non-English-speaking parents, will have to rely on themselves to complete the paperwork. Before they leave her classroom, she makes sure that they can fill out applications for scholarships and financial aid.
Several Indiantown students said without prompting that they love their teachers. Some compared the school’s teachers to their own parents, saying the teachers can sense from a small frown whether they are confused or frustrated. The teachers, they said, often stop to help them before they have to ask.
Many Indiantown Middle students came to the one-stoplight community from Mexico, Guatemala and Haiti. The family of Amin Halum, the school’s student government president, is from Israel. The fact that many families have given up everything – home, relatives and country – for a new start in Indiantown makes the community’s poverty less hopeless, less destructive.
Ms. Macedo, who grew up in Indiantown, said many men in town become alcoholics, frustrated that they can hardly support their families in a new country. But in most cases, the dreams that brought them to the United States are not replaced with rage and recklessness. Instead, they are carefully preserved and lovingly passed on to the children.
Many Indiantown Middle students know by age 13 that they shoulder those dreams for a whole family. Eighth-grader Sonia Selvas said she works hard so she can vindicate her mother’s sadness. Sonia’s mother left Mexico for the United States when her daughter was 5 months old, leaving her behind with grandparents. Her mother worked in the fields, sending money back to support the family.
Years later, when she had saved enough money to return for her children, Sonia did not recognize her. She said she didn’t call her “Mama” for years after that. Sonia said she knows now that her mother’s decision wasn’t abandonment. It was the opposite. “She did all this for us,” she said, “so that we would have a better life than she did.”
Many Indiantown students know that they have to succeed because failure would be unthinkable, a rejection of their parents’ sacrifices. They attend school with maturity and a sense of urgency, encouraged by loving, committed teachers. In that regard, they have an advantage over some students at far richer schools.
But not all poor areas benefit from immigrants’ drive and spirit. In other places, the poverty has become more corrosive, eating away at lives until nothing remains but defeat. Teachers in those poor neighborhoods are still looking for the reforms and innovations that will reach children and parents who have given up on everything, including school.
Until they can find a way to inspire the devotion to school that exists in Indiantown, the gap between rich and poor likely will remain stubborn, and wide.
Copyright 2002 Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
January 6, 2002 Sunday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: OPINION, Pg. 1E
LENGTH: 1206 words