Every school has problems and advantages

There are several important messages in the flurry of comments this week over the criminal convictions of Lincoln High School students in the wake of last summer’s death of a recent graduate from a drug overdose. Tragedies happen. Drugs and alcohol abuse are big problems throughout our society. Kids always have and always will make bad choices at times – so do adults. And even in a city of half a million people, children still grow up in the village of their immediate realm. Raising good citizens requires partnerships between parents, schools, community supports, and government.

For me, one of the most helpful outcomes of media attention and community discussion on this case is more widespread recognition that no school is perfect. Each has its particular problematic and successful attributes. Lincoln is often lauded as a terrific school, which indeed it is. But when I read about former gubernatorial candidate Ron Saxton moving into an apartment for a year in order for his son to have the right to attend Lincoln, the alarm bells that went off for me weren’t all clamoring about equity, resources, or whether residency requirements for elected officials were skirted. To me, we have a problem as a city when any particular school is viewed as a must-have experience by parents or students. And a shared problem when any school is perceived as a must-avoid situation. Neither Lincoln nor any other high school, public or private, offers all benefits for all students. Students can succeed at any one of them – attend the upcoming Portland Public Schools’ (PPS) salute to valedictorians if you doubt that statement of fact.

The ghastly federal No Child Left Behind (aka No Child Left a Dime) Act has exacerbated the illusion that some schools are “superior”, others “unsatisfactory”. It then turns perception into reality by encouraging exodus from schools labeled underperforming, creating a vicious cycle of defunding due to loss of per-student allocations. So we read article after article about flight from Jefferson High School. Yet the District’s data shows Jefferson was the only PPS high school with NO suspensions for alcohol and drugs during the 2005-06 school year, when the school was operating with an open campus.

Portland Public Schools, and the Parkrose, David Douglas and Reynolds districts all or partially in Portland, should move beyond grading schools only on their standardized test results. Test results compare this year’s testees to the results of different students who happened to take the test at that particular school the previous year – students who may have been at the school four years or four days. Real assessment of how schools perform would include looking at increases in achievement of the same students from one year to the next. Studies show few kids who transfer from underperforming schools to “superior” schools score higher on tests in their new school. Real assessment of schools would post drug/alcohol/weapons disciplinary rates. It would document availability of courses like calculus and four years of foreign language instruction in high schools. And it would add criteria such as percentage of students walking/biking to school, cafeteria food quality, access to nearby housing, economic and cultural diversity, hazards and adequate emergency plans, etc., etc.

If schools were judged on all these criteria and more, it would be easier to see that indeed Portland’s schools each have advantages and disadvantages.