Thank You Deborah Kenny

Thanks to a link I discovered on Rochelle McConkie's Facebook page, I've been following the ripple effect that Deborah Kenny started in education through her Harlem Village Academies. What she has done to raise the bar for teachers is revolutionary. Her approach focuses first on raising expectations for teachers! 

It's had such a strong impact on me that it's not only given me the courage to change the direction of my blog, but it has also brought back wonderful memories of my days as a full-time French teacher at Carden Memorial Private School where students stood when a teacher walked into the room, looked you in the eye when speaking, and called teachers Mr. and Ms. so and so. I was called Madame Taylor and the students in my classes all waited for me to invite them to be seated. This sort of respect is possible in all our schools.

Here is the link to the previously mentioned Op-Ed article written by Bob Herbert called, "Where the Bar Ought to Be." (Thank you, Rochelle.) 

New York Times: Where the Bar Ought to Be, by Bob Herbert

With Ms. Kenny's blessing, I'll continue on in this direction, including a lot of overtones from my experience at teaching well-mannered students who wanted direction on how to behave, to know exactly what was expected of them, and the difference between right and wrong.

Comments

[Anonymous Donor]

You should check out:
http://millermps.wordpress.com/2010/03/

Sometimes - people get a lot of publicity but there are more nuanced views of the facts. The facts are facts, attrition rates at this school are high (for teachers, students and non-teaching staff). Deborah succeeds in making high-profile connections but doubtful she has the ability to scale her organization beyond Harlem. I'd like to be proven wrong

[Gary Anderson]

Anytime there is that much hoopla, you should be suspicious. I totally support Kenny's notion that teachers are central to success and that building a professional teaching culture is key (not teaching to the test). She also argues that behavior control is necessary as a pre-condition for exciting education, not an end it itself. Too many inner-city charter schools turn kids into robots, and give them a drill and kill education that would not be tolerated in a middle class school.

However, to the extent that principals or charter schools recruit great teachers, they may just be leaving some other classroom in some other school with a mediocre teacher. How do we create more great teachers, not just move them around the system. Even much of Debbie Meier's success was stealing great teachers from other schools. We need principals that can improve the people who work for them. I don't know to what extent Kenny's success is about skimming teachers (and student attrition) but we need to be thinking more about how to improve the whole system. These outstanding highly publicized schools have always been hyped in the inner city. Go back to Phi Delta Kappan or Educational Leadership in the 1970s or 1980s and you'll find lots of Deborah Kenny's who created great public schools in much the same way.

We don't need charter schools. Public schools have loosened up hiring. Principals used to get a list of teachers and had no input. Those days are gone. Most principals in public schools have lots of control over hiring. And we certainly don't need business principals. The corporate world has behaved irresponsibly. Why would we want to import that culture? But in spite of her business babble, she has the right idea about teachers being central and treating teachers like professionals and not implementors of scripted curriculum.