Hurricane in the Harbor

In Lew Smith’s article “Can Schools Really Change?” he queries to an audience how substantial change is initiated. Can substantial change only occur as a result of a crisis? Reading Adam Nossiter’s New York Times article on the unexpected improvement in test scores of 4^th and 8^th graders in New Orleans public schools; there seem to be the pervading idea that a silver lining coated the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina crisis. In many ways while the storm wiped away much of the infrastructure, it also purged the corruption and decay that many of the public schools suffered under. School were automatically taken over by the state after the storm and new mandates were in place that brought in a wave of new people with fresh ideas, and our favorite, vision. Teach for American is privy to much of that change along with other young, energized individuals who feel akin to make change in a circumstance such as the Gulf coast. As someone wisely said, it was the people, not the program that make a difference in their schools.

The interesting thing is, is that many urban school areas are in crisis, they’re just not nearly as transparent. Is it an indicator of America’s lack of perception that it must literally take a storm to nearly drown a city in order to identify crisis? Will Baltimore City have to await a category 5 hurricane to make land fall in the Inner Harbor and drowned Patterson High and douse the computers of Digital Harbor High School for the rest of the state, city, and nation to awaken the crisis within our public schools? As we begin to identify the methods and strategies of substantial change, when will stop being blind to the crisis next door?