Using to overcome poverty
A San Francisco principal is turning around his
low-performing school by focusing on literacy and
classroom practice, with the help of his district.
J
ohn Muir Elementary School in San Francisco is like countless other schools in cities across the United States. The student body comprises
mostly lower income, African American and Latino students who – despite being just as intelligent as their white and Asian counterparts – traditionally underachieve on many academic measures. Talented, hard-working educators tried
their best to improve the standardized test scores at Muir, but for the past five years those scores remained largely flat. During the years spanning from 2005-2010, roughly 75 percent of the students in second through fifth grades scored below proficient on the California Standards Test. Despite San Francisco Unified School
District’s best efforts to provide additional support and funding during that time, as well as help from several community mem- bers and other well-meaning organizations, results remained the same and test scores did not significantly improve. The will to
8 Leadership
improve achievement was clearly there, but the results did not change. This is a familiar tale for urban educators, and it is our great- est responsibility to address it head-on. I have spent the past 20 years of my life
working at schools just like John Muir, lo- cated across the country from the Bronx to Los Angeles, West Oakland and San Fran- cisco. As a teacher and principal I have had some successful experiences raising achieve- ment levels among the same demographics, but never to the level of creating long-term, school-wide, sustainable change. After 19 years at these schools I was eager
to focus my energy on the critical mission of “erasing the predictive power of demo- graphics.” So it was with great enthusiasm and excitement that I accepted the job to be the new principal of John Muir for the 2010- 2011 school year. John Muir had ranked in the bottom 5
By Chris Rosenberg
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