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When Alison Harris was a sophomore at Spelman College, she tutored students her own age still slogging through high school in Atlanta.
That's where she developed a passion for improving urban schools, a path that took her to graduate school at Harvard University and two years with Teach for America in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
Now she's among nine pioneers in a partnership between CMS and the New York-based New Leaders for New Schools to recruit and train 50 principals for struggling urban schools. At 25, Harris is the youngest of a crew that brings experience in charter schools, nonprofit leadership, finance, insurance and the military.
Charlotte's first nine participants were chosen from 184 applicants. They've just wrapped up a month studying urban education at Boston University and will spend the next school year working with some of CMS's best principals. After that, if they pass muster with CMS and New Leaders officials, they'll become principals of low-performing schools.
Their mission: Have at least 90 percent of their kids passing state exams within five years.
In CMS, that level of proficiency is currently limited to the most affluent suburban schools and a couple of magnets catering to top students.
“I realize most people snicker when we say that, but we are serious,” says Eric Guckian, executive director of Charlotte's New Leaders program.
In December, Superintendent Peter Gorman announced that Charlotte would become the 10th district working with New Leaders for New Schools, which has placed 550 principals in cities such as New York, Chicago, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. Many of those schools have seen gains in test scores and/or graduation rates since the program debuted eight years ago, but most have yet to crack the 90 percent mark. Guckian says 29 percent of the principals are on track to hit that goal, “a good start but not nearly sufficient.”
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation and Mecklenburg Citizens for Public Education are investing in the Charlotte project, which has a $3 million, three-year budget. CMS pays salaries for the recruits (they get assistant-principal pay while doing their residency year), while the donors pay for recruitment, training and support.
Gorman has already started putting some of CMS's best principals into the neediest schools. In some cases, he's also been quick to yank those who haven't gotten results. Kathy Ridge, executive director of MeckEd, says that's why it's vital to ensure a supply of talented, trained newcomers: “He needs a stronger bench.”
The plan calls for New Leaders to provide 50 principals over the next six years.
When the program rolled out, some were intrigued by the promise of finding principals from nontraditional backgrounds. While some of the nine began their careers in other fields, all were working as public-school teachers or administrators when they were tapped, six of them in the Charlotte region.
Guckian says the late start on this year's recruiting for Charlotte meant New Leaders didn't pull as heavily from across the country as it normally would. He realizes the reliance on local educators raises the question of how much value his group adds.
The answer, he says, lies in the selection and training. The recruits are not just looking for a promotion or a new job. In interviews that include role-playing and analysis of case studies, New Leaders looks for people who are passionate about teaching children of poverty.
“They're not being trained for the principalship,” Guckian says. “They're being trained to lead a change process in a low-performing urban school.”
Alison Harris, for instance, did research on urban education at Stanford and Harvard while earning a Harvard master's degree in education risk and prevention. In the classrooms of Berry Academy of Technology, a magnet high school where more than 60 percent of students come from low-income homes, 99 percent of her students passed the English I exam.
This year she's working with Denise Watts, a veteran CMS principal whom Gorman recently transferred to boost performance at Spaugh Middle, where more than 90 percent of students are poor and less than a third tested at grade level last year. Harris insists on calling her new school by its formal name, Bishop Spaugh Community Academy – just one small step toward getting students to see themselves as scholars, not failures.
Sonja Hale, a New Leaders recruit who's doing her residency at Ranson Middle, has a similar approach: Changing the belief system of students and faculty is key to getting top performance at a high-poverty school. As a principal, she says, “I can change behaviors that will change beliefs.”
Hale served in the Army Reserve and worked as a loan officer before switching careers. She was dean of students at a Norfolk, Va., middle school before taking this job. She knows it will be tough, but looks forward to the support of her fellow recruits and the New Leaders staff.
Guckian, who worked with Teach for America before taking the New Leaders job, was recently joined by Lory Morrow, a former CMS principal who brings on-the-job expertise.
School board vice chair Kaye McGarry, who has been vocal in urging Gorman to look outside the public-education establishment for principals, says she was hoping for more of that outside perspective.
But after talking to Guckian Wednesday about the selection, training and talents of the first recruits, she says her reservations vanished.
“I'm re-energized,” she said. “I'm really excited.”
