Can the Providence schools be saved? (continued)

IN THE CLASSROOMS, you can certainly see a difference.

The walls in every room at D’Abate Elementary are lined with educational materials. There’s a "word wall" to build vocabulary, and now a "math word wall," too. There are crates with books, classified by level, so advanced readers and struggling students can all find something appropriate. There are samples of student work, and "rubrics" — outlines of what is expected in a specific exercise.

"The classrooms are totally different," says teacher Judy Resendes. "They’re very child-centered. They’re very hands-on . . . The rooms are much more organized now. And if you notice, there’s nothing cutesy." Everything in the room has a specific purpose, just as everything the students do is tied to specific academic goals. "I teach totally differently."

At the secondary level, the transformation is less dramatic, but work samples, "rubrics" and other "standards-based" materials paper the walls of high school classrooms, too. At Central, to accommodate new teaching methods that require students to scribble all over their texts, DeCarlo invested in high-volume copiers and forests’ worth of paper. Drop into almost any English lesson, and you’ll see students marking up photocopies.

The impact of "balanced literacy" and "Scope & Sequence" is also visible, and a bit creepy for anyone used to the quirky heterogeneity of traditional teaching. It’s not uncommon, even at the high school level, to walk into three separate classrooms and find students doing exactly the same thing. Even the ninth-grade teachers we visited at Central, who were approaching Romeo and Juliet in such different ways — colorful performance vs. marking up a text — were on exactly the same scene on the same day.

Nobody denies that the centralized curriculum has been tough for teachers to swallow. Even Johnson admits it, though she says teachers are only upset because they don’t realize "Scope & Sequence" sets only minimum guidelines. "We don’t want cookie-cutter teachers," she explains.

DeCarlo says she has "mixed feelings" about the change.

"We had no curriculum, and we needed to have a standardized curriculum because we have a lot of mobility," she notes. "But the better teachers took kids to a whole other level, and they feel the curriculum is very restrictive."

Misty Delgado, a senior at Hope High School and class president, feels shortchanged.

"I hate ‘Scope & Sequence,’ " she says. "In my English class, we were learning about Aristotle, and Socrates, and Greek philosophers . . . So along comes ‘Scope & Sequence,’ and we had to read from a book where one of the key terms was ‘metaphor.’ I’m in the 12th grade. I should know what a metaphor is."

Melissa Caba, a 10th-grader at Hope who is also in student government, read Julius Caesar, the core text for third-quarter English, in middle school. Before her teacher was constrained by the new rules, "we could finish that book in two weeks" and move on to better things. "But Scope & Sequence says we have to spend 10 weeks on it."

Steven F. Smith, president of the Providence Teachers Union and a state legislator, says the new curriculum is stifling many teachers, and snuffing out the creativity that allowed them to engage their students.

The US history guide, for example, covers events only up to 1865 — so a discussion of the civil rights movement during Black History Month isn’t allowed, Smith says. But it’s elementary-school teachers — in whom creativity is normally most encouraged — who are taking the biggest hit, Smith says. Principals have called teachers to task for not spending precisely 15 minutes on a particular reading exercise, or not seating their children in the prescribed rows, or hanging non-educational decorations on the walls.

"It’s an overreaction," Smith says. "Clearly there was a need for uniformity, but it’s gone to overkill . . . I had one teacher tell me, ‘It would be a lot easier for us if they just put headphones on us [and dictated the lessons].’ They don’t want us to think."

Some teachers are hopelessly dispirited, Smith says. "I had one tell me, ‘I’m doing everything exactly the way they say, but Steve, I can’t take it anymore. My kids aren’t learning.’ "

The union has taken up the issue with Johnson, and Smith says she told him the curriculum was "a guide." But "Melody can’t be in every classroom," he notes, and principals feel under pressure to enforce the rules. When the union asked for clarification of what was to be taken as "non-negotiable" dictates, he says, it took three months for a top administrator to reply — and loosen the restrictions.

YET EVEN after four years of academic reforms, Providence students continue, to a great extent, to get a less rigorous education than in the better suburban districts — or, for that matter, Atlanta or New York City.

Ask students who have transferred into the district, especially from out of state, and they almost invariably say Providence schoolwork is easier.

Yolfi Perez, a Hope junior and student leader, came from New York into ninth grade. "Everything I did in ninth grade I had already done in eighth grade," she says. "Everything was mad easy. Basically every student that came in" felt that way, she adds, so "they started slacking."

Victor Tavares, the Central football player, transferred from a military school in Atlanta, and found his work "incredibly less demanding." Three years later, he’s still cruising. "I feel like I’m being taught, but I don’t feel like I’m being challenged. I feel like I can get an A without working. I sleep in my classes now, and I still manage to get a 100 on my quizzes."

Some teachers push students much harder. Angela Sanchez, a senior, chose an English teacher who demands copious writing to prepare kids for college. And her pre-calculus teacher, a Ukrainian immigrant, holds students to European standards: "Believe me, we’re there with headaches some days."

"Don’t get us wrong — over the last few years, the teaching has improved a lot," Tavares says. "Our homework has gotten a lot more serious. You can’t just do it in home room anymore."

Much of the credit for the changes goes to DeCarlo, who has unapologetically pushed teachers she disapproved of to shape up or get out. Dozens left and were replaced. "Four years ago, I would’ve told you I had 10 to 15 percent good teachers," she says. "And right now, I’ll tell you, I have 70 to 80 percent of the best teachers in Providence."

Hope, which just this year was divided into three schools-within-a-school, is still very much in flux, but students there report progress as well.

"I think you can’t really put it on the teachers anymore, because they’re making an honest effort," says Misty Delgado, the senior class president. "I see teachers working very hard. I think now the focus is on the students to do their work."

And many youths have no interest in school, badly disrupting classes.

"Some of the kids in here don’t know what they’re up against when they get out of high school," Delgado says. "And others . . . a lot of the boys who get in trouble here, they don’t plan on living past 21 or 25, so they don’t care."

Delgado gets angry, but she’s also sympathetic. "Some of these boys here, that’s all they’ve seen. They’ve seen their friends shot," she says. "Our kids have different stress issues. My biggest problem is, am I going to get my rent paid? Am I going to have enough to feed my daughter? We have different things on our minds. We can’t really learn in the same way because our minds are on other things."

Delgado, 19, is a bit more mature and confident than her classmates, and very outspoken. She tells her teachers when her home life is interfering with her work, and most understand. But she’s an exception, says Hope sophomore Caroline Flowers; with most kids, teachers see their hard lives and just express disapproval.

"They see as far as, they’re gangsta — that’s why they’re getting killed, or they had sex — that’s why they’re getting pregnant," Flowers said. "But they don’t see what’s in between the cause and effect."

AFTER YEARS of neglecting students’ perspectives, the Providence schools are starting to solicit them, realizing that youths won’t buy into reforms they feel are imposed on them. This year, under the leadership of Jonny Skye Njie, a youth advocate and educator, Providence has established its first-ever district-wide student government. It is made up of five students from each of the 11 high schools (Hope counts as three), including Nikki Ngolvorath and Angela Sanchez, the Central seniors, and all the Hope students quoted in this story. They are strong, outspoken young people with clear opinions about what works, and doesn’t work, at their schools, and they take their mission very seriously.

"What students are saying is, they can transform the culture of the schools, they can lead the way — if they’re given an opportunity," said Skye Njie. "We’ve got young adults who carry tremendous amounts of responsibility. We should see them as partners in school reform."

The students’ task this year is to gather their peers’ views on three broad issues: teaching and learning, school environment, and community relations. They work within their schools and meet regularly to compare notes. They have held two forums at City Hall so far, with a third planned for April 7. And they organized Step It Up, the citywide gathering last week of Providence’s Class of ’05 at the Rhode Island Convention Center.

"I think we’re making a big difference," says Hope junior Magnolia Perez.

The adults, for their part, still have an enormous amount of work ahead of them. Middle schools are just now beginning to get the kind of attention given to elementary schools during Lam’s tenure. And high school reform is nowhere near complete; academics, school environment, and discipline remain major challenges.

Victor Tavares and Angela Sanchez, the Central seniors, both think other schools in Providence could learn from theirs — and from the order that DeCarlo has brought there.

"I feel like we have a better system than other schools," Tavares says. "I’ve been to Hope; I’ve been to Mount [Pleasant] — at other schools, kids could basically get away with anything and the administrators wouldn’t find out till an hour later."

DeCarlo, who still has days when Central drives her nuts (and she announces her disapproval on the school PA), says the changes there came from setting clear expectations — of responsibility, hard work, and mutual respect — and sticking with them. She put academics first, and forced after-school activities and support programs to schedule around them. And she has tried to offer opportunities for ambitious students to grow: Central students can now earn up to 15 college credits in-house. For every student with a B+ or better average, DeCarlo paid the tuition for early enrollment English through Rhode Island College. As a result, Sanchez says, it cost her only $10.

But while Central can keep slowly raising test scores and improving classroom work, it has, essentially, peaked at this point, DeCarlo says. It can’t go farther without major improvements to its physical layout; a plan calls for it to be divided into three separate units, as Hope was — each with its own building, to end the constant plaza traffic.

One of Melody Johnson’s mantras is that districts need to be relieved from many of the mandates imposed by the state on education, so they can focus their limited resources on what the children in their community need most. Similarly, DeCarlo speaks that way about Providence’s central administration and the individual schools. "There’s a lot of people working in silos, not communicating," she says. "Nobody comes in to see what we’re doing and how they could support us, instead of just giving us mandates."

DeCarlo may have a chance to help change that herself. She has just accepted a job as chief operations officer for the district, though she will continue at Central, simultaneously, through the end of the school year.

Asked whether the Providence schools, at this point, are being fixed, she replies, "That’s a loaded question." But then she spoke about the training she has gotten since the reforms began — "more than in my first 20 years" — and her tone became more optimistic.

"I do believe in what we’re doing," she says.

Marion Davis can be reached at marionsd@cox.net.