School of the Future? | Lessons of Change
Congress Slow on School Modernization Legislation
Q & A | Resources

Cover Story
School of the Future?

In Phoenix, educators are working to fulfill the potential of a new school that may hold lessons for schools of the future.

The Phoenix Union High School District hadn't built a new school in 27 years. So when the district set out to build the Cesar Chavez High School in Laveen, 20 minutes outside Phoenix, it pulled out all the stops.

The new school's architecture reflects that ambition. Eye-popping colors, inspired by Aztec culture, abound on the sprawling campus, from the purple ramadas where students hang out at lunch to a bright red football stadium.

Amenities are everywhere, so many that one parent has dubbed Cesar Chavez the "Disneyland of high schools."

But the facilities aren't the only thing that's attracting attention to Chavez High. At the dawn of the new millennium, plenty of people are watching to see if the approach to education offered at Chavez a mix of collaborative decision making, state-of-the-art technology, and integrated curriculum--can be a model for the school of the future.

The goal at Chavez High, say the advocates for the new way, is to boost student achievement. If the school works, note school staff proudly, that success will be the ultimate tribute to the spirit of Cesar Chavez, the historic union leader who devoted his life to improving the lives of farm workers, including many who live nearby.

A New 'Compact'
Almost two years ago, a team from the NEA local affiliates that represent teachers and support staff--the Phoenix Union ClassroomTeachers Association and the Classified Educators Association--joined with local administrators to set the stage for the Cesar Chavez new approach. The team replaced the old handbooks with an eight-page "compact" for collaboration.

The compact's premise is simple. Give everybody on campus--from janitors to principals--an opportunity to make decisions about the school.

Why break with tradition? The old model wasn't working, team members felt, and parents were fed up with low test scores and high dropout rates.

Adds the Arizona Education Association's Doug Kilgore: "We had to do something dramatic. Parents were losing faith in the public system."

Five months into their first year in the new school, the Chavez staff is bursting with new ideas. But the road to consensus building hasn't been easy.

It's difficult to move to collaboration from confrontation, acknowledge the teachers, support staff, and administrators behind the compact. Some staffers fought the compact's adoption. They believe it will jeopardize the staff's hard-won gains.

Other staff are frustrated because some employees have been hired without being told about the special Chavez High mission. Others are disappointed that the planned "coring" curriculum isn't yet in place.

Still, plenty of Chavez High teachers and staff are committed for the long haul.

"To say it's been smooth sailing would be a lie," says Toni Kirby, president of the support staff local. "But this is the perfect site. It is equal to Cesar Chavez the man. We're trying to live up to his dream."

What's worth watching at Chavez High? Here's a quick list.

Decision Making
At Chavez High, a veritable alphabet soup of councils and committees run the school, with the goal of breaking down barriers between teachers, support staff, and administrators.

Disputes are handled, under the compact, through a four-step conflict resolution process, rather than a traditional grievance procedure.

The top body in the process is the Educational Action Council. The three members of this panel--teacher Gary Raether, support staffer Dena Pollock, and principal Jim McElroy--are the school's decision makers of last resort.

Staffers like registrar Deitra Webb feel empowered by the new collaborative approach. At her old school, administrators would tell her how school registration would be run. At Chavez, the staff decided.

"We decided to let students register before school opened and teachers helped out," Webb points out.

Chavez High is emphasizing the importance of involving all staff in decisions, teachers and support staff alike.

"At one recent meeting," notes history teacher Jennifer Earl, "we were getting ready to discuss an issue and support staffers were walking out because they thought the meeting was just for teachers. Usually, support staff is just dismissed. Here, everyone has a voice."

Curriculum
The spacious Chavez High campus is built around a "house" concept that's designed to encourage team teaching.

Traditional high schools are centered around departments, but, at Chavez, the "house" is the central focus. The faculty in each house cross the lines of academic disciplines. Science teachers spend their days working closely with English, French, and social studies teachers.

Eventually, the school will be structured totally around "coring," a process that will place one group of teachers with a single group of students. This coring, teachers believe, will help integrate course work and keep students from falling through cracks.

That commitment to reaching all students also shows up in the Chavez High commitment to areas like art and music. The school includes, among other features, a piano room with new electronic keyboards and an impressive performing arts auditorium.

"Most schools focus on the top achievers or the students on the bottom and forget the students in the middle," says Dena Pollock, the school bookstore staffer. "We forget that sometimes it may be music that keeps students coming back to school."

Technology is also important at Chavez High. The school's cyber age showpiece is the library, with over 90 computers, each available to help students do research. Every classroom, in addition, has at least one computer.

Chavez High is equally committed to giving teachers adequate access to high-tech tools.

Each building on the high school's campus boasts a teacher-conference center, where teachers have their own individual desks and access to computers, phones, and copying machines.

Math teacher Sheryl Filliater is one of the Chavez High staffers who are excited about the school's potential. As she walks across the campus, she points to quotes from Cesar Chavez chiseled into the school.

"Si Se Puede," she reads. "Yes, you can do it. In the end, I know we will succeed."

--Michele N-K Collison

Lessons of Change

Hindsight, of course, is 20/20. NEA Today asked the teachers, support staff, and administrators who helped plan Cesar Chavez High what they would do differently if they could start all over again. Their reflections might help the rest of us think about how best to develop new schools for the new millennium.

If you're building a new school, don't hire the architect first. Decide on the school's curriculum, composition of the staff, and management philosophy. Then design the architecture.

Plan several years in advance if you propose to open a new school and implement a shared governance plan. Eighteen months for planning is not enough to open a new school and implement a new management plan. As opening day approaches, everyone is more worried about ordering the furniture than about the mission of the school.

Communicate your vision early and often. A mission statement does not mean much unless a school community develops a plan to accomplish it.

Give staff the tools to help them work as a team. Most administrators, support staff, and teachers have not had much experience working together as team members. Don't expect them to start collaborating without training beforehand.

Shared decision making is hard work. Staff have to put in a lot of extra hours to make shared decision making work. Be prepared to give team leaders release time or extra pay.

Have some fun. Developing new ways of working is stressful, point out the members of the Chavez High planning team, and all work and no play makes planning team members cranky. They credit teacher Carla McManaway with planning Halloween parties and happy hours to encourage everybody to have fun.

Congress Slow on School Modernization Legislation

Schools like Arizona's Cesar Chavez High School won't be duplicated in other states unless Congress frees up money for school modernization and construction.

In the 106th Congress, there were three major bills floating through House and Senate chambers, each directed toward additional school building construction. The efforts were directed at providing federal tax credits to pay the interest on school modernization bonds.

Representative Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and 203 cosponsors--including three Republicans--introduced the Public School Modernization Act (H.R. 1660). The bill would provide almost $25 billion over two years for zero-interest school modernization bonds.

Representative Nancy Johnson (R-CT) and 51 Congressmen--including 30 Republicans--introduced the America's Better Classrooms Act (H.R. 1760) which would also provide $25 billion over two years for zero- interest school modernization bonds.

And in the Senate, Senator Charles Robb (D-VA) and 22 Democratic cosponsors introduced the Public School Modernization and Overcrowd-ing Relief (MORE) Act (S. 1454).

Unfortunately, none of the bills got anywhere. Congress did, however, extend the Qualified Zone Academy Bond (QZAB) program for another two years. QZAB allocates $400 million in zero-interest bonds specifically for renovations, repairs, and remodeling at low-income schools. The money cannot be used to construct new buildings and has other strings attached, but it helps. Still as time passes and schools deteriorate, the cost of repairs will keep increasing. The General Accounting Office estimates that school repairs will cost $112 billion, in addition to the $73 billion needed to build new schools in order to meet the surging student enrollment levels.

"If students are to have modern schools in the next century Congress has to act next year," says NEA GR staffer Joel Packer. He urges NEA members to contact their Representatives and Senators. In addition, get your school board, state legislators, mayors, and other elected officials to push for federal help in building modern schools for the next century.

Q&A
This School Educates to a Differenct Drummer

Phoenix Association President Mike Olson says collaborative decision making works if everyone takes responsiblity for the decision.

Mike Olson is the president of the Phoenix Union Classroom Teachers Association. He spoke recently with NEA Today on what lessons NEA members can learn from his district's new and innovative Cesar Chavez High as they help plan schools for the next millennium.

Why did your NEA local agree to a collaborative management structure at Cesar Chavez?
Five years ago we had a job action. We were picketing. And the community gave us a real spanking. And the administrators got a spanking, too. "Knock it off," the public told us, "take care of our kids!"

We're really facing tremendous pressure to improve the quality of public schools in this country. And if we're not involved in improving that quality, then parents are going to look elsewhere. So we said we would try this. This is ground nobody has tread on before.

Why do some of your members feel threatened by this collaboration?
They perceive collaboration as a sign of weakness. When you work as a team, everybody has to take responsibility for the decision. It's not clear-cut. You can't point to something and say, "We got that." In collaboration, you have to include your partners and say, "We got this together." This is strength through partnership.

How do you resolve conflict under the Chavez compact?
We don't try to avoid conflict because conflict will exist. The idea is to problem solve. Under the Chavez compact, we want to give people the tools to solve their problems on their own campus.

Could Chavez be a model for the school of the future?
If this could work, teachers would be empowered. Classified workers would be empowered. The lines would be blurred between classified and certified. "When I go to work," our members would be able to say, "I get to make decisions about kids."

But this won't mean anything if student achievement doesn't improve. We're not doing this so employees can have a better day at work.

If teachers and support staff are empowered, I believe the result will be higher student achievement.

Resources
New Directions

Taking charge of quality: How teachers and their unions can revitalize schools. NEA Professional Library. To order, visit the NEA Professional Library at www.nea.org/books. Or call 800/229-4200.

United Mind Workers: Unions and teaching in the knowledge society. Charles T. Kerchner, Julia E. Koppich, and Joseph Weeres. Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1997. Argues that teachers need to seize the opportunity created by education reform by focusing on innovation and quality control.

Forming the Future: Lessons from Saturn. Jack O'Toole. Blackwell Publishers, 1996. $22.95. A United Auto Workers representative offers a history of the ideas that led to the creation of the innovative Saturn plant. The book defends the Saturn collaboration as a model for the future of labor-management relations.

Negotiating the future: a labor perspective on American business. Barry Bluestone and Irving Bluestone. Basic Books, 1994. The Bluestones propose a new Enterprise Compact that enables labor to become co-responsible for all management decisions.