Troy LaRaviere has published his resignation letter, addressed to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel. As principal of James G. Blaine Elementary School in Chicago, he had moved it into the #1 slot in the neighborhood school ratings for the city. He explains how he did it:
Behind this significant accomplishment are a series of basic concepts based on empirical evidence regarding effective school practices and thoughtful consideration of how we might apply those practices at Blaine. One fundamental element of improving the school was ending selective access to advanced curriculum. When I arrived, less than 30% of students had access to it; today more than 90% have access. As is the case with most CPS schools, Blaine has a talented hard working staff. Another critical element of our success was to involve that staff in an effort to create systems, relationships, and patterns of collaborative activity that are proven to improve teacher performance, and therefore improve student achievement. In many ways, that was the easy part.
And why get out now?
I take my profession seriously and I practice it with integrity. I did not succumb to corporate educational fads. I did not pander and I did not bend to the selfish aims of a privileged few. If an idea was not in the interests of the school as a whole, it did not happen under my watch. However, during those first two years I kept my fight behind-the-scenes and between the walls of Blaine. Like all CPS principals at the time, I took no public stances against your incompetent and uncaring mismanagement of our school system. It was my sincere hope that internal advocacy and leading by example could and would prevail.
Instead, the achievement gap steadily increased under your mismanagement as you and your appointees at CPS made one disastrous decision after another, in defiance of the evidence and research on educational practices. You have made it increasingly difficult for principals and teachers to provide strong academic programs for our students.
If the balance of his excellent account are true, we’re once again witness to the tensions that occur when democracy and experts clash. Our understandable insistence on keeping local control of educational institutions can make it difficult to keep the ideas of the amateur and the politician out of the loop; and while the amateur may be well-intentioned, the politician is more often looking to make a name for themselves, or to pay off a donor; in any case, the well-being of the program may be secondary to the priorities of the politician. Mr LaRaviere is now making the next move of democratically controlled education: raising the ruckus and pointing out the errors of those who are interfering in effective education.
As advocates of evidence based medicine have discovered, there are a host of methods that may be in common use, yet have little actual positive impact on the educational system. It’s good to see one of our major cities has an advocate for a reality-based approach to education – and not just using it to clamber to power, something Mr. Emmanuel has been accused of in his career.
