SUBTRACTION BY ADDITION | A WATCHDOG REPORT ON MPS' FAILED CONSTRUCTION PROGRAM Buildings rise, test scores fall Spate of school expansions is no tonic for student proficiency By ALAN J. BORSUK and DAVE UMHOEFER aborsuk@journalsentinel.com Posted: Aug. 19, 2008 Third of three parts The $102 million spent on reviving the concept of the neighborhood school in Milwaukee hasn't improved academic success at most of the schools where the money was used, a Journal Sentinel investigation found. With a few exceptions, student achievement has shown little improvement - and in some cases it has fallen dramatically - at 22 schools that were among the largest beneficiaries of the district's school construction program. The district's Neighborhood Schools Initiative was conceived as a way to get children off buses and into their local schools - which MPS officials hoped to improve with new classrooms, before-school and after-school services, and such things as state-of-the-art science labs and libraries. But bricks and mortar have not raised student performance, testing data shows. In 16 of the 22 schools, the percentage of fourth-graders rated as proficient or better in reading was lower last year than it was in 2002 - the year the school building initiative hit high gear. Nine schools saw their math scores drop. Overall, combined fourth-grade reading and math scores have declined sharply at a half dozen of the22 schools where more than $1 million was spent on improvements. Only five schools have had major increases in their combined reading and math performance. The lackluster results may not be a factor in why parents choose to send their children outside their neighborhood. MPS records show that thousands of parents are sending their children to schools with similar scores. But the scores are not an attraction for the bulk of the schools on the Neighborhood Schools Initiative list. "Unfortunately, you can't get kids off a bus to go to a bad program," said former MPS Superintendent Spence Korté, who oversaw the district when it began its ambitious school construction phase. Almost all of the additions were finished by 2005. How easy is it to attract students to a school such as Fifty-third Street in Sherman Park, where the percentage of fourth-graders proficient or better in reading fell from 69% in 2002 to 42% in 2007? In math, the numbers there fell from 30% to 19%, meaning only one in five fourth-graders was considered to be at grade level last year. A $2.1 million addition to the school, with room for 199 students, was one of the first projects completed under the neighborhood building plan. Improving academic performance was a publicly stated goal of the school building plan, although the district didn't list specific strategies to make it happen. "One of the underlying goals was that by updating our buildings . . . one of the byproducts would be to increase achievement," said Aquine Jackson, who directed implementation of the plan the School Board approved in 2000. "Everything we do should be focused on how to improve student achievement. The neighborhood school project was part of that mix." But Jackson did not want to form conclusions about the success of the project based on achievement data. He said researchers would have a hard time figuring out whether the initiative in itself had a positive or negative effect on student achievement, and he views the project as one factor contributing to student success. "What would have been the results if we hadn't done this?" he asked. Roseann St. Aubin, spokeswoman for MPS, said the schools that got additions are still evolving. "We are glad we went ahead with the projects," she said. A national expert on urban school-building projects said districts make a mistake by putting bricks and mortar ahead of strong educational reforms. "You can't lead with your facilities," said Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., that advocates for improved school buildings. "You have to start with your program." Causes of poor performance Schools that received construction money aren't the only MPS schools that are struggling. Throughout the district, test scores generally have remained low since 2002. Talk to teachers, parents, academic experts and politicians, and you'll get a wide range of reasons why urban school districts such as Milwaukee's generally produce lower test scores. It's the parents and the dysfunctional role so many play. Kids just don't show up ready or willing to learn or with a grasp of what is acceptable behavior. It's MPS itself. Two reports in the last two years from a major urban education organization criticized the lack of urgency within the system for improving student performance. It's the budget. The financial squeeze on MPS has reduced the number of teachers, leading to increased class sizes and a harder time getting through to kids. It's poverty. Milwaukee has one of the highest child poverty rates in the U.S., and poverty correlates with low academic achievement in every city in America. The schools involved in the district's construction program may illustrate all of those problems, plus one more: It's the principal. The importance of the principal is an intangible factor, but educators nationwide often point to it as a key to success, particularly in urban school districts. That is a guiding belief for New Leaders for New Schools, an organization training principals in nine cities, including Milwaukee. "When we look around the country at schools that are making dramatic improvements, we haven't found one without a great principal," said Jon Schnur, CEO and co-founder of the organization. A strong principal was the common denominator at Doerfler, Longfellow and Burbank schools. The three MPS schools had the largest increases in student achievement after receiving school construction funds. The Journal Sentinel's analysis found that the two schools with the sharpest drops in achievement - Clarke Street and Martin Luther King Jr. - lost principals with strong reputations in recent years. Several others with large drops, including Fifty-third Street and Thurston Woods, also experienced turnover in the principal's office. Asked why achievement declined in many schools that were part of the construction project, School Board member Bruce Thompson, who was president when the plan was approved, said, "I suspect a lot has to do with the principal - whether the school is together as a unit." Thompson added, "I never believed you solved the problems with a better building." A few success stories Doerfler and Longfellow schools on the south side and Burbank on the west side show what can happen when the neighborhood school building program reaches its potential. The schools are enrolled to capacity and had sharp improvements on the academic side. At Doerfler, fourth-grade reading and math scores have surged since 2002 - including a 34 percentage-point improvement in math. In the same period, $1.9 million was spent to add six classrooms. Enrollment rose almost 25%. A $4.9 million addition increased Longfellow's capacity by 189 seats. The school with 830 students is full, test scores are up and planning is under way for a second addition that will make further improvements, including a new gymnasium. Principal Wendell Smith said the first addition allowed the school to build its relationships with the surrounding families. The school added middle-school grades, like many of the schools in the project. Neighborhood parents like the continuity of having their children in the same school until high school, he said. The school also is home for many programs in the neighborhood and is planning to expand its connection to Journey House, a community agency serving young people, as part of the next wave of expansion. "I want this to be the hub of this community," Smith said. He said the educational program is "very relationship-based," and many staff members have worked hard to connect with the families of their students in surrounding blocks. On the other hand, several schools where the new additions are underused had steep declines in achievement. At Thirty-fifth Street School, where no use is being made of classrooms that cost $7.2 million, the percentage of fourth-graders proficient or better in reading fell from 56% in 2002 to 33% in 2007, and in math from 40% to 33%. Surplus space McNair Academy is another school that has struggled since a large addition, costing $2.7 million, was built. When a reporter visited McNair last spring, teachers and students appeared focused on appropriate activities and hallways were orderly. Principal Willie Fuller was friendly, and so were teachers and students. A writing contest sponsored by an outside group seemed to encourage students to take extra steps aimed at achievement. But the building has a huge amount of empty space. Of the nine classrooms added, last year only three were used for conducting classes. One was used for storage. The rest were used by specialists such as a social worker, a psychologist and a "curriculum generalist" assigned to help improve the overall educational program. Conventionally, each would have a small office rather than an entire classroom. Furthermore, six classrooms in the older sections of the building were also unused. Overall, enrollment had fallen from 313 in September 1999 to 243 last September - even as space for 162 more students was added to the school. As enrollment fell and budgets tightened, the school lost some of its teaching specialists. Last school year, McNair was down to a gym teacher two days a week. It didn't have an art or music teacher. It had a new library, built as part of the addition, but it had a librarian only one day a week. Academic achievement as measured by test performance had slipped. In 2002, 48% of fourth-graders were proficient or better in reading. Last year, the figure was 42%. In math, the proficiency percentage went from 52% to 42% in the same period. Fuller, the principal, said a lot of children in the neighborhood are enrolled in MPS schools elsewhere or in private or charter schools outside MPS. She said she sees lots of kids in the neighborhood after school who go elsewhere for an education. But efforts to win more over to McNair have not succeeded. The efforts include such things as distributing fliers in the neighborhood. "We send it out constantly, but people are just not, kids are just not, coming," Fuller said. She held up her hands, palms turned toward her, and waived her fingers, as if trying to bring the children toward her. "Give us some kids," she said. Jackson, the MPS administrator, said McNair was in "an ideal neighborhood school location." The surrounding blocks are residential, with light traffic. The neighborhood does not have high crime rates and is generally stable. The school is physically attractive and has lots of playground space. But the school is not thriving, not when it comes to academic achievement, not when it comes to enrollment, and not when it comes to the impact of the Neighborhood Schools Initiative.