Letter to the Editor: A New Jefferson-Houston Building Will Not Bury the Problems that Remain

This week Alexandria’s elected officials past and present presided over the groundbreaking for the new $45 million Jefferson-Houston School. Turning over earth will not bury the serious problems that remain. ACPS continues to dodge questions regarding academics, capacity projections, and the future of PK-8 school transformations.

Fifteen years of test data confirms the new school building is little more than a token gesture. The School Board and its enablers disclaim responsibility for their collective social policies -- policies which amount to little more than protecting Alexandria's wealthiest schools.

The technique is now polished: blame white parents for alleged racism because they continue to avoid the failing Jefferson-Houston School, and point the finger at black and Hispanic parents for everything from unpreparedness to a lack of enrichment activities at home.  Only then can the School Board and City Council stand piously on the sideline and cluck about One Alexandria.

It’s time to stop the blame game and put responsibility where it belongs:  Alexandria’s School Boards have created these problems because they decline to commit to all Alexandria's children. The poor reputation of Alexandria’s schools stems directly from their blind self-interest in promoting a small number of District B schools while allowing the remainder like Jefferson-Houston to rot academically.

Jefferson-Houston’s academic problems are so profound that the school is one of only a handful in Virginia facing a state takeover. Yet Alexandrians know that new bricks do not guarantee better educational results. Federal regulators labeled T.C. Williams as a “persistently lowest achieving school” just three years after the new $100 million building opened its doors. Delegate Rob Krupicka stated in comments on the Patch on March 29 that “Even with a take-over, it will take a number of years to complete” a turnaround.

Yet Jefferson-Houston has not always been a failing school.  Fifteen years of hard data from the state Board of Education shows that its students performed well in the past when given strong support. In the mid-1990s, under the leadership of principal Lois Berlin, Ph.D., students outpaced ACPS average pass rates for the Standards of Learning (SOLs) tests, outperforming Lyles-Crouch and George Mason. 

Despite the setbacks the school suffered after the devastating 1999 redistricting, which cynically concentrated the poorest and most learning-challenged children in Jefferson-Houston, Superintendent Rebecca Perry demonstrated again that these kids could learn.  The school was fully accredited as the result of tests administered in the spring of 2008, shortly after the controversial Ms. Perry was fired by the School Board.

Superintendent Morton Sherman, who took over the school system at the start of the 2008-2009 academic year, inherited a school poised for breakthrough.  Under his leadership, however, school test scores at Jefferson-Houston reached their nadir.

Test scores at Jefferson-Houston were only beginning to falter in 2009-10 when the previous School Board and Dr. Sherman first proposed the new building.  Strikingly, the scores actually took their biggest plunge in the last two years, while discussions of building details were underway. As a few teachers and parents were mooning about how the building’s proposed observatory could help kids master concepts like Fibonacci numbers, more than three-quarters of fifth graders were failing the math SOL tests.

The questions continue to pile up. Why were there not more serious and consistent interventions as test scores slid?  Why did Dr. Sherman sit on his hands for two months last summer after the state Board of Education notified him that Jefferson-Houston would not be accredited again?  Why did he delay bringing in one of the state’s four identified turnaround partners and then opt months later to hire a firm he’d worked with in the past – just days after Council gave final approvals to the building project?

Jefferson-Houston now has fewer than 350 pupils enrolled.  Earlier this year, when talking with the State Board of Education, Dr. Sherman admitted the school has a 35 percent turnover. The new school is being built for 700-800 students, and School Board members like Bill Campbell acknowledge publicly that without redistricting the school will likely be half-empty for years to come.
The new school will also be physically 1.5 times larger than the old.  It was under Dr. Sherman that Jefferson-Houston became a PK-8 school – the only one in Alexandria.  Despite his benefit claims for both older and younger kids, ACPS has conducted no evaluation.  It also is not clear the present School Board is committed to the PK-8 model. 

Jefferson-Houston was a school with promise that has twice had the ladder kicked out from beneath it: first in 1999 with rezoning, and the second time in 2008 when Rebecca Perry was shown the door.  These events were not precipitated by parents or children but by successive School Boards, specifically leaders from District B. Their actions are apparently driven by a belief that there is only a finite “pie” of resources for schools in Alexandria, and that given the city’s demographics some schools should be allowed to rise while others are held back.

In this context, Jefferson-Houston’s outsize new building is nothing more than a hugely expensive payoff.  Council is glad to allocate money to perpetuate de facto segregation as long as the product is big and splashy.  District B will permit the new building, despite the price tag, because it keeps certain children bottled up.

The only heroes in this sorry mess are the members of the state Board of Education.  Last October when Dr. Sherman and former Board Chair Sheryl Gorsuch begged the board to grant the school accreditation because parents were being “scared off,” they were briskly told to bring up the scores and parents would return.  The Board wisely stood its ground and declared that disadvantaged children can be educated.  The Virginia Department of Education has identified more than 80 Title I schools in the state that meet its standards and sometimes even achieve federal standards.

When Richmond behaves more nobly and with greater justice than Alexandria, heads here ought to hang in shame.

Leslie Zupan, Past President
West Old Town Citizens Association