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The Jefferson School
St. Louis, Missouri
A Case Study for the
Pre-Conference Meeting of Foundation
Staff Conference on Educational Leadership
Teachers College, Columbia University New York
Jefferson Elementary: A New Vision of School Reform
In the spring of 1997, Jefferson Elementary in St. Louis
didn’t rank very high on anyone’s list of candidates
for educational transformation. Hard up against the empty
blocks that had housed the infamous Pruitt-Igoe project
(dynamited in despair by the Federal government in the 1970s),
Jefferson was surrounded by all the ills of inner-city schools.
An aging high-rise for the elderly and three housing projects
(one dating back to World War II) blighted the neighborhood.
Beyond them, block after block of city-owned property stretched
bare and empty – cleared in urban renewal efforts over
the years. In the school, faculty members were woefully
out-of-touch educationally; 80% had never used a computer
mouse and many considered the students, just 25% of whom
were reading at grade level, to be unteachable and uncontrollable.
Local parents considered the principal to be a racist. Jobs
in the neighborhood were non-existent. It was hard to find
a man working, and single women led most families. Drugs
and violence kept people off the streets at night. “My
best friend in high school died right here on this pavement,”
a young mother told a visitor recently. Hope was hard to
find in the Jefferson neighborhood three years ago.
Jefferson, built to house 400 students from kindergarten
through Grade 5, held about 320. Most bizarre of all, the
240 students living in the three adjacent housing projects,
attended some 46 schools in the city and county under a
desegregation order handed down by Federal courts. The aura
of defeat suffusing the neighborhood wafted into the school.
Low expectations permeated the building; little was expected
of Jefferson or the students who attended it; and the building
struck visitors as slightly seedy, although it was structurally
sound and had clearly been handsome in its time.
The New Jefferson
Fast forward to the year 2000. The change is hard to credit.
The building gleams, set off by attractive landscaping and
mulch, freshly pointed brick, new paint and fresh polish
everywhere. Jefferson’s not only spic and span, but
it boasts air-conditioning for the first time, complete
and up-to-date new wiring, and a state-of-the art computer
center networked to each of the five computers sitting in
every classroom. The physical changes are matched by changes
in human resources. A new principal who believes passionately
that all students can learn has been in charge for two years.
She’s helped by an assistant who had spent her career
as a community organizer for the Friends’ Service Committee.
Also on hand is a young technical whiz who put in the school’s
high technology network. The Center of Contemporary Arts
offers students opportunities to draw, paint, experiment
with acting and music, and create new art with computers.
Together with the existing faculty, this new team is struggling
to bring under-performing students up to par by implementing
the “Success for All” model, developed by Robert
Slavin of Johns Hopkins University. A small research team
from the University of Missouri at Columbia helps plan the
school’s instructional changes, consults with the principal,
helps integrate technology into the curriculum, and promotes
staff training and assessment of progress.
Changes outside the school mirror those inside. The housing
projects are in the midst of renovation. A parent liaison
group works with parents on issues ranging from parenting
to training in high-tech jobs. The community has access
to the school for day care and adult training from 6:30
a.m. until 6:00 p.m., 12 months a year. In the offices of
the attractive new housing units -–ranging from studios
to five-bedroom townhomes – tenant officers work with
school officials on issues ranging from discipline and security
to truancy. Hope for the future is hard to miss in the Jefferson
neighborhood today.
The Transformation
How had this transformation developed at Jefferson? How
had it happened so swiftly? How well are these changes working?
And what do they mean for the future of schools in St. Louis?
A remarkable four-part series by journalist Richard Weiss
appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in June 2000 detailing
the changes and how they developed. Jefferson is at the
leading edge of a new vision of school reform advanced by
St. Louis builder Richard Baron. This new model emphasizes
reform not as a weapon in the nation's economic arsenal,
but as a pre-requisite to the rebirth of urban neighborhoods.
Baron has assembled a powerful coalition of funders, corporate
leaders, and district officials in the effort not simply
to transform Jefferson, but to redo the neighborhood.
A tenants' rights activist from the 1960s, Baron today
is an unlikely-looking revolutionary. He speaks about the
big picture in the careful, measured tones of a business
leader. But he preaches a novel educational message. No
suburban builder would dream of putting up a new development
in a neighborhood with bad schools, says Baron. Why would
anyone expect an inner-city builder to do it? The first
thing a suburban developer seeks is a solid school. In new
communities, developers cooperate with districts to develop
the school. Revitalizing inner-city St. Louis, concludes
Baron, must start with revitalized schools.
Good schools, jobs, job training, neighborhood services
like day care and scouting, and arts opportunities stabilize
neighborhoods, Baron believes. He watched problems in the
older Carr Square Village and Vaughn apartment complexes
began to threaten Fallon Place residents in the apartments
Baron and his partner developed in 1979-81. Baron began
to focus on Jefferson, the school in the midst of these
units, as a community institution that could anchor the
neighborhood's rebirth.
What he wanted was straightforward. In return for his commitment
to redevelop the three housing units (Carr Square, Vaughn,
and Fallon) into a workable new Murphy Park community capable
of attracting a mix of stable assisted and working families,
Baron sought:
- A school that would be open year-round and from early
morning to early evening.
- A community school, serving students in the neighborhood,
with a new principal and a brand-new staff, freshly trained.
- The latest ideas about pedagogy, including not only
curriculum, but also sophisticated computer networks and
the visual and performing arts.
- Job-training for parents.
- A commitment from the rental offices that they would
work with the schools and parents on issues such as homework
and attendance.
In pursuit of these ends, Baron obtained $3.5 million from
the private sector to wire the school, equip it with computers,
and provide air conditioning for the first time (in part,
so that it could operate year-round). He sought and received
help from the Danforth Foundation to present a plan for
the new school to the St. Louis school board (including
the proposal to turn over the staff and hire a new principal)
and to pay for on-going staff development. He saw to it
that the school's new computer center included a module
developed by a local bank to develop computer-literate processors
of credit card payments. With the help of Danforth, he provided
on-going training and technical assistance to the school
and with support from the local phone company the school
was able to hire a young university graduate to oversee
implementation of the school's technology plan. The issuance
of a "unitary" order from the Federal court ended the desegregation
order and effectively solved the problem of making sure
the school served the neighborhood. Baron also established
COVAM, an organization designed to give tenants in Carr
Square Village, O'Fallon Place, and Murphy Park a say in
what happened in their neighborhoods and their school. COVAM
helped select the new school principal, Ann Meese. About
the only thing he wanted that he did not obtain was a new
faculty. In part because Meese was hired late, Baron and
the district had to abandon the plan to have teachers re-apply
for their jobs.
Challenges
Along the way, the school has had to contend with some
difficult issues:
- Some parents are suspicious of a white landlord and
his plans for a community that is overwhelmingly African-American
- and speak openly of that resentment and the fact that
Baron should have provided more work for community members.
- Many parents sided with long-time staff who protested
when Baron began speaking of bringing in new teachers;
moreover, while teachers insisted they were the ones who
had stood by these children, parents argued their children
needed the old-fashioned discipline administered by these
teachers.
- Researchers on site report that some teachers are "off
the scale" in their judgments that students have
both severe learning difficulties and behavioral problems.
Medicating students as a means of behavior management
is common.
- The technology coordinator reports that existing staff
has mastered technology basics (word processing, spread
sheets, and presentations) but are unable to create coherent
lesson plans or change their practice to incorporate technology
effectively.
- Improvement in student achievement is slow. In the first
year, 100% of the students turned over as desegregation
ended; in year two (just ended) the Success for All program
was initiated. At the end of the past year, Baron and
parents nudged Meese into getting rid of teachers who
were balking at "Success for All," or experiencing
trouble using technology or managing student behavior
appropriately.
What Lies Ahead
As the Jefferson story continues to unfold, Danforth and
Baron are now in the midst of an even more ambitious scheme
to extend the Jefferson "formula" to all of the elementary
schools and middle schools that serve as feeders to Vashon
High School.
The district recently received bond approval to build a
new Vashon. The timing is fortuitous. The district has also
received notice from the Federal government that its application
to wire all schools in the city (under the new "e-rate"
program) has been approved. And a powerful neighborhood
coalition - led by the ward alderman responsible for the
area (Michael McMillan), a community resident (Norman Seay),
and the president of the St. Louis Board of Education (Marlene
Davis) ö has united behind a new "Vashon/JeffVanderlou
Initiative" to revitalize the neighborhood (JeffVanderlou)
surrounding the new school. The initiative will concentrate
on four building blocks: housing and infrastructure, education,
economic development, and human services.
As might be expected, Baron and the Danforth Foundation
are right in the middle of this. Baron's firm is project
manager and lead consultant for the physical planning of
the effort and Danforth is working with Baron to see if
the Jefferson approach can be implemented in the five elementary
and two middle schools whose graduates go on to Vashon.
All told, these schools account for about 12% of the students
enrolled in the St. Louis Public Schools. If Danforth and
Baron are able to raise the $12.5 million required to rehabilitate
these buildings, air-condition them, and provide the kinds
of technology and staff development now available in Jefferson,
there is hope of bringing the Jefferson model to scale not
only in Vashon/JeffVanderlou but throughout the city.
Time will tell if this ambitious plan succeeds. What is
already clear is that Jefferson community leaders who doubted
that Baron and Danforth would make much difference in Murphy
Park already anticipate big changes in the Vashon attendance
area.
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