A vision for Seattle schools

At the town-hall meetings on school consolidation and closure, parents sounded off for the Seattle Public Schools (SPS) to develop a broader vision to help justify the looming sacrifice of losing one's neighborhood school.

This same need was articulated in the important work of the Superintendent's Community Advisory Committee for Investing in Education Excellence. As a new School Board director, I would like to contribute to that valuable conversation with my vision of our future.

SPS must operate more efficiently, managing fewer buildings and providing less transportation, and operate more effectively, because academic success always attracts students and family involvement.

We should continue to improve on the three R's, but let's add a second layer to our goals for public education, the three C's: creativity, critical thinking and civic engagement for our students, our School District and our city to carry Seattle Public Schools forward in this century.

Seattle requires a school system agile enough to meet the needs of a diverse student population. We are not a homogenous city but one of many cultures, socioeconomic levels and academic demands. We need high expectations for every student and a variety of pathways to achieve them. We need a system that values, develops and motivates employees but also holds them accountable.

We need public schools that blend seamlessly with the highly educated, technologically driven, innovative economy of Seattle. We especially need an institution that can replicate its successes and make structural changes to move beyond failures and inefficiencies, to break with our past and embrace our future.

School closures are painful for some neighborhoods, but they are overdue for getting dollars out of buildings and into classrooms.

If we are to make good on our promise of a world-class education for each student, then here are five achievable steps for the next five years.

• First, successful and innovative schools should retain independence but poor performing schools need direct, comprehensive intervention by our chief academic officer. Good schools get built one at a time.

• Second, principals need to be recognized for their difficult work but also held accountable. We can't tolerate poor leadership; the superintendent needs clear authority to hire and fire.

• Third, our choice system is complicated, expensive and inequitable. It favors middle-class families who can navigate the system. We need a simpler, more-predictable system that offers choices evenly throughout the city, starting with our K-8s. Desirable programs turn neighborhood schools into mini-magnets that draw students and family involvement back to their immediate community and reduce bus travel.

• Fourth, we need to stabilize enrollment by attracting families back to Seattle Public Schools with academically rigorous and welcoming schools. A gain of 120 students in market share brings approximately 1 million new dollars to SPS.

• Fifth, more resources must continue to flow to schools with high-needs students, but those resources must be targeted and follow best practices and strategies proven to work. Low achievement and graduation levels for our poor and minority students are a moral and political challenge for our city and nation. We must attract our best teachers and principals to this challenge with incentives and innovative opportunities, because money alone is not sufficient.

The result of these efforts ought to be fewer but better schools, a stabilized budget and restored public confidence.

We can get there. We can be a school system that no longer veers from crisis to crisis but instead asks smart long-range questions such as, "How should we prepare this fall's kindergarten class for the world in 2020?"

The biggest challenge facing our children may well be global economic integration, what Thomas Friedman calls "the flattening of the world." Certainly, mathematics and science are a foundation for success in global competition but the next step is to develop the unique attributes of our region.

Begin with world languages: Seattle's diversity matches well with dual-language immersion (instruction across subject areas in two languages). The John Stanford International School is our pioneering success, combining language acquisition with world cultural awareness. Expanding Spanish and Japanese instruction and adding Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese to a dozen schools around the city would certainly strengthen our role as a Pacific Rim city. It would also give our recent immigrant families the best academic model to learn English.

Private-public partnerships are another proven education success that helps Seattle Public Schools innovate and respond to the evolving world economy. Whether it's Boeing supporting new math instruction, Amgen funding genetics labs in our high schools, Washington Mutual offering internships or the Gates and Nesholm foundations fostering systemic change and enriched programs, our students gain skills and experience while our regional economy can find its workers and entrepreneurs here, rather than overseas. Seattle Public Schools should cultivate every opportunity and relationship to gain resources, mentors, specialized academies and school-to-work programs that fit with our educational goals.

We also need to stop overlooking the value and reach of the arts, the global economic sector most dominated by the United States. Music, theater, visual arts, film and dance all flourish in our city life. They need to be strengthened and positioned in every school, engaging students and providing a creative outlet that can grow into a profession.

These three globalization opportunities should be carefully planned and nurtured, starting with our South End schools. We have the superintendent and staff to make it happen. Let's move forward.

Michael DeBell is a member of the Seattle School Board, representing District 4, which includes Ballard, Magnolia and Queen Anne. He can be contacted at michael.debell@comcast.net