August 29, 2007--"Even Toilet Paper"

Well that’s good news. The schools in Roosevelt Long Island are about to reopen and this year not only do they have text books but, to quote the NY Times, they have “even toilet paper.” (Article linked below.) In previous years, both have been in short supply. Also in short supply have been doors on the toilet stalls, science labs with running water and gas lines, experienced teachers, capable school administrators, and, no surprise, student achievement. Things had gotten so bad out there that for the first time in history the state of New York took over a school district, appointed a series of superintendents, and ran the schools from the state education commissioner’s office. Roosevelt as a town came into existence in the 1930s as a place to segregate blacks who worked as servants in the mansions of Long Island’s white gentry. It was all right for the colored folks to come to the houses to work in the kitchens and gardens, but they needed to go home at night to a place at an appropriate distance and, at least equally important, their children had to be kept out of the exclusive north shore public schools. Thus, for decades, Roosevelt, as a town, and its schools languished. To get there you drive through rolling estates worth many millions and immediately, after turning off the Grand Central Parkway, if you didn’t know you were still on Long Island, you would think you had been time-warped to the Mississippi Delta. There is no sign of local economic life except the drug dealer entrepreneurs hanging out on street corners in front of burnt-out or boarded-up stores. The district’s schools are equally grim. So bad that some years ago the high school was condemned. (Though it is to be replaced it is still in use after a cosmetic fixing up.) None of this is necessary. I know from painful personal experience because during my years at the Ford Foundation we worked with all of the schools in Roosevelt, bringing to them enough money ($5.0 million) to improve their math and literacy programs, increase high school achievement and graduation rates, and provide college scholarship to all students who enrolled. Millions more in federal and corporate money were poured into the district through the leadership of Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy and Senator Hillary Clinton. In less than two years, by independent measures, test scores began to rise and many more high school students than in the past were on a trajectory to earn academic diplomas and go to college. So what happened? Why has there been a parade of failed superintendents? Why is the district bankrupt again and unlikely to be able to pay teachers salaries by later this fall? The plug was pulled on the programs we were funding, in spite of their emerging effectiveness, because the first of the state-appointed superintendents, Ronald Ross (a failed district leader from Mount Vernon), threw the well-funded project out because, to quote him, it was the creation of “white folks” and “businessmen” and thus, by definition, was “patronizing” and “racist.” He claimed that he would bring much more money and effective programs to the district. Once again he failed—student achievement rates at the middle and high schools again stalled, he ran up an $8.0 million deficit, demanded and got all sorts of perks (including a $200,000 salary and car), and was eventually fired, with a generous pension and a pocket full of cash. All of this was known to Richard Mills, the state education commissioner but for years he ignored the situation. I know this because I attempted to fill him in about what was going on, but he never returned my phone calls or respond to my emails. He now says, after it is no longer possible to cover up their and his malfeasance, that “I should have seen the problems earlier.” If he had read my correspondence three years ago he would have. But there he still sits, not fired, as he should have been, by the new governor, Eliot Spitzer. Worse, there the children of Roosevelt sit with little hope and no sense of their future.