Link to Original Story

Class Struggle
By Jay Mathews

Sousa's principal: hero or bully?

Dwan Jordon [cq], more quickly than any principal I have ever known, has made a name for himself in the D.C. Public Schools.

On July 6 he was the hero of a splendid front page story by my colleague Stephanie McCrummen. Jordon arrived at Sousa Middle School in 2008 and in his first year produced the biggest achievement gains of any D.C. middle school. He was a fiend for data, urging his teachers to identify each student’s weakness. The portion of Sousa students testing proficient in reading jumped from 23 to 39 percent and in math from 17 to 42 percent.

His name has also spread quickly through the ranks of educators, for AFTER that great year, and the hard work of his staff, almost all of his teachers left, something that I have also never seen before. Some were terminated. Some couldn’t stand to work for him again. He said the old staff had resisted his ideas, even though they worked. With a new hand-picked staff the next year “all of us were focused on doing what was best for students,” he told McCrummen.

Her story detailed the negative reaction to Jordon, but not enough to satisfy former Sousa teachers who commented on my washingtonpost.com/class-struggle blog and called me when I posted by phone number there. Of six I have spoken to, ages ranging from 25 to 59, only one gave me permission to use her name. All, including Carla Riechman, were critical of Jordon. A former Sousa teacher who signed onto my blog as “PositiveNotes” and said Jordon was “one of the most important and powerful people” in the school district, and capable of firing anyone who crossed him.

According to Riechman, Jordon demanded she teach her special education students far above their achievement levels. Other teachers said Jordon warned them repeatedly not to speak ill of him to others, frequently threatened firings, kept vital information out of their evaluations and castigated a teacher for careless exposure to potential molestation charges when, with another administrator’s permission, she was helping them study at lunch.

Jordon has said all of his actions were designed to improve instruction, and rid the system of inadequate instructors. But two of the three terminated teachers who spoke to me have jobs in other D.C. schools now, and one was rated highly effective. The third, Riechman, retired. Their stories reveal an odd dynamic between Jordon and the teachers union, each one unintentionally helping the other.

I have long considered the Washington Teachers Union a weak player in the battle over how to raise achievement for D.C. children, given its corrupt past, its internal divisions and its loss of political and administrative clout. But Jordon’s turbulent first year affirms reveals the union’s power to save teacher’s jobs. His rule-breaking, the teachers say, made it easier for the union to reinstate them. The union in turn protected fired teachers from any lasting harm, but got them out of the Jordon’s school so he could hire people he wanted.

It is difficult to find a celebrated school reformer who has not violated administrative procedures, and sometimes actual laws. Deborah Meier, whose success in an East Harlem high school has made her a national icon for teachers, benefitted from the support of a sly New York City school administrator, Sy Fliegel. He violated several staffing rules, such as the one requiring that he post any job openings at Meier’s school. Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, co-founders of the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), the nation’s most successful charter network, admit to defrauding an innkeeper when they stuffed more children than they had paid for into the rooms of the Embassy Suites Hotel on Jefferson Davis Highway during KIPP’s first field trip to Washington in 1995.

Jordon had shown the same focus on results, no matter what. But his second year scores, soon to be released, better be good, or any powerful enemies he makes will have more than enough witnesses for their case against him.

Catty Commentary Continued:

The "Administrator-As-Bully thing...

I and my CSD #1 colleagues have walked in those shoes...miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiles in those shoes.

During one particular decade, Cairo High School had like eight (8) different principals and a couple or three superintendents. Each and every one of those "adminstrator-bullies" was told in no uncertain terms that the teachers were evil, the teachers didn't care about students, the teachers were only interested in their paychecks. The teachers' union? Don't even go there!

Hmmm...sounds familiar in this day and age of "school reform", doesn't it. Well, Cairo School District Number One has always been on the "cutting edge".

Sorry, I digressed...

The "Administrator-As-Bully thing...

In the article above, the Principal receives the praise...for the work of others.

"The Others" are now gone, leaving the Bully - alone, standing tall and invincible in the school yard...gazing upon the broken landscape..."Mission Accomplished!"

What does the one-year bullying experience prove?

That teachers will teach...DESPITE the "hired gun", who was brought in from the outside. A Bully who has no knowledge of the community, has no stake in the community, whose mandate is to "strut his/her stuff".

And, at the end of the school year...

The "good teachers" left for better environs.

The "bad teachers" were fired by the Bully.

At the beginning of the next school year...

Unsuspecting "newbies" - with no knowledge of the community, no stake in the community - walking into a hornet's nest.

Does anyone really expect them (particularly the "good ones") to stay...and take abuse?

In addition to the metal detectors, the District might as well install revolving doors on the school buildings...

Postscript:

As I was typing the above, I had another not-so-catty thought.

President Barack Obama, U.S. Stooge of Education Arne the Duncan, and Philosopher-King Bill Gates would ignore the carnage at Sousa Middle School and point to the test scores...as proof of their righteousness.

The data shows..."reading jumped from 23 to 39 percent and in math from 17 to 42 percent"!

Yeah, right...

The data also shows - data of scientific studies routinely ignored by Obama, Duncan, Gates, et al - that:

• What gets TESTED gets taught. Instead of high-level instruction and learning, it's "back to basics"...reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. (Of course, the Bush/Obama administrations didn't/don't care...we have private and charter schools to teach the gifted!)

• Teaching to the test does NOT produce real learning...simply increased test scores, due primarily to the "Drill, Baby, Drill" approach supposedly opposed by school reformers. That, and test-taking tricks.

• "Newbie" teachers do NOT have the expertise, the ability of experienced teachers. Eventually, "newbies" will become good, bad, or average. In the short run, the kids will suffer.

Actually...

If the first year of Principal/Bully Dwan Jordon at Sousa Middle School is any indication, he/they will never know. The current "newbies" won't be at Sousa after this year.