The Philadelphia Experiment

ANDRE LAMBERTSON/CORBIS SABA FOR TIME
SHAKING THINGS UP: From Edison, Blakney learned a new, academic use for Macarena

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Blakney isn't completely won over, however, and she watches the company's stock price with a nervous eye, wondering, "If Edison has to go, do we get to keep what they've given us? The materials, the techniques, the code of conduct?" She says she will give the company three years to turn around test scores at Harrity, but this spring she will get an early sense of whether things are moving in the right direction when her students take the Pennsylvania state exams. In the meantime, "if we're able to sustain what we've started, I'll be pleased," Blakney says. "You come in all gung ho. The trick is remembering to do the Macarena, and everything else, when you're tired."

The Principal
It's the 10th day of school at Wright Elementary in North Philadelphia, and principal Anita Duke is drilling her kindergarten teachers. "Somebody comes into your room from Victory and says, 'Your LPs aren't close.' What are your LPs?"

"Lesson plans?" ventures one of the teachers.

"No," Duke responds. "LPs are low performers, and the Victory people are going to want to see them [sitting] in the front of the room. You need to know this stuff."

Duke's teachers are reluctantly learning the language and demands of their new boss, Victory Schools, and Duke is the translator. Last fall, after nearly 30 years in Philadelphia public schools, five of those years as principal of Wright, Duke, a relentless optimist, learned that her students' test scores placed Wright on the list of failing schools due for massive reform. "The hardest part was swallowing my pride, seeing my school on that list and admitting that I need some help," says Duke.

After researching Victory online and going out to dinner with its representatives, Duke became persuaded that the company was staffed by "people of integrity" with experience in urban schools and that it deserved a chance. She decided to become the firm's "head cheerleader" at Wright and bring around her sometimes dubious staff.

Victory uses a heavily structured teaching method that, for reading, relies on a script and a combination of phonics and literature. New teachers seem to appreciate the Victory model, but veterans like fourth-grade teacher Raynette Perry are more skeptical. Perry has seen several waves of reform since she began teaching at Wright 24 years ago, and she isn't convinced privatization will do a better job of overcoming the social problems ofthe children there. Poverty defines thesurrounding neighborhood of boarded buildings and emptylots; thewhole school gets free lunch and breakfast. OfVictory's curriculum, Perry says, "It's the same stuff we've always been teaching. One and one is always going to be two. But tell me what to do when my kids come in tired, without proper clothes, hungry. Fix that." Victory regional director Lynn Spampinato concedes that "we can't change society," but says, "we also can't use that as an excuse to lower the standards for kids. With an intensive academic program likeours, you give kids a better shot."

The biggest change since Victory's arrival, says Perry, is in the school's once easy going principal. Duke, 52, is an administrator who spends her weekends painting the library walls and her nights poring over special-education paperwork, who patiently fields an early-morning parent phone call about the weather, saying, "It's nice out, but she might need a jacket." Before the take-over, says Perry, "She was a total softy. Not anymore." Whereas last year Duke often accepted excuses fortardiness or fighting, now she quickly doles out suspensions to troublemakers in the school's upper grades. The toughened-up principal sees herself as enforcer of Victory's policies, demanding lesson plans on time, pushing teachers to employ the new methods and cracking down on faculty absences and lateness. "I had the bar toolow," says Duke. "Sometimes you just get worn down by dealing with the same problem over and over again, and it helps to have someone else say, 'That is not acceptable.' And you think, 'You're right, it's not.'"

The Student
While policymakers and administrators will view success in Philadelphia largely in terms of scores, the families in the schools will grade it by their own standards. Tanya Denmark, who is sending her third child through Shoemaker Middle School in West Philadelphia, regularly attends parent meetings, often checks in with teachers and enforces strict rules at home about homework and uniforms. With her daughter Shaliah, 12, about to enter seventh grade, Denmark closely followed news reports on Chancellor Beacon Academies, the private company designated to take over her neighborhood school. Shaliah had been attending a charter school that Denmark says turned her off with its use of uncertified teachers and its "arrogant leadership." But Denmark, who works for a mortgage firm, was impressed by what she heard about Chancellor Beacon's success in other states: last year Florida's education department awarded the company's schools in that grade an A or B rating, based on their performances on state tests. So Denmark decided to give Shoemaker another try.