Education is a Local Enterprise
In the summer of 1974 I became principal of my first school. It was in trouble—such trouble, in fact, that I was the only person they could find to be its principal.
Demographic change had hit the school hard. White flight and other changes had dropped the enrollment to only 210 students, 38% of whom were now African American. The neighborhood of the school was what the real estate agents charmingly called “a little salt and pepper,” and everyone believed what one trustee whispered in my ear: “Research has shown that if a third of a school goes black, it goes all the way.”
To make many long stories short, three years later it was a vibrant, happy school for boys and girls ages 2 to 14, and soon it was the “hot” school with a full enrollment of 330, sending its students on to the best high schools well prepared. Still 38% were African American with economic diversity funded by a sliding scale tuition.
What did we do right?
Our secret sauce was that the teachers and I were on a mission, a mission to prove that three popular beliefs