Proposed closure of Centennial Mid-High offers lesson
Many of us educators had always known the opening of Centennial Mid-High, surrounded by empty fields east of Kelley Avenue, was the most problematic part of MAPS for Kids. We combined the poorest half of a failing middle school, Hoover, with the poorest half of a struggling high school, John Marshall.
The predictable result was a mid-high that would almost certainly defy improvement efforts. As the social science explains, schools serving neighborhoods with high concentrations of generational poverty and low levels of social trust, where students have survived multiple traumas, cannot succeed without first laying a system of student support services.
As the Oklahoma City Public Schools Pathway to Greatness plan is debated, Centennial’s first year should be a reminder there are no shortcuts to greatness. School improvement requires loving and trusting relationships. It comes from the heart, not data alone.
Most Centennial students came from the North Highland, a neighborhood which resulted from Urban Renewal disruption of the city’s vibrant eastside African-American community. Now scholars like Richard Rothstein and journalists like Sam Anderson have shown how segregation by law undermined both the eastside’s black community and the Highland.
One decade ago
For the first few months of the 2008 school year, however, my fellow teachers and I happily ate our pessimism. We had a great start. A key leader was Tad (a pseudonym). A football player from the neighboring Millwood H.S., he had a firm, confident handshake. Watching him pick up litter in the hallway that he did not drop, I saw real hope for Centennial.
We soon learned that our initial good fortune had been possible because many seriously CONTINUE READING: Proposed closure of Centennial Mid-High offers lesson
