Anthony Bryk, among 20 deputies recently appointed by Chicago schools Supt. Argie Johnson, comes to the system with some excellent credentials: research and teaching experience at the University of Chicago and advanced degrees from Harvard University.
He has an impressive, though eye-glazing, title: adviser to the general superintendent for research, assessment, accountability and policy analysis.
And, after only a few weeks on the job, he has a bold new plan to help restore confidence in this much-excoriated school system: establish an independent agency of educators to inspect the schools and let taxpayers know if they’re getting their money’s worth.
Given Johnson’s big thrust to shake up the system this upcoming school year, it would seem that Bryk’s suggestions in promoting efficiency would be welcomed with open arms.
But Bryk’s centerpiece plan, which has yet to be introduced to the Board of Education, is being met with skepticism. School officials assert it would add yet another layer to the very bureaucracy Bryk is trying to tame and could take authority from the school board.
The criticism supports the long-standing view that any radical idea-no matter how promising-doesn’t stand a chance in the Chicago Public Schools, where many officials preach reform but are hesitant to embrace it.
As Bryk sees it, school officials are suffering a major credibility problem: Legislators doubt them. Taxpayers distrust them. The business community dismisses them as too political, too bureaucratic and too ineffective.
His Accountability and Quality Assurance Agency idea is based on a British model.
Teams of “master teachers and principals” from successful schools as well as university professors would visit every school, preparing detailed reports on their strengths and weaknesses. The reports would be tied to Johnson’s “three-tier” plan for school improvement, which seeks to help poorly-performing schools.
Designed to keep politics out of the process, only the agency’s director would be appointed by the school board; the rest would be selected by the director based on recommendations from prominent Chicago educators. As an extra measure of security, another group of educators-from out of state-would be assembled to monitor the watchdog agency’s operation.
Bryk hopes to help save the school system next year as it heads toward a seemingly inevitable, ugly showdown with the legislature over a projected multimillion-dollar deficit.
“There is a perception that there is a lot of inefficiency in the Chicago Public Schools: No data can be trusted, the basic reporting is questionable and there is little sense of integrity,” said Bryk, (pronounced Brike) on loan for a year from the U. of C., where he is an education professor.
“We want to create a genuine accountability system that people can trust,” added Bryk, who plans to introduce his ideas to a school board subcommittee in a few weeks. “People want to be assured that public monies are well used, bad programs are identified and good programs are replicated.”
While praising his intentions, school board members are leery of Bryk’s inspection proposal.
“The concern is that sooner or later we have to have people start trusting the current structure,” said board member Clinton Bristow, a member of the Instruction, Student Achievement and Educational Environment Committee, which likely would review Bryk’s plan.
“The board should be in a position to have its staff produce credible and reputable reports,” he said. “We have too many consultants and outside reviewers now.”
Board member Florence Cox, also on the instruction and student achievement subcommittee, added: “This sounds like an awful lot of bureaucratic overlay, and I wonder whether this would support or contravene the intention of the School Reform Act.
“A lot of people don’t realize how different our structure really is. Sometimes what works in other places will not work in Chicago.”
Johnson, while not indicating whether she supports Bryk’s idea, is basically giving him the leeway to pursue it.
“The general superintendent welcomes the input of her management team as we move forward with school reform and the whole process of teaching children,” said spokeswoman Lauri Sanders.
“Dr. Bryk’s idea represents a shifting paradigm from singular to collective action on behalf of the students,” she said. “We are all committed to moving our children from one rung of the educational ladder to the next higher rung.”
Over the next year, the 45-year-old Hyde Park resident will literally juggle three jobs-his position in Chicago schools; steering committee chairman of the Consortium on Chicago School Research, a think tank; and director of the Center for School Improvement, which helps troubled schools. Bryk did, however, give up his teaching duties for the year.
The appointment is part of Johnson’s effort to bring in outsiders who could look at the system critically and objectively.
Bryk brings to the position 20 years of research experience-spending 10 years at the U. of C. and another 10 at Harvard, where he earned his doctorate.
Perhaps most important are Bryk’s hands-on experience working with schools through the Center for School Improvement and his ability to make his research findings easy to follow.
“The knowledge he has is based on his (academic) research work and his intervention work in the schools,” said Sara Spurlark, a former Chicago elementary school principal who now is a lecturer at the U. of C., a School Finance Authority member and director of school development programs at the center.
In the corporate world, research is crucial to helping a firm pinpoint problems, trim waste and create the right product for its customers. And, according to Bryk, those same techniques easily could be applied to public education.
During the next year, Bryk said he and his researchers, most of whom would work for the consortium, will attempt to address questions raised from the school level all the way to the superintendent: Why do so many principals leave the system? Why do some local school councils thrive while others flounder? And why are some schools succeeding while others fail?
Bryk acknowledges that his ideas-particularly the inspection agency-may not be popular.
But for reform to really work, he said, the board is going to have to make a commitment to quit operating business as usual and keep politics out of the way.
The agency, Bryk said, would have to be “buffered from short-term partisan political interests.”
He added: “This is a test year in trying to get the central administration to be more responsive to the needs of the schools and students. If that doesn’t happen, the school board would have to look hard and long at the future viability of this system.”
