OPENING DAY ADDRESS TO FACULTY AND STAFF

September 3, 2002

Jeffrey M. Young

Superintendent of Schools

Newton, Massachusetts

Good morning … I hope you enjoyed breakfast as well as the opportunity to renew friendships with your colleagues. Let me take a moment to thank the people who made this assembly possible: Mary Burns, Cheryl Kelley, Dede Reade, and Tim Keefe, the head custodian here at Newton North.

Each year toward the end of August I like to visit the school buildings and inspect the various summer renovation and cleaning projects. And every year I come away impressed with the dedication and professionalism our school custodians bring to their work. To Tim Curry and the entire custodial and maintenance staff, we all say a mighty thank you.

The main reason we are able to get back to work in an orderly manner is the extraordinary effort of our secretaries. These people, whose jobs during the school year run the gamut from assistant principal to surrogate parent, and from crisis counselor to part-time psychologist, keep the system moving. To Betty Lupo and all the secretaries and support staff ... we’d be lost without you.

The key to the excellence of this school system is people. Let me take this moment to recognize the professionals who have given our schools the reputation for excellence they truly deserve. If you have worked in Newton for 20 years or more, please stand so we may thank you for all you have done and still do every day with students.

This summer my travels took me to Arizona and the Grand Canyon, to Fenway Park, and yesterday to Yankee Stadium. I want to tell you a little about each of these places, but most important was the Canyon. … It was there that I, just like those of you who have visited this awesome site, came to understand something about pacing—about moving slowly and quickly, about balancing the two, about how Nature paces herself, and maybe something about how we should as well.

I suppose there is no place on earth where one becomes so aware of pacing more than the Grand Canyon. We learned that the Canyon was carved out of the land over something like 1.5 or 2 billion years. Nature does her work with a kind of infinite laziness. The wonderful thing about working at this pace is that it produces unparalleled beauty and accomplishment.

It may sound strange, but although we clearly do not have billions of years to work with children, I hope we appreciate the results that come with patience. Let us think of our children as living works of art, works in progress, that beg slow, gradual sculpting and refinement, even as they find their own shape. We cannot do in a day what we can do in a year. The pace of life in 2002 is frenetic enough, and I believe that we would do well to recognize the value in slowing down a little, to taking the extra minutes to be sure that we have nurtured our children in thoughtful, sensitive ways—ways that acknowledge that children are not merely mountains waiting to be shaped by winds or rivers, over hundreds of centuries. But they do need our infinite patience, if not our infinite laziness. Kids catch on in different ways at different time. We want to honor pace—not just the pace at which we teach, but also the pace at which they learn.

While we were visiting the southwest, our family decided to go for an adventure, which in this case involved taking the helicopter ride into the Canyon. Out of curiosity, how many of you have ridden in a helicopter? Well, it’s not quite the same thing as an airplane. You feel every wind current and dip and rise during the ride. It was great boarding the copter, taking off and seeing the scenery from the unbelievable vantage point. However, about five minutes before the end of our scheduled tour, one member of my family who shall remain anonymous, discovered why they equip these helicopters with plenty of airsickness bags. That blessed pilot made it back to the airport in record time! There was no infinite laziness or patience to be found here, and we were all glad about that. This was about urgency, and he knew how to react.

So there, in Arizona, some 2000 miles from home, I knew what I wanted to say to you today: there is a balance between patience and urgency in our labors. We do best when we recognize this dynamic and use it in our work with students.

When the historians look back on this period of education in America, they will surely see it as a time that stressed standards and accountability. In many ways this is a good thing. Standards help us create a coherent thirteen- year experience for kids, where instruction in one grade reinforces the previous year’s lessons and anticipates what is to come the following year. Standards ensure that the focus is on learning.

And while there is much healthy disagreement about how we should best measure student achievement, it is clear that we must assess it somehow. This has never been more urgent, and I want to explain why I feel this way. I care about all 11,250 boys and girls who attend school in Newton. I am proud of many of them, and worried about others. Newton is just like every other school system in this county in one particular way—while overall achievement in English/Language Arts and Mathematics has increased over the past several years, the differences in scores for white students and students of color has widened.

Consider a few examples from right here in Newton. Keeping in mind the caveat that MCAS is far from the be-all and end-all of assessment tools, let’s use it for the time being, because it is as illustrative of the problem as any other measure I can locate.

In Grade 4 citywide in language arts, white students out-performed black students by 10% in 1999; in 2000 the gap widened to 14%, and then to 16% in 2001. Now, how about math? In grade 8, over the same three-year period, white students have out-performed black students by between 21% and 33%.

Why is this? Theories abound in the popular media as well as education research circles. The explanations range from genetic predisposition and blaming the victim to study habits, parental support and economics. Whatever is the truth, there are some things we can influence in schools and some things we cannot. I am committed to adjusting the variables that are indeed within our control and I ask you to join me in this important, actually urgent, work. We cannot wait any longer.

The major and overarching goal of the Newton Public Schools is to improve the academic achievement of all students, with a particular emphasis on closing the achievement gap. Our principals and coordinators will be working with me this year on developing policies to advance this goal and I ask every classroom teacher here today to re-double your efforts to improve student achievement, to document your successes, and share promising practices with your colleagues. This is indeed urgent work, for every one of our students gets only one crack at it.

Now the paradox. Even while we recognize the urgency of this work, we also understand the subtleties and nuances of learning and teaching. The focused drive toward standards, accountability and achievement cannot displace the slow, gradual touch we must apply in consideration of the developmental needs of children.

I am not asking you to pour so much information into these poor kids’ heads that there is no time left to be the kind of child-centered educators I know you are, because that is one of the main reasons you have been hired to work in our school system. We prize your patience and the way you respect human differences in your daily work with your students. Know your kids. Make that special, magical connection with them. Most of all show them, in a dozen different ways every day, that you genuinely care about them, and they will rise to your level of expectation for their academic achievement.

This is it. This is the balance between the infinite laziness that produced Nature’s masterpiece out there in Arizona as well as the smart, deliberate, urgent response to a situation that was unacceptable, in our case a helicopter passenger with a queasy stomach. The Grand Canyon. The blend of patience and urgency.

You can see how this trip crystallized my sense of mission and clarified my thinking on where we must go as a premier school system. We, and most especially you, are up to this challenge because I know you to be the best teachers, administrators and support staff around. This year, we are blessed once again with an infusion of new blood. Just as we honored those faculty and staff who have made Newton what it is, today we welcome the new members of our family and ask them to join us in our educational, mission-driven, and even spiritual work. This year, over 4,600 people applied for employment in the Newton Public Schools. Out of that impressive pool of candidates we hired approximately 115 new teachers. You are the best of the best. You are our future. Please, if you are new to Newton, please stand for a moment so that we may recognize and welcome you to our very special place.

A few other items before I close, all of which have to do with meaningful moments. First, as your school principal will inform you, I am directing all school staff and students to pause for a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. on September 11. Let this be a time for all of us to reflect. I trust your professional judgment to address your students’ questions and concerns in a sensitive way, and we also have provided your principal with some general guidelines on how experts in the field believe tragic anniversaries like this one should be approached.

Second, let us all resolve to demonstrate, every day, to the citizens of Newton that they made the right decision to support us in the referendum last spring when they voted to override Proposition 2 1/2 and provide additional funding to keep our schools as excellent as they have been and will be.

…

Finally, I tell you this story knowing full well that you probably won’t believe me. Two years ago, you heard me describe my son’s unexpected personal connection with Pedro Martinez during a visit to Fenway Park. Last year at this time I complained about how Jon thought after meeting him for an instant that Manny Ramirez might be a better choice for dad than me. This year’s hero to a fickle fan is Johnny Damon, a familiar name to those of you who follow the travails of our local nine. Now ten years old, I thought it would be a good time for Jon to experience sitting in the bleachers, so there we headed for a recent night game. Jon wore his Johnny Damon t-shirt to honor his new role model.

In the pre-game warm-ups, Damon and Ramirez were playing a lazy game of catch. When it was time for the game to begin, Damon looked up into the bleachers, an act which in and of itself produced a congregation of ball-hungry adults along with one little boy equipped with baseball mitt. Damon apparently eyed Young and whipped the baseball into the bleachers. Dozens of big, grubby grown-up arms pushed and reached and grabbed, but it was a little boy who snagged that ball in his mitt. The professional smiled and the little guy whooped. He turned around to show the player his Damon jersey, and the adult gave the child a thumbs-up and a big smile. My son danced in the bleachers that beautiful, balmy evening.

I tell you this story to illustrate once again the significance of the personal connection. It means the world the all the big and little kids who are out there buying backpacks, pens, assignment books and folders this week. Believe it or not, they talk about you even more than they talk about the Red Sox (and who can blame them, given this year’s team?). Connect. Show them you care. Throw them a baseball. Let them know that there is no time to wait for them to achieve, but there is all the time in the world for them to grow. In return, you will see them dance. As you do your work with the children this year, I will be with you, visiting your classes, supporting you, and thinking of you even more often than you can imagine.