Leading and Making Adequate Yearly Progress in an Urban School: The Power of African Collective Framework

• In Event: Contemporary Research Perspectives on African Transformative Education

Abstract

Purpose
My purpose in this paper is to share perspectives about my teaching and school leadership experiences in urban schools. First, I discuss my core cultural and educational values I constructed from my African culture and their impact on my successful teaching in urban schools. Second, I discuss processes and practices I engaged in to lead my school in attaining Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in two consecutive years of my administration after eight years of failed AYP. I will conclude by sharing core principles and practices that transform a failing school.

Theoretical Perspectives
The statistics on urban schools and students are startling. Ladson-Billings (2009) states, "African-American children are three times as likely to drop out of school as white children...African-American children are five times as likely as whites to be dependent on welfare and to become pregnant as teen." (P. 2). Additionally, there are gross over-representation figures in special education classes. Porter (1997) goes further to say that “African-American boys have become public education's monsters...feared, mistrusted, and hated, mere animals to be confined to cages (special education classes)" (P. 5). But it is important to recognize that this situation is also experienced by other minorities and economically disadvantaged groups. McLaren (1995) writes about the psychologizing and pathologizing of students of color. Thus, urban educators engage in what Haberman (1995) calls “pedagogy of poverty.” Is it any wonder that urban students don’t perform and achieve well! In contrast, Kincheloe (2009) observes that the contemporary reforms initiatives have only made the “patient worse…rewarded the victim of cancer with a case of polio” and calls educators to engage in and enact “metropedagogy, a notion he described as empowered, professionalized teachers working to cultivate the intellect and enhance the socioeconomic mobility of marginalized urban students.”

Methods/Data Sources
I draw on narrative inquiry research and self-study to understand forces that fostered transformed the urban school I led. Scholars define narrative inquiry as the study of how humans experience the world around them and tell the stories of their ‘storied lives’ (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Connelly and Clandinin, 1992). Through examination of the community of practice, my interactions and social relations with others, and looking backwards and forward, I learned to construct vivid experiences of my world of reality.

Results and Conclusions
Critical perspectives emerged in my construction (1) creating a new culture framed on collectivist values (2) recruitment of African-born teachers (3) bridged the gap between home/community and school (3) commitment to high expectation and (4) fostered discipline in students and staff.

Scientific and Significance of Work
The study reported here is significant as it evidences promising reform practices that work. Conference attendees would be interested in the ideas that helped turnaround the urban school I led.

Author

• Martin Ngom, Kansas City Missouri School District