Good evening. My name is Kaya Henderson and I am chancellor of DC Public Schools. But
before I was chancellor of DC Public Schools, I am mom to Marcus, who is 9, and Robert Jr.,
who is 18. But before I was mom to them, I was Kaya Henderson, a little girl who got
a great public education and is living the American dream.
Yeah, I got a great house, drive my own car. I have a good job. I don’t borrow money
from my parents every month to pay my bills. I am doing exactly what a good public
education is supposed to do for you. In fact, my family started out in the projects of Mount
Vernon, New York. My family lived in the projects for 47 years. And we moved solidly out of
the lower income rung into the middle class. My mother was the first person in our family
to go to college, the first person in our family to buy a home, and the first person
in our family to propel the second generation, me, to the kind of middle class existence
that I think every parent hopes for their kid in America. I am living the American dream.
And so my vision for education is totally fueled by my individual experience, by my
experience as Kaya the mom and then as my experience as Kaya Henderson, chancellor of
DC Public Schools. What’s my vision? My vision is that the same public educational
system that was able to do it for my mother, that was able to do it for me and to propel
me to one of the best universities in this country, Georgetown University – Hoya Saxa
– and that I have that count on that education system to do it for Marcus and to do it for
Robert. And if it can do it for my mom and for me and for Marcus and for Robert, then
it can do it for every kid in Washington, DC, public schools. That’s my vision.
My vision is not one where my children only know how to read and do math. My vision is
one where my children and every child in the city of Washington actually know how to read
and do math. They can master science and social studies. They have technological facility.
They can speak a foreign language, at least one, right? They can master an instrument.
They play a sport. And they might do a few other things that I haven’t thought about
because that’s what a great public education provides.
My vision for education is that we can do that for every single one of our young people,
whether they come from a middle class background or whether they come from an impoverished
background. My vision for education is we can do whether they are general education
students or whether they come to us with special needs. My vision for education is that we
can accomplish that, whether they speak English as their first language or English as their
second or third language.
Somehow or another, I think we’ve gotten away from the belief that we can do that for
every student in Washington, DC, and in America. In fact, I think education reform, whatever
that means, has gone wrong. We don’t know what problem we’re actually trying to solve.
We’re trying to increase test scores or we’re trying to outcompete the Finns or
we’re trying to make sure – to secure our economic future. But Kaya the mom doesn’t
really care about our economic future. Kaya the mom cares about whether or not Robert
and Marcus are going to come home after college and live with me. (Laughter.)
(Laughter.) Kaya the mom wants to know that when my children leave, they can be and do
anything that they want to do.
I don’t know what my children’s test scores are. I don’t care. What do people say when
their children don’t score well on tests? Oh, my kids just don’t test well. Do we
think they’re not smart? No. So why are we putting all of our emphasis around tests?
In fact, we care about way more than tests. We care about whether they can do a number
of things. And in fact, we are getting this all wrong because we’re concentrating on
the wrong things. We are measuring the wrong things. We’re measuring things that some
people care about, but not what most people care about. When you talk to parents like
me, parents like me want to know what their kids are going to go on to something amazing.
Not that their kids have scored X on the (CAS ?) or Y on the NIP. They don’t care about
international competition. They don’t care about spending. They don’t care about all
of these things.
And so at the end of the day, we have to take a step back and reconnect with the real reason
that we do what we do every day. Every single day I get up and I work to change life outcomes
for young people in the district. Every single day I work to make sure that whatever their
situation is today, they can be in a better situation tomorrow. Every single day I look
for 25 different ways to do that. I don’t rely on the five policy levers that we’ve
allowed to define education reform. It’s not just about teacher evaluation. It’s
not just about charter schools. It’s not just about high stakes testing. It’s not
just about human capital. Those are all important pieces of the puzzle, but the puzzle is so
much more complex than that and we’ve allowed ourselves to be reduced to a set of policies
that if we apply the silver bullet initiatives that they’ll fix everything.
That’s why we’re not seeing the successes that we need to see. This work is so complex.
This work is so difficult. And in fact, no one thing that we do is going to get us to
where we are going to be. We have huge opportunities to completely change the way we teach and
what we teach, but right now, we’re all busy fussing and fighting about all kinds
of random things that don’t matter. We don’t actually give ourselves the time that it takes
to make complex organizational change take root.
I’ve been in my role for four years as chancellor and I’m the third longest serving superintendent
in DC Public Schools since the ’60s. No wonder we can’t get any traction. In fact,
because we rely on silver bullets, because we rely on these opportunities, where if we
just had enough charter schools, if we just got to 50 percent in DC, things would be great.
Well, guess what: we’re almost at 50 percent in DC, and what do we have? The same thing
that we had. We have a handful of schools that are excelling in the charter sector,
just like we have a handful of schools that are excelling in the traditional sector. We
have a handful of schools that are struggling mightily in the charter sector, just like
we have a handful of school that are struggling mightily in the traditional sector. And we
got a bunch of folks in the messy middle.
That’s not the intention. In fact, the problem that we’re trying to solve is actually a
universal problem. It’s the problem of traditional school systems and it’s the problem of charter
schools. It’s the problem of private schools as well. It’s not the governance structure
or model. The problem is producing consistent quality at scale. That’s everybody’s problem.
Every sector can produce a handful of great schools that can do it for some kids. Private
schools, handful of great schools can do it for some kids. Charter schools, handful of
great schools can do it for some kids. Traditional schools, handful of schools that can do it
for great kids. Handful of schools that can do it for some kids.
But what none of us have figured out is how we consistently produce excellence for all
kids, all kids. It is the problem of scale. And so to continue to delude ourselves into
thinking if we just change these policies, if we just change this governance structure,
if we just have these more autonomies, in fact, it’s way more complex than that.
At DC Public Schools, we have learned over time that everything that we accomplish, there
are four or five other things that we have to tackle because the work is integrated.
With everything that you get good at, there are other things that you have to do to maintain
that quality. And so in fact, we came in thinking just get great people. Just get great people.
Make sure they have excellent teachers in every single classroom. If you make sure that
you have a tremendous principal leading every single school, if you make sure you have great
central office person, the people – the rest will take care of itself.
And guess what? We, right now, have the greatest set of people, I’ve been working in or with
DC Public Schools for 17 years, and I would mention the same, we have the greatest set
of teachers, principals, central office staff in the 17 years that I’ve been here. It’s
not enough. It’s not just great people. You have to give great people the tools and
the resources and the environments that they need to be successful. But even when you do
that, you have to make sure that what you’re teaching and how your teaching reaches your
students.
We have a unique opportunity right now to completely reinvent how we do what we do.
The Common Core state standards, blended learning opportunities, competency based education,
we have the opportunity to stop doing education the way we’ve been doing it for 100 years
and completely reinvent both what we’re teaching, by holding our people to much higher
expectations, and how we’re teaching it, delivery methods. And we need to maximize
that opportunity. We also need to make sure that while we’re getting great people and
allowing them the tools and the resources to do what they do and while we’re rethinking
what and how we teach that we engage with our communities as we do this. The best answers
on these questions are not found in policy rooms. They’re not found in central offices.
They’re not found in federal government buildings. In fact, they’re found in the
very communities that we serve. But we don’t respect our communities enough to see them
as partners in problem solving.
When we do these things, when we allow ourselves the time, when we respect the complexity of
the problem, when we pay attention to the human capital that we have in our
organization, when we rethink our approaches to teaching and learning, when we engage with
our stakeholders as real, true partners in problem solving, when we recognize that none
of us has all of the right answers and in fact that we are all trying to rethink this
very difficult issue, then and only then will education reform start to pay off with the
results that we’re looking for, the results that are not about test scores, but that are
about changing life outcomes. Because that’s what parents are concerned with. And if it
could happen for my mother and if it could happen for Marcus and Robert, it can happen
for every kid in Washington, DC.
There’s a young lady named Rashema Melson. Rashema Melson graduated as the valedictorian
of Anacostia Senior High School. Anacostia is one of our most struggling high schools
in the city. And Rashema graduated as the valedictorian after spending the last two
years living at DC General Homeless Shelter. Rashema, I’m proud to say, went to Georgetown
University on a full four-year academic scholarship, not because she went to a charter school or
because she got a voucher. She went to a regular neighborhood school. Not because it mattered
whether the governance model was of DCPS, mayoral control or school board or whatever.
Not because she had blended learning or she didn’t have blended learning, but in fact
because she had a great set of teachers who were paying attention. She had great teaching
happening in her neighborhood school. She had people who guided her along the way. She
had opportunities to run track, to volunteer, to do all kinds of enrichment activities in
her neighborhood school. And she won a full academic scholarship.
Rashema Melson is in her freshman year at Georgetown. She’s excelling and she’s
also starting a foundation in her spare time to give scholarships to other young people
so that they can go to college. That is the point of education reform. When any Rashema
Melson, anywhere in this country, whether they’d be homeless or wealthy or middle
class, black or white or Latino or Asian, tall or short or skinny or fat, English language
learner, special needs, or whatever, when each of them can accomplish what Rashema Melson
can accomplish, then and only then have we realized our vision for education reform.
Thank you.