September 18-24, 2003

cover story

You Can’t Go Back to School Again

Stone face: John Bartram High has stood on the corner of 67th and Elmwood since 1939. NBA Hall of Famer Earl "The Pearl" Monroe went there. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Our intrepid reporter finds that Bartram High School has changed both a little and a lot in 30 years. By Daryl Gale

by Daryl Gale

Waiting for the lunchroom to open at John Bartram High School last Thursday, the hallway is absolute bedlam. Mock fights have broken out, with students playfully, and not so playfully, punching and slapping at each other. Several are wrestling on the floor. One boy smacks a girl hard on the butt, and she wheels around to curse a blue streak at him. Another couple is locked in a passionate embrace, oblivious to the unfolding chaos. The conversations are loud, combative and profane, and the F-word flows freely.

Into this scene strides none other than Dexter Green, chief of security for the entire Philadelphia school district, and his entourage. Dispatching his men to restore some semblance of order, Green stops to chat.

"Security is extremely important because of the students' behavior," the impeccably dressed Green explains, nearly shouting to be heard over the din. "I don't expect them to be quiet, but we need supervision to set goals and standards. We need to make students aware of our expectations." At this moment, Green is looking a bit like Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the former Iraqi information minister. Sure, he says all is well and that the enemy is nowhere near Baghdad, but just over his shoulder the buildings are on fire and tanks are rolling down the street.

It started out as what I thought would be a funny, you-can’t-go-home-again-type story. I had a simple premise: I’d spend some time at my alma mater, John Bartram High School in Southwest Philly, as a freshman in September 2003, exactly 30 years after I first walked in as a real freshman in 1973. What I found out is that you really can’t go home again, and what’s more, it’s not all that funny.

Strangely enough, there's a lot about Bartram that hasn't changed at all since I ran screaming from the place with my freshly minted high-school diploma in 1976. The showers in the boys' locker room are still not functional, the classrooms and hallways are pretty much the same and the water fountains still dribble forth a hideous stream of lukewarm brown liquid.

What struck me about the things that have changed, though, is the dramatic, immense nature of those changes. The things that are better are much, much better, and the things that are worse are far more horrible and frightening. For instance, in every class I attended, there were brand-new textbooks, and plenty of them to go around. This was unheard of when I was a student there in the '70s. Our textbooks were laughably out of date, there were always pages missing and most of us were forced to share. On the other hand, back in the day we had a healthy respect, however grudging, for the teachers and administrators. Wearing a hat in school was never allowed, but of course quite a few of us wore them anyway. The deal was, though, if a teacher told you to take your hat off, you took it off. Usually we just snatched them off our heads before the teacher could say anything, just to avoid trouble. Not so today. I witnessed teachers, administrators and school police telling dozens of young men to take off their hats in the school building, with results ranging from simply ignoring the request to open hostility, complete with language that would make a sailor blush. But the hats never came off. In fact, at least half of the young men in classes and hallways were wearing hats, and not one removed it when requested.

And on the subject of clothing, it seems another change took place in Philadelphia high schools while I was out earning a living. The school uniform policy is firmly in place at Bartram, and actually being adhered to fairly well. One reason for this, I surmise, is that the standard uniform for boys is an oversize white T-shirt and baggy black pants hanging way down off the butt. And of course, a hat. For girls, the dress code apparently bows to the popularity of see-my-bra fishnet tops and derriere-revealing thong displays. OK, maybe it's not the standard, but it might as well be.

The first person I spoke to when I arrived at Bartram that morning was an aide who said she didn't want to be identified for this story, and I really don't blame her. After more than 20 years, she'd had enough.

"It's changed a lot since your class was here," she said. "The children are totally untrained and undisciplined. They have absolutely no respect for themselves or others, and they're so full of misdirected rage. Working here just makes you tired and old before your time."

Of course, there are hundreds of decent, studious and diligent students here, as in every school, but looking up and down the hallway, I can see her point. Screaming, obnoxiously loud cursing, full-speed running and violent horseplay are the order of the day. Any open classroom door is an invitation to forcefully slam that door shut, and the sound echoes through the halls every few minutes.

Making my way to the principal's office, I am greeted by James Sloan, assistant principal. A well-dressed, gregarious man, Sloan gives me my freshman class schedule, shakes my hand, wishes me luck on my first day of school and goes off to attend to the thousand or so crises he'll face today as I head to first-period English.

Khalil Murrell is only a few months removed from being a student himself, having just graduated from Temple University in May. If it weren't for the white shirt and tie, the tall, baby-faced African-American English teacher could easily be mistaken for one of his students.

"While I was at Temple, I went to a guest lecture where [poet and playwright] Sonia Sanchez spoke of the pressing need for African-American teachers, particularly men, in public schools," Murrell explains. "I decided then and there that's what I wanted to do."

Gym dandy: Phys Ed teacher Bob Stowman lays down the law in gym class, like he’s been doing for the past 11 years. Photo By Michael T. Regan

Murrell joined Teach For America, a national organization started in 1990 that to date has recruited more than 9,000 college graduates to commit at least two years to teaching in troubled urban and rural schools.

"I really feel blessed to teach," Murrell smiles. "I feel like I can make a difference in the lives of some of these young people. They need stability and encouragement, two things that are often lacking in their lives."

As his students noisily enter room 306 for first-period English, Murrell is writing a proverb by Confucius on the blackboard.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

As the class settles in, the school's public address system crackles to life, and the pleasant-sounding female voice welcomes us all to another beautiful day at John Bartram High, and asks everyone to join in as she recites the Pledge of Allegiance. Not one student even pretends to listen, let alone recite. After a few school announcements, the morning welcome ends with, "Have a wonderful, wonderful day, and remember: the Student Advisory Council looooooves you!"

"You ladies and gentlemen look so full of energy, I need to have you get up and do something," Murrell shouts to the class, most of whom take advantage of the PA announcements to get a little more shut-eye. Murrell ignores the grumbling, eye-rolling and teeth-sucking objections, and has the class stand up and break into small groups. Each group, whose task is to identify the parts of speech, is given a paragraph, and has to pick out its assigned words. Murrell explains the assignment five or six times before anyone gets going, but then the class performs the task competently, with the exception of conjunctions and prepositions, which Murrell slowly and patiently explains again. After giving out tonight's homework, he drops a bomb that creates a small furor. From now on, students will lose one letter grade for each day a homework assignment is late. The groaning and teeth-sucking intensifies, with students already inventing excuses and offering scenarios where they can't possibly be expected to actually have a homework assignment completed by the next day. Murrell stands firm, and is spared further wrath by the bell, signaling the end of the period. Still protesting Murrell's unfairness and inhumanity, they gather their belongings and race out into the hall. I manage to navigate through the crowd and find my way to the boys' gym, right where I left it 27 years ago, and in pretty much the same condition.

After meeting our gym teacher, Bob Stowman, I feel a little better. At least gym teachers haven’t changed. Complete with shorts and a whistle, Stowman is part drill sergeant, part aggressive sports dad, and all business.

"I don't care where you are in this gym or what you're doing," Stowman shouts to the 30 or so boys assembled on the bleachers, "when I blow this whistle, you freeze on the spot and sit down." Stowman blasts the whistle twice. "Then I'm going to count to five. If anybody's still standing, everybody loses free time. That means push-ups but no basketball."

Stowman talks tough, and twice as loud as he has to as he sets up the gym class ground rules for the year. No coats, hats or books on the gym floor, and everyone comes prepared with sneakers and gym shorts. No food, drinks or gum, and any violation of the above rules will have severe consequences. No one asks what the consequences are, and Stowman doesn't elaborate. With gym teachers, you don't want to know. Their ability to create hideous tortures from running, push-ups and jumping jacks is legendary.

Stowman says that aside from having the basketball floor refinished last year, which he spent several years fighting for, not much about gym class has changed. They have new fiberglass backboards, but can't install them because the walls are too old and weak to support the hardware, and the scoreboard over at the football field hasn't worked in 11 years. Then the bell rings, and it's off to lunch. Except the lunchroom isn't open yet, and the swelling crowd in the hallway is growing more restless, a fact not lost on security chief Dexter Green.

"There's a handbook of student behavior that's given to every student, but the parents don't have to sign off on it," Green says, still shouting to be heard. "That, I feel, is something we should correct. Parents should have to acknowledge that they know the bounds and limits of acceptable behavior in school, and that their child will be punished for overstepping those bounds."

Last school year, there were 7,229 serious "incidents" reported in Philadelphia schools, 976 weapons confiscated and 2,639 students arrested for violations ranging from mild pushing and shoving to serious drug and weapons offenses. According to the District's website, 1,749 students were removed from school and placed in alternative or disciplinary schools, and 1,059 were placed in alternative schools upon being released from police custody. There are 450 school police officers assigned to schools throughout the district, Green says, including several here at Bartram, but more police is not the answer.

"Discipline starts at home," he says, "and extends its values to the school, not the other way around. I think, though, that [Bartram principal] Bea Mickey has the right approach. The way a principal interacts with security and parents can change a school, and I like her style. Things will get better."

Later, in math class, teacher Melissa Brown has her hands full. The room is small, hot and unpainted, and half the kids are nodding off as Brown painstakingly attempts to explain positive and negative integers for what is obviously not the first time. Brown, like most teachers here, is calm and patient to a fault, even with the class cut-ups. One student sitting near me attempts to ask who I am and what I’m doing there, but between the slang and his incoherent mumbling, I have to ask him to repeat himself several times. All I can catch is, "Yo, oldhead …" I’m not 100 percent clear as to what an oldhead is, but considering the number of times I’ve been addressed as such today, I’m pretty sure I am one. Brown spends a good deal of time admonishing the girl sitting in front of me, who insists upon having a conversation with another student standing just outside the door. Brown asks the student to be quiet, and asks the visitor at the door to get to her class, but she’s summarily ignored and the conversation, apparently about the love life of another female student, continues unabated.

"She wants to be single," the girl loudly stage-whispers to her friend. "What?" comes the reply from the door. She repeats the phrase, but gets the same reaction. Finally, in deference to Brown’s escalating threats of afterschool detention, the girl in class decides to write the message in her loose-leaf binder. Checking to see if Brown is watching, the girl holds up the binder for her friend to read. The message, in large block letters, reads: SHE WATNS TO BE SINGAL.

Near the end of the day, I finally managed to corral the elusive Dr. Beatrice Mickey for an interview. She hasn’t been avoiding me; she literally hasn’t had even a single minute to sit down since she arrived this morning. I ask her about the barely controlled chaos in the hallways.

Noun of your business: Brand new English teacher Khalil Murrell explains the parts of speech. Photo By Michael T. Regan

"This is still the first week of class, so there's bound to be some confusion," Mickey explains. "We enrolled 200 students since Monday, and some of them are still waiting for rosters. It will settle down in a week or so, and then you'll see a big difference." Mickey says that neighborhood public schools are at a disadvantage, and have to work with kids that private, parochial and charter schools won't touch.

"As a rule, they can pick and choose their students, and have a much easier time getting rid of problem students," she says. "And when they send them away, where do they go? Here to the neighborhood school. And I think we do an exemplary job with them. Do we have problems? Sure. But we also have solutions, and we're implementing them."

School District CEO Paul Vallas outlined some of those solutions when I caught up to him Friday afternoon.

"We’ve got new textbooks, we’re completely revamping the curriculum district-wide and we recruited 800 new certified teachers," Vallas said. "We’re off to a good start. There’s an increase in African-American male teachers, and the teacher vacancy rate is 0.6 percent, the lowest it’s ever been."

Vallas says that starting this year, all schools will have an extended hour of instruction for struggling students, and every student will get 200 minutes a day of reading and 90 minutes of math. Schooling will be year-round, he says, and every junior will take the SAT. According to Vallas, only one-third of Philadelphia high-school students take the SAT, a situation he calls "totally unacceptable."

"Too many kids have been told they’re not good enough or smart enough, and we’re going to change that," he vows.

Dr. Beatrice Mickey says that thanks to Vallas’ initiatives, like the new vocational health care programs and the influx of new teachers and textbooks, schools like Bartram are slowly pulling themselves back up.

Now if they could only get the boys to pull their pants back up.