Grade School Goes Corporate

Businesses want to build better employees, but will that really mean a better education for your child?
Elizabeth Weiss Green:

It took less than a year for Algene Patrick to learn all she needed to know about William H. Brazier Elementary School: rock-bottom test scores, spoiled milk in the cafeteria, and teachers who logged more absences than their students. These were the lessons her granddaughter, Lawrenesha Williams, brought home from kindergarten. When Patrick, who is Lawrenesha's custodial guardian, asked the principal about the 50 absences Lawrenesha's teacher had logged, he just cited the teacher's personal problems. The grandmother decided enough was enough, and she put Lawrenesha in parochial school.

For Trinity Gardens, a poor neighborhood in Mobile County, Ala., that sends children to Brazier Elementary, the neglect wasn't a huge surprise. In 1965, a nearby Air Force base closed-taking away 10,000 jobs-and a series of paper mills shut down in the 1990s, stealing at least 3,000 more. Most of the Gardens' residents live below the poverty line, holding two jobs to get by. Who had time to care how many fifth graders passed a state writing test? (In 2003, only 7 percent.)

But in 2004, Brazier Elementary suddenly began to change. In just one year, workers cleaned up the halls, new teachers poured in, and test scores shot up. Noting the change, parents like Patrick sent their kids back to Brazier. Patrick thanks Brazier's new principal, Merrier Jackson, for the turnaround, calling her "a godsend." But it was actually a less heavenly group that sent Jackson to Trinity Gardens: CEOs.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 7, 2007 7:44 AM
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