In the Classroom
There’s Something About Mary (and Her Team)
by Lory Hough
The second that Mary Russo finishes speaking, Kathleen Caballero
is on her feet, giving Russo and her team from the Richard
J. Murphy K–8 School in Boston a standing ovation.
“I wanted to applaud them for what they’ve done,” Caballero says a few minutes later, after the applause has ended and 150 school leaders are filing out of the lecture hall. It is day two of an eight-day professional development session held every summer by the Ed School’s Programs in Professional Education called Leadership for Large-Scale Improvement, and Caballero, an assistant superintendent for the Miami-Dade public school system, knows good leadership when she sees it.
“It takes a tremendous amount of work to build that type of capacity in a school,” she says.
Once a school that struggled academically, the Murphy, as it’s called, has become an award-winning jewel within the Boston public school system. Professor Robert Peterkin, faculty chair of the summer program, says it’s a “daunting” place to visit, as he did recently with others from the Ed School. “It’s a showcase school,” he says. “Ultimately, [they] taught us at Harvard as much as I think we taught them.”
Russo is quick to praise her teachers, including the six seated with her, but tells the audience of teachers, superintendents, principals, board members, and department heads that the Murphy doesn’t have all of the answers.
“We’re not here to present a model,” she says. “We’re facing the same problems as you. We’re here to say, this is our story.” Part of that story is rooted in how they first went about changing. Russo relied heavily on advice from Professor Richard Elmore, C.A.S.’72, Ed.D.’76, who told her that in order to succeed, they would have to invest first and foremost in teachers.
“He said to have improved student achievement, you have to have excellent teaching in the classroom,” she says. “To have that, you have to have professional development for teachers. We’re investing a lot in professional development.”
As the session progresses, Russo and her teachers give specific examples of changes they made that could be replicated. For example, they created a clear expectations document, which is followed by every teacher and student in every grade.
“We wanted to make our work very transparent,” says Holly Concannon, a teacher at the Murphy. “We expect that all teachers will ask questions that stimulate student thinking and that seating arrangements in all classrooms will facilitate collaborative learning.”
A hand goes up. Someone wants to know to what degree students are aware of these expectations.
“Students know what’s expected of them, but we also know we can go deeper,” says Russo. “It’s important for the kids to internalize these things.” Concannon says she has seen evidence that this is happening.
“The students I have now are so different from the students I had three years ago,” she says. “They know that when they answer a question, they have to support it. Over time, it has become engrained.”
As Russo and the teachers talk, a big screen loops photos of the school, including something that has become its hallmark: posters hanging on every available wall surface. Some are useful charts — a bulleted list of what a good writer does, for example. Much is student work.
“A display of student work is a powerful way to look at each student as an individual and to show how each is progressing,” Russo says. “It gives a message to everyone who comes into the school. Every child can see him or herself in the school.”
About the Article
A version of this article originally appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of Ed., the magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Respond to this story with an e-mail to the editor.
illustration by Tim Walker
