New HISD Chief: @tgriersd

Terry Grier, the new HISD superintendent was interviewed by the Chron's Ericka Mellon. About a quarter of the article's real estate is devoted to HISD's dropout and graduation rates (the bold emphasis on one of the answers is mine):

Q: What are your priorities for HISD?

A: Houston is a good urban district. It has the potential to be the best large school district in the country. There's no question the dropout rate is unacceptable, as is the graduation rate.

Q: How will you improve the rates?

A: Most anywhere I've worked you will see significant decreases in the dropout rate and significant increases in the graduation rate. Long-term strategies include making sure students are in school on a regular basis.

Q: How do you get kids to show up at school?

A: You hold principals accountable for attendance. You use your telephone messaging system, and when kids are absent, you contact parents. You make home visits. You may have attendance incentive programs. We did that in San Diego this past year and improved our student attendance by almost a half a percentage point.

Q: What's another strategy to curb dropouts?

A: Last year in San Diego, we installed new state-of-the-art computer labs in all of our high schools, and the principals staffed those labs with what we call a graduation coach. We allowed students to use a computer program to retake courses they had failed.

I think that is a fabulous idea. If you know what happens in summer school - which is the only way in most school districts to makeup a credit if you failed a class - then you know that the student pays money to go to a classroom, receive very basic direct instruction over 3-4 weeks time, and take a couple of tests, including a final exam. Even science summer school classes are taught this way - no labs. To witness this routine really makes you wonder why a kid can't just take the class via the internet and take their tests online.

This would address a rigid, uncaring system that does not make accommodations for students who need some extra time to understand the content. If we want all kids to learn, and all kids to graduate, we need to get creative with moving them on through the graduation requirements.

And, indeed, Terry Grier is on twitter - @tgriersd - with "sd" for San Diego, where he is is currently the Superintendent. Let's see if he changes his handle to @tsgrierh when he signs the HISD contract.