In Black America; Eddie Orum

Okay, I have a few answers today. From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. We ought to have a system that's healthy enough to take an interest in all of our clients and all of our students.

I like the idea that you have a group of people who've decided if the system's not going to do it, we will do it, we will take care of our own, we will create these academies to provide the rights of passage, so to speak, for our young men. And I think that's a healthy philosophy, that philosophy says if the system that's created is not going to do it, then we will create a system that will do it and at the same time make demands that our tax monies provide a system that will make our children healthy. It goes back to those images that our young black men see and the best way for them to see it is to involve us in it. I certainly don't have a problem and I would encourage the African-American male academies, it's very similar to Black History Month. Mr. Eddie Orm, principal of Lyndon Baines Johnson High School, located in Austin, Texas. African-Americans have long possessed a deep faith in the power of education to bring about

a change in his or her status and in the conditions affecting their personal life. They believe that education is the key to many of the shackles that bind them. In the days of slavery, this belief is strengthened by slave masters who believe in the importance of education to credit criminal for blacks to learn to read and write. For the past two decades, new ingredients have been poured into the simple blend we knew as traditional education, court decisions, shifting social structures, educational experimentation, and the flood of new information complicated the sure role of the teacher, coupled with the fact that there are more children of color attending our public schools. I'm John L. Hanson Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. This week, a look at public education with Mr. Eddie Orm, principal of LBJ High School in Austin, Texas, in Black America. I think one concern that's very unique here to LBJ is that we would like to figure out a way for all students to be able to take honors classes.

We would like to see all students benefit from a science academy type curriculum. We would like to look at a different scheduling process here. Technologically, LBJ would like to have each classroom networked into the main computer frame where we can actually take attendance through the computer without leaving the classroom. I would like to see us to an extent, a state where we can actually televised outside speakers and resources into the classroom. I would like to see us have more peer tutoring and peer teaching. I would like to see parents actually teaching classes. Teachers have verbalized a need to be involved more in their own professional development and actually take an advantage of outside professional conferences. I would also like to see the community more involved in the school.

If schools are truly to be the center of the neighborhood, the neighborhood associations should have their meetings in schools. Education has been the buzz word for the past four years. Former President Bush said he wanted to be the education president during his administration. The crisis in our schools has been an ongoing topic within our nightly newscast and has been amazing and sowing among captains of industry. School systems around this nation are looking at new ways to educate our children. Many educators that I speak to say that we need to change the way we teach because students have changed. Also confronting our educational system is the lack of black teachers. This loss may have a devastating impact on education in this country. Students believe that both black and white students need black role models conducting their classes in order to develop positive impressions of blacks in society. Many urban school districts are looking at the possibility of black male academies, others are considering a longer school year.

Recently I spoke with Eddie Orham, principal of Lyndon Bain Johnson High School, located in Austin, Texas. Mr. Orham has been an administrator in Houston, Texas before returning to Austin. He has some innovating ideas regarding education in this country. I chose education when I was a junior in high school and can almost be specific to the date and time as to when I made that decision because I had an opportunity to observe my third great teacher who was then teaching fourth grade during my junior year in high school. After one visit to her classroom as a future teachers of America project, I left her classroom thinking that this was the field and the profession that I should enter. Looking around at high schools around the country and schools in general, there has been a lack of male figures, not particularly black male figures in general, were the other young men of your statue pursuing education as their career choice? I think we're beginning to see more.

I think years ago, men really weren't taught to go into a profession where caring and sensitivity is an issue. I think if you really enjoy education, you must enjoy the developmental stages of children to adults. You must be aware that there's a crisis occurring in all adolescence of life and you must be willing to be sensitive to those crises at the same time, be problem solvers for those students and women were taught those skills and taught that those skills were important. Men either had to accidentally fall upon that or find something in my case, I had teachers and of course both of my parents were in education, so it was a way of life for me. I simply like children, I believe that our students are our future and either we teach them how to take control of our future, or we lose our future.

In your opinion, what is the state of education, particularly here in Austin and a national perspective of the problem, if there is a problem? I think our educational system needs to completely blown up as a system. We need to rethink our goals of what are our outcomes for education and then we need to create a vehicle to cause us to meet those goals. Presently we're educating children the same way we were 100 years ago and education is very different now than it was 10 years ago. I think our best students could be educated differently and better than we are doing it now. That's another question I want to ask, if you could redo the system at what grade level would you begin and what are some of the differences you would implement? If I were going to redo the educational system, the first thing I would do is make sure

our legislators understood that education is a priority and a top priority and not just political rhetoric, I would begin with parenting as we become parents. I think as a part of that developmental stage of understanding how to birth a child, we need to teach how to keep a child healthy mentally and how to provide for that child. I think about age three. I would have organized activities for children. Two many times by the time a child is six years of age, then our economic status comes in and plays a major role in how that student develops. I would make sure that site-based management was something that was real and not just rhetorical philosophies. I would challenge each community to create an educational vehicle to meet the outcomes of standardized test requirements.

I would make sure that parents were part of the school system. I would create positions for parents to actually work in the schools with teachers. I would make sure that there were programs in place for teachers to learn how to make schools parent-friendly. We talk a lot about how parents need to be involved in the schools. We talk very little about how schools need to be involved in the families. I think that's 50 percent of the problem. I think that our students need to be aware that they are very powerful and they establish the climate of the school. Of course, I understand when we say that the principal dictates the climate of the school, I think that's important only in that how that principal is able to empower his or her students. Because if students believe the system works for them and belongs to them, then they will cherish that system.

If students believe that that's a system set up by adults, for adults, then why should they assume ownership in it? I think following those philosophies will dramatically change schools. I would assume that somewhat describes your management style as principal LBJ here in Austin. It does. It definitely describes my attitude of how to be a principal. I believe that it's working here at LBJ. You are in the Austin system. You left Austin and went to Houston and now you've returned. Because you give us some differences and similarities between the two districts, one of course is a large urban school district and I would assume Austin is somewhat less than that. Very very different organizations. Upon leaving Austin and arriving in Houston, it was apparent to me, number one, that even though we have the same state mandates, the district's interpretation of how we are to

carry this out or what is meant by this mandate were very different. As I look at personnel and how you hire teachers, very different. The most difference probably came from having an urban environment. Let's take drugs, for instance. When I left Austin, substance abuse basically meant leaving school during lunch, getting high. In Houston, substance abuse meant having your brother in third grade threatened because if he didn't deliver a stash for the dealer, then he would be hurt on the way coming home. Austin had some very creative things going on. I was able to take some of those same things to Houston and therefore my Austin experience benefited my thinking and my progress in Houston. I find just as dramatic a difference coming from Houston back to Austin in that living

in the fifth ward, seeing what the fifth ward was about, working with students who understood what it was like being on the streets and surviving on the streets. Then coming back to Austin, I now realize that we in Austin are laid back, grassroots, very comfortable and we have no idea about what's around the corner with Austin becoming an urban city. I think that if I had one desire, I would send educators from Austin to cities like Houston and say, this is us five years from now. We have a chance to prepare for it and I believe that most of us in Austin still see Austin as it was 15, 20 years ago and we aren't ready to realize that across the street from every school is probably a crack house, a drug house that just as in other cities, urban

cities, you have guns in the schools. Of course, we know of incidents but we need to begin preparing for schools of the future. We need to remember that 290 connects Houston in Austin and we need to begin dealing with that but two very different situations. I think it's urban and suburban differences. Do you believe that school boards and central administrators really have a clue or insight into the students they're trying to educate for the future? I really believe that most of them have a clue. I want to believe that people run for the school board and are in central administration for all of the right reasons. I think that the politics of the organization interferes in awful lot. I would like to see each decision that we make be a decision based upon how it affects students and not how will it help me politically or how much pressure will I receive from this

or who is introducing it. I think until our upper administration and policy makers are prepared to deal with all students in all different settings, they're not going to have the time to improve the system. The bureaucracy of their positions tend to get in the way. Going back to your last answer about living in Fifth Ward, does it make a lot of sense for teachers to become involved in the communities in which they teach a lot of teachers live outside of the district in which they hold employment? I think there are two issues that I think first of all, in order to connect with a student we need to know who that student is and what that student's environment is. It helps if you live in the neighborhood. It can occur without living in the neighborhood, but that means that you need to spend some time in that student's church and that student's park with that student's family, with that

student's friends. We need to know what happens to them when they go home. I think the other issue is that schools are such tough jobs that your average educator at four o'clock wants to go to his or her own life to try to keep their children stable and to simply try to refuel for the next day. What we really need to do as a part of reform and education is to make sure that our educators have a very healthy system to work in because if we're burning out our best educators, then they're not ready. We're not ready for our children the next day. You're in a unique position here at LBJ in that the school is a magnet school, a science academy, but it's also a regular high school. How do you juggle the two different priorities between the two different entities? My goal is to take down the barrier.

I would like to see our science academy be perceived as an academy status more than a magnet status. We have very talented students who will come to LBJ because of our science academy, but they don't stay because of their talents. They stay because of something that occurs in that program. If we can agree that something great goes on in that program that motivates that particular talented student to stay in LBJ, then we ought to be able to take that same kind of magic or interest and make LBJ an interesting school for all students. So instead of my goal is instead of the academy being a separate entity of LBJ, we learn from the academy about what really keeps students motivated and what turns them on and we're able to place that in all of our courses. My goal as far as juggling the two would be that real soon it becomes not a juggle, but it becomes a school where we have students who are either in a very good science academy

program or in a very good leadership academy program or in a very good math program or there's a fine arts academy here in Austin, yet I would put the fine arts program here at LBJ up against any fine arts program in the city. We have an excellent athletic program. So I foresee LBJ is being one of the best high schools in the nation, not because we have a science academy, but because we have several excellent academies. The dollars being spent wisely in your opinion towards students obtaining a good education. I would like to see us as we set up a budget to do any efficiency study of different programs. I think most budgets are set based upon a political system in ideologies. If there's a program that my child is in and I can go to the board and speak pretty

loudly about that program and if I can have several of my neighbors to also speak for that program. The tendency for that program to be kept in the budget throughout the state, throughout the nation, I think what's missing is that we need to look at how effective certain programs are and how efficient those programs are. And if they're effective and efficient, we keep them. I would venture to say that we certainly need more money in education, but we also need to spend our money better. How important is for parental involvement in the education of children, particularly here at LBJ and in general? I think one of the reasons that we have so much success here at LBJ is because we have a strong parental involvement. Even parents who aren't in the school working are at home working with their child on school issues. I would say that any school that's low performing will probably have a low percentage of parental

involvement. Any school that's very high performing will have a high percentage of parental involvement. Has there been any significant upward changes for the best and the reassessment and testing that has been going on here in the state of Texas? We've added test to our system. We've even tried to make our tests less culturally biased. I personally would like to see us de-inphasize standardized tests. I like the concept of portfolio grading. I'd like to see a student be judged and graded based upon how he or she improves his or her writing or abilities. I'd like to see a student more involved in that grading process. You have more parents who are competitive with what kind of grade my child receives and

that's helpful in some places. But I'd like to see that child and I'd like to see that teacher involved in that process being more creative with how do you measure that student's abilities. I certainly think we need a standardized test to judge whether or not we've mastered essential elements. That soon we're going to be teaching test and that's not going to help our students. And speaking with your staff of teachers here at LBJ, what are some of the biggest concerns that they have as educators working under you and working within the system? I think one concern that's very unique here to LBJ is that we would like to figure out a way for all students to be able to take honors classes. We would like to see all students benefit from a science academy type curriculum. We would like to look at a different scheduling process here. Technologically, LBJ would like to have each classroom networked into the main computer

frame where we can actually take attendance through the computer without leaving the classroom. I would like to see us to an extent, a state where we can actually televised outside speakers and resources into the classroom. I would like to see us have more peer tutoring and peer teaching. I would like to see parents actually teaching classes. Teachers have verbalized a need to be involved more in their own professional development and actually take an advantage of outside professional conferences. I would also like to see the community more involved in the school. If schools are truly to be the center of the neighborhood, the neighborhood associations should have their meetings in schools.

Parks and Recreations could be on school campuses. On service organizations, why have a school in one facility and support services for families in a different building if we're all designed to support families? Why not save money on facilities and staff and put us together? Are you particularly enjoying your new position thus far? This is the first half semester you've been here at LBJ. I'm quite sure it's been unique and challenging. It's been very unique. I think LBJ is one of the greatest schools to work in. I feel fortunate to have been selected to be the principal of LBJ. I hope that LBJ feels the same, but I certainly feel that we have an excellent student body, a very talented staff, a very culturally diverse school, and very supportive parents. With those ingredients, we can work magic here at LBJ.

Are you finding students realizing the worth of an education and how important it is for their future wellbeing? I think students as a whole have lost out on that process. I think that adults have really lost the perception that education is key. It's evident in the amount of legislation that deals with schools, effective legislation. That's evident to me in the amount of funding that comes to schools. It's evident to me in how the media chooses to program and highlight the negatives of schools and not the positives, and not understand that the students who are watching focus in on what they watch. I think schools to students these days are organizations that they're forced to attend as opposed to organizations that belong to them that they want to attend. How do students become an integral part of management of a particular school that they

attend? Can students do that? We all learn. They will do it if we afford them an opportunity to do it. We can learn more many times in our failures than we can in our successes. I think the process, if I ask a student to plan an assembly, and if I create a process where we take it step by step, we can learn from that process, but if that assembly does not go as well as I would have wanted, looking at where and how we could have accomplished things differently and how we can build upon that has a lot for us to learn. I think students want to be in charge their maturity level and their skills are not always to that point, but that's what schools are for. LBJ also has a mentoring program from a group of African-American males who have come in

and assist you all in your efforts. How important is that for the nurturing of these young men, particularly in this day and time? I think it's very important when you look at the statistics that show our African-American males. So it's very important that we look at what we're doing to educate African-American men. And it's important that we do something different. And I think if you look at the images of black men on television, there's a real need for us to provide them some different images. Our African-American young men do not see success stories on television. They see failure stories. By us having the mentorship program with Project Men, with a group of African-American men who are coming in, then my male students see that number one, we do have role models. These role models do care. These role models do have high expectations.

And it's also important for non-African-American men to see that there are a group of African-American men who will and can make a difference. On that note, a lot of school districts around the country are instituting all male academies, particularly African-American male academies. Those academies necessary and will they be successful when they efforts in your opinion? I think they should not be necessary. And the sense that if we ought to have a system that's healthy enough to take an interest in all of our clients and all of our students, I like the idea that you have a group of people who've decided if the system's not going to do it, we will do it. We will take care of our own. We will create these academies to provide the rights of passage, so to speak, for our young men.

And I think that's a healthy philosophy. That philosophy says, if the system that's created is not going to do it, then we will create a system that will do it and at the same time make demands that our tax monies provide a system that will make our children healthy. Mr. Eddie Orum, principal of Lyndon Baines Johnson High School, located in Austin, Texas. If you have a question or comment or suggestions asked your future in Black America programs, write us. Remember views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for in Black America's technical producer Dana White here, I'm John L. Hanson, Jr. Please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes Longhorn Radio Network Communication Building B UT Austin, Austin, Texas 78712 That's in Black America cassettes Longhorn Radio Network Communication Building B UT Austin, Texas 78712

From the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network. I'm John L. Hanson, Jr. Join me this week on in Black America. I certainly don't have a problem and I would encourage the African male academies. It's very similar to Black History Month. I have a problem with us taking one month to study our history and our curriculum. Look at public education this week on in Black America.