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School officials in San Francisco try to bolster student performance by making teachers and administrators responsible for their students' performances.

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JIM LEHRER: Spencer Michels has the schools story. He reports from San Francisco on a program to hold teachers and principals responsible for their students' performances.

SPENCER MICHELS: At the end of the last school year the teachers and students of Sanchez Elementary School and seven other schools in San Francisco were told they weren't performing up to par. At the end of this school year they gave a presentation to try to prove to District Superintendent Bill Rojas that changes they'd made during the year had made a difference.

SPOKESPERSON: Our goal here at Sanchez is for every first grader to read to us every single day. And so we'd like you to choose a child to read to you, and then you can give him a sticker afterwards.

SPENCER MICHELS: If the school's progress didn't impress the superintendent, he could have ordered all the teachers and the principal transferred out of the building. Overhauling the school by moving out the old staff and bringing in a new team is called "reconstitution." It's a radical and controversial way to transform city schools that have been plagued by low test scores, discipline problems, and low attendance.

BILL ROJAS, Superintendent: On occasion you get to an institution where it just doesn't work. It's dysfunction. And what do you do? Do you keep saying we're going to keep pouring more money, or we're going to keep trying a new strategy, or do you at some point say, this doesn't work, let's try something radically different? And reconstitution is trying something radically different.

SPENCER MICHELS: San Francisco has been at the forefront of a growing national movement to force schools and teachers to be more accountable for the performance of their students. Reconstitution came early here--1982--when a federal judge saw it as a way to improve the court desegregated schools. One of the first schools to get a new shipment of teachers was Sir Francis Drake Elementary, which, in its new incarnation, is called Malcolm X Academy. This school leads the city in percentage of students who live in public housing and it's second in the number of students receiving aid to families with dependent children. In the old days, those statistics translated into abysmal test scores and low morale. That's not the case today.

TEACHER: Now what's the caterpillar doing?

SPENCER MICHELS: Under reconstitution an entirely new faculty and new principal came on board. They spent time working on a vision of the school where all kids could succeed and where all teachers were held responsible for ensuring high achievement. The current principal, Bonnie Bergum, thinks that the new start was the key.

BONNIE BERGUM, Principal: The staff here felt really proud. They felt like they were part of something new; that they were building it; were creating a new school. Again, you know, we all bought in--everybody was focused on it, and it wasn't a--we didn't feel like our school--the school was being punished.

SPENCER MICHELS: Each reconstituted school also was given more money, more staff, and an instructional focus, a magnet to attract kids citywide. At Malcolm X it was technology. Math scores at the school are now above the national average, and there is a waiting list to get into what once was an undesirable neighborhood school.

TEACHER: Ready students.

STUDENTS AND TEACHER: I pledge to be the best possible--

SPENCER MICHELS: A study of the first six schools reconstituted in San Francisco showed that they improved more than those who had not been transformed. Harvard Professor Gary Orfield led the research team.

GARY ORFIELD, Harvard University: These schools really made much better progress than the other similar schools in San Francisco. And not only did they look differently on the measurable outcomes like achievement and students staying in the same school for longer periods of time and so forth, and a stronger kind of core curriculum, but they also felt much better.

SPENCER MICHELS: So in order for the whole system to improve continually, the report recommended that three schools be reconstituted each year until the task was completed. That recommendation paved the way for the reconstitutions of the 1990's. The question is whether all the reconstituted schools will end up as successful as Malcolm X. At Balboa, a high school with 1500 students and new staff this year, the jury is still out.

ELAINE KOURY, Principal: Good morning, Kenya!

SPENCER MICHELS: Principal Elaine Koury was brought in last summer to turn around a school where almost half the students taking a basic skills test scored in the bottom fourth nationwide. Koury's morning greeting to the students, which has caught on, is part of her attempt to create an atmosphere of civility.

ELAINE KOURY: During the first year what we're trying to do is change the expectation, raise the standards, begin to change the culture into that culture of civility, and try to convince everybody that everybody can succeed.

SPENCER MICHELS: The school got a facelift and a new faculty. Michael Gemmet has an unusual perspective on the transition. He was a student at the school, a teacher on the faculty that was removed, and now a student adviser on the new staff.

MICHAEL GEMMET, Student Adviser: When it happens to you personally, it's an insult at first, and it's very hard to accept. But when you are able to separate the personal part of that with what's being attempted in the school, the change personally for me has been good. I have sort of gotten kind of a kick in the butt, you know, and said, this is what we really want to do here, and this is what we really need to address.

SPENCER MICHELS: Although experts say it takes three years to measure whether reconstitution is working, Gemmet thinks the school "is" starting to turn around.

MICHAEL GEMMET: I see change almost daily. I see a respectability with a lot of students that I did not see before. Reconstitution has done one thing for me. It has made me reaffirm my commitment to this job.

SPENCER MICHELS: That's not the case with teacher Chris Pehl, who is quitting Balboa after five years. She does not think that teachers who were brought in were given enough time or direction to make a real difference this year.

CHRIS PEHL, Teacher: Real change, real anything has to have a really good foundation. Reconstitution doesn't set a foundation, at least in the way that they've done it at Balboa High School, without any--any requirement for a plan to be submitted about where are you going to. And you don't just start three months before school starts.

SPENCER MICHELS: In the last round of reconstitution the time given for a new school staff to prepare for changes has decreased. But Principal Koury maintains that there was enough time at Balboa to develop a strong academic focus.

ELAINE KOURY: There's definitely a plan, and there have been plans, and actually I think what people want, this is America. Everybody wants the change to happen immediately, instantaneously, and the real truth is that when you're dealing with change in young people's lives doesn't come fast. It doesn't come full blown. It comes with a lot of day to day caring.

SPENCER MICHELS: Pehl argues that reconstitution showed little caring for either the students or the teachers.

CHRIS PEHL: There was very bad teaching there. There was some very bad teaching there. Don't make everybody pay for that. Take those teachers out of education.

SPOKESMAN: I said, okay, you're opposed to reconstitution, so what then are you for?

SPENCER MICHELS: In support of its members, the Teachers Union and its head, Jean-Marie Shelley, have fought hard against reconstitution.

JEAN-MARIE SHELLEY, Union President: From the outset it seemed offensive to us because so much scape-goated teachers and support personnel in a school for what seems to me to be clearly all the ills of society. If evidence were produced that reconstitution improves student outcomes, then we would have to back off of our opposition to it and embrace it, but that hasn't happened. There's been nothing to give us any reason to do that.

SPENCER MICHELS: But the school district points to places like Visitation Valley Middle School, where they see indicators that reconstitution has been good for student achievement. Before reconstitution, the math and reading scores at Visitation Valley were among the worst in the city. Disciplinary problems also were frequent, and the school was alienated from the community, according to activist Vernon Long.

VERNON LONG, Organizer: Teachers were unapproachable. They felt like who are you to tell me, or who are you to ask me about a student?

SPENCER MICHELS: When John Flores was brought in as principal three years ago, he worked hard to gain the trust and support of the community. He sent teachers out on house calls to talk to parents, and he recently got a grant for social workers to be stationed full-time at the school.

SPOKESMAN: So he had the equivalent of a sixth grade level, where now he's at eighth grade.

SPENCER MICHELS: Teachers and the new social service staff now hold regular meetings where they try to deal with the personal and home problems students may be facing, problems that impact their school work.

JOHN FLORES, Principal: To me there's no other way around it. I work in a very low income area. These kids need these services. If they're going to be successful, then that's what needs to be done, and that will support the test scores rising.

SPENCER MICHELS: Test scores have started to inch upwards. The school is perceived as a safer place. More students are taking place in school activities like the band. Vernon Long is impressed.

VERNON LONG: Attitude of the children, attitude of the teachers has changed. You just have to be there to see it, but I've been there back and forth; I work in the community; I understand what's going on, so I can see this change.

SPENCER MICHELS: Val Tagaloa is one of the few teachers who was kept on when the school was reconstituted. He agrees there have been positive changes, but he credits the new principal and not reconstitution.

VAL TAGALOA, Teacher: We could have kept the whole staff, but we have a leader that has enthusiasm, has a new vision, and changed things around from what it was before, and if we had kept the old staff with Dr. Flores, we still would have accomplished the same goals.

SPENCER MICHELS: Other troubled schools tried just changing their principals, according to Superintendent Rojas, and it never worked. And, besides, he says, the threat of reconstitution has made everyone perform better.

BILL ROJAS: All of the schools are doing better, and they've all gotten the message of improvement. What we're proving is that what we knew all along; that if they wish to, they can succeed.

SPENCER MICHELS: Since 1982, reconstitution has gone through many subtle alterations, but the biggest change may be on the way. Because of union pressure and the fact that many schools have improved, the superintendent and the union are currently negotiating a plan to end reconstitution. A total of 14 schools will have been reconstituted. If the talks succeed, schools on probation, like Sanchez, will be allowed to stay intact. As part of the deal, union members must agree for the first time ever that individual teachers can be transferred against their will if they aren't cooperating in changing a school. And the agreement must be approved by a court.

SPOKESPERSON: New teachers do what old teachers cannot do. That's the question.

SPENCER MICHELS: But other cities are about to confront the protests and promises that reconstitution brings. In February, Philadelphia announced plans to transfer the majority of staffs at two high schools. That move sparked a three-day student protest at one of those schools and complaints from the union. An announcement in Denver to reconstitute two elementary schools angered some teachers but brought a more cooperative reaction from the union.

LEONARD FOX, Denver Teachers Union: We've got to take the right kind of steps to ensure quality education for all of the children in Denver.

SPENCER MICHELS: But researcher Orfield, while a supporter of reconstitution, has words of warning for all taking such a dramatic step.

GARY ORFIELD, Harvard University: I think some people think it's just a simple answer and you just do this, and it'll solve the whole problem, and, you know, I would like to sit down with any of them and tell them that's wrong; this is hard; this is expensive. It takes a lot of time and effort. It has costs.

SPENCER MICHELS: Both the Philadelphia and Denver plans will go into effect next fall.

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