New Tune to SOL Scores

WHO'S RUNNING OUR SCHOOLS? Part 1 of 2

The kids wanted to play hip-hop.

It was 2001, and James Lane was a first-time music teacher and band director at Rogers-Herr Middle School in Durham, North Carolina. He was teaching from a textbook featuring dusty old songs like the 17th-century Old English ballad “Scarborough Fair.”

“I remember looking at my kids about three weeks in and reflecting on some of the challenges that I had with [classroom] management from time to time, and I thought: I think they’re bored,” he says. “How inspiring am I really to these kids by teaching from this book?”

So, Lane — now Virginia’s 25th superintendent of public instruction — stayed up late one night, writing out a music chart for a song that was on the radio from Outkast’s latest album at the time, “Stankonia.” The song he brought to class the next day was an instrumental version of “So Fresh, So Clean,” the third single released from the record.

“I remember picking up my trumpet and …” He sings the notes. “And as soon as I got into the song, my drummer immediately broke into …” And he mimics the drum tempo.

“I was like, ‘Wait a minute, how do you know to do that? I haven’t taught you that yet!’ And then my kids started to pick up on the song, and one of my tuba players, who played tuba at church, started playing his own bass line underneath it — that I hadn’t written, that was way better than what I had written — and I saw the kid who never brought his trumpet to class look up when he heard the song and run into the room where I kept the extra instruments, grab it and sit down and play.

“I remember leaving class that day … thinking that every day needs to be like today if I’m going to get them to learn this material.”

Lane was appointed in May by Gov. Ralph Northam to lead Virginia’s K-12 schools, containing more than a million students in 132 districts.

What transpired during his first days of teaching offers a view into what drives the educator: How can every teacher create continual moments of discovery for every student in the commonwealth’s schools?

The focus on “creating a great experience for every student” — a point Lane makes again and again — is a theme the superintendent is tasked to carry throughout the state’s department of education and its schools.

“I’m Prayin’ for You”

James Lane stands almost 6 feet and is built like a college football player. His uniform today, however, is a blue suit and tie, with red and blue argyle socks and brown leather loafers. He personifies the buttoned-down, reliable schools administrator parents hope for, and at nearly 41 years old, he still comes off as youthful. His expression often shows calm curiosity, the look of a man expecting a question or a good story — except that he’s more likely to tell an anecdote to make a point himself.

This is the presence Lane brings to St. Clare Walker Middle School in Middlesex County one late-August morning. He has come as a guest of honor to address educators, county officials and school staff in the place where he took his first job as a principal, eventually becoming superintendent of the county’s schools. Lane is beloved here, and the energy greeting him on the way to the auditorium has an expectant buzz.

The school’s multipurpose room is packed. Lane gets hugged, glad-handed and patted on the back. He is loved and genuinely gives it back to everyone from teachers and staff to school board members and county supervisors.

Twenty minutes later, not long into his speech, Lane calls an audible, telling the crowd he will bypass his structured speech to be more intimate. “I think I’m going to take some time and tell some good old Middlesex stories,” Lane says.

He goes back to his first day of work as the new St. Clare Walker principal, when he walked into the school office and found the office manager, an older woman named Miss Arnetta Kidd, at the reception desk with her eyes closed. She appeared to be sleeping.

“I waited for what only had to be 30, 45 seconds, but it felt like 10 minutes, you know. And I said, ‘Miss Kidd, I, I hate to wake you.’ She said, ‘Wake me?’ She said, ‘I, I, I, I’m awake!’ She said, ‘I saw you pull in. I’m prayin’ for you!’ ”

The audience erupts, and Lane has the crowd. He waits as the giggles die down and the applause fades.

“I said, ‘Well, uh, thank you. … Is there something I should know about?’ And she said, ‘No, because I know one thing: When the prayers go up, the blessings come down.’ ” More laughs.

Miss Kidd retired a few years later, after Lane had moved on from Middlesex, he says, and he told her, “Make sure you pray for me every day like you did when I was here.”

Gigs Aplenty

For certain, the blessings have come pouring down on the education career of James F. Lane, who was born in Kentucky but raised in North Carolina. He attended schools in Raleigh before college and then earned his bachelor’s degree in trumpet performance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He followed that up with a master’s in music education, a master’s in school administration at North Carolina State University and, finally, a doctorate in education at the University of Virginia.

Lane’s original goal was to become a professional musician. He worked a circuit of clubs with several bands around Chapel Hill, including longtime act The Castaways, as well as the Countdown Quartet, an offshoot of the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

But a day job seemed prudent. “There are not that many world-famous trumpet players,” Lane says with easy humility.

So he got his start in 2000 as a music teacher at Rogers-Herr Middle School in Durham, where he stayed for five years and worked briefly as an assistant principal. From his second job, at Brogdon Middle School in Durham, he then moved to Richmond to marry his wife, Sarah, a marketing executive at CarMax. The couple met in the marching band at UNC-Chapel Hill, when Sarah was a freshman and James a senior. Today they have two children, a boy and a girl — Charlie, 9, and Kerrington, 5 — and live in Chesterfield.

Lane has logged a meteoric trip up the ladder since coming to Virginia in 2006. For five years, he commuted daily to Middlesex County, 65 miles from his home, then in the Museum District. After his principal position at St. Clare Walker, he stepped up to superintendent of Middlesex schools, then to the same position in Goochland and Chesterfield counties, each stint growing shorter as his star rose. He spent three and a half years in Goochland and less than two in Chesterfield before being tapped by the governor. (See sidebar, page 110)

Lane’s achievements and attitude won him fans across the board — from county officials and teachers to parents and students.

Those who have worked with Lane describe a man who emphasizes collaboration and consensus.

“He’s not a micromanager,” says Donald “Rusty” Fairheart, the chief of staff for Chesterfield schools and former interim superintendent. “But at the same time, he provides the support for people to be successful in their roles.”

Lane recalls a situation in Chesterfield when he first arrived as the county’s new superintendent, in 2016. He learned that two schools were being denied state accreditation, so he and other administrators worked to understand why. One school needed more English as second language instruction, and the other needed remedial education teachers to bring students up to speed. Working with the school board, Lane and his team of administrators were able to allocate about $500,000 total across both schools to get them the resources they needed. The next year, one school was accredited, and this year, the second hit the mark.

Jennifer Rucker, the principal of Goochland Middle School, arrived at the district in 2013. “I think I was one of the first principals he hired,” she says. She worked with him for three years, until he was hired away to Chesterfield, and recalls a weekly meeting that she and other schools administrators had with their boss. “It wasn’t a meeting where he was dictating,” she says. “I felt comfortable challenging him.”

At one point, she says, Lane took her aside and praised her for being honest and committed. “You don’t give up. You just don’t give up,” she remembers him saying.

Carrie Coyner, the Bermuda District representative on the Chesterfield County School Board, credits Lane with being a dynamo administrator who proved himself in just a short time in the county. “James works at a very fast pace. He’s able to think about so many things at the same time and multitask. That was really what we needed.”

And despite the rank of his position, she notes, he still looks for opportunities to interact with students. “He is the first to walk into a school and pick up an instrument and start playing whatever the kids are playing in band,” she says. “It would always shock the kids, because they’re like, ‘Who is this guy?’ ”

No Talk of Scores

This guy, in fact, is a man whose job as the state’s top public instruction administrator possibly connects to more than a quarter of Virginia’s population. Across 132 school districts, there are more than 1.2 million public school students in Virginia and approximately 95,000 teachers. Add in parents, schools staffers and administrators — and the total tops 2 million Virginians easily. All are riding, somewhat, on the ship that Lane helms.

During the first few months in his new job, Lane says, he was touring as much of the state as he could to meet school staff throughout the various divisions, while also learning the complexities of the Department of Education. He is a believer in knowing every administrator, principal, teacher and even student possible.

But Lane’s ultimate attention is also geared toward longer-term priorities summed up by a rhetorical question he poses during an interview: “How can we have a great experience for every child?”

It’s the basis of a mantra he shares with other teachers. “Teach the kids the way that they want to be taught,” he says during his keynote speech in the Middlesex auditorium, later adding, “If you know [the students], then you know how they want to learn, and you know how to design those experiences.”

“Teach the kids the way that they want to be taught.” —James Lane, Virginia’s superintendent of public instruction

The appointment of James Lane as the chief of Virginia’s K-12 schools comes at a time when education is at a convergence of technology, research and greater sociocultural awareness. “This is really a historic time to be at the Department of Education,” he says.

Later, he notes that what makes the moment particularly historic is the state’s move to change the way it accredits schools — a result he helped lobby for while he was the Goochland superintendent. What Lane supports is a “balanced performance assessment” that doesn’t just observe the snapshot of a student’s test scores but looks more widely at how much any given student has improved over time, even high-performing students.

Lane adheres to the idea that the human relationships between teachers and students matter most. As public scrutiny of standardized testing has grown skeptical in recent years, Lane has been on the leading edge of de-emphasizing the pass-fail nature of the Standards of Learning (SOL) tests as the only benchmark of students’ progress.

“When I came into education in 2000, we immediately began this focus on testing,” Lane said in 2016 at an announcement of his hiring to lead the Chesterfield schools, the fifth-largest district in the state. “I worked tirelessly with the members of the General Assembly to reduce the mandates of testing. And everywhere I’ve been, you will never hear me talk about SOL scores. We talk about the growth of the students. We talk about engagement. And every day, the message that I’m going to carry forth is, ‘How can me we make it so that every child thinks that learning is fun.’ ”

His deep interest in assessing the engagement and growth of students is likely one of the reasons Lane has earned the nickname “Dr. Data” among some of his colleagues. The nickname was mentioned by Lane’s former colleague from Goochland, Pete Gretz — now the Middlesex superintendent — when Lane spoke there in August. Lane says that the moniker, rarely used in his presence, comes from his examination of statistics that can point out areas where students need direct help from teachers and administrators.

An example he offers is the fact that students in Chesterfield were showing up to school hungry, so administrators directed that every student get a free meal in the morning.

As for the SOLs, Lane points to the Virginia Department of Education’s recent de-emphasis of the standardized test as the major point of student assessment school accountability. Along the way, he says, “we lost focus on the reason we were assessing students.”

He notes that tests like the SOLs should help improve instruction of students, but because of pressure to monitor student performance — largely due to the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act — “assessment became the main thing.”

After taking over as Goochland schools chief in late 2012, Lane and his assistant superintendent, Stephen Geyer, formed a taskforce to explore better ways of assessing what students were learning, according to a 2015 story in this magazine. Back then, Lane commented that the SOL accountability system as it stood was an incomplete measurement of both schools’ and students’ performance.

He gave a hypothetical example of a student who might improve from a 250 score to 395 in one year — when 400 passes as proficient.

“The teacher that helped that student is a miracle worker,” Lane said in 2015. “But in the Standards of Learning era, that kid is considered a failure.”

Lane believes the revised accreditation standards for Virginia schools, adopted by the state board of education in 2017, will take pressure off schools — as well as teachers and students.

On the same day that lane spoke to his Middlesex County colleagues,  the state Department of Education released the first set of SOL scores, from the 2017-2018 academic year, under the new standards of school accountability. The department also reiterated how students and schools would be assessed under the new system.

Under observation will be how students show growth in English and math toward meeting state benchmarks. According to the department, schools will also be gauged for their “overall achievement in science and reducing chronic absenteeism. High schools will also be evaluated on their success in raising graduation rates and reducing dropout rates.”

“An emphasis on overall pass rates can obscure the needs of groups of students who require additional support, both inside the classroom and in the community,” Lane said in August. “Under the new accreditation standards, schools and school divisions are required to develop and implement plans to address achievement gaps and ensure that all students have the resources they need to succeed.”

Lane says the SOLs are effective as “a snapshot of a point in time” — yet do not offer a full view of how teachers and students are working together. He makes an old saw of the saying that the tests should be “a flashlight and not a hammer.”

Some have feared the hammer, though. The pressure of the tests moved parents statewide to increasingly opt their children out of the assessments in recent years.

“You’re not teaching to a moment in time,” Lane says.

Instead, the goal is to deepen students’ ability in the “five C’s”: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication and character.

It comes back to one of Lane’s biggest themes: The interactions between students and educators are, in some ways, sacred.

Life-Altering

Lane’s vision for Virginia schools heavily emphasizes the issue of equity in education — a focus he has kept through his previous superintendent roles and even before. Repeatedly, he expresses the goal — a belief — that every student in the state should have an equal opportunity at “a great life.”

Equity, he says, “is not a thing that you do.” Instead, the superintendent considers equity for children “a lens through which every decision is made.”

The words come so easily and casually from Lane that it’s easy to wave them off as shtick from a career administrator, except that his track record in Middlesex, Goochland and Chesterfield shows a consistent focus on that exact issue and a narrowing of the achievement gap between minority students and others. Achievement gaps are the range of performance on tests that measure math skills, reading abilities, writing skills and science competency. They can also include the numbers of students who complete school and graduate versus those who don’t.

While in Goochland, Lane oversaw a significant reduction in the gap between minority and non-minority students. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which covered his 2017 Superintendent of the Year award from the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, Lane implemented the Balanced Assessment Project that garnered national recognition for charting students’ academic improvement. The approach required a change of mindset on behalf of the teachers and administrative staff to engage in  “deeper learning,” which observes how students apply their knowledge, and not just what they memorize.

The graduation rate for African-American students improved by 16 percent from 2013 to 2016, and the graduation gap between minority and nonminority students closed in the same period, according to county schools data.

Lane sees the classroom as a sanctuary for every student to pursue learning to the best of their abilities.

“Every student has the ability to think deeply,” he says. Lane sees the crux of that growth anchored in the relationship between people — students and teachers. The purpose of teachers, as he explains it, is to help students explore knowledge, to bring their own curiosities to the table, rather than to absorb information and repeat it.

Going back to his days teaching music at Rogers-Herr, Lane reminisces about the steps he took to make sure each kid had a chance to play.

“In music class, forgetting your instrument is the same as forgetting your homework,” Lane says. But also some students couldn’t afford an instrument, so Lane went out to thrift stores and bought up guitars and horns and various other instruments. It’s a prime example of what he sees today as a solution that creates equity in learning. As a teacher, it’s one thing he could handle on his own. As an administrator, he aims to have the same impact by supporting teachers and administrators who have the identical passion but need the autonomy and resources he’s empowered to deliver.

Lance Scott and his brother were in Lane’s music class years ago at Rogers-Herr, and Scott once tried to get away with writing an assigned paper on a made-up jazz musician. “He obviously called me out on it,” Scott says with a chuckle.

He says he learned to respect Lane, even though “we bumped heads sometimes.”

But he credits his old teacher with introducing him to the world that still dominates his life: “I was always encouraged to be myself musically.”

 Scott, 29, works today as a professional bass player — both stand-up and electric — and teaches music to elementary schoolers in Durham at Mt. Zion Christian Academy.   

He recalls when Lane would pick up his horn and play to lead the band. “He could play, too,” Scott says. Later, reflecting on the experience, he adds, “It altered my entire life.”

Lane’s Directives

Lane says he took on the state superintendent position with four directives from his bosses, Gov. Ralph Northam and state Secretary of Education Atif Qarni.

The top priority is to emphasize early childhood education as the pathway to school readiness. Part of that challenge, Lane says, will be to create a system that ushers children to the kindergarten classroom as a continuation, not just the beginning, of their education. Other experts in the early-childhood arena point to regarding day-care providers more as teachers than as babysitters.

Also, Lane says he will commit to reducing the statewide teacher shortage, while also angling for higher pay to lure the most talented professionals to Virginia’s classrooms.

A third focus of Lane’s to-do list is to broaden career and technical training avenues for students who are more intent on opting for a job sooner after high school. For the college-bound, Lane also plans to work on expanding dual-enrollment programs that can propel degree-seeking students before they graduate high school.

The Northams’ Education Push

Gov. Northam and his executive team have taken the baton from the administration of Gov. Terry McAuliffe in a steady push to raise the bottom line for children in the commonwealth.

The administration’s heightened focus on children statewide is underscored by two things. One is Northam’s reconvening of the Children’s Cabinet, a monthly conference of state secretaries — begun in the previous administration — with a mission to address the health and welfare of young Virginians through a coordinated, multidisciplinary approach. Another telltale sign is the person standing beside the governor: a former science teacher and early-childhood education advocate, first lady Pam Northam.

Pam Northam’s initiative as first lady zeroes in on early childhood — specifically prekindergarten education — and for that reason, the first lady, acting somewhat as the eyes and ears of the administration, became attuned to Lane’s persona and was impressed with his knowledge.

School readiness — meaning how prepared a child is for their first day of education — dovetails with the state superintendent’s objective of reducing the achievement gap for students who traditionally come from less-advantaged, minority communities.

Northam recalls conversations with kindergarten teachers in her listening-tours around the state where she learned their perspective of greeting children in the classroom on the first day of school. They were able to tell, almost at a glance, which students were ready to engage in learning. “You pretty much know at day one,” Northam says, quoting the teachers’ general observations.

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Q&A With the Richmond Region’s School Chiefs

Compiled by Dina Weinstein

AMY CASHWELL

Henrico County Public Schools  superintendent since July 2, 2018

Previous job: Chief academic officer for teaching and learning at Virginia Beach City Public Schools

Three challenges facing your school system:

• Getting all schools to achieve the same level of academic excellence and meet state benchmarks.
• Addressing perceptions around equity, providing equitable opportunities no matter where in the county a student lives.
• Continuing to make schools safe from a physical and social-emotional standpoint.

Who’s your biggest influence? My mother always read aloud to me and my brother and was an avid reader and learner. While she stayed home to raise us, she eventually entered the workforce with a high school diploma and [retired] as a deputy chief of police.

Three things you’d like to see completed by the end of the school year:

• Engage students in learning that encourages creative and critical thinking, serving as active participants in a larger society.
• Apply an equity lens to our work, mitigating barriers to allow students the opportunities for success.
• I’d like each student to leave the school year knowing they were cared for as individuals by Team HCPS.

Where did you start out teaching? Second grade at Glenwood Elementary in Virginia Beach in 1998.

JASON KAMRAS

Richmond Public Schools superintendent since Feb. 1, 2018

Previous job: Chief of equity, District of Columbia Public Schools

Three challenges facing your school system:

• Facilities issues and everything that goes with that.
• Increasing the level of engagement and the rigor of daily instruction.
• Restoring the broader Richmond community’s trust and faith in RPS.

Who’s your biggest influence? My grandfather, who has passed away. His life story of growing up in New York inspires me. My family is Jewish, and in the early 1900s, he experienced inequities in education, and it informed how I think and what work I pursued. He loved learning. He was brilliant and a very loving father and grandfather. I try to emulate him.

Three things you’d like to see completed by the end of the school year:

• Start construction on three new schools — Greene Elementary School, George Mason Elementary School and Elkhardt-Thompson Middle School — and secure funding for George Wythe High School.
• Increase the number of schools that are achieving school accreditation.
• Increase teacher retention.

Where did you start out teaching? Middle school math at John Philip Sousa Middle School in Washington, D.C., in 1996.

MICHAEL GILL

Hanover County Public Schools superintendent since Dec. 1, 2015

Previous job: Assistant superintendent for instructional leadership and chief academic officer of Hanover County Public Schools

Three challenges facing your school system:

• Relevance. Students are going to be living and working in a different world. We need lessons that are transferable, applicable to the future and challenging.
• Equity. Providing proper resources for all schools in the division where needs may be different.
• Innovation. Students are most engaged when they enjoy the subject matter. Of course we look at the SOLs, but we want to let the teachers and students dream and utilize creative thinking.

Who’s your biggest influence? My mother was an educator. My father imparted a strong work ethic. Also, Mr. [Bill] Bray, my junior-year high school history teacher, made me look forward to attending class every day.

Three things you’d like to see completed by the end of this school year:

• A part of our long-range plan, we have a technology plan to execute. We have multiple facilities projects. All are driven by the three pillars of equity, relevance and innovation. I think of them more as a continuous improvement.

Where did you start out teaching? As a history teacher at Caroline County High School in 1997.

ERIC JONES

Powhatan County Public Schools superintendent since July 1, 2013

Previous job: Assistant superintendent for secondary education in Henrico County

Three challenges facing your school system:

• Adjusting to a new accountability system from the state, with new measures addressing chronic absenteeism and the achievement in some gap groups.
• With redistricting of a few elementary schools, we want students in new schools to feel welcome.
• The school board is getting ready to adopt a strategic plan that is focused on innovation and is more student-centered.

Who’s your biggest influence? My mother had me very young and had to drop out of college. She went back to school and got her four-year degree and a master’s late in life. She taught me about work ethic and not giving up on our dreams.

Three things you’d like to see completed by the end of the school year:

• A successful opening and integration of the new Powhatan Middle School.
• Roll out the new strategic plan.
• Revamp the equity and diversity work we are doing in the schools. It’s important that all students and staff feel welcome so they can succeed.

What did you start out teaching? Seventh- and eighth-grade history, civics and economics teacher at Peasley Middle School in Gloucester County in 1990.

MERVIN DOUGHERTY

Chesterfield Public Schools superintendent starting on Nov. 1, 2018

Previous job: Superintendent of the Red Clay Consolidated School District in Delaware

Three challenges in your school system:

• Addressing school capacity and enrollment because of growth of the district.
• Addressing equity and making sure we are offering rigorous courses broadly and evenly throughout the district.
• Continuing to look at the security and safety climate in buildings.

Who’s your biggest influence? My high school teacher Ed Shupe. He was also a coach who convinced me to go to college. He really shaped the way I think about education, the way I think about children, even in my job today.

Three things you’d like to see completed by the end of the school year:

• You can see a noticeable [progression] from the strategic plan.
• Have teachers and students know who I am, that I am visible to have a better understanding regarding what each school needs.
• Scheduled professional development for teachers and administrators to help them be leaders in classrooms and in schools.

Where did you start out teaching? As a ninth-grade civics teacher at Queen Anne’s County High School in Centreville, Maryland, in 1977.

JEREMY RALEY

Goochland County Public Schools superintendent since July 1, 2016

Previous job: Shenandoah County Public Schools superintendent

Three challenges facing your school system:

• The primary challenge in a strong school division is not becoming complacent and continually striving for excellence.
• To close the achievement gaps for students with disabilities and also minority students.
• Continued outreach. To build relationships with our families and understand the needs of every student to be successful.

Who’s your biggest influence? My mother. She’s demonstrated that she’s a continuous learner. She got her nursing degree as she was raising a family. She had a tremendous influence, and I respect her greatly.   

Three things you’d like to see completed by the end of the school year:

• Establish our school safety and security initiatives. Bringing our security initiatives to closure.
• Doing work on our strategic plan at the school board with the county, developing our next six-year plan.
• Making sure we are meeting the needs of every student with a positive academic experience.

Where did you start out teaching? Physical education at Warren County High School in 1997.