Northridge Middle School

When asked by the Los Angeles Unified School District a year ago, at the request of The Times, to allow a reporter and a photographer access to Northridge Middle School to do an in-depth story on how junior highs have changed, with a focus on middle school reform, we offered a gracious welcome. We were eager to share our many successes.

On Sept. 19, The Times printed an epic-length article that most of us at Northridge characterize as slanted and inaccurate. Your report contains misquotes, statements out of context and trivializations of individuals and programs. We feel the reporter violated confidences of both children and adults, and betrayed their trust. It is truly difficult to believe that in seven months he saw nothing worth reporting but conflict and negativism.

Our mission at Northridge is to use every method we can to successfully teach 100% of our students. We can no longer afford an uneducated or under-educated populace. This society needs to have all of its children educated. Our economy can’t support the large numbers of dropouts we have had in California. Our charge must be to get as many students to attend school as much of the time as possible, and to successfully teach all of them to master the curriculum.

Change is difficult. Some teachers are more adept at adopting new techniques, to engage the minds of all of our students, not excluding those with limited advantages or limited standard English usage skills, and adding these techniques to their other successful practices. A few teachers are reluctant or resistant to trying new ideas.

It is unfortunate that your reporter seemingly chose to ignore how one school is courageously examining and implementing new ideas in an effort to provide quality education in a supportive environment for all children. He focused instead on the gossip and the conflict engendered by a handful of discontented teachers. He chose not to report on the majority of teachers who are successfully implementing middle school reform practices, or on the majority of students who are happily and successfully learning.

At Northridge we are particularly concerned about classrooms where grades and other indicators suggest 70%, 60% or even fewer students are learning successfully. We do urge teachers to look at other strategies to help students learn, including students whose learning style is not compatible with a straight lecture-style classroom.

I must emphasize that no teacher has ever been told to raise grades or lower standards. They have been asked to use a variety of teaching methods, and they have been provided opportunities for training and urged to have high expectations for all students.

We suggest to our inside critics that they might be more comfortable in a school where there are only middle- and upper-class children who have never known war, or hunger, or violence in the streets; who all have a safe home where they know for sure that someone loves them and will care for them; who’ve been to museums and restaurants and seen the world outside their neighborhood; where everybody in the family speaks standard English, and the family sits down to dinner together and discusses events of the day; where no child’s family has experienced unemployment, illness, divorce or death, and where every child comes to school every day ready to learn.

Let them go to that school--if they can find it. If not, if schools face children who are a reflection of all the problems and inequities, as well as the triumphs of society, then schools are destined to keep struggling to find better solutions to teach all of the children.

Your reporter could have performed a more valuable service to your readers by writing about the majority of teachers, at Northridge and all schools, who actively continue their professional growth throughout their careers. The best teachers keep current with both research and the application of appropriate strategies. Most of these teachers’ classrooms demonstrate high levels of student achievement, and--yes--teachers and students do feel good about their success.

It’s a puzzle to most of our staff, students and parents why your report did not contain a better balance, showing the success and achievement of our teachers and students, as well as those instances where progress has been slower than we would like. We expected a better sense of objectivity and fair play.

BERYL WARD, Principal

TOBIE KENNEDY, PTSA President

Northridge Middle School