To hear most people
tell it, Eddie Orum hasn’t an enemy in the world. The principal of LBJ High
School since the 1992-93 school year, Orum is a black leader with a reputation
for impeccable moral character, strong rhetorical skills, and a commitment to
educational equity that began when he was a Nacogdoches high schooler in the
1970s. So when he was very publicly reassigned from the campus to a position
with AISD central administration on September 28, it was quite a shock to the
many Friends of Eddie.
Orum presided at a campus that houses one of the most prestigious academic
programs in the city — the Science Academy at Lyndon Baines Johnson High
School, a magnet school for accelerated instruction in science, technology, and
mathematics. Orum, seeking opportunities for those who’ve always done with
“less than,” freely admits that his own philosophy is at odds with the original
mission of the school: to furnish “more than” what could be obtained in a
regular academic setting. Many, including Orum himself, suspect that this
difference of opinion contributed to his demise.
But a mere clash of personalities isn’t grounds for dismissal. Although AISD
Superintendent Jim Fox didn’t provide a reason for removing Orum, Executive
Director of Personnel Al Williams said that the district has directed the firm
of Peat Marwick to look into “major operational problems” at the school, and
AISD officials say they expect a report on the issue in the near future. Orum
says he has nothing to fear from such a probe. But whatever is decided about
Orum, it’s clear that the LBJ Science Academy, and the two-tiered system of
education it’s accused of fostering, no matter how inadvertently, is the real
point of contention. It seems to cry out now not to be defended, but
justified.
An Academy Is Born
In 1983, the federal government, under the helm of President Ronald Reagan,
pronounced American public education dead on arrival in “A Nation at Risk,” a
report that has been metaphorically nailed on the doors of many a conservative
think tank. Public education has been responding ever since. A June 8 Wall
Street Journal article noted that state-supported boarding schools for
science in nine states, including one at the University of North Texas at
Denton, emerged after the government’s negative prognosis was issued and highly
publicized.
Perhaps it was with the aim of swimming against — in the parlance of the
report — the “rising tide of mediocrity” that IBM first broached with AISD the
idea of creating a program for advanced math and science instruction in 1983.
The original thought was to locate the school in a district-owned building
across the street from IBM. But this seemed to rule out being able to have any
extracurricular activities, such as athletics or band. Clearly, the support
from an already established facility was going to be necessary.
And a facility was rapidly opening up, quite against the hopes and
expectations of many in Northeast Austin. LBJ High School, built in 1974, a
mere three miles down US290 East from Reagan High, was emptying out fast.
School boundary changes, grade pattern changes, a maturing population, and most
of all, a cessation of development and growth in that sector, had caused white
flight and an overall decline in enrollment.
According to a study by AISD in 1994, enrollment at LBJ in its first year was
1,590; 320 were African-American, 82 were Hispanic, and 1,188 were white. Ten
years later, in 1984, enrollment had dropped to 1,152; African-Americans
numbered 722, Hispanics 103, and whites just 327. Today, total enrollment of
the school hovers around 1,400. Of that number, about 600 are magnet students,
about 70% of whom are white or Asian. For good or ill, without its magnet
students, AISD might have a difficult time today defending LBJ’s existence
(unless, of course, it were to undertake new boundaries and busing plans). To
put this into perspective, Bailey Middle School in far Southwest Austin has
1,600-plus students, or twice LBJ’s zoned enrollment.
School district officials, knowing 10 years ago that LBJ could be headed for
extinction, forged a plan to put the science magnet academy there with the
hopes of addressing both integration and the enrollment lapse. The first class
of ninth graders started in the 1985-86 school year. But the school’s
progenitors viewed offering accelerated, high-level math and science
instruction as the primary objective, quite aside from any social aims. The
course of study is, by anyone’s standards, rigorous.
For example, students entering the ninth grade are required to start with
chemistry, typically a 10th or 11th grade course at other schools. They go on
to take courses such as molecular biology, earth science, and physics. Their
upper-level electives include analytical chemistry and environmental science.
Students must take four credits in mathematics beyond geometry, and choose from
courses such as multivariable calculus, probability and statistics, and number
theory, many of which carry honors or advanced placement credit (more about why
this is significant later on). When students leave their high school studies,
they are well-qualified for admission into the nation’s most prestigious
universities.
“If the curriculum were the same as the other high schools, then there’d be no
reason for people to come [here],” says Mary Long, director of the academy
since 1994. “I’ve always said that it has to be different enough to meet the
needs of students who want it, in a way that can’t be met as well in the other
high schools.”
Gerald Briney, a principal architect of the program and an advisory board
member, now retired from IBM, admits that initial resistance from the host,
non-academy population to the idea of the academy being located at LBJ was
strong. But by the time of principal Dorothy Orebo’s retirement in 1992, he
felt the two schools were co-existing comfortably — especially because the
science academy director reported directly to central administration, not to
the campus principal. Then Eddie Orum became LBJ’s next principal.
The New Regime
Orum remembers clearly what he said that probably first upset people. “I made
the comment that I understand the role for academies in the Eighties; I don’t
understand what the role of academies for the Nineties should be,” he says. He
says he meant it as a call for inquiry into that question, but instead — when
he suggested opening up more of the academy’s resources to the entire student
population — it resonated as a call to “water down” the curriculum of the
science academy at the very least, and disassemble the academy at the very
most.
“When Eddie came in, he didn’t feel nearly as supportive of the academy as an
institution,” says Briney. “But if I put myself in his place, I would say to
myself, `Well, I’ve got a problem here that’s really severe. And if I could
just get my kids into those classes, look what would rub off.’ Well, that was
anathema to us, because we recognized that the dumbing-down that is so
characteristic of what has happened in the schools throughout the United States
could happen to the science academy if we weren’t careful,” says Briney.
“What that means to me is that Jerry was interested in the academy succeeding,
and I was interested in all students succeeding,” says Orum. “I think too many
times we assume that if I’m for you, I’m against somebody else.”
Orum is well aware that he was largely perceived as an advocate for only the
non-academy students — who are largely African-American — but he
categorically denies this, and recalls that people were stunned when he drove a
group of academy students to the Texas coast for the annual beach clean-up. By
the same token, when an appearance at the school by the late Arthur Ashe was
arranged only for academy students, Orum insisted that the assembly be extended
to the whole school.
Rumored to be scheming to “destroy” the academy, Orum was alleged to have
commingled the program’s budget with that of the rest of the school, and placed
the academy director under his supervision. He denies this also, noting that
realignment of the leadership and budgets of all the school’s magnet academies,
including programs at Johnston High and Kealing Middle School, began under
former superintendent Terry Bishop, and is continuing under superintendent
Fox.
Two Schools, Two Populations
LBJ is by no means alone in its struggle for redefinition. All over the U.S.,
as educators confront the reality that magnet schools have not always
accomplished their overt goals of integration, school leaders are questioning
their role in the future. Orum’s opinion — that teachers in such programs
ought to develop and explore the best practices, teach other teachers what
they’ve learned, and then begin again — is not so far afield of one of the
school’s secondary objectives. Director Long readily agrees.
“I believe strongly that the academy doesn’t deserve to exist if the only
students who benefit are the ones at the academy,” she says.
Long, who has taught at LBJ since it opened in 1974, knows that the academy’s
rather low minority enrollment, hovering at around 29-30% every year, is a main
criticism of the program. Getting kids excited about math and the sciences in
elementary school is essential to changing that, she believes. But she and
other members of her staff have been turned down time and again for grant money
that they would have used to draw in more minority children. A Sloan Foundation
grant went to another school with an even worse record on minority enrollment
than LBJ’s. Another proposal, penned by former LBJ teacher Wes Halverson, would
have set up a school-wide computer lab, which would have been networked with
LBJ’s feeder schools to help recruit minorities. The application for the funds
was sent to the U.S. Department of Education, but was rejected, says Halverson,
for proposing to use the funds for the non-magnet population.
Halverson, who taught environmental science to both non-academy and academy
students, said he felt discouraged at the end his 10-year experience at LBJ. He
believes that both populations were short-changed because his efforts were
splintered between them. “Neither program is as good as it should be,” he says.
“They’re at crossed purposes. It’s difficult to administer.” If he were to
enact a solution, he says, he would choose to move the magnet program out of
the building, “and let both faculties serve the needs of those populations.”
School district officials say that this is unlikely to happen.
It’s hard to imagine the school any more separated than it already is.
Classrooms at LBJ reportedly tend to be heavily segregated — although interim
principal Wanda Flowers would not permit a campus tour to confirm this.
Enrollment figures by ethnicity are proof enough, however, that white kids are
upstairs in the academy, and African-American and Hispanic kids are downstairs.
But the kids do “mix” in other academic classes, fine arts electives,
athletics, and extracurricular activities, as parents of academy students are
quick to point out. They might add that LBJ’s home-grown courses in
science/technology and earth science are open to any student. And they’ll often
say that it’s no small sacrifice for their kids to attend LBJ, since most of
the magnet students catch buses at 6:30am and don’t get home until past 5pm.
“It’s politically unpopular to say, `Excuse me, but I have a gifted child,'”
says Melody Vuicich, parent of an academy junior. “I’m tired of apologizing for
having a bright child and that he’s getting what he needs academically.”
By contrast, some parents of non-academy students see the “mixing” as
convenient only for the academy. Larry Shannon Hargrove’s daughter, Courtney,
would be ranked third in her class if she attended another high school, such as
Reagan. But because the science academy seniors are lumped in with the regular
population when it comes to figuring grade point averages, Courtney’s rank is
75th, which her father believes damages her chances for a college scholarship.
Kathryn Stone’s son, James, who served as a page to former U.S. Rep. J.J.
“Jake” Pickle in the congressman’s last session, would be ranked fourth in his
class if he didn’t have to compete against the science academy students, whose
grade point averages have more weight because of the honors credits they incur
from taking their curriculum. His rank is 89th.
Courtney, James, and several of their classmates in the same predicament,
recently made an impressive case before the AISD Board of Trustees, petitioning
them to make policy changing the ranking system at their school. They, like
their parents, don’t oppose the academy (one of them, in fact, has a sibling
there). They just want what is fair to them, what they’ve earned.
Parting Thoughts
But the thought occurs: surely the tensions — over class ranking, curriculum,
standards, and leadership — must have existed since the magnet program’s
inception, haven’t they? Orum must assume some credit for bringing matters to a
head (the students’ activism is “a symptom of students feeling power,” he
says), and when he speaks of his student days, his own activist roots emerge.
Was it worth it? Although his own future and reputation are still in limbo, he
sees a greater good on the horizon.
“I believe that getting ousted from LBJ may solve more of the problem there
and bring the discussions there to a greater forum,” he says. While some angry
parents continue to make themselves visible, protesting his removal before the
school board and at meetings convened to find his successor, there surely must
be some silent Friends of Eddie as well. It makes an interesting acronym: FOE.
This article appears in December 15 • 1995 and December 15 • 1995 (Cover).