Education Week - March 5, 2014 - Leaders to Learn From - S6

RAISING ACADEMIC EXPECTATIONS
Dennis J. Dupree Sr.
SUPERINTENDENT
Clarksdale Municipal School District, Mississippi
BY LESLI A. MAXWELL
A
t the end of Dennis J. Dupree Sr.'s second year as
superintendent in Clarksdale, Miss., he was up
against a gargantuan challenge: All but two schools in
the district were considered failing or at risk of failing
under the state's accountability system.
Those dismal marks came just as the veteran educator
was in the early stages of overhauling all nine district
schools in an attempt to drastically improve academic
achievement in the community, an impoverished Mississippi
Delta town that is still deeply divided by race.
But a more pressing matter for the veteran educator
was tackling the education deprivation he saw.
"We had no innovative programs here," said Mr. Dupree,
who took the helm of the 3,100-student district in 2007.
"Where we are located here in the Delta, our kids were
just not being afforded anywhere near the opportunities
and exposure to things that other districts take for
granted."
Music and art were virtually nonexistent, despite the
Delta's rich musical heritage. Foreign-language courses
were limited to the high school. Preschool was available
to very few children. And high school was falling short of
its mission of getting students prepared for the rigors of
higher education.
"My sense of urgency was around getting students
and parents in this community excited about education
again," said Mr. Dupree, 55. "To do that, we needed to offer
a whole lot more than what they had been getting."
His strategy:
*Creating thematic magnet programs in every elemen-
tary school-mathematics and science, Spanish-language
immersion, and visual and performing arts, among them;
*Giving parents citywide choice after decades under a
desegregation order that failed to integrate the schools;
*Bringing rigor into the middle and high school with a
new, college-preparatory curriculum; and
*Pursuing aggressively, in a state that always ranks
at or near the bottom in funding public schools, millions
of dollars from outside sources to pay for more prekindergarten
classes and other initiatives, such as a special
academy for 9th graders.
Diversity Elusive
In December, Mr. Dupree scored his biggest victory yet
on that front when the Clarksdale district won a $10 million
federal Race to the Top award.
While none of those approaches by themselves is dramatically
innovative, local officials are hoping the combination
will be powerful for Clarksdale.
"My dream, and I hope I see it realized, is for our city to
have an A-plus school system that's diverse because it's so
good and so high quality that people don't feel the need to
place students in private schools," said Mayor Bill Luckett,
a longtime Clarksdale lawyer elected last summer. "I
think Dennis Dupree is the leader who can get us there."
Achieving diversity in Clarksdale's public schools has
been elusive.
A city of 18,000, Clarksdale sits in the top half of the
Mississippi Delta, on the banks of the Sunflower River.
It's been home to some of the most productive cotton
farms in the nation, but is probably best known as the
birthplace and home for blues and jazz musicians.
In 2010, 79 percent of Clarksdale residents were African-American,
while 19 percent were white, according to
U.S. Census data. Until 1970, more than five years after
a federal court first ordered Clarksdale's schools to integrate,
black and white children did not attend school
together. When the junior high and high schools finally
began fully integrating in the early 1970s, a mass exodus
of white students had already begun, with many heading
to a new, private school and some to existing churchaffiliated
schools.
This year, 98 percent of the students in the Clarksdale
district are African-American, according to district data.
Just 53 students are white. Ninety-six percent of students
are poor enough to qualify for free- and reduced-price
meals.
"White-flight academies popped up all over the state in
those years after the desegregation orders came down,
but especially here in the Delta," said Mr. Luckett, who is
white and graduated from a segregated Clarksdale High
School in 1966.
Mr. Dupree, who is African-American and a native of
Jackson, Miss., said his focus has been on providing the
best educational opportunities he can to the students who
are already in the school system.
"There has been a lot of distrust among the races in
this community for a long time," he said. "We are trying
to bridge that gap through improving our schools and
showing the entire community what we are capable of
providing."
Ratcheting Up Rigor
The major planks of Mr. Dupree's improvement strategy
have been the magnet programs in each elementary
school, a redesign of graduation requirements, and increased
rigor in all high school classes through the Cambridge
International curriculum.
Putting his magnet model to work-which includes
offering families districtwide choice among elementary
schools-first required getting permission from the federal
court overseeing the desegregation order. The court
approved the plan.
In the three years since putting a Spanish-languageimmersion
magnet in Myrtle V. Hall Elementary School,
a campus that was deemed failing when Mr. Dupree arrived,
its achievement gains have been strong enough to
earn a B, or high-performing grade, from the Mississippi
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