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By David S. Broder / Washington Post / Sunday, April 14, 2002; Page B07
The Chugach School District is one of the strangest in America.
Encompassing 22,000 square miles of remote Alaskan wilderness,
ranging from the islands of Prince William Sound to isolated "bush"
villages, it has only 214 students and barely two dozen teachers on
its staff. Unemployment in the area tops 50 percent, and
three-fourths of the people -- many of them Aleuts -- are below
the poverty line. Two of the school board members live what are
tactfully called "subsistence lifestyles." Another is an 81-year-old
retired woman bartender.
Yet in seven years, this school district, facing challenges of almost
unimaginable scope and complexity, has transformed itself into a
national model of education reform whose methods are being
copied not only across Alaska but now in the Seattle public
schools as well.
Last week, the Chugach superintendent, Richard DeLorenzo,
stood before a ballroom full of high-powered executives,
explaining how little Chugach had won the Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award, an honor that in the past has gone to
companies such as Cadillac and Ritz-Carlton as a signal of their
success in providing customer satisfaction. The rigorous
competition -- named for the late commerce secretary in the
Reagan administration -- has been around for 14 years, but this is
the first time any winners have been found in the education world.
In addition to Chugach, the five honorees this year included the
Pearl River School District, an affluent area in Rockland County,
north of New York City, and the University of Wisconsin-Stout in
Menomonie.
All three represent remarkably successful collaborations among
local communities, educators and businesses in setting common
goals and relentlessly measuring where they stand in achieving
them. But it is the Chugach story that carries the strongest
message to districts that take seriously President Bush's challenge
to "leave no child behind."
In 1994, when DeLorenzo arrived, the average Chugach student
was three years behind grade level in reading and lagging badly in
other areas as well. Now these students have moved from the
28th percentile nationally in reading to the 71st percentile; from the
53rd percentile in math to the 78th; and from the 22nd percentile in
spelling to the 65th. When state proficiency exams began in 2000,
Chugach students topped the Alaska average by 8 percent in
reading, 17 percent in math and 35 percent in writing.
This was not accomplished, DeLorenzo stressed, by "teaching to
the test." To the contrary, the Chugach curriculum goes beyond
the basics to include technology (a laptop is provided every
student), science and social studies. Special emphasis is placed on
service learning (involving students in community projects),
personal health (to offset alcoholism, which is widespread in the
villages), cultural awareness (to broaden horizons) and career
development (to ease transition to work).
The district provides performance pay bonuses and scholarship
benefits to its teachers and offers them an unusually robust 30
days a year of in-service training. It has done this while cutting the
administrative overhead from 25 percent to 10 percent of state and
federal funds, putting the savings and a growing amount of
foundation support into instructional programs.
But the key to success, DeLorenzo said, was the application of
"Baldrige principles" to the whole process. It began with
structured discussions with the "customers," the parents and other
villagers, local businesses and the students themselves, to identify
their needs and goals. The whole system was then redesigned to
achieve those results.
Instead of measuring "seat time" in the classroom and promoting
students from grade to grade, whatever their skills, an individual
work plan is developed for each student, who then proceeds at his
or her own pace. Teachers monitor pupils' progress constantly and
report to their families on how they are doing. Some students meet
all the graduation requirements by 14; others have stayed in school
until 21.
Subjecting familiar bureaucratic structures and methods to
rigorous scrutiny in pursuit of measurable improvements in
customer satisfaction is the defining characteristic of the Baldrige
approach, whether it be in check-printing companies or fast-food
chains (two other winners this year) or in schools.
This systemic approach to education reform, championed by
organizations such as the National Alliance of Business, is being
tried in a growing number of districts across the country, and
DeLorenzo recently lobbied Secretary of Education Rod Paige to
embrace it as the best bet to achieve Bush's goals.
Few places face the physical and social challenges of Chugach.
DeLorenzo says he will not rest until at least a million other
youngsters are experiencing the success his 214 students have
come to know.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company