A Man of Principle

By Peter Perl

John Pannell restored order and doubled enrollment at Malcolm X Elementary School. But the biggest test lies ahead.

A man spends 25 years of his life in a school system, devoting himself to helping children. He begins as a social worker, and then becomes a guidance counselor, and then he is drawn to special education because he most enjoys working with kids who really need someone to listen and respond. A man spends 25 years being promoted within that system, running special ed programs, and then supervising special ed teachers, and then becoming an assistant principal at one of the system's toughest junior high schools and at one of its toughest high schools.

A man spends 25 years in the District of Columbia schools and now, at 49 years of age, his hair has whitened, his face is lined, his eyes look watery, and his voice cracks with weariness as he stands to speak to a group of 40 teachers. His teachers. He is now The Principal, and he is worried.

He has gathered them together on a gray January afternoon to ask for their help. What he really wants to tell them is that despite all their talent and commitment, unless they all work harder—as hard as they possibly can—most of the 800-plus children at Malcolm X Elementary School in Southeast Washington, D.C., won't stand a chance. They won't stand a chance of rising out of poverty or insecurity or troubled households because they will not be able to read or write or compute well enough to compete in the world.

What John Pannell really wants to tell his teachers is that if they cannot do a better job of educating these children and

making them employable and helping give them fuller lives, then the children—and society—will be in trouble. He wants to tell his teachers that when they go home and go to bed at night, they should ask themselves whether they did as much for the children of Malcolm X that day as they would hope a teacher did for their own children.

But Pannell has already given those speeches many times in his eight years running Malcolm X, and he knows that most of his teachers are already giving everything they have. So instead, he talks to them only about the looming crisis in test scores.

Those scores, he reminds them, have taken on unprecedented urgency. The system has introduced a new test, the most demanding ever, and Malcolm X's results on a practice exam last May were among the worst in the city: 59 percent of the students failed to demonstrate a "basic" level of reading competency.

"I think we all agree that is unacceptable," Pannell says with a pained expression. "Parents know it's unacceptable. Everyone in the city knows that it's unacceptable."

The teachers listen respectfully because Pannell speaks with the moral authority of a man who by force of will has begun to turn a failing school around: a man who routinely puts in 12- to 14-hour workdays plus weekends; who seemingly knows not just the name of every student in his school, but also the names of each child's siblings and parents and grandparents, as well; who visits his students at home and pays for some of their needs out of his own pocket. A man who knows how to beg, borrow, and weasel his way through a dysfunctional bureaucracy to make sure every one of his teachers gets books, supplies, and paychecks.

The teachers—from the rookies who make less than $30,000 a year to the 30-year veterans who have topped out at $56,000—also know Pannell as a hopeless workaholic who can sometimes be a rigid, distant, and overly controlling presence.

So when Pannell begins to scold them about failing to take more advanced training and about the lagging teacher attendance rate and about the need for greater effort, one of them calls out in frustration, "We're already at 100 percent!"

"Well, if we are at 100 percent," Pannell shoots back, arching his eyebrows, "we need to get to about 129 percent in the next few months."

He reminds them of what they already know: For the first time ever, elementary school students will be denied promotion if they fail to meet minimum standards on the reading tests to be given this spring. He also tells his teachers something that most of them don't know: Entire schools that perform poorly on the tests will be placed on "corrective action status," which could result in "closure and redesign" and reassignment of staff.

Pannell stands motionless for a moment, letting the news sink in. "What do you think this means for us?" he asks, the question hanging in silence. "If the principal goes, everybody goes." His face breaks into a wry smile. "It's like the Titanic—if the principal sinks, the whole ship goes. Everybody."

There is a cruel irony in the sink-or-swim scenario confronting John Pannell. His success at Malcolm X is a large part of his problem. When he arrived in 1990, the school had had four principals in five years and was known as one of the most chaotic and underachieving in the city. Malcolm X's enrollment was 370, less than 40 percent of capacity, partly because worried parents chose to send their children elsewhere.

"It's like the Titanic—if the principal sinks, the whole ship goes. Everybody."

John Pannell,
principal,
Malcolm X Elementary School

Pannell moved swiftly to change the school's image and its culture. He found a variety of ways to get rid of a dozen underperforming teachers, docked the pay of tardy faculty and staff, fired ineffective custodians, and instituted a strict policy requiring student uniforms. He organized jazz concerts, revived a school marching band, and started a Malcolm X Day festival to strengthen the bond between the school and the community. He recruited scores of neighborhood volunteers to work in the school and dozens of "partner" organizations to donate time, money, supplies, and computers. Most important, he instilled a sense of stern discipline and an ethic of striving for excellence.

For the school entrance he bought big red rugs embroidered with black lettering: "Malcolm X, A School of Love." And every single morning over the loudspeakers, he or his assistant would recite Pannell's new mantra: "Please remember that Malcolm X is a uniform school, and this is a school of love. Malcolm X is a school of love, where there is no hitting, kicking, fighting, or other types of negative behavior." If you repeated it often enough, he believed, it would become real.

For his trouble, Pannell was vilified by a few teachers and some students and parents who resented the new strictures. The tires on his car were slashed several times, and his windshield and windows were broken, both in the school parking lot and outside his home.

But today, in large part because of Pannell's reputation and the loyalty of his staff, Malcolm X's enrollment exceeds 800. It is the largest public elementary school in Washington. Parents from outside Malcolm X's boundaries now try to transfer their kids in.

The growth of Malcolm X inevitably has contributed to its problems with test scores. Surrounded by aging brick projects, partly abandoned properties, and "transitional" housing for the homeless, the school draws its students from a population that is both poor and transient. Dozens of children transfer in every month, and many of them have woeful academic records and serious learning or behavioral disabilities. Fewer than one in five Malcolm X kids has a father living at home, and only one in six has a parent with a full-time job. Fewer than a third have parents who made it through high school. Many have parents who are drug addicts, in prison, or dead.

All these factors are a recipe for low achievement. But Pannell says he and his staff do not accept that as an excuse. "Despite what everybody writes about Southeast Washington," he says, "these are some of the best kids you'll find anywhere. They are not responsible for their conditions. They are not responsible for this environment. But they are responsible for their own behavior and self-control. These children can rise to any occasion, but they must have help, from Head Start through 6th grade."

Pannell says he identifies with the children because he grew up poor himself, in a segregated school system in West Virginia. His mother was a beautician, and his father worked in a laundry, drove a bus, drove a cab, and ran a youth center. Pannell graduated third in his class and went to Howard University and to George Washington University in D.C. for a master's degree. He has a brother in prison on drug charges.

At Malcolm X, Pannell practices what he calls "second chance education," which means that he tries to educate parents who have quit school about the importance of educating their children—and themselves, through Malcolm X's adult-ed program. He also frequently finds himself trying to teach them how to be parents. "It's not really a lot of bad kids here," he says. "There are badly treated kids who come to school here. And they are excited to be here. And we have to get them focused on the reason they are here: to learn. We don't beat them. We don't curse them, scold them, yell at them, or yank them."