U-46 chief reflects on decisions, looks to future

Elgin Area School District U-46 Superintendent Jose Torres has spent his first seven months making a host of aggressive decisions, including the recent housecleaning of the district's central office and the administration at Larkin High. Daily Herald Staff Writer Kerry Lester caught up with Torres during a recent visit to Hillcrest Elementary in Elgin and asked him about the choices he's made, and what's in store for the future.

Q. You cut 21 U-46 administrators in just two days last week. That's a significant act done in a very speedy fashion. Were you sending a message, and if so, what?

A. We made the changes with a focus on schools and accountability. We've been saying that phrase, and we mean it. I did take my time. It might have looked quick, but it wasn't quick. It took seven months to be at that stage. - I acted on those areas I needed to act immediately. We aren't trying to send messages to anyone. I was just trying to get the right people around me to do the right work. At Larkin High School (in Elgin) and Canton Middle School (in Streamwood), I just couldn't wait another year to intervene. That was a tough decision to make; you're talking about a dozen people. I don't know them as well as I know the principal. My guess is some of them will be hired back. We want to do that quickly.

Q. Could cutting Larkin High School's principal and all 12 administrators be a case of throwing out the baby with the bath water? How did you come to make such a move?

A. High schools are complex places; they're difficult places to move. If you don't even have your own leaders with you, it makes it impossible. I did have some conversations with newer principals and said, 'What would happen if?' They didn't know I was testing the waters at the time I asked. I heard that yes, (cutting a school's entire administration) would be a lot of work for a new principal, but it would be very helpful. Otherwise, things can take much longer for a place to change. But I could create that immediate change because of the political capital that I have right now.

Q. Many of our readers have suggested your housecleaning is only a way to fill your advisory positions with old cronies. How do you respond to that?

A. Old cronies from Chicago Public Schools? I was only there 21/2 years. So, if they're old, we don't have a strong relationship among ourselves. I'm going to look for talent wherever it may be. If it happens to be in Chicago, those people who predicted it are going to say, "Yes, we told you." Chicago is going to be a great place to recruit from. They've had some changes, some uncertainty in a place where there's 45,000 employees; I think there's going to be some talent that might want to jump ship, if you will. I also have a really good reputation in Chicago: People know my work, and they know I'm here. It could happen. I don't have any particular people I'm trying to recruit."

Q. You spent two years working under Arne Duncan at Chicago Public Schools, who is now the new U.S. secretary of education. What are your hopes with him in the position?

A. Top on the list is to review No Child Left Behind. I don't expect dramatic changes, but there will be some changes, improvements. It will be great to have a secretary that worked under the law at a district. He knows those areas that are problematic, like labeling a school a failure for one subgroup failing a content area, like reading. I think there will be some changes around the accountability pieces around NCLB for sure.

Q. What does Gov. Pat Quinn need to do for Illinois schools? For U-46?

A. The primary need in Illinois is to fix the funding issue. When we're ranked 49 out of 52 states in terms of school funding, and yet Illinois is not a poor state, we do not invest in education in a very good way. I'm hoping that will be resolved. I don't necessarily have the solutions. I know a lot of people have been working on that. The latest idea I thought had the most merit is the 1 percent tax interest split between education and capital improvement. That has probably the most merit. That's clear, transparent and focused. If, when more money comes from the state, I'm fine with it if it's targeted, if it's targeted to the right things.

Q. U-46 has spent four years and upward of $7 million fighting a racial bias lawsuit. Having dealt with the effects of court monitoring in both Baltimore and Chicago, are you in favor of settlement?

A. We are all for settlement without control. What we want to do is to be allowed to do the work we have to do and continue to do, but we don't want to be controlled by a law firm that has different interests.

Q. You've instituted a lot of new programs in your seven months here. Letters to dropouts, a mentoring program for "at-risk" boys, a library card challenge, a push for more AP classes at the high school level. Have you gotten the response you've hoped for?

A. The nice thing about those two initiatives is that they both were initiatives that kept going. I was describing it as dropping a pebble in water, and the ripple effects continued. I heard of a local roller skating rink that offered a free skate night for anybody that had a library card. In terms of the boys mentoring initiatives, it will have a dramatic effect on adults, as well as the children. As we look at budgets, how we do our work, the people in the district's central office who make those decisions have connections in schools they never had before. They have some empathy about the work teachers do on a daily basis that they never had before. I will think that will have an effect on policymaking.

Q. What is the big picture that you see for U-46? What's next?

A. What's next is to solidify the changes. We have a couple of key vacancies that I have to make sure we have the right people and the right talent. We still have part of the school year; we want to finish strong and we want to plan for the opening of next year. We want to recruit the best teachers and principals, and obviously we want to see some improvement in student outcomes. The first year of anything, sometimes you see a dip, sometimes you don't see a jump. But we'll see.

The high schools are talking about pretty significant improvements in Advanced Placement classes. That means kids have more access to more classes. We'll work on formalizing an advanced placement plan. I want to go deep, really go deep in terms of parent and community engagement. We needed to get the house in order before getting to the community. And we still need to work on getting the house in order, but we can't wait to finish it to start the other. I'm going to do some work, really ask the parents to step up, in a sense, on the tails of Obama, when he says turn off the television and do homework with the kids. We're going to do something in the area of that.

I think we have a lot of great things going on in U-46. I just think we need to go to the next level. We have the opportunity to be a great school system. We're a good system, we're not great. But I think it can be. It won't be overnight. We'll continue to make incremental changes.