Old friend brings upbeat message

Intelligence shouldn't always be measured by scores from a multiple-choice test.

And America's public schools are in a daily campaign to win the hearts and minds of students and their parents.

Those were some of the messages Carol Johnson, the popular former Minneapolis schools superintendent, told local educators Monday about how to narrow the achievement gap.

Johnson, who is now leading the troubled 56,000-student Boston Public Schools, said schools should freely exchange ideas and strategies without being afraid of criticism.

"I like to call it 'deliberate collaboration' and 'intentional interaction,'" Johnson told the group of more than 100 as part of the University of Minnesota's Urban Leadership Academy series.

"We're all speaking similar languages in every school community," she said. "We all have something to share."

Johnson, who led the Minneapolis schools from 1997 to 2003, is best remembered for narrowing the achievement gap and noticeably improving test scores.

During her four-year tenure, Johnson was instrumental in removing more than 100 schools in Memphis off the No Child Left Behind's "high priority" list. Last year, she was named Tennessee Superintendent of the Year.

"It's really about making sure we achieve both excellence and equity," said Johnson, explaining that it takes not only students and teachers but also parents and the community at large. "We don't want to educate just some of our children, but all of them."

Despite the accolades, Johnson has been recently criticized for weak management skills in Memphis, according to media reports. Her former district is the subject of multiple investigations (an internal audit found millions in wasteful spending), including a current federal probe into how lucrative school construction contracts were awarded under her watch.

Johnson said Monday that the investigations are focused mostly on elected leaders and not on her.

"I will say this, whenever anybody breaches the trust of children in their community, that's unacceptable," Johnson said. "All of us should work toward doing the right things for kids. It's unfortunate."

In Boston, Johnson faces a formidable challenge in a district that has lost about 7,000 students since 2000: How to overcome a more than $30 million shortfall in next year's school budget, due to declining enrollment and a drop in federal and state funding. It's a district where only 58 percent of students graduate in four years.

Sound familiar? Minneapolis has to cut at least $13 million from its 2009 budget.

In Boston, closing schools, reducing personnel, hiring freezes and cutting funds to the most troubled schools are among some options for Johnson, who will present her budget for the 114-school system on Wednesday.

The effervescent Johnson recently unveiled an aggressive academic reform initiative to close Boston's achievement gap between white and minority students. Minneapolis also has introduced an ambitious strategic plan for next year

Superintendent Bill Green, who chatted at length with Johnson on Monday, said it's no secret that Minneapolis is liberally borrowing from Johnson's blueprint to close its gap.

Minneapolis: "Every child, college ready."

"Everything we're doing is based on practices that have proven positive in other districts," Green said. "If they can do it, we can do it."

Meanwhile, Green planned to meet with stunned teachers at Edison and Washburn high schools just days after announcing both schools would get major staff overhauls next year. "If we can make major changes, we need to do it," Green said. "It means shaking up the status quo, but not just for the sake of doing it, but to help make it better."