CITY LIMITS: Janis Somerville profile

Janis Somerville does not want to have her picture taken. And interviewing makes her uneasy. She is anything but self-promoting. "I didn't realize it was that long ago," says Somerville. She smirks, turns over the paper, and inconspicuously pushes it away, trying to change the subject. Seeing her own name in bold print bothers her more than the passage of time. The last thing Janis Somerville wants to do is call attention to herself. She would prefer not to make it into the news. Instead, Somerville takes pleasure in dedicating herself to her work. But as she heads up an "arrogant" effort to change Philadelphia's high schools, her attempts at avoiding self-promotion are futile. The spotlight shines on her as her dynamic presence and her important educational accomplishments routinely turn heads. · Now touted as the city's "champion of school reform," Somerville heads up the Philadelphia Schools Collaborative, an independent team housed in the Board of Education building at 21st Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Her job is to get Philadelphia public high schools back on track. Somerville intends to do it by overhauling the entire system. "What we're doing here borders on arrogant if not impossible," says Somerville. "But nothing less will do. You really have to take on the whole system or you can't help anyone. But if everybody does the small things, then it all adds up." Taking on the whole system involves changing the way people look at education. This overhaul means implementing programs akin to modern management techniques, such as team teaching and Schools-Within-A-School. Teachers are encouraged to integrate subjects by teaching interdisciplinary lessons, requiring much more planning and teamwork from the teachers than most are accustomed to. But it results in students gaining depth rather than breadth from the material. Large, impersonal high schools are broken down into smaller Schools-Within-A-School, or "charters," and an interdisciplinary team of teachers is assigned to a specific group of students. The teachers and students will be together for four years, tracking students' long-term progress and paying special attention to student needs. Teachers become engaged again in the teaching process, and students respond positively to the curriculum. "I've never been so excited in the 23 years I've been teaching," says Ron Stohloff, a Social Studies teacher and chair of the restructuring council at Edison-Fareira High School. "I'm busy as hell." Self-governance is the other cornerstone of school reform. It puts teachers and other school staff on par with the principal, giving them just as much input into school matters. To get the new system to work, teachers -- many of whom have been teaching in Philadelphia over twenty years -- must commit to new ways. This transition can be difficult to those that are used to following orders and etched-in-stone curricula. "These teachers have been burned [by unsuccessful reform attempts] too many times," says Stohloff. "Janis Somerville's biggest job is to convince the staff that we're serious. She's gotten a lot of people to commit." The public schools have been facing a Catch-22. Staggering poverty is one reason for the district's decline although it also signals the necessity for infusion of major additional funding -- money which is not forthcoming from strapped city and state governments. "Poverty is intensifying, and there are budget problems," Somerville said. "Philadelphia has poverty at its core. Two-thirds of the children served in Philadelphia public schools are at poverty level." "I will never fully appreciate the devastating conditions that most of the students come from. And from what I hear from teachers and counselors, it is getting worse," she added. Somerville concludes, "This system is educating 200,000 students. It just has to be made to work." Things started improving for the school system in 1988. Pew Charitable Trusts, the nation's second largest foundation, sought to resuscitate the flow of minority teens into higher education. They gave Philadelphia a $447,000 planning grant, and followed up with a package totalling $8.3 million on the condition that the School Board overhaul its entire system. "So far the [collaborative schools] program is meeting its objectives well," says Thomas Langfitt, president of Pew. Somerville is not working alone. While trumpeting her own efforts does not suit her, she offers mounds of praise for everyone with whom she works. "[Superintendent of Schools] Constance Clayton's absolutely compassionate commitment to children and poverty" sets the stage for success, Somerville said. If Somerville will not sing her own praises, the leader of the School District is effusive in her comments. "Janis Somerville is the catalytic agent to bring about necessary restructuring, reform and revitalization," Clayton said. "She is a very good idea person and brings a wide range of skills to the school system. "I want to blend people who are not in public education who aren't involved in what has been, but rather what could be" with the more experienced district staff, Clayton says. Clayton has been recruiting a lot of outsiders to the school district, many of them associated with the University, to infuse new blood into the schools with less traditional, more pragmatic solutions to educational issues. · Somerville's departure from the University almost a decade ago raised concern that with her vacancy, progressivism at the University would be in peril. "I think it's a blow to the progressive stance the University has taken recently," a student said when she left in 1982. In her former position, now held by Kim Morrisson, Somerville was known as an advocate for student and minority rights. After leaving the vice provost post at the University, Somerville accepted the same position at Temple University, where she was re-introduced to the realm of public education -- though at the university level. While working at the North Philadelphia school, Somerville was introduced to Clayton. "Connie Clayton had formed lots of committees to draw people from the outside. She cornered me and said, 'So, when are you coming here?' " Somerville said. Temple gave Somerville one year off from her duties as vice provost so she could head a "management development committee." Somerville's goal was to develop a plan that would overhaul the school system, being primarily concerned with reducing the District's dropout rate. Somerville designed the schools' original restructuring plan, and was expecting to return to her position at Temple. Then Clayton asked for more. "I said, 'Okay, Jan. You've written it, now implement it,' " recalls Clayton. Three years later she is still at 21st and the Parkway, making sure the Pew grants are indeed used to make the school system work. Somerville has always had an affinity for high school and college-aged students, starting with her first job as a public high school teacher in Trenton, New Jersey. She derives great pleasure from knowing that her work is directly affecting kids. But Somerville expected her stint with the School District to last only a short time. "You just get hooked," she says.

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