A Conversation with Dr. Michael F. Rice: KPS Superintendent and Communities In Schools Kalamazoo Board Member

You have served on the board of Communities In Schools since coming to Kalamazoo in 2007. What one thing would you want this community to know about CISK and the work that we are doing? 

“What I like about CIS is that it’s a growing organization, both the number and breadth of services, the number of kids served, the way they are being served. It’s not a static organization.” Dr. Rice shares the example that when he first arrived, CIS was more about support services but has since delved into more partnerships to provide tutoring and academic support. “CIS can’t be wholly about support services, as critical as they may be. CIS is an organization with a willingness to change, to ‘morph,’ if you will, to explore better ways to help children.”

“We have to be honest with ourselves. When two-thirds graduate from high school both pre- and post- Promise, or when our students graduate but don’t succeed in college, we need to be willing to say—not simply the CIS board, but the broader community—we have to serve more and better. We need to look at what we do, how we do it, and not get comfortable with where we are…Sure, we can celebrate, but the next morning we need to get at it again. As Robert Frost wrote, ‘We have miles to go before we sleep.’ There is still a lot of work to be done.”

“I have seen on CIS’s part a willingness to continue to think and re-think how it serves children. CIS has served children well in the past, is now serving them better, and will continue to serve children better. That’s my expectation for KPS as well, and for myself as a professional. Until we are fully formed, we need to keep working at it.”

Your commitment to literacy is inspiring. You talk about Kalamazoo needing to create a culture of literacy. What one or two things can we, as regular citizens, do to aid this effort?

“When my grandmother’s second husband died in 1989, his son, Billy, said at the service, ‘Life with Joe was one continuous, unbroken conversation about books.’” Dr. Rice takes on a grandfatherly persona, begins to spout off a number of questions, and for a brief moment, I feel Joe is in the room with us. “‘What are you reading? What do you like about the book? How did it compare to the last book you read?’...”

Dr. Rice’s point? “Have conversations with children—yours, your grandkids, the neighbor kids—about books and what they are reading. Be inquisitive. Take an interest.”

“Books open up opportunities. Kids can’t make it in the 21st Century without text. The opportunity to graduate from high school and go into a General Motor’s plant is over. Graduate and bam, GM plant—not happening. Increasingly look at what you can get with a high school diploma. Still not a lot. Some college? May be perfect for what some of us want. For others, a college degree or graduate degree may do it.”

“While I don’t know what each individual child needs, I do know that any given child needs certain basic things, like a strong relationship with text. And a strong relationship with their alarm clock. Late to school and you fall behind. Late ten times in the year to your job will get you fired.”

“The major way of turning our community into a college-going culture is through literacy. This begs the question, though. How do you hook them in to literacy? We don’t have all the answers but we have to come at it from different directions.”

Anyone who has heard you speak knows you have a love of language. Who along the way helped give birth to your passion for words and for learning?

“My parents and my grandparents. They all have, or had, a tremendous love of language. Great senses of humor, plays on words, Puckishness in the family.”

Puckishness?

“Yes, Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They were crossword puzzle doers, people that bite back. Three of my four grandparents have passed. My one grandmother will turn 104 next month. My grandmothers did the New York Times crossword in pen and let you know it. My family liked quick wittedness. They all had a fierce love of language and literature. Well read. Well educated, not formally but they had a huge respect for education...They created homes for their kids with the expectation that you will go to college. You will be successful in school. My hat’s off to them. They are responsible for what I am. Sometimes they might have their regrets…”

As a parent yourself, what advice do you have for parents when it comes to supporting your children in their academic pursuits?

“Keep on guard for a natural slide, a default to sluggishness towards technology, allowing children to do things that are sedentary. Get your kids involved in sports, lots of library visits, get them reading. Many parents think ‘I’m not an expert in history so I’ll leave that to the teachers.’ As parents, we can fill in the blanks. So, with history, for example, expose them to what’s going on with the President, with Congress, with the Supreme Court.” Dr. Rice recounts a recent trip in which he picked up a copy of the Declaration of Independence. He read and explored it with his 9 ½ year old daughter.

“Parents have a lot more to offer than they may think and shouldn’t be overly humble with what they can offer. Engage on a regular basis, around books, around what kids are learning in school, and what they are not learning in school. Parents need to establish as many connections as possible and let them take it from there.”

President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Kalamazoo generated much enthusiasm and sense of pride. How can we build on this enthusiasm, to assure that our children are staying in school and preparing for life?

“That was a lovely, lovely community moment. I say community because when an accomplishment like that occurs, we as a school district have a right to say, ‘Thank you, community, for making it happen.’”

That moment, he states, was years in the making. “It’s Communities In Schools, Boys and Girls Club, Douglass Community Association, and others whose efforts have created, and are continuing to create, a culture that makes it possible for a president to come here and hold it up as a model. It’s priceless.”

Dr. Rice is quick to point out that the work is far from done. “As a community, we need to create the same range of opportunities for all our children. The serendipity of your birth, the accident of your birth, should never be a factor.”

He shakes his head as if he still can’t believe recent events. “There is no big moment for KPS like the one we just had. You don’t plan for those, those are great moments. You plan to do great things for kids and maybe some acknowledgement comes along the way. Waiting, however, for acknowledgement is a fool’s gambit.”

As to how we build on the enthusiasm from the President’s visit, Dr. Rice centers around two themes: relevance and relationships. “When I ask students, ‘Who wants to go college?’ they raise their hands. But why? What does that really mean?  We need to do a better job with relevance. It hooks kids who otherwise might not have a formal history with education. We need to figure out what each kid’s dream is and work with them to help flesh it out.”

“Secondly, we need to focus on relationships. We can improve programs but they take you only so far. I’ve seen mediocre programs succeed brilliantly because of the connections made with kids.” For Dr. Rice, the key to success is the one-on-one relationships. “We need more mentors. I’d like to see more mentors willing to work two, three years with the same student.” And, he’d like to see students transitioned to other mentors or tutors should that time arrive.

What’s next for KPS?

“We’re, in the words of Einstein, ‘getting off the dead horse’. We’ve been doing the same thing since 1985 with regard to the schedule at the middle school, all the while expecting different results.” Come fall, middle schools will move from a seven-period day to a six-period day, providing 40 more minutes a day in language arts, math, science, and social studies. Under this new schedule, each period will increase from 48 to 58 minutes a day and allows for ‘double-blocking’ or two periods of instruction to students needing additional support in language arts or math. High schools will be moving from a four to a five-period day and going from semesters to trimesters. The benefits associated with these changes include increased opportunities and credit retrieval.

Additional changes include: improvement in middle school courses, including new math materials and a newly created eighth grade algebra course; improving the college-going culture in the sixth through eighth grade, consolidating bilingual education/ESL programming from 17 buildings this past school year, down to 10 in September to amass resources and provide better service for students.

“Take the example of 10 minutes more each period. It doesn’t seem like much but ultimately, that 10 minutes translates into 120 hours a school year. That’s 11% of the student’s school year. For students who can now take advantage of the additional support through ‘double-blocking’ that means 204 hours more in literacy skills. That is 19% of their school year.

Would you share with us one (or two) of your favorite words?

I expect Dr. Rice to rattle off word after favorite word. Instead, he is still. Quiet. Then, with eyes shining, he explains, “That’s like taking someone who likes ice cream into an ice cream shop. All this ice cream and to be told to just pick one kind?”

But finally, after savoring words silently, he says, “M’enfin. That’s a French slang word that loosely translates to ‘but finally.’  Kind of means the conversation is over. It means everything and nothing.” Dr. Rice laughs in delight. “The French also have 40,000 words to mean: to irritate/be irritated. That’s telling. Telling of a culture when they have multiple words to describe something, like how Eskimos have a number of words for types of snow. The French have words to express degrees of irritation, variations on ‘I’m bugged’, ‘I’m irritated.’ The French like their nuances. They don’t need a lot in the way of adverbs as so many adverbs are imbedded into their verbs. And then there are those Yiddish words.” Dr. Rice shakes his head in awe, having stepped into a whole new ice cream shop.

Well, then, what’s a favorite Yiddish word?

“Yiddish favorite? I’d say nudnik (pronounced nood-nik). Nudnik is a nut. Yiddish words don’t have formal meanings, they are more descriptive…So a nudnik might be a person who walks down the street, reading a book, gets to an intersection, begins to cross, all the while he keeps reading. A nudnik might be book-smart, but depending on what street he is about to cross, he might be heading to a funeral.”

A favorite English word?

“English? ‘Thank you, mom.’ ‘Thank you, dad.’ More of a favorite expression than a word. When kids acknowledge favors, have that epiphany when they realize their parents are for them, not against them. I love hearing that.”

Photos: Top: Dr. Rice looks on as KPS graduate (and CIS volunteer) Jarvis Birl receives a 2010 CIS Champ award for his dedication to Kalamazoo Public Schools.  Bottom Right: CIS was honored to have Dr. Rice speak at the Champ awards.

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