Effort to Stretch Curriculum Comes Up Short at Largo High

By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 20, 2008

This school year, Rajon Mozee, a junior at Largo High School, has attended a Chinese class where the teacher doesn't speak Chinese and a computer graphics class where he says the students have never touched a keyboard.

In first-period Computer Graphics 1, Rajon, 16, said he draws assignments by hand as a lab full of brand-new Macintosh computers goes unused. A typical task in third-period Chinese 1 is to review 10 English words listed on the board, their Chinese equivalents, and their pronunciation, Rajon said. The students copy what's on the board and turn the words in. They receive an A for the day.

The problems in both classes illustrate the difficulties a school system can face as it seeks to implement more challenging and unfamiliar course offerings and prepare students for the rigors of college. At Largo, officials acknowledged that the courses have been troubled by a lack of solid planning and instruction.

"You can be frustrated, but you look at your options and keep moving on," said Largo's principal, Angelique Simpson Marcus. "Both programs are popular, and we would like to retain them."

Simpson Marcus disputes some of Rajon's complaints. There may have been some delays getting the computers hooked up, but the graphics lab has been in use since January, she said. As for the Chinese class, it's true that Largo has struggled to find a replacement for a teacher who quit days before school started. Students have been taught by a series of three substitute teachers; none has been qualified to teach Chinese. And that's just in Rajon's class. The school has 64 students enrolled in four Chinese 1 sections and 24 students in two Chinese 2 sections, Simpson Marcus said; they are all taught by the same substitute.

William T. Ritter, the assistant superintendent who oversees Prince George's high schools, said the system is not alone in its struggle to fill high-level offerings. Even the well-regarded Montgomery County school system has stumbled with a groundbreaking Chinese immersion program it established in 1996, some parents say. Of 22 students who started that year, only three remain, with several citing inadequate coordination among the grades and uneven assessments as reasons for dropping the class.

"It's frustrating. It's even embarrassing," Ritter said of the problems in Prince George's. "It's all about communications, collaboration and reminding each other that the angels are in the details."

Rajon's mother, Jan Mozee, was less delicate: "The system is broke," she said.

Neither of Rajon's troubled classes was ready when Largo High began the school year Aug. 20.

The Chinese teacher quit the Friday before classes started, Simpson Marcus said. In computer graphics, the computers were still in boxes, and chairs, tables, cables and a video projector hadn't arrived, Ritter said. Simpson Marcus chalked this up to "some confusion between the school district and the office of curriculum and instruction."

Although students were given the option of transferring out, both classes remained open. Administrators said they were hopeful that solutions to the problems with both classes were just around the corner. In computer graphics, the students met in a classroom without computers and learned art by hand while administrators waited for the needed equipment. A substitute was assigned to teach Chinese while the school system searched for a new teacher -- a hard task, given the nationwide shortage of Chinese instructors.

Both classes were meant to engage students like Rajon, new to Largo. Poor grades cost him a place at Queen Anne, a private school in Upper Marlboro, and his mother acknowledged that he didn't work hard enough. Yet he has a passion for electronics and Asian culture.

Rajon enrolled in Chinese in August and transferred into computer graphics in October. He remained in both classes even as it became clear they were not being taught as advertised. He said he had gone through too much trouble to transfer into computer graphics to transfer out again, and transferring to Spanish, a language he had previously failed, was a bad idea.

"The first teacher actually used to give us some work," Rajon said of his Chinese class. The substitute had the students listen to tapes and gave them assignments from the Chinese workbook, Rajon and another student enrolled in the class said.

Computer graphics became a class in sketching. Rajon showed an assignment in which he drew a CD cover by hand. He described another assignment in which he was asked to describe the color of yawning.

"I don't think the color of yawning has anything to do with computers," Rajon said.

Simpson Marcus said that students were learning how to use the computers in the graphics class, and that the long-term substitute in Chinese was following a curriculum set out by the head of the foreign language department. "Teaching and learning is taking place," she said.

Jan Mozee, a self-employed bookkeeper, knew of problems with both classes by October. "To say the least, I am very frustrated with the lack of resources and response at Largo and the school system," she wrote Nov. 6 in an e-mail forwarded to several school administrators. "I hope you can help me with this matter, because no one seems to be listening."

That week, Ritter wrote Mozee a lengthy and sympathetic e-mail recommending she transfer her son into Spanish, given the "critical shortage" of Chinese teachers. He judged that "without a highly qualified instructor, I would guess there is virtually no chance of mastering this language."

The computer class, Ritter said, was missing cables and tables. "That this is holding up the set up of an expensive state of the art computer graphics lab is hard for me to fathom but should be easy to fix," he wrote.

Mozee replied Nov. 16, refusing to transfer her son into Spanish. "Rajon shouldn't be penalized because the school system can't find a qualified teacher," she wrote. She was equally upset about the computers. "It's inexcusable that my tax dollars are wasting away on expensive equipment that is not being used."

"I agree fully about the computer lab and have directed my staff to effectuate a resolution," Ritter replied. He suggested that Rajon could move to another school that offered Chinese or Japanese.

On Nov. 18, Mozee notified Ritter that she would seek a transfer out of Largo.

The school system was trying to solve the problems. Gladys Whitehead, the school system's chief academic officer, said it reached out to the Chinese Embassy to find someone suitable, to no avail.

As one week turned into another, "you get to a point in the year where you're almost past the point of no return," Ritter said.

By the time the computer lab was working, the Mozees had requested a transfer to Eleanor Roosevelt, which posts the highest test scores among Prince George's high schools. Roosevelt's reputation for quality has made it one of the most crowded high schools.

The request was denied by the office of student transfers Nov. 29. Mozee's appeals Dec. 12 and Jan. 16, the last time to the Board of Education, also were turned down. Mozee sent her final appeal to the State Board of Education on Feb. 15. It has not ruled on the case.

Meanwhile, Rajon waits. He dreams of opening a business where he can tinker with electronics. He wants to visit Japan and has been teaching himself Japanese independently. In that language, he said, he can count to 100,000; after seven months of Chinese, he can't even count to 10.

"Really, I've only memorized one word the whole year," Rajon said. "And that's 'hello.' "