It Takes a School Read online

  I decided that my best course of action would be to alert the SOS proctor in the room so we could tackle the situation together. He heard me, made one public announcement, and went back to acting totally oblivious. It was all on me, so I went around the room myself, personally taking on offenders. I warned them directly; I moved them around; I moved them apart—nothing was effective. The second I walked away, the students would go back to talking and sharing answers. If it were up to me, I would have kicked out half the class, but watching the way the SOS teacher responded, I realized it was me who hadn’t gotten the memo. Cheating on exams was acceptable; punishing it wasn’t.

  At the break, I met up with my Abaarso staff and found they were already talking about the cheating. We were all North Americans used to silent exam rooms, and now we were one-upping each other for the most egregious act of cheating we’d witnessed.

  As the exam came to an end, I decided to put dark dots on the papers of the handful of worst cheaters in the room, so I could evaluate their scores with this information in mind. Even cheating hadn’t helped one kid. He had been one of the worst offenders in the room, leaning over for answers from someone else’s test at every opportunity, but he had the fifth-lowest score of the entire group. In a way, I felt bad for him. He had been failed by his prior schools and should never have been put in this position. Three of the others hadn’t stopped sharing with each other the entire test. Their scores weren’t bad, and the best of them was among the top in the country, but how much had the cheating inflated his score?

  Having scored the exams, I was able to answer my own question about how walk-ins could compete with the sixty students who showed up from those who had truly been invited, the “top” students in the country. It turns out that walk-ins absolutely could compete, partially because some of the “top” students in the country were obviously frauds. One of these scored only 21 points out of 150; eight others scored under 33 percent; and twenty of the sixty scored under 50 percent. Meanwhile, some of the walk-ins scored among the highest, earning six of the top twenty spots and nineteen of the top fifty. While there seemed to be some statistical significance to being a “top student” on the national exam, it was clearly limited. The idea that we were selecting from an already well-pruned elite was a myth.

  * * *

  Now, walking into the classroom where my charter class awaits, I need to win them over. That 87 percent of the students chose SOS over my school, including the majority now in this room, has my competitive juices flowing. I don’t even know these kids yet; they are still just faces to me rather than real people. The only thing I do know is that they bet against my school. If I am honest with myself, at this moment, my desire to win trumps all other motives. It’s not noble, but it is true. But, for me, my competitive streak has always been an asset.

  Now that the kids are in the room, I give them a couple of examples of what will make our school different and exciting. I have my game face on as I walk up to the blackboard in the front of the class. There must have been an English-language class here before me because on the blackboard are English words and their negations using “non.” There are a dozen examples and yet somehow every single one of them is wrong. Next to “true” is “nontrue” instead of “untrue,” next to “able” is “nonable,” and so on. Just by luck, one of them should be right, but none are. They are all “noncorrect.”

  English is an official language in Somaliland and there is a big societal push to improve citizens’ proficiency, but success to date is extremely limited. There is good reason why Somalilanders should improve their English. It’s estimated that only a bit more than ten million people in the world speak Somali. The language wasn’t even standardized using the Latin alphabet until the 1970s. Accordingly, very few books are written in Somali. Without knowing an international language, Somalis will be severely limited in their academic aspirations. English is the key to unlocking education of all kinds.

  “English itself is no better a language than Somali,” I tell the students. “But English is the most internationally used language. I am just lucky to have been born in an English-speaking country, as it is the most useful language to know. You weren’t as lucky, but with Abaarso you have highly educated teachers who are native English speakers.” I then point to the board. “Every one of these is wrong. It isn’t your teachers’ fault that they don’t know English; it isn’t their language. You wouldn’t want to learn Somali from me.”

  Of course, I am giving my speech in English to a mostly non-English-speaking crowd. That doesn’t stop me from sharing enthusiasm, a universal language. From there I put some logic problems on the board, to be interactive and to show them another difference in our school. Abaarso will be all about challenging their brains to think, not memorize. I am heartened when the first boy comes up to the board to give it a try. Throughout, I keep my eye on Amal, who seems to be more accepting by the minute. I have no idea she called her mother and said, “Oh my God, I got into a school called Abaarso, and a white man teaches it. I didn’t see that coming.” She asked her mother what she should do, and her mother told her to give it a try.

  Mubarik hasn’t even wanted to come into the room. He has stayed outside so long that the room monitor at the door doesn’t believe he has made the cut and wants to recheck his ID. Once inside, all he wants to do is run. He doesn’t speak any English and has no idea what I am saying. He still feels guilty about not being able to pay, so he figures he is wasting everyone’s time. He slips out of the room before the presentation is even over.

  7

  THE BLANK SHEET OF PAPER

  This idea had been with me for a long time: to start a school for really talented kids who have great potential that will otherwise go wasted. Over a decade earlier, when I was still in college, I’d entertained the idea of finding the brightest inner-city children in America and providing them a great school where they could excel. I’d even dreamed up a business plan. The significant expense of this school was to be repaid by taking a percentage of the students’ future income. This was the plan of an economics student looking to put the principles I was learning into action. I thought it was an investment beneficial to all sides. The students would know the school had every incentive to make them great because their success was required for its own survival. That it was probably “indentured servitude” and illegal was not relevant because I had just been an undergraduate tossing around ideas with my friends during a summer break.

  The Abaarso School started as a blank sheet of paper I could fill in however I wanted. On the asset side, it had me, my starting donation of $500,000, more if necessary, and all my passion. That’s really all I knew I could count on. Among the liabilities was my impatience. I was set on a September 2009 start, which was just sixteen months away from my decision to build it. As there were infinite directions that I could take a school—starting grade, size, students per class, background of teachers, boarding school versus day school, curriculum selection, just to name a few—I needed to choose one.

  A favorite author of mine, John Irving, once said he couldn’t begin any book until he knew the last line. From there, he worked backward to the last couple of paragraphs. He needed to know how the book sounded at the end so he could know how to get there. That’s how I filled in my blank sheet. I started at the conclusion and worked backward.

  Somehow, I already knew my last line. I wanted an institution that produced great future Somali leaders for decades and even centuries to come. I wasn’t interested in a large school, and I wasn’t interested in mediocre quality. Working backward, this meant developing all-around excellence of academics and character. Given what I’d seen and heard about the Somaliland universities, this could only be fully accomplished if my students were able to continue their education abroad. The long-lasting institution part of the plan also had implications. It meant financial sustainability and independence, meaning that the school could not rely on me forever. I had my last couple of paragraphs, and with
that ending the rest of the plan would fall into place. I just needed to fill in my knowledge gaps so I could write it.

  There are people who get PhDs in education and work for years before running a school. I had taken one undergraduate education class at Emory, which meant I had a lot to learn. Hopefully, I could accomplish this by talking to experts. I consulted with many individuals and groups, starting with someone I knew and then following his connections as far as I could. I had a professor friend at Boston College, Gil Manzon. Gil set me up with people there. Those people led me to people at other New England colleges, and then to talented teachers at New England high schools.

  One day, I gathered a group of reputable science teachers to talk through all aspects of that curriculum. Other days, I talked to college admissions officers about how they look at admissions and financial aid for international students. All of these meetings filled in my knowledge base and ultimately helped me build the business plan. I was listening to their ideas and deciding which parts contributed to reaching my specific goals, and which were legitimate ideas but not for my school.

  People would like to think that there are easy right and wrong answers about best practices in education. While there were no doubt some, I was realizing that the vast majority weren’t so black-and-white, which was not to say that there weren’t right answers for your situation. New Hampshire’s Phillips Exeter Academy, a very prestigious prep school, had its own math curriculum that did not involve a single textbook. There weren’t any explanations for how to solve problems, nor did the teacher start with an instructive lecture. Rather, students learned by taking on various problems that challenged them to discover the mathematical principles.

  Such “discovery learning” was a wonderful way to understand the essence of math, and it developed critical thinking throughout. On the other hand, it took longer to cover material, required a motivated student, and could only be pulled off by an excellent teacher. It also was far easier in Phillips Exeter’s small, twelve-students-per-class setting than it would be in a thirty-student-per-class public school. “Phillips Exeter Math” wasn’t the right answer for every school, but it was the right answer for Phillips Exeter. I had to consider what approach would work best for us.

  I loved the idea of discovery learning, particularly because future Somali leaders were going to need great critical thinking skills. My meeting with the science teachers stressed this point, as they noted the common conflict of pushing through more content versus understanding scientific concepts. These teachers were generally against the Advanced Placement tests in science, which they believed took the joy out of science. I took this point but also needed to balance it with my desire to send students abroad for college. APs were a way to prove their ability on an international exam.

  While pedagogical planning was critical, I had many other things to do. During this time of preparation, I was reading my Somali language book, studying up on Islam, and communicating with Somalis I’d met on my trip, including one who promised to take care of all local issues. From these conversations, I was planning all of the nonacademic components critical to a school, from the daily menu to student life. Here I used my end goals to produce a general framework. First I asked, “Does this contribute to developing the future leaders of the country?” Then, “What does this do to our finances?” One early conclusion from this was that our students would be eating a lot of beans.

  In general, “bells and whistles,” such as gourmet food, a fancy student center, and really nice dorms, would not contribute to creating future leaders. They did, however, most definitely create a financial burden, nixing them on both of my criteria. Private schools were often heavy on the perks and extravagant “curb appeal” facilities; even SOS Sheikh School had more expensive food than I was interested in offering.

  My new students would not have those perks. Even if fancy dorms and a student center were free, I didn’t want them, as I considered them more distracting than beneficial. Students should be spending time in the classroom, studying, doing extracurricular activities, playing sports, and performing community service. At the end of those activities, they could pass out in their pedestrian dorm rooms.

  In the course of my investigations, I sifted through plenty of information that did not fit my end goals. I met with a woman at Harvard Business School who had been involved with the funding of schools in the Middle East. When I outlined my plan, she advised me that I was on the wrong track, saying that for $20,000, she could build a school and pay for five years of its operations. As I dug in, I realized that her financial model would essentially add another public school to the system, great for students trying to gain access to some education but impossible for the academic excellence I sought.

  One clear direction was the need for highly educated teachers. I knew we needed them, but could we afford them? Finding such teachers would provide the first major challenge to my plan, pitting my goals of educational excellence and financial sustainability against each other.

  The average salary for teachers in the United States was about $60,000 annually, which was completely untenable for my budget. After running various numbers, I decided that I could afford to pay only $3,000, which essentially made them volunteers at under $1/hour. In addition to this, I would cover their main expenses, flights, food, medical insurance, and housing, so the $3,000 could go toward paying down college loans or providing a little bit of savings. It wasn’t a lot of money to offer, but it was necessary to keep our costs low so that we could maximize our impact and be financially sustainable. I was sacrificing, they’d be sacrificing, and we would expect the students to respect this and give us their all. My zero-dollar salary and the teachers’ volunteer salaries would set the tone.

  I didn’t fully realize it at the time, but I had stumbled onto a “virtuous cycle” financial model, which directly contrasted with the “vicious cycle” of education costs occurring in the United States today. Many in the United States have heard about and possibly gone into a panic about the rapidly increasing costs of tuition. Many colleges are also in a panic, as they know they are becoming less and less affordable. Their answer, which has its logic, is to add all the features that help compete for full-paying students. That’s why we see the five-star cafeterias, the environmentally conscious LEED certified buildings, the state-of-the-art gyms, and all the other amenities that didn’t exist a few decades ago. Of course this all leads to higher costs, which once again push up the tuition rates. The answer of college administrators is to go after the full-paying students—and the vicious cycle runs again.

  What I proposed was the opposite: pay very low salaries to keep the school’s costs down and use the low costs to ensure that we get the most deserving students without worrying about their financial impact on the school. This will help the students and teachers excel, which will make it a satisfying job for teachers. Such a satisfying job means they’ll continue to take low salaries. The model could be great if I could get just a handful of takers in the first year. And if I couldn’t, well, then I figured I’d take fifteen students and teach every class myself.

  There were many decisions colored by financial constraints, and I was quickly getting the sense that financially I was mostly going to be on my own for a while. At this point, potential donors just weren’t believers. I thought I could run the school for under $2,000 per student per year, which was off-the-charts low when compared to high-end international schools, but even at this low price I couldn’t imagine that the school could ever break even from tuition. Even a few hundred dollars per child was a lot for a Somali family to afford, especially since Somali families had many children.

  Monetary considerations were the main reason I decided to start in ninth grade. From the standpoint of developing future leaders, I would have preferred to start younger, but I knew it would take until our students reached twelfth grade before I could show convincing results. To my knowledge, no Somaliland or Somali citizen had gotten a scholarship to a U.S. colle
ge since the ’80s. Every donor was a skeptic now, but I was betting that that would all change once the first Abaarso student stepped off the plane in America.

  PART TWO

  BUILDING A SCHOOL

  Don’t set about your journey using someone else’s donkey.

  —SOMALI PROVERB

  8

  FIRST TRIP TO SOMALILAND

  The road to the test day had been long but energizing. On April 15, 2008, I boarded a plane at Logan International Airport for my first trip to a developing country. Just getting to Somaliland was daunting. It took more than thirty hours to get to Hargeisa, the capital. My flight had three legs—Boston to D.C.; D.C. to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and finally an eighty-minute flight by prop plane to Hargeisa.

  Nothing in the books I’d read could fully prepare me for this extraordinary place. As my plane flew along the route to my final destination, I stared out the window like an excited kid. The landscape near the Somaliland-Ethiopia border was rocky and completely barren. It had been the site of the Ogaden War, also known as the Ethio-Somali War, when Somalia had invaded Ethiopia to reclaim territories they believed to be theirs, resulting from a classic African issue in which the Ogaden people were ethnically Somali but the European-drawn lines placed their region in Ethiopia. But from the air, the geography looked pretty desolate to me. I wondered what it was about this inhospitable stretch of desert that had been worth fighting for. Of course, things weren’t that simple. It wasn’t about the land itself, it was about Somali nationalism and artificial borders, both of which I would learn much more about the longer I stayed in the country.