Mohammed Choudhury was a 6th grader in Los Angeles when he took a trip to his family鈥檚 homeland in Bangladesh.
His grandfather, the young Choudhury learned, had built the first school in a village in Jagannathpur Upazila in 1953. 鈥淭o me, that story was fascinating,鈥� he said, because people didn鈥檛 even consider getting an education in what was then east Pakistan. Formal education was only for the privileged, who sent their children far away to school.
More than two decades later, the influence of Choudhury鈥檚 grandfather is clear in his own work to engineer equity and access for public school students in as the district鈥檚 first chief innovation officer. He now leads the charge for desegregation and equal educational opportunity in the 50,000-student district.
鈥淢y grandfather was able to bring education from scratch, in a formal manner,鈥� he said. It just took four walls to have folks gather and begin teaching, and it was a learning environment that paled in comparison to Choudhury鈥檚 Los Angeles public school.
Choudhury, 34, can be found juggling what he calls 鈥渄esign for diversity鈥� as he focuses on providing students and their families more school choices in San Antonio, and a new enrollment system that will make those choices easier to access in a district where many families who could afford to leave did so, or who sent their children to private schools or charter schools, said Superintendent Pedro Martinez.
- Encourage Debate and Ideas: Don鈥檛 assume 鈥渢he boss鈥� has all the answers, so invite people to push back. Advice should come from all points within an organization, not just the top down.
- Show Vulnerability: Vulnerability is the heartbeat of innovation and creativity. It is not a weakness, it鈥檚 a form of courage. Being vulnerable and courageous is a potent combination.
- Don鈥檛 Fear Consequences: If what you are doing is right and just, don鈥檛 fear the consequences. Managers see risk and try to carefully mitigate it. True leaders see risk鈥攁nd if their values or principles are at risk鈥攖hey run into the fire.
Hired by Martinez last year, Choudhury is , where he was selected by a change-minded innovator to help launch similar work in 2014.
鈥淭he first thing that strikes you about Mo is his passion about doing what鈥檚 right for kids,鈥� said Mike Koprowski, who chose Choudhury to be his right-hand director for the Dallas schools鈥� office of transformation and innovation. They worked as a team for nearly three years in Dallas, a district three times the size of San Antonio.
鈥淗e doesn鈥檛 shy away from tough conversations,鈥� Koprowski said. 鈥淭he work he鈥檚 doing is very much rooted in tough issues around segregation, poverty, race, and staffing. He鈥檚 a consummate student of research and best practices.鈥�
A former teacher in Los Angeles middle and high schools, Choudhury conveys that passion in firehose-fast conversations about what his team is doing in San Antonio, how they plan to accomplish their goals, and why they are doing it.
One of the whys: 鈥淭his city is made up of 17 different [independent school districts],鈥� Choudhury said. 鈥淭hat is not healthy. We lost the socioeconomic lottery when those lines were drawn.鈥�
Access to Quality
Often, a school鈥檚 demographics are defined by families鈥� ability to afford rent or home prices in certain neighborhoods, with wealthier families choosing areas where schools鈥� reputations match parents鈥� expectations for student achievement and even homogeneity. That unregulated, market-driven school choice doesn鈥檛 sit well with Choudhury. It 鈥渓eads to a few winners and lots of losers鈥� in who gets access to high-quality seats, he said.
鈥淲e can鈥檛 let housing dictate the educational opportunities for all students,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f our children can鈥檛 go to school together, they鈥檙e not going to learn to live together.鈥�
To that end, he is working to even the socioeconomic playing field by expanding school choice options on 12 campuses in an innovation zone with charter schools run by the district. The goal is to simplify access to enrollment so families who often don鈥檛 know about different educational options can exercise that choice. In addition, he is overseeing a design process to help existing schools try new approaches driven by educators interested in piloting initiatives like competency-based, personalized, or project-based learning.
In this last group鈥攚hich includes most schools in the district鈥攖he goal is for educators to gain 鈥渕ore autonomy in exchange for accountability鈥� in what they want to use to accelerate student achievement.
Central to his plan are schools that are intentionally mixed by socioeconomic status, an initiative that relies on the work he has done to segment San Antonio鈥檚 student population. 鈥淎ll our kids are poor,鈥� he said. 鈥淩esource allocation matters. Let鈥檚 be smarter, better, and faster about it.鈥�
Rather than depending solely on free and reduced-price lunch eligibility, Choudhury enlisted a district data scientist to dig deeper into the 320 U.S. Census blocks that make up the footprint of the San Antonio schools. Each block was evaluated for students鈥� family鈥檚 income, home-ownership, single-parent status, and the highest education level achieved by the head of household. Then the block is ranked in one of four socioeconomic groups, with the highest having the most income and greatest stability, and the lowest with the most poverty.
Those groups were used to ensure that 25 percent of students with the highest needs would be assigned to balance the demographics for the 3,000 seats in choice schools and magnet programs available in 2018-19.
鈥淏locks are great for ensuring that students from those neighborhoods have an equal shot,鈥� he said. The four-tiered system will ensure that seats reserved for children on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder get choice opportunities. Without what he calls the guardrails of this demographic evaluation, 鈥渋slands of affluence鈥� would be the result.
Martinez said he chose Choudhury for just that kind of expertise. The community has been 鈥渟ort of waiting鈥� for his work on equity and is behind it. 鈥淓verybody who has worked with Mohammed says he shows not only how smart he is, but he gains their respect,鈥� Martinez said.
Besides Choudhury鈥檚 responsibility for building new initiatives, he was charged with evaluating them in Dallas鈥攚hich he is also undertaking in San Antonio.
New Schools in Dallas
In Dallas, Choudhury and Koprowski were asked to create 35 new schools by 2020 in two categories: innovation schools where educators redesigned their campus around different pedagogy, like personalized learning or International Baccalaureate, and transformation schools, which were open-enrollment startup schools in new buildings or reopened schools. Here, educators could pursue their 鈥渄ream school鈥� concepts.
After a superintendent change in Dallas, Koprowski took a new position outside of education and Choudhury left for San Antonio. 鈥淲e left behind 18 really great choice schools,鈥� said Choudhury, and the work in Dallas continues.
We can鈥檛 let housing dictate the educational opportunities for all students. If our children can鈥檛 go to school together, they鈥檙e not going to learn to live together.
Nancy Bernardino, who co-founded one of the new Dallas schools鈥擲olar Preparatory School for Girls鈥攁nd is now the principal there, described how she was coached through the competitive-application process with Choudhury鈥檚 help. As decisions were made about opening the single-gender school with a focus on social-emotional learning and STEAM education鈥攆or science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math鈥攈e made sure equity was in the mix.
, 50 percent of the openings were reserved for students eligible for free and reduced-price meals.
Such moves don鈥檛 come without questions and some pushback in a gentrified neighborhood where homes are commanding $1 million. 鈥淲hen we were there, real estate agents met with Mike and me to ask, 鈥榃hy don鈥檛 you put a priority attendance zone around this?鈥� and we said, 鈥楢bsolutely not,鈥� 鈥� Choudhury said. Such a designation would prioritize seats for families who live in the affluent area where the school is located, 鈥渂asically recreating the segregated attendance zones that define the system to this day,鈥� he said.
Today, Choudhury said what makes him proudest about Solar Prep is not the curriculum. It鈥檚 the play dates that are happening, in which families from million-dollar homes and those in government-subsidized housing are arranging get-togethers for their children.
Bernardino, the school鈥檚 principal, said she was struck by Choudhury鈥檚 鈥減assion for making sure that the educators who were working with the kids directly were the ones really building these schools.鈥� She appreciated Choudhury鈥檚 emphasis on going beyond reading research about launching their school.
Traveling coast to coast to visit schools was helpful, she said. 鈥淲ithout his guidance, we might have just created another school similar to the ones around us, because we hadn鈥檛 experienced anything other than Dallas.鈥�
Choudhury proved to be a strong mentor. 鈥淲ere all conversations with him pleasant? No, but I think all conversations were productive,鈥� said Bernardino. 鈥淚n the end, it鈥檚 hard to prove him wrong. He bases all his arguments on research and what he鈥檚 learned over time.鈥�
In Dallas, one of Choudhury鈥檚 lessons learned is how important it is to understand the operational and political roles of the central office 鈥渁s a system is in shock going through a wide variety of changes,鈥� he said. Choudhury pushed for a strategy to give more autonomy and decisionmaking authority to building leaders, work that continues, Koprowski said.
Keeping the work going is another imperative, Choudhury said.
He emphasizes to his staff that it鈥檚 important to 鈥渄esign as if we will not be here one day,鈥� he said, and so that it would be difficult to make decisions to undo what they have done.
