The first thing you notice about James Ray is that he is anything but stoic. A man of energy and determination, James Ray has been superintendent of the Flint Community Schools since 1995. During his tenure, he has overseen a systemic reform initiative that he hopes will create in the next century "schools of hope and classrooms of joy." Reared in Chicago, Ray earned his bachelor's degree from Northeastern Illinois University, and began his teaching career at an inner-city middle school as a math and science instructor. He received his master's degree from Loyola University of Chicago and in 1978 a Ph.D. from MSU. What follows is a discussion with Ray about professional development schools, educational reform, and teaching and learning in the 21st Century.

Q As you know, the College of Education has had a Professional Development School program for almost a decade with the Flint school system. Why do you feel it is important to maintain the relationship with MSU?

A I have been in the district throughout the duration of our relationship with Michigan State and the PDS schools. So I am very familiar with the history and the people. One thing that is different about the PDS relationship is that we have had stability and consistency over the years. In other instances, we've seen many relationships come and go. We've been very fortunate to maintain this for eight years. PDS schools will be the means by which we improve educational quality for young people in this school system. The best example of that is when we were being considered by the Rockefeller Foundation for one of their lab sites, which means we would be one of only four in the country. The foundation had invited 18 districts to apply based on their previous work toward systemic reform. We were selected because the foundation asked to see what we thought were classrooms of the future and the way classrooms in Flint ought to look. We took them to our PDS sites. So I'm strongly committed to PDS because these schools serve as beacons for much of the work we do throughout the school system.

Q I am curious if you see any relationship between professional development in general and educational reform?

A No question. We have to look at what knowledge our people who are responsible for providing leadership and education bring to the table. I am often reminded of the phrase "We don't know what we don't know." There is a lot of information out there about ways to reach many of our urban youngsters that we may not know about. We have needs in our city that didn't exist just five years ago. We can't stay the same and expect to survive. I think the challenge of choice and charters and private schools has "upped the ante" for public education considerably throughout the state and nation. I don't believe public education will dissolve. I do believe that we in public schools, if we are to be successful, must be able to show that we are able to meet the needs of young people and their families. We have to do that in an environment where we have a highly educated work force that is able to use many different strategies to meet the needs of an ever changing student population.

Q Some of the Flint principals at the PDS schools say that there is a difference in the relationship between teachers and professors in a PDS. They say the relationship is more of a team effort to solve school problems. I am wondering if you see the relationship between professor and teacher or administrator in a PDS in that way?

A In those schools, we have broken down barriers between the university personnel and the school personnel. Often we see university people come in to do some research. In this case, the university people come as partners and not as the omnipotent ones. The people from MSU who have come here consistently to work in these schools have established the kind of partnership that this system has never experienced in the past, and I think has set standards for other universities to begin to look at. I get asked often: "Why Michigan State?" Often they imply that our relationship is due to the fact that I am a graduate of Michigan State and so was the past superintendent. That isn't it. It's because Michigan State has chosen to engage in applied research as opposed to drafting position papers and expecting the teachers to use theories that may not be grounded in what actually happens in urban centers like this one.

Q The Flint school system is in the process of instituting some major changes geared at preparing the district's 44 schools for a new century. It seems that a central aspect of the changes is the creation of what you call prototype schools. What do you envision for these schools, and what is your vision for the Flint public schools in the next century?

A These prototype schools will provide us with the opportunity to establish the personalized attention and relationships that are needed in education today. The issues we face today in society dealing with race, sexism, and so on are an outgrowth of the fact that people don't build personal relationships. When you build relationships, it is not as easy to generalize and to make statements that don't apply to everyone. What I envision is a system of small, personalized relationships instead of large classes and kids going to six different teachers and having a system where a high school student can be out of school for a week and no one notices. I am looking at a system where we have a small group of teachers, parents and community people committed to groups of about 85 youngsters for more than three years at a time. The teachers know the families so when somebody is out, they know exactly why and they can speak with the mother even during weekends. It's all about personal relationships. I think it is going to take that. Every youngster in this urban center at a minimum deserves a caring adult in their life. But in this case, we are talking about multiple caring adults. That is why we need those long term relationships. So what I want to have are schools of hope and classrooms of joy. The only thing that separates this district from a Grosse Point or Bloomfield Hills are things like accessibility to technology, expectations of every youngster, and parental participation. So for me the question is how do we begin to embrace parents' and community people's presence in the educational arena and how do we build adult support for every child's learning? I don't want people to give me guilt money and think that the way they help urban youngsters is to sponsor a youngster's trip to a cultural event. I need folks to commit time. I need caring adults involved in the learning and growth and development of all our young people.

Q Is it your notion then that the classroom as a self-contained entity is no longer sustainable? It has to be more integrated within a community?

A There is no question of that. I believe in learning communities. I think learning communities are shaped much differently, look differently, and have a set of consistent standards that can be maintained throughout a system. And they have high performance work teams. I see these learning communities as small groups of teachers and parents and community folks working with kids. And they will only be as successful as those teams are able to become high performance work teams. They will be able to do that only when they are equipped with the knowledge and the skills that will allow them to be strategic in the educational opportunities they provide young people. That is why professional development is so important-and not just for teachers, but parents as well. Schools are not just places that have parking lots and playgrounds. This is not a new concept. Learning communities are nothing new, but the crime is that they have been attempted in small, isolated pockets, but the dominant culture has not been supportive. How do I get parents and community people to feel good about the schools in their neighborhoods? How do I get disenfranchised people to feel like they don't have to know the system to get a good education for their children? How do I begin to build relationships with these people? I need staff to learn how to celebrate the presence of the parents and bring them into the fold and have them make sure the students come to school ready to learn and the parents are ready to help them. But you can't expect a parent to teach a child to read if the parent's reading skills don't equal that of the student. So we have many efforts to deal with those types of issues. The idea, again, is bringing in all the stakeholders in education and meaningfully connect them to the growth and development of young people.

Q Finally, Dr. Ray, you have been an educator for many years. As you survey your career and look to the future, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the potential for us as a nation to effectively deal with the many problem that face education?

A I'm optimistic. If I wasn't, I couldn't do this job. If I thought there was no hope I couldn't do this job. What keeps me going are the many dedicated professionals that I have a chance to work with, and the many caring parents and community people that I know want a society, a city, a school system that we can all be proud of, and the many wanting and needy youngsters who depend on people like us to make them successful. I know what I can do for my nine-year-old, and it saddens me to think that many youngsters don't have those experiences in the neighborhoods in which they live. I grew up in an urban center, and many people did not have high hopes for me. I can't tell you about one of my friends who was successful. I can't tell you that I was successful because of something I was born with. It was because some caring adult was there for me. So my commitment is to urban centers and to youngsters who need people like me and others who are there to ensure we create the right environment and provide every opportunity possible for those young people to be successful.