Reshaping Woodlawn

Tommy Bice, formerly the Alabama Superintendent of Education, seems genuinely excited about his new position as education director for the Mike & Gillian Goodrich Foundation in Birmingham, one of several nonprofits seeking to improve education — as well as housing, nutrition and other key factors — for children and families in the Woodlawn neighborhood and around the state.

The new job, which Bice started April 18, will allow him to “pursue (his) passion of making opportunities a reality for kids, and not just in Birmingham, but in other areas of the state where the Goodrich Foundation can make an impact,” he said a few days after his start date.

Tommy Bice announced his retirement March 1, drawing statewide media coverage, but he made it clear that he was not abandoning the field of education after 39 years as a teacher and administrator.  “I will return to where my greatest passion lies — working with inner-city students, their teachers and leaders to transform not only educational opportunities for students, but the communities in which they live,” Bice, 61, said at the time of his retirement in a news release.

The educator’s role with Goodrich will draw on his much-praised gift for innovation, as the organization — with Bice’s leadership — takes part in the Woodlawn Innovation Network (WIN), a Birmingham City Schools initiative at Woodlawn High School and its five “feeder” middle and elementary schools designed to help all students become college-ready

Bice, who had served as Superintendent since November 2011, is a perfect fit, according to Carol Butler, the foundation’s executive director. “We are committed to trying to create better student outcomes and helping them achieve more in our public schools, and (Bice) has tremendous knowledge and experience in making that happen,” Butler said.

Bice said his first responsibility regarding WIN will be to “operationalize” and “finalize” a waiver request for the network that the Birmingham City Board of Education, along with the Goodrich and Woodlawn foundations, filed with the state in 2014.

The waiver is a request by the project partners for greater flexibility in hiring, administration and the awarding of course credits in order to make the ambitious program work. For example, students will be able to earn college credits — at UAB or Lawson State — while still in high school.

“The goal is that every child at Woodlawn, by the time they graduate, is ready to go to college,” Bice said. “Once we make it work in that feeder pattern, it can be replicated in other feeder patterns (in the area) and around the state.”

The state’s high-school graduation rate increased during Bice’s tenure as superintendent, and he received mostly praise when he announced his retirement, though his support of Common Core federal education standards was not popular with many Republican legislators.

Bice’s stature around the state is a certainly an asset for the Goodrich Foundation, according to Butler. “He has a truly stellar reputation for caring about the children in the (school) building,” she said.

Bice wants to help combat the debilitating poverty that affects so many Alabama children and is “the core of why many kids are not successful in school or life,” he said. Poverty hurts kids in their early years because it brings with it “a lack of opportunity or exposure,” Bice said, citing as an example the lack of access to books experienced by many poor children.

“When they show up in school in kindergarten, they are starting a zero when they should be starting at age five or six,” Bice said. “Opportunities for children … even before they come to kindergarten will be part of this work as well.”

The students at an inner-city alternative school where Bice once served as director taught the Alexander City native what he calls a “profound” lesson about the gnawing effects of poverty on children in the classroom. 

“Kids tell us, ‘You want us to learn math? We are hungry. Get us something to eat and we’ll talk about math,’” Bice said.

“Sometimes as educators, we think that when kids show up to school they are ready to learn, but if we don’t address food and clothing and safety, they sometimes can’t learn,” he said.

That’s why the Goodrich Foundation takes what it calls a “holistic” approach — addressing a wide range of issues, including parks, housing and small-business revitalization. “You have to work on … all those things that make communities healthy,” Butler said.

Bice seems animated by one critical belief: All children matter and can succeed if given the chance. 

“Most of my career was spent working with students who had special needs or emotional or behavioral problems or who had been involved in the juvenile justice system, and what I learned is that they have just as much potential, academically and otherwise, as anyone else if they have a chance,’ Bice said.

“We need all kids to be successful,” Bice said. “(The Goodrich Foundation) believes that, and that matches my belief system because I have truly seen it happen.”