I think it’s safe to say that most Americans – especially in the education world – are pretty pleased with the attention President Obama is paying to school reform, especially this early on in his Presidency. While folks may quibble about the specifics, the top-down reforms he is calling for could have a substantial impact on our education system as a whole. But while policies emanating from Washington are certainly important, let’s not lose sight of where change can also come from: the bottom-up. It’s change at the point of contact that matters most - at the interface between students, teachers, principals, and parents. And we don’t need to wait for congressional approval to get that kind of change started.

Take for example the case of Central Elementary School in Nampa, Idaho.  Despite having 85% of its students qualify for free or reduced lunch, 20% who speak languages other than English at home, and a highly mobile student population with half of the students attending other schools the year before, the school saw a 25% increase in the number of students reading at or above grade level in 2007-08. How did they do that? According to their Principal Cindy Thomas, the key factor responsible for the turn-around was having everybody in the school, as well as members of the wider community, pitch in to help the kids. Costco employees volunteered to read to children on a regular basis, as did Nampa First Church Of The Nazarene members, retired educators, school resource officers from the Nampa Police Department, and various community leaders. Even the custodian, Dorene Shelton, spent her 15-minute breaks reading with children. And the extra time and effort clearly paid off. (Reminds me of the well-known African proverb: “It takes a village to raise a child.”)

The Worcester Telegram & Gazette (out of Worcester, MA)  just featured a story of one district in Massachusetts that is also taking the bull by the horns when it comes to school improvement. Worcester public schools hired consulting firm Focus on Results to work with its Priority Schools (i.e. those in which students’ test scores fall below No Child Left Behind targets.) Consultants helped schools design internal professional development meetings based on the needs of teachers which led to the creation of instructional leadership teams at each school. Each team participated in monthly training seminars and site visits. Members of the leadership team at the Goddard School of Science and Technology, for instance, typically sat around a table at the back of the school library discussing things like the kinds of questions teachers should ask students to improve their reading and writing skills, or how to evaluate student writing in a way that would encourage analytical thinking. Their version of school reform seemed to be teachers collaborating with each other and sharing their expertise to improve teaching and learning across the school. Sounds good to me. And to the district, who asked the firm to start working with all of its schools last fall.

In previous posts, I’ve written about the need for parents to hold themselves accountable with respect to educating their kids, as well as calling for a new spirit of rigor when it comes to education (see here and here). I definitely see the power and potential of bottom-up school reform efforts, and applaud the two aforementioned examples of schools putting their noses to the proverbial grindstone, and pooling the talents and efforts of everyone involved with the school to get the job done.

takepart in reading Hillary Clinton’s book “It Takes a Village” - a concept which the folks at Central Elementary School truly understand.

(Photo: ravik694’s flickr photostream/Creative Commons)