In recent months, the federal government has made it perfectly clear that one of its key education reform goals is to turn around the nation’s chronically underperforming schools. In fact, President Obama pledged to devote billions of dollars to fund a federal school turnaround program which would close 5,000 of the lowest performing schools in the next five years and reopen them with new principals and teachers.

But as many school districts are finding out, putting the nation’s worst schools on the chopping block is proving to be an arduous and painful process, and the desired results aren’t always achieved.

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There are some non-profit education-based organizations whose mission and programs are so uniquely effective that they become stand-out models for others to emulate. I recently discovered Community of Unity in New York City which is definitely one such program.

Founded in 2001 by Eric Komoroff,  Community of Unity (CofU) aims to help young people discover and develop their unique potential and purpose (their “song”) using seven essential life skills (or “instruments”):  self awareness, self esteem, sense of humor, empathy, integrity, responsibility, and focus. Learning how to use these skills empowers youth to make more positive choices for themselves and transform their own lives.

According to the CofU website:

Community of Unity bases its curriculum on the premise that by building successful peer-to-peer and peer-to-adult relationships over multiple years, youth are provided opportunities for belonging, space to build essential life-skills, and are able to grow their connection to family and community.

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All eyes were on New Haven, Conn. last week when the teachers’ union, in a 21-1 vote, overwhelmingly approved a new contract to go into effect next year.

The contract, which includes changes typically eschewed by unions such as performance pay for teachers and the option to shut down and reorganize failing schools, is being widely hailed as “historic” and “a national model for reform.” In the words of  AFT President Randi Weingarten:

This is both a collective bargaining agreement, as well as a process that should be analyzed through virtually all the public school districts throughout this country as a model of both process and outcome.

And according to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the New Haven contract:

shows a willingness to go into areas that used to be seen as untouchable. This shows real courage on the union’s part.

But does the contract actually live up to all of this hype?

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It is with great sadness that I share news of the passing of renowned education reformer Theodore R. Sizer (June 23, 1932 – October 21, 2009).

Ted began his career in education as an English and mathematics teacher in Massachusetts. By age 31, he had already earned his doctorate, published two books, and was named dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. As years went by Ted began to miss teaching, and eager to return to his work in schools, resigned as dean in 1972 and accepted a position as headmaster of Phillips Academy—an historically all-boys school that became co-educational under his leadership.

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I think former Secretary of State Colin Powell put it best when he said:

When more than 1 million students a year drop out of high school, it’s more than a problem, it’s a catastrophe.

Dropout rates across the country, and in major cities especially, have reached epic proportions. According to a recent study, almost half of all public high school students in our nation’s fifty largest cities fail to graduate.

Without a high school diploma, these individuals have a greater chance of experiencing unemployment, becoming dependent on government assistance, and moving in and out of prisons. They earn less money, contribute less to the economy, and wind up costing the country hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of their lives.

The state of Massachusetts has decided to take the proverbial bull by the horns and launch a multi-pronged attack to cut its dropout rate by at least half. In 2008, a special commission headed by secretary of education Paul Reville was created to develop dropout prevention strategies. One of their proposals: To make dropping out of high school before age 18 illegal.

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Ever since President Obama announced that $100 billion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds would be given to Education, I’ve been following the money trail, month after month, and writing about where it leads.

To that end, I just finished reading a report released jointly by the White House and the Department of Education entitled “Educational Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”

The 20-page document is a preview of the first official quarterly report, to be posted by the Recovery, Accountability, and Transparency Board on October 30, which will be a detailed account of all expenditures to date.

According to preliminary estimates, 250,000 education jobs were retained or created across the country thanks to ARRA funding. These jobs include teachers, principals, and support staff in elementary and secondary schools, as well as educational, administrative, and support personnel in colleges and universities. (The document mentions that since states are still finalizing their ARRA reports, this initial number is an estimate subject to revision. In fact, according to the New York Post,  the number of teaching jobs saved in New York City is actually 14,000, which is considerably higher than the 4,000 listed.)

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I woke up on this sunny and warmer-than-usual Monday morning in the mood to write a feel-good post. Maybe something about ordinary citizens who decided to TakePart and take action in support of public schools.

It just so happens that I found two such stories to satisfy my craving for a healthy dose of inspiration.

On Saturday, a special day-long event took place in New York City.
Thanks to the non-profit organization New York Cares,  a whopping 8,000 volunteers from sororities, alumni associations, corporations, and community groups were mobilized in a joint effort to beautify 117 city schools. Some of their completed projects include: painting classrooms and hallways, adding murals to school walls, and planting flowers in school gardens.

This year marked the 18th anniversary of New York Cares Day which was originally conceived when budget cuts forced schools to cancel school improvement projects they could no longer afford. Given the state of our current economy, not to mention Governor Paterson’s proposed $223 million cuts to education, this event couldn’t have come at a better time.

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I just read two articles expressing (seemingly) opposing viewpoints on the role of education in reducing inequality. The first is Nicholas Kristof’s Op-Ed piece in the New York Times which Ben Adler then responded to on Newsweek’s blog. I’ll summarize both arguments below, and then draw my own conclusions.

According to Kristof, education is the key to winning the war on poverty and social injustice. In his view, if Democrats would stand up to teachers’ unions and implement much needed reforms, disadvantaged children would not be subjected to inferior schools that perpetuate the cycle of poverty. His list of recommended reforms includes:

intensive preschool, charter schools with long hours, fewer certification requirements that limit entry to the teaching profession, higher compensation to attract and retain good teachers, objective measurement to see who is effective, more flexibility in removing those who are ineffective.

He ends his column with the following question:

Half a century after Brown v. Board of Education, isn’t it time to end our “separate but equal” school systems?

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The NAEP released the 2009 Nation’s Report Card for Mathematics yesterday, and the results are pretty much the same as they were in 2007.

More than 168,000 fourth-graders and 161,000 eighth-graders across the country participated in the assessment, responding to questions about number properties and operations; measurement; geometry; data analysis, statistics, and probability; and algebra.

Overall, there were no gains in average test scores for fourth-graders from 2007 until 2009, and eighth-graders showed a 2-point increase. When you break down the results by state, 30 states showed no significant changes in scores for fourth or eighth-graders, 13 states showed small gains in either one grade or the other, and only five states showed slight increases in both grades.

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What do all excellent schools have in common? Although there are probably many different answers to this question, the first thing that comes to mind is excellent teachers. In fact, would anyone even dream of calling a school excellent if the teachers were anything but? Probably not. So if filling our country with outstanding public schools is a national priority, then it follows that we need to fill those schools with outstanding teachers.

With the exception of the top 5% of teachers who are, by definition, exceptionally good, and the bottom 5% of teachers who are, also by definition, exceptionally not, we are left with the majority of teachers in the middle of the spectrum who sincerely want to do the best they can for their students, but often obtain mixed results. So how can we support the majority of our teachers in ways that will enable them to maximize their teaching potential?

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that teachers are solely to blame for our failing schools, or that the responsibility of reform lies solely on their shoulders. Not even close. However, I’ve personally witnessed what a strong corps of highly skilled and passionate teachers can do, and when it comes to reform strategies, I think incorporating effective professional development strategies into the culture of schools is a good place to start.

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