New Haven is Ground Zero for School Reform!
I'm always excited to see my city getting kudos in the national press - but yesterday's op-ed by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times really made my week (ok, maybe even my month). Mr. Kristof praised New Haven for its groundbreaking collaborative effort in working in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers. He said “New Haven has arguably become ground zero for school reform in America.” And you know what – he’s right.
Here in New Haven we've been fully immersed in the School Change Initiative for the past two years - and the strategies our city has employed have become our "new normal." The effort has three main themes: creating a diverse portfolio schools, employing the very best teachers and administrators in the country, and bringing the community together to support students in their out-of-school lives so that they will be ready to learn when they come to school and equipped to succeed in college and work when they leave high school. These strategies have become embedded in our culture - words that we didn't have in our vocabulary two years ago are now part of the community vernacular - climate surveys, tiering, turnaround schools, Boost!, Promise and TEVAL. We’ve accepted it, we expect it, we complain about it, we live it.
That's why it was so great to be reminded how far out ahead of the pack we are here in New Haven. It's great to be recognized for our accomplishments and our innovation.
It also reminds me how United Way's work on Boost! fits in to the bigger picture of the school reform movement in New Haven. Boost! is part of a very comprehensive school reform initiative grounded in the philosophy of collaboration and innovation. The New Haven School Change Initiative is a true community-wide effort which includes numerous non-traditional partnerships – from the union, to the university to the charter schools. We are unique in that our Mayor and Superintendent were the catalysts for this movement, but it has become a true collaborative effort of our City. The School Change Initiative is based upon the values and aspirations of our community to work together, seeing our common interests in one another and aimed at achieving academic success for our young people in the short run and economic success for our city in the longer term. That’s ground breaking. And we’re at the center of it.
When you're smack in the middle of something it's often easy to forget how the rest of the world is seeing you, and I hope yesterday's article will remind us New Haveners how lucky we are to be part of this.
Comments
Yes, that was a great article to read indeed! My sister living in Wisconsin forwarded it to me, and it was really cool to see it from an outside perspective. It's a great reminder of the reasons, support, and innovation of what we do.
The article makes you think about how much inertia we have around our educational system and our limited window of opportunity for action in New Haven. And when I say educational system I mean it in the very big way, really the schools are one part of the way our society educate the young. Parents, the media, social institutions and community all play a role in the system. Like all big system its tough to bring about sweeping changes, in part because so many have so much invested in the current system. However, the fact that there is such wide agreement that we can do better seems to be catalysis for getting the various interests to look at the bigger picture. Self interest is a powerful force so I hope our community can make the best of our window of opportunity while good will and big thinking still have currency.
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