Dear Commons Community,
David L. Kirp, professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, had an op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times, on what it takes to give students a first-rate education in inner-city urban schools. He provides Union City, New Jersey, as his model:
“Union City makes an unlikely poster child for education reform. It’s a poor community with an unemployment rate 60 percent higher than the national average. Three-quarters of the students live in homes where only Spanish is spoken. A quarter are thought to be undocumented, living in fear of deportation.
Public schools in such communities have often operated as factories for failure. This used to be true in Union City, where the schools were once so wretched that state officials almost seized control of them. How things have changed. From third grade through high school, students’ achievement scores now approximate the statewide average. What’s more, in 2011, Union City boasted a high school graduation rate of 89.5 percent — roughly 10 percentage points higher than the national average. Last year, 75 percent of Union City graduates enrolled in college, with top students winning scholarships to the Ivies.
As someone who has worked on education policy for four decades, I’ve never seen the likes of this. After spending a year in Union City working on a book, I believe its transformation offers a nationwide strategy.”
Kirp describes successes at several levels. For example:
“Union City High School bore the scarlet-letter label, “school in need of improvement.” It has taken strong leadership from its principal, John Bennetti, to turn things around — to instill the belief that education can be a ticket out of poverty.
On Day 1, the principal lays out the house rules. Everything is tied to a single theme — pride and respect in “our house” — that resonates with the community culture of family, unity and respect. “Cursing doesn’t showcase our talents. Breaking the dress code means we’re setting a tone that unity isn’t important, coming in late means missing opportunities to learn.” Bullying is high on his list of nonnegotiables: “We are about caring and supporting.”
And the principal is persuading teachers to raise their expectations. “There should be more courses that prepare students for college, not simply more work but higher-quality work,” he tells me. This approach is paying off big time: Last year, in a study of 22,000 American high schools, U.S. News & World Report and the American Institutes for Research ranked Union City High in the top 22 percent.”
Kirp’s conclusion of what makes Union City remarkable:
“the absence of pizazz. It hasn’t followed the herd by closing “underperforming” schools or giving the boot to hordes of teachers. No Teach for America recruits toil in its classrooms, and there are no charter schools.”
This is the exact opposite of the models that permeate as school reform in many of our urban areas where students receive drill and kill instruction to pass standardized tests, where teachers are bashed, where schools are closed without community or parental concerns, and replaced by charter schools run by corporations and politically-connected individuals.
Tony
