Schools with access to the Internet can now join an ongoing discussion of Essential school principles, practices, and activities via the Coalition’s Web site at http:// www.ces.brown.edu. The site posts regular reports on actions of the CES National Congress, allows text searches of Coalition documents, and invites participants to contribute to an interactive on-line conversation. No password is required.
“What does it mean to me, personally, to be an anti-racist leader?” asks Glenn Singleton, the president of Pacific Educational Group in Palo Alto, California, who works frequently with California’s Essential schools on issues of equity, leadership, and whole-school reform. To answer that question, he made up the following list: I am abnormal. I do things outside what is seen
Over 700 public charter schools around the country have started because active parents joined with teachers and community partners, getting state or local permission to operate outside district constraints. Once these schools open, they depend more than most on their parents for help in key startup areas. Though vital, such help can also raise problems in every area from management
Randy Wisehart and his team partner at Hibberd Middle School in Richmond, Indiana ask their eighth-grade Humanities students to suggest and defend their own course grade, using a number of instruments including this final exercise: Please indicate your self-assessed grade of ____, and support your opinion with your work from the nine weeks??specifically, your written work, book reviews, daily assignments,
When the Boston Public Schools (BPS) open for business in the fall of 2005, 25 out of 34 Boston high schools each will enroll fewer than 500 students. Seven of those schools will be brand new, the results of the conversions of Hyde Park High School and West Roxbury High School. And the momentum to establish small schools in Boston
Principle 10: “The school should demonstrate non-discriminatory and inclusive policies, practices, and pedagogies. It should model democratic practices that involve all who are directly affected by the school. The school should honor diversity and build on the strengths of its communities, deliberately and explicitly challenging all forms of inequity and discrimination.” The room crackled with energy and tension as the
No individual has all the skills–and certainly not the time–to carry out all the complex tasks of contemporary leadership. –John Gardner, On Leadership Coalition principles assert that teaching and learning should be personalized to the maximum feasible extent and that “to capitalize on this personalization, decisions about the details of the course of study, the use of students’ and teachers’
Horace editor Jill Davidson met with four Bay Area educators—Michelle Lau, math teacher at Fremont’s Irvington High School, David Montes de Oca, educational strategist at Oakland’s Urban Promise Academy, Monica Vaughan, teacher-leader at Oakland’s Street Academy, and Michele Dawson, technology coordinator at Daly City’s Jefferson Elementary School District—for a roundtable discussion on leading for equity. All four are current or
Students are too often the forgotten heart of school reform-its whole purpose and its major resource. how can their power be nurtured and tapped as schools work toward more active learning, more personal and decent school climates, and higher standards and expectations? THE KIDS PILED OUT OF VANS into the May splendor of the summer camp nestled in the New
Make a list of your favorite kids among those you teach. Then disaggregate the list, breaking it down by family income or status, by color, by gender, or by any other group traits. Do patterns emerge? Define for yourself what prevents kids in the bottom quartile of your classes from achieving at high level. What specific strategies do you employ
As well as consulting this Web site, schools can find a rich source of information on promoting democracy and equity through family involvement in the 1997 book Urgent Message: Families Crucial to School Reform, by Anne Lewis and Anne Henderson, available for $14.95 from the Center for Law and Education, 1875 Connecticut Ave. Washington, D.C. 20009; tel. (202) 986-3000 (202) 986-3000 ;
by Bill Johnson, National Re:Learning Faculty Just as a learner’s permit allows students to develop the skills of driving under the tutelage of a responsible adult, this advisory curriculum gives them a framework in which they take gradual responsibility for their own success a system of performance tasks, initially in a coached and guided environment, but finally on their own.
by Bill Johnson, National Re:Learning Faculty Just as a learner’s permit allows students to develop the skills of driving under the tutelage of a responsible adult, this advisory curriculum gives them a framework in which they take gradual responsibility for their own success a system of performance tasks, initially in a coached and guided environment, but finally on their own.
Schools Clover Park High School Public school serving grades 9-12 11023 Gravelly Lake Drive SW Lakewood, WA 98499-1391 253/583-5500 http://cpsd.cloverpark.k12.wa.us/Schools/HighSchools/CloverPark/CloverPark.asp College Preparatory and Architecture Academy Public school serving grades 9-12 4610 Foothill Blvd. Oakland, CA 94601 510/879-1131 Fremont in Transition High School Public school serving grades 9-12 4610 Foothill Blvd. Oakland, CA 94601 510/879-1137 Leominster High School
To learn more from a uniquely informed perspective on how Essential schools can thrive in large urban districts, Jill Davidson, Horace‘s editor, interviewed Eric Nadelstern, the Chief Academic Officer for New Schools at the New York City Department of Education in charge of the city’s thirty-school Autonomy Zone. The founding principal of the International High School at LaGuardia Community College,
Ted Sizer, founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools and now its Chair Emeritus, discussed his frustrations with school districts as they typically operate with Jill Davidson, Horace‘s editor. Horace: Do you believe that schools work better within systems than as islands? Ted Sizer: Schools came before districts. Formal education in this country started in somebody’s kitchen, then somebody’s church,
Horace editor Jill Davidson spoke with Dr. Warren Simmons, Executive Director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. Established at Brown University in 1993 as an outgrowth of the work of the Coalition of Essential Schools, the Institute’s current mission is to generate, share, and act on knowledge that improves conditions and outcomes in American schools, particularly in urban areas
Schools seeking help with implementing the Ten Common Principles can find help through the Coalition of Essential Schools in a variety of ways: 1. The new CES School Benchmarks spell out detailed “indicators” for how the Ten Common Principles play out in school structures and practices. To obtain the latest working copy, contact Joe Pattaphongse by e-mail at jpattaphongse@essentialschools.org, or
1. The school should focus on helping students learn to use their minds well. This includes helping students to: make connections between subjects; understand instead of memorize; go beyond set expectations (do extra credit work because they want to!); and develop life skills (think critically and logically and communicate clearly). Academics should be the top priority of the school and
“Indianapolis Public Schools operates some of the worst dropout factories in the nation. Hundreds of students each year quit school, most landing in dead-end jobs or prisons. In some families, dropping out has become a way of life with neither parents nor children completing high school,” begins the first paragraph of a May 2005 eight-part editorial series published in the
Anna Le, a graduate of Life Academy, actively participated on the school’s design team during its transition to an autonomous small school. In conversation with Laura Flaxman, Le shares her insights about small school design from the student perspective. Laura Flaxman: What should students be aware of when they’re moving from a large high school to a small one? Anna
Students at the Alternative Community School (ACS) in Ithaca, New York voted in 1998 on a Constitution that designates who makes which kinds of decisions at the school: The ACS staff shall have purview over: Joint student/staff curriculum committee to survey students, design curriculum, with final approval by staff Which teachers teach which classes Requirements and attendance policy of each
Working with a researcher from Partners in School Innovation, the teacher of one sixth-grade class at San Francisco’s James Lick Middle School took a very close look at what worked best in communicating with the families of her students. By interviewing every parent in depth, the two came up with a set of issues that routinely got in the way
“We all want our children to get a good education,” says the facilitator in the Right Question Project’s two and a half-hour workshop to build parents’ skills in naming issues, framing questions, and making action plans about their children’s education. “But sometimes going to schools can be pretty intimidating, and knowing what to ask can be frustrating.” Rather than providing
Does your child’s school communicate with parents in their home languages? Does your child’s school involve parents in decision-making about how to run the school? Does your child’s school work with community groups on school and community events? Does your child’s school keep you well informed about his or her behavior and progress in school? Does your child’s school keep