The President and the Secretary rolled out the new draft regulations for a so-called "race to the top" fund today.
It's not clear whether llinois is in the running, given it's funding inequity problem. But it did raise its charter cap, which is considered helpful.
The event included remarks from Jarvis Sanford from AUSL, which are excerpted below.
File pic.
"For the students who are served by neighborhood schools
in cities like Chicago, the Academy for Urban School Leadership brings a
particular model for school transformation. It's a model that is tailored
to address the needs and challenges of some of the city's worst
performing schools in some of the poorest neighborhoods. And it is a model that
has demonstrated success.
Since 2006, all of our schools have seen consistent improvement,
both in academics and in non-academic measures like attendance, discipline and
parent engagement.
This year, three of our four turnaround elementary schools had
over 50 percent of students meeting or exceeding the state standard. All
three of these schools will be off probation for the first time in over eight
years.
Before we took over our first turnaround, the Sherman School of
Excellence, just one in four students was meeting or exceeding state standards.
This past year, after three years of AUSL management, more than half of Sherman
students met or exceeded state standards.
That track record of success is being duplicated at our more
recent turnaround schools. Mr. Duncan, you may have special appreciation for
the improvement at the Harvard School of Excellence, one of the schools you
visited earlier this year. Our Harvard students have improved almost 25
percentage points on the state test in just two years of AUSL
management."
Jarvis went on to discuss how the turnaround model works. He
said:
"We rely on a variety of tools to continually assess
student needs and determine if they are being met. Teachers have
immediate access to the results, so they know what needs to be done to
supplement the curriculum and meet the needs of individual students."
In closing Jarvis said:
"AUSL achieves something that I'm personally very
proud to be part of. I'm privileged to see children who were once written
off as failures begin to excel at school; children who had been struggling or,
worse, not even showing up for class. That's a profound thing to witness.
I'm inspired every day by the dedication of our principals, teachers and
staff. And I'm especially moved by the response we've seen from our
communities.
Like Catonya Withers, mother of four children at Harvard and
chairperson of the school's Local Advisory School Council. Secretary
Duncan, you may remember meeting Ms. Withers. She describes Harvard before the
AUSL turnaround as a school at which every day there was a police paddy wagon,
a fire truck or an ambulance. Or Wanda Wilburn, mother of three children at
Harvard, who says that before AUSL, she thought they might as well tear Harvard
down and make it a parking lot. It was that bad. But these two parents and many
like them have seen their schools transformed. And to them it is a miracle.
The turnaround process is hard work. Not every school will
respond in the same way in the same time frame. But for the sake of our
children, we cannot be satisfied anything less than dramatic improvement.
As long as comprehensive school reform continues to foster this
kind of ongoing improvement, we will steadily close the achievement gap in
American public education."
Filed under: Foundation Follies, When Washington Attacks
district299reader
4 hours, 25 minutes ago