The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

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Education Symposium Highlights Programs to Improve Schools

Researchers, public education advocates, and educators who run innovative programs met on March 4 to discuss - and occasionally debate - what works in education reform and why.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF) assembled the education leaders for a symposium to explore reform efforts that hold promise for improving education in low-income and racially-isolated school districts, with a special focus on teaching math, science and technology.

Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and counselor to LCCREF, began the day by urging people to put aside partisan politics and hot-button

divisive issues like school vouchers in order to forge a consensus on committing the nation to education reform. Drawing an analogy to the space program, Henderson noted that the country answered President Kennedy's 1961 call to land on the moon by the end of the decade, and that the same national commitment to improving public education is needed now.

The day-long symposium featured panel sessions on academic programs, teacher training and recruitment, efficacy research, and legal and school finance reform. Each session began with presentations by individuals running programs that target students and schools in the greatest need.

The presenters then engaged in an in-depth discussion with other attendees, who included  experts in related fields, civil rights advocates, policy makers, and congressional staff.

Linda Murray, former superintendent of San Jose Unified School District, described results that often follow efforts by the district to encourage all students to take advanced placement courses. Disproving the myth that harder requirements would cause more failures and dropouts, Dr. Murray showed that performance stayed as high in the advanced classes as they had been when access to the classes had been restricted. Similarly, graduation rates stayed up as well.

Gary Jacobs, founder of the Gary & Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High, described the process of developing business community support for a new model of schools. High Tech High has been so successful that it has been cited by Bill Gates as a model for redesigning high schools to inspire students and prepare them for the 21st century.

In addition to the many successful educators participating, researchers, education lawyers and school finance experts rounded out the discussion. A session on two of the featured programs, Teach For America (TFA) and the Higher Achievement Program, focused on  how to conduct research on academic programs and showed the power of well-designed research to change the debate over education reform.

Abigail Smith, who started as a TFA teacher and is now vice president for research and public policy, described TFA's extensive outreach and recruitment of college students who do not typically pursue teaching careers. This year, 12 percent of the senior classes at both Yale University and Spelman College applied to join the TFA teacher corps.

Responding to criticism that TFA placed less experienced teachers in higher need schools, the organization cooperated with a research study conducted by Mathematica Policy Research. The study was funded, designed and conducted independently of TFA to ensure its objectivity.  Dr. Steven Glazerman presented the results that showed that students taught by TFA teachers consistently performed as well - and in some cases, better - than students taught by new teachers who had come to the classroom through traditional routes.

In the wake of the Mathematica study, the debate over TFA is now about how to continue expanding and refining the program that recruits bright, new teachers for some of the nation's most troubled schools, not whether it is harming students or should continue at all.

Two of the most important legal and financial reform cases were also discussed in detail. David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, described the extensive statewide effort to implement the New Jersey Supreme Court's rulings in the Abbott cases. The cases required the state to provide equalized funding for students, focusing on the needs of disadvantaged students in the lowest income and poorest performing school districts.

The state maintains a facilities fund for hundreds of renovation and replacement projects in the Abbott districts. Universal pre-school is available in the districts for three and four year-olds, as are full-day kindergarten, intensive literacy interventions throughout elementary school, and after-school programs.

In New York, a recent lawsuit by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity may put the state in a position similar to New Jersey's. The courts there found that the state's school system is not meeting its constitutional duty to provide an adequate education for all students.

To form the basis of the $9.5 billion remedy request, Jay Chambers of the American Institutes for Research managed an extensive review of the state's school system and the cost of providing all schools in the state with the same programs that the most successful schools have. Dr. Chambers presented the report, known as the "New York Adequacy Study," and discussed the structure of school financing and how to change it.

The entire symposium was digitally filmed for streaming video and is being prepared for online viewing at www.realizethedream.org as part of a series of stories featuring more in-depth looks at each of the programs presented during the symposium.

Participants for the "Promising Academic Programs" panel were Jacobs; Dr. Murray; Maureen Holla, executive director of the Higher Achievement Program; Steve Mancini, public affairs director, KIPP Foundation; and Gilbert Moreno, president and CEO of the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans in Houston, which operates the George I. Sanchez Charter School in Houston and San Antonio.

The "Teacher Training and Recruitment Programs" panel included Smith; Dr. Janice Koch, program director, Institute for the Development of Education in Advanced Sciences, Hofstra University; Joan Baratz-Snowden, American Federation of Teachers, presenting the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; and Dr. Carlo Parravano, executive director, Merck Institute for Science Education.

The "Research" presentation included Dr. Glazerman; Dr. Christine Emmons, Director of Research and Evaluation, Comer School Development Program, Yale University; Dr. Leigh Linden, professor of economics, Columbia University; and Dr. Joseph Johnson, Ohio State Superintendent's office.

The final panel, "Funding Equity and Legal Issues," included Sciarra; Dr. Chambers; and William L. Taylor, LCCR vice chair and chair of the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights.