Even more thinking about schools

Believe in Our Schools campaign IN BALTIMORE. Caption: At Fallstaff Elementary School, Jaday Jones looks at a book donated by the Believe in Our Schools book drive, sponsored by Mayor Martin O'Malley. Books collected from residents are given to struggling school libraries. (Baltimore Sun photo by Monica Lopossay), Aug 24, 2005.

The only real way to stop sprawl is to have high quality schools in the center city. Schooling is the biggest reason why people leave the center city for the suburbs (well public safety too, but the quality of schools and the quality of public safety are intimately linked).

Tom Knott, a Washington Times sportswriter, also writes a column on DC issues that runs in the Metropolitan section on Thursdays. His column yesterday, "Cost of D.C. ballpark will trickle down to all" makes a good point about businesses increasing their prices to cover the cost of the tax they will be assessed to pay for the construction of the stadium.

About the schools improvement issue, he writes:

This is an election year in the city, which contributed to the obtuse wrangling of the D.C. Council. It was easy to mock the political players, even if some of the grandstanding was understandable. The ballpark voting record of each council member is apt to cut a lot of different ways with constituents, many of whom never could quite grasp that ballpark funding was distinct from the city's eternally plagued public school system.

An absence of funds never has been the problem with the public school system. An absence of political will is. Even the closing of underutilized elementary schools in the city's various neighborhoods is a vexing matter because of activists who don't want to sacrifice their particular school, no matter how fiscally responsible consolidation would be.

Relating to this point, Harry Jaffe of the Examiner and the Washingtonian magazine writes [NOTE TO THE EXAMINER, MAKE the writings of columnists searchable in your new design, you have forgotten the columnists -- although I guess this says something for the value of the print format] in the column "Does DCPS have what it takes to drive the $1 Billion plan:"

For 50 years the system has wrecked public schools by not maintaining them and abused students by allowing the buildings to crumble around them. And the council gives DCPS $1 billion?... Lord knows the schools must be fixed, and $1 billion in increments of $100 million a year is a long overdue infusion. Parents, rightfully enraged, have lobbied for years to fund a modernization program.

But who among us has faith that the school system can use the money well? This is a school systems that still cannot accomplish the basic task of getting all of the books to all of its students..."

Relatedly, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute released a report (I think, because I can't find it) or an e-release entitled "It's poverty, stupid" about persistent problems, including school performance, in certain parts of the city.

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It turns out this is a piece in the Hill Rag/DC North/East of the River publications, and I read it in the Hill Rag. (www.communitynews.com)
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Again, I will raise the issue of needing to engage citizens in a substantive manner into the process, into creating a true "City of Learning."

One of the ways to rebuild broken-impaired-dysfunctional family systems is to take the Asset-Based Community Development approach, and begin by engaging parents, especially those parents less likely to normally participate, in the creation of family learning contracts, which I have written about before...

An aside. Last week, I was in a neighborhood coffee shop, eavesdropping as I am want to do, on the conversation between a mother and her rambunctious daughter. The mother was explaining to the daughter how she would have to behave in (pre?)school. "Do you know what circle time is? You're going to have to be quiet, and listen, when the teacher is talking." ...

The point here is that the child is getting "home instruction" about how to behave and act in school.

Family learning contracts and support programs can begin reintegrating families that have experienced persistent multi-generational poverty.

Click here for "The Family Learning Contract: A Tool to Support Parent Volunteerism & Parent Accountability" from the Neighborhood House Charter School in Boston. (I learned first about such from a Harvard Business Review article last year about "Positive Deviance, which described the success of similar contracts in low-income regions of Brazil.) And here for the manual "The Many Faces of Parent Involvement."

Also check out the Coalition of Community Schools website which has a great set of resources. (These three links are being added to the right sidebar.)

There are many ways to do this, some of which I've written about before, including linking with libraries, kindergarden classes going on field trips to the local library, a First Day Festival for the city to emphasize the importance of school, bringing back adult education to the school system, etc.

But money isn't the answer to any and every question--whereas engagement and involvement usually isis the beginning of the answer to many of these kinds of questions.

Note that I have been adding a section of links on education to the right sidebar, which include these links thus far:

DC links
All Students Succeeding: A Master Education Plan for a System of Great Schools (DC)
DC Education Blog
DC Education Compact
DC Public Charter School Board
DC Public Schools
DC Public Schools Planning Process
Friends of Choice in Urban Schools (DC)
Parents United for the DC Public Schools

General Links
Amplifying positive deviance in schools
Broad Prize for Urban Education
Catalyst Chicago School Reform
Catalyst Cleveland School Reform
Education Commission of the States
Education Trust
ERIC - Ed. Resources Info. Ctr.
Edutopia (Magazine+)
First Day of School Initiatives
Gaining Traction, Gaining Ground: How Some High Schools Accelerate Learning for Struggling Students
Getting Smarter, Becoming Fairer: A Progressive Education Agenda for a Stronger Nation
Green Street Arts Center
Nat. Assn. for Year Round Ed.
Nat. Ctr. for Educ. Accountability
National Parent-Teachers Association
National Trust page on Historic Neighborhood Schools
New Schools Better Neighborhoods
Power to Change: High Schools that Help All Students Achieve
Public Schools & Economic Development: What the Research Shows
Rethinking Schools Magazine
Smart Growth & Schools (EPA)
Smart Growth & Schools (Nat. Clearinghouse for Ed. Facilities
Why Johnny Can't Walk to School

Index Keywords: education