The Landscape

5 Lessons from the Save Our Schools & AERO Conferences

2011-08-12T12:25:31+00:00

It is summer conference season. Oh yes, it is summer conference season.

As you may have noticed from our social media updates, the IDEA team has been traveling all over creation for the past couple of months. Last month Dana Bennis flew to Devon, England, for the 19th annual International Democratic Education Conference, while Scott Nine went to Providence, Rhode Island, for Free Minds, Free People. Earlier this month, Scott and I traveled to Washington, D.C., for the Save Our Schools March & National Call to Action. A few days later, the entire IDEA staff and much of the rest of our team (board members, interns, and organizers) convened in Portland, Oregon, for the 8th annaul AERO Conference.

Is your head spinning yet? Mine is. I feel exhausted, but energized at the same time.

At IDEA, we're committed to sharing the knowledge of the landscape that we gain from traveling, so I'd like to sum up my reflections on the SOS and AERO gatherings and share a few takeaways. The interpretations of purpose below are mine.

Save Our Schools (SOS), July 28-31
Washington, D.C.

Purpose: Demand a humane, empowering education for every child in America and build a national effort to make it happen
Structure: Two days of participant-led workshops, a rally and march on the White House, and a Congress to outline next steps
Number of attendees: Around 200 at the conference and closing Congress; a few thousand at Saturday's march
Keynotes: Jonathan Kozol, Diane Ravitch
March speakers: Matt Damon, Deborah Meier, Pedro Noguera, and educators from around the country
Sample Workshops: Closing the Opportunity Gap; Revitalizing the American High School

Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) Conference, August 4-7
Portland, OR

Purpose: Bring together community leaders and educators from alternative, public, private, and charter schools to discuss "Transforming Education & Our World"
Structure: Workshops (mainly scheduled, a few spontaneous open space), 6 keynotes, films and activities
Number of attendees: Around 500
Keynotes: Khalif Williams, Justo Mendez, Riane Eisler, Melia Dicker, Deborah Meier, Linda Stout
Sample Workshops: How Democratic Is Your School?; Common Ground: A Spirited Debate About Private, Charter, and Public Schools

Here are 5 lessons I learned from both gatherings:

1. When building a national effort, meeting in person can quickly develop essential trust.

IDEA knows this well, as all of our staff live in different parts of the country but meet in person as regularly as possible. Every day, we connect via email, Skype, and/or phone, but there's nothing like talking and laughing and even arguing face to face to strengthen our relationships. Hard conversations in particular are much better had in person.

At both SOS and AERO, I met dozens of passionate education advocates, some totally new to me and some whom I'd gotten to know through long-distance conversations. There were people whom I hugged upon meeting for the first time because I felt like I already knew them, including several of our interns -- Jason Lacoste (who published this reflection on AERO), Eoin Bastable, and Kelsey Parks -- and colleagues like Jing Fong, the fabulous Education Outreach Manager for YES! Magazine. Also at SOS were folks like Ken Bernstein, or teacherken, whose Daily Kos blog posts I have often shared, and Jonathan Kozol, whose books I began reading while I was still in high school.

Even though we now tend to interact virtually with more people than we see in real life, we humans still need face-to-face contact. Meeting someone in person tells you much more about them than a phone conversation can -- the most important thing being whether you trust that person. This matters very much to how well you work together remotely, especially when times get tough.

2. We must put aside differences to get stuff done.

Around 150 SOS participants came together the day after the march for the Congress facilitated by Scott Nine. Our goal was to figure out how to channel the energy from the march into sustained, collective action for change.

Some very positive results came of the gathering. We split up into small groups based on region, and together we made recommendations for how we'd like SOS to proceed. When we reconvened as a large group, we fused the suggestions from each group and charged a committee of volunteers to make final decisions.

There were also some disheartening things that happened. Two people approached Scott, crying, and said that members of their small group had told them to shut up. A woman in another small regional group rudely told someone to leave because he wasn't from that region.

We will not get anywhere by fighting with people who are on our side. Even when we disagree, which we surely will, we must find ways to work through or put aside our differences for the greater good of the cause. Many of us agree on what kind of changes we want in education; we just disagree on how to make them happen. Ultimately, it's not about us and our big egos. It's about the millions of young people who deserve a better education than they're getting.

3. Cross-pollinating is key to learning from each other's experiences.

At a national conference, you have the opportunity to hear from folks around the country about what they're learning about and what they're doing in their communities. You might get some new ideas for projects to try in your classroom, or learn a new strategy for getting the school board to listen. Take the time to cross-pollinate. We will all be stronger for it.

4. Social media is increasingly important for learning and connecting around social change efforts.

At SOS and AERO, I was among a small but mighty group of folks who were live-tweeting the conference -- that is, making regular updates to Twitter about what we were experiencing moment to moment at the gathering. We quoted Diane Ravitch and Jonathan Kozol's powerful keynotes, we broadcast the information being shared in the workshops, and we reported on what was happening at the Save Our Schools March. Because of the debt crisis in DC, the mainstream media did not give SOS as much attention as I believe it normally would have, so it was up to the folks using social media to shape the news and the national conversation ourselves.

You can see IDEA's Twitter feed, as well as the #sos and #aero8 conversations.

At AERO, I was honored to present a workshop on "How to Build an Online Community" and a keynote on "How You Can Use Social Media for Social Change." In these presentations, I shared the ways in which we can use social media to advance our change work in education -- by framing the national discussion, building strong communities across boundaries, highlighting what is happening at the community and school levels, and telling powerful stories about young people. Facebook and Twitter can amplify one person's voice so that it's heard around the world.

5. A movement is not sustainable without renewing its sense of hope, joy, inspiration, and fun.

There's a reason why singing was a core element of the Civil Rights movement. During even the most trying moments, singing unites a group and renews hope. So does laughter. We will accomplish a lot more if we bring a playful spirit to the work that we do than if we let ourselves become jaded.

Paradoxes of Our Work

2011-08-10T19:57:39+00:00

The ability to hold two conflicting truths simultaneously isn't easy. And that's exactly what our work in education calls us to do at this moment.

I am just returning from the AERO and Holistic Education conferences, where I saw COOPsters David Loitz, Casey Caronna, Paul Freedman and Jen Groves. (Oh yeah!) One evening at AERO, a group gathered to talk about what IDEA has been learning over the past year. This prompted a reflection on my work as an educational activist and teacher over the past 15 years, and the paradoxes I hold in my work, as both a radical school critic, and a persistent hope monger in education.

As most of us here at the COOP already feel, we are at a moment of crisis in public education. Only a few pieces of evidence: the outpouring of objection and outcry at the recent SOS March, Arne Duncan's decision this week to cut personal deals with states failing to make AYP because NCLB policy is a "slow motion train wreck,” a decade into one of the most draconian federal education policies around school accountability our country has ever witnessed, new data shows widespread, and nearly universal, crumbing confidence in local public schools, and a resounding failure to achieve any real gains in equity or performance for students, across a battery of measures.

Disappointment with schools are only a symptom. We are in a crisis of confidence around institutions of government in our country generally, and lack the stories we require to understand our fear and suffering, as described in a wonderful piece on the narrative failures of the Obama's presidency. As activists in education, holding on to both the hope and promise of our work, and ferocious and well-informed critique, requires a deep seated understanding of, and tolerance for, paradox: the capacity to hold two complex - and conflicting - truths simultaneously.

Here are some of the complex, conflicting truths I hold simultaneously in my work:

PARADOX #1: SWEEPING AND SMALL

The system of education we have now - an outmoded industrial model based on extremely limited views of human learning and what is valuable to learn - requires radical, sweeping transformation. The hidden curriculum of schooling instructs in racist, classist, and competitive values, and then naturalizes and normalizes this as our self-willed state. Transformation, rethinking, wholesale change - school riots - are required. Language matters, and even talking about “systemic” change, implying that the structures that we have now will be replaced by another system, is inadequate and limiting.

At the same time, in day-to-day practice for teachers working with kids, for principals interacting with staff members, for superintendents reconfiguring accountability systems within their district, for parents homeschooling their own children, small changes make big differences. Ultimately, human transformation occurs in very slight, nearly imperceptible and somewhat magical shifts between two people trying to understand each other better, to heal each other, and get out of each other's way. When a teacher allows a student a bit more choice, when an adult recognizes the innate competence of a child, when a supervisor takes responsibility for his or her own mistakes, transformation happens. Small changes are at the root of everything.

PARADOX #2: IT'S ALL ABOUT ADULTS, DEMOCRACY MATTERS FOR KIDS

The institution of school is broken, corrupt, and designed primarily to serve the interests of adults, not kids. The greatest barrier to large-scale transformation, in my view, is adult self-interest, not a lack of skills and knowledge about how to educate better. The system we have now serves adults, provides employment, professional identity and relative security to 2.5 million adults; it offers inadequate and in some cases toxic “service” to children, who have no political voice. Yet as a whole, the education sector is woefully sloppy and deeply loath to acknowledge the self-interest that is at the heart of many of its activities and structures.

At the same time, our system of schooling is the only remaining democratic institution in our country that most of our children, nearly 45 million, still participate in. There is profound value in this. It is an agenda item of the far right to dismantle the public education system, and most of the public sector beyond it, and the people and kids who will be most harmed by this dismantlement, in terms of schools, are those with the least choice, connections and social capital. In the words of Yvette Jackson, Chief Executive of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education, kids who are “school dependent” require schools that focus on their strengths, and full and free access to them. The current alternatives to public education, for nearly all children, are inadequate, and accessible only to those with means, choice, or luck. Maybe all three.

PARADOX #3: SUPPORT PUBLIC, AND EVERYTHING THAT CHALLENGES IT

Within IDEA, a just-hatching educational transformation group of which I am a part, we believe in supporting the institution of public schooling. We are engaged in many projects, in Vermont and Mississippi and Portland, that directly engage and showcase public schools that are committed to becoming more responsive to their communities, serving children better, and creating equity within the system.

At the same time, we heartily and vigorously support all viable alternative school models, and see much of the real action of transformation and greater justice happening in places that define themselves as “outside” the public school system. For example, see Nuestra Escuela, a highly successful “alternative” school model founded on an ethic of human caring, love and respect. Strategically, we have a BOTH/AND strategy for supporting innovation and change, because we think mainstream public school and alternative models, including charter schools, have much to gain from collaborating and learning from each other.

Around the country, as a movement, we need teams of teachers and activists and parents and bloggers and policy thinkers who are strong enough, and big enough, and bold enough to hold all these paradoxes as they do their work in schools everyday, and with their kids.

We need individuals who are wise warriors, well-informed, cosmopolitan about the sector, who know where their work is coming from, and why - and are able to talk about the contradictions of their work without being apologetic. Through embracing the complexities of our work, and its many shadows, we will be stronger and better and more fleet and powerful in responding to those who critique us, or who want to shut us down.

One of my mentors, Parker Palmer, of the Center for Courage and Renewal, writes knowingly of paradox, and the way in which tension between opposites can feel intolerable, tugging us one way and then the other, making us feel that our actions, beliefs and intentions are indefensible, and cancel each other out. Yet through his long life of publically wrestling with the paradoxes of his own soul and vocation, Palmer observes, "truth is found not by splitting the world into either-ors but by embracing it as both-and.” Developing the capacity to sit in this tension between opposites - and I would add - to become productive in it, will be the mark of our maturing movement.

Becoming an educational activist requires that we develop the capacity to tolerate paradox " the capacity to hold two seemingly conflicting truths simultaneously in mind and heart at the same time. At this moment in our culture we seem especially intolerant of paradox: some critics insist that teachers are victims, while others suggest that teacher inadequacy is at the heart of our sector's dysfunction. Could both be true? And if so, how would it empower us to hold both these truths, and to delve into the complexities of both? How might this make us stronger?

While the federal department of education and major education funders continue to insist that their limited agendas for "improvement” and “reform” are the one one and only way, and founded on “real” science and “real” evidence, we must take strong positions against such hostage-taking and agenda setting, while at the same time holding on the very real and human contradictions that lie at the heart of our work. As leaders - and I'm seeing everyone who is concerned about the state of education in this country as leaders and activists - every single one of us - the stories we tell about our work must be both simple and complex. This requires a tolerance for paradox, and an understanding of the complexities of our work in education. This complexity is something we are only starting to build at IDEA, perhaps among our corps of folks here at the Coop, in myself.

Are we as activists strong enough to embrace the both-ands of our work?

Are you?

"Contradiction, paradox, the tension of opposites: These have always been at the heart of my experience, and I think I am not alone. I am tugged one way and then the other. My beliefs and my actions often seem at odds. My strengths are sometimes cancelled by my weaknesses. My self, and the world around me, seems more a study in dissonance than a harmony of the integrated whole.” -Parker Palmer, 1979

Introducing IDEA’s New Podcast: The Landscape

2011-07-26T02:12:15+00:00

"So what's going on with education in different parts of the country? What should I be paying attention to?"

Those are two questions that the IDEA staff often hears from people in our network. They know that we rack up loads of frequent flyer miles traveling to conferences, school tours, and other gatherings focused on reinventing education. That means we have an ear to the ground in a lot of different places.

Executive Director Scott Nine wins the top traveler trophy so far. Over the past several months, IDEA has taken him to Atlanta; Jackson, Miss.; Boston; New York City; Providence, RI; Seattle; Washington, D.C.; and Puerto Rico, just to name a few. He's met with government officials, community organizers, major funders, and administrators; he's also talked in depth with parents, teachers, and students.

Scott has been looking for a way to share widely what he's been learning and what's been on his mind lately. He and I decided to keep it simple: have a conversation and record it. "The Landscape" podcast is the result. We envision rotating the folks who are part of the conversation, so you can hear from our organizers, bloggers, board, and other people who have something important to share with you.

If you like what you hear, we'll keep "The Landscape" going. Let us know what you think!

To download the .mp3, right click this link and select "Save Link As." Stream the podcast here:

Here are links to programs and events we mention in the podcast:

IDEC 2011

Free Minds, Free People

Community Learning Exchange

Boston Youth Organizing Project (BYOP)

Urban Underground in Milwaukee

Save Our Schools Conference & March in D.C.

Time to get off our knees and do more than just march

2011-07-21T13:47:37+00:00

Jonathan Kozol was spot on. It is time for educators, parents, and young people to reclaim the “public” in public education and get off our knees. I've been enjoying reading his and teachers diaries about why they'll march to Save Our Schools on July 30th in DC. I'll be there too.

But I'm not going to DC for the march. I'm going for the messy work of organizing what comes after the march that will take place at the SOS Congress on July 31st at American University from 11am to 3pm EST.

We are right to make demands, to craft policy proposals, and to seek media attention. We need coherent narratives about the school to prison pipeline, the learning and teaching environments that grow curiosity, a connection to place, and meaningfully engage students in learning that matters.

But, I'm convinced nothing transformative will happen without building our collective capacity to collaborate and be strategic. When "we” don't know who we are, what we stand for, and how we will move together, we just can't get that far.

The Congress on Sunday offers a space to not just decry what is happening but to struggle for the possibility of what can. It is a place where egos, silos, and the influence of outsized foundations can take a seat and teachers, parents, and youth can set a direction. It won't be perfect, because it will be real, alive, and participatory. It won't have everyone represented who should be. It won't solve everything. But perhaps it will get one leg out from kneeling, flexed, and ready to take on more weight. We can't rise soon enough.

Tour of Our Lives

2011-04-12T01:11:35+00:00

Last week 37 educators from 10 states and 4 countries gathered at the headquarters of Project Reach and Fertile Grounds in Manhattan to begin the Institute for Democratic Education in America's (IDEA's) first ever Innovation School tour.

After receiving our Metrocards (this was an all subway all the time tour), and a quick chance to get to know each other, we were off to do what we came to do: see four innovative, breakthrough schools, each with different histories, instructional models and student populations. (Monday: NYC iSchool, The Green School; Tuesday: Urban Academy, Calhoun School). We were especially interested in the culture and climate of each school"each one was considered "successful” and was popular with its students and parents. But what made each one different? What made their cultures coherent and powerful? What lessons could we learn from seeing them to take back to our own schools and our own work?

After two days of intense, on-the-ground classroom visiting, stairwell climbing, principal-question-asking, student discussions, processing with each other on the subway and at every meal and late into the night, here were some of the things we learned, or decided we were going to think about more…

Schools that work well put love at the center. On this tour we were blessed to have a delegation of school leaders from Nuestra Escuela, in Puerto Rico, a school for students who have disengaged from education or have been rejected by conventional schools. “This is a school founded on love,” says the school's co-director, Justo Mendez Aramburu. Amid much talk about the accountability environments of New York City and the Department of Education, the schools that we saw that truly seemed coherent, were educating students to use their minds confidently and well, and were creating challenging and supportive environments for everyone in their community, had a message of love at their center.“We are like a family here,” said Ann Cook, legendary director of Urban Academy. “Everyone knows everyone else,” said a student tour guide at the Calhoun School. “We don't have to force kids to talk to each other, said, Alisa Berger, Executive Director of the NYC iSchool. “We value our time together in person so much everyone wants to be present.” In a harsh accountability world where prioritizing love and connection can seem like an extra we can't afford, the truly breakthrough schools we saw understand that we learn from people we love and trust, and that real education doesn't happen without these things. We found ourselves thinking about how to realign policy at our schools to reflect this.

Read the rest of this post at Cooperative Catalyst.

Learn more about IDEA's upcoming Innovation Tours.

Spark’s Answer to the Dropout Crisis

2011-03-10T01:28:11+00:00

Meet Tania*, 14 years old. Her story is typical of many students in urban public schools across the United States. No one in her family had completed high school. In seventh grade, she was struggling academically, and assumed that she would follow in her mother's footsteps and become a cashier at Wal-Mart. At school, Tania had not been asked much about her aspirations -- as it turns out, she dreamed of becoming an attorney -- and as a result she was not clear on how school could ever get her to that goal.

Like so many students, Tania was in danger of lowering her aspirations at a very early age. It's a classic path to dropping out - as a 2006 Gates Foundation study pointed out, 47% of dropouts said a major reason for dropping out was that classes were not interesting -- in other words, classes seemed irrelevant to their lives.**

As a nation we are not painting clear, personalized pictures for students of how school can be a launchpad to a very bright future. 1.2 million kids like Tania drop out of high school every year, and it too often starts with a sense that school is irrelevant to the their daily realities and dreams. Students are intensely curious about the world of work -- what do all those adults out there do every day? Yet how often do students get to explore that as part of their formal education?

The answer: if the students come from a middle-to-high income background, chances are someone is helping them make the connection. Their family's social or professional connections may help them secure a summer job or internship, or at least a take-your-child-to-work day that demonstrates that a good education leads to a positive future. Students like Tania often don't get that chance. Even if their parents are encouraging and emphasize the importance of doing well in school, they may not be able to open doors to the workplaces which most compellingly demonstrate the power of a good education.

I co-founded and now run a non-profit dropout-prevention program called Spark, and last year, we enrolled Tania into our San Francisco programs. Spark focuses on middle-school youth who are at-risk of dropping out, and matches them with one-on-one apprenticeships in real workplaces after school where students receive mentoring and can finally connect the dots between school and real professions. We asked Tania the same question we ask each new Spark student: if you could try any job, any profession, what would it be?

Tania had a ready answer: she wanted to be a lawyer. As we talked more, it turned out she had no idea how that actually happens, and had already written off college as an unaffordable option for her family. It's easy to conclude that middle-school students are too young to have to understand such connections. Yet remember what happens in middle-school: students in most urban communities have their first opportunities to experiment with drugs, sex, and alcohol, and in many of our cities, face pressure to join a gang. If they don't see positive alternatives, it's doubly hard to resist the peer pressure.

Spark next matched Tania with a lawyer, Erik, who had volunteered to be a mentor. They met at an orientation, and began a semester-long apprenticeship together. Each Thursday afternoon after school, Tania went to Erik's office in a downtown skyscraper. At first their conversations had little to do with the law, as they talked more broadly about college, about how much money was needed to live the life Tania wanted, and about the options Tania had. They compared the life of a Wal-Mart cashier with that of a lawyer, and discovered that Tania had expected a six-figure starting salary as a cashier. That was quickly rectified, and then another false assumption was corrected -- that Tania could never afford college. By the end of the semester, Tania had designed and acted out a mock trial, which she performed for her peers at school. More importantly, she had aspirations that now felt tangible, and had discovered just how much of a difference her motivation in school could make.

Alongside the apprenticeship, Spark students also participate in a Leadership Class at school, delivered by school staff during or after the school day. At its heart, this is a class in relevance -- making the connections between professional roles the students are exploring and the daily learning asked of them at school. Students are stunned to realize that math is useful in video game design, or that hard work in English class is necessary to become a successful attorney. How have we as a society managed to obscure these connections? Perhaps it's because we simply tell the students that academics and real life are connected, instead of showing them. With budget cuts having stripped away all but the most core academic classes in urban public schools, the need to provide engaging and motivating opportunities for students to get excited about learning is all the more critical. At Spark, they experience the relevance firsthand as they complete their apprenticeship, and the teaching in the Spark class is largely peer-to-peer, as students teach each other what they've learned in their apprenticeships.

Spark is demonstrating a new approach to addressing the dropout crisis, one that taps a new pool of resources -- professional "at your desk” volunteers -- and connects them with students in a way that makes education, and personal dreams, suddenly much more relevant. The impact of the program is becoming apparent -- an initial study of 57 of the first Spark students shows that 56 graduated on-time or are currently enrolled in high school, equivalent to a 98.2% retention rate, and substantially higher than the expected retention rate for students with equivalent demographic factors. While this study is small due to the small size of Spark's initial cohorts, it indicates a very positive trajectory and will be further studied as larger cohorts progress through school.

Spark has grown from a pilot program in Redwood City, California in 2005, to a nationally replicating non-profit, serving northern and southern California, launching in Chicago in mid-2011, and expanding to the east coast in 2012. We are actively looking for volunteers, supporters, and education leaders to join us in providing once-in-a-lifetime apprenticeship opportunities in middle-school students across the United States. Spark didn't invent apprenticeships, but it has shown that they can be very powerful 21st century tools in helping to end our nation's dropout crisis.

Find out more at www.sparkprogram.org.

* The student's name has been changed to protect her privacy.

** The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts; A report by Civic Enterprises in association with Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. March 2006.

As much to myself as to you

2011-02-04T22:26:07+00:00
I've spent much of the last five days making sense of the two days I spent in DC last week and the last six months of my work with IDEA.

In two days of meetings, I met with the staff of three Congressmen, two Senators, two folks in the Department of Education, the adviser to the education advisers of the 75 largest cities in the US, the interim director of the national PTA, the leaders of the National Youth Rights Association, and the head of policy and advocacy for the organization that brings together many of the state schools' foundations.

I've been obsessed with understanding the educational landscape. Who has the power to convene the kinds of conversations many of us want to see happen? Who makes and who influences decisions that have the most impact on youth, communities, and schools? If there are levers to create change, where are they and what do they look like?

I have had the opportunity to spend the last six months of my life fully engaged in these questions. I've spent hundreds of hours speaking one-on-one, listening and learning. This morning I even made a list of everyone I've spoken with just to see for myself how wide a cross-section and with what kinds of perspectives I've been talking to.

And so I sit, trying to make sense of both what I know and what I don't. Going to DC, I thought I had a pretty good sense of the educational landscape. And maybe I do, but what leaves me struggling to find coherent sentences is feeling how wide the chasm is between where high-impact decisions are being made and where they are being felt and how little collaborative capacity exists to bridge that gap.

How will we meet a reality where:

The Gates Foundation has folks in and out of the Department of Education on a very regular basis but faith and civil rights groups advocating on behalf of millions are told they are "for the status quo” and don't understand the real levers of education reform while both "sides” cite Dr. King?

The Annenberg Institute for School Reform will launch a National Center on Education Organizing at the same time the Hewlett Foundation will launch its Deeper Learning Initiative and yet neither knows about the others' work and likely won't end up coordinating to be in the same states and cities?

The National Education Policy Center is asked by foundations to write a paper providing guidance on what to fund and while their paper beautifully articulates funding inequities and the re-segregation of schools, it says not a word about what happens inside of schools or the kinds of learning environments that could systemically change root social conditions?

Voices of sanity like Linda Darling-Hammond and Pedro Noguera have little, if any, influence on current policy directions despite having the respect of so many different organizations - from the NEA, to SBAC, to the NLC, and beyond?

Just over 500 million dollars will be split between WestEd and Achieve on behalf of two state consortiums to design new national assessments for 2014 while my generous guess is that at least 60% of teachers in our country couldn't tell you anything about either organization nor tell you what ESEA includes?

A march to “Save Our Schools” is planned for July that might bring hundreds of thousands of youth and teachers out, but if told they “won”, there would be no clear or coherent direction of how to proceed amongst the individuals and organizations participating?

Too many of the organizations people count on or hope can help the situation are cash poor, have flimsy organizational structures, don't want to play with each other or reach out to new organizations, and/or want to retain their status more than they want to build a strategic movement?

DOE staff and insiders get frustrated because teachers, organizers, and activists advocacy seems irrelevant or at least not timely, and likely it is?

Organizers, teachers, and community leaders feel like they aren't listened to by the DOE and key decision makers, and likely they are not?

Chances are, no one is really poorly intentioned, there is just a significant gap between the point of planning and policy execution and the public dialogue? Even with all our technology - we, the public, may just be way behind. It seems like we don't get it because we are catching up. And it seems like they aren't listening because they are thinking what we have to say isn't relevant because the decision has already been made with millions of dollars already spent.

Federal policy has gotten so invasive that you can't ignore it. When principals and teachers are getting fired in schools because of conversations in DC, you can't say (which I had) that policy conversations are a distraction?

Like-minded groups who care about student learning and healthy communities don't yet have the collaborative capacity and the level of relationships and raw power needed to change the narrative and instead too often compete with each other for money from funders, buy into the language of schools as businesses, and fight amongst each other on small differences rather than finding common ground.

IDEA was not launched to create yet another education organization. Our aim is to build collaborative capacity where little exists - even if at some point that means we need to combine or join some other effort.

At this moment, I don't think IDEA's initial analysis was wrong; it's just that the impact of our collective inadequacy is clearer.

This summer, on my first official day on the job, Dr. Vincent Harding reminded a room full of people that we have to find the courage, the capacity, and the will to play better together.

We don't need to be in crisis; in fact, going too fast to sign a pledge or a paper or to protest is part of the challenge we must address. We need to build real alliances. We need to find the 70% we agree on, the relationships that can handle some conflict, the strategies that have real impact, and the courage to ally and share.

IDEA is ready. Are you? Let's get to it.

50 Ways to Make Your School More Democratic

2010-12-11T23:12:50+00:00
Editor's Note: Kirsten Olson is the co-chair of the IDEA Board of Directors and a guest blogger for IDEA. She also writes at the group blog Cooperative Catalyst.

It was an amazing meeting. Ten committed activists, educators, school founders, and school re-starters gathered for an IDEA Board Retreat in San Francisco last month. Fired up by Pedro Noguera's keynote speech to the Coalition of Essential Schools the day before, we framed up IDEA's commitments and strategy: how we move this baby out so we're actually doing something, making sure we're talking about what matters, and ensuring we're providing tools for change. Because we aim to be the organization in this country connecting people who are transforming and revolutionizing education, we had a lot to talk about.

Want to get in?

What have you done, as a classroom teacher, a student, a parent, an administrator, to make your school more equitable, less hierarchical, more welcoming to everyone, and more like a place where real thinking happens?

50 WAYS (or more!) MAKE YOUR SCHOOL MORE DEMOCRATIC

1. Invite 5 students to a faculty meeting

2. Eliminate staff and student bathrooms

3. Ask students to facilitate important school wide meetings

4. Start each day with a morning meeting and check in, and listen to each other. (How are you?
How are you feeling today?)

5. Ask students to develop rubrics for judging "excellent" work

6. End courses/units with a culminating projects designed by students, about something that really
matters to them

7. Have students read each other's papers and comment on them, directly to each other

8. Get students to determine the homework policy (even in the early grades)

9. Charge students with deciding what goes up on the walls at school

10. Pass a "talking stick" during intense discussions so that everyone gets a chance to speak

11. Eat lunch with kids (or teachers) you rarely talk to

12. Ask students to attend parent/teacher conferences

13. Ask students to evaluate themselves prior to parent/teacher conferences

14. Ask students to run parent/teacher conferences

15. Have everyone practice "yes/and" more than "no/but" (because success is available to everyone!)

We want to go for 50 (or hundreds) more suggestions, and then use them in our promotional
literature. Please let us know how you are making your school more democratic, or ways you wish your school were more democratic. Leave a comment!

The kind of mayoral engagement we can celebrate

2010-11-30T18:39:21+00:00
Imagine a small city of 200,000 people whose mayor has earned the trust, partnership, and respect of its educators (both public and private), business leaders, youth, and parents. A mayor whose calendar reflects a real commitment to an honest conversation about ways the entire city can become a school - in the best use of the word.

Imagine a mayor who calls together all department heads to sit in a circle with leading educators, youth, and parents every other week to sort out how to increase each young citizens sense of belonging, their rootedness to the city, and how the city can bring its resources to bear in service of the best learning available.

Sound crazy? Impossible? In March, IDEA had the opportunity to spend time meeting with the Mayors of Tiberius and Bat Yam and education pioneer Yaacov Hecht. We learned and saw first hand what an “Education City” looks like. And, as I recently heard Parker Palmer say, “once you've seen something with your own eyes, you can no longer deny that it exists.”

The Education Cities Intiative (ECI), jumpstarted by Yaacov Hecht, Alexander Olek, and Justo Mendez, is remarkably different than the conversation taking place about Mayoral control in the U.S.

Here, it seems mayors are portrayed (and surely some ought to be) as power grabbing, cold-blooded leaders out to decimate education and make it less democratic.

Yet, I cannot help but think that genuine mayoral and civic interest in learning and education is something to celebrate, if rightly held.

The real issues about mayoral involvement are about community trust, shared participation, leadership, good process, and communication.

There are mayors strong enough, humble enough, audacious enough, and genuine enough to take a long term, legitimate interest in transforming schools alongside teachers, students, parents, and community leaders. I know, because I just met one in the city of Caguas, Puerto Rico.

Mayor William Miranda Torres and his staff want to take a hard look at how to bring the full resources of their city to bear in the learning and engagement of its young citizens. They don't want to control anything, they want to help convene the conversation, listen, and create ways to improve the quality of life for everyone in the city.

Over the next several months and years, IDEA will work in full partnership with the people of Caguas to see what is possible when a city's leadership and citizens make a commitment to listen and learn together.

A Quick Snapshot of the Education City

The Education City is a model that helps revamp the city by using education as a lever for change.

It focuses on adjusting the education system to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. It provides each and every child with the opportunity to excel in what they are good at by enlisting the strengths and opportunities of the community.

By involving the city´s resources and not only the schools', an Education City makes learning the business of the entire community. In an Education City, the mayor leads an effort to create citywide partnerships that expand learning opportunities for all. Youth have many more opportunities from which to choose and thus better opportunities to excel in something. The enlisting of the city, with all its resources and opportunities, can create a new education system that is more relevant to better prepare the youth for our rapidly changing world, and eventually help to further develop the city towards a thriving, sustainable, and competitive economy.

10 Things to Learn About Good Teaching from “Teach: Tony Danza”

2010-11-26T21:23:03+00:00
“Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task.” - Haim Ginott

When I heard that a new A&E show was following Tony Danza as he spends a year teaching 10th grade English, I rolled my eyes. Tony Danza, of the 1980s sitcom "Who's the Boss?"? I expected a trashy reality show that made a mockery of teaching. At best, I thought it would be like other celebrity reality shows: like a train wreck, so awful that you can't look away.

I couldn't have been more wrong about "Teach: Tony Danza." It's a beautiful, honest portrayal of first-year teaching in a large, urban public school (Northeast High School is the largest high school in Philadelphia, with around 3,700 students who speak over 57 languages.)

Shot as more of a documentary film than a reality show, "Teach: Tony Danza" captures what urban high school life is really like today, from the perspective of both teachers and students. During a time where many teachers feel scapegoated for the sorry state of education, there's never been a stronger need for a show like this, one that highlights the heart and sacrifice necessary to be a good teacher.

I watched two episodes of the seven-episode series, #4 "Homesick," and #6, "To Cheat or Not to Cheat." I recommend "Homesick," (embedded below) because it captures the main themes and narrative of the show.

If you don't have time to watch the full episode, watch this short clip of two Northeastern High School students interviewing Danza for the school paper about why he became a teacher.

From watching "Teach: Tony Danza," I took away ten lessons about good teaching:

1. You can be a teacher and still be human.

Perhaps the most compelling quality of Tony Danza, the one you notice when you watch even a short clip of him, is that he's undeniably real. He's actually much like his character, Tony, from "Who's the Boss?": jovial, loving, and quick to show emotion. He tells stories from his life to illustrate concepts (sometimes going on tangents to a fault), and by his reactions he shows his teens that adults have feelings, too.

2. Relationships first, content second.

Kids, especially teenagers, learn much more from people they respect. In addition, they have a hard time learning when they're struggling in their lives outside of the classroom. Danza takes time to build relationships with his students. He notices when they're troubled, whether by boredom or relationship issues, and talks with them about it outside of class. On the wall behind his desk hangs a poster that says, "Love is the reason for teaching," which serves as a constant reminder to his students, and himself, about why Danza is there.

3. Have a game plan for the moments when teaching gets to you.

One day in class, Danza can't get his students' attention, and they talk and laugh and generally disrespect him. Danza says, "I give up. I can't fight this battle anymore," and storms out of the room with tears in his eyes. Later, he feels ashamed that he not only let the students get under his skin, but also that he let it show in class. His Instructional Coach, David Cohn, observes the chaos and reminds Danza that every teacher has a moment like that. Cohn says that in his own first year of teaching, he threw a vocabulary book in a rage.

Anyone who's taught before knows the heartbreak of giving everything to your students and having them throw it back in your face. It's important to think about how you'll react if and when that happens, so you don't do something you'll regret.

4. Teach with your instincts.

It's clear from Danza's flustered moments of disorganization that he'll need a few more years of practice before he's a master teacher. But he naturally does what I think is essential for a teacher: He trusts his instincts. Danza senses when two students are cheating on a test with their cell phones and confronts them after class. In another scene, he mediates a conversation between two feuding girlfriends and helps them see the situation from each other's perspective.

Though Danza is open to applying veteran teachers' advice, he remains true to his own personal style as a teacher: He listens, asks questions, and gives guidance from the heart. There's something fatherly about the way he interacts with his students, and they seem to acknowledge the wisdom of what he says, even when they don't want to hear it.

5. Facilitate, don't indoctrinate.

After struggling for a while to engage his students, Danza takes the advice of a fellow rookie teacher and plans a paired activity that his students self-direct. He asks them to present a myth to the class, either well-known or made-up, and in any form they choose. He draws boundaries within which students can have freedom to be creative, and in doing so, he and the students both get their needs met. They learn what he's trying to teach, and they have fun doing it.

6. Be fully present.

Danza is truly there for his kids, all the time. He helps out with their marching band practices outside of school hours. He tells them, "You know I'm always here to talk," and he is -- more than once, his students come talk to him about their personal problems. He doesn't just tell the students that he cares; he shows them through his actions.

7. Walk in students' shoes.

When two of his female students get in a nasty fight, he confides to the boyfriend of one of the girls, "To me it seems kinda silly, but you gotta walk in their shoes." And he means it. He knows that the girls' feelings are real, and he sees the tears and anger the spat is causing them.

8. Exchange stories with more experienced teachers.

Danza tells Cohn, his Instructional Coach, about how one of his bright students doesn't like his "off-topic topics." Cohn says that Danza does have a tendency to go off on tangents when flustered, which Danza acknowledges. He then tells his own personal story that helps Danza plan more engaging activities:

"I had a moment when I was a first-year teacher. I was up there doing everything. I was teaching, I was up at the chalkboard, and I thought I was doing great. I'll never forget little Andrea -- she was writing a note. Clearly, she wasn't taking notes on what I was doing. So I went up to her, and I grabbed the note, she's writing to her friend. She said, 'I'm sitting in third period, in Mr. Cohn's class. I am soooooo bored.' And the 'so' piece, it had like 12 o's on it, so she was really bored. It was devastating, deflating, anything you want to call it. But from that moment forward, I changed my mentality, from 'What am I going to do?' to 'What are the kids going to do?'

... You're going to have a moment again of feeling flustered; it's guaranteed ... And while you're doing all that, Eric is doing origami, back here, Oleg is back there doodling in his (notebook). And for me, it was Andrea writing notes to her friend and saying 'I'm in Cohn's class; I can't wait 'til the bell rings.' So that's what the kids are doing when we're up there thinking that we're changing the world."

9. Replenish your stores.

Danza gives everything he has to teaching. He moves to Philadelphia from Los Angeles to take the teaching job, living across the country from his wife and children and missing them like crazy. He even stays in Philadelphia to attend the school marching band competition instead of flying home as planned.

Danza gets through the rough patches by seeking out the bright spots in his week (like the grin on a student's face when he said he'd attend her band competition) and makes an effort to create more (like organizing a teacher bowling night). It's important to remember that if you burn out, you'll have nothing left to give.

10. As a country, we need to figure out how to make sure that teachers like Tony Danza stay in teaching.

He's rough around the edges but will be an excellent teacher over time. So what does he need to get there, and how can we give it to him?

Thanks to Gretchen Wegner for recommending this show. Read the New York Times and Newsweek reviews.