Read Our Blog

by Hector Calderon

Sizer Fellow Hector Calderon is a co-founder of El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice, a public high school established in Brooklyn, New York in 1993 through a joint initiative by the New York City Board of Education and El Puente. 

I once heard the poet Saul Williams say that, "Love is the Soul's Imagination."  This definition of love has always moved me.  Love requires an act of creativity, an act of invention from a deep place at the center of our being.  It is from this place that I write this love letter to you.  As an educator you have taken on the noblest cause in the world:  the liberation of the human race.   Liberation defined as the process of becoming fully human.

by Alan M. Blankstein and Pedro Antonio Noguera

(commentary in Education Week)

An important feature of the Obama administration's Race to the Top initiative is the call to turn around failing schools.  The policy calls for persistently failing schools to be subjected to specific turnaround strategies, and $3.5 billion in federal School Improvement Grant funds has been allocated to support the effort.

We applaud President Barack Obama's desire to address this pervasive problem.  However, we are concerned that the approach prescribed by the U.S. Department of Education, while well intentioned, is misguided.  Because of the vast sums of federal dollars that have been directed toward this effort and the narrow timeline under which changes are expected to be made, we are seeing a new industry of "turnaround experts" emerge, most of whome have no track record of helping struggling schools.

Redlining was the once-common practice in which banks would draw a red line on a map--often along a natural barrier like a highway or river--to designate neighborhoods where they would not invest.  Stigmatized and denied access to loans and other resources, redlined communities, populated by African-Americans and other people of color, often became places that lacked business, jobs, grocery stores and other services, and thus could not retain a thriving middle class.  Redlining produced and reinforced a vicious cycle of decline for which residents themselves were typically blamed.

When I left the university ranks some twenty years ago to become principal, one of the first things I missed about my old job was having the time to read.  Now, as both superintendent and principal, reading time seems even more precious but even more important.  So I find myself grabbing quick reads, and three of them hit my desk over the holiday break.

The first was the Atlantic magazine story on Finland's educational success.  If you haven't tired of reading about why we keep getting it wrong while Finland gets it right, this is worth a look.  The new twist in this piece are the comments by Pasi Sahlberg from the Finnish Ministry of Education noting that Americans simply ignore what is crucial to Finland's success:  a focus on equity over excellence.

This year I had the great fortune of getting to know some thoughtful charter school leaders from across the country. We were convened in New York City by the Partners for Developing Futures, a group that makes grants to promising charter schools who are led by people of color. Our group visited three schools that were in their early stages of development. The school leaders were using the most thoughtful approaches to working with children who are overwhelmingly poor and from minority backgrounds. Based on my observations of classrooms the students were getting a great education.

"Dr. Wood, I need your help on this one." My assistant is one of the most competent people I know, so when she asks for help I figure it is pretty important.

"While you were out yesterday a young woman came in to enroll. She is eighteen, has missed almost 14 days of school this year, and still has several graduation tests to pass. She says she is living with a boyfriend in our district - so?"

If you don’t deal with the demands put on schools by No Child Left Behind and state accountability models you might not know what the question was. Let me make it simple for you: Do we take this girl--who we do not have to take, who has aged out of public schooling, who is not an ‘official’ district resident--and risk damaging our school report card?

On a recent fall Wednesday morning I found myself on the deck of an almost completed cabin overlooking the mist coming off the Hocking River. Two teachers, three fathers, sixteen students, and I had gathered for the once-weekly ‘show and tell’ session in our junior/senior Advisories -- this time at the cabin three seniors had designed and built for their senior project.

The cabin is ‘off the grid’. It has solar power, a composting toilet, water caught from the roof, and a wood burning stove. It is, in the best sense, sustainable. The three seniors had done all the research on the building techniques, worked with local carpenters and solar installers to learn what they needed to know, and had built the cabin from the ground up.

I don’t own a television, but I do watch the box when I find myself in a hotel room. Just small doses of it remind me why we turned ours off some 30 years ago.

Take, for example, the incessant worship of Steve Jobs. Sorry to rain on the parade, but you cannot turn on the television without yet another story about the Apple leader. Just this morning it was an interview on "Good Morning America" with his biographer.

Yes, I know he single-handedly invented personal computing--sort of like how some would have us believe that Henry Ford invented the automobile and built all of them himself. And where would we be without phones so smart we can use them while driving down busy highways or spoil a dinner out with friends while we check the latest sports scores or new hot music video?

In a recent post I found a few things to be optimistic about in terms of educational policy in the states. Now, more hopeful signs: the results in the Wake County, NC school board elections, an Oregon school district’s refusal to take the bribe to institute teacher assessments linked to standardized test scores, and the pressures of No Child Left Behind landing on the doorstep of an innovative school.

In 1976 the school board in Wake County, lead by one of the more courageous superintendents in the nation, began the process of desegregating its schools by socioeconomic status. The logic was simple: if you wanted to ensure equal access to an education, you needed to make sure that schools were not segregated by the incomes of students’ families. When you group all the middle class students in one school and all the poor students in another, you simply exacerbate the effects of poverty and all but ensure one school will succeed while the other will struggle.

"Hello, I was wondering how my son is doing at school today. He had a really rough morning before leaving the house." A parent called to inquire about her child on the second day of school. I responded with "Let me take a peek in his classroom. Hold on." She didn’t tell me her child’s name, but I knew it and where to find him. What I love about Mission Hill School is that I know everyone's name. That was written by one of our teachers in a recent newsletter column. That’s something I love too about our school community.

It’s always been part of our school culture to know each other well. It’s important to recognize that knowing one another does not happen by chance. There is intention behind building relationships and a place where children feel that they belong.