NCUST Insights: Against All Odds – Comments from the Executive Director

NCUST is excited to announce an impressive slate of finalists for the 2012 National Excellence in Urban Education Award. While we have enjoyed the honor of awarding phenomenal schools each year since we initiated the program in 2006, in many respects this may be our strongest cohort of finalists. In this group of schools, we find deeper, stronger evidences of academic success for every demographic group they serve. Unfortunately, several outstanding applicants did not become finalists, simply because the competition was so rigorous. We look forward to visiting and learning from this incredible group of finalists. As well, we look forward to featuring our award winners in our 2012 Symposium on High-Performing Urban Schools in San Diego on May 23-25.

Students at Horace Mann Elementary on the playground

One might look at the economic and political climate surrounding many of our honor roll schools and finalists and wonder how they managed to generate such impressive results. Many of these schools are in states that have continued to slash school budgets. Many have endured successive budget cuts that threaten their capacity to provide core services. Many are enduring confusing political environments in which states have imposed bureaucratic constraints that address political interests without improving capacity to educate children. In some states accountability mandates have increased while supports have decreased substantially. As one considers these successes against such formidable odds, one might wonder does money matter? Does policy matter?

Our experience suggests the answer is resoundingly, “Yes!” If our observations of other great schools are indicative of what we will find in this new round of finalists, we will observe school and district leaders who are scrutinizing the use of every dollar and every minute of services purchased with every dollar. We will observe leaders who have been impressively creative in making use of existing resources and tapping into new, unconventional resources. We expect to find leaders who will tell us with meticulous detail how they could have further accelerated student progress with resources they lost to budget cuts. As well, we expect to find school and district leaders who have created oases of sanity amidst the dunes of policy confusion emanating from our federal Congress, state legislatures, and many school boards. These district leaders, principals, and teacher leaders have worked diligently to move beyond, through, or around policy constraints and create a positive learning/working environment in which educators are not distracted by random acts of policy making, and instead are focused on making a difference in the lives of children.

High performing urban schools provide rigorous STEM education as seen at Marble Hill High School (Bronx, NY) a 2010 NCUST Excellence Award winner

Funding matters and policy matters.  Strong leaders can make an even greater positive difference when they have adequate fiscal resources and a supportive policy environment.  On the other hand, neither money nor policy are likely to make much of a difference in the absence of strong leadership.  Neither dollars nor policy are substitutes for dedicated, child-centered, intelligent, data-driven leadership.

Schools that serve low-income communities deserve their fair share of resources. Too many state legislatures have preached the moral imperative of improving outcomes for diverse populations while ignoring and perpetuating the immoral inequities in resources. Too many school boards have blamed principals and teachers for low achievement in impoverished communities without considering how their distribution of talent, time, and money exacerbate the problem. Supposedly, districts must allocate Federal Title I money in ways that ensure that schools with higher concentrations of low-income students have comparable state and local resources as schools within the district that serve wealthier neighborhoods. In practice, the Feds have watered down this requirement by disregarding teacher salaries (the greatest and most unequal expenditure in many districts) in comparability calculations. This policy needs to change now.

With every ounce of accountability for results, schools deserve a pound of autonomy so they can use their scarce resources in ways that generate measurable changes in outcomes for all of the groups of students they serve. Schools that demonstrate growth should retain autonomy and receive more. For schools that fail to show growth, districts should be accountable for providing the direction, support, and pressure necessary to accelerate change.

At NCUST, we continue to be inspired by the accomplishments of outstanding educators who work together to produce excellent learning results for all students. The examples these educators provide remind us that our nation can, if we choose to do so, have excellent schools for every child in every community. We acknowledge the critical role district leaders, principals, and teacher leaders play in these transformation efforts. At the same time, we understand that policy and funding can make transformation more or less difficult to achieve. All of us experience limitations that frustrate our capacity to achieve excellence. Simultaneous, all of us experience unique opportunities to benefit the lives of the children we serve. It is our honor and privilege at NCUST to celebrate and learn from the brilliant teachers, principals, support staff, and district leaders who model the ability to achieve excellence in spite of the frustrations.