UrbanAdvocate
Council of Urban Boards of Education
Spring 2014
60 Years after Brown
Sisters Linda and
Terry Lynn Brown
sit on a railing
outside of their school,
the racially segregated
Monroe Elementary School,
Topeka, Kan., March 1953.
Six decades after
Brown v. Board
of Education,
urban schools can
reflect on the impact
of the landmark ruling.
Great thinGs happen
at public schools.
Who I am today
began with
public education.
Salman Khan
Founder, Khan academy
Khan academy is on a mission to provide a
free world-class education for anyone, anywhere
Learn more at
www.standup4publicschools.org
© NSBA
AboutThisIssue
T
his year marks the 60th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling that overturned
state-sanctioned school segregation and mandated equality and equity in the education
of all American schoolchildren. Anniversaries are apt
times to look back and reflect, and the question that
comes to mind with Brown v. Board of Education is: Did it
eradicate “separate but equal” in our public schools?
In Del Stover’s cover story, “60 Years After Brown,”
he attempts to answer that question, and, as in most
things, there are no easy answers. In many urban
schools across the country that have nearly 100 percent African-American and Latino enrollment, the goal
is strong schools, especially in areas where neighbor-
hood lines “are sharply divided by race and income.”
Also in this issue, Linda Lecht and Lisa Ciacci write
about a Florida program where nonprofits work together to help schools with grants and technical assistance to make college attendance possible for all
students.
Also featured is a Q&A with Emily Greytak, the director of research for the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight
Education Network (GLSEN). Greytak talks about issues of safety and inclusion for LGBT students.
We hope you enjoy this issue of Urban Advocate.
Please send us your feedback by contacting Editor Del
Stover at [email protected] or CUBE Director Deborah Keys at [email protected].
Contents
2
Trends & Analysis
6
60 Years After Brown
By Del Stover
Six decades after Brown v. Board of Education, urban schools
can reflect on the impact of the landmark ruling.
12 The Path to College
By Linda Lecht and Lisa Ciacci
These nonprofits help schools leverage grants and technical assistance
to make college attendance possible for all students.
16 Research & Reality
19 CUBE News
20 Q&A with Emily Greytak
Cover photography: The LIFE Images Collection
UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014 1
UrbanTrends
As districts move student data to the ‘cloud,’
concerns voiced over privacy safeguards
N
o doubt you’ve heard of something called the “cloud.” But do you
know if your school district is storing student or personnel data on
cloud-based servers? And do you know if there
are adequate policies and practices in place to
protect the confidentiality of this data?
Most districts don’t have adequate protections in place for data served on Internetstorage sites, reports the Center for Law and
Information Policy at the Fordham University
School of Law:“As public schools in the United States rapidly adopt cloud-computing services, and consequently transfer increasing
quantities of student information to thirdparty providers, privacy issues become more
salient and contentious.”
It’s an issue urban school leaders ignore
at their risk, as a security lapse could place
their districts in conflict with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and
other federal data privacy laws.
Even talk of handing over student data
2 UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014
to a third-party provider can spark public
concerns. When school leaders in Jefferson
County, Colo., outside Denver, proposed to
outsource student data storage to save money, parents voiced concerns over a perceived
lack of policies concerning who could access the data, who would own the data, and
how long the data would be kept.
The school board eventually scrapped its
plans and voted to explore other data storage
options.
Public reaction in Jefferson County, New
York City, and other locales points to the
need for school leaders to make sure they lay
the groundwork—both in community buyin and in strong privacy safeguards—before
moving data to the cloud, says Ann Lee Flynn,
NSBA’s director of education technology.
“There are real concerns out there about
who has access to the data and who owns
it,” she says.“So a school board is well served
to engage the community before any plan is
rolled out.”
Keeping kids warm in winter
With the official start of spring past us,
it’s easy to overlook the fact that some
students across the nation still arrive at
school shivering from the cold.
It’s also easy to conclude that it’s
too late to take action to help kids.
But that’s wrong. In fact, spring is
just the right time to start partnering
with outside groups, such as the national Coats for Kids Foundation, to
plan for a winter coat giveaway next
fall, says Kathleen Kennedy, executive
director of communications and community relations for the Oklahoma
City schools.
Kennedy worked on her district’s
Coats for Kids/Operation Warm project, collecting donations in the heat
of last summer so hundreds of coats
could be distributed free last fall.
“It’s never too early to start planning,” she says.
Trends&Analysis
howdoyoudecidewhoearns
tenureinyourdistrict?
C
ritics of teacher tenure complain that such job protections make it difficult for school officials to fire poor-performing teachers. Critics also say
that school districts grant tenure automatically—and fail to terminate poor
performers before job protections go into effect. So Urban Advocate asked
several school board members these questions: Do you think teacher tenure is an outdated policy? And does your district ensure that only your best new teachers receive
tenure?
Earningthoselast
fewcreditsisgoalof
alternativeprograms
T
he Academy at Old Cockrill gives Nashville, Tenn., dropouts and academically
struggling students who are identified
as likely dropouts a second chance to
earn their high school diplomas.
“So many of our kids have so much going on
in their lives, and while they could keep up with
a couple of classes, they couldn’t handle four
subjects,” says Bill Warren, lead principal of nontraditional high schools in the school system.
So a number of alternative schools were
opened in 2010 to serve students who work
to support their families, care for younger children, or simply do not function well in a traditional school setting, he says.
The winning formula for such alternative
schools is the hiring of teachers and counselors trained and receptive to working with students who don’t fit the traditional mold—and
a schedule designed more to meet the needs
of students than those of adults.
“Some kids come in the morning, some
only in the afternoon,” Warren says. “Some
come on Saturdays.”
Many urban schools are expanding their
alternative programs as a strategy to help students graduate who otherwise would drop
out, says David Icon, president of the National
Alternative Education Association.
“It’s about looking at the student who
walks through your school door and asking,
‘What do you need?’ For these students, things
need to be done differently, as the regular way
of educating them didn’t work.”
“The policy for tenure is outdated and needs to be
revised, but I believe teachers who work hard and
are highly qualified should receive tenure. Akron does
two things to ensure highly qualified teachers: We prescreen and standardize the interview process to ensure teachers are highly qualified. And new teachers are provided
a mentor (master teacher) to ensure they meet the standards.”
—Bruce Alexander, Akron, Ohio
“While our teachers get tenure in three
years, California rules give administrators only about 18 months to mentor and
evaluate new teachers. It takes school districts about three years and $300,000 to
remove a poor-performing teacher. The
California system is not working for children
or the teaching profession.”
—Janet Ryan, Fresno, Calif.
“I never thought tenure made it difficult to terminate a
poor-performing teacher. We worked with our teachers union to remove anyone who wasn’t effective.
Tenure is now a moot point; our legislature abolished
it. Still, it’s important to fairly document our employees and provide them every opportunity for professional development—with the goal of ensuring the success of our kids.”
—Susan Valdes, Tampa, Fla.
UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014 3
Trends&Analysis
School lockdown
drills are a sad but necessary
precaution
A sad reality of society today is that urban
school leaders feel the need to conduct
school lockdown safety drills.
Working with the local police department, New York’s Yonkers School District
conducted such a drill in January at one
of its middle schools. Officers with police
dogs searched the building and then talked with students, teachers, and administrators about the drill.
The goal was simple—to make certain
that students and staff understand that
everyone must clear school hallways and
get behind a locked door, “out of sight
and quiet,” says Pasquale Piccirella, the
district’s director of safety and security.
The need for police and district personnel
to improve their coordination during emergencies was made all too clear just a week
later when a student opened fire with a
shotgun at a middle school in Roswell, N.M.
Norfolk, Va., challenges state
takeover law
Never underestimate the importance
of speaking up as a local school policymaker. A number of Virginia school
boards, including those in Alexandria
and Norfolk, currently are flexing their
advocacy muscles.
Their issue: Opposition to their state’s
Opportunity Education Institution, a
new state agency created to take over
academically struggling schools.
Last fall, the Norfolk school board,
along with the Virginia School Boards
Association, filed a lawsuit seeking to
overturn the state takeover program.
The Alexandria school board, along
with several others, expressed their opposition to the new state policy with
resolutions supporting the lawsuit.
4 UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014
Connecticut partnership offers hope for urban students who can’t read
O
ne of the challenges in keeping
urban students at grade level in
reading and writing is the lack
of resources. Particularly in highneeds schools, there are so many educational needs that money and personnel are
stretched thin.
That was the dilemma for Burns Latino
Studies Academy in Hartford, Conn. The
school board was providing additional resources to the school, but that investment
was consumed by a pressing need to focus
on issues of security, student discipline, and
school climate.
“The school was not a learning environment at all,” Principal Monica Brase says.“So
the focus was on the school’s culture, its
climate.”
Yet, a huge number of students at the preK-8 school were scoring below grade level
in reading. So Brase jumped at the chance
to participate in a new partnership of Connecticut, the University of Connecticut’s
Neag School of Education, and other groups.
The partnership launched a pilot K-3 literacy intervention program targeting the poorest readers in the state’s urban schools.
At Burns, the program brought in a reading coach to work with teachers, as well as a
number of tutors who support teachers by
providing additional small-group reading instruction, Brase says.
“It was such a great opportunity,” she says.
“We didn’t have the money for academic
interventions.” And for a principal with so
much on her plate, it was a “huge relief” to
have the outside support. “I needed someone to focus on this area.”
The intervention program is about building the capacity of teachers in high-needs
schools to provide the necessary interventions for young children with low literacy
skills, says Michael Coyne, an associate professor at the Neag School of Education.
“There’s no new, amazing instructional
practices involved in this,” he says.“It’s about
putting effective practices into a school,
with sufficient support to implement them.”
Big-city districts unite to improve cafeteria goods and services
F
lexing their collective purchasing
muscle, six big-city districts have
joined forces to boost the quality of
cafeteria goods and services—and set
a new standard for best practices.
The Urban School Food Alliance, which
formed a year ago, is pursuing bids for biodegradable cafeteria plates and hormonefree chicken, among other projects, says David Binkle, director of food services for the
Los Angeles Unified School District.
“The Alliance is working to have better
food quality, better supply quality at the
same cost or potentially less,” he says. “Our
goal is to make an impact on the image of
school food.”
The Alliance is a partnership of the school
systems in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and in Miami-Dade County and
in Orange County, Fla.
The potential influence of this partnership can be seen in the fact that 18 firms bid
for the right to develop the new meal trays
the six districts have agreed to purchase.
These new environmentally friendly trays
could replace nearly 270 million cafeteria
polystyrene trays that end up in landfills every year.
“This will have a major impact on the
polystyrene industry,” Binkle says. What’s
more, he adds, the winning contract will
stipulate that other districts can purchase
the trays at the same cost as Alliance
schools.
Do you know?
Training boosts board leadership in
Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools
Urban Advocate, the official publication of NSBA’s Council of Urban Boards
of Education (CUBE), is published four times a year.
Copyright 2014
I
t’s not enough for school
board members to be intelligent, hard working, and dedicated to the schoolchildren in
their communities.
They also need to know how
to work effectively as part of a
policymaking team. They need
board training.
That’s a message that NSBA
and state school boards associations have championed for
decades. It also is a key to the
increasing effectiveness and success of the district leadership
team in North Carolina’s Char-
“continuous improvement.”
Such training has had several
practical effects on the school
board’s effectiveness, McCray
says. Through training, the board
has learned how to focus its
meetings so that more gets done.
“Our board meetings are running
more efficiently. We address the
issues we should address in budgeting, constituent services, and
student performance.”
Training also has helped board
members recognize how formal
practices for sharing information
can improve communications
among one another and
between the school
As winner of the 2013 CUBE Annual Award for board and the comUrban School Board Excellence, the Charlotte- munity, she says.
Mecklenburg Schools are a model of the potential Training also has
of urban education—and, this year, Urban Advocate helped the board to
is examining in more detail some of the school better understand its
role as policymaksystem’s innovative practices.
ers and, by respecting the division of
responsibilities between board and sulotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
perintendent, improve the team“We’re building our capac- work and working relationships
ity—building a more efficient of the leadership team.
team,” says school board Chair
“It’s helped us to work better
Mary McCray. “A school board is together,” McCray says. “School
a human institution, so there is board members have this tenalways room for improvement.”
dency to want to jump in headIn recent years, the school first when there’s an issue. But
board has participated in train- just knowing where your role
ing and conference workshops fits versus that of the superinsponsored by the North Caro- tendent, it can take a load off
lina School Boards Association, your shoulders and help you reNSBA, the Broad Foundation, and alize you don’t need to do the
others. It also has worked with superintendent’s job. That lets
the Center for Reform of School the board truly focus on its overSystem to develop a practice of sight role.”
UA
2013-14 CUBE Steering Committee
CUBE Chair
Minnie Forte-Brown, Durham, N.C.
CUBE Vice Chair
Van Henri White, Rochester, N.Y.
Bruce D. Alexander, Akron, Ohio
Barbara Coscarello, Camden, N.J.
Ericka Ellis-Stewart, Charlotte, N.C.
Estela Gutierrez, Reno, Nev.
Verjeana Jacobs, Upper Marlboro, Md.
Harium Martin-Morris, Seattle, Wash.
Willetta Milam, Cleveland, Ohio
Norma Muñoz, Phoenix, Ariz.
Janet Ryan, Fresno, Calif.
David Stone, Baltimore, Md.
Caroll Turpin, Pontiac, Mich.
Susan Valdes, Tampa, Fla.
Ruth Veales, Oklahoma City, Okla.
About CUBE
The Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) is NSBA’s program supporting
urban school boards and fostering effective leadership for excellence and equity
in public education, with a specific focus on underrepresented students. CUBE
provides educational opportunities that engage urban school districts and district
leaders, working through their state school boards association, while addressing
challenges in urban centers.
About NSBA
The National School Boards Association is the nationwide advocacy organization for public school governance. NSBA’s mission is to foster excellence and
equity in public elementary and secondary education in the United States
through local school board leadership. Founded in 1940, NSBA is a not-forprofit federation of state associations of school boards across the United States
and the school boards of Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
NSBA President and Liaison to CUBE, David A. Pickler
Executive Director, Thomas J. Gentzel
Associate Executive Director,
State Association Services,
Lisa Bartusek
Director, CUBE, Deborah L. Keys
Manager, CUBE, Bobby Cato
Coordinator, CUBE, Laura J. Cox
Editor, Urban Advocate, Del Stover
Editor-in-Chief, Kathleen Vail
Art Director, Carrie E. Carroll
Production Coordinator, Donna J. Stubler
UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014 5
Six decades after Brown v. Board of Education,
urban schools can reflect on the impact of the landmark ruling
By Del Stover
6 UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014
T
he pace is energetic in the early morning civics class at
Milliones University Preparatory School in Pittsburgh.
Teacher Lisa Fevola encourages her ninth-grade students
to plan individual service projects with a real-life, practical impact on their school or community. The teens toss
out ideas: Pick up neighborhood trash. Lobby the city to
combat speeding on local streets. Discourage bullying in
the school.
“What can you do to make a difference?” Fevola asks. “How do you
plan on making a difference?”
It’s a scene that belies the ceaseless criticism leveled at public
education these days. In this inner-city classroom, students are learning. They are demonstrating higher-level thinking skills. This classroom could be viewed as an example of the culmination of promise
of Brown v. Board of Education—the landmark U.S. Supreme Court
CoverStory
60
Years
After
Brown
ruling that overturned state-sanctioned school segregation and
mandated equality and equity in the education of all American
schoolchildren.
Yet, one glaring fact undermines this uplifting premise: Every
student in the classroom is black.
No serious integration exists at Milliones, and Pittsburgh
school officials can’t do anything about it. The city’s demographics conspire against them.The school draws its students from the
highly segregated Hill District, a predominately black neighborhood where 40 percent of residents live below the poverty level.
As a result, nearly 95 percent of the students are black. Despite
a small magnet program on campus, only a handful of white students are enrolled. Brown may have launched the nation’s effort
to integrate the public schools, but on the court ruling’s 60th
anniversary, the legacy of “separate but equal” still has a foothold
Photography: The LIFE Images Collection
at this campus.
“Because of segregated residential patterns ... we have some
schools that are nearly 100 percent African-American,” says Superintendent Linda Lane.“But I feel that it is very important that
schools, no matter what their demographic makeup, are strong
schools. They have to be strong schools, and so we’re focused
on [that].”
Tolerating separate but equal
Strong schools, but not integrated schools—it’s a goal that school
leaders have little choice but to accept, particularly in parts of
their district where neighborhood lines are sharply divided by
race and income.
Yet it is a perilous path for school policymakers to walk. As
research has consistently made clear—and as the Supreme Court
UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014 7
No one
likes the idea
of racially isolated
classrooms, but
no one sees
easy solutions,
either.
acknowledged in its Brown ruling—segregation can have a negative impact on
children’s educational attainment, regardless of the level of equity in buildings,
teachers, and resources. “Separate educational facilities,” the high court said in
1954,“are inherently unequal.”
Few would argue that a diverse student population in a school that offers a
world-class education is the ideal. For urban school leaders, however, the question
is how to achieve it. The federal courts
have put severe limits on policies seeking
to promote racial diversity in classrooms.
Student busing is a relic of another era.
Magnet programs don’t encourage large
groups of students to change schools.
What’s more, communities strongly support neighborhood schools, even if enrollments mirror the racial segregation of
the district as a whole. Even the growth of charter schools is
alleged to be exacerbating the division of students along racial
lines.
It doesn’t help matters that the public shows little interest
in promoting classroom diversity. Parents want good schools
nearby for their children. No one likes the idea of racially isolated classrooms, but no one sees easy solutions, either. So “separate but equal” is tolerated, even if it is somewhat discomforting.
“Even within the African-American community, we’re in conflict
on this,” Lane says.“I admit that I’m conflicted on it.”
Integration efforts stymied
Sometimes it seems as if only urban school boards are taking any
real interest in the issue. In Louisville, Ky., the Jefferson County
school board continues its policy of drawing school attendance
boundaries with an idea to improve school diversity.
After a 2007 federal court ruling overturned its use of race in
school integration policy decisions, the
school board stood firm in its commitment to promote diversity in its schools.
It broadened its definition of diversity to
include family income, family education
level, and the level of poverty in neighborhoods. It offers incentives through
its magnet school program for parents to
choose schools beyond their neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, the Omaha, Neb., metropolitan area can boast of its Learning
Community initiative. It’s a partnership
of city and suburban school systems
that funnels extra money to high-needs
schools, seeks to close the achievement
gap in racially segregated schools, and
creates school choice options that offer
opportunities to promote more school
diversity.
Yet, while a number of urban school boards do what they
can, the demographic, political, and cultural tides are running
against them. At one time, North Carolina’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools was a national model of school desegregation. But a
1997 lawsuit challenged the school board’s use of race in student
assignments.A later court ruling lifted the district’s federal desegregation order that included mandatory student busing.
Eventually, the demand for neighborhood schools eroded the
options of school officials, and the number of schools with a
minority enrollment above 90 percent has climbed precipitously
over the years.
Demographics also have worked against the school system in
Prince George’s County, Md., outside Washington, D.C., where
the number of white students has declined from 28 percent to
under 5 percent over the past two decades. By 2004, court-ordered busing came to an end, and the district dismantled many
of its magnet programs because of their cost and the recognition
Brown v. Board of Education timeline
1898
1927
1940
1947
1954
Plessey ruling
U.S. Supreme Court
embraces “separate
but equal” policy,
offering legal protection for school segregation.
8 UrbanAdvocate
Gong Lum v. Rice
Chinese student can
be defined as nonwhite for segregation purposes.
Spring 2014
Public opinion
Almost one-third of
all Americans express support for
integrated schools.
In Southern states,
however, integration
has the support of 2
percent of the populace.
Westminster School
Dist. v. Mendez
A federal appeals
court strikes down
segregated schools
for Mexican Americans.
Brown v. Board of
Education
Supreme Court bans
school segregation,
declaring separate
schools “inherently
unequal” and pushing the nation into a
tumultuous policy debate over integration.
1955
Brown II
High court calls for
school desegregation “with all deliberate speed.”
Pittsburgh
that their use in promoting diversity was a hopeless cause.
Indeed, demographics are working against urban school leaders across the nation. White student enrollment nationally fell 9
percentage points between 2000 and 2010, and before the end
of this decade, the majority of school-aged children will be members of a racial minority. In a growing number of states, Hispanic
students increasingly are segregated in schools with a largely Hispanic enrollment, reports the Civil Rights Project at the University of California-Los Angeles. As for blacks: “In spite of declining
residential segregation for black families and a large-scale movement to the suburbs in most parts of the country, school segregation remains very high for black students.”
Is integration worth it?
Educators question whether any energy should be put into seeking diverse schools. Many are rethinking the meaning of diversity.
Why talk about integrating schools in Detroit, where less than 3
percent of students are white? And what if a school has a rich
mix of black, Hispanic, and Asian students? Isn’t that racially diverse? Wasn’t the real goal of Brown to ensure that all students
get a good education—and achieve equality and equity of outcomes—with integration simply a tool to achieve that outcome?
On the other side of the argument: Are equal educational
outcomes attainable without integration? Decades of research
has shown that where minorities are highly segregated, these
schools are more likely to receive less financial support, hire less
qualified teachers, and achieve lower academic outcomes.
Such inequities even occur within school districts, where
schools serving middle-class students have been known to draw
more funding than high-needs schools. Urban school boards have
long fought against this historic tendency. In Baltimore, Boston,
New York City, and San Francisco, among others, school boards
have established weighted funding formulas to direct additional
resources to high-needs students in high-poverty schools.
In Charlotte, the school board created a Strategic Staffing Initiative that has garnered national recognition for placing teams
of high-performing principals, teachers, and staff in schools that
A powerful focus on
teachers
Although Pittsburgh is
among the most heavily
segregated cities in the nation in terms of residential housing, the
overall city population retains a sizable white population.
That demographic fact has given the school system the raw material
to promote racial diversity in a number of schools, although very segregated schools like Milliones University Preparatory School continue to
serve their similarly segregated neighborhoods.
To ensure that such racially isolated schools offer an equitable
education to their students, “one of our strategic priorities is getting
high-quality teachers for the kids that need them the most,” says Superintendent Linda Lane.
Strong supports for teachers are a major strategy in meeting that
goal, she adds. “What we hear from teachers is that there has to be
a school leader [at the school} that they feel confident is going to
have their backs ... and there must be a strong teaching and learning
environment.”
Los Angeles
Easing the isolation of ELLs
It’s ironic that school officials in Los
Angeles came under fire last winter
for a plan that, to some, appeared to
segregate English language learners.
The intent was quite the opposite.
Where ELLs are struggling, a new pullout program seeks to accelerate English acquisition and boost their academic success, says
Hilda Maldonado, director of multilingual and multicultural education. Students still attend core classes with their peers.
This specialized instruction, she adds, actually should ease the isolation of ELLs by improving their ability to communicate and socialize
with their peers and improve their access to more advanced coursework. “We want our kids to have a chance at the idea of Brown—where
kids have an equal shot at college and career readiness.”
1956
1956
1957
1959
1963
1964
Public opinion
Nearly half of Americans express support for integrated
schools. In the South,
15 percent now
agree that blacks
and whites should
sit in the same classrooms.
National Guard
called
The governor of Tennessee calls out the
National Guard after white protestors
seek to block desegregation of a high
school.
Little Rock protests
The 101st Airborne
Division and National Guard are called
to the Arkansas capital to provide protection for nine black
students integrating
Central High School.
Washington, D.C.,
march
A crowd of 25,000
marches in the nation’s capital in support of school desegregation.
Public opinion
Nearly three-quarters of Americans—including 31 percent of
Southerners—voice
support for integration.
Civil Rights Act
Title IV of this Act authorizes the federal
government to file
school desegregation cases.
Wikipedia Commons
UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014 9
The same
obstacles to
integrating schools
by race will
hamper efforts
to promote
socioeconomic
diversity.
are in particular trouble.
Such efforts make a difference in closing the achievement gap. But it may not be
enough. Some research suggests that segregation, in and of itself, pulls down student
achievement. A study by the Century Foundation, for example, found that low-income
students who were enrolled in affluent
elementary schools did much better than
low-income students attending high-poverty schools.
Some suggest that low-income students
are influenced by the higher aspirations of
affluent students who are thinking ahead to
college and by the higher expectations that
teachers hold for these students. A strong
link exists between family income and race
in the nation, which may explain why highly segregated students—often from lowincome families—gain subtle advantages
from more integrated settings.
To Barbara Seals Nevergold, president
of the Buffalo, N.Y., school board, urban
school leaders need to think hard about
how diversity should be defined—and its
role in education policymaking.
“Diversity should mean more than cultural or ethnic diversity, it has to do with
levels of achievement,” she says.“Having students in classes where
you have different levels of achievement, where you see individuals who achieve and who essentially provide some example or
incentive or influence on their peers to achieve. We never talk
about that. But I think that’s an important issue about diversity
that needs discussion.”
Yet the same obstacles to integrating schools by race will hamper efforts to promote socioeconomic diversity. What’s more,
the growth of charter schools may be adding a new wrinkle. In
the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, the number of white-
majority charter schools rose from 11 to
37 between 2000 and 2010, raising concerns that charters may be the 21st century venue for white flight, reports the
New York Times.
A more disturbing trend may be how
charters harden the segregation of black
students, in part because so many charters have been established in urban areas. “Charter schools are more racially
isolated than traditional schools in virtually every state and large metropolitan
area,” observes a 2012 report by the Civil
Rights Project.
What’s more, because charters often
are located in urban areas, “black students in charter schools are far more
likely than their traditional public school
counterparts to be educated in intensely
segregated settings.”
The challenge of poverty
In the end, no one is suggesting that racially segregated schools—even those
with high levels of poverty—cannot provide a high-quality education to their students. “Poverty is a challenge, but it’s not
an excuse,” says John Marshall, assistant
superintendent of diversity, equity, and poverty programs for Kentucky’s Jefferson County Public Schools.
Yet high concentrations of poverty are a huge obstacle. Despite
billions of dollars provided in federal Title I funds and state categorical aid, urban schools have yet to find the magic formula that
pulls high-poverty schools to high levels of academic attainment.
New Jersey’s Camden Public Schools, for example, now spend
nearly $24,000 per student, yet only half of all students achieve
even basic levels of proficiency in reading and writing. The district’s graduation rate was 37 percentage points below the state
1968
1971
1973
1974
1974
1976
Green v. School
Board of New Kent
County
U.S. Supreme Court
orders segregated
schools to be dismantled “root and
branch.” The court
identifies criteria to
gauge compliance
with desegregation
orders.
Swann v. CharlotteMecklenburg
High court approves
st rategies—busing,
magnet
schools,
etc.—to promote integrated schools.
Special education
protections
Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation
Act
prohibits
schools
from discriminating
against students with
mental or physical
impairments.
Milliken v. Bradley
By rejecting metropolitan-wide desegregation plans, the
high court seriously
undermines hope of
urban school integration.
Chinese studentssue
High court rules
that San Francisco
schools must provide instruction to
students with limited
English proficiency.
‘Soiling of Old
Glory’
During protests
against Boston
school desegregation, a Pulitzer Prizewinning photo of a
flag-wielding protestor highlights the
divisions over school
desegregation.
10 UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014
Omaha
average in 2012.
School board member Barbara Coscarello, who also serves on
the CUBE Steering Committee, has her own theory for the struggles of Camden—and other urban school districts nationwide.
Students in high-poverty neighborhoods struggle with social,
medical, and mental health issues that will prevent successful
learning, at least until urban school boards accept that a much
greater investment is needed in wraparound services.
“We don’t take a holistic approach to the needs of our students,” she says.“We should have in our schools all the resources
that a child and family need in order for the child to do well in
school. Some say that’s not the role of education, but I can’t see
how it can’t be our role in this day and age.Too many of our kids
aren’t learning.”
That thinking was exploring in detail in CUBE programming
last year, when a major theme of conferences and workshops
focused on the needs of young men of color. At that time, urban
school leaders discussed the need for school health clinics and
“community schools” that brought outside health and social service agencies into a partnership with school districts.
This may be one of the major policy directions of urban
schools for the rest of this decade—alongside such initiatives as
teacher training and academic intervention programs. But whatever strategies are pursued, all school leaders can do is push
harder to make a difference.
“A lot has changed since Brown,” Marshall says. “But we’ve
not gotten all the way there, and things aren’t as good as they
should be. But what we have in Jefferson County is a clear movement forward.We’re building upon Brown. But we can’t be complacent that some of our schools are integrated. We can’t be
complacent when there are not a lot of [minority] students in
Advanced Placement courses but they are in special education
classes. We have to be culturally responsible … we need to set
expectations that all children can achieve.”
UA
A regional strategy for
diversity
In 2007, the Nebraska
legislature created the
Learning Community, a partnership of the Omaha Public Schools
and 10 surrounding districts designed to reduce disparities in local
funding and promote more socioeconomic diversity in schools.
One of the most important roles of the program is putting additional funds and improved preschool services into high-poverty,
highly segregated schools in the city of Omaha. It also has allowed
more than 2,200 students annually to attend other schools across
the region, creating new educational opportunities for students and
providing for a small improvement in diversity in some schools.
The program is not without its critics, many of whom appear to
be unhappy with the diversion of additional money into the city
schools. Last year, a group of state lawmakers introduced a bill to
dismantle the partnership, and even the governor has questioned
whether the program is needed.
Camden, N.J.
Charters put a twist on
segregation
Despite concerns that
charter school admissions policies will further
divide students by race or family income, that outcome isn’t likely in
Camden, N.J., where minorities comprise 80 percent of the population and most families are poor or working class.
The danger is that charters are proving increasingly popular
among those families who have a keen interest in their children’s
education, says school board member Barbara Coscarello, who
Del Stover ([email protected]) is editor of Urban Advocate and a senior
also serves on the CUBE Steering Committee. Her concern is that
editor of American School Board Journal.
charters may siphon away the
most academically motivated
students—those who serve as
an inspiration for their peers.
“Who will be left for the
Integration peaks
Board of Ed. of Okla- Race-based policies Parents Involved
public
schools to serve are the
Almost 45 percent homa City v. Dowell barred: Charlotte,
U.S. Supreme Court
most disaffected youth,” she
of black students at- New rules allow school N.C.
rules against volunsays. “What do we do with
tend
majority-white systems to free them- White parents seek an tary school integration
schools. In later years, selves from court de- end to desegregation plans, leading to an esthese remaining children, if
the nation sees public segregation order. In plan in the city-county calation in the resegrethose who end up in our tradischools reverse course Oklahoma City, schools school system, and a gation of the nation’s
tional schools are only the stuand become increas- undermine desegrega- federal court judge schools.
dents with the greatest needs?”
ingly segregated by tion efforts with a fo- bars the use of race in
race.
cus on neighborhood future student assignschools.
ments.
1988
Wikipedia Commons
1991
2001
2007
UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014 11
The Path to
12 UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014
These nonprofits help schools
leverage grants and technical
assistance to make college
attendance possible for all students
By Linda Lecht and Lisa Ciacci
O
scar Garcia grew up in Miami.
He was raised by his Cuban
grandparents after his mother
died. He excelled in primary
school but hit a wall in high
school. He missed his mother
and did not see where high
school would lead him. His
grades and motivation fell. Friends who finished high school were
getting low-paying jobs; some of them got their jobs before graduating. His agenda for high school: to have fun.
Still, Oscar’s ninth-grade English teacher at Westland Hialeah
Senior High School saw promise in him. She believed if he could
see that other paths were available, he would strive to do well.
She encouraged him to join an afterschool activity called the College Club.The high school was finding ways to get more students
to contemplate their future and put themselves on the path to
college.
The College Club was exactly what Oscar needed. Now a senior, he recalls,“I entered high school not really caring. My English
teacher told me to go to the College Club. I didn’t think it would
o College
change me as much as it did.The College Club took a kid who was
lost and really helped him out.”
UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014 13
Simple but smart
The College Club is just one piece of a powerful and replicable
model of how schools can help improve college readiness for all
students.
In 2008, the Citi Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Citigroup,
launched an initiative to help improve college enrollment and completion rates for high-need populations. Citi Foundation targeted
three local education funds: Miami-Dade County, Philadelphia, and
San Francisco. Each received challenge grants and technical assistance to develop demonstration projects that transform high
schools into places where college is a possibility for every student.
“In today’s economy, we see that the growth of opportunities
for young people is in organizations and jobs that require much
higher skill levels than in past decades,” says Daria Sheehan, senior
program officer at the Citi Foundation.“Since our foundation’s mission is the economic empowerment and financial inclusion of lowincome families in the communities where Citi operates, boosting
college completion rates is a logical place to start.” The foundation
invested $5.1 million to start the initiative—the Citi Postsecondary
Success Program (CPSP).
The Education Fund of Miami-Dade County worked with MiamiDade Public Schools to pilot their jointly developed model at three
high schools. Although the high schools had very different student
populations, each had a free and reduced-price lunch rate of more
than 60 percent and a college enrollment rate that was lower than
the district average.
“By piloting this initiative in three very different communities,
The Education Fund and the district could determine if our model
would work in any school,” says Hector Ponte, The Education Fund
chairman.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools is the fourth-largest school
district in the country. Each high school in the pilot program serves
different communities. At Westland Hialeah Senior High School, the
population is 97 percent Hispanic, with a large percentage of the
families recently arrived from other countries. Miami Southridge Senior High school has a large African-American population in a community that is less urban. The economy surrounding Miami Beach
Senior High School is based on the tourism industry with the lowwage jobs that sustain it.
The results after five years are promising.An evaluation of MiamiDade’s pilot high schools completed last year by the Philadelphiabased OMG Center for Collaborative Learning found:
• College-enrollment rates overall increased by 34 percent.
• College-enrollment rates for black students rose 69 percent
versus a decrease of 6 percent in comparison schools.
• College-enrollment rates for Hispanic students rose 25 percent, significantly outpacing the 5 percent gain in comparison
schools.
• College persistence rates (measured by high school graduates
who go on to enroll as college sophomores) rose 30 percent
versus an 8 percent decrease for students from comparison
schools.
14 UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014
Getting started
At the heart of the program is a tool called Postsecondary Success
Asset Mapping (PSAM). Built on research by David T. Conley, founder of the Center for Educational Policy Research at the University of
Oregon, PSAM calls for teachers to evaluate their school’s delivery
of strategies that research shows need to be in place for all students
in order to have a college-going culture.
Initial analysis by teachers using asset mapping revealed schools
had a list of activities to encourage graduation and college attendance, but less than half of the students, and in some cases only a
handful, were benefitting.
“Asset mapping allows us to get buy-in from the faculty,” says Bianca Calzadilla, principal of Miami Southridge Senior High School.
“Who better than the teachers to examine what we need, how to
accomplish it, and how to revise particular sections or components
of the plan? These teachers create the foundation of our coursework to help get our students to the postsecondary level.”
The PSAM helped reveal that our students eschewed college because they were not ready for college-level math. The Education
Fund’s CPSP advisory group convened high school math teachers
and college professors from Miami Dade College and Florida International University to delve deeper.
They found that a substantial gap existed between what high
school teachers were required to teach by the state and what students needed to test out of college remedial classes.The group then
designed a curriculum to build college math-readiness skills in 12th
grade. Today, more than a dozen high schools use the curriculum,
Math for College Readiness.
“Our students were stuck on math,” says Maria Sahwell, who coordinates The Education Fund’s CPSP at Miami Beach Senior High
School. “They were coming to high school with low-level math
skills, and we needed to bridge that gap before they went on to
postsecondary education.”
Asset mapping also led schools to revise schedules, for example,
by adding back homeroom times once a month in order to help students review course credit needs. Others revised courses. At Westland Hialeah Senior High School, the entire ninth-grade orientation
course was rewritten to incorporate strategies identified in their
asset map sessions.
College trips
In addition to school-identified strategies, the Miami-Dade model
required schools to take at least 250 students a year to visit colleges.
At first, the schools questioned the need to take so many students
and couldn’t understand why a ninth-grader should visit a college.
However, since students’ grades starting in ninth grade affect college entrance, students need to develop their goals early.
With much encouragement, schools took students to visit campuses within Miami-Dade County. Building on this success, The
Education Fund created a trip to colleges throughout the state for
more than 100 students from all three schools. The next year, two
of the three schools’ College Clubs organized similar visits, and the
following year visits included out-of-state schools such as Alabama,
Duke, Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, Louisiana State, Loyola,
North Carolina,Tulane, and others.
“We have students from a very low socioeconomic status, so
these kids would never have the opportunity to travel,” says Katrina
Cordova, Westland Hialeah Senior High School College Club sponsor. “With the CPSP model and subsidy, we make these trips super
affordable, and allow them to pay in installments if they need to.
You see the gratitude in the parents’ eyes.”
The college trips might be the highlight of CPSP, but through
their College Clubs, students also receive instruction in academic
skills and research techniques, essay writing, entrance exams, and
researching careers and colleges. All students are welcome, though
the clubs target students who are the first in their families to attend
college and whose GPAs range from 2.0 to 3.0 -- students least likely
to receive such support.
Money for college
One of the biggest barriers college attendance is cost. The Education Fund’s CPSP Advisory Committee decided to tackle that issue
by giving students and families expert help, beginning with help
filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA.
The application is a gateway to consideration for nine federal programs as well as hundreds of state-based aid programs with most of
the aid available from individual educational institutions.
With CPSP partners, Miami-Dade County Public Schools Student
Services, Miami Dade College, Florida International University, and
uAspire, each school holds “FAFSA Marathons.” Sitting at a computer
with a local college admissions or financial aid expert, parents and
children walk step-by-step through the application process.
After five years, a remarkable 50 percent of seniors’ parents
across the three schools attended a FAFSA Marathon, placing rates
of online submissions from the schools among the state’s highest.
Miami Dade College even allows seniors to register during FAFSA
nights. Rolando Montoya, Miami Dade College provost, says,“When
we bring parents and students together with our admissions officers, it is an ideal opportunity to admit some students on the spot.”
It takes a county
Even with the roadmap provided by asset mapping, schools cannot
act alone.The only way to build pathways and provide resources for
greater postsecondary access and success is through collaboration
and partnership. “It may take a village to raise a child, but instilling
a college-going culture in thousands of high school students takes
an entire county,” says Deborah Montilla, district director of MiamiDade County Public Schools’ division of student services.
At schools, partnership committees focus on college readiness and success, resulting in televised “town hall” meetings held
at schools, in-school college fairs, buses for college field trips and,
most importantly, coordination of services.
At the county level, The Education Fund and the district’s division of student services activated a Community Partnership, a gathering of nonprofit organizations that work together on projects to
increase student readiness for and access to postsecondary education.
An advisory committee of provosts from local universities, the
district’s chief academic officer, principals from the pilot schools,
and the president and manager from The Education Fund guide the
program.
Results and expansion
Due to the results and feedback from schools, the district encouraged expansion of CPSP to five additional schools this year.
School leaders like Calzadilla and Guillermo Muñoz have experienced the achievements firsthand.“With CPSP, we’re embedding in
students the idea that anything is possible,” Calzadilla says.“Recently, one of our students told me proudly that she had been accepted
to Florida International University, which is my alma mater. To me,
that is such an affirmation of what can be achieved.”
Muñoz, former principal of Westland Hialeah Senior High School,
says, “Before CPSP, most people felt if we graduated the students
that was enough in itself. With the outreach to parents, the town
halls, and other campus events, we’re raising expectations not just
within the school but throughout the community.”
UA
Linda Lecht ([email protected]) is president of The Education Fund,
in Miami. Lisa Ciacci ([email protected]) is the director of the Citi
Postsecondary Success program at The Education Fund. Information on
The Education Fund’s specific implementation can be found at www.educationfund.org. On the national level, the initiative is now called the Postsecondary Success Collaborative (PSC) and is managed by FHI360. Information about PSC and Postsecondary Success Asset Mapping (PSAM)
can be found at www.fhi360.org.
UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014 15
Research: Urban Districts Changing School Leader Training
By Lawrence Hardy
D
rawing from that time-honored tradition by which
many a rookie teacher was once introduced (or is
that abandoned?) to her classroom, Urban Advocate
helpfully offers these Three Principles for Principal
Installment.
Your new principal will need:
• Keys—to get in the building.
• A handshake—to show you’re behind her.
• A hearty “Good Luck!”—because she’s going to need it.
We’re joking, of course. But that joke carries a disheartening element of truth: For too long, school districts have been anything
but intentional in the way they hire, support, and evaluate those
whom they elevate to the most important leadership position in
their schools.
Now that is changing—and urban school districts are leading
the way.
“It’s not common, but it’s trending,” says Jody Spiro, director of
education leadership for The Wallace Foundation, which recently
issued Districts Matter: Cultivating the Principals Urban School
Districts Need, the latest in a series of reports on how districts are
changing the way they envision the job of principal.
The Wallace Foundation has been working to improve school
leadership for more than 14 years. Its latest report looks at six urban school district programs funded by the foundation, which are
located in New York City; Florida’s Hillsborough County; Denver;
Georgia’s Gwinnett County; North Carolina’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg; and Maryland’s Prince George’s County.
It’s often said that today’s principal is not just a building manager,
but also an instructional leader. Yet to make these words meaningful, districts must develop four major competencies in the way they
approach school leadership, Spiro says.
First, they must have “well-articulated, rigorous standards for
principals and assistant principals,” Spiro says. Second, they must
have effective preservice education for educators interested in becoming principals. Third, they must be selective in their hiring, so
that those they choose as principals can meet the exacting standards they set. And finally, they must have a well-organized system
for supporting principals once they are on the job. (The opposite
of the “keys, handshake,‘good luck’” approach.)
Too often, school districts—and particularly urban ones—have
not been involved enough in the preservice training of prospective
principals, often allowing post-secondary institutions to set their
own standards for the job, Spiro says.
“Why would you leave to outside institutions what competencies and skills these people will have?” Spiro asks.“But that is what
districts do.”
And yet, large as most urban districts are, they can have considerable market clout in determining just what they want from preservice programs. For example, the Gwinnett County schools are planning to publish a consumer’s guide to principal training programs
so universities will be encouraged to improve their programs.
Research Roundup
concussion danger for girls in soccer
A lot of attention has been drawn to the health risks associated
with concussions among male athletes who play such high-contact sports as football. But now research at Seattle’s University
of Washington School of Public Health finds that girls who play
soccer in middle school are vulnerable to suffering concussions.
Also worrisome: Unrecognized, students with symptoms of a
concussion often continue to stay on the field, raising the risk of
additional injury.
16 UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014
taking aim at zero tolerance
Zero-tolerance policies have taken a bad rap of late, and a new
report by the Vera Institute of Justice adds to the debate over
policies that impose harsh penalties for student misbehavior.
“No studies show that an increase in out-of-school suspension
and expulsion reduces disruption in the classroom and some
evidence suggests the opposite effect.” To no surprise, the report also slams zero tolerance for the disproportionate number
of minority students who are disciplined.
Research&Reality
Hillsborough’s Future Leader Academy
You’ve installed a new assistant principal in one of your schools.
His interview went well; on paper he looks great. But how good
will he be at calming an angry parent or providing feedback to
Since 2003, New York City has had its own Aspiring Principals
Program (APP), an intensive summer program and 10-month residency under experienced principals.While APP can fill only about
25 percent of the district’s candidacies, the schools are also working with area universities to more closely align their curricula to
the district’s standards and needs, the Wallace report says.
Once new principals are on the job, they need support from
mentoring programs like the one created in the Hillsborough
County Public Schools in Tampa, Fla.The district provides assistant
principals with coaches for two years and offers ongoing training
to all principals, no matter how long they have been on the job.
Another way districts can support principals is to provide them
with useful data and the training to know how to use it, the report says. In addition, districts need to “develop fair, reliable performance evaluations to help principals improve their work and
hold them accountable for their students’ progress.”
For Hillsborough County, that meant replacing a system in
which principals were assessed by a single supervisor with a
team-driven assessment that uses well-defined criteria from which
to provide evaluation and feedback. Forty percent of the evaluation is based on student achievement using multiple measures, not
simply test scores, says Tricia McManus, the district’s director of
leadership. Teacher ratings of the principals and ratings from the
principal’s supervisor are each worth another 15 percent. Other
criteria for the assessment include measures of student behavior,
(continued on page 18)
a teacher who needs help managing her classroom?
At the Hillsborough County Public Schools in Tampa, Fla.,
questions like these are no longer left to chance: They are addressed as part of a 90-minute evaluation for entry into an assistant principal training program called Future Leader Academy
(FLA).
“It gives us a better impression of how that person will react,
how they will interact with parents,” teachers, and others, says
Tricia McManus, director of leadership development at Hillsborough, the nation’s ninth largest school system. “There is a different caliber of candidate—that’s what I’m hearing.”
The 90-minute interview is divided into three separate sessions. Candidates for the program see videos of various scenarios, depicting, for example, the frustrated parent or the teacher
needing help. A member of a nine-member panel of principals,
assistant principals, and district level staff then plays that part
while the candidate responds. Other panel members critique
the candidates’ responses and offer feedback.
A teacher with three years of successful experience plus educational leadership certification can apply to FLA, a six-month
program that provides entry into Hillsborough’s assistant principal pool, McManus says. “Once they become an AP, they enter
our Assistant Principal Induction Program, which is a two-year
program with coursework and the assignment of a mentor.”
Assistant principals wanting to become principals have a similar entry requirement to enroll in the district’s Preparing New
Principals program—two hours of role-playing and interviews,
no wonder mozart was so clever
Practicing and performing a musical instrument may develop
a student’s cognitive development and improve his or her ability to process information by increasing neural connections,
according to research being conducted in Canada and China. The studies show that studying music can develop areas
of the brain associated with language and executive function,
and can strengthen a child’s creativity, decision-making ability, and memory.
followed by an additional 20 minutes with a group of principal
supervisors.
Having comprehensive requirements for both the assistant
principal and principal training programs helps both the district
and the candidates by narrowing the prospective pools to those
prospective leaders who are truly right for the job.
“We don’t need 500 people sitting in a pool if we have 100
vacancies,” McManus says.
UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014 17
Research&Reality
(continued from page 17)
attendance, and other factors, with only 10 percent of the score
based on “school operations,” which the report calls “a more traditional management gauge.”
Hillsborough also provides principals with a professional
growth plan, which includes more than 40 district-sponsored
training sessions.
In February, the Wallace Foundation announced a new $24
million initiative to help districts improve principal evaluation
and support. Principal supervisors have the potential to help
school leaders increase their effectiveness and, in the process,
improve student achievement, the foundation said, yet these supervisors are often unprepared for this task and overburdened,
overseeing an average of 24 principals—a situation that might
allow them to focus on little more than compliance.
Challenges remain in developing more rigorous principal
programs, but the emerging trend is for districts to take a more
active role—and, ultimately, the most active role—in preparing,
mentoring, and evaluating principals, with the end goal of increasing student learning.
“The district is the essential unit through which serious educational improvement can be made,” Spiro says, referring to the
report’s conclusion.“That’s the big takeaway.”
UA
Lawrence Hardy ([email protected]) is a senior editor of American School
Board Journal.
pipeline of good school leaders
A strong leader is needed to turn around an academically struggling school, but school district leaders shouldn’t wait until they
need to find the right principal for the job. A better approach
is to “cultivate an active pipeline of well-trained candidates.”
concludes Bain & Company, a global management-consulting
firm that has released a report outlining strategies to develop
the “transformational school leaders” that will be needed in the
years ahead.
18 UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014
CUBE
News
CUBE plans special recognition
of Brown anniversary
By Edwin C. Darden of the Education Advocacy Firm, Inc.
T
he U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas, is rapidly approaching senior
citizen status. But even as this landmark court ruling approaches its 60th anniversary in May, few would suggest
that we should retire our admiration—or that the job of
seeking diverse schools is done.
I’m pleased to be part of CUBE’s year-long recognition of how
Brown has reshaped the arc of our nation’s public education system. No legal case speaks more to the mission of what schools
should ideally accomplish: preparing all citizens for the racially, ethnically, linguistically, and culturally rich society that make us great
and strong.
My role will be to capture some of the sights, sounds, and experiences of CUBE members as Brown-related events take place.
It starts with this overview of CUBE’s year-long focus on Brown.
CUBE will listen to your voices and views by assembling an audio
archive on your perceptions of Brown.
In addition, I will write a summary chronicling highlights at
each of the three 2014 meetings, while also tweeting live observations. I will interview familiar education luminaries to explore their
thoughts on Brown—then and now. Finally, I will work behind the
scenes with your director, Deborah Keys, to develop strategic polling questions that capture the insights of CUBE board members
about how Brown affects urban schools today and tomorrow.
On a personal note, I credit Brown for influencing my outlook on
life. Although I attended an urban school district (New York City),
in an impoverished neighborhood (Inwood/Washington Heights),
I conquered adversity to become an attorney. Thurgood Marshall,
the lawyer who argued the Brown case, is a personal hero and my
inspiration. I am admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court Bar and have
focused my life’s work on K-12 education law and policy issues.
Make no mistake. There are some who berate the Brown decision and believe it has caused as much harm as good. But even the
fiercest cynics admit that it was a touchstone moment that changed
us in important ways, making our Constitution a more living document. In so doing, it propelled a hope that lives on that unity, equity,
and excellence will define the education of every child in every
urban school district.
CUBENews
From the desk of the director
Keys to Success newsletter gives you information in a nutshell
D
uring the past six months we hope you have enjoyed
reading CUBE’s bi-weekly publication, Keys to Success. Our online newsletter has covered court rulings, education research findings, and innovative programs that are relevant to the needs of urban school
leaders.
Keys to Success is intended to be a personality-driven publication,
allowing you to feel more connected to the CUBE family. Its short
entries add to the archive of information you receive as a participant
of CUBE, and it is an outstanding way to absorb information in a nutshell. We look forward to providing even more relevant and cuttingedge topics in the year ahead.
Listed below are previous newsletter issues that can be accessed on CUBE’s website: www.nsba.org/cube.
• Poverty Hinders Academic Achievement, But Opportunities
Exist (8/21/13)
• Advanced Courses Provide Challenging Opportunities, But
Also Raise Equity Concerns (8/28/13)
• Service Learning, Citizenship, and Civic Responsibility Are
Part of Urban Students’ Education (9/11/13)
• Urban School Board Members Should Cultivate Leadership
Skills to Succeed (9/25/13)
• District Not Financially Liable For Shooting Allegedly Prompted by Merger of Students From Enemy Schools (10/9/13)
• Ohio Research Study Confirms That Student Mobility Impedes
High Achievement in Urban Schools (10/23/13)
• Urban School Principals are Key Players in Helping School
Boards Achieve Student Goals (11/6/13)
• OCR Settlement Demonstrates That Urban Schools Should
Consider Transgender Students in Policies (11/20/13)
• Match Game: Attracting Talented Teachers to Low Performing Schools Can Yield Dramatic Improvements (12/4/13)
• Is Text Messaging During Board Meetings Multi-tasking Efficiency or Harmful Distraction? (12/18/13)
Plan now for CUBE in Chicago
Mark your calendars for CUBE’s Summer Issues Seminar, July 17-19,
at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile, Chicago.
This year’s theme is “The Brown Imperative: Excellence, Equity,
and Unity—60 Years Later and Into the Future.”
During our summer meeting, CUBE will explore the issues and
priorities created by the Brown ruling, as well as examine the educational needs of minority students, who will soon be the nation’s
demographic majority. Among the issues to be explored:
• Defining leadership for equity in the digital age
• Equity and access in K-12 STEM education
• Understanding and expecting greatness from children in poverty
• How Common Core Standards must ensure equity by fully
preparing every student for postsecondary success
• The effects of race, social class, and tracking opportunities to
learn math and science
You won’t want to miss this thought-provoking seminar. Online
registration is open now at www.nsba.org/cube.
Annual Award for Urban School Board Excellence revised
Applications for the 2014 CUBE Annual Award for Urban School
Board Excellence are now available online—with a significant revision to the awards program that will allow CUBE to expand its
recognition of the great work of urban school leaders.
This year, CUBE will recognize three winners: Each will represent a district size: small (30,000 students or less), medium (30,000
to 60,000 students), and large (more than 60,000 students).
Each winner will be presented a $2,500 monetary prize provided by our sponsor, Sodexo. Winners will be recognized at the
CUBE Annual Conference, Oct. 2-4, in Miami.
The CUBE Annual Award for Urban School Board Excellence offers CUBE districts the opportunity to share governance accomplishments, as well as the achievement gains of their students.The
award was created to recognize outstanding school board leaders
and highlight the crucial connection successful board governance
practices and urban student achievement.
UA
Deadline to apply is May 2, www.nsba.org/CUBE.
UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014 19
Question&Answer
Q&A with Emily Greytak
Researcher talks about needs of LGBT students
E
mily Greytak is the director of
research for the Gay, Lesbian,
and Straight Education Network
(GLSEN). Established in 1990, GLSEN
focuses on ensuring safe schools for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)
students and “envisions a world in which
every child learns to respect and accept
all people, regardless of sexual orientation,
gender identity, or gender expression.”
Greytak leads GLSEN’s research efforts,
which include a national school climate
survey and the evaluation of prevention
and intervention programs to improve the
school experiences of LGBT students.
In a recent interview with Urban Advocate Editor Del Stover, Greytak discussed
issues of safety and inclusion for LBGT students.
GLSEN advocates for safe schools
laws aimed at protecting LGBT students. Are urban school leaders doing enough for these students?
By and large, the answer is: No. But we actually see the worst climates for these stu-
dents in rural schools, so urban schools are
doing slightly better. Los Angeles Unified
School District has a lot of good programming in place … the same with New York
City.
But we’ve found that, overall, schools
aren’t doing enough. We see instances
where students are victims of verbal harassment or bullying, and educators are not
intervening. We see instances of discrimination, such as a student not being allowed
to bring a date of the same sex to the prom.
That’s sending a message that these kids
are somehow “not OK.”
Do districts tend to steer clear of
discussions of homosexual relationships in sex education class?
Eight states prohibit such discussions. But
it’s not just sex education that’s of concern.
In the standard curriculum, you also see an
absence of LGBT people or issues being
mentioned. That sends a strong message of
exclusion to these students.They don’t see
themselves represented.
Your organization encourages
professional development for
staff concerning LGBT issues.
How will this help their schools’
mission?
On issues of bullying and harassment,
such training sends a strong message
that this kind of behavior isn’t acceptable. Obviously, school and district
leaders want students to be safe at
school—and to feel safe. By providing this kind of training, you make an
effort to ensure school safety.
What would you say to urban
school leaders who think, “Why
would I want to open the door
to controversy by introducing
these issues in the classroom?”
We have national studies that find
the biggest resistance to introducing
training and LGBT-inclusive curricula
isn’t the fear of a community outcry.
20 UrbanAdvocate
Spring 2014
That’s certainly one factor, but bigger obstacles are a lack of resources, time, and
expertise. About a third of principals say,
“We just don’t have the time. We’re doing
a million other things.”
So we’re looking for ways to support
training and the introduction of a LGBTinclusive curriculum within what schools
already are doing. For example, schools do
bullying and harassment training. So integrate talk about anti-gay language in this
instruction. Design existing training to be
inclusive of LGBT issues.
How tough is it for transgender students in school?
Transgender youth aren’t always more visible. They may not be “out” as transgender,
but they may be walking through school
feeling like they must present an image of
something they’re not.
But transgender students, if visible, face
a more hostile environment, more harassment.They miss more school because they
feel unsafe. Meanwhile, educators receive
even less training in transgender issues
than those of gays and lesbians, and they’re
less prepared to deal with those issues.
There is help out there. San Francisco
and Los Angeles have some really great policies, and GLSEN and NCTE (National Center for Transgender Equality) have a model
policy available.
These can help a school district develop
good practices to help these students. And
districts should work proactively to develop specific policies to ensure that their
schools are safe and welcoming environments for transgender students—and educate their staff about best practices to support transgender youth, including allowing
students to access school facilities consistent with the gender they identify with. UA
For more information on LGBT issues,
as well as professional development and
curriculum ideas, visit www.glsen.org.
Technology Leadership Network presents
NSBA EDUCATION
TECHNOLOGY SITE VISITS
2014
National School Boards Association
APRIL 30 - MAY 2, 2014
MINNETONKA PUBLIC
SCHOOLS
MINNETONKA, MINNESOTA
MAY 4 - 6, 2014
COLORADO SPRINGS
SCHOOL DISTRICT 11
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
Technology that advances student learning
For details and online registration, go to www.nsba.org/tlnsitevisits
Presented by the National School Boards Association’s Technology Leadership Network
Technology Leadership Network
1680 Duke Street,
Alexandria,VA 22314-3493