March 2011

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Collaborations is a periodic newsletter from CCE, sharing news about our work and about movements in education.

Editor: Robert Frank, Director of Communications and Technology

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The mission of the Center for Collaborative Education (CCE) is to transform schools to ensure that all students succeed.  We believe that schools should prepare every student to achieve academically and make a positive contribution to a democratic society. CCE partners with public schools and districts to create and sustain effective and equitable schools.

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The President calls for Pilot schools

This issue of Collaborations reports on President Obama's remarkable visit to Boston, that featured a widely reported visit to TechBoston Academy, one of the city's Pilot schools. He was on the podium with Education Secretary Arne Duncan and with Melinda Gates, of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Aside from all the excitement among students and staff at the school (local papers compared him to a “rock star”), one thing that was clear was that, when it comes to education, he gets it. He understood what has been working in Pilot schools, and he advocated for more of the same.
—Dan French, Executive Director

Pres. Obama visits Boston Pilot school, calls for more

President Barack Obama addresses students, faculty, and guests at TechBoston Academy.
Seated behind him are Melinda Gates and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

Boston, March 8, 2011

Today President Barack Obama toured TechBoston Academy, a Boston pilot school, where he visited technology-supported classrooms and addressed students and faculty at a packed assembly in the school’s small gymnasium. To cheers and tears of joy, the President explained why he had chosen this pilot school. “I wanted to come to TechBoston so that the rest of America can see how it’s done. You guys are a model for what’s happening all across the country.’’

The President particularly focused on the autonomies at the heart of the pilot school model that enabled headmaster Mary Skipper to lead a “spectacular turnaround” of a once failing school in an economically depressed neighborhood. He pointed to TBA's “higher standards and higher expectations; more time in the classroom and greater focus on subjects like math and science.…outstanding teachers and leaders…who get more flexibility in exchange for more accountability.”

“The school days are longer,” he pointed out. “Classes are 60 minutes so that young people have time to actually focus and absorb the information that's being provided. And many students go to school in July and August. Because this is a pilot school, Mary had the ability to hire her own staff, and the teachers here are offered training and constant support.

“So those are the ingredients, and the results have been powerful. The students here come from some tough neighborhoods -- am I right? Yes. And yet the graduation rate is almost 20 points higher than the rest of the city—20 points higher. Ninety-four percent of the most recent graduating class went to college. Eighty-five percent of those students were the first in their family to do so. Your math and science scores are consistently higher than other Boston schools, and the attendance rate here is 94 percent.”

Why can't all students have schools like TechBoston?

Headmaster Mary Skipper

The President spoke of needing “a national education policy that tries to figure out how do we replicate success stories like TechBoston all across the country. We're trying to give school districts more flexibility to open charter schools and pilot schools like TechBoston, so that they have the flexibility, the autonomy, to do what's best for students.” For Mary Skipper and the students, this was validation of their pilot school.

Obama concluded by bemoaning the absence of such schools for all students.“We can't forget that every year, schools like TechBoston have to hold a lottery, because there just aren't enough spaces for all the students who want to go here. The reason they want to go here is because they know that if they go to some of the other schools in the area, they won't do as well. They know that they might drop out. They might not get the same reinforcement that they need. There might not be that same culture of excellence and performance. That means they may not go to college, and they know they may not succeed.

“All of that shouldn't depend on a lottery. That can't be the system of education we settle for in America. No child's chance in life should be determined by the luck of a lottery. Not in this country. This is a place where everyone gets the chance to succeed, where everybody should have a chance to make it. The motto of this school is, "We rise and fall together." Well, that is true for America as well.”

Students respond with pride and renewed commitment
After the President high-fived some students and left the gym, Assistant Principal Brian Cohen was still sitting, stunned. “The recognition from Obama today will have a tangible effect on student performance. I guarantee we'll be seeing higher achievement and harder working students and higher attendance and higher grades as a result of this visit and recognition, along with fewer disciplinary issues.”

Eighth graders Kyra Stapleton, Makaya Harris, and Edili Rosario Tavarez (L. to R.)

Three eighth grade girls standing nearby agreed. Makaya Harris added, “I feel like we're important, like he notices us. If he came all the way from the White House, we must be worth it.” That brought her friend Edili Rosario Tavarez to the point of water welling up in her eyes, so she turned away.

Science teacher Maria Vugrin saw Obama as “validating what we've been saying” about the way to make a school work.

Eighth grader Ayomide Olumuyida

Her student, Ayomide Olumuyida, an eighth grade boy, concurred: “This [approach to education] is really paying off and it's going to keep going in college and after."