Mayors’ Education Advisors Discuss School Reform, Education Priorities

Members of the Mayors’ Education Policy Advisors Network (EPAN) gathered in Washington, D.C., last week to discuss this question with District of Columbia Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, Dr. Pedro Noguera, co-chair of the “Broader, Bolder Approach to Education” initiative, members of President-Elect Barack Obama’s transition team and key congressional staff.

Sponsored by NLC’s Institute for Youth, Education, and Families (YEF Institute) and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, EPAN is a national network of mayoral education advisors from the nation’s 75 largest cities. In addition to learning about the new Administration’s education priorities, EPAN members had the opportunity to share their knowledge and strategies for improving student achievement, lowering dropout rates and engaging the public in education reform. 

School Reform in the Nation’s Capital
On Monday, December 8, Washington, D.C., Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso welcomed the 50 EPAN members attending the meeting and emphasized the importance of implementing evidence-based education programs and promoting collaboration among city agencies.

“The mayor’s message about coordination has resonated with other agencies and has begun to sink in with the community,” said Reinoso.

The following day, Rhee described her efforts to reform the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) by raising expectations and improving teacher quality. Last year, the Washington, D.C., City Council voted to place the public schools under the control of Mayor Adrian Fenty, who subsequently appointed Rhee as chancellor. Since then, city leaders have moved rapidly to overhaul policies on hiring and accountability in a system where students have been performing at levels well below their counterparts in other cities. According to Rhee, for example, only 8 percent of DCPS eighth graders are performing at grade level in math.

Seeking to make radical changes, Rhee replaced one-third of all DCPS principals last year. Rhee has also put forward a merit-based teacher pay proposal in which the major sticking point has been the option for teachers to choose a higher pay raise and potential bonuses based on their students’ achievement in exchange for relinquishing tenure. DCPS has also adopted a district-wide curriculum and secured funding to hire an out-of-school time coordinator in every school. 

“It is absolutely possible for all students to achieve at the highest level,” said Rhee, explaining that local leaders have to make the sometimes difficult decisions that will ultimately benefit students. She emphasized the strong support she has received on politically sensitive issues such as removal of underperforming teachers and employees to school closures from Mayor Fenty, who is “so singularly focused on making sure schools have what they need to be successful.” 

A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education
During the meeting’s opening session the previous evening, Noguera, executive director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at New York University, offered a different perspective on what is needed to reform public schools. Noguera described a “broader, bolder approach to education” backed by educators and other prominent leaders who believe school improvement alone is insufficient in raising the achievement of disadvantaged children. 

This approach (www.boldapproach.org) calls for policymakers to embrace an expanded concept of learning and youth development, and emphasizes the importance of investing in early care and education, health services and out-of-school time programs.

Noguera also focused on the vital role that cities play in improving student achievement, and warned of the danger that the public will fail to understand the connection between school quality and cities’ economic well-being.

“We have come to believe that we can have great cities and lousy schools, that you can improve cities without ever improving education,” said Noguera.

Education Priorities for the President and Congress
On December 10, the mayors’ education advisors voiced their ideas about their cities’ educational needs and how they could be addressed at the federal level during a conference call with Jon Schnur of President-Elect Obama’s transition team. Some local priorities identified included college and career readiness, dropout prevention, out-of-school time programs, funding for accountability measures and program standards and summer jobs and internships for students.

Though primarily in “listening mode,” Schnur reiterated President-Elect Obama’s campaign pledges to increase investment in early childhood education, college access and teacher quality.

Later, a panel of House and Senate committee staff and other national education policy experts answered questions about the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act and funding for educational programs. Among other suggestions, EPAN members urged better coordination of federal funding silos through the Federal Youth Coordination Act.

Multiple Pathways to Graduation
Other meeting sessions focused on developing multiple pathways to graduation and strategies for engaging parents and other residents in public schools. EPAN members from New York City and Newark, N.J., discussed their efforts to tackle the dropout crisis by creating a portfolio of alternative high school options for students.

New York City’s Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation supports the development of schools for older students who have struggled in traditional high school settings, while Newark, in addition to Nashville and Indianapolis, is one of the cities partnering with the YEF Institute in the Alternative High School Initiative (AHSI) Place-Based Partnerships project.

EPAN members also had opportunities to share challenges and successes in their own cities during an open peer exchange forum. Topics discussed included the challenge of dealing with school closures, working with multiple school districts, addressing youth violence, navigating state education requirements and raising funds for education programs in a tough economic climate. 

Jane Ames, a new EPAN member and senior policy director for education and public safety for Portland, Ore., Mayor-Elect Sam Adams, explained that, “I want my thinking and plans to be guided” by the experiences of colleagues in other cities who have long been involved in municipal efforts to improve education.

Details: To learn more about EPAN, visit www.nlc.org/iyef or contact Marjorie Cohen at (202) 626-3052 or cohen@nlc.org. To visit the new AHSI website, go to www.ahsi.org.