Moving forward at East High School

Well, it's official. The University of Rochester has been approved as the EPO for East High School! What a long road it has been. Renegotiating all four union contracts, fine tuning and negotiating the budget and contract with the district ... all while making sure we recruit students and set up the application process for teachers, administrators, and staff. Whew. Well worth it though.

One great thing was being able to announce who we hired as the Deputy Superintendent - Dr. Shaun Nelms. His experience from the classroom to central office and his dedication to transforming education in urban settings made him the perfect choice. Seems like many people will apply to work at East because Shaun will be there. Remember that we will, in effect, be our own school district. Steve Uebbing will be the Superintendent and Shaun the Deputy. We will report directly to the school board. This will afford us the space to transform teaching and learning free from some of the district's restrictions. Of course, we have state requirements around testing and Common Core, but we plan to exceed them in meaningful ways.

If you are interested in working at East, start with this webpage: UREast All in All the Time.
You can also find the new teacher and administration union contracts there and the full EPO proposal so you'll know what we are planning.

As I keep saying, we are going to make history. 

Book review

My publisher (Routledge) sent me a link to a good review of my Radical equality in education book. Always nice to learn that someone likes your work.

Making history: Walking the walk

Well, we actually did it. We submitted our proposal to the Rochester City School Board on time. Shortly thereafter, they unanimously approved the full proposal and the budget! Can I get an "amen"?! We are currently awaiting approval from NYSED.

Here is the link to the proposal, the budget, and all appendices: http://www.warner.rochester.edu/researchprojects/projects/EastHigh

We have included all our meeting minutes and all collected documents in the interest of full disclosure and transparency. Take a look at let me know what you think in the comments.

It took me a while to post this information. One, I was busy working on the proposal for the past six months and; two, I needed a breather. I have spent the two weeks of "break" focusing on sleep and knitting. Now I am gearing up to start what Steve calls "the hard part". The hard part?! Geez. Running a high school ... what was I thinking?

All joking aside, I am really proud of what we have done. We worked our butts off the past six months meeting with over 1500 people to get input on what they want to see at the new East. We were able to talk to every student in attendance on September 22, well over 1300 youth. They were amazing. You can find the analysis of the data we gathered at the link above in one of the many appendices.

We are in the final stages of interviewing candidates for what we have called the Deputy EPO Director. This person will be right under Steve Uebbing as the Superintendent. Basically, we will be our own district and report directly to the Rochester City School Board. This way, we shed a lot of the bureaucracy of central office. A key to what makes our project unique is that we renegotiated contracts with all four unions: Rochester Teachers Association (teachers' union), BENTE (staff union), RAPP (paraprofessionals union), and ASAR (administrators union). These new contracts will make all the difference as we move to implementation (provided NYSED approves our proposal). All staff, everyone, will have to apply to work at East. This way, we can ensure that everyone is "all in, all the time" - our catch phrase. Only people who are inspired by the proposal and agree to the new contracts will end up working with us.

We are making history ... stay tuned.

So much has happened!

I can't believe how much has happened since I last posted. I'm not sure where to start. "Radical equality" has done well since it came out. Not only was I on the local news as I discussed in my last post, but I was also interviewed by Justin Murphy at our local newspaper, the Democrat and Chronicle. He did a nice piece on the book. The UR undergrad newspaper also interviewed me as did the Rochester Review. I was tapped to be on a web-based news show that ended up being kind of difficult. The format was such that I didn't know the topics until the morning of and they were all over the place! Still, it was fun.

I was honored to be appointed to Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren's new Early Learning Council as co-chair. It's been a roller coaster ride getting familiar with City Hall and the politics of such things. We have conducted public hearings and done a ton of research as part of producing a report that will describe the landscape of Universal Pre-K in Rochester and offer recommendations for the possible role City Hall could play in improving early learning. The people on the council are amazing to work with, even if there is one person who is making it very difficult. I suppose there is always one.

The most amazing news is that the UR, led by my school of education, will be working as an educational partnership organization (EPO) with East High School in Rochester. It's been an incredible process to come to this point let me tell you. One Saturday about a month ago, the president of the Rochester City School Board called me to ask whether the Warner School would step up and be the EPO for East. The District had received a letter from NY State Ed that gave them 5 options for dealing with East's failure to improve according to state regulation; an EPO is one of those options. I certainly could not make that decision myself, so I set up a meeting with my Dean. Given the ridiculously short timeline the state had given, my Dean said we couldn't do it. I was crushed. How can we stand by and let this school close!? Aren't we a school with a social justice mission?!

I left for AERA with a heavy heart. Little did I know that my Dean continued to investigate. Furthermore, she had discussed the request by the school board with the UR President who let her know that the decision was something he needed to make given the potential implications. I came back to learn that the President was in the process of deciding whether or not we'd take this on. To make a long story short, after much behind the scenes and secret work, he agreed! But there were conditions, the important one being an extension from state ed on the proposal. We put together a letter of intent that outlines what we planned to do and what we needed, got support letters from all four unions, and a unanimous vote of support from the school board at a public meeting where the whole thing was revealed. It was amazing. People sat stunned and the press went wild. Wild may be an exaggeration but it was still quite an event. I was very proud to be a faculty member at UR.

After a tense week of waiting, state ed gave us an extension, not as long as we needed though. We are now faced with actually doing this thing. Unprecedented, daunting yet totally exciting. We have the opportunity to do something incredible with the teachers and students at East. With is a key word here. We have to walk like we talk on this project and collaboratively plan the turnaround with students, teachers, administrators, families, and community members. I can't help but be excited because so much of what will be required is just what I talk about in my book!

But, the person who will be the school's superintendent - Steve Uebbing - is clear we will have to follow state regulations which of course includes Common Core and standardized testing. He's adopted NY State Ed's six tenets for school review, one of which is family and community engagement. Guess who he asked to lead that planning team? Yep, me. Here's where my work at Freedom Market will come into play. I have already thought of who needs to be on the initial working group: George Moses at NEAD, Hilda Escher at IBERO, and Elaine Spaull at Center for Youth. Plus two faculty colleagues: Joyce Duckles and Nancy Ares. I want to include youth from East, and not just the high performing kids, I want kids who have stopped coming to be a part of the planning too. And of course parents and teachers. I'm excited and scared at the same time.

So there's a taste of what's happening. Off we go!

On the news

I had my interview with a local newsperson today, Rachel Barnhart. I have to admit that I was totally nervous. I tried so hard to not be too serious, even though the topic is serious. Not sure I achieved that at all. I've watched the video and think I did okay, but not great. Hopefully it's the start of conversations that will lead to the kind of social movement we need to start over in schools. 

Book buzz

My university put out a press release about my new book that seems to be getting a little bit of buzz. The first to contact us what a local newsperson, Rachel Barnhart, who wants to interview me on her show on Monday. By all accounts she passionate about education. I've been thinking a lot about how I'm going to talk about the argument in my book in four minutes on live TV in a way that gets the points across clearly but without a bunch of academic jargon. Tough for me, to be honest. The stakes are so high (not for me, but for kids in schools) that I really want to do well.

Then the education reporter for our local newspaper, the Democrat and Chronicle, is coming to interview me on Wednesday. An interview like this will give me a bit more time to get the main points across. Still, I have to watch the jargon. A couple of other press organizations have asked for copies of the book. All good news for sure.

The main thing is to start some kind of movement to start over in schools. I can't stand watching teachers and students getting hurt anymore. Enough already. My hope is that the book sparks something. At least these interviews might get a conversation going. 

By Contrast

Just finished attending the Literacy Research Association conference, and while I'm totally disappointed to be stranded in Dallas due to an ice storm, I was nicely impressed with the conference. I learned a ton and saw some good friends.

Of particular note was the final plenary with Carol Lee, David Bloome, Kris Gutierrez, and Rob Tierney. They were so interesting. Carol's title "It is rocket science" referring to literacy research was awesome and framed her talk nicely. David talked about the possible overuse of the term "literacy" especially as it has become linked with conceptions of competence. Kris discussed her amazing work on horizontal and vertical learning and social design experiments. And Rob inspired us to not give up.

Here's a Foucault quote I love that I used to close my discussant comments on a session:
"Brothels and colonies are two extreme types of heterotopia, and if we think, after all, that the boat is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea and that, from port to port, from tack to tack, from brothel to brothel, it goes as far as the colonies in search of the most precious treasures they conceal in their gardens, you will understand why the boat has not only been for our civilization, from the sixteen century until the present, the great instrument of economic development...but has been simultaneously the greatest reserve of the imagination. The ship is the heterotopia par excellence. In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates." From Of Other Spaces 

Disappointing conference

Felt disappointed in the recent NCTE conference. I've been disappointed in this conference for a while. I went to some good sessions, but no matter which session, I wished they would push further. A session on critical literacy in early childhood, for example, ended up talking about fairness. While fairness is a starting point for working young children, it doesn't go far enough and it underestimates young children's critical literacy abilities. Vivian Vasquez's work has shown us this for years.

That was another disappointing piece - I heard things we've been talking about for years. We all know that meaningful, authentic literacy practices should be taught in schools and that when we do teach this way, children and youth thrive. How long will we just talk about the way things should be instead to taking action to make it so?

Lastly, I was really disappointed in sessions that presented work by youth where the presenters were amazed at how smart youth can be. Really?! Are we still amazed at this point? Or is it amazement at the fact that urban youth are creative producers of literacy. We've known for a long time that when youth are given authentic spaces to be who they are, who they are is smart, articulate, future building literacy users.  Amazement doesn't seem appropriate.

Hopefully, LRA will be better next week. 

New book out

My new book, Radical Equality in Education: Starting Over in U.S.Schooling is now available for pre-order on Amazon. I'm so excited!

After the Zimmerman verdict

It's two days after the Zimmerman verdict and I'm still reeling. I'm disgusted. And not just at the verdict. I'm disgusted at the reactions where people say they weren't surprised. I get the sentiment, but that we are not surprised is as bad as the verdict. Shouldn't we be surprised that it's okay to kill young black men in this country?! Shouldn't we be surprised that people so easily accepted this verdict as inevitable?!

Maybe surprised isn't the right word. Outrage. Disgust. Sadness...maybe. That we are so blind to the endemic racism in this country surprises me still. That being black means unequal treatment under the law surprises me. It outrages, disgusts, and saddens me.

But, as my friend George Moses asks, what are you going to do about it? Good question. As a mother of a biracial male child (read black in this country), I am challenged to know what to do. My son knows he's black but I don't think he knows what that means. George says I can't teach him, that he has to learn it on his own. But now that it's okay to shoot young black men, I'm not sure I can just let him figure it out. 

Loving the National Writing Project

I am sitting in the Genesee Valley Writing Project's invitational advanced summer institute totally loving the chance to work and write with awesome teachers. We've started a blog if you're interested. One of the early posts talks poignantly about current measurements for teachers and about how they don't cover what actually happens between a teacher and her/his students. It's worth a read.

Eavesdropping

I'm listening in on students in my summer literacy class as they use all the principles we have discussed thus far to design their own classrooms. It's totally cool to hear their voices get excited as they imagine what's possible. I tell them that they have all the money they need and no standardized tests to worry about. The interesting thing though is that everything they are designing can be done within the current environment. Some would need some creative fundraising, but all can be done. I love listening to them create. 

Defining literacy as a class

Here is my summer 2013 literacy class's definition of literacy:
Literacy is:

·      Reading for information, pleasure, and understanding; comprehension

·      Communication; making, sending and receiving messages through multimodal means

·      Interpreting messages; means of understanding the world and reflecting

·      A collaborative way of meaning making

·      Symbolism – conveying meaning

·      Human made to make our life easier

·      Cultural, social, historical, digital, political tool for mediating meaning making

·      Language and interaction based

·      Facilitates organization (instructions, lists)

·      Liberating/oppressive (based on place)

·      Reflects traits of the individual

·      Power

·      Context dependent

·      Related to audience/purpose

·      Collaboratively constructed

What do you think? What, if anything would you change?