"It's showtime for systemic school reform in America," Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League, told a general session audience. Time is running out for public education to regain its credibility with the American people. "It's time, my friends, to pull out all the stops," he said. "For the sake of poor children, as well as the future of public education, we mustn't be timid about pressing for change."
Price's address set the tone for several conference sessions aimed at improving education for urban children and children of the poor.
Walter Farrell of the University of Wisconsin—Madison told his session's attendees that advocates for urban education have to combat the "big lie" that "you can improve education for poor children without money." On the contrary, he said, urban schools need even greater resources, because cities have lost many other sources of social support. The idea that "we can do more with less" reflects a "direct agenda to disinvest in urban education," he said.
"Privatization is the latest educational scam visited on children of the poor," Farrell added. These efforts "are targeting economically depressed communities, coming in like a medicine show, selling snake oil," he charged. And he warned that those urban activists, disillusioned with public schools, who support privatization are playing into the hands of the "white right wing."
At a session reporting on the work of ASCD's Urban Education Advisory Board, Executive Director Gene Carter described the plight of many children of the poor in the United States. "Education should be a pathway out of poverty," he said. "But something is robbing our children of their future."
- Alex Molnar, a University of Wisconsin—Madison professor and chief of staff for the state's Urban Initiative Task Force, described a reform plan that includes increased state spending on urban education. The recommendations include reducing class size to 15 students per teacher, starting in kindergarten. "Class size matters a lot," he said, "and especially in the early grades. It matters the most for children of poverty, and the most for students of color, and the most for male students of color." The task force also recommends creating "lighted schoolhouses," open longer hours for community activities; rigorous curriculums; and an enhanced professional development and accountability system.
- Educators in Fort Worth, Texas, have developed Connections, a program to integrate school and community services with an early childhood development orientation in urban schools. They have established medical and dental clinics at schools and created a parent education program in which trained educators make home visits and parents attend regular activities at the schools. Parents take courses in everything from computer skills to Lamaze training (in Spanish).
"As a school district, our job is educating children," said Kay Moberg of the Fort Worth Independent School District. "But our job is so much easier when all these other things are taken care of."
In troubled times for urban education, Price concluded, "We need a constituency of people to stand up for our children. It's time now to operationalize the principle that all children can indeed learn."
