Turning Around Failing School Districts: How Many Examples Do Policymakers Need??
David Kirp’s new book, Improbable Scholars, tells the quarter-century story of the Union City (NJ) victory in creating a successful, largely minority and poor school district as measured by test scores, college admissions, parent surveys, teacher accounts–take your pick. It is a story where stable city and district leadership, over the course of a generation, worked to build strong preschool, elementary, and secondary programs with cadres of knowledgeable and experienced teachers and administrators who stayed the course and who used new technologies to advance district goals. Stable leadership. Committed educators. Persistence. Adequate funding. Kirp lays out these and other principles that he extracted from the long-term school reform in this New Jersey district. For a conversation with Kirp and the President of Teachers College, Susan Fuhrman about the book, seehere.
Of course, Union City is not the first nor last district to have turned itself around over a few decades and stayed effective. We know of Long Beach (CA), Aldine (TX), Montgomery County (MD), Sanger (CA), Cincinnati (OH) and many more. See, for example, Greg Anrig’s Beyond the Education Wars. The seven principles that Kirp extracts from Union City’s success mirror features of these other districts.
However, a long list of such districts that have learned the importance of adequate funding, strong preschool programs, continuous district leadership, supporting teachers, and building cultures that honor both teaching and learning does not add up to an easy recipe. For sustaining “good” districts is a set of inter-connected complex
However, a long list of such districts that have learned the importance of adequate funding, strong preschool programs, continuous district leadership, supporting teachers, and building cultures that honor both teaching and learning does not add up to an easy recipe. For sustaining “good” districts is a set of inter-connected complex