State of Urban Education Address 2010
National School Boards Association
Council of Urban Boards of Education
2010 State of Urban Education Address
Lock P. Beachum, Sr., Chair
CUBE 43rd Annual Conference
Renaissance Harborplace Hotel, Baltimore, MD
September 30-October 2, 2010
A year has passed since we have considered the state of urban education at CUBE’s Annual Conference.
As I reflected on my comments for today, my first thought focused on the national spotlight that has been shown on urban education over the past two weeks. With the release of the much touted documentary, Waiting for Superman, and the discussion in both the print and visual media about the state of urban education, many might conclude that there are no good stories to tell about urban school systems in 2010, and that is unfortunate.
I questioned – where are the advocates for public education, for urban education? Have we, ourselves, given up on the ideal that urban schools can and are achieving, that the good work of urban school boards and superintendents actually can and do have a positive impact on the achievement of our youth? Have we finally succumbed to the unrelenting attacks on public education? Are our voices being drowned out by the more vocal reformers who state with great authority how urban schools should be reformed through innovative approaches, like firing bad teachers, linking teacher pay to student performance, closing underperforming schools, and increasing the number of charter schools – approaches being implemented in most urban school systems. Who is telling the urban school story?
Who is telling the media about the urban school systems that are working diligently to turn around underperforming schools, stem the tide of dropouts and increase graduation rates, that are making the tough decisions to close schools, remove teachers that are not serving our children well, and rewarding those teachers and administrators who are making real change. We hear our communities demanding more from us, and we know that they want to see change now. We hear the threats from the national level, too – threatening to defund urban schools and attempting to incentivize us through punitive measures.
My fear is that those of us working in the trenches have grown weary. That we are not speaking up to tell our own stories. We need, we must, re-engage in the debate and tell our story. Who is telling the success stories of the traditional and public charter schools that are succeeding and achieving? Somehow I did not hear that voice very loudly over the past two weeks as those who wish to paint urban schools with a broad brush of failure and argue that we’d be better off turning education over to the free market economy, took advantage of a national platform to advocate their position.
I am not being an apologist for urban school systems that are not being well governed, but I know that we have successful stories to tell and share.
My second thought turned to the current and past CUBE Annual Award districts. I thought to myself that the state of urban education can be told through the success stories that we know exist in our urban districts across the nation, but that we most often don’t hear about from the media. I remain incredibly impressed with our CUBE Annual Award districts and the many other districts, some here with us today that we know are truly reforming schools.
Just last year, in 2009, Atlanta Public Schools was the CUBE Annual Award winner and Broward County Public Schools named the finalist for the award. Baltimore City Public Schools, Wake County Public Schools, NC, and Jefferson County, KY received special recognition awards. In 2008, Brownsville Independent School District won the award, and Omaha Public Schools and the Chula Vista Elementary Schools, CA were selected as finalists. In 2007, Houston Independent School District and Miami-Dade County Public Schools were joint winners, and Fort Worth Independent School District was selected as a finalist for the award. In 2006, Norfolk Public Schools was the winner and Houston Independent School District and Miami-Dade County Public Schools were selected as finalists of the award. In 2005, The School District of Hillsborough County, FL, was the winner of the second CUBE Annual Award for Urban School Board Excellence. Norfolk Public Schools and San Antonio Independent School District were selected as finalists for the award. And in 2004, the Boston School Committee was selected the winner of the first CUBE Annual Award for Urban School Board Excellence. Chula Vista Elementary School District, CA and Norfolk Public Schools were selected as finalists for the award. The 2010 finalists are Baltimore City Public Schools, Broward County Public Schools, Houston Independent Public Schools, and Portsmouth Public Schools, which we will celebrate tomorrow.
Someone needs to tell me why the nation can’t seem to find an urban success story to tell. There are excellent models out there from which we can learn a great deal and begin to build a truly world-class public education system.
My challenge to you is to share your stories with CUBE. Help us tell the urban public school story. If not us, then who?
The good news about the state of urban education is that we have many of the answers right in this room. We have to embrace needed change and aggressively work to exponentially change the achievement outcomes for our schoolchildren. At the same time, we must share how we are changing educational outcomes for urban school students – how our schools are serving as the supermen and women for children in our communities.
We have to find our voice once again. Before you leave CUBE’s Annual Conference tomorrow, I want you to seek out a CUBE Steering Committee member and share how we can record at least one, and hopefully many more, successful reform story from your district. Let us share what we know is working. I know that NSBA would love to have a successful urban school story resource file brimming with stories to share with the media and to feature in programming.
Please take the challenge and stand up for the urban schoolchildren who truly need our advocacy voice to be heard.
Thank you.