Inside the Annenberg Challenge Fall 1998

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Fall 1998

Inside this issue The Annenberg Challenge National Office is pleased to present Inside the Annenberg Challenge, an effort to keep interested parties informed of activities across Challenge sites and to focus attention regularly on our collective accomplishments. These updates offer an insider's look at just a sample, and by no means a comprehensive accounting, of our many successes--achievements not only regarding standardized test scores but other equally important areas that gauge student progress, teacher and administrator performance, parental involvement, community support, and district collaboration.

Select Highlights

Challenge Site Events

Cross-Site Collaboration

"I pledge to be a Worthy, Appreciative, Superior, Honest and Intelligent student of a Never disrespecting Generation, working Together, Overcoming, proving Nothing is impossible."

--Washington Elementary School (Richmond, CA) pledge, written in 1994 by sixth grade student, Kenny Hayes

"I'm rooting for the Red Wings to win another Stanley Cup, but I'm rooting even harder for children in urban schools to succeed. This is much more important than politics, for this debate is about their future. I pledge to work with anyone who will put politics aside and work together to fix our schools and focus on a better future for Detroit's children."

--Michigan Governor John Engler in a June 8, 1998 Detroit Free Press opinion piece

Art education has been missing, not only from the children's lives, but from the adults' lives also. . . At P.S. 117 our arts-integrated family learning project gives families a chance to share with their child the sense of discovery, of creativity, of connection, which is rejuvenating, exciting and educational. We think it is important that children see the adults in their lives learning, searching, stumbling, mis-stepping, and continuing to put out, and gaining something new in the whole process."

--Karen Phillips, parent P.S. 117, one of 61 schools funded by the New York City Center for Arts Education

". . . We now live in a global society. The half life of knowledge is decreasing quickly. Our current teacher corps were not educated for this world. They are in desperate need of re-education, professional development if they are to successfully educate the current generation of youngsters.
The Annenberg Challenge grant program deserves praise for making professional development for teachers a central focus. It is reaching thousands of teachers in major cities across the country."

--Arthur Levine, President, Columbia University Teachers College

"Students often experience high school as a very disjointed place. Because schools usually see different funding sources as different programs, the curriculum can become a theme park with no theme. BASRC schools learn to see all their funding as supporting a unified vision, whether that vision is focused around literacy, or school-to-career connections, or something else that's unique to the school's community and mission."

--Linda Leader-Picone, Bay Area School Reform Collaborative visiting educator
Select Highlights

For the second consecutive year, test scores measuring student achievement continued to rise across the board in Philadelphia. In grades four and eight, the percentage of students scoring at or above basic level increased at least 10 percentage points since 1996 in reading, math and science. Similar gains for 11th graders ranged from 3.4 percentage points in science to 8.2 points in reading. Overall, the percentage of students completing the tests improved substantially to 87.2 percent.

Several sites have succeeded in meeting the financial component of Walter Annenberg's challenge. As of June 1998, Boston, Chattanooga, Chelsea, and New York Networks had raised their required matching funds, and Detroit, Los Angeles and Philadelphia were over 90 percent of the way there. Overall, more than 350 corporate, foundation and individual donors, together with public sources, have pledged over $440 million, which represents 70 percent of the total required match. No fewer than 38 organizations have made contributions of at least $1 million. A recent million-dollar grant, made by the McKnight Foundation to the Arts for Academic Achievement, the Minneapolis Challenge program, represents over 15 percent of the project's required match.

Because all Annenberg sites consider teacher professional development as a critical ingredient in improving schools, impressive numbers of Challenge school personnel devoted parts of their summer vacation to broadening their knowledge and thereby extending their commitment to student progress. Over the summer, nearly 12,000 teachers, principals and administrators participated in a variety of Challenge-sponsored professional development experiences covering such areas as curriculum development, leadership training, technology-based instruction, new methods of teaching and assessment, and peer coaching for assembling collaborative "Critical Friends Groups."

Schools in the Alabama Pacers Cooperative, an association of 29 small rural public schools and a Rural Challenge founding partner, are helping to reverse a serious decline in the numbers of news publications serving the state. At the turn of the century, Alabama had over 1,000 newspapers, but by 1993, only 125 remained. Supported in part by Annenberg funding, teachers and students in Pacers schools have launched in the past few years some 23 community newspapers, with a circulation of 22,000 people. The newspapers make a vital contribution to the communities they serve, as well as providing students with invaluable real-life applications of journalism and business skills.

In Chelsea (MA), test scores rose during the past academic year. The percentage of high school seniors taking the SAT examination increased 14 points over last year, and the average score rose 30 points. At the elementary level, 80 percent of Chelsea's third graders scored at the basic, proficient or advanced level on the Iowa Test of Reading, an increase of 4.4 percent, at the same time that the percentage of children taking the test also went up 5.1 percent. The district's overall daily attendance rate improved three points from the previous year to 91.7 percent.

The Bay Area's Washington Elementary School (West Contra Costa Unified School District) is seeing strong results in its effort to improve early literacy. Schoolwide average reading test scores have risen from about the 20th percentile to the 40th among state schools. Additionally, when the school began its reform effort five years ago, dwindling enrollment had it slated to be closed. Now, the student body has nearly doubled, and the waiting list of eager applicants is testament to the school's impressive turnaround.

The Institute for Education and Social Policy, lead evaluator of the New York Networks project, has reviewed Board of Education graduation data for the class of 1997. Looking at 18 NYNSR schools that enrolled students from middle schools and expected a four-year completion, researchers found that 58 percent of their students graduated while only 5 percent dropped out. These figures represent a remarkable achievement given that comparable citywide graduation and drop out rates are 48 and 16 percent, respectively.

Studies show that parental involvement is a key to improving student achievement. Chicago's Logan Square Collaborative Network, working to strengthen ties between schools and the community, has graduated approximately 300 parents from its Parent/Teacher Mentor Program. The program, in which teachers help train parents to work as classroom tutors, not only has reduced the adult-pupil ratio in classrooms and the isolation between schools and their communities. It also has changed the lives of many of its parent graduates. Bolstered by a new self-confidence inspired by the program, several of the parents who had not previously graduated from high school have subsequently earned their GEDs. Another has become a member of a local school council.

The Boston Annenberg Challenge, with its funded Cohort I, Cohort II and Pilot schools representing nearly half the district, continues to have positive, system-wide impact on the Boston Public Schools (BPS). The district will use the plan for whole-school change developed collaboratively by the Challenge, the Boston Plan for Excellence and the BPS as the blueprint for introducing reform in the district's remaining non-Annenberg schools. Borrowing terminology from the Challenge, these Cohort III and IV schools will embark upon reform in the 1998 and 1999 school years. In addition, the document used to guide the rigorous self-assessments completed by Cohort I and II schools last April is expected to be incorporated in the district's accountability and assessment plan, making it the second major Challenge artifact to be adopted district-wide.

LAAMP's Taft school family launched this summer a pilot reading program designed to bring the reading skills of remedial first and second graders up to grade level. Spending two-hours a day with teachers from the Taft school family, 150 at-risk readers worked to master the literacy skills they'd missed during the previous school year. Tests repeated at the end of the six-week program showed improvement across the board by every child over results on the same test taken from the beginning of the summer.

The second-year evaluation of Philadelphia's Children Achieving Challenge found encouraging signs regarding the Family Resource Network (FRN), the district's primary mechanism for providing student support services. Over the 1996-97 year, the FRN helped more than 2,500 students obtain health insurance and primary care physicians. Average daily attendance figures for students improved to 86 percent of total enrollment, and over 4,000 new parent and community volunteers were enlisted to help work in schools.

Research indicates that students of every race and income level who complete advanced math and science courses score higher on college-entrance examinations. Accordingly, the Southern Algebra Project, a Rural Challenge founding partner, introduces higher level math courses to late middle and early high school-aged African American students through a unique teaching method that utilizes students' surrounding environments. In North Carolina, the principal of the Weldon City Middle School credits her school's achieving a state "exemplary" status to the strength of her student tutors and the skill of her Algebra Project teachers. In a single year, one class' percentage of students scoring at grade level in math increased from 48 percent to 81 percent. That the principal now considers such gains as commonplace is perhaps the greatest testimony to the program.

The Challenge continues to gain high-profile, national attention. At a recent recognition ceremony at the White House for the Arts Education Partnership, Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke enthusiastically about the contributions made by the Annenberg Challenge. National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" has aired two segments with Challenge ties: the first about the success of New York City's small schools and the second, featuring Rural Challenge co-director Paul Nachtigal, about the difficulty of recruiting and retaining teachers for small rural districts. Last spring, BASRC executive director Merrill Vargo and California Governor Pete Wilson held a press conference, covered by local newspapers and television stations, at Washington Science Elementary School. Praising BASRC and the success of Washington Science, the Governor spoke of the importance of supporting public schools to ensure that all children meet high standards.

Challenge Site Events

"There is a saying that goes somewhat like this, 'Change is inevitable but progress is optional'. . . I do believe that we have the ability to make changes for the better if we seize the opportunities that come our way. The Annenberg Challenge grant is just one opportunity that will help us fund some of the time needed for making thoughtful changes. It isn't a panacea. It isn't a program. It isn't in and of itself a solution. It's a small amount of funding that is intended to give us a jump start in the process of change in our district."

--Virginia Ellison, Vice President, Salt Lake Teachers Association

". . . In recent weeks, there have been several promising developments in the Minneapolis public schools: test scores are rising; the dropout rate is falling; and record numbers of students-15,000 of them!-are attending summer school. (Two years ago there were only 1,200.)
The Minneapolis public schools serve nearly 50,000 students. In contrast, private education in Minneapolis has the "lifeboat" capacity of only about 5,000 students. This community must have the goal of improving education for all students, rather than just a few. We can achieve this goal, if we all work together."

--Ross Taylor, Minneapolis school board member, in a July 9, 1998 opinion piece about vouchers in the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune
Last spring, the South Florida Annenberg Challenge and the Florida Department of Education sponsored a two-day session for principals, teachers and school district leaders to explore new ways of evaluating the job performance of school personnel. National experts made presentations on ways appraisal systems of principals and teachers could be tied to student achievement. School teams will work closely with the expert planners during five regional follow-up sessions.

Unprecedented numbers of teachers in California are working with emergency credentials since the state implemented its elementary school class size reduction initiative in 1996. During the first year of the initiative, the number of emergency-credentialed teachers hired in the Los Angeles Unified School District more than tripled--from 700 to over 2,300--and represented fully 60 percent of the district's new teachers. To reduce these numbers, LAAMP's DELTA project and California State University, Northridge (CSUN) are co-sponsoring the Accelerated Credentialing Teacher Preparation Program, designed to cut in half the usual two-year training period. Teacher candidates spend their 14-hour days working as aides to veteran teachers in area classrooms and take four hours of education coursework by night.

In mid-August, 25 teachers and librarians attended a week-long institute offered by the Bay Area National Digital Library (BANDL), a research initiative of the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative. Participants created lesson plans that allow students to study US history and culture through the on-line resources of the National Digital Library, a project of the Library of Congress. Designed to use the Library of Congress as its "textbook," the BANDL program helps students become--through the use of primary sources--critical consumers of information, developing the analytical skills that many adult professionals learn and use at work but are never taught in school.

In a ceremony in late August, Detroit's Schools of the 21st Century Initiative honored its 100 newly inducted "Ambassadors"--parent and community volunteers trained to elicit public support for the Initiative's vision and to reinvigorate parental involvement in public schools. The Ambassadors went to work quickly, leading the kickoff of an old-fashioned, grassroots community campaign just a few weeks later. Bolstered by balloons, a school band and car-top signs, the volunteers worked various city neighborhoods, passing out 40,000 brochures, 20,000 fact sheets and 1,200 bumper stickers and yard signs. A temporary 1-800 number has been set up to handle the anticipated community response.

Throughout the spring and summer, the Harvard University-based evaluation team of the Rural Challenge held five regional meetings of funded projects. Participants--ranging in number from 40 to 150 students, teachers, administrators, and community people--examined student work, interviewed students and discussed progress toward connecting rural schools and communities. With regard to student work, the evaluation team reported a substantial rise in quality across all regions, noting that students' assignments increasingly made "real world" contributions of enduring value to their communities.

The Challenge's spirit of collaboration has crossed international boundaries. In September, the Assistant Director-General of the Department of Education and Training in New South Wales, Australia, visited Scott Elementary, an award-winning Houston Annenberg Challenge Beacon school, to observe classes and meet with teachers and administrators.

Cross-Site Collaboration

An avowedly ambitious but increasingly important goal for the Challenge, as it enters mid-stage, is communicating more clearly to various audiences its goals, strategies and results. In early July, a group of project directors and communications staff from all but four of the 18 Challenge sites met together for the first time to share successful strategies for winning public and media support.
The meeting launched a new effort to coordinate and enhance public communications within and across sites. Towards this end, Challenge National Coordinator Barbara Cervone held an informal briefing late in the summer for a handful of key national education reporters at the National Press Club in Washington.

In July, researchers and several project staff from the longest-standing Challenge sites met in Dedham, MA to work on the Interim Progress Report of the Challenge overall, expected to be released this January. During a week of collaborative analysis and individual writing, evaluators examined data to identify early results and promising trends and drafted preliminary sections.

In October, project directors from the rural and large urban sites met in Chicago for the eighth cross-site meeting. Participants updated their progress, discussed difficulties and shared artifacts of recent work.

The Challenge National Office is putting together a monograph on the philanthropic impact of the Challenge in a selection of sites. It will feature case studies of the collaboration between the Weingart Foundation and LAAMP around teacher education in Los Angeles; the "Funder's Learning Community" in the Bay Area; the "Fund for Nonprofits" in Boston; and the fundraising constraints and possibilities faced by rural schools and communities. The study will be released this winter.

Inside the Annenberg Challenge