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Preface: Who We Are Overview: Multiple Paths with Multiple Strengths  Matching Grants Promoting Urban School ReformLarge Urban Grants: - Bay Area - Boston - Chicago - Detroit - Houston - Los Angeles - New York - Philadelphia - South Florida Special Opportunities: - Atlanta - Chattanooga - Chelsea, Mass. - Salt Lake City - West Baltimore Linking Rural Schools and Communities Spotlighting Arts Education- Minnesota Arts - National Arts Consortium - New York City Arts Highlights of 1997Outright Grants Grant Terms, National Coordination, and Ongoing Evaluation of Progress Appendix: Tables |
SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES In addition to promoting reform efforts in some of the nation's largest school districts, the Challenge has also sought to nurture a handful of smaller districtwide reform efforts or demonstration projects. Each of these grants offers a unique opportunity to try strategies which, if successful, might interest other urban districts, both large and small. Atlanta The Urban Atlanta Coalition Compact, a $1.5 million, two-for-one matching grant, is a partnership among Atlanta's colleges, universities, and public schools to improve education for disadvantaged African-American students. Seven Atlanta schools, in which at least 80 percent of the faculty have agreed to participate in the Compact, are working with college and university professors to deepen the reforms already underway. At the same time, the Compact will help "co-reform" higher education teacher preparation programs by developing new ones, particularly for African-American males from Morehouse College, as well as by restructuring existing ones. Plans also call for establishing a Saturday school, in which pre-service teacher candidates are trained by University fellows to help teach Compact school students on weekends. The Compact is advised by a twenty-six- member steering committee and is administered by a staff of three. Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga's $2.5 million, two-for-one matching Challenge grant supports the efforts of the Public Education Foundation (PEF) to organize, launch, and support the new Hamilton County school system, designed to replace and combine Chattanooga's formerly separate urban and suburban districts. In order to achieve its ultimate goal of high achievement for all students in Hamilton County, the Foundation has established three priority areas. The first is "Children Succeeding," the implementation and attainment of high learning standards and use of appropriate assessments for all children. The second, "Getting a Good Start," seeks to improve teaching and learning for young children to ensure their reaching an acceptable standard of literacy by third grade. The third priority, "Families, Communities and Schools," is an effort to promote meaningful partnerships of parents and community members with their public schools to increase student achievement. The Foundation provides New Visions grants to schools that address whole-school change, as well as to the school system for initiatives promoting increased student achievement. In addition to grant making, the Foundation convenes other organizations within the community to build support for improved public education, provides research and fact-finding opportunities, and offers professional development experiences to improve instruction. A seventeen-member governing board oversees the Challenge in Chattanooga, which has a staff of six. |
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Chelsea, Massachusetts A $2 million, one-for-one Challenge grant supports the partnership between Boston University and the public schools of Chelsea, a community of 50,000 that borders Boston and ranks as one of Massachusetts' poorest. Since 1989, Boston University has acted as the legal custodian of Chelsea's public schools by providing faculty and students with leadership, resources, and an array of innovative programs. It is the only partnership in the country in which a university has accepted responsibility for the administration of an entire public school system. Last year, Chelsea's school board voted unanimously to extend the original ten-year partnership for an additional five years. Guiding the Boston University/Chelsea Partnership are three broad principles: that children must be ready to learn, teachers must be ready to teach, and subject matter must be of enduring value to students and the larger society. Chelsea's Challenge grant provides the funds for professional development for teachers at all grade levels, an intergenerational literacy program in which adults and their young children learn and practice reading skills side by side, and an arts initiative with a special focus on music. A twenty-two-member advisory board oversees the Challenge in Chelsea. It has a staff of one. |
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Salt Lake City Salt Lake City's $4 million matching Challenge grant addresses the city's rapidly changing demographics and the accompanying challenges for the school system. Economic disparity, with poverty increasing from 26 percent in 1991 to 47 percent in 1996, an increasing ethnic minority population, and a rise in the number of children whose first language is one of seventy-seven different languages spoken in the schools, have reinforced the need to change teaching and learning strategies dramatically. Challenge funds support three major elements of the district's reform efforts. The first is the creation of the Vanguard Institute, a districtwide organization for teacher professional development that aims to foster a professional culture of inquiry, to uncover and spread best teaching practices, and to focus resources more effectively on improving student achievement. Second is to restructure schools into K-12 clusters to allow for greater continuity of services for families and to help students move cohesively from subject to subject, grade to grade, and level to level. Third is enlisting community support and involvement by coordinating the efforts of social service agencies, businesses, and community-based organizations that work with schools in order to better understand and meet the needs of all students in a diverse city. The Challenge in Salt Lake City is governed by a fifteen-member community governing board. Its staff is the equivalent of 1.5 employees. |
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West Baltimore, Maryland A $1 million, two-for-one Challenge grant supports a project of the Baltimore New Compact Schools in which three elementary schools serve as the focus of a larger community improvement effort in the city's Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood. With 90 percent of Sandtown-Winchester's elementary school students failing to meet statewide academic standards, these New Compact Schools have set an ambitious goal: ensuring that 50 percent of their students entering middle school in 2001 meet or surpass state standards as measured by the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program. The schools hope to achieve this goal through several major vehicles: increasing parental involvement in schools, implementing curricular reform and accelerated learning (e.g., by instituting E. D. Hirsch's Core Knowledge Curriculum and Direct Instruction), improving and refocusing professional development opportunities, and encouraging lifelong learning - from school readiness for young children to continued learning by adults. Complementing this work in schools is an ambitious partnership between the Enterprise Foundation and the Sandtown-Winchester community, aimed at revitalizing all of the systems - from housing and health care to public safety and employment - in this struggling neighborhood where half of all families have incomes below $12,000. Challenge funds also support competitive planning grants to schools in the larger Empowerment Zone of which Sandtown-Winchester is located. With a staff of four, Baltimore's Challenge work is overseen by two officers and a seventeen-member community board. |
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