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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 |
Selected Highlights of 1997 January-February Three counties in Florida - Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach - received a $33.4 million, two-for-one matching grant from the Challenge, kicking off an unprecedented effort to create a regional school reform program in South Florida.  Metropolitan Houston received a $20 million, two-for-one Challenge grant. Houston's Brown Foundation contributed $10 million in matching funds. Researchers from the large urban sites and the rural initiative met in Chicago to develop an "impact map" to guide their individual and cross-site evaluations. The impact map describes the five levels at which it is hoped change will occur - among students, schools, networks of schools, the formal educational system, and the community at large - and includes categories and indicators through which these changes may be tracked. Students in Howard, South Dakota -- one of the funded "partners" in the Rural Challenge -- performed a cash-flow study as part of a business class at Howard High School. They found that an increase in local retail sales of 10 percent would generate an additional $7 million in local revenues. Since the study was completed, sales in the county jumped more than 25 percent. March-April Two Challenge schools -- Chicago Vocational High School and Central Park East Secondary School in New York City -- were among five nationwide honored by the U.S. Department of Education as New Urban High Schools. The Getty Education Institute for the Arts Challenge announced the selection of thirty-six partner schools chosen by the six regional institutes that comprise the National Arts Education Consortium. From eight states and a range of urban, suburban, and rural areas, the schools will create comprehensive approaches to arts education linked to whole-school change. New York City's Center for Arts Education awarded its first grants, totaling $665,000, to thirty-seven schools and sixty-three cultural organizations from the 431 schools - over one third of the city's schools - that applied for funding. A learning center, aimed at improving computer literacy skills among neighborhood residents, opened at the Kelson Elementary School of the West Baltimore Challenge project. Eleven parents, trained as instructors, staff the center and teach computer skills to over 300 adults in the community. The Children Achieving Challenge's monthly publication for teachers, Philadelphia Teacher, won the 1997 National Education Press's Distinguished Achievement Award for Best Newsletter. A dozen Challenge project directors and researchers participated in a panel at the American Educational Research Association's annual conference in Chicago. They discussed the dilemmas of implementing and evaluating the Challenge, along with the theory of action approach that shapes their inquiry. The inaugural issue of the Challenge Journal made its debut as a practical resource for teachers, principals, and others working in Challenge schools. The first issue described ways Challenge schools are reaching out to their communities. Subsequent issues highlighted the lessons rural schools can teach urban schools and the variety of forms school-based accountability can take. |
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May-June At eleven New York Annenberg schools, 81 percent of the first graduating classes were accepted into college, a rate well above that of high school students in the rest of the city or state. Another NYNSR school, the Frederick Douglass Academy established in Harlem in 1991, boasted the highest reading and math scores in its district and the third highest SAT scores among New York City schools; 95 percent of its first graduating class were headed to prestigious four-year colleges. In May, an article in New York magazine entitled "The Next Hot Schools" in New York City featured eighteen NYNSR schools. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge research team geared up to evaluate and "grade" 7,000 samples of student assignments with the help of thirty teachers trained especially for this task. Concurrently, researchers began to review a citywide survey of all sixth, eighth, and tenth graders, and all teachers and principals. Staff at these schools received training in how to interpret and use this survey data. The Boston Annenberg Challenge selected twenty-six additional schools to join the twenty-seven 21st Century Schools and nine Pilot Schools already participating in the project. Together, they represent about half the public schools in Boston. The number of volunteers in Philadelphia schools increased to a grand total of 12,021, exceeding the district five-year goal of 10,000 in just three years. Researchers and project directors from the rural and large urban sites attended the sixth Challenge cross-site meeting in Boston. Recently funded sites met together for the first time and with "old" sites to discuss common issues. A panel of practitioners drawn from Challenge sites described their triumphs and concerns. July-August The Detroit Board of Education approved a plan for "fundamental reform" spearheaded by William Beckham, the chair of Detroit's Annenberg board and President of New Detroit. The Board of Education in turn asked Beckham to lead the seven-member implementation team, charged with putting the plan's recommended changes into action. Core teams of parents, teachers, and administrators from every school in Salt Lake City attended a three-day workshop to dig deeper into the vision, expectations, and strategies of their Annenberg work. The Rural Challenge hosted its first gathering of grantees and groups in the process of preparing proposals. More than 300 people joined this "Rural Rendezvous" at the Rural Challenge's headquarters in 8,000 foot-high Granby, Colorado and spent three days discussing their work. The new, consolidated Hamilton County Schools -- combining schools in Chattanooga with its suburban and rural neighbors -- opened its doors for the first time. Standards in all content areas with benchmarks for grades 4, 8, and 12 were put in place. A team of teachers in each school, along with the principal, was trained in standards and performance assessment. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, after a short moratorium on grant making during which it helped schools develop better plans for how they might use Annenberg funds, awarded $12.5 million in grants to twenty-one networks of schools. City officials in Chelsea, Massachusetts decided the city's schools were doing well enough to extend the management agreement with Boston University another five years, to the 2002-03 school year. Boston University has charged no fee for the arrangement and estimated that to date it had contributed some $8 million in in-kind services to the school system. In addition, a foundation established by the university raised $11 million for Chelsea schools. |
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September-October The Weingart Foundation in Los Angeles awarded LAAMP a $4.9 million grant to increase parent involvement in three LAAMP School Families: Polytechnic/ North Holly- wood, Lincoln, and Long Beach Polytechnic. To date the Rural Challenge has funded work in thirty states, including the state with the most rural students (Texas at 500,000), the state with the largest percentage of rural students (South Dakota at 76 percent), and the state with the largest number of school districts (Nebraska at just under 1,000). Who We Are, a report describing the demographic characteristics of students enrolled in the NYNSR's small schools and comparing them with students in other New York City public schools, was released. The report found that the 140 small schools supported through the NYNSR have proportionately more black and Latino students and fewer Caucasian students than the New York City schools as a whole; the rate of students on free lunch is also higher. Student achievement was on the rise in Philadelphia. Two hundred and eight (82 percent) of Philadelphia's schools improved over last year's baseline, with seventy-one of these schools meeting their two-year performance targets in one year. Fourth graders posted the highest gains showing significant increases in reading, math, and science. A new Bay Area Challenge initiative, entitled Strengthening Leadership for School Reform, received a planning grant from the Hewlett Foundation. In collaboration with the Bay Area School Leadership Center, BASRC established a task force of regional leaders to identify strategies for strengthening leadership to support reform at all levels in the school system. The task force's recommendations will lead to the creation of a multiyear implementation plan. This was the sixth special, regional initiative BASRC has launched in the past two years. The Birmingham School Family, one of twenty-eight School Families funded by the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project, reported on its first-year progress. In this initial year, it developed a learning plan for the Family's twelve schools; launched a social services center for families; started a Saturday School; conducted professional development in standards, early literacy, and reading; and equipped each school with the electronic hardware needed to create portfolio assessments. The seventh cross-site meeting of Challenge site staff, researchers, and invited guests took place in Philadelphia. The three days of discussion included a conversation with Philadelphia Superintendent David Hornbeck. November-December Over 570 people attended LAAMP's first "public accountability event." Representatives from thirteen of LAAMP's School Families reported on their progress to panels of "critical friends" and an audience made up of teachers, school administrators, community leaders, and policy makers. The South Florida Annenberg Challenge, in operation for eight months, awarded fifty-six grants to school/community partnerships. The total includes fifty-three exploratory grants, one planning and two implementation grants for $773,000. One of the largest grants built upon a new program called Citibank Family Tech, which provides home computers and training for over 1,000 families in ten low-income Dade County schools. The Urban Atlanta Coalition Compact, awarded a $1.5 million Challenge grant in June 1997, held its first "town meeting" for its seven member schools. Over 300 staff and parents attended the event. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge joined hands with the Chicago School Board to start a $2.65 million effort to help Chicago schools choose qualified principals. The four-year contracts of almost all of Chicago's 557 school principals expire in the next two years. The Houston Annenberg Challenge selected eleven Beacon schools from the eighty that applied to help lead reform in metropolitan Houston. A total of $1.4 million was awarded, with elementary schools receiving up to $100,000 per year, middle schools up to $150,000 per year, and high schools eligible for up to $200,000 yearly. Former vice-president and recent Ambassador to Japan, Walter Mondale became co-chair of the development committee of the Minnesota Arts and Education Partnership. |
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