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Preface Early Lessons from the Challenge How the Challenge Is Helping Schools
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The Annenberg Challenge stands out for its work on many levels of the educational system at once. This determination to take a systemic approach, coupled with the size of Annenberg's gift, fueled expectations that the Challenge could help school districts overhaul themselves--overnight.
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Though tiny compared to public schools' budgets, Challenge funds seek strategic ways to make small but significant changes in the system. |
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In truth, the private resources made available through the Challenge are infinitesimal compared to the public resources that sustain schools. (In 1993, for example, Chicago had a projected deficit in its school budget of $415 million, nearly equal to the size of the entire Annenberg pledge). Nonetheless, Challenge projects have looked for strategic opportunities to make small but significant changes in the larger educational system. Their status as intermediary agents allows them to work in partnership with districts, exerting vision and focus, pressure and support in equal parts. For example:
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The New York Networks has made key alliances with Schools Chancellor Rudolph Crew and other current system leaders. For instance, the New York City Board of Education established an Office of New School Development, with a former New York Networks principal to head it. The administration and the project have cooperated in efforts to achieve greater decentralization of budgeting authority, with one network serving as a pilot site for the system's new Performance Driven Budgeting program. The New York Networks and the administration are also working together to call attention to the potential of new state assessment policies to undo the curricular identities and performance-based assessments established by many of the small schools.
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The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has put $4 million into seven School Families of its own, modeled after LAAMP's School Families. The DELTA program, which links School Families, districts, and California State University, is pushing teacher education in the Los Angeles basin; the LAUSD and California State University recently agreed to fund four more professional development centers within the district (in addition to the two funded through LAAMP). The staff of LAAMP now works with the district's instructional leaders to provide technical assistance in literacy, technology, and schools' use of data to improve instruction.
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Bay Area schools were designated BASRC Leadership Schools only when their districts also embraced the project's vision, and 60 of the region's 118 districts, representing 77 percent of Bay Area students, are now members of the Bay Areas School Reform Collaborative. Some districts adopted the Collaborative's portfolio process for district-wide use. The state has accepted BASRC's Critical Friends Visits as a way to fulfill its call for "school quality reviews."
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BASRC also supports five regional research and development initiatives: one on school-to-career, one on technology, and another connecting K-12 schools and area teacher education programs. A fourth supports school and district leaders, responding to data about high turnover among principals; a fifth focuses on equity and improving achievement among students of color. These initiatives have catalyzed a diverse set of organizations, funders, and partners, prompting at least one new regional organization.
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The Rural Challenge sponsors research on important K-12 policy issues that affect rural communities: the impact of school size on student learning, of long bus rides on student achievement and drop-out rates, of recent finance litigation on rural schools. It advocates for policies that strengthen the relationship between school and community. The Rural Challenge has created a position paper on community-developed standards; it filed an amicus brief in a West Virginia court case fighting school consolidation; and it has provided information and testimony to support universal access to the Internet for rural communities.
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School at the Center, a Rural Challenge partner in Nebraska, has recruited schools and communities throughout the state to develop plans that include economic development (especially entrepreneurship), housing, community-based science, distance learning, and local heritage. It is piloting an alternative accreditation process for small, remote schools. It is analyzing how the state's curriculum frameworks fit with the kind of community-based work Rural Challenge schools are doing, and it works with other large curricular initiatives such as that of the National Science Foundation. And with two state universities, it is revamping teacher education to suit the needs of rural places.
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The Chicago Challenge has partnered with other active school reform organizations and at least thirteen foundations in Chicago to support the "Successful Schools Project," a citywide effort to report successes and lessons learned from the past ten years of Chicago school reform. It has collaborated with the city's leading business organization, the Civic Committee, with several foundations, and with the Chicago Public Schools to support principal recruitment and development efforts. And it has funded leadership development aimed at increasing the number and quality of candidates for Local School Councils.
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How the Challenge Is Influencing
