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We are excited to announce that the Charlotte-Mecklenberg school board approved an exciting new partnership between New Leaders Charlotte and Project L.I.F.T. (Leadership and Investment For Transformation), to support the transformational work of ensuring all children receive the promise of a high quality education.

Project L.I.F.T. serves the West Charlotte corridor and focuses on four key areas of intervention: talent, time, technology and community support. We will partner specifically and intentionally to contribute robustly to the talent pillar in the 2012-2013 school year by:

• Developing at least 40 teacher leaders through our Emerging Leaders Program in order to build leadership capacity within Project L.I.F.T schools;
• Placing and supporting at least half of our 2012 cohort of 10 New Leader Resident Principals; and
• Developing strong principals and leadership teams in collaboration with our talent pillar partners through our L.I.F.T. Leadership Institute based on New Leaders Urban Excellence Framework™.

Through the partnership, we will dramatically expand the pipeline of school leaders in West Charlotte and work in partnership with all nine L.I.F.T. schools to make measurable and dramatic gains in student achievement. We believe that Project L.I.F.T. can and will be a leadership incubator for all of Charlotte’s public schools, a place where some of the most mission-driven and capable educators from around Charlotte and throughout the nation come to teach, lead, contribute and grow.

To learn more about Project L.I.F.T., please visit their website www.projectliftcharlotte.org.

We’re excited to share that today New Leaders chief executive officer Jean Desravines was appointed to the New NY Education Reform Commission established by Governor Andrew Cuomo. The commission will “recommend reforms to the state’s education system in order to improve performance in the classroom so that all of New York’s students are fully prepared for their futures.”

Jean is joined on the commission by other nationally recognized education, community, and business leaders, including retired Chairman of Citigroup Richard (Dick) Parsons, who will chair the committee, Randi Weingarten of the AFT, Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children’s Zone, and NY State Education Commissioner John B. King, Jr.

Specifically, the commission is tasked with the following objectives:

• Find ways to improve teacher recruitment and performance, including the teacher evaluation system;
• Improve student achievement;
• Examine education funding, distribution and costs;
• Increase parent and family engagement in education;
• Examine the problem of high-need and low-wealth school communities;
• Find the best use of technology in the classroom; and
• Examine New York’s education system to ensure it meets the needs of students while respecting the taxpayer.

Jean is honored to be included on this important commission focused on providing all New York students with the highest quality education.

New Leaders, founded by a group of students at Harvard Business School, says its mission is to develop “transformational school leaders” and advance “policies and practices that allow great leaders to succeed.” The program came to Baltimore in 2005 and immediately partnered with the city and state to “recruit, train, and support the next generation of urban school leaders.” There are now approximately 70 New Leaders principals from elementary through high school, many in Baltimore’s most underserved neighborhoods. Students in schools led by these principals outpace their peers in academic achievement and graduate from high school in greater numbers.

Read the full newsletter from the Baltimore Community Foundation >>

Lincoln Elementary (led by John Melvin, Cohort 7) won a Title I Academic Achievement Award.  At the end of his first year as principal, Lincoln’s API Score rose 27 points from 908 to 933. Since then, it has increased an additional 28 points to 961. In 2009-2010, Lincoln was the only National Blue-Ribbon School in Alameda County—and one of only 21 in the state. John successfully took Lincoln from good to great!

Read more about John here >>

ACORN Woodland Elementary (led by Leroy Gaines, Cohort 9) was named as a Distinguished Elementary School.  New Leader Kimi Kean led ACORN Woodland Elementary School for five years, overseeing a 146 point gain in API (Academic Performance Index). Now, New Leader Leroy Gaines has increased the API score by 36 points in his first year as ACORN’s principal. ACORN was the highest gaining school Oakland in reading in 2011.

Carlos and Celia Rico had big hopes for their children, which is one reason the couple emigrated from Mexico, and settled in Chicago. José, Carlos and Celia’s oldest, quickly adapted to the new language, culture and climate, and with a combination of support and inspiration from teachers, he became the first person in his family to go to college. Still, Rico never expected that he would one day become the executive director for the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.

“When I first started school, I was one of those students who had a hard time,” Rico said. “My school did not have a bilingual education program; it was one of those sink-or-swim programs. The school didn’t provide support for my parents, and there was no support for me to access the curriculum.”

Founding a School to Help Students Like Him

This all changed when Rico reached high school and he came to know teachers who pushed him to excel. His strongest subjects were math and science; high marks in these areas earned him an engineering scholarship to the University of Illinois. Soon thereafter, he became a high school science teacher. Later on, after having worked in youth development programs, Rico took notice of the power in young people taking responsibility for their education; he decided to harness that power by opening his own community high school, which had a health clinic and provided classes for students learning English, in addition to general academics.

“The motivating factor was not wanting students to face the same obstacles I had faced,” Rico said. “My passion has been to try to design education programs that value students, include their parents and expect high standards from everyone.”

Rico’s charge within ED is to link individuals and organizations from within and outside the education system to meet the local and national challenges faced by Hispanics today and spread the word about education initiatives in early learning, higher education, K-12 and other specific areas that focus on the Hispanic community. He also works to develop relationships with thousands of Hispanic leaders across the country who are implementing these changes.

Most recently, the White House Initiative and the White House Office of Public Engagement brought together more than 500 Hispanic community leaders for a Hispanic Community Action Summit in Los Angeles, the 17th regional summit organized by the office to address important issues such as: funding resources for pre-K-postsecondary education; health care; small business needs; immigration issues; and communication infrastructures among Latino organizations.

Local Leaders Want a Federal Partner

“Leaders on the ground want the federal government to be a partner,” Rico says. “People in the Hispanic community want us to play a role. Some states have cut back on education and it has a big impact on the Hispanic community. People want us to work with them and bring a diverse group of stakeholders to the table.”

Educating Latinos is not only important to their community, Rico emphasizes; it’s critical for the country. In the last two years, Latinos have become the largest minority group in the nation’s schools.

“I’ve seen the power education plays in a kid’s life, regardless of where they come from. Education leads to a better job, and it is a way in which our country can fulfill the promise that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can be successful.” Rico says. “There’s no way of denying that the future of America depends on the education attainment of Hispanics.”

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“Being a New Leader is an opportunity to mentor. I can truly align what I do with my personal core value to influence others as well as to be a change agent in education.”

Resident Aletha Ruffin serves under the guidance of Mentor Principal Alisha Kiner at Booker T. Washington High (grades 9-12), the school which earned the honor of having President Barack Obama as its 2011 graduation speaker.  Booker T. Washington High’s 566 member student population is 100% African American with over 95% classified as economically disadvantaged.

Before moving to Memphis to begin her Residency as a New Leader, she previously served as an Assistant Principal, Admissions and Placement Specialist, and Special Education teacher in Jacksonville, FL. Aletha moved to Memphis to become a New Leader because she believed it was her calling to lead excellence in Memphis City Schools and improve the quality of education for urban youth.

So far, her Residency Year has been a reflective experience, and she has focused on being observant and assessing situations before acting so she can formulate an effective plan of action. Her major lessons learned this year are to be strategic and that being busy “does not equate to doing an effective job.” She is also working on building relationships with students by greeting them in the morning, sitting with students at lunch, and engaging in conversations about their educational experience.

Aletha received her Bachelor of Arts in Education from the University of North Florida and her Master of Arts in Teaching and Learning from Nova Southeastern University. She is also a mother of two college students and wife of a retired Navy veteran.

Delia Davis-Dyke didn’t always want to be a middle school administrator.

Her first aspiration was to be an attorney, but she was moved by the words of one of early bosses: “Major in what you love and the money will come.” So Ms. Davis-Dyke studied Spanish until she realized she wanted to have the same valuable impact that a number of educators had on her life.

Educators were key in Delia’s development during her middle years. Her mom died when she was just 13 years old, and without the guidance of the teachers around her, who knows what might have happened?

“(Because of) the trauma that I went through having lost my parent,” Davis-Dyke explained, “it was important to have caring adults who could walk me through the process and tell me I’m OK. I can’t imagine myself anywhere else today besides middle school.”

Davis-Dykes understands the complexities of middle grades students. She knows that they are changing a great deal during the years she spends with them at Kramer Middle School in Washington, D.C. Though looking to establish themselves as individuals, they still need guidance from adults.

“Middle school students are not yet grown,” Davis-Dyke said.  “Don’t think that they don’t require support and guidance. They may speak more maturely. They (may) have a grown attitude and sassiness. They may be man-ish and woman-ish, but they are still children who need guidance, love, modeling, and support.”

One reason she is such an exemplary assistant principal is that Davis-Dyke understands a great deal about how an early adolescent’s brain develops. Researchers tell us that other than the period from birth to two years old, there is no other time in a human being’s life that the brain grows as much as during the early teen years. “Their brains are still developing, so even though they can look at you and tell you right from wrong, research shows there are parts of their brains that aren’t solidified until they’re twenty-one years old. When they have to make those rational, logical, and ethical decisions, their brain is not fully developed. (As a result), we have to constantly teach, re-teach, model, teach, re-teach, model, over and over again,” she said.

To help their students have the supports they need to succeed, Davis-Dyke and the team at Kramer work with a number of partners, including the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, the Far Southeast Family Strengthening Collaborative and the Marzano Research Laboratory. Working with these partners, the Kramer staff puts structures in place to ensure the academic, emotional, and social success of their students.

When asked about how she handles helping middle school students to deal with all of the changes they are going through, Davis-Dyke reminded me of a great truth: “Middle school is not for the faint of heart.”

Her students are fortunate that Ms. Davis-Dyke is committed to having the same positive impact on her students that her middle school teachers had on her. She clearly has the heart for this work.

Geneviève DeBose is a Washington Teaching Ambassador Fellow on loan from Bronx Charter School for the Arts in New York City. She wants to give a special shout-out to all of the Kramer staff and Principal Kwame Simmons for opening up their school to a fellow middle school teacher.

CEO Jean Desravines, Steve Hall, and Eric Guckian talk to Mike Collins about why our organization was formed and how students and schools around the country have benefited, including in Charlotte.

Guests
Jean Desravines – CEO of New Leaders, a national non profit that develops school leaders and policies for school systems across the country
Steve Hall – Longtime CMS principal who served the last 3 years as a “strategic staffing” principal at Bruns Academy. He has now turned over that post to another New Leader, and now works to develop New Leaders as Director of School Leadership for Charlotte’s New Leaders org
Eric Guckian – Founding Executive Director for New Leaders in Charlotte, and also helped bring Teach for America to Charlotte.