Educators and city leaders from around New England gathered Friday at the Providence Biltmore Hotel for a forum on education reform that addressed how to improve urban public school systems.
The forum was organized to enhance collaboration among key stakeholders in public education by Providence Mayor David Cicilline '83, Providence Public School District Superintendent Donnie Evans and Kenneth Wong, professor of education and director of the Master's Program in Urban Education Policy.
"We wanted to continue to build this momentum of collaboration" among city representatives, superintendents and civic leaders as well as Brown administrators and faculty members, Wong told The Herald after the forum.
The UEP graduate program, which is in its first year, is intended to produce policy analysts who will pursue careers in governmental, educational and community-based organizations that focus on urban education policy.
Graduates of the program "will be able to coordinate and implement school reform and restructuring and participate in strategic planning processes," Wong said.
To prepare for Friday's forum, which focused on the importance of labor-management relations and sustainable improvement in the education system, Wong assigned 14 topics to the eight graduate students currently in the UEP program, including teacher compensation, demographic analysis and restructuring efforts. The students developed reports for distribution to the conference participants.
"(The UEP) program integrates research and practice. The students provide research for policy changes," he said.
It has been "far too long that teachers' unions have been focusing on the bread-and-butter issues" of education, such as salary levels, Wong said. The Providence Teachers Union contract will expire next spring.
Wong said public school reform in Providence should focus more on how teachers can effectively contribute to students' development and professional issues such as responsibility allocation, school governance and variation in class size.
"The management and unions need to improve on accountability," Wong said in reference to the No Child Left Behind Act.
"A lot of school districts (in Rhode Island) are not meeting these proficiency standards," he added.
The recent education reform forum was one of several efforts the University has made "to lend its research and support to the public school system," Wong said.
New director of educational outreach settles in
Lamont Gordon '93 was appointed director of educational outreach for the University in April to facilitate a "more formal partnership between the University and local schools," according to Gordon.
Gordon's primary responsibilities will be to facilitate partnerships between the University and local K-12 public schools and supervise the internship component of the UEP program.
The position was one of the recommendations presented last spring at the Wayland Collegium, a conference at which Brown faculty, local community members and Providence Public School District employees looked at issues in the public school system, according to Adeline Becker, executive director of Brown's Education Alliance. Started in 1975, the Education Alliance addresses issues in public schools such as equity and diversity through research, partnerships and advancing professional development.
Although "there is a long history of connections" between the University and local public schools, there was a need for an "organized, coherent relationship between the two institutions," said Eileen Landay, adjunct senior lecturer in education and former director of the Master of Arts in Teaching program.
Part of Gordon's responsibilities will be to establish policies and guidelines for more "targeted, focused work" between the University and Providence public schools.
Brown students have volunteered, worked in classrooms and tutored in Providence schools, Landay said.
"There are many rich connections, but they're varied," she said. "It would be wonderful to create a more consistent, broad highway of interaction."
Gordon said he will continue to follow up on Hope High School because of its proximity to campus and Brown's long-time involvement with the school. Several graduates of the University's Master of Arts in Teaching program currently teach at Hope.
However, the formalized position is in its early stages, and Gordon is trying to evaluate "the specific needs and priortities for the schools, and which of those Brown is best suited to target."
The Providence Public School District comprises about 30,000 students, according to Wong, and the "concentration of minority students is very high."
"The social and economic challenges are like that of large urban districts," Wong said, "which is why it's particularly important to have the University work with the city and other cultural institutions - it's really important to leverage these partnerships."
