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For the last 10 years, I have pushed for a long-term community action plan for education. But last week while in Dayton, Ohio, for a discussion about closing the achievement gap, I discovered I was thinking too small. The light bulb lit up because of Carolyn Akers.
Akers is executive director of the Mobile (Ala.) Area Education Foundation, and she galvanized Mobile into a community agreement that's put public education initiatives at the core of the city's economic development and quality of life strategies. Everyone from the mayor to the sheriff to parents to business leaders to grassroots activists have united behind the goal of boosting performance, making sure kids graduate and improving the quality of teachers and other educational resources because it's good for the strength and vitality of the entire community.
Here's one compelling example of that unity of effort: The sheriff's department provided money to help launch a new accelerated alternative program this school year for students who are "over age and under credited" - that is, so academically behind their classmates they're likely to drop out. Students go to school from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., receiving individualized instruction and high-tech courses. Businesses have agreed to provide internships and jobs during the day.
The new project is primarily underwritten with federal stimulus funds. When she's asked about the wisdom of using funds that will run out in a year a two, Akers notes confidently that people always find ways to fund what's important - and what works. She's right.
Few in Alabama are likely to doubt Akers' approach. She has proved that this unified strategy works. Since devising its community agreement on schools, Mobile has seen academic achievement soar. Ninety-six percent of Mobile's schools met federal Adequate Yearly Progress standards last year. The school system is roughly half and half black/white and the achievement gap between the races is virtually non-existent. The system is 70 percent free and reduced price lunch.
Mobile began its journey with a large-scale community engagement campaign. Meetings were held all over the city and began with the right question to get community-wide buy-in for effective talking and strategizing on this issue. The question wasn't "how can we improve our schools?" It was "what kind of community do you want to live in?"
That approach was purposeful. "It was important who you got on the bus," Akers said. Out of that process, we "birthed lots of new leadership, evoked lots of thinking and good conversation," she said. People listened and acted on what they heard.
That action led to impressive results in short order. In 2004, the partnership launched a plan to reform the school system's five lowest performing schools, and by 2006 four of the five had its students performing at or above grade level. Mobile has been recognized by state and federal leaders for its academic achievements. The public-private partnerships that the school system has developed with business, universities, community groups, law enforcers and local governments have become a model that school systems nationwide are trying to emulate.
One other thing stood out to me about Mobile's plan. The community set this agenda, and residents understood it was about a higher quality of life for everyone. Because of that, Akers said, "the plan is school board proof and superintendent proof." That meant neither the school board nor the superintendent could derail it. When those officials tried, community members packed school board meetings to remind them of the community agreement.
No offense to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board or superintendent, but that's the kind of public engagement on education we desperately need in this community, too. We need a cohesive, coordinated strategy that recognizes public education should be at the core of any quality of life and economic development plans - and puts it there.
A "community agreement" that Charlotte residents hash out together could do for us what it seems to have done for Mobile. It could galvanize us to truly work as a team to make the public schools the best they can be. In the end, all of us would benefit.
