Strategies for Change

After our conversations about what problems urban schools are facing, I feel like the lack of investment into urban schools perpetuatees many of the existing problems. I have compiled a list of reform strategies based on my thoughts about teacher, community, and government investments into urban schools.

• Community partnerships for field trips, internships, and job opportunities for students (example would be the STEAM initiative in Philadelphia)
• Local businesses may also sponsor resources for all community members, such as adult education, childcare, and eldercare (example would be the community based school model)

• Parent involvement in school decisions, whether it be through PTO or townhalls hosted by school administrators
• Teacher training that encourages long-term investment in city schools (example would be Boston's teacher residency program)
• Teachers are trained in methods that are social justice-inclined and offer differentiation in their teaching style
• Teacher recruitment should incentive students from urban schools to return to their neighborhood school to teach. This will attract people who already hold a similar culture and set of values as those families that they serve.
• The elimination of tracking student/ school achievement through test scores and replacing with invididualized education plans (IEPs) for all students
• Federal and State money towards schools will be given to schools in lower income bracket neighborhoods to compensate for the disparity in income tax dollars allocated towards education. 
• States may offer financial incentives/tax breaks to local businesses who support their neighborhood school
• Government policy on the federal and state level holds the responsibility to creating equity in the funding of schools. 
• Government policy should not create a one-size-fits-all model of school governance and respect the autonomy of individual schools in catering to the needs of their constituents. 

 

In addition to each of these reform strategies, there is an implicit need to reform our larger societal values. Currently, access to higher education marks a person's ability to become sucessful. Without reframing this value to include careers in technical jobs, social reproduction of class structures will persist. Additionally, the teaching profession goes undervalued despite the large responsibility of shaping future generations of students. A reframing of the value placed on teaching is also implicit in these strategies for change.