A distinguished professor of education from the United States and a former teacher at a transformed local high school both agree that working with community stakeholders such as churches, businesses and youth groups to develop programmes to respond to the people's needs is critical to changing the output of underperforming schools.
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They made the observations at a seminar entitled "Education for social and economic development: Toward a more equitable and just Jamaica in the 21st century", held at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, last Thursday.
Professor Pedro Noguera, a professor of education from New York University, said 'failing schools' -- wherever they are located -- "lack the capacity to respond to the needs of their students" and noted that these schools were typically located in communities with high rates of poverty, unemployment and crime.
Relating a number of examples of schools that were able to overcome their challenges and perform at a high level, Noguera spoke about a public school in the predominantly poor African-American community of Bedford-Stuyvesant in New York in which 40 per cent of the students were homeless.
He said the principal forged partnerships with social workers, the YMCA, guidance counsellors and adult education programmes to ensure that up to four adults were in each classroom at the same time. Noguera said the principal also ensured that the school remained open until 6:00 pm each day, to coincide with the times the homeless shelters opened.
In another example of a New York school, a teacher got the students interested in science by developing a project to test soil contaminated by lead in their backyards. They even petitioned the city to address the problem by providing new topsoil for the gardens.
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SOURCE: Jamaica Observer
LUKE DOUGLAS
