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New Study By the Youth Development Institute of the Fund for the City of New York

Posted on: Tuesday, 17 January 2006, 12:00 CST

Reframing Education: The Partnership Strategy and Public Schools, a study released today by the Youth Development Institute of the Fund for the City of New York and funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York, reveals emerging lessons from the New Century High Schools Initiative. The urgent need for redesign of urban high schools is clear and has become a major focus of reform efforts nationally. The three-year-old initiative reinvents large, underperforming high schools in New York City by creating small autonomous schools and developing partnerships with outside organizations that are central to the conceptualization and implementation of the new schools. Partnering organizations include settlement houses, museums, universities, youth development organizations, and cultural institutions.

The initiative's hallmark strategy of "school-level partnerships," according to the 101-page volume, has resulted in innovative curricula, greater personalization for students, and improved school management practices that offer important lessons for policymakers and school leaders across the nation.

Key findings from the report include:

-- Education partnerships attract more school resources and enhance academic content

-- A growing number of superintendents are recognizing the potential of partnerships to make systemic changes in schools

-- When fully implemented, partnerships help transcend traditional approaches to school governance, teaching practices, and social supports for students

New Visions for Public Schools, an education reform organization in New York City, manages the initiative, which is supported by almost $30 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Open Society Institute, and an additional amount of more than $29 million from the Gates Foundation. There are now 78 New Century High Schools serving over 13,000 students in the city.

The volume, written by Dr. Janice M. Hirota, an urban anthropologist and the principal investigator for the Youth Development Institute, includes a paper that describes early partnership work in the first New Century high schools that opened in 2002 and a paper that explores the challenges and achievements of such partnerships into the 2004-2005 school year.

Dr. Hirota says, "Organizational partners bring new resources, approaches, expertise, and opportunities to the students in their schools. But actually putting these partnerships into practice does more. It requires reframing the means and meaning of the high school educational enterprise - that is, redefining the who, what, and how of effective teaching and learning. This is a fundamental redefinition of how to achieve quality teaching and learning and significant student achievement."

"The New Century High Schools Initiative is breaking important new ground with the partnership strategy," says Constancia Warren, Senior Program Officer and the Director of Urban High School Initiatives for Carnegie Corporation of New York. "The strategy is a vital contribution to the reinvention of our high schools and the reform of urban schools."

About Fund for the City of New York

The Fund for the City of New York was established by the Ford Foundation in 1968 with the mandate to improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers. For over three decades, in partnership with government agencies, nonprofit institutions, and foundations, the Fund has developed and helped to implement innovations in policy, programs, practices and technology in order to advance the functioning of government and nonprofit organizations in New York City and beyond.

As one of the Fund's strategic initiatives, the Youth Development Institute works in New York City and nationally to build youth development policies, programs, and practices. Through its work, YDI seeks to bring together family, school, and community in order to create coherent and supportive environments that young people find caring, engaging, and challenging and in which they work as partners with adults.

To obtain a copy of Reframing Education: The Partnership Strategy and Public Schools, visit www.fcny.org or call the Youth Development Institute at 212/925-6675.

Source: Business Wire

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