Waiting for Superman, a highly anticipated documentary about the current state of education in the U.S., will open tomorrow in Cincinnati and Newport. By all accounts, Waiting for Superman is a powerful movie about the role education plays in reducing poverty and expanding opportunity. We care about this subject, and so we hope the movie leads to an important conversation locally about reform and innovation.
To this end, we will be hosting, along with
Parents for Public Schools of Greater Cincinnati and
Stand for Kids, a community conversation on education on October 26 at the CPS Education Center from 6-8PM. We hope this discussion, along with others that will likely take place around our community, will bring together school officials, teachers, parents and community members around a shared vision of reform and, ultimately, around coordinated action. To ensure that every child is succeeding in our region, we need to work together to strengthen each of our public schools, whose success we believe is critical to the growth of our region, while pursuing a coordinated approach to expanding school options for parents and students.
Our goal is to have every child prepared for kindergarten and enrolled in a high performing school. The latter begins with the school turnaround efforts currently underway in Cincinnati, Newport and Covington. CPS will continue its successful Elementary Initiative (EI), which targets the district’s most challenging schools. Newport has reconfigured its schools to improve achievement. Covington is pursuing a Community Learning Centers (CLCs) approach, similar to the highly regarded CLC work at CPS, to strengthen performance. There will be a role for all of us to play in these turnaround efforts. If you’re not already involved, become a mentor or tutor, and get your organization or business to partner in this work.
We also believe CPS could build on the success of its more unique schools – Taft Information Technology High School, the School for Creative and Performing Arts, and the district’s Montessori schools, for example – and further expand school options for parents and students. With the district pursuing a strategic and hands-on approach to the matter, similar to how it has been done in New York City with its Office of Portfolio Planning or in Denver with its Office of School Reform and Innovation, we could work together as a community to investigate and bring to Cincinnati only the most promising alternative school models. Many of these schools are part of the public school system, while others are not. But the district, working with teachers, parents and community members, can lead the way in expanding options in our region.
If you see Waiting for Superman, we hope it strengthens your resolve to support the reform and innovation that will strengthen our schools and improve student achievement.
We also hope you join us on October 26 for an important conversation on education.
Please join us for a Community Conversation on Education
Hosted by Stand for Kids, the Strive Partnership and Parents for Public Schools of Greater Cincinnati
Tuesday, October 26, 6-8PM
CPS Education Center
2651 Burnet AvenueThis community conversation will focus on answering a very important question: what must we do together to ensure that every child has access to an excellent education, and that every school is achieving excellent results? To answer this question, we will hear from all of you, plus a panel of a few education stakeholders. We hope the conversation helps us develop a shared vision for reform. We hope you join us on October 26.