January 21, 2006
Education experts to interact with public
Central City meeting will be held today
by Coleman Warner, Staff Writer
Elliot Washor represents a Rhode Island-based nonprofit, The Big Picture Co., that runs clusters of urban schools around the country. The schools, mostly at the secondary level, create personalized education programs for each student and use mentors to connect students to the community in which they live.
"There are no formalized classes," Washor said. "Students learn their content areas and their skills through their interests."
Gloria Davenport is a research associate with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, which teaches schools how to make the best use of computers and encourages students to use the city as their learning laboratory.
Each will be represented today when planners and architects host a community gathering in Central City that allows New Orleanians to interact with national education innovators known for creating cutting-edge school programs. Residents can also meet with innovators in the areas of housing, health and economic development.
The "Making It Happen Festival" will serve as a think tank for educators and government officials pondering how to rebuild a New Orleans school system torn apart by Hurricane Katrina. More than 15 education organizations with time-tested ideas for teaching in an urban setting -- in most cases offering a clear departure from traditional schools -- will be represented during roundtable discussions to be held 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 to 4 p.m. at Barrister's Gallery, 1724 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd.
Today's meetings will allow for grassroots input from local residents and provide a forum for building partnerships with groups across the country that have been itching to get involved, said Jessica Berman Boatright, an MIT urban planning graduate student who is helping coordinate the events.
Architect Steven Bingler, who helped put the festival together, described the event as a "high-level trade show" that allows local people to interact with people who have nurtured successful programs for years, often drawing national attention. "These are people who have actually developed programs that work," he said.
A few of the highlighted programs are from New Orleans and may be familiar to fest-goers: the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts; Teaching Responsible Earth Education; and the New Orleans Center for Science and Math.
But most of the participating groups have been invited from other cities. They include the Center for Cities and Schools in Berkeley, Calif.; the Alternative High School Initiative in Providence, R.I.; the KnowledgeWorks Foundation in Cincinnati; the Crossroads Expeditionary Learning School in Baltimore; the Henry Ford Learning Institute in Dearborn, Mich.; and the Garrison, N.Y.-based Expeditionary Learning Schools.
Bingler, who has long served as a planning and architectural consultant for educators around the nation, helped launch the Henry Ford Learning Institute a decade ago. The public charter school is housed in the Henry Ford Museum, which explores the history of cars and other transportation vehicles, serving 400 students at the high school level. The school emphasizes research projects and hands-on teaching, using materials at the museum, he said.
"They're responding to a natural interest in kids who want to get their hands into their learning, so they're using all these objects like cars and boats and trains to teach about science, math and social studies," Bingler said. The school has a 96 percent attendance rate, and most of its graduates go on to college, he said.
The Ford Motor Co., which provides financial support for the charter school, is considering replicating it in New Orleans and several other cities, Bingler said. It's too early to publicly discuss details of the New Orleans proposal, he said.
The Big Picture Co., which runs close to 40 small schools, mostly at the 130-student level, has been interested in opening schools in New Orleans for the last few years and now wants to move the plan forward, Washor said.
Meanwhile, the Expeditionary Learning Schools program, which works closely with 150 schools, is interested in launching an effort in New Orleans, said Greg Farrell, one representative who is attending this weekend's gathering. The organization focuses on staff training at existing schools that want to improve, advocating project-based learning and character education, Farrell said.
"More learning is done in an active adventurous way, through projects -- very little lecturing (and) a lot of field work," he said. "Instead of just reading a textbook and writing a paper, you might decide to create a museum."
The festival was designed to compliment efforts under way at the city and state levels to bring lasting change to key institutions ravaged by Katrina, organizers said. The Ashe' Cultural Arts Center, the Concordia planning and architectural firm, and the Center for Empowered Decision Making are sponsoring the three-day festival, which began Friday.
The festival closes Sunday with ecumenical religious services and a city bus tour. Reservations for the bus tour should be made at 401-3898. Interested residents can also visit the festival Web site www.neworleansmakingithappen.com.
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Coleman Warner can be reached at cwarner@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3311.
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