A group of 16 students from five of Northwestern University's undergraduate schools has spent this fall exploring whether and how innovative school reform efforts from Chicago and around the country might be applied to schools in the local community. After interviewing dozens of community members, hearing from local reform experts, visiting a variety of successful schools and researching creative ideas from across the country, the students concluded that while Evanston schools are impressive models for those in similar communities, the infusion of new creative ideas might make them even better at serving particular populations of students. Students are getting course credit for their participation in the project as part of a School of Education and Social Policy class titled Innovative Urban School Reform, developed by two university seniors: Mara Botman, a social policy and political science major from Maryland, and Matt Presser, a journalism major from Florida. Both students intend to pursue careers in education, and after three years of coursework coupled with experiences working at schools, they applied to create and lead their own course. Their faculty advisor was Carol Lee. After receiving university approval, they crafted a course syllabus with readings from school reform experts and local journalists and scheduled 15 guest speakers from Evanston and Chicago for the class's 10 sessions. About 50 students applied for spots in the class.
"We wanted to take a hard look at the strengths and weaknesses of the current school systems in Evanston," said Botman, who has worked as a tutor at Dewey Elementary and a University Mentor in the McGaw YMCA's Project SOAR. "However, we did not want to be spectators. We chose a problem-based learning approach to challenge our peers to explore how best practices in school reform could be applied in Evanston."
Each of the students was tasked with identifying unmet student needs in Evanston schools and figuring out what schools in other areas are doing to address them. To achieve this, students conducted interviews with Evanston parents, teachers, students and others. Both of Evanston's school superintendents presented the class with a primer on the current state of education in Evanston, and a number of Chicago reform experts visited the class, including Josh Edelman, executive director of Chicago Public Schools' Office of New Schools; John Ayers, senior associate with the National Association of Charter School Authorizers; and leaders of Chicago schools. Additionally, each student in the course visited two schools in the area and presented findings to the class. Most of the students taking the course have experience working in Evanston schools, many through the America Reads program.
"When it comes to education, Evanston and Chicago are both hotbeds for innovation that are constantly looking for ways to be more relevant so it has been really exciting for each of us to explore some of the other creative ideas in the field and to try to understand how they might play out here," said Presser, who has worked as a tutor at Lincolnwood Elementary for three years and plans to teach middle school English after graduating in December.
Students' ideas are proposed in the form of charter schools -- fully accountable public schools that are governed autonomously -- because of inherent flexibility with curriculum and funding and because of the success of the charter school movement in Chicago. But the ideas created as part of the class are hardly exclusive to charter schools. "Our goal is to be able to say, 'Here are some great ideas, and whether they are enacted in already existing schools or new ones, they are at least worthy of some discussion for schools in Evanston," Botman said.
Students' proposals draw from best-practices research from around the country and from gaps identified by community members and Evanston students themselves. The ideas include a neighborhood elementary school emphasizing community involvement and one-on-one attention; a school for students at risk of dropping out that focuses not just on academics, but on self-esteem, intellectual curiosity, and civic engagement; a community school using an arts-infused curriculum to engage students in meaningful learning experiences; and a high school focusing on preparation for vocational and technical careers that uses field experiences and collaborative and experiential learning to achieve its goals.
"Our ideas are still in fairly elementary stages, but what we feel is important is to start -- and in some cases revive -- a discussion of which populations of students aren't being served as well as others," Presser said. "Our goal with the class isn't necessarily for a new school to pop up in Evanston in two or three years. We simply want to bring to light the concerns of students and parents of students who feel underserved, point to schools elsewhere that are meeting these types of students' needs and say, 'Maybe something can be done about it.'"
SESP offers the option for student-organized seminars (SESP 298), courses initiated by students and supervised by sponsoring faculty that cover topics of the students' choice not typically covered in other course work. Creating a student-organized seminar gives students an opportunity to explore in depth topics that they are passionate about and a chance to take on leadership roles and work with faculty advisors and students interested in similar topics. In conjunction with a faculty sponsor, the students prepare a seminar plan and submit it for approval.
Captions:
(Top) Mara Botman and Matt Presser discuss the presentations of final proposals with a panel of community leaders on December 3.
(Below) Samantha Reed, Parvathi Santhosh-Kumar and Jonathan Gonzalez-Smith present a proposal for a charter school for Evanston's Fifth Ward.
Last Modified: 8/14/09