Think small, says forum on urban schools; Restructuring plan under way in city
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Clive McFarlane
May 13, 2004
Adria Steinberg, a program director with Jobs for the Future, has some 37 years of experience working in the field of education, as a teacher, academic coordinator, staff and curriculum developer, and writer.
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However, a new initiative, concentrated on restructuring high schools into smaller learning communities supported with greater community collaborations, appears more promising than its predecessors, according to Ms. Steinberg.
''It feels different to me,'' Ms. Steinberg said of a national effort to transform traditional large high schools into smaller educational settings.
''We are getting some traction. There is no evidence that it is totally doable, but we do have the commitment to do it. Not all will survive, but a significant number of them will.''
Her comments, delivered yesterday at a forum sponsored by the Worcester Regional Research Bureau and moderated by S. Paul Reville, executive director of the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy at MassINC, provided a needed boost to local school and community officials who are themselves in the midst of a five-year plan to restructure the city's high schools into smaller academies. The forum, called The New Urban High School: A Report Card, was held at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences on Foster Street.
So far, 11 small academies have been opened in four of the city's five traditional high schools -- North High School, South High Community School, Doherty Memorial High School and Worcester Vocational High School.
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Despite these changes, the city has been asked by the Carnegie Corp. of New York, which has underwritten the restructuring plan with an $8 million matching grant, to increase the pace and depth of the restructuring.
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Ms. Steinberg, who is familiar with high school restructuring through her work with Creating Successful Transitions for Youth, a multiyear, national initiative to expand the visibility and impact of such reforms, said the challenges faced by Worcester are not unique.
The author of several publications on the issue, including ''Real Learning, Real Work'' and ''Schooling for the Real World,'' she has studied the evolution of small learning communities in Boston and around the country.
In her speech yesterday, she provided a ''report card'' on how the reform effort is playing out across the country.
