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April/May 2011

In This Issue
When We Know What Works, Why Don't We Do It?
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When We Know What Works, Why Don't We Do It?

In his welcome to the School, Family, and Community Engagement Forum, Allan B. Taylor, president of the Connecticut and the national State Board of Education organizations, acknowledged Dr. Comer's work, then posed a compelling question that quieted the packed ballroom: "When we know what works, why don't we do it? Nothing is more important than answering that question." 

 

More than 200 school, parent, and community leaders attended the Forum at the Farmington Marriott on March 26, 2011. The event was sponsored by the Connecticut State Department of Education in collaboration with Connecticut Parent Information and Resource Center (CT PIRC).

 

"We must redefine parents' and guardians' roles and find new ways to assure that they are involved fully in supporting the instructional program and their children's success," said acting Education Commissioner George Coleman.

 

The Forum organizers tapped three presenters with deep knowledge of schools and the importance of parents, families, and communities working in partnership with educators to support student development and learning:

Anne T. Henderson acknowledged Dr. Comer's influence on her work. "What he said about children learning from the people they bond with infused all of my work," said Henderson. "Aren't children more likely to do well when they bond with their teachers? Knowing their families is the best way to really know kids. If parents are out of the loop on children's learning, there is no loop. They must be partners."


Lessons from Chicago

When the Chicago Public Schools decentralized in 1988, Local School Councils gave parents and communities control over significant resources and the authority to reform their schools in dramatic ways, including hiring and firing principals. Over a seven-year period Dr. Sebring and her colleagues at the Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) tracked the effects of this bold experiment. They identified one hundred elementary schools that had substantially improved and one hundred that had not. Their research focused on identifying what the successful schools had done to improve student learning. 

 

They identified a comprehensive set of practices and conditions that were key factors for improvement, including school leadership, the professional capacity of the faculty and staff, a student-centered learning climate, and family and communities ties. They concluded that "schools must have strengths in multiple areas, and a sustained weakness in only one of these areas undermines virtually all attempts at improving student learning," said Sebring. 

 

"The Oak Tree of Our State" 

In her introduction of Dr. Comer, Elaine Zimmerman, the executive director of the Connecticut Commission on Children, used a powerful image to describe him. She said he is "the oak tree of our state who has the deepest roots," alluding to the local legend of the Charter Oak in which the colony charter was hidden in a cavity in late 1687. The unusually large oak was blown down in a violent storm 150 years later. The Governor's desk and the chairs of the leaders of both legislative chambers were made from wood salvaged from the Charter Oak. "He is a man who has been telling the truth for a long time," she said. "He is the forerunner of modern school reform and a pioneer."

Shelia Brantley, JPC and Yury
L to R: Shelia Brantley, New Haven District Comer Facilitator, Dr. Comer, and Yury Maciel Andrews, Davis Street Arts and Academics School PTA

Dr. Comer's presentation focused on why meaningful parent and family participation is important. "Families and educators must know how to promote development and learning simultaneously; because, neuroscience findings over the past 25 years, together with longstanding social and behavioral science findings, provide strong evidence that child development and learning are inextricably linked, and reciprocal." he said.

 

He presented the nine elements of the SDP school transformation model and described the School Planning and Management Team (SPMT) as the "engine" that drives change in a school. A number of the questions asked of Dr. Comer by the audience following his presentation focused on SPMTs and School Governance Councils. Public Act 10-111, the school reform law enacted in 2010, mandates the establishment of School Governance Councils in the state's lowest performing schools, some of which have functioning School Planning and Management Teams.

 

Since there wasn't enough time for Dr. Comer to respond to all of the questions posed by Forum participants, he has responded to questions asked by a number of people. The following is his response to the question about whether and how School Planning and Management Teams and School Governance Councils can be melded:

 

This may not be possible. The School Planning and Management Team (SPMT) and the School Governance Council (SGC) essentially serve the same functions. I advise against having two groups with similar functions in a school. In our experience it causes confusion and potential power struggles and conflict. Our SDP model, with the SPMT as the core, is designed to promote good relationships, prevent blame, and to focus adult attention on student needs rather than their own. Voting as opposed to consensus decision making, and no voice for particular groups creates discontent.

 

The SDP operates in a way that all participants are wed only to what works and not to what one group advocates; thus, there are no losers and fighters. I am hopeful that the legislation can be tweaked or amended to make this more probable. In the meantime, perhaps schools that are already working well with SPMTs can be granted a waiver that permits them to meet the spirit of the law if not the exact letter; or SGCs are permitted to work like SPMTs.

 

The Forum concluded with a special session for members of newly formed School Governance Councils. Bob Rader, the executive director of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, described the training modules he and his staff co-developed with Dr. Paul Flinter and Dr. Judy Carson from the Connecticut State Department of Education. Dr. Penny Bender Sebring shared lessons learned from Local School Councils in Chicago.

Drs. Bettye Fletcher Comer and James P. Comer Honored by Bank Street College of Education

The Board of Trustees of Bank Street College of Education honored Drs. Bettye Fletcher Comer and James P. Comer at the 2011 Annual Dinner, the College's annual fundraiser, at The Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers in New York City on April 12, 2011. They were recognized for their outstanding contributions to education and their developmentally focused values and philosophy that they share with the founders and current faculty and leadership of Bank Street. Richard D. Parsons, the chairman of Citigroup, Inc., was the master of ceremonies.

Bettye, Dr. Dickey and JPC

L to R: Dr. Bettye Fletcher Comer, Dr. Elizabeth D. Dickey, president of Bank Street College, and Dr. James P. Comer


Dr. Bettye Fletcher Comer, a former teacher and educational leader in Connecticut, is a Bank Street trustee and the director of the Fletcher Foundation. She has taught social studies and English in Ledyard before becoming a reading teacher and then a school social worker in New London. She has also served as the dean of students at a junior high school and the principal of an elementary school in New London. Dr. Fletcher retired from the Stamford Public Schools in 1996 after serving there as a principal and administrator. She has a doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

 

Dr. James P. Comer received an honorary degree from Bank Street in 1987. In 2006 Dr. Bettye Fletcher Comer and Alphonse Fletcher, Jr., the oldest of her three sons who is known as Buddy, received honorary degrees from Bank Street. Mr. Fletcher, a major supporter of the Bank Street event, is the chair and chief executive officer of Fletcher Asset Management in New York. A 1987 graduate of Harvard College, he also has a master's degree in environmental management from Yale University.

 

The multimedia tribute to Drs. Bettye Fletcher Comer and James P. Comer included messages from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, The McGraw-Hill Companies, The Atlantic Philanthropies, and others. The message from Macro Consultants LLC and HLW International LLP lauded them "for their tireless efforts and dedication to the education and well-being of generations of children and young adults. Your commitment serves to inspire us and all who rally for your cause." To view the multimedia tribute, click here.

 

More than 350 people attended the Bank Street dinner, including Roland Betts, a Fellow of the Yale Corporation and the founder of Chelsea Piers LP; Curtis L. Patton, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus at the Yale School of Public Health; Nicholas C. Donohue, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation; and Jay McGraw and Dr. Charlotte Frank of the McGraw-Hill Companies. Dr. Comer is on the board of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation and the Board of Judges for the Harold W.  McGraw Prize in Education.

 

Bank Street was first established as the Bureau of Educational Experiments by the visionary educator, Lucy Sprague Mitchell, who was the first Dean of Women at the University of California at Berkeley. A group of highly trained professional teachers, psychologists, and researchers met to observe exactly how young children learn. They began to document the learning process to determine the environments and educational practices best suited to foster the growth and development of children. Their findings contributed to a fundamental reform in the way children are taught.

Applying the Developmental Sciences Gaining Momentum in Educator Preparation Programs 

Jon Snyder
Dr. Jon Snyder

Dr. James P. Comer was one of the five presenters on the 2011 Charles W. Hunt Lecture panel, "How Children Learn and Develop: What Ed Schools Should Teach," at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) annual conference on February 25, 2011 in San Diego. Dr. Jon Snyder, the chief academic officer and dean of Bank Street College of Education, moderated the panel that he described as an outgrowth of the work of the national expert panel of the NCATE Initiative on Increasing the Application of Developmental Science Knowledge in Educator Preparation that Dr. Comer co-chaired with Dr. Robert C. Pianta, dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.  

 

Dr. Comer provided the conceptual underpinnings of the role and value of the application of the developmental sciences in learning in classrooms and schools. He said that "children who are underdeveloped or differently developed should go to schools where the teachers and administrators are able to help them compensate for their underdevelopment. That means that the teachers must know something about and be able to apply development, and that's the problem that many are not. As a result many who see the behaviors of children as 'good' or 'bad,' 'smart' or 'dumb' respond by control and punishment. And everybody goes on a downhill course, and you have a dysfunctional school as a result. Development and learning are limited in that setting."

 

The School Development Program model he and his colleagues at the Yale Child Study Center developed over 40 years ago is designed to create "a culture in the school that would allow the people in the school to support the development of children in a way that they could be successful. To create a culture where everybody has a child and adolescent development perspective. Not 'good' or 'bad' children, but underdeveloped children that we can help develop. It is the focus on the integration of development and learning so that children themselves are engaged in looking at their own development along all the critical developmental pathways, that in turn helps the work with the staff to support their own development."

 

Ira Lit, Ph.D., director of the Elementary Teacher Education Program at Stanford University, gave an overview of one of the NCATE commissioned papers, "Principles and Exemplars for Integrating Developmental Sciences Knowledge Into Education Preparation," which he co-authored with Dr. Snyder. To download this paper that features the School Development Program as an exemplar, click here.

 

Three panelists then described their work to support the application of the developmental and learning sciences with pre-service and in-service educators: Desiree Pointer Mace, Ph.D., the associate dean of the School of Education at Alverno College in Milwaukee; Jeanne M. Burns, Ph.D., Associate Commissioner for Teacher and Leadership Initiatives for the Louisiana Board of Regents; and John Holland, a child development specialist in the Richmond, Virginia public schools.

 

Dr. Snyder said that a focus on development is "incredibly obvious" because"kids are a part of what happens in classrooms." He turned to Dr. Comer and said, "Yet I'm looking to my left, and there's a gentleman here that has spent a number of decades pushing this agenda, showing that it makes a difference in the lives of children and their families and communities no matter what the metric that's in place at the time. What's getting in the way of this obvious thing should be number 1 on everyone's agenda."

 

To watch the 2011 Charles W. Hunt Lecture, click here.

,
Sheila Jackson Named to SDP National Faculty
Sheila Jackson

Sheila Jackson, M.S., the director of the Department of School Improvement in the Prince George's County Public Schools in Maryland, has been named to the SDP's National Faculty. "Sheila moved from parent volunteer to parent facilitator to a number of leadership positions in the Prince George's County Public Schools. She brings a spectrum of knowledge to the work of the SDP that's enormously important," said Dr. James P. Comer. 

 

For the past 20 years Sheila has been working with the Comer SDP in Prince George's County. In 1991 she was hired and helped to implement what has been the school system's model for comprehensive school reform and targeted parent/community engagement since 1985. Sheila has directed  the Comer SDP Regional Professional Development and Training Center in Prince George's County since its inception in 1994.

 

Since 1997 Sheila has served as the director of several departments within the Prince George's County Public Schools, including the Department of Comer SDP, Milliken II and Special Programs; the Department of Family and Community Services; the Department of Family and Outreach and Strategic Partnerships; and the Department of School Development and Special Programs. The common denominator in all of these departments is that they have included supervision of Comer SDP within the school system.

 

Sheila has co-authored several articles on the Comer Process, and with Jan Stocklinski and Beckie Roberts co-authored a chapter on the Comer Facilitator in Dr. Comer's book, Child by Child. Most recently, she co-authored a number of chapters in The Field Guide to Comer Schools in Action.

 

Sheila consults nationally on school reform, team development, community development, and parental engagement. She has received the PGCPS Outstanding Educator of the Year Award and has served as an adjunct professor for the graduate education program of McDaniel College since 1997.

Sheila holds a B.A. in Microbiology from the University of Virginia where she was a National Merit Scholar, and an M.S. in Curriculum, Instruction, Supervision and Administration from Western Maryland (since renamed McDaniel) College.

 

Sheila and her husband have two sons and two daughters who are graduates of the Prince George's County Public Schools before going on to obtain degrees in higher education.


Featured Videos on the SDP's YouTube Page

www.youtube.com/comersdp

James P. Comer, M.D., M.P.H.

Greeting to the Hartsville Community

Jackie Miller

Lexington City Schools Principal on the Comer Process


Carol P. Ray

Principal, Asheville High School  

Using the Comer Process to Close the Achievement Gap in Asheville, NC


Visit the School Development Program's website using
any of the following addresses:


www.schooldevelopmentprogram.org
www.comerprocess.org
medicine.yale.edu/childstudy/comer


Our Mission
The School Development Program is committed to the total development of all children by creating learning environments that support children's physical, cognitive, psychological, language, social, and ethical development.

Our Vision
Our vision is to help create a just and fair society in which all  children have the educational and personal opportunities that will allow them to become successful and satisfied participants in family and civic life.

WILIS cover
What I Learned in School: Reflections on Race, Child Development, and School Reform
By James P. Comer, M.D., M.P.H.
 

What I Learned in School highlights, in one volume, the major contributions of world-renowned scholar Dr. James P. Comer, whose visionary work has dramatically shaped the fields of school reform, child development, psychology, and race. This small collection of Dr. Comer's work is beautifully arranged and includes an introduction and engaging updates from the author. These works paint a remarkable picture of what we've all learned so far, and what we all must learn going forward.


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Cynthia R. Savo
Editor
[email protected]