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Like Sarah Palin rolling out her new book with an extensive promotional tour, local author, professor and sociologist Gerry Grant is making the rounds speaking about his ideas on bridging the performance gap between city and suburban schools.
Grant’s recent book, Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There are No Bad Schools in Raleigh (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 240 pages; $25.95/hardcover), hasn’t gotten him an invite to appear on Oprah yet, but he did speak to a meeting of community movers and shakers at City Hall on Nov. 13. The audience of about 100 people was gathered by FOCUS Greater Syracuse, which, 11 years ago, set city/county school consolidation as one of its goals.
Grant’s presentation on steps taken to achieve that goal so impressed FOCUS founder Chuckie Holstein that the group has scheduled another series of forums on education in the city, including a look at the progress of Say Yes to Education. On Dec. 11 at 7:30 a.m., in Common Council chambers, on the second floor of City Hall, FOCUS will host a three-person panel with Rachel Gazdick, Syracuse director for Say Yes; Monique Fletcher, Say Yes associate director; and Michael Hennessey of the Syracuse City School District. On Friday, Jan. 8, the group will hear from Larry Cummings, director of the CNY School Boards Association.
Grant argued that the decline in performance of city schools results from policies that have built a “wall around poor kids.” He advocates measures to join city and suburban schools together in some fashion. Given the resistance of local political leaders to talk of consolidation, he proposed a series of interim steps. “It’s not consolidation or nothing,” said the Westcott resident. “If we can’t tear down the wall right away, we can look at putting some gates in the wall.”
In his City Hall presentation, Grant, a professor emeritus of sociology and education at Syracuse University, outlined four intermediate steps that could translate into progress toward consolidation.
• Turn Central Tech into a University High School of the Arts, to be run as a charter school, which could draw nearly half its students from the suburbs. “Bring in a dozen SU faculty from VPA {the School of Visual and Performing Arts}, Crouse College of Music and the School of Architecture to each teach one course a year,” he said. “Bring in faculty from the Syracuse Symphony and the Everson.”
According to SCSD Board of Education Vice President Laurie Menkin, the idea of revamping Central Tech, now known as the Institute of Technology at Central Tech, at this stage is not feasible. “We’ve been working on the Institute of Technology for eight years. We’ve made a commitment to that program, and we’re the only major city school district in the state that doesn’t have one.” Grant counters that an arts school would require less funding to renovate and would be attractive to students from outside the city.
• Try a version of Boston’s voluntary busing program known as Metco here in Syracuse, a proposal that is Grant’s most controversial. The program, according to Grant, “has worked there for 40 years and could work here.”
Menkin said there have been “very preliminary” discussions on busing plans for a long time, going back to the late 1990s when Dr. Stephen Jones was superintendent of schools. “It’s a complicated process,” she noted, that would require state legislation and state aid. “The question is whether the suburban schools would want to take our kids. We think it might be a good idea, but they don’t.”
• He pleads with the district to establish a no-cost “Virtual Internship High School,” to be composed of 100 teams of eight students each, four from the suburbs and four from the city. “Get 100 firms,” said Grant, “to each sponsor and mentor each team. {The teams} would spend one day a week at the firm or local organization developing a plan to solve a real problem.”
The ever hopeful Grant insisted that bringing kids together will create the basis for larger social change. “The politicians say that the idea of consolidation doesn’t have traction,” chided Grant. “These are ways you can get traction. You need to change people’s beliefs about one another. These internships create new relationships. The kids learn about one another. It changes the perceptions of parents as well. Parents will relate to one another as if they were on a sports team.”
• Finally, Grant suggested a plan which he said will provide 10,000 new teachers at no cost. “We need to make peer tutoring a high school graduation requirement: Every student has to figure out something he or she can teach to another student. This is not just white kids teaching black kids or smart kids teaching slow kids. Everybody has something to teach: how to cook in a wok or change oil in a car, or helping tutor somebody in math. Divide elementary schools into teams. All kids in grades 4 to 6 spend 30 minutes each morning helping kids in grades 1 to 3 learn to read.”
This is an idea he has been mulling for years, ever since he visited St. Daniel’s Catholic grade school in the Bronx. “In one of the highest poverty Census districts in the nation, the kids averaged more than two years above grade level. The nun who ran the school had paired all the upper grade kids with one in the lower. You stopped by your buddy’s house on the way to school, made sure he or she got to school, had his books and pencil. Then, after prayers, first 30 minutes each day was buddy helping the younger learn to read. They could read anything, including comic books.”
These proposals, contended Grant, “try to provide a new vision of urban education and urban renewal. We need both Say Yes and schools that are not just poorhouses. We need a mix of social classes in the schools, as we need to go ahead with Say Yes.”
