A new report by LFA and Grunwald Associates, with support from AT&T, examines how parents perceive the value of mobile devices, how they see their children using mobiles, and what they think of the possibilities for mobile learning.
Together We Can: Schools and Communities Join Forces for Mobile's Children
Story posted January, 2008
Results:
• District made Adequate Yearly Progress in 2007
• 85 of 100 schools met Adequate Yearly Progress in 2007, a 215% jump from 2002
Often the hardest part of school reform is taking the long-view of things. Action plans get written but fail to move from goal setting to actual practice. The Mobile Area Education Foundation (MAEF) understood these shortcomings. MAEF set out on a multi-year quest to ensure that its efforts to engage the community in creating a school improvement plan translated into effective action and better education for all Mobile's children.
After four decades of inadequate funding, Mobile County's 100 schools serving 65,000 students were crumbling, and student performance was among the worst in the nation. In 2001, after an intense public engagement effort, voters responded in an action unprecedented in 40 years-they approved a property tax tied to public education. But the voters had not written a blank check: They expected results.
In response, MAEF involved the community in the solution. They developed a long-term strategy to engage the community in identifying and helping create changes to improve schools for every child. Eventually some 1,500 people participated in substantive discussions that culminated in the "Yes We Can Community Agreement." This agreement set out the community's goals for the public schools of Mobile County-and ideas for how to reach those goals.
A determination to connect the community agreement to meaningful action led to the next step. The school board and MAEF adopted the Baldridge Criteria for Performance, which foster continuous improvement by encouraging people to base decisions on rich performance data. Employing Baldridge Criteria, each principal publicly posts a chart, or "dashboard," outlining student achievement goals as well as current gaps in attaining those goals. The dashboards have effectively forged a common language and understanding of objectives among different community players, creating more effective communication about where schools are and where they need to be. Strategies to support schools' progress towards goals include intense professional development programs that help teachers implement classroom strategies validated by strong research.
After six years of effort, Mobile's schools are making gains-the district as a whole made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), and 85 of 100 schools met AYP, a 215% jump from 2002, when 27 schools out of 93 met the requirement. All of Mobile's schools participating in the state's Reading First program rank in the top 20; one is first in the state.
Mobile's experience contains important lessons. For one, visions for school improvement have to be developed by-not imposed upon-the community. Most important, these community-developed visions must lead to action. As Mobile Area Education Foundation executive director Carolyn Akers insists, "a vision without action is a hallucination."
Further details about this story can be found in our sources:
Carolyn Akers of the Mobile Area Education Foundation, for Voices in Urban Education, "Developing a Civic Infrastructure", Fall 2005
Public Education Network, "The YES WE CAN Community Agreement", 2001.
Mobile Area Education Foundation, "Yes We Can"
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