The National Education Policy Center released a video about “Schools of Opportunity.” The video highlights schools that support students instead of penalizing them. It was viewed almost 200,000 times within 24 hours.
You should watch it too.
In Less than a Day, New #SchoolsofOpportunity Video Has Been Viewed 190,000 Times
Key Takeaway: Please watch and share the new Schools of Opportunity video and the 2018 Application.
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Find Documents:
Press Release: http://nepc.info/node/9077
Watch Video: http://schoolsofopportunity.org
Contact:
Michelle Renée Valladares: (720) 505-1958, michelle.valladares@colorado.edu
Adam York: (303) 735-5290, adam.j.york@colorado.edu
Learn More:
NEPC Resources on Schools of Opportunity
BOULDER, CO (March 1, 2018) – For more than 25 million children, the connection between education and the American Dream is eroding, but a new video is shining a spotlight on schools closing the opportunity gap.
The two-minute video tells the story of how students benefit when they have access to much-needed educational and social supports. “It puts a face on the students whose lives change when they get access to Schools of Opportunity,” said Michelle Renée Valladares, NEPC Associate Director.
To date, 45 schools have been recognized by the National Education Policy Center’s Schools of Opportunity program. These schools provide rich, engaging opportunities to learn for all their students, often helping those students overcome obstacles linked to poverty and racism in our larger society. One of this year’s honorees—Seaside High School—is highlighted in the video.
The video introduces us to Dayshaun, a young man whose drop in school performance might have resulted in sanctions and lowered expectations at other schools. Instead we learn how systemic supports at Seaside helped him get through the immense challenge of his mother falling ill. Because of that support, Dayshaun is now a school leader.
The Schools of Opportunity project was born out of the research-based fundamental truth that students learn more when they have rich opportunities to learn; when denied those opportunities they fall behind. The opportunity gap then drives the achievement disparities between students who come from well-resourced communities and those from economically and socially marginalized communities.
“The Schools of Opportunity project offers a positive vision of what school quality and school improvement can look like,” says CU Boulder Professor Kevin Welner, who directs the NEPC. “This project highlights an alternative to judging schools based on test scores.”
This video “sparks our imaginations about what our high schools can be,” says Welner. “We hope it reaches educators and school leaders throughout the country, as we all learn from the 45 exemplary schools we’ve recognized to date. Please watch, share and let us know what you think.”
The video is a product of ATTN:, an issues-driven media company, and The Partnership for the Future of Learning, a network of educators, advocates, leaders, and supporters dedicated to an affirmative, equitable, evidence-based vision of a remodeled education system.
NEPC is scouting for the next round of schools to lift up through the Schools of Opportunity Program. Schools can apply for recognition directly, or others can nominate them. Applications are welcomed until April 9, 2018. Information and forms are available online at: http://www.SchoolsofOpportunity.org.
Sharing Information
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BfwF27Og0LE/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/attn/status/968922751502290945
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/attn/videos/1674665095902276/
Tweetables
New @attn video with @NEPCtweet shows how every student can learn with the right tools and supports. https://twitter.com/attn/status/968922751502290945 #schoolsofopportunity
You shouldn’t need rich parents to get an education in this country. These @NEPCtweet #SchoolsofOpportunity are showing how it’s done in a new @attn video. https://twitter.com/attn/status/968922751502290945
All students can learn and achieve with the right supports. New video highlights how these #SchoolsofOpportunity are making it happen. https://twitter.com/attn/status/968922751502290945
You can judge a school based on test scores, or you can watch what happens when #SchoolsofOpportunity give every student a shot at success. New @attn video with @NEPCtweet. https://twitter.com/attn/status/968922751502290945
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The video seems to imply that most schools are mean-spirited places that withhold opportunities to learn. Only special schools like Seaside have staff that take account of kids’ home problems and attempt to make lessons engaging, culturally-relevant and rigorous. It implies that suspension is a spiteful practice that just derails avid learners with high GPAs. If only schools would stop denying kids opportunities to learn and the perverse practice of suspension, kids would flourish. Is any of this true?
Thank you, Ponderosa, for the thoughtful comment. We certainly didn’t mean to imply that most schools are mean-spirited places. But we do not hesitate to point out that schools’ practices vary quite a bit, with some providing much better opportunities to learn than do others.
Remember when progressives weren’t afraid to criticize bad and discriminatory practices in public schools, without fearing that we’re just empowering/feeding the anti-public-schooling rhetoric?
Yes, most public secondary schools stratify opportunities through practices like tracking. Yes, suspension is over-used and is used in discriminatory ways, and it denies kids opportunities to learn. Yes, teaching and learning is less rich and deep in our schools than it should be — with way too much focus on prepping for tests.
Much of this happens because of the toxic societal and education-policy context within which our public schools develop their practices. But it nonetheless happens — and when schools like Seaside find ways to close opportunity gaps, we should celebrate them and hold them up as exemplars.
I’m curious to know about your own teaching experience.
In my long teaching experience, highly-disruptive kids have been the biggest robbers of their classmates’ opportunity to learn. Don’t you think this is a big problem?
I also see many kids who are given the opportunity to learn, but never seize it. Negative peer pressure is one big factor. This seems to be a bigger problem than adults’ denying them an opportunity. Any idea for how to solve this one?
Your analysis seems to overlook these huge factors. Instead it seems to single out the adults for blame. I wonder if you’re not really getting to the heart of the problem.
(I agree with you that teaching and learning is less rich in our schools than they should be, and that the high-stakes tests are one big culprit.)
All schools should be schools of opportunity. With at least half of the nation’s public schools students living in poverty, more school districts need to support students so they can overcome the opportunity disadvantage. Many school districts are already doing this. If this initiative sheds a light on the outstanding jobs of more public schools and helps more school districts focus on opening more doors to students and providing better supports, then it will give public schools some much needed positive attention, and take the emphasis off performance on meaningless bubble tests.
Thank you! If you know of a high school that should be recognized, please point them to our application at schoolsofopportunity.org.
Thanks. I’ve already forwarded this post to an excellent diverse school district.
Elizabeth Warren Calls Betsy DeVos “The Worst Secretary Of Education This Country Has Ever Seen”…Mother Jones
In her first year overseeing the Education Department, Secretary Betsy DeVos has been “a boon for for-profit colleges, student loan companies, and advocates of school privatization,” while harming public school students of all ages, according to a report released Thursday by two Massachusetts Democrats, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Katherine Clark.
“Betsy DeVos is the worst Secretary of Education this country has ever seen—by a large margin,” Warren said in a statement. “Secretary DeVos has spent her first year bending over backwards to allow students to be cheated, taking an axe to public education, and undermining the civil rights of students across the country. Secretary DeVos has failed in her job and she must be held accountable.”
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/elizabeth-warren-calls-betsy-devos-the-worst-secretary-of-education-this-country-has-ever-seen/
This should be a separate post.
speduktr: Anyone in politics who is working to help education needs to be acknowledged. I believe this post is as good as any. Warren is stating that she is standing up for public schools. This is something that has been debated. Here is her statement:
“Secretary DeVos has spent her first year bending over backwards to allow students to be cheated, taking an axe to public education…”
That is important!!!!! and it needs to be known.
Carol,
Some people can’t take yes for an answer.
No criticism intended. Sorry for the poor choice of words. I meant that I would like to see Diane post it as its own topic.
speduktr: Thanks. I appreciate what you were trying to say.
This press release says:
The Schools of Opportunity program of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) draws attention to the promotional video from ATTN: an issues-driven media company, and The Partnership for the Future of Learning “a network of educators, advocates, leaders, and supporters dedicated to an affirmative, equitable, evidence-based vision of a remodeled education system.” https://futureforlearning.org/about-us/
Although I respect the work of NEPC, I am puzzled by the role of the Partnership for the Future of Learning (PFL) in publicizing (funding?) the winners of the competition. I think many of the funders of PFL have not, in fact, shown sustained and credible support for public education.
In a February 2017 publication from PFL, titled “A Policy Framework for Tomorrow’s Learning“ I find not much more than the usual rhetoric about the need for a radical transformation of public schools, based on a stereotypes about schooling, and not acknowledging the damage done by Federal policies since 2001. The report is fixated on college and career readiness, standards-based instruction, continuous improvement, “personalized” and “deeper learning” which entails critical thinking and learning to “develop self-directed approaches to learning, resourcefulness and resilience, a growth mindset, and other social-emotional skills critical to success (p. 4).
This report acknowledges its private funders: S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, Einhorn Family Charitable Trust, Ford Foundation, Grable Foundation, Walter & Elise Haas Fund (Haas Sr.), William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, NATIONAL PUBLIC EDUCATION SUPPORT FUND, NEA Foundation, Nellie Mae Education Foundation, Panta Rhea Foundation, Sandler Foundation, Southern Education Foundation, and Stuart Foundation. https://d3ciwvs59ifrt8.cloudfront.net/3a40ddc2-b686-4d79-be80-fd1785727c4f/1749d332-0d55-4cb4-ae4a-95aa0939dfd6.pdf
The nested and interlocking relationships among private foundations in shaping policy is well-illustrated by a look at the NATIONAL PUBLIC EDUCATION SUPPORT FUND (mentioned above, part of the Partnership for the Future of Learning and apparently funding the video for NEPC’s Opportunity Schools award program.
The NATIONAL PUBLIC EDUCATION SUPPORT FUND claims to “bring together education foundations, policymakers, and leaders from around the globe to learn from each other and work together on improving our public education system.
I think that many of the 36 foundations listed as supporters do not have records that reflect a solid and sustained interest in public education. Readers can judge for themselves Atlantic Philanthropies; Barr Foundation; S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation; Carnegie Corporation of New York; Annie E. Casey Foundation; Einhorn Family Charitable Trust; Ford Foundation; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Grable Foundation; William T. Grant Foundation; Grantmakers for Education; Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust; William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; Joyce Foundation; W.K. Kellogg Foundation; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Maher Charitable Foundation; Robert R. McCormick Foundation; National Education Association (NEA) Foundation; National Public Education Foundation; Nellie Mae Education Foundation; Open Society Foundations; Overdeck Family Foundation; David and Lucile Packard Foundation; William Penn Foundation; Raikes Foundation; Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation; Rodel Foundation of Delaware; Schott Foundation for Public Education; Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation; Albert Shanker Institute; Spencer Foundation; Southern Education Foundation; W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation; Stuart Foundation; Wallace Foundation http://www.npesf.org/our-mission
A big question for me is whether these networks of foundations are funding NPEC’s work in order to shore-up their own reputations as if all of them are true, blue, long time supporters of public education and opportunity. I think there is abundant evidence that some have a long track record of giving deep-pocket support to policies designed to undermine public schools.
I must also confess to some concern about what amounts to a “national contest” for schools to win a gold or a silver award—even if the criteria are clear and sensible, and the reviewers are carefully chosen. Putting schools into league tables seems to be deeply embedded in the culture.
Thanks for this digging, Laura. Helps explain the whiff of public school bashing I smelt.
That’s plain silly. Kevin Welner and NEPC are staunch allies of public schools.
I am sometimes frustrated by readers who won’t take “yes” for an answer. You are right to be wary of the billionaires and plutocrats who are trying to privatize public education. But don’t tarnish our friends because they don’t meet a standard of purity. The National Education Policy Center is our ally. It was sometimes said of the left during the 1930s that they split into factions with such ferocity that they forgot the common enemy. Factionalism dooms dissenters.
Evidence from Monty Python: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS-0Az7dgRY
Point taken. Boy, I wish our sporting events still offered badger spleens and otter noses.
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good
I think that the Partnership for the Future of Learning may have been willing to finance the Schools of Opportunity video for several reasons. In addition to having such deep pockets that the cost might be what Bill Gates calls pocket change, some of the philanthropies in this Partnership that are least friendly to public schools and NEPC’s criteria for selection as a School of Opportunityin may have hoped to pick up some reputational shine by association with NEPC. In any case, I fully support the important work of NEPC in shining a light on research reports from belief tanks that are not credible as research, and this effort to demonstrate that wonderful schools do not need to be test-centric or in other ways match the image of “tomorrow’s learning” presented by PFL.
Carol Burris, executive director of NPE, was deeply involved in the Schools of Opportunity project and there is no one more committed to equity and public schools than Carol