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OCTOBER 15, 2002

CONTACT:
Sara Appleyard
202-667-0901
Soterios Zoulas
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ANNENBERG-SPONSORED POLL SHOWS URBAN RESIDENTS CONCERNED THEIR CHILDREN WILL BE LEFT BEHIND
Task Force Unveils Plan For Fundamental Change In City School Districts

Summary of Findings

OCTOBER 15, 2002, WASHINGTON, D.C. --Americans closest to the scene of urban schools--those who live in urban communities--are broadly supportive of the No Child Left Behind education law, but are deeply concerned about the effect of various provisions of the law on struggling urban communities and their schools.

A poll released today by the Annenberg Institute's Task Force on the Future of Urban Districts* confirms that most urban Americans (74%) support the central provisions of the law-greater accountability for student achievement-but also prefer district-by-district, system-wide approaches to addressing the needs of failing schools (71% overall; 82% of minorities) over the more common school-by-school improvement efforts.

The poll found, for example, that most Americans in urban communities (again 71% overall and 82% of minorities) believe that the standardized test scores that are central to No Child Left Behind usually arrive too late to help individual children or schools that are struggling. Additionally, seventy-four percent of respondents voiced their concern that a provision of the law allowing students from under-performing schools to transfer to higher-performing schools will end up harming the struggling urban schools from which students transfer.

To address these issues, Americans in urban communities overwhelmingly (89% overall) want to make changes to school districts to ensure that every school receives the specific resources and supports it needs to offer all students a quality education. Additionally, large majorities also support giving the community a larger role in reforming urban schools (83%) and greater responsibility for what happens to students in their city (83%).

"These findings inject a strong dose of realism into the current debate on urban education policy," said Warren Simmons, executive director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. "School quality varies widely but predictably in urban school districts and it is poor and minority students who usually lose out in this immoral lottery. If leaving no child behind means identifying and addressing the needs of low-performing schools, we must also provide the supports that districts need to create systemic solutions for these schools."

Backed by the findings of the poll, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform's National Task Force on the Future of Urban Districts released today a Portfolio for District Redesign that offers practical tools and resources for school district reform. A Core Group of eighteen influential leaders from education, civic, business, and nonprofit communities, calls for all school districts and communities to redesign their supports for education and marshal local resources to fulfill the functions of a "smart district."

"Urban school districts have a pivotal role to play in helping to raise the sights and lift the achievement of our students," said Don McAdams, president of the Center for Reform of the School System and former Houston school board member. "Districts are best positioned to address issues of both equity and scale, yet for the most part they are ineffective because they do not focus on their core mission: education."

Student learning must be the cornerstone of all the functions of a smart district, not only teaching and curriculum, but also policy, governance and operations. "The challenge of education in New York City and America's urban communities is providing different supports for different student needs, while maintaining common high expectations and standards. The teaching and learning priorities must be fixed, but the resources and strategies flexible," said Diana Lam, Task Force member and Deputy Chancellor for Teaching and Learning in New York City. The New York City Department of Education is one of several districts and networks the Task Force will partner with to improve supports for school-level teaching and learning.

Like the Americans polled, the Task Force recognizes that the No Child Left Behind law presents an urgent need for reform at scale. As many as half the schools in large urban school districts are at risk of being labeled low-performing by a provision in No Child Left Behind. The Task Force calls for communities to build an infrastructure to sustain and support equity and push for results. This smart district will involve a much wider spectrum of community members, organizations, and agencies than is typically the case now.

Gregory Hodge, a school board member in Oakland, California and leader of California Tomorrow noted, "It may seem strange to adopt this broader focus because parents send their children to schools not school systems. But, it will take the efforts of whole cities -- school districts, parents, businesses, community-based organizations, city agencies, churches, among others -- to build the structure for all schools to be successful. Anything less, leaves some schools -- and thus many children -- behind."

Given the differences in resources and needs between individual schools within a district, the school district has a critical role to play in ensuring equity. The Task Force advocates more comprehensive human resource practices and implementation of student-based budgeting to distribute resources fairly among students and between schools. Student-based budgeting addresses the inequity and the lack of flexibility inherent in traditional district funding formulas by allocating dollars to schools on the basis of both the number of students enrolled, and weights assigned to various categories of students with diverse needs.

"History, convention, and convenience have driven the outmoded structures and ineffective operations of today's school districts," said Marla Ucelli, Director of District Redesign at the Annenberg Institute. "The Task Force believes that good schools at scale are possible only when the needs of children, educators and schools drive the system. These recommendations help educators and community leaders create smart districts."

The Task Force is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ford Foundation, and the Annenberg Foundation.

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* A nationally representative telephone study was conducted among 504 American adults 18 years of age or older who live in urban communities or school districts, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Educational Statistics, US Department of Education. The poll was conducted by Global Strategy Group for the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. The margin of error for the study is +/- 4.4% at the 95th percent confidence interval level.

In the spring of 2000, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University convened School Communities that Work: ANational Task Force on the Future of Urban Districts. Consistent with the Institute's mission to improve the conditions and outcomes of schooling, especially in urban communities and schools serving disadvantaged students, the ultimate goal of the Task Force's work is to improve student performance overall and decrease gaps in achievement.