mid-90s. One of them was University Heights High School, one I had
written a paper on while at NCREST, which eschewed grades for
"roundtables" comprised of teachers, parents, fellow students and
community members who conducted team reviews of student presentations of
their interdisciplinary, thematic multi-month projects.
That team of teachers, and the other faculty I knew at other such "break
the mold" schools, were so incredibly inspiring that I felt it a great
gift to have been there, then, and see how schools could work when the
faculty were empowered and visionaries led things.
University Heights was stripped of its mission by the NYS Schools
Chancellor, along with most of the other Annenberg schools, in 2001 - I
believe he wanted only "replicable models" and felt, at the time, that
the community resources and unique empowered visions behind UHHS were in
too short supply to be examples. Maybe there is back story I do not know.
I'm writing all this because the Federal Government seems to feel that
such resources exist now - they are catching on to the University
Heights model now, realizing that all the retired teachers and other
"available labor" in communities could be brought in on "learning teams"
and the like to bring more real-world context to education. Check it
out: http://www.nctaf.org
-Bram
http://hvscouts.com
p.s. Making projects like this work is going to require a new cadre of
"project coordinators" with tools to facilitate communication and
planning between schools and communities. The Drupal community just
came up with the perfect, free tool for project management and
coordination: http://openatrium.com - and if any of the schools on this
list would like to try it, my company hosts Drupal and can create free
sandboxes for you to explore it with.
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