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Education foundations
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Foundations create hands-on activities and curricula that are engaging,
affordable, and easy-to-use. Often education foundations approach
these goals with activities such as professional development workshops
and resources.
The following is an example of what education foundations can make
possible:
Despite the unfortunate school districts nearby that had been,
at that time taken over by the state and have yet to regain control—
the Paterson, Jersey City, and Newark districts, Union City School
District flourished because of education foundations. Fourteen years
after the takeover threat, the schools in Union City are models
for educational reform.
One of the greatest things about education foundations is that
children are allowed to learn at their own pace.
Due to education foundations, test scores have risen and are now
the highest of all the schools New Jersey cities. From the ghastly
thirty percent of before, eighty percent of the children in the
Union City School District currently meet state standards. Attendance
has increased, dropout rates have decreased. But best of all, other
students have been fighting to transfer into Union City schools
for this type of education themselves.
Eighth-grade test scores jumped from 33 to 83 percent in reading,
from 42 to 65 percent in writing, and from 50 to 84 percent in mathematics
in a seven year period over seven years—all because of education
foundations. The college-bound number of students have increased,
and the Union City graduates accepted to attend schools like Yale
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology jumped from 8 in 1997
to 73 in 2001.
Literacy was the top priority in the education foundations in Union
City's reform plan.
Educators increased their efforts: focused on leadership, used a
comprehensive, research-based overhaul of the system, technology,
teacher and community input, site-based decision-making, and more,
carefully budgeted money explain the education foundations—and
the ability to materialize what was once just a dream into this
impressive turnaround.
Among other things, in this education foundation the district made
the decision in 1992 to put a couple of computers in every classroom.
This was around the same time that Bell Atlantic decided, in a program
called Project Explore, to wire and donate computers to all the
teachers and students at Union City's Christopher Columbus Middle
School, and was essential to the education foundations and the progress
of the district. The results were so amazing that district officials
came together and made the decision to budget much of the new money
coming to the district (which, by the way, came as the result of
a school equal-financing court ruling) on computers, connections,
and classroom software. The Union City School District now has one
computer for every three students and all of its classrooms are
wired for Internet access.
Let me be clear on this point, though. Through education foundations,
the majority of the credit for transforming Union City schools must
go to the teachers of the Union City School District. The results
of this education foundations was made possible once these instructors
finally got a say in how to educate the children. Teachers are typically
"handcuffed” to a curriculum—they do not have the
opportunity to be the professionals they have been trained to be.
This education foundation system, at last, made it possible to make
enormous changes, and let the methods be guided by the individuals
closest to the students—the teachers themselves.
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