Time to define Wilmington’s education possibilities

“In case you missed it, here’s a good piece written by Tony Allen on his work to lead a group working to improve Wilmington’s schools. I’m hoping that in the new year all the attention that’s now being focused on the city’s schools leads to some important and fundamental policy shifts that improve the lives of our children for years to come.”

– Paul Herdman, President and CEO, Rodel Foundation of Delaware

Today, I write with great care. Like many, my ability to opine on the promise of Wilmington and its challenges is well documented. However, in my lifetime, changing Wilmington has not been easy. In key areas of neighborhood redevelopment, violence prevention, promoting healthy lifestyles and true educational reform, the impact of any initiative never seems to be enough, never spreads itself across the full spectrum of our citizenry and never sustains itself from generation to generation.

The clearest example of this is the access to quality education for all Wilmington children. After 40 years of reforms, thousands of Wilmington children, most of them poor, black or Latino, still do not have access to quality public schools. Judged on most outcomes – truancy, graduation rates, unemployment, college attendance, socio-emotional well-being, drug use, homelessness, arrests and test scores – these children have become data points for a system of failure. And despite how often we blame each other – politicians, parents, educational advocates, community and business leaders, unions, educational administrators, teachers – we are all responsible.

In 1974, the prevailing interpretation of Brown in Delaware was that physical proximity in the interest of access and excellence was paramount. In other words, there were both academic and moral advantages to creating racially diverse schools. A noble goal to be sure, but hollow without recognizing that exceptional learning requires more than a working knowledge of who was in your homeroom. That system persisted for 25 years with a distinct disadvantage to those city kids who spent three years in a neighborhood school and nine years somewhere between I-95, Kirkwood Highway, New Castle Avenue and 202. In that time, charter, choice and an evolved Vocational school system emerged and allowed for new, but limited educational options.

Ultimately, in 2000, when the Neighborhood Schools Act knocked down the idea that simple integration was more important than exceptional learning, a series of working groups documented the challenges facing Wilmington public education and offered recommendations ranging from district reorganization to changes in school funding. With few exceptions, none of these recommendations were acted upon.

Today’s reality is even more challenging.

Wilmington students are now served by four traditional school districts, one Vo-Tech district, and 12 charter schools. Each represents a separate governing authority. Four more charters are authorized to start 2015. At that time, responsibility for educating 10,000 Wilmington students will be divided among 21 governing units. The districts and charters typically compete for students and public dollars, rarely collaborate on programs and practices, and operate without any agreed-upon vision for Wilmington children.

In that context, the governor and Secretary of Education have already challenged two districts to accept plans to transform six low-performing, urban schools. The ACLU has filed with the U.S. Office of Civil Rights claiming that the State’s charter law has re-segregated Wilmington schools. The mayor of Wilmington has filed suit against the State to hold open a charter school deemed to be failing its students. And in the not-so-distant background, Wilmington has attracted unwanted national attention for its level of violent crime, much of which can be attributed to former students the system was never ready for and ultimately failed.

In September, Gov. Markell formed the Wilmington Educational Advisory Committee. The committee’s mandate is to recommend how best to strengthen educational opportunities for all Wilmington students. The committee includes a diverse array of educators, parents, advocates and community activists and much of our time together has been spent trying to build on the work of earlier commissions, all of whom deliberated over the same issues, came up with similar recommendations but never found traction in the way of implementation.

To that end, early next year, we will issue an “Action Agenda,” that incorporates and builds upon proposals of the past 20 years, offering legislative and policy recommendations to the governor to pursue in the upcoming session of the General Assembly and note specifically what we believe to be the structural and programmatic barriers to student success including the impact of race, class and geography. The committee has adopted six principles to guide its analysis.

• A combination of public schools that include traditional district schools, charter schools, and Vo-tech schools will continue to serve Wilmington students.
• All Wilmington schools should receive the human and financial resources needed to support student success.
• There should be agreed measures for student success that apply to all schools.
• Policies and practices for Wilmington schools should promote collaboration, shared learning and a mutual commitment to improvements that serve all students.
• Wilmington schools should be regarded as community assets, governed in some way by the communities they serve.
• Wilmington schools need allies. They need community and business partnerships and active parent engagement to address the complex social and health needs of many of the city’s children.

Central to Delaware’s long-term viability is our only metropolitan city’s ability to educate its citizens and attract others to call Delaware home. In that regard, we need a broad-based, cross-sector coalition to act boldly and without equivocation, right now. Continuing on our current path is not an option.

Dr. Tony Allen is the chairman of the Governor’s Wilmington Educational Advisory Committee, an executive with Bank of America and a Whitney M. Young Awardee for Advancing Racial Equality, the National Urban League’s highest honor. He was educated in Delaware public schools and is long-time Wilmington resident.