January 6, 2010
Urban School Reform:
Thinking and Looking Outside the Box
Hugh Price
Visiting Professor, Woodrow Wilson School
Minutes of the 14th Meeting of the 68th Year
President George Hansen called the meeting to order at 10:15AM.
The invocation was led by Don Edwards.
The minutes of the 13th meeting of the 68th year held December 16th, 2009, were read by Bruce LeBar (who revealed himself a highly knowledgeable critic of music, to the surprise of some and the delight of all).
The guests were introduced by their hosts:
Vera Dowd introduced by Julia Coale
Donald Dowd introduced by Julia Coale
Joseph Stonaker introduced by Julia Coale
Ann Walker introduced by Bill Walker
George Bradley introduced by Bill Walker
Deb Bradley introduced by Bill Walker
Silvana Clark introduced by Charles Clark
Wardell Robinson Moore introduced by Ev Pinneo
Carol Christofferson introduced by Ev Pinneo
Jack Reilly stated that ballots for the five candidates for membership would be distributed in two weeks and that voting on their candidacy would take place during the last meeting in January.
Lanny Jones indicated that next week’s speaker, Nicholas Dawidoff, has changed the title of his talk to “Life After Moe Berg” and went on to display two books by Mr. Dawidoff that are for sale to members seeking advance understanding of the subjects he will address. The books, purportedly being offered at a special POG rate, are $15.00 each, Mr. Jones emphasized.
Ruth Miller introduced today’s speaker, Hugh Price, rippling through a lengthy array of noble positions that might lure the unwary into believing the man couldn’t hold a job. Since I don’t want to burn precious air time rehearsing his lengthy credentials, you can access these minutes on the Old Guard website where I have placed a link to the story of his appointment at the University which fully extols his personal history. Editor's note: The link no longer exists; see below for summary.
Mr. Price began his talk by confirming his peripatetic professional career path and went on to reveal a certain geographical dyslexia as well, having elected to teach at Columbia while residing in New Haven and teach at Yale while residing in New York City, capped by conducting his current teaching post at Princeton while residing in New Rochelle. Presumably we can anticipate his seeking subsequent employment in New Rochelle after finishing his five-year professorship at Woodrow Wilson and buying a home here in town.
Mr. Price had titled his talk “Urban School Reform: Thinking and Looking Outside the Box” and proceeded to disclaim expertise as an educator but profess passion for the processes and results of education, especially education of urban youth, and point to a long history of advocacy for them.
He began by reminding us of the national significance of students: they represent America’s future well-being and global competitiveness. Increasingly, he noted, the U.S.economy relies on Latinos and African Americans, whose representation in public schools has skyrocketed from 22% thirty years ago to some 42% today. However, their performance is lagging well behind non-minority students. Drop-out rates are stupefying, running in excess of 50% at many urban high schools.
While there is a surge in funding to address public school reform, the competition for these funds is ferocious and, in any event, they are not equal to the magnitude of the challenge.
Consequently, Mr. Price looks outside the box of traditional public education for factors that affect student performance and for models that might be adapted and adopted for use with students unable to thrive in public schools.
External factors that depress performance include the health of the student and other family members, the quality and amount of family support for achievement, family patterns of TV watching, and parental role-modeling. He recounted his daughter’s having taken note as an infant of her parents’ reading to her every evening, realizing later that the very fact of their reading to her, rather than any comprehension of content, set a value on the act which has served her well. [I might note that in a seminal study of women’s achievement done by two Harvard professors some twenty years ago, the single most consistent factor in the lives of successful women was having been read to by their fathers when young.]
But unfortunately the urban scene has changed from the days when, as Dr. James Comer of Yale described it, the village truly did raise every child in its bounds. Today many urban parents are single young women, children themselves. Others do not have the skills, the personal history, or even the energy (as many work multiple jobs) that would enable them to model this behavior. Furthermore, he found only limited hope in other external factors such as the emphasis on assessment promoted by “No Child Left Behind” [which title, by the way, was swiped from The Children’s Defense Fund whose motto it has been for over 25 years]. And while programs that look at “the whole child” such as Jeffrey Canada’s academies have produced stunning successes, they seem not to be scalable to a national level
This prompted Mr. Price to look even farther outside the box, studying other venues where the transformation of struggling youth seemed to be succeeding. He noted that many youths whom schools and community considered losers or even incorrigible found their way into military service where, after undergoing training there, emerged as stable and productive members of their team and, upon discharge, their communities. This set him on a quest to understand what was going on there, in hopes that some processes responsible for this transformation might be employed in special initiatives and eventually throughout public education more broadly.
He struck it rich in his first discussion with the leader of the National Guard who said simply, “We are youth workers. Currently we train them to fight wars. But there is no reason that we couldn’t train them to do other things, as well. Training is what we do well.” This led to the formation of the “National Guard Youth Challenge Program”, a six-month residential educational regimen that employs those attributes the military is famous for: belonging, teamwork, motivation, self-discipline, structure, routine, accountability and consequences, safety and security, mentoring and monitoring, curriculum and instruction, and the all-important phenomenon of being valued, and having your value reaffirmed repeatedly. It provides for many participants the first-ever experience of these attributes and is tantamount to membership in a good gang. The program is now active in many states.
Beyond the adaptation and adoption of successful military training techniques in both this program and eventually in many public schools, Mr. Price sees the need for communities to address themselves to the known factors associated with success for young people: tapping into motivation at the point of their naturally occurring interest, providing genuine and repeated reinforcements of their value as persons, and conducting rituals of recognition that can serve as antidotes to the undertow of negative expectations and self-perception. He cited the assembling of 6,000 children in a Gary, Indiana, ballpark to set a Guinness record by reading a book aloud together, and the publishing of 350 honor-roll students’ pictures in the paper, and the shameless bribing of kids to read books by giving them bicycles. Whatever the events or the tactics, the goal is clear: Mr. Price urges what he calls “the creation of a gestalt of admiration in the community year-round”, and, he suggested, it might just begin by celebrating kids who work hard with a great big parade.
Respectfully submitted,
Eliot Daley
Hugh Price c.v.
Price was President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Urban League from 1994 until 2003.
During that time, Price restructured its board of directors, developed a new mission for the League and established its research and policy center.
Following his work at the National Urban League, Price was Senior Advisor of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary US LLP from 2003 to 2005 and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow of the Economic Studies Program at The Brookings Institution from 2006 to 2008. He accepted his current position at Princeton University in 2008.
Prior to joining the National Urban League, Price held a variety of positions in journalism, law and public interest organizations, including serving on the Editorial Board of The New York Times.Price brings to the Board, among other skills and qualifications, a wide range of experience in leadership positions in both the private and non-profit sectors. As a result of his experience at the National Urban League and The Brookings Institution, Price is able to advise the Board and senior management on economic, government and public interest issues. His extensive management and leadership experience enables him to provide insights on corporate governance matters. He also has expertise in strategic planning, operations management and business services, which are critical issues for Verizon.
Price has served as a Director of Verizon since 1997 and was a Director of NYNEX Corporation from 1995 to 1997. He is a member of the Corporate Governance and Policy Committee.
Price is also a director of MetLife, Inc. (since 1999) and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (since 1994)
The invocation was led by Don Edwards.
The minutes of the 13th meeting of the 68th year held December 16th, 2009, were read by Bruce LeBar (who revealed himself a highly knowledgeable critic of music, to the surprise of some and the delight of all).
The guests were introduced by their hosts:
Vera Dowd introduced by Julia Coale
Donald Dowd introduced by Julia Coale
Joseph Stonaker introduced by Julia Coale
Ann Walker introduced by Bill Walker
George Bradley introduced by Bill Walker
Deb Bradley introduced by Bill Walker
Silvana Clark introduced by Charles Clark
Wardell Robinson Moore introduced by Ev Pinneo
Carol Christofferson introduced by Ev Pinneo
Jack Reilly stated that ballots for the five candidates for membership would be distributed in two weeks and that voting on their candidacy would take place during the last meeting in January.
Lanny Jones indicated that next week’s speaker, Nicholas Dawidoff, has changed the title of his talk to “Life After Moe Berg” and went on to display two books by Mr. Dawidoff that are for sale to members seeking advance understanding of the subjects he will address. The books, purportedly being offered at a special POG rate, are $15.00 each, Mr. Jones emphasized.
Ruth Miller introduced today’s speaker, Hugh Price, rippling through a lengthy array of noble positions that might lure the unwary into believing the man couldn’t hold a job. Since I don’t want to burn precious air time rehearsing his lengthy credentials, you can access these minutes on the Old Guard website where I have placed a link to the story of his appointment at the University which fully extols his personal history. Editor's note: The link no longer exists; see below for summary.
Mr. Price began his talk by confirming his peripatetic professional career path and went on to reveal a certain geographical dyslexia as well, having elected to teach at Columbia while residing in New Haven and teach at Yale while residing in New York City, capped by conducting his current teaching post at Princeton while residing in New Rochelle. Presumably we can anticipate his seeking subsequent employment in New Rochelle after finishing his five-year professorship at Woodrow Wilson and buying a home here in town.
Mr. Price had titled his talk “Urban School Reform: Thinking and Looking Outside the Box” and proceeded to disclaim expertise as an educator but profess passion for the processes and results of education, especially education of urban youth, and point to a long history of advocacy for them.
He began by reminding us of the national significance of students: they represent America’s future well-being and global competitiveness. Increasingly, he noted, the U.S.economy relies on Latinos and African Americans, whose representation in public schools has skyrocketed from 22% thirty years ago to some 42% today. However, their performance is lagging well behind non-minority students. Drop-out rates are stupefying, running in excess of 50% at many urban high schools.
While there is a surge in funding to address public school reform, the competition for these funds is ferocious and, in any event, they are not equal to the magnitude of the challenge.
Consequently, Mr. Price looks outside the box of traditional public education for factors that affect student performance and for models that might be adapted and adopted for use with students unable to thrive in public schools.
External factors that depress performance include the health of the student and other family members, the quality and amount of family support for achievement, family patterns of TV watching, and parental role-modeling. He recounted his daughter’s having taken note as an infant of her parents’ reading to her every evening, realizing later that the very fact of their reading to her, rather than any comprehension of content, set a value on the act which has served her well. [I might note that in a seminal study of women’s achievement done by two Harvard professors some twenty years ago, the single most consistent factor in the lives of successful women was having been read to by their fathers when young.]
But unfortunately the urban scene has changed from the days when, as Dr. James Comer of Yale described it, the village truly did raise every child in its bounds. Today many urban parents are single young women, children themselves. Others do not have the skills, the personal history, or even the energy (as many work multiple jobs) that would enable them to model this behavior. Furthermore, he found only limited hope in other external factors such as the emphasis on assessment promoted by “No Child Left Behind” [which title, by the way, was swiped from The Children’s Defense Fund whose motto it has been for over 25 years]. And while programs that look at “the whole child” such as Jeffrey Canada’s academies have produced stunning successes, they seem not to be scalable to a national level
This prompted Mr. Price to look even farther outside the box, studying other venues where the transformation of struggling youth seemed to be succeeding. He noted that many youths whom schools and community considered losers or even incorrigible found their way into military service where, after undergoing training there, emerged as stable and productive members of their team and, upon discharge, their communities. This set him on a quest to understand what was going on there, in hopes that some processes responsible for this transformation might be employed in special initiatives and eventually throughout public education more broadly.
He struck it rich in his first discussion with the leader of the National Guard who said simply, “We are youth workers. Currently we train them to fight wars. But there is no reason that we couldn’t train them to do other things, as well. Training is what we do well.” This led to the formation of the “National Guard Youth Challenge Program”, a six-month residential educational regimen that employs those attributes the military is famous for: belonging, teamwork, motivation, self-discipline, structure, routine, accountability and consequences, safety and security, mentoring and monitoring, curriculum and instruction, and the all-important phenomenon of being valued, and having your value reaffirmed repeatedly. It provides for many participants the first-ever experience of these attributes and is tantamount to membership in a good gang. The program is now active in many states.
Beyond the adaptation and adoption of successful military training techniques in both this program and eventually in many public schools, Mr. Price sees the need for communities to address themselves to the known factors associated with success for young people: tapping into motivation at the point of their naturally occurring interest, providing genuine and repeated reinforcements of their value as persons, and conducting rituals of recognition that can serve as antidotes to the undertow of negative expectations and self-perception. He cited the assembling of 6,000 children in a Gary, Indiana, ballpark to set a Guinness record by reading a book aloud together, and the publishing of 350 honor-roll students’ pictures in the paper, and the shameless bribing of kids to read books by giving them bicycles. Whatever the events or the tactics, the goal is clear: Mr. Price urges what he calls “the creation of a gestalt of admiration in the community year-round”, and, he suggested, it might just begin by celebrating kids who work hard with a great big parade.
Respectfully submitted,
Eliot Daley
Hugh Price c.v.
Price was President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Urban League from 1994 until 2003.
During that time, Price restructured its board of directors, developed a new mission for the League and established its research and policy center.
Following his work at the National Urban League, Price was Senior Advisor of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary US LLP from 2003 to 2005 and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow of the Economic Studies Program at The Brookings Institution from 2006 to 2008. He accepted his current position at Princeton University in 2008.
Prior to joining the National Urban League, Price held a variety of positions in journalism, law and public interest organizations, including serving on the Editorial Board of The New York Times.Price brings to the Board, among other skills and qualifications, a wide range of experience in leadership positions in both the private and non-profit sectors. As a result of his experience at the National Urban League and The Brookings Institution, Price is able to advise the Board and senior management on economic, government and public interest issues. His extensive management and leadership experience enables him to provide insights on corporate governance matters. He also has expertise in strategic planning, operations management and business services, which are critical issues for Verizon.
Price has served as a Director of Verizon since 1997 and was a Director of NYNEX Corporation from 1995 to 1997. He is a member of the Corporate Governance and Policy Committee.
Price is also a director of MetLife, Inc. (since 1999) and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (since 1994)