Nelson Mandela: An Inspiration for Reformers of Urban Education?

To challenge my thinking about leadership, I've recently started reading the autobiographies of game-changing leaders. Most recently, I read Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela.

What I found most inspiring about Mandela was his refusal to allow incremental gains to distract from the larger goals of his movement. During his days as a young adult, Mandela's race limited his access to all aspects of South African society. Yet, he saw that the current structures simply created infighting. Because no one ever considered it a possibility that all people would be treated equally, Black Africans ended up fighting each other for the "best possible" outcomes. Those people of color that were "winning" - achieving the best outcomes they thought possible - were, therefore, not easily convinced that revolution was necessary.

While the apartheid struggle in South Africa seems distant, I found myself using this framework to explore the reform movement in America's urban schools. We often talk about high-performing urban schools, and our reform movement has certainly created winners and losers. Many of the well-respected charter school organizations make people feel that they are winning - that the best possible outcome is being achieved. This, Mandela helped me see, allows us to take our eyes off the real prize. We have a long journey ahead of us to achieve some important goals, such as the following:

• Every child should be able to receive a high quality education - in his or her own neighborhood - that provides them with the skills and talents necessary to contribute to the workforce in whatever way he or she chooses.
• Academic achievement and life outcomes should not be determined by the neighborhood or city of one's birth.
• Basic reading and math skills should be used to teach more important higher order skills that will allow individuals to remain flexible in a changing economy. They should not, in themselves, be considered goals.

I finished the book thinking that Mandela would be disappointed in our reform efforts to this point. We continue to create systems that produce unequal outcomes. More disturbing, creating these spurious dichotomies in urban systems - creating winners and losers - allows some to forget that unity is needed to create improvement for all our children.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Founder and President - Reach, Inc.

What Does a Budget Really Mean?

For a variety of reasons, I'm currently in the midst of revising and reformatting Reach, Inc.'s budget. For me, this process brought up two important questions:

• Why do we treat budgets like rule books when they are really planning documents?
• Why do we think so negatively about any money not spent on programs?

With regard to the first question, it seems that it's a huge mistake to approach budgeting from a knowledge perspective rather than a learning perspective. While we hope the numbers in the budget are educated guesses, they are nonetheless guesses. Nonprofit organizations are expected to use their resources to pursue their mission. It is not possible, at all times, to know exactly what resources will be necessary. Budgets, and later records of actual spending, provide administrators and Boards with the ability to examine whether resources are being used efficiently toward the mission. However, it seems that many organizations fail to look at costs and spending as information from which new knowledge can be drawn. In creating this new budget, I hope that it will begin a conversation with our Board about priorities and choices, but I do not expect to be able to provide accurate predictions of exactly what will be spent in each area.

Moving to the second question, it's interesting to see how quickly the questions that funders ask force us to think differently about what's important. Start up organizations, like Reach, are often expected to have higher administrative costs than other nonprofits, due to the investments necessary for building infrastructure. However, it is often stressed that administrative and fundraising costs should be minimized. While this sounds good, it often leads to interesting choices being made. Is it really better to spend $1,000 on a party for program participants (program expense) than to spend that same money on donor management software (fundraising) or training around effective nonprofit management (administrative)? Often, when funders ask about the percentage of funding spent on programs, they are forcing organizations to make short-sighted decisions.

Back to the numbers.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Reach, Inc. welcomes Mike Young!

Today's Press Release:

March 22, 2010

Today Reach, Inc. announces that Mike Young is joining the organization as its newest Director. Young brings extensive experience in program management and nonprofit administration.

In March 2008, Mr. Young left Hope and a Home, a local nonprofit that empowers low-income families with children to create stable homes, after 25 years as a Program Manager and Executive Director. During Young’s years as the organization’s leader, “Hope and a Home became an independent nonprofit organization with a firm financial foundation; established an office in the R Street neighborhood where we work with residents of subsidized housing; hired a Community Organizer and a Development Director; expanded programming capacity; developed our first strategic plan and completed our first financial audit” (Commonwealth of Virginia Campaign Profile).

A married father of two teenage sons, Young is actively involved in the DC community. Among other volunteer activities, he regularly provides literacy support to first grade students at King Elementary School in DC’s Congress Heights neighborhood. His commitment and experience will help guide Reach, Inc.’s development and future growth.

A new DC-based nonprofit organization, Reach, Inc. will improve reading skills, across ages, by hiring and training struggling adolescent readers to tutor in District of Columbia elementary schools. Through this innovative model, Reach, Inc. will teach necessary work skills facilitate literacy instruction in a stigma-free environment, and provide a needed service in a resource efficient manner.

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Please join me in welcoming Mike!

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Improvement vs. Mastery

As you all know, Reach's program model consists of three components: training, tutoring, and compensation. Currently, I'm working on the creation of our compensation system. In this exercise, it has helped to revisit the different evaluation systems I have encountered in my professional career, both in social work and in education. 

In social work, progress is often measured by looking at improvement (though some would argue we rarely measure anything effectively). For example, if presented with an acutely depressed client, a clinician would consider it a moderate success if the client began attending treatment, trusting the clinician, and voicing a desire to feel better. In education, imagine a student who was functionally illiterate and often truant. If this student began attending school regularly, asked a teacher for help, and began voicing a desire to learn, all our official measures (grades and standardized tests) would still consider this student a failure.

For this reason, I think so many of our current "motivational programs" miss the mark. If a student has a chronic truancy problem, is it realistic to offer a reward for perfect attendance?Or, if a student has experienced long-term academic failure, does it make sense to offer a reward for each A earned? I would argue no.

As we develop our system, we have to look at each metric we value (attendance, punctuality, grades, standardized test scores, and work performance), then we must consider how to best encourage improvement. As we know from Vygotsky, pushing for mastery may not be realistic or motivational. Let's use attendance as an example. We have three options. Students could start at the highest compensation figure, then be fined for each absence. Students could start with a base level of pay and receive a sizable bonus for perfect attendance. Or, students could start with a base level of pay and receive a small bonus each day they attend school. We choose the third option.

Similarly, we can provide bonuses for improvement in GPA when compared to the previous semester. Or, we can provide bonuses for percentile improvements on standardized tests when compared to the previous year. It is through rewarding improvement, not mastery, that we will be able to motivate students that have significant academic skill gaps.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

PS - The previously mentioned announcement has been postponed until Monday. My apologies.

Quick Hits

#1) Save the dates:

Wednesday, June 2nd, Solly's Tavern, Trivia Night for Charity:

Come drink beer, answer questions, and raise money for Reach!

Wednesday, September 29th, Co Co. Sala, Reach, Inc.'s Launch Party.

Come enjoy delicious drinks for discounted prices while celebrating the launch of Reach's pilot program. (* date is tentative and subject to change *)

#2) This week, Unum joins The ACE Group in supporting our work through matching the contributions made by their employees.

#3) We hope to share another exciting announcement on Thursday, March 18th. Stay tuned...

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Reframing the Discussion

Yesterday, I had a great discussion with Mary Beth Fresh, the Director of Strategic Alliances at First Book. First Book has had great success in cause-related marketing campaigns. Through these campaigns, they create revenue, increase name recognition, and drive website traffic through corporate partnerships. While many of First Book's relationship are national in scale (Cheerios, Target, etc.), Mary Beth helped me to think about how Reach can begin cultivating relationships with local businesses. For-profit businesses are ultimately most interested in making money, not doing good, so nonprofits must learn to approach businesses with profit in mind. That means we must ask some key questions:

• What businesses would benefit from having access to our students?
• What businesses would benefit from looking good to our donor base?
• Do we share an interest with any business in targeting a specific group?

This meeting really helped me in my thinking about a specific project. Recently, I've been thinking about ways in which I can cultivate relationships with the law firms and lawyers that play such a role in Washington DC. So, who else wants to target young lawyers? Additionally, how could we position ourselves - or what could we offer - so that the firms would be interested in providing support? I have some ideas, and I'm ready to start planning. So...

If you're a young DC lawyer, and you're interested in offering some assistance in planning an event this summer, please send me an e-mail: mark(at)reachincorporated(dot)org.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Is the best good enough?

In a recent article, Jay Mathews described MATCH Charter Public High School as "one of the nation's most successful inner-city charters." Having spent last year in Boston, I got to learn a little bit about MATCH. While they have done impressive work creating academic gains with a challenging population, the school's success is not unqualified. Specifically, a significant number of MATCH students drop out each year. Due, in part, to the fact that MATCH regularly retains students who are not on grade-level, students leave to pursue their education elsewhere. Those that remain at MATCH do relatively well, but what about the students that leave? 

(Note: Mr. Mathews' article is about their teacher residency program - only tangentially related to my writing today)

I wrote to Mr. Mathews about this issue, and he brought up an interesting point: "When I say it is one of the best charters in the country for inner city kids, indeed one of the best high schools in the country for inner city kids, I am comparing it to the schools we have, not the ones we wish we had. Big dropout rates are a problem for everyone in those communities. I don't think anyone, including the best charters, have solved that. Okay, they are in the same league with a lot of other schools on that one measure, but in terms of raising the achievement of  and challenging kids they can persuade to stay, they are way ahead."

Mr. Mathews is right; however, I still think the conversation is being oversimplified. Should we praise programs that are the best available? Even if we know they're not good enough? By simply praising MATCH without outlining the known significant limitations, don't we avoid a true conversation about educational solutions?

Currently, many of the organizations being praised as panaceas work effectively for a certain type of student - those with some stability, motivation, and involved parents. By simply applauding their efforts, we ignore the fact that we continue to fall short in addressing the needs of so many of our students. MATCH does great work, but, depending on what you read, they lose as much as 50% of their freshman class before graduation. While their academic gains may be the best out there, is that acceptable? 

Mr. Mathews was open to the feedback, and he expressed an interest in continuing the conversation as we both learn more about promising programs being implemented across the country (I suggested he explore Big Picture Schools). In the end, I find it extremely important that we recognize that A solution for SOME kids is not THE solution for ALL kids. While any failing system provides "best" alternatives, we have a long way to go before the best is good enough.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

The Power of We

During a conversation with a Reach supporter recently, I heard someone say, "it really feels like we're making some progress." Then, looking at me sheepishly, he went on, "I guess I shouldn't be saying we. You're the one doing the work." At that point, I happily told him that I thought he was entirely incorrect. At this moment, I am Reach's only employee; however, I often use the term "we" when talking about the work. While many people have questioned me about this word choice, I continue to believe that our 250 donors, 4 Board members, and countless partners are all part of Reach as well.

The true buy in of Reach supporters has helped us immensely in two ways recently. Tomorrow, I will work with accountant Linda Collyer to set up a more appropriate system for financial record keeping. Linda is working with us free of charge because someone told her they truly believe in Reach. Additionally, we will have an introductory meeting with Akin Gump next week. Akin has agreed to act as legal advisors to Reach. Again, this was based on a Reach supporter approaching a partner to say he really believed in our work.

So many people want to help, but they often feel like they don't know who to help. That's why your words matter. Many people want to give - both financially and through service. Your words can convince them that Reach could use both their dollars and their skills effectively and efficiently.

Thanks, as always, for reading.
Mark

Reach, Inc. welcomes Karin Johanson!

Today's Press Release:

March 1, 2010

Today Reach, Inc. announces that Karin Johanson is joining the organization as the newest member of our Board of Directors. Johanson brings with her a wealth of experience building organizations within the world of electoral politics.

Currently, Ms. Johanson is a principal at Dewey Square Group in its grassroots and government relations practices. Prior to joining Dewey Square, Johanson made her mark in a variety of settings. She previously served as Chief of Staff for Steny Hoyer (D – MD), Political Director for EMILY’s List, and Executive Director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

A graduate of American University and a DC resident, Johanson will contribute her extensive experience in organization building and network development. Ms. Johanson has earned high marks at all her previous stops, including at the DCCC where then colleague Rahm Emmanuel said, “I give her six things to do and she does seven.” Her keen mind and attention to detail will contribute greatly to Reach, Inc.’s future growth.

A new DC-based nonprofit organization, Reach, Inc. will improve reading skills, across ages, by hiring and training struggling adolescent readers to tutor in District of Columbia Elementary Schools. Through this innovative model, Reach, Inc. will teach necessary work skills, facilitate literacy instruction in a stigma-free environment, and provide a needed service in a resource efficient manner.

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Please join me in welcoming Karin! 

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark