Last evening, at a meeting of the Indianapolis Charter Schools Board, those yet-to-be-renamed schools were granted the request.

This unusual move, the first of its kind in the state of Indiana, had strong community support as the schools are seen as important neighborhood anchors. Representatives of ADI Charter Schools, Inc., which will oversee the conversions, spoke to the challenges ahead as well as the promise for reaching more students than it had in recent years. Support for the initiative was so great it caused one founding board member to mention that it was the largest crowd ever for such a meeting.

But while the conversion is indeed new for Indiana, SBC first addressed the topic back in October after two long-standing Philadelphia Catholic high schools were scheduled to close. In that story, Rev. Timothy Scully, the founder of the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education, was quoted from a Time Magazine story. He said that Catholic schools had to re-invent themselves, as St. Andrew and St. Rita did when they merged seven years ago, or they would eventually disappear from America’s inner cities.

“The model upon which we were founded was so different,” he added. “Both from a cost and supply side.”

The charter board elected unanimously to support the Indianapolis conversion, allowing for a reinvestment in communities that would have been burdened by the loss of the schools.

The board also took time before the meeting to present a certificate of appreciation from Mayor Greg Ballard to Jose Rosario for his nine years of service as a founding member of the charter board. Rosario, a professor in the School of Education at IUPUI, has been a friend to Schools Building Communities and we were pleased to snap a quick photo of former Indiana Lt. Gov. John Mutz, the chair of the Mayor’s board, presenting the award.

The intention was not to uncover experiential memories of former students, but to look to measurable analysis of student competencies and draw conclusions about those who, over and over again, dramatically change the trajectory of student understanding and capability.

The story follows D.C. math teacher William Taylor, of whom Ripley writes:

Based on his students’ test scores, Mr. Taylor ranks among the top 5 percent of all D.C. math teachers. He’s entertaining, but he’s not a born performer. He’s well prepared, but he’s been a teacher for only three years. He cares about his kids, but so do a lot of his underperforming peers. What’s he doing differently?

Steven Farr has been studying excellent teachers for years now, through observation and interview. It is his job at Teach For America and, in the story, he breaks down five of the common traits he has witnessed in ’superstar’ teachers. Farr says that those teachers:

1. Set big goals for students and perpetually look for ways to improve their effectiveness
2. Avidly recruit students and parents into the process
3. Maintain focus and ensure every effort contributes to student learning
4. Plan exhaustively and purposely, both short and long term
5. Work relentlessly and refuse to surrender to external forces

“Strong teachers insist that effective teaching is neither mysterious nor magical. It is neither a function of dynamic personality nor dramatic performance,” Farr wrote in Teaching as Leadership.

R. Keith Sawyer, the editor of The Cambridge Handbook of The Learning Sciences, basically agrees with those findings, but has also identified two additional traits that promise success. One is a given, exceptional teachers must have a deep conceptual understanding of their subject, not just a bank of facts. That can lead to the other trait — a propensity for improvisation.

He has written that “the most effective classroom discussion has the free-flowing collaborativeness of an improvisational theater performance.” In that environment, students can co-construct their knowledge by engaging in the inquiry process and productive argument. That does not result from a classroom that is scripted and overly directed by a teacher.

In the end, Ripley writes that it would be best if schools would hire these kind of teachers from the start, but she asks a powerful question, “How do you screen for a relentless mind-set?”

And, we ask, with the skills of a seasoned performer?

My favorite stories are the ones that demonstrate how far the combination of athletics and education can take someone.

Just today provided a perfect example.

In my previous life I was the Associate Director of the Ivy League, which is comprised of eight of the most renown and decorated institutions in the world. Most people can tick off Harvard, Yale and Princeton without reflection. The other five are Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and Penn.

Those schools emphasize athletics. Not that they offer athletic scholarships, but that the have far more sports and many more athletes than your big-time programs, be it Purdue or IU, Florida or USC.

Athletics in the Ivy League are fiercely competitive (just like admissions), but sport is intended as an integrated component of a quality education. Even in the most hallow of halls, people know that lessons learned on a field of competition may very well last longer than those drilled in the classroom.

That’s why I enjoyed telling the story of Samyr Laine today. Five years ago, he was an Ivy League champion triple jumper, but injuries robbed him of an opportunity to defend his title as a senior. But when an opportunity was lost, he found another, packing up his Harvard degree and setting sail for Austin, Texas, with one final year of eligibility… as a Texas Longhorn.

While earning his graduate degree at UT, he made connections with people who saw to it that he represent the nation of Haiti in international competition. Already national class, he kept getting better and better as the triple jump takes about 10 years to master. Samyr now holds the Haitian national record and attends law school at Georgetown University.

But he is taking a break from his studies this week to visit Doha, Qatar, where he will compete in the IAAF World Indoor Track & Field Championships on Friday. The trip is teaching him more and more about what it means to represent Haiti on a world stage as well. Through sport he became an ambassador of the devastated nation where his parents were born.

I put the story online this morning and within an hour a member of the Office of Admissions of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar emailed me because she hopes to “get a contingent of Hoyas from our Qatar campus here to the Aspire Zone to cheer him on this Friday and again (insha’allah) on Sunday evening at the finals!”

Nothing like strangers rallying around a law student a half world away from his childhood home, the sleepy town of Newburgh, N.Y., along the Hudson River.

Yup, those are the stories I love.

2010 Virginia Tech Challenge – Final Jump from Samyr Laine on Vimeo.

“There were those who told me that you can’t defy the data,” King told Duaa Eldeib of the Chicago Tribune last week. “Black boys are killed. Black boys drop out of high school. Black boys go to jail. Black boys don’t go to college. Black boys don’t graduate from college.

“They were wrong,” he added.

And were they ever. Of those 150 students in the first class, which will graduate this spring, 43 didn’t last. Most of those moved or transferred out, but of the 107 who remained? Last week King announced that all 107 have now been accepted to a four-year college or university in the fall. One-hundred percent. Seventy-two different institutions, including the likes of Howard and Morehouse, Northwestern and Rutgers. And the total of scholarship and grant dollars is over $2 million.

Urban Prep, which has been recognized internationally, was the first public charter high school for boys in the United States.

“Life at Urban Prep Academy isn’t easy,” writes Roy Exum of the Chattanoogan. “It is designed not to be. Students take twice the load in English, for example, that other Chicago high schools do. They go to school earlier, get out later, and do more while they are there than any other school in Illinois.”

According to NBC Chicago, Urban Prep is open and available to its students about 2,500 more hours over the course of four years than traditional schools in Chicago.

At there is a special ceremony for those who are accepted to college.

Dressed in their uniform of black blazers and khaki pants, seniors are presented with a special red-and-gold striped ties in exchange for their traditional red one upon acceptance. Mayor Richard M. Daley was on hand last week to address the assembly as the last of the seniors swapped out ties.

“I never had a doubt that we would achieve this goal,” King said. “Every single person we hired knew from the day one that this is what we do — We get our kids into college.”

So when she spoke to students at the Dollars for Scholars Education Day at the Oasis of Hope Church in Martindale-Brightwood on Saturday, her message was one she has learned for herself at Indiana University. “The more you do,” she said, “the more fun you will have.”

It was her poise, community service, grade-point average and talent, that earned her the title of Miss Black & Gold in December, an honor bestowed by the Gamma Eta Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha at IU. She and another Indiana student, Andranise Baxter, who is one of 33 Indianapolis 500 Festival Princesses, were just one of nearly a dozen programs in the well-attended event.

Oasis of Hope, located on 25th Street between Andrew J. Brown and Keystone Avenues, has been hosting this unique event for five years and First Lady Shirley Alexander reports that it gets bigger and better every year.

Among the topics for the breakout sessions were an explanation of the Oasis of Hope Dollars for Scholars Scholarship, discussions of other minority scholarship opportunities, panels about the college-going experience, the dual-credit initiative and much more.

Under the leadership of Pastor Frank Alexander, his wife and the dedicated staff and parishioners, Oasis of Hope, through its countless outreach activities and faith-based initiatives, has been a shining light for the community.

That’s because Sgt. Long, a supervisor for the Indianapolis Police Athletic League, now reports for duty at the organization’s first-ever athletic center… one he and his fellow PAL officers were targeting for the better part of a decade.

J.T.V. Hill Park, on Columbia Avenue between 17th and 19th Streets in Martindale-Brightwood (just blocks from the National Design Factory), had been long underutilized and when the Parks Department was forced to address a budget shortfall, Sgt. Long saw their chance. PAL took a two-year lease on the park, allowing it to establish a home base in addition to its tradition of having officers work at satellite centers and parks, including Martindale-Brightwood locales such as Washington Park, Wheeler-Dowe Boys & Girls Club and Douglas Park.

“This has been tremendous,” said Sgt. Long, who has been busy sprucing up of the facility in recent months as well as adding public computers (courtesy of Brighthouse and Net Literacy) and a big-screen television for the center’s youth. Yet the biggest difference has been the public use of the J.T.V. Hill indoor basketball court as the schedule on Sgt. Long’s wall indicates an event in the gym for each and every day this month.

Asked to describe how much more frequently the facility was being used, even in PAL’s brief oversight, Sgt. Long replied, “Hundreds of times.” Of true significance is that the PAL officers are paid Monday through Friday, but the weekend activities from basketball leagues to Zumba fitness, are a labor of love.

Sgt. Long also recognized the reemergence of the Indianapolis PAL boxing program under the guidance of Officer Marcus Chapman at the Christamore House in Haughville on the city’s westside. Indy PAL had had a terrific boxing program under the late Colion “Champ” Chaney, but it had struggled without him. “(Chapman) brought it back to life seven years ago,” said Sgt. Long. “And has turned it into a world-class program.”

Of course, sports are the hook for the Police Athletic League in an effort to achieve its greater goal — improving life skills of young people by putting them together with police officers. Even Mayor Greg Ballard was a former PAL baseball player.

Meanwhile Sgt. Long is already using the J.T.V. Hill Center as an incubator for innovation and his grand vision calls for expansion, including locker rooms, a library and even a Starbucks-like internet cafe.

Asked how he views PAL’s new home, Sgt. Long is succinct.

“With tremendous pride,” he says.

Unfortunately, Indiana DID NOT advance to the final 16, which are Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee.

The press release announcing the finalists indicated that “the number of phase 1 winners will be determined by the strength of the applications. While the department does not have a predetermined amount of money to award in each phase of the competition, we expect no more than half of the money will be awarded in phase 1 to ensure a robust competition in phase 2.”

Indiana would certainly be encouraged to submit a phase 2 application.

Next up? Again from the release: “The finalists will be invited to D.C. in mid-March to present their proposals to the panel that reviewed their applications in depth during the initial stage, and to engage in Q&A discussions with the reviewers.”

UPDATE:

WFPL, Louisville’s public radio, talked to Indiana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, who said that the disappointing news does not mean the end for Indiana’s plan.

From that report:

“We have told school corporations across the state of Indiana that we will implement this reform plan whether we are funded or not,” he says. “And the fact is we don’t believe money will solve the problem. What will solve the problem is for us to have the political courage, the political will to truly reform education in this state and we’re going to implement our reform agenda as we have planned.”

Bennett says he’s not sure how Indiana will handle its application in a second contest for funds due in June.

“We’re going to wait and see what we get back from the federal government, what feedback we get back from our technical advisors,” he says. “Obviously our interests will always be to pursue this reform money, but again, I’ll always back that up and say I don’t believe this is about money.”

The National Design Factory, which is part of the Martindale on the Monon project headed by Development Concepts, Inc., is the former home of The National Automobile & Electric Company.

DCI — which paid homage to the Factory’s history in both name and logo — plans to fully renovate the massive facility into a community of advanced design business and innovative learning centers, ultimately serving children from kindergarten through high school and beyond. Just five minutes from downtown Indianapolis, the Design Factory is home to The Project School, a K-8 charter which opened in the fall of 2008.

“It is interesting that the National Design Factory is returning as a hub for both innovation and design,” said Will Pritchard, who oversees its transformation for DCI. “National built the state-of-the-art facility to concentrate on electric cars.”

A 1901 National ad gave description to the new facility. “Our factory is entirely new and modern,” it read. “constructed especially for automobile manufacture, and is equipped with the latest designs of accurately working machine tools, thus giving us unequalled facilities for the production of perfect goods at a minimum of cost.”

Run by Arthur C. Newby, one of the investors who created the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the winning vehicle in the 1912 Indianapolis 500 was a National, driven by Joe Dawson (right). The company changed its name to the National Motor & Vehicle Company in 1916, one year after its sales peak. The company closed in 1924, but its memory is preserved today.

If you are interested in exploring opportunities at the National Design Factory, please visit dcdevelopmentindy.com

The stated goal is to ensure that 90 percent of today’s fourth-graders, and all those younger, graduate from high school on time.

President Obama helped kick off the announcement by calling the systemic problem a pressing economic and social imperative.

“This is a problem we cannot afford to accept and we cannot afford to ignore,” Obama said. “The stakes are too high — for our children, for our economy and for our country.”

Right now, only 70 percent of American youth graduate from high school and half of the dropouts come from just 12 percent of the nation’s high schools. That’s why this initiative is giving unprecedented focus to those schools and the administration is proposing to replace low-performing schools with charter schools as a dropout prevention strategy.

He also specifically addressed the mass firing of Rhode Island teachers that touched off a firestorm last week. “If a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn’t show signs of improvement, then there’s got to be a sense of accountability,” he said.

To learn more about America’s Promise and the Grad Nation program, please click here.

Schools Building Communities is partnering with the Asia Society as it combats America’s lack of global awareness. Four years ago, the National Geographic and Roper Public Affairs released a geographic literacy study which concluded that “young people in the United States … are unprepared for an increasingly global future. Far too many lack even the most basic skills for navigating the international economy or understanding the relationships among people and places that provide critical context for world events.”

The report found that fewer than three in 10 found importance in knowing the locations of countries in the news and most could not identify either Iraq or Israel in a map of the Middle East. An overwhelming percentage incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language in the world.

If you think that addressing these needs are important, take a listen to Dr. Jackson on Learning Matters.