form partnership for new middle school
By Anna Marie Kukec
About 80 New Haven, Conn., children will have a unique educational opportunity this year thanks to the dream of two Yale University law students and the local legal and business communities.Inner-city children in grades 5 through 8 will attend the Amistad Academy, a new charter school that will focus on the law and the Constitution. Students will also create their own micro-society to learn firsthand about citizenship and responsibility. It opens July 5 for a four-week summer session and August 30 for the fall semester.
"This is exciting because so many institutions and organizations have come forward with commitments and are willing to make it a success," says Dacia Toll of New Haven, a Rhodes Scholar who will graduate from Yale Law School this spring.
Toll spearheaded the school with Stefan Pryor, a 1998 Yale Law School graduate who is executive director of Breakthrough for Learning, a school-reform project in New York City.
"There’s a compelling need for a school of this sort in the city. We’ve been talking with many people about this idea. We feel a middle school is the best choice because of the critical need in this age group," says Pryor.
Test scores in 1997 attest to that need within the New Haven public school system. Only 5 percent of 6th graders and only 7 percent of 8th graders met the state goal for reading, writing and math. Toll and Pryor used those statistics to urge the legal community to support the academy.
The unity that binds the legal and business communities behind the school today was found in a local historical case, from which the academy’s name is taken. On a Spanish slave ship called The Amistad, 53 Africans revolted and killed their Spanish captors off the eastern coast of the United States in 1839. The Africans were jailed in New Haven, and their case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1841. At the time, the community united behind the Africans during the highly politicized case, and they were eventually freed.
Toll and Pryor used that historical case as the foundation for the academy, which will offer a curriculum rich in the law and the Constitution. With their own legal education, they naturally reached out to the legal community and found that New Haven County Bar Association, New Haven County Bar Foundation and local judges favored the idea. Community support came from Southern Connecticut State University, the Chamber of Commerce, banks, businesses and government leaders. About 40 parents, teachers and community leaders serve on the planning committee.
"The bar association and the foundation are interested in this because we want to become more involved in the New Haven community," says bar Executive Director Carolyn Witt. The bar and foundation will provide advisors and mentors. Since the bar already has a mentor program with elementary schools, the partnership with the academy is a natural extension. "We’re not sure where this (partnership) is going to go. But it provides a unique opportunity for us to assist the school with the law and civics," Witt says. The bar and foundation will also work closely with Yale Law School and the Southern Connecticut State University School of Education to develop and implement the law-based curriculum.
"While students will delve into issues fundamental to our democratic society such as fairness and civil rights, they will also use the law--questions and analysis--to build skills in critical thinking, effective communication, conflict resolution and problem solving," states bar President Anthony Nuzzo Jr., in a letter to the Connecticut Department of Education in support of the academy.
Yale University also hailed the academy, as well as Toll and Pryor as innovative leaders.
"I was impressed with their earnestness and their strategy for realizing this," says Tony Kronman, Yale Law School dean. "They are wonderful, inspiring and idealistic. They have a powerful vision of what the school can be. And they are practical and realistic. They understand the complications involved in moving such a project forward."
Yale provided a $10,000 grant so Toll and Pryor could research the idea and prepare the proposal for the state charter, as well as meeting rooms, library resources and faculty consultation to help frame the action plan. In addition, the Yale faculty will help develop the curriculum, notes Kronman.
Intense research
During their research, Toll and Pryor visited the New York Family Academy in Harlem and the City on a Hill Charter School in Boston to gather ideas for the Amistad Academy. They also drew from their academic backgrounds and teaching experiences. Toll earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s degree in philosophy, political science and economics at Oxford University in England. Earlier this year, she began teaching at a New Haven middle school and will earn her state certification this summer before becoming Amistad’s executive director. Pryor earned bachelor’s degree in psychology at Yale, and served as a policy advisor for the New Haven mayor from 1994 to 1997. He will join the school’s governing board and teach there part time.
Their hard work paid off as Amistad received its charter on April 7 from the Connecticut Board of Education. The initial staff will include eight state-certified teachers, and that number will eventually increase to 22. The teachers and a principal will receive a salary. However, the number of volunteers is unlimited. Volunteer or visiting teachers, tutors, mentors and coaches will come from the bar, foundation and universities. While the academy already has about $250,000 in pledges, about $600,000 is needed for the start up and the first year of operation. So a plan for regular fund-raising will be developed. Besides this income, the state charter provides $6,500 per pupil. The academy’s first 84 students will be selected from a registration lottery where names are pulled from a hat. In three years, the enrollment is expected to reach 250 students. The students will ride to school in traditional yellow school buses, underwritten by the New Haven Public School District.
"I would like to see this school set an example for other schools--both public schools and other charter schools. I also hope that Amistad will be so successful that they will use parts of it or all of it to help other students," says Michele Strickland, a member of the bar’s Executive Committee who serves on the academy’s planning committee. She is also the immediate past president of the Young Lawyer’s Division.
Strickland helped Toll and Pryor complete the state charter application, then asked the bar’s Executive Committee and the bar foundation for support.
Creating a school through a partnership with the New Haven bar, foundation, the universities and the business community is very unusual and very welcome, says Mabel McKinney-Browning of Chicago, director of the American Bar Association Division for Public Education.
"Partnerships with the schools are always exciting, and it’s especially exciting to know of a local bar association joining together in that effort with the community. This also helps to promote information about the law and the legal system," McKinney-Browning says.
Charters are public schools without admission requirements or tuition. They are often free of some state regulations, but are more accountable to the state for results, according to Toll. The charter school concept was formalized with legislation in various states beginning in the early 1990s. About 30 states have approved legislation for charter schools, says to Andrea DiLorenzo of Washington, D.C., co-director of the National Education Association Charter School Initiative.
More than 800 charter schools exist nationwide, according to a study released in December 1998 by the University of California at Los Angeles. Average enrollment is about 150 students, compared to about 500 students in other schools. Racial distributions vary by state. About one-half of charter and other public schools serve predominantly white students; about one-quarter of charter and public schools serve predominantly non-white students, and the remainder serve a diverse group, according to the UCLA study.
The NEA continues to study charter schools in cooperation with UCLA. The NEA has worked with local communities in five states, including Norwich, Conn., to create five charter schools and it will closely monitor their progress.
"Charters must have the support of the community to succeed. Even the initial money and the charter are not enough to get a building and to run a complex. So, they have to seek private money," DiLorenzo adds.
The Amistad Academy will offer an intense academic program. (See "Highlights of the Amistad Academy," p. --.) During the extra-long school day (nine hours instead of the average of six hours for most other schools) the students will focus on reading, writing, math and other basics. Then, they will tackle their own micro-society where they create their own businesses, banks and newspaper and hold town meetings and mock trials.
"They won’t just learn about citizenship in a course --but through how the school functions," Toll adds. "One of our goals is to teach students to be active and responsible citizens."
Academic excellence will be laced throughout the academy’s structure, notes Pryor.
"At the beginning of the year, an assessment will be used as a diagnostic tool for the strengths and weaknesses of the students. Teachers can then target the instruction toward the greatest needs," Pryor explains.
A "gateway" promotion system provides two divisions. One division contains 5th and 6th grades, while the second division has 7th and 8th grades. To advance from one division to the next, students must fulfill state tests and panel presentations. During the panels, students must present their best-written work, give a speech and provide other proof of their achievements.
"Amistad is an opportunity to demonstrate what a public school can do. And it gives our community a sense of the possible," says Pryor.
The author is the reporter for Bar Leader.
