Foreword

Lois Jean White

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Child by Child: The Comer Process for Change in Education

James P. Comer

PART I Improving Children's Lives

Michael Ben-Avie

No-Fault and Accountability

Michael Ben-Avie

Adelaide Sanford

Lester Young, Jr.

Shelia Evans-Tranumn

Cassandra Grant

Edna Vega

Edward T. Joyner

Trudy Raschkind Steinfeld

No-fault does not mean no accountability. The adults involved in schools today can become truly accountable for fulfilling responsibilities to all our children. Senior educators discuss this urgent need at a round-table discussion at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York and in one-on-one follow-up conversations with Michael Ben-Avie of the Yale Child Study Center.

My Grandma and Me

Michelle Tyson

A sixteen-year-old student at Benjamin Banneker High School in Brooklyn, New York, discusses why school communities need in-depth knowledge about students' lives outside the classroom.

Chicago Scenes

Vivian V. Loseth

Thomas A. Barclay

Juan I. Alegria

Della A. Alfred

Rodney L. Brown

Joan Dameron Crisler

Phyllis Shalewa Crowe

Carol Edwards

Christine Hides

SuAnn Lawrence

Lisa A. Marth

Lany Miller

Barbara Monsor

Michelle Adler Morrison

Savannah Browning Smith

Comer schools in the most difficult area of Chicago have set a new standard for self-improvement, according to the education community's most respected independent researchers. In vivid stories from individual schools, the teachers, administrators, and parents of the Chicago Comer Team recount how they turned around their schools and their school communities.

Success Speaks Many Languages

Fred Hernandez

The principal of a pre-K through sixth-grade Micro-Society school in Yonkers, New York, explains how the school functions as a real-life community, with students running a bank, legislature, courthouse, IRS, post office, newspaper, and more. The school community used the Comer Process to prepare its students for success by aligning its organization, governance, instruction, and accountability. More than 60% of the students come from homes in which languages other than English are spoken, but their standardized test scores for reading in English have increased.

Shared Ownership: Parents as Partners in Education

Jeffie Frazier

Students at Helence Grant Elementary School in New Haven, Connecticut, achieve scores on statewide tests that tower over those of other schools, not only in their impoverished neighborhood but in most middle-class neighborhoods as well. Their principal attributes the children's success to their parents' involvement in every aspect of school life, and details how other principals can create the same relationships in their schools.

Preregistered for Success: The Comer/Zigler Initiative

Barbara M. Stern

Matia Finn-Stevenson

CoZi Schools, which represent an alliance between James P. Comer's School Development Program (SDP) and Edward Zigler's School of the 21st Century, welcome families even before their children are born and support them all the way to junior high school with child-care, outreach services, and more. The associate director of Yale University's Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy and the CoZi project manager describe the experiences of the Bowling Park CoZi School in Norfolk, Virginia.

Why I Will Succeed and Why I Must Not Fail

Erwin John

Iman Jameelah

Two students at Benjamin Banneker High School in Brooklyn, New York, discuss the collaborators---mother, teacher, after-school program---who are propelling them toward success.

I Can Fly

Christine Emmons

Belinda Carberry

SDP's coordinator of research and an elementary-school principal share the stories of administrators, staff, parents, and students at Isadore Wexler Elementary School in New Haven, Connecticut. Wexler used the Comer Process to create a coordinated focus on the learning and development of children. The school community built positive interpersonal relationships, introduced a strong academic focus, and took ownership of the school's management.

Making a Good School Better

Norris M. Haynes

Cheryl McKenzie-Cook

Wendy Piggot

A university researcher, a school staff member, and a parent talk about the Queen's Royal College of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, one of the first overseas schools to implement the Comer Process. In addition to facilitating the return of the school's former prestige and the re-energizing of its alumni foundation, they discovered new ways to promote student engagement and responsibility.

PART II Professional Development and Consultation: Bringing the Program on Home

Jonathon H. Gillette

It Takes a Whole Person: Professional Development in the Yale School Development Program

Jonathon H. Gillette

SDP's director of professional development and consultation describes the carefully planned academies that support the adults working in SDP schools, from first questions and answers through advanced leadership skills.

The Comer Facilitator in Action

Jan Stocklinski

Beckie Roberts

Sheila Jackson

Comer facilitators receive extensive training at Yale University and continuing support from SDP's national office. Here a model facilitator works through a typical week at several schools, calling upon expert skills as collaborator, mediator, mentor, and inventor.

Charting a Course for Student Success: University, School Community, and Foundation Partnerships

Alison J. Harmon

Sherrie B. Joseph

Wilhelmina S. Quick

Coordinators from three different organizations joined forces with the Comer Schools and Families Initiative to energize the Detroit Public School System. They detail their process and the benefits the Initiative has brought to SDP as a whole and to eighteen Detroit schools, including an immunization program that has served thousands of students and their siblings.

A Day I Will Never Forget

Jerrett Claitt

A fifteen-year-old student at Benjamin Banneker High School in Brooklyn, New York, reports on how a parent and a teacher created an atmosphere of hope, trust, and knowledge as an antidote to violence outside the school.

Making a Personal Commitment

Vivian V. Loseth

Thomas A. Barclay

Juan I. Alegria

Della A. Alfred

Rodney L. Brown

Phyllis Shalewa Crowe

Christine Hides

SuAnn Lawrence

Lisa A. Marth

Barbara Monsor

Michelle Adler Morrison

The remarkable achievements of the Chicago Comer Schools are detailed in Chapter 3. Here the Chicago Comer Team engages in a frank discussion of the challenges that confront them as they work to change the futures of children, families, schools, and communities.

PART III Learning, Teaching, and Development in SDP School Communities

Valerie Maholmes

Learning, Teaching, and Development in the Comer Classroom

Valerie Maholmes

For teachers in SDP schools, the six developmental pathways and the guiding principles of consensus, collaboration, and no-fault are more than just theory. SDP's director of the learning, teaching, and development unit reports on how these essential concepts support teachers as they make daily decisions about what to teach, and about which behaviors to demonstrate and to encourage.

The Developmental Pathways Study Group

David A. Squires

J. Patrick Howley

Richard K. Gahr

Nine school staff members and a parent, led by an SDP implementation co-ordinator, formed a study group that held semimonthly meetings to improve the group's ability to use both head and heart when thinking about students.

And We're Both in the Same Class

Liznell Carter

Makhosazana Ndlovu

Two students at Benjamin Banneker High School in Brooklyn, New York, discuss a variety of student learning styles and offer teachers suggestions for getting better results from their students.

A Balanced Curriculum: Standards and Assessments for High Performance

David A. Squires

Angelique Arrington

Two SDP implementation coordinators specializing in curriculum, instruction, and assessment describe the training that schools and districts receive so that they can hold themselves accountable for student outcomes. Through a series of activities, teachers on the same grade level, and from one grade to the next, confer about best practices as they align curricula with national and state standards and with the developmental pathways of children.

Getting the Most from Students: Effort and the Student-Teacher Relationship

Fay E. Brown

Darren W. Woodruff

Side by side in the same classroom, two children perform differently: one is enthusiastic and persisting, the other feels defeated before he starts. What makes them so different and how can teachers challenge and engage them both? Two SDP researchers discuss effort, ability, and how teachers' vision can support and inspire all students to succeed in school.

At First, I Aspired to Be a Garbage Man

Kenan Smith

Geoffrey Jones

Omar Morris

Michael Ben-Avie

Two students at Benjamin Banneker High School in Brooklyn, New York, their counselor, and an SDP researcher discuss the benefits of educating students about their options and opportunities.

Development: Prerequisite for Learning

Joanne Corbin

Children's healthy development is the starting point, focus, and goal of all SDP endeavors not only in the classroom but also throughout the school and the wider school community. Here SDP's director of operations describes how to keep child development central to administrative matters, relationships, budgeting, staff development, and curriculum planning.

When We All Work Together, Everything Is Possible

Jerry D. Weast

Lillie M. Jones

Larry Allred

Mike Booher

Elizabeth Bridges

Pauline Brown

Doris T. Davis

James Fuller

Jeanette Gann

Mary Hoyle

J. Patrick Howley

Sharon A. Johnson

Tina Johnson

John Lauritzen

Charles Morris

Donna Morrison

Walter Matthew Pritchett, Jr.

Vernice Thomas

Richard Tuck

Leigh Tysor-Holt

Gwendolyn Willis

Guilford County, North Carolina, is one of the most successful school systems in the nation and uses the guiding principle of collaboration as the focal point of all school business. The members of the Comer Action Team detail the collaborative experiences that have reinvigorated their school communities and led to remarkable increases in school performance.

Epilogue To Ask the Best of Children, We Must Ask the Best of Ourselves

Edward T. Joyner

About the Editors and Authors

Index