Smart Growth / Cory Booker: All American

Ryan Hill, head of the two KIPP schools in Newark (which are kicking butt, even by KIPP's lofty standards), writes:

There were two  great Op-Eds in the WSJ today, one about Mayor Booker that mentions us, and  one about my friend Scott Shirey’s KIPP school in the Mississippi Delta.   The second article I copy just because it’s one of the best I’ve read on the power of a single KIPP school.  During the school’s second year, the  state passed a law putting a cap on new charter schools in the state, EXCEPT  when those schools were KIPP schools.  If anyone receiving this has  contacts in Arkansas, please let me know.   Helena  is a place of rich tradition whose economy now relies almost entirely on the  nearby casinos and a budding cluster of KIPP schools – they can use all the  help they can get in raising the money they need to get to  scale.

Here is the article about KIPP in Arkansas:

Helena's KIPP school is working in two ways. First, it's  educating the kids. An important task for a school, don't you think? Before  KIPP, Helena's kids were getting scores around the 17th percentile in language  and 18th percentile in math on the Stanford Achievement Test. Only a few years  later, those same kids are averaging around 76th and 82nd, respectively. Last  year, KIPP's eighth-graders scored in the 91st percentile in math and the 84th  in language on the SAT. As fifth-graders, those same kids scored in the 29th  percentile in both math and language.
 

KIPP is also helping to revitalize this impoverished area. The  school's current downtown location was the first new construction in Helena in  10 years. Now that the school has grown to 315 students in grades five through  10, there's talk about expanding....
 

For its next act, KIPP is  expected to transform downtown Helena (technically Helena-West Helena -- the  towns recently consolidated) and revitalize the city center, while serving as  an economic engine for an area with double-digit unemployment that's been  losing population for decades. Since 1950, Phillips County has lost more than  half its population. Down here, the goal after graduating high school -- if  you graduate high school -- is to get out.


A school transforming a community economically and maybe even  emotionally? It does sound kind of nutty. Unless you're here and walking the  dilapidated landscape that could be the future home of the KIPP Campus. Unless  you listen to Mr. Shirey. ("Those would be athletic fields," he says, pointing  at a vacant lot.) Unless you see the kids at Mr. Shirley's school wearing  "There are no shortcuts" T-shirts. Unless you check out those test scores.  Then you think maybe anything is possible. Even in the Delta.

Here's the article about Cory, my favorite mayor (with Mike Bloomberg running close behind):

Part of Mr. Booker's solution to this dilemma is education  reform centered on school choice. "It's the last frontier we have to cross in  order to become the most thriving city in America," he states confidently.  "Parents in Newark are more demanding than ever, and they deserve a plethora  of options of excellence to choose from that meet the needs of their kids."  Mr. Booker is a longtime advocate of school choice: In 1999 he helped found  E3, a prominent education-reform group in New Jersey that pushes for charter  schools and vouchers for inner-city communities.
 
Newark's public schools enroll around 42,000 students. With  frequent instances of in-school violence, decrepit facilities and low morale,  the system is in need of serious overhaul. Just 37% of the city's high-school  seniors passed the state proficiency exam in 2005, a statistic that is even  more embarrassing considering that city schools spend around $20,000 per pupil  -- far above the $13,000 state average (itself the second-highest in the  country).
 
Before Mr. Booker can pursue any sweeping reforms, though, he  must wrest control of the district from the state, which took over in 1995.  "My goal is to turn the clock back to the '70s and vest control in the mayor  to appoint school board members that can drive an agenda for reform," Mr.  Booker says with hope. "Elected school boards often hit the lowest common  denominator . . . they are not the way to get courageous, driven change."
 
Mr. Booker emphasizes that until local control returns --  which, thanks to recent moves by the state, could be within "16 to 18 months"  -- his powers are limited. But that hasn't stopped him from cultivating donors  to start thinking about charter schools for the future. Last month, he flew to  Seattle to meet with representatives of the Gates Foundation. "We had very  strong conversations," he reports. "I told them, 'If we can grow KIPP schools  and overachieving charter schools [in Newark], it will be much easier to show  that [school choice] can work, because you'll see results a lot quicker than  in a place like New York, which has around a million school-aged  children.'"

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Smart Growth
By KANE WEBB, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
August 4, 2007; Page A6
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118618703415787941.html <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118618703415787941.html?mod=opinion_main_featured_stories_hs>

HELENA, Ark. -- A walking tour of this Mississippi River town's past, present and future could start at Bubba's Blues Corner at the south end of Cherry Street, a whisky bottle's throw from the Mighty River. Bubba Sullivan has a little of everything in his shop, including a healthy dose of Helena blues history (free of charge) and old 45 rpm records (25 cents each). Keep walking past the broken bottles and dilapidated buildings until you're across from the old train depot. Turn into what looks like a strip mall store that might sell wicker chairs and scented candles (or in this town, second-hand clothes and garage-sale trinkets).


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Cory Booker
All American
By CHRISTIAN SAHNER
August 4, 2007; Page A7
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118618739811387948.html <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118618739811387948.html?mod=opinion_main_featured_stories_hs>

NEWARK, N.J. – "As difficult as it's been the first year, I'm blessed to be in the most important American fight going on." Thus spoke Newark Mayor Cory Booker when I sat down with him late last month in his spartan City Hall office.