Neighborhood Schools Movement

School is about to begin again, so I thought I would post an article that Mandy sent me last week. We continue to see Memphis education all over the news, and unfortunately, most of what we read is negative. So here's something encouraging, at least to me. It's from a Mom in Charlotte, NC, who happened to see the article about Peabody that was written last December. She reached out to Mandy to encourage what a lot of us were doing here in Memphis. Here's part of her story:

Marker-wielding kindergartners cover the stage at Shamrock Gardens Elementary, intently coloring a set of circus posters. They work in clusters, some kneeling, some sprawled flat on their stomachs, chattering happily as they fill the space between the lines with bright and varied hues. Their faces vary too, ranging from palest white to deepest brown.

I watch them with delight. There is nothing more satisfying than acting on your beliefs and then seeing your hopes realized.

Five years ago, when Peter and I decided to send our son to Shamrock, it was the kind of school that middle-class families fled in droves – attended largely by low-income kids of color, with low test scores and few enrichment programs.

Charlotte’s schools were resegregating all around us, as our district dismantled its landmark school desegregation plan and parents scrambled to avoid the schools where poverty had begun to concentrate.

But while we wanted Parker to go to a good school, we also wanted him to live in a strong community, one that lived up to the American promise of offering each child an equal shot at success. We believed school integration played a key role in making that promise a reality. We did not want to participate in its demise.

And while Shamrock struggled academically, it was full of smiles and hugs, a place where kids skipped down the halls and teachers stayed late to tutor students and work on lesson plans. We believed it was a place where we could make a difference. In the fall of 2006, we walked Parker through the front door for his first day of school.

In the years since then, staff, families and students have built a new Shamrock one step at a time. We’ve gotten to know each other, figured out how to work together, found roles to play.

Most of our families, for example, shied away from event organizing. But they were always ready to support their kids, and when they came out to school workdays they labored all day long. So when we decided to build a butterfly garden, I wrote the grant and organized the schedule. Dozens of families showed up to build the beds, haul the dirt and plant the seeds.

It took two full years to really get the garden going. But I’ll never forget the morning that students discovered Gulf Fritillary caterpillars covering the passion flower vines, gold-tinged chrysalises scattered across the brick garden walls, and a newly hatched butterfly drying its wings beneath a drainage pipe.

As our garden grew, other things changed as well. Teachers began to stay longer, many transforming from awkward, sometimes tearful novices into confident, creative veterans. Student performance improved, freeing us from the crippling No Child Left Behind sanctions.

Although we recently lost our chess club to budget cuts, we have started a Lego League, a Science Olympiad team, a basketball squad, an International Day festival and two groups of Girls On The Run. Our Asian families cook a Lunar New Year lunch, and our Hispanic women’s club sells drinks and snacks at movie night, including the Jarritos and Mexican Cokes that everyone has learned to love.

The gifted classes that we created to entice middle-class families have come to mirror the school’s overall makeup – just over half African Americans, about a quarter Hispanics, and the rest a mix of Asians, other immigrants and a growing number of whites. Because no one group dominates, everyone belongs.

Shamrock’s still far from perfect. Although our achievement rates have risen, too many kids still don’t pass tests. Too many still leapfrog from school to school, sometimes several times a year. Too many don’t have food. Too many don’t have homes. As my son’s classmates have grown older, I’ve seen the stresses of poverty weigh more heavily on some of them, and I fret about their futures in a way I didn’t think about when they were six or seven or eight.

But like those varied kindergartners striving to create a beautiful picture, we are all in it together. I wouldn’t trade my years at this marvel of a school for anything.

* * *

Our country needs to hear more stories about schools like Shamrock, tales of the joys and challenges that come when people from many different backgrounds labor together to build a civic institution that strengthens all of us. I think this administration should celebrate them far and wide. Since the legal climate no longer favors large-scale desegregation plans, creating integrated schools depends on the resolve of families and communities. Stories of success can help build that determination.

In recent years, such stories have been overwhelmed by a national obsession with test scores and individual achievement, a focus that scares families away from schools that need their help and obscures the many roles that public schools play in our society, and in our children’s lives. We desperately need to rebalance this conversation.

If our country is to “win the future,” we have to do it child by child, and school by school. No policy or curriculum or computer program can substitute for the hands-on actions of caring individuals. Shamrock has taught me that I have abilities and influence that I had never dreamed of. We all have these within us, if we will step up and take on challenges together. I hope that Shamrock’s story can inspire such actions.

This post was originally written for the White House Champions of Change series.

Pamela Grundy is president of the PTA at Shamrock Gardens Elementary School in Charlotte, North Carolina, and a member of the parents’ group Parents Across America. You can read more about Shamrock on her blog:www.seenfromtherock.blogspot.com.

God's Heart for Urban Education 3

David Waters was at our gathering the night David Montague spoke. Afterwards he wrote a great article on MTR. Here's part of that article.

Virginia Boyd wants to serve God and Memphis by becoming the best math teacher any city school kid has ever had.

David Montague and Robin Scott want to serve God and Memphis by helping Virginia do that.

"You don't have to talk about the love and compassion and mercy of Christ to demonstrate it," said Montague, a former stockbroker turned public school evangelist. "Becoming the best math teacher a kid's ever had is a valid response to the gospel."

Montague and Scott are leading the Memphis Teacher Residency, one of many nonprofit organizations that have responded to the Gates Foundation's $90-million challenge to put an effective teacher in every Memphis City Schools classroom.

Like Teach for America and the Memphis Teaching Fellows, MTR seeks to recruit, train and support outstanding urban educators in Memphis. What makes MTR different is its mission to do that "within a Christian context."

MTR's "Christian context" comes in the motivation, not the implementation.

"It's a shared mission, that's the heart of it," said Scott, a former Indiana public school teacher and MTR's director of education. Teaching in large, urban systems "is too hard, too demanding not to have a sense of mission about it," Scott said. "You have to see urban education as a calling."

MTR recruits and accepts only candidates who believe that teaching in large, urban public schools systems is a Christian calling, not just a career. But candidates also must believe they should not discuss their faith in a public school setting.

"America is not short on information about the gospel," said Montague, a former Christian missionary who directs MTR's work from offices in the basement of Union Avenue Baptist Church. "It is short on demonstrations of the power of the gospel."

MTR's mission is to demonstrate the love of Christ by recruiting Christians who are committed to transforming the city's public schools into bastions of academic excellence for all children.

Christians committed to seeing academic achievement gaps as biblically unjust.

Christians committed to sacrificing their own standards of living to improve those of others.

Christians committed to serving their neighbors' children and not just their own.

"Twenty years from now," said Dr. Maxie Dunnam, pastor of Christ United Methodist Church, "when our educational system is more effectively and fairly serving the children of our city, we will look back and realize that David Montague and Memphis Teacher Residency Program played a major role in getting us to that place."

Read more here.

God's Heart for Urban Education 2

And now for some good news...God is up to something in Memphis!

Before diving into what that "something" is, let's hit a couple of theological points. The Bible speaks of a God who is not only capable of doing extraordinary things, but also one who desires to do so. In other words, our God is not only strong but also loving. If you believe this, then there's another point that the Bible makes clear over and over, and it's this: God loves to do the impossible, and He loves to use weak, desperate and dependent people in the process.

Everybody knows that Memphis has some BIG problems. Several times it has ranked at the top of various "worst cities" reports. So what a great place for God to do something extraordinary! As David pointed out, the richest man in the world has given $90 million to Memphis schools, and the most powerful man in the world has given $500 million to Tennessee, much of which will make its way to Memphis.

Oh yeah, and it was just announced that this same most powerful man in the world will be heading to Memphis in a couple of weeks to give the commencement speech at Booker T. Washington High School!!!

David believes that the epicenter for urban education reform is our city. All of the education reform organizations are now making their way to Memphis, and the world is watching to see what will happen next.

And what about the Church? Well, we get the opportunity to be the subversive community that we were meant to be. As David reminded us, the Roman Empire came to believe that Jesus was supreme not because the Christians were the most powerful political organization. It was actually just the opposite. The Christians had no political clout. They had actually been persecuted for 300 years. Instead, they were living out their beliefs in radical ways. They entered into the problems and saw God do the extraordinary through them living their ordinary lives with Gospel intentionality.

Today let us too enter into the big problems of our city, and together dream God-sized dreams, and then let us watch God do what only He can do!

God's Heart for Urban Education 1

Last night David Montague, director of the Memphis Teacher Residency, spoke at NC on the topic of God's Heart for Urban Education. You can listen to the talk here. In my opinion David has one of the voices that needs to be heard when it comes to education reform in our city. Below are some of the notes I took while listening to him.

First, some stats ('cause everybody loves stats, right):

• Memphis is the 24th largest school district in the U.S.
• There are 8-10 million students in those 25 largest districts
• Of those, 50% (4-8 million) will not graduate
• In 2010, the average ACT score in the city school district was 16.6
• In the county, the average is 28.3
• The injustice issue, according to David, is this 70% gap between the rich and the poor
• Average income for someone who doesn't graduate from high school is $17,000
• Average income for someone who doesn't graduate from college is under $25,000
• 90% of public school students in these 25 largest school districts will make under $25,000 for the rest of their lives. This is not sustainable.

David next talked about the role of the church in the history of education reform. He started with the 1800's, during which time it was illegal to educate slaves. He drew heavily from Frederick Douglass' autobiography, which is a free Kindle download. In the 1890's Jim Crow laws emerged, which supposedly gave "separate but equal" status for African-Americans, but in reality was anything but. One of the worst things about all of this is that the people who were passing these laws were sitting in pews on Sunday mornings, not seeing any discrepancies.

Fast forward to 1954, when Brown vs. Board of Education ordered desegregation, and you see another big shift. Now children of different races could go to school together. However, this was not to be the case, because it was during this time that many private schools, many of them opened by churches, began to come into existence. David was quick to point out that the injustice issue was not the opening of these private schools, but the fact that once again we were not putting the same resources into the schools in neighborhoods of choice that we were in neighborhoods of poverty. Check out the recent Memphis Flyer article for more on this.

That's the sad and bad news. Fortunately, David did not stop there. But since this is turning into a rather long blog post, I will. Tomorrow you get the good news!

To Consolidate or not to Consolidate

...is not the real question.

To be sure, it's an important question, but it's a secondary question. In my opinion, the primary question is the same one that Cain asked God as a response to God's question, "Where is Abel your brother?" Cain's response: "Am I my brother's keeper?" This is a question that needs to be asked as we as Memphis voters consider this decision.

I admit that I am not very into politics, and I realize that there is a lot that I do not know. But the more I learn, the more I am convinced that we, especially those of us in our county who consider ourselves to be followers of Christ, need to ask this question. How responsible are we to one another? How responsible are we to those children in our city who do have anyone taking responsibility for them? The answer to questions like these will determine how we make decisions in regards to an issue like this one.

The Commercial Appeal has a great section devoted to this issue on their website. One of the most helpful is this chart. It's very telling.

CA Article Getting Around

My pastor from our Nashville days just emailed me to say that our story is featured in a post at GetReligion.org.

Commercial Appeal Article

On Saturday The Commercial Appeal ran a great article on our family's involvement with Peabody Elementary School. It was written by David Waters. From the people I've talked with, as well as comments on their site, it seems that it's giving hope to many. One of the takeaways I've had from reading the article and the comments is that I am grateful for the community who is walking with us. These decisions can be difficult ones, but at every step of the way, it's has been easier knowing that we're not going it alone.

Peabody in the News

There's a great article in today's Commercial Appeal about Peabody Elementary School, and specifically about yesterday's ThinkShow! Check it out.

Education Forum Tonight

Tonight we're having another education discussion for parents thinking about sending their children to Peabody next year. Some of us from this year's class will be sharing about our experience. Peabody's principal and a couple of teachers will be on hand to answer questions as well.

Update on Peabody Elementary School

This Lamplighter article was written by Lurene Kelley, who is a part of our little community of CY residents sending their kids to Peabody Elementary School next year.

Peabody Elementary has been in the heart of this neighborhood long before the community was called “Cooper-Young,” but is the school really in the hearts of CY residents? That’s the question school administrators would like its neighbors and local business owners to answer with a resounding ‘yes’… and some money, ideas, and elbow grease to back it up.

According to the school’s principal, Kongsouly Jones, because Peabody is a desirable optional school, approximately 50 percent of the student body comes from open enrollment. This means that nearly half of the children at Peabody live outside its designated boundaries.

Mandy Grisham, a member of the Peabody Leadership Board, says the first step in giving the school a more neighborhood feel is obvious – have more children who live in and around Cooper-Young enrolled at Peabody. This fall, approximately 10 children from the Cooper-Young Parents Network (CYPN), parents who live in or near the neighborhood, will be enrolled in this year’s kindergarten class (In fact, my own child will be among these kindergartners.)

Read more here.

Weekly Links

Scot McKnight writes about homeschooling with, get this, a Germany and Memphis connection

Making lemonade out of lemons - found out about this movie on Seth Godin's blog. The idea is that sometimes the best entrepreneurial moments come out of times of crisis

Starting a Church Without Losing Your Soul - by Ed Stetzer

Audio & Video from the Acts 29 Church Planting Bootcamp in Raleigh

Ten Reasons why Churches Stall - Tim Chester

10 Tips for Missional Communities

A Community is Forming

Last night we had several families over for pizza and discussion. The topic of discussion: Peabody Elementary School. Three years ago my desire was to one day send my children to our neighborhood public school. At the time I hoped that one or two others would decide to join us. Last night I realized that my dreams have been two small. There are currently 10 families leaning towards sending their children to Peabody next fall. We have known a few of these families for awhile, but some are new friends. But the cool thing is that with all, the hopes and dreams are the same. It's definitely an exciting time!

Mandy has done an excellent job leading and facilitating these discussions. Check out her blog, as I'm sure she'll be writing about this.

Update on our Education Journey

Last week I responded to a post from a friend's blog on whether or not it's important for us as Christ-followers to send our kids to public schools. Below is that post. If you'd like to read more on this issue, and specifically, our journey, go here and here.

We moved to Midtown Memphis almost four years ago from the SF Bay Area. We had a six-month old at the time. We learned right away that most young families don't stay in Midtown long because of the school system. We felt called here to start a church, and believed that we needed to live here long-term in order to be effective.

We also learned that our neighborhood has a public elementary school, but the families in the neighborhood don't send their kids there. So we began our research. I should point out that my wife is an educator and taught in a Memphis City school our first two years here. This helped immensely. In April, 2007 we hosted a forum at our neighborhood school to determine if this was a quality issue or something else (racial, economic, safety, etc...). There was a large turnout, and the consensus at the end was that it's a great school. So something else is keeping families from sending their kids there. After the discussion, my wife was asked to be the Community Representative on the school's Leadership Team. Other parents (of not-yet-school-age children) have already begun to take leadership roles in school events as well. The principal is working closely with neighborhood families to see the school bridge the racial, economic, and academic gap.

Throughout the last few years, we have encountered dozens of people with the same heart cry as ours - for this to become a neighborhood school once again. Some of these we knew to be followers of Christ, but many would not identify themselves as such. Yet a community has begun to form, full of families with a common vision and mission.

Next fall our oldest will be attending Kindergarten at our local elementary school, along with several other children from this group, with dozens more planning on attending in the coming years. Over the last few years we have held this very loosely. We have prayed a lot. We do not want to sacrifice our child, and what we're doing is actually far from that. This is an excellent school, and he's going to have an excellent education, even beyond the academics. He will learn diversity, both racially and economically, and our prayer is that he learns to love others as God loves him.

At the same time, though, what we are doing is extremely intentional and strategic, and I know that it is a big part of why we're here. We never would have set out to integrate our local elementary school or attempt to change the school district, but when we pray, "God, do only what you can do" be ready to walk through the doors He opens!

We could have been called to a different neighborhood in the city, and though our process would have been similar, I recognize that the result may have been different. There are multiple bottom lines, but they all have to be prayed through and considered.

My Pretty Wife's Blog

Did you know that Mandy is blogging? She hasn't been very forthcoming with this news, so I will. That's what husbands are for, right! Last night she posted a 2-part synopsis of the Playback Memphis' new improv "experience" called Memphis Matters. Check it out!

New School for Adam

For the last few weeks Adam has been going to a preschool in our neighborhood. We were very excited when this door came open, and really wanted it to work. Unfortunately, it didn't, and so on Wednesday Adam started at a new school. Today I got to go with him. It was Daddy Donut Day, or at least that's what I called it. I got to meet some of Adam's friends, and their Dad's, and got to enjoy some yummy donut holes in the process. Definitely a good start to the day!

Public School Closer to a Reality

I first wrote a post on our thoughts regarding public education in Memphis around a year and a half ago. Since that time we've continued the conversation with so many others about what it would look like for more people from our neighborhood to send our kids to our neighborhood elementary school (Peabody Elementary School).

It's hard to believe that Adam will be starting Pre-K next year. A few months ago we decided that we would like for Adam to go to Peabody's Pre-K program. We realized that we met the income requirements, so we began pursuing it. Last week we found out that 29 students tested lower than him, which means that he is 9th on the waiting list. We were a little disappointed, but knew that if God had other plans for Adam, that was what we wanted. So we began looking for Plan B. Mandy called several private pre-k programs. A few still had available slots.

We then found out that the principal at Peabody was referring familes who didn't get into the their Pre-K to Red Robin Academy, which is located in First Congregational Church here in Cooper-Young. So this morning Mandy and I met with Robin Mayweather, the founder and director of the academy. Right before pulling up, Mandy made the comment that we were going to have to figure out how much we could spend for Adam's education this year (part of the draw to public education is that it's free).

We went on a tour, then talked with Mrs. Mayweather in her office. We asked several questions, and then Mandy asked her for a tuition schedule. She looked at us a little strange, then said that the Pre-K program is the same as the one at Peabody. Both are a part of Memphis City Schools. That is, they're both free! We just kind of looked at each other.

It looked a door had been closed; one that, at the time seemed like a real "God thing." And now a new door opens, one which has all of the same goals and values behind it. There are still some things that we are a little concerned about, but for the most part, it seems like God is in this. I love the idea of walking Adam to school and of being involved with the families of the school. It just seems to fit so much of what we are trying to do here in Cooper-Young.

Weekly Links

The 100 Most Read Bible Verses at BibleGateway.com

Before we can be something, we have to first dream something. Seth Godin says it well here.

Great read about churches in Austin partnering with schools in Austin

Ben Witherington on a theology of work (or lack thereof in our culture)

The TED Commandments (rules every speaker needs to know) - see here for more

Tony Morgan on the difference between Leading and Managing

Tim Chester's review of Sticky Church, by Larry Osborne

God Loves Memphis

I believe that God loves my city, and I believe that the gospel is the only true and lasting hope for the problems of my city. Saying that, I also believe that if I am going to be a Christian in my city, then I must understand my city. The needs of the city must become my needs. It's because of this that I, along with many of my friends, seek to be involved in the city in many ways.

Today is a day devoted to not simply learning about the needs and problems of my city, but also discussing viable solutions. This morning I attended a city-wide town hall meeting on the topic of safety. I serve on the safety committee in my neighborhood, and as a result of this meeting, I have helpful information to pass along to my community.

This afternoon we're having our first CYPN Education Discussion. CYPN stands for Cooper-Young Parent's Network. It's an organization that Mandy created six months ago. Everyone attending has young children, and all of us are having to make decisions about the type of education that we want for our children. It seems that for many of us, there are multiple bottom lines. For example, although academics is very important, it's not the only issue that we're considering. Other factors include diversity, location, cost, etc.

Mandy and I feel that God has called us to this neighborhood, and we desire to live as holistic a lifestyle as possible. Our hope is to send our kids to the local public school and to be involved in making that school an even better school. I may be overly optimistic, perhaps even naive at times, but I believe that if enough people do this, that we could see major change come to our city.

Private Schools and the Economy

Yesterday the front page of the Commercial Appeal featured a story on the effects of the economic crisis on Memphis' private schools. It seems that more and more people are going to begin sending their children back to public schools because of this. I feel for the private schools, but I also am once again very hopeful that this will be a good thing for Memphis in the long run.

Here's the link to the article.

Weekly Links

• Point guard C.J. Henry playing for the Tigers this year. Could little brother Xavier be joining him next year? Big news for Memphis
  
  
• Unfortunately, this is bigger news: Memphis City Schools cutting ESL and counseling programs to help overcome their deficit.
  
  
• Mark Batterson writes, "Vision is the cure for sin. One reason many of us get entangled in sin is because we don't have enough God-ordained vision to keep us busy."
  
  
• Al Mohler comments on the Saddleback Civil Forum held on August 16 - it saddens me that he had such a pessimistic view beforehand, but I'm pleased that afterwards, he felt that it was "worthwhile." I thought it was great. I thought both candidates did a fine job, and my respect for Rick Warren grew as a result.
  
  
• Steve McCoy on Hitting Refresh
  
  
• Mark Driscoll on Activist and Contemplative Disciplines. And here.
  
  
• Grizzlies trading for Zach Randolph???