August 27th, 2010
Garrison Middle School
Garrison Middle School Needs Help
BALTIMORE — Baltimore city has hired an outside company to help turn around one of its most troubled middle schools.
A company called Global Partnership Schools, which was launched by two former superintendents, said it believes it has the tools to fix struggling Garrison Middle School. Even though work crews have spent the summer doing renovations, the changes to the school aren’t just cosmetic. There’s a new principal, staff and teachers, some of whom chose to return to help with the turnaround.
“I just have a love for the subject area that I teach. I am a social studies teacher, and I love children, and I want to see them achieve,” said teacher Brenda Tilghman.
Global Partnership Schools has pledged to help staff and students to try to make lasting improvements
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August 24th, 2010
Harding principal resigns to join management group
Linda Conner Lambeck, Staff Writer
BRIDGEPORT — Harding High School Principal Carol Birks has resigned, effective Wednesday, to take a job with Global Partnership Schools, the New York City-based group hired to restart the troubled high school.
Birks, a 1986 Harding graduate, has been its principal since 2007. She said the offer to work and be mentored by Global Partnership was made Monday and took her by surprise. She was given a night to sleep on it and accepted Tuesday.
In a three-paragraph letter the Harding community will receive on opening day, Birks called the chance to work at Global Partnership a unique opportunity to further her knowledge and learn from what she called “major intellectual giants in education.”
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August 22nd, 2010
City gets $6.3 million in federal funds to fix failing schools
Linda Conner Lambeck, Staff Writer
BRIDGEPORT — The $6.3 million federal School Improvement Grant that will be spent at three city schools starting this fall may prove there is more than one way to fix a failing school.
All schools receiving “SIG” funds must chose from among four tightly scripted models prescribed by the U.S. Department of Education.
Barnum and Bassick will both use the “transformation” model, which requires them to change their principal. Both will use the University of Connecticut’s CommPact School program to help improve. Barnum has already been a CommPact School — which stands for an alliance of community, parents, administrators, children and teachers — for two years. The new $500,000 a year grant to Barnum will be used to continue that work and add extra reading support, officials said. Bassick, which will get $2.1 million over three years, will be UConn’s first high school CommPact school.
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August 20th, 2010
Race to the Top Isn't Enough
Manny Rivera and Rudy Crew talk about their model for improving public schools and the tough decisions that are necessary to make it happen in the Scholastic Administrator Back to School 2010 issue.
To read article, click here.
August 10th, 2010
Manny Rivera and Rudy Crew
With billions being aimed towards turning around low-performing schools, many want to get into the game. Manny Rivera and Rudy Crew were quoted in The New York Times, “School Overhaul Draws a Crowd, but Not Necessarily a Credentialed One” (A11; 8/10/10), which looked at the array of companies with little experience in school turnaround.
Rudy Crew, a former New York City schools chancellor who has formed his own consulting company, said he was astonished to see so many untested groups peddling strategies to improve schools.
“This is like the aftermath of the Civil War, with all the carpetbaggers and charlatans,” Dr. Crew said…
Recognizing the risks facing school districts that sign contracts with untested groups, the American Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit conservative policy group, issued a report last month urging that districts require performance guarantees, under which contractors failing to meet achievement targets would forfeit payments.
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August 9th, 2010
August 9, 2010, WASHINGTON (UPI) — Education experts are warning that a lot of companies with little experience are gunning for a piece of the U.S. government’s school overhaul program.
The Obama administration has increased education funding by $3.5 billion this year alone, and experts tell The New York Times that has a lot of companies fluffing up their limited or dubious credentials.
“This is like the aftermath of the Civil War, with all the carpetbaggers and charlatans,” said education consultant Rudy Crew, a former New York City schools chancellor.
Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, told the Times that a lot of the companies looking for contracts have little real experience in overhauling failing schools. “Many of these companies clearly just smell the money,” he said.
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August 2nd, 2010
Central High School
Joseph Garcia, Sr. VP of District & School Services, recently spoke with The Pueblo Chieftain about Global Partnership Schools work with Pueblo City Schools to transform Central High School, as well as five other schools in the district.
Changes to greet Central High School students
Focus will be more on moving on to college.
By GAYLE PEREZ
There will be noticeable changes at Central High School when students and staff return to class on Aug. 23.
For starters, the school will have new leadership with Principal Matt Lane taking over for Fred Trujillo, who left to take a job in New Mexico.
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July 27th, 2010
Warren Harding High School
The Bridgeport Board of Education awarded Global Partnership Schools the contract to lead the turnaround efforts at Warren Harding High School.
Bridgeport reshuffles principal assignments
Linda Conner Lambeck, Staff Writer
BRIDGEPORT — The Board of Education agreed Monday to hand over the management of Warren Harding High School to an outside firm, hired a principal for its new Discovery Magnet School and shuffled the leadership at several other schools.
The New York-based Global Partnership Schools will take over at Harding once Schools Superintendent John Ramos draws up a contract that will specify what the district expects in return for a large chunk of an anticipated three-year, $2.1 million federal grant. Global Partnerships was started last year by Rudolph Crew, the former schools chancellor of New York City and Miami as well as Manny Rivera, twice the former schools superintendent in Rochester, NY.
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July 14th, 2010
Rudy Crew, President
Rudy Crew joined U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and a distinguished panel of education experts to discuss critical issues surrounding federal education policies impacting communities of color at the NAACP National Convention in Kansas City.
Education is ‘civil-rights issue of our generation,’ Cabinet official tells NAACP
By Mará Rose Williams — The Kansas City Star
Posted on Wednesday , July 14, 2010
Calling education “the civil rights issue of our generation,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Wednesday issued a national challenge for whole communities to get involved in improving public education.
“The only way to achieve equality in society is to achieve it in the classroom,” Duncan told NAACP delegates meeting in Kansas City for the group’s annual convention.
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July 13th, 2010
Rudy Crew joins U.S. Education Secretary for Discussion at NAACP Convention
July 13, 2010, NEW YORK — At this week’s 101st National Convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Global Partnership Schools president and University of Southern California professor, Rudy Crew, will join a distinguished panel of education experts to discuss critical issues surrounding federal education policies impacting communities of color.
Crew, who served as chancellor of the New York City Public Schools and as superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, will be joined by Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan; Will Jawando, White House Office of Public Engagement; George Khaldun, chief administration officer of the Harlem Children’s Zone; Tiffany Anderson, superintendent of the University Academy Charter School; and Ken Surratt, assistant director of CREDO. Adora Obi Nweze, chair of the National Board’s Education Committee, will moderate the panel exploring such issues as:
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