How New Orleans Is Helping Its Students Succeed

A state takeover of a failing Massachusetts school district was defined by listening, collaboration, and a new merit-based teacher compensation system. Six years later, dropout rates are down and graduation rates are up. What can Providence's schools learn from the Lawrence model?

La Maraña, a nonprofit in Puerto Rico, created a model for how communities could recover from disasters like the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017. By including community voices in the design and planning process of recovery projects — which can focus on water, food, energy, roads, communication, or security — the organization hopes the projects are more likely to succeed and promote longterm community civic engagement.

Ball State University and Muncie, Indiana, are forging an inventive town-gown partnership. In 2018, the school became the first public university to assume responsibility for the city's public schools. The transition has involved intentional community engagement and sparked community enthusiasm that had waned in recent decades and resulted in a dramatically declining school population.

In his five years as superintendent of Camden public schools, Paymon Rouhanifard shepherded in a new era of increasing graduation and decreasing suspension rates. Rouhanifard "avoided the extremes of zigzagging educational trends" and combined his background as both a politician and an educator to offer up a long term path to improvement, one that took into consideration the fate of public and charter schools alike. As Rouhanifard moves on, he leaves a unique legacy, one he hopes will prove resistant to the whims of short-term education reform trends.

Since opening its doors in 2006, the Native American Community Academy has built up a school led by native leaders and centered around curricula informed by tribal cultures in New Mexico. The charter school has had remarkable success educating a population that has traditionally sat at the bottom of math and reading test score rankings and is now exporting its model to other tribes around the country.

Teenage suicides are gaining attention in order to prevent the "Silent Epidemic" of youth epidemic. Programs are now being implemented in schools to provide a place for students to get help, teachers are being educated about warning signs, and parents are also being educated about identifying children who are suicidal.

The ecosystem of D.C. charter schools that has evolved over the last two decades represents a cornucopia of creative and nontraditional approaches to education, in addition to fairly traditional college-prep schools, and is now producing some of the highest graduation rates, college acceptance rates, and average test scores in public schools in the nation.

Located in downtown Fresno, Kepler Neighborhood School is raising the city's next generation of informed citizens. Through a service learning model, students regularly engage with local businesses and leaders and complete projects related to the history and revitalization of their city.

Honor the Earth is an anti-data center coalition monitoring the construction of hyperscale data centers in or near indigenous land. Through their efforts, town halls, doorknocking, attending tribal council meetings and more, they’ve formed a community with people in agriculture and beyond, working to push back against data center construction and enact protections for communities. As a result of their efforts, the Tulsa City Council signed a 9-month moratorium on data centers, and the Seminole Nation also unanimously passed its own moratorium.

After a tornado devastated Greensburg, Kansas, the town decided to use the disaster as an opportunity to become more environmentally sustainable. For example, they built a new school out of recycled wood and it was powered with geothermal heat. While the maintenance of these sustainable features can be tricky, this shift to a greener town can be a case study for others looking to make the transition.