Transforming Urban Education. A Renewed Commitment to Excellence in the Classroom.
Urban Schools. Two words that trigger strong emotions. Hope. Frustration. Determination. Outrage. Good people have spent years trying to improve the education our children receive in our cities’ public schools. And solutions have remained elusive. Until now.
NLU and AUSL: Partners in Urban School Reform
In 2001, the National College of Education (NCE) at National-Louis University (NLU) partnered with the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) to change the way children are taught in the classrooms of some of Chicago’s highest-need communities. This new approach to educational reform emerged from discussions between NLU faculty and staff and Martin J. Koldyke, a Chicago-area venture capitalist and founder of the Golden Apple Foundation.
NCE faculty created the curriculum for the teacher residency program that put AUSL at the forefront of urban school turnaround success. Today, the teachers in AUSL schools of excellence are primarily drawn from the ranks of NCE graduate students in the Master of Arts in Teaching program—and, to date, the retention rate of these highly trained educators exceeds 90 percent.
Over the past decade, AUSL has evolved into a comprehensive, turnaround specialist— one that combines teacher and principal training, practical application of best practices, applied research, outcome assessment, partnerships with parents, high expectations for student achievement and new learning paradigms to transform eight low-performing elementary and high schools in the Chicago Public School System into schools of excellence.
The urban school turnaround specialists at AUSL go into a low-performing school and make changes from top to bottom. Principals choose the teachers—and nearly all of the teachers are graduates of the AUSL/NLU urban school residency program. Chicago’s lowest-performing schools emerge during the turnaround process as schools of excellence. That’s what happened at Sherman Elementary School, located in one of the city’s highest poverty areas. Scores on the Illinois Standards Assessment Test have risen by 23 percentage points—and the school has become a national example of educational reform.
To date, more than ,000 students have passed through AUSL classrooms and schools in Chicago. More than 300 teachers are teaching a curriculum designed by NCE to bring a higher level of excellence to schools located in high poverty areas. And In 2008, a $10.3 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was an acknowledgement that this is more than a noble experiment—that Chicago’s urban school turnaround strategy may be the promising solution to a national problem.
The program’s success is only achievable with strong partners—partners who are determined to improve the public schools that are under their jurisdiction. In Chicago, those partners are Mayor Richard Daley; Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education and former CEO of Chicago Public Schools; the National College of Education at National- Louis University; other college and universities including the University of Illinois in Chicago; and the individuals, corporations and foundations who provide generous financial support and resources so that this initiative can grow.
Another prominent NCE/NLU initiative with the Chicago Public Trust and Chicago’s Public Schools is designed to put more highly qualified teachers in the classrooms in one of our country’s largest cities. National Board Certification is the highest professional credential a teacher can earn in Chicago—and that preparation is embedded into the M.Ed. program in Interdisciplinary Studies.
The National College of Education at National-Louis University
The National College of Education (NCE) at National-Louis University is one of the largest colleges of education in the country with 170 full-time and nearly 200 adjunct faculty. NCE is accredited by NCATE and confers more graduate degrees in education than any other college or university in Illinois.
NCE’s partnerships with AUSL and other major educational organizations, such as the Golden Apple Foundation and Teach for America, are examples of the collaborative efforts that exemplify a new approach to educational reform and a renewed commitment to excellence in our urban school systems.
Alison Hilsabeck
Dean, National College of Education
Serving as dean of NLU’s National College of Education since 2005, Alison Hilsabeck has successfully expanded and built urban initiatives and partnerships, including the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL), Chicago Teaching Fellows, Teach for America, KIPP, National Board Certification (NBC) and New Leaders for New Schools. She has over 20 years of experience in higher education administration, including a number of years as assistant dean of the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University.