Allan Appel Photo
DeStefano and Fenty.
Explode urban school systems! Get rid of school boards!
That was the provocative call pitched by former Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty at a panel discussion on education reform. Mayor DeStefano replied that like schools, all communities and boards are different — and, thanks anyway, he’ll keep his intact.
The discussion was the centerpiece of the 94th annual Freedom Fund Dinner of the NAACP. The event drew about 400 people to the Yale Commons for dinner and awards presentations Saturday night.
Zakiya Smith & Yale V.P. Bruce Alexander
The discussion’s theme: How impatient for educational change should the country be given the obstinate achievement gap and other problems? To add a national p.o.v to the Fenty and Mayor DeStefano perspectives, the NAACP had invited Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali. Unable to attend, she sent Zakiya Smith, the White House policy director for education.
Like DeStefano, who frequently notes that the new generation of kids will be competing not for factory but high tech jobs, Smith said the challenge is “to both raise the bar and close the gap.”
The NAACP gave their major awards to three people whose work has embodied just that dual goal.
James Comer.
Yale psychiatrist and school reform pioneer James Comer received a lifetime-achievement award. His “Comer method” addresses social development as intrinsic to academic development; it is in place at the high-performing Davis Street Magnet School and nine others in the New Haven system.
“Before there was school reform, there was Jim Comer,” Mayor DeStefano said at the dinner. “You’re an inspiration and a treasure, but don’t let it go to your head.”
Kendrick (right) with NAACP’s Kanicka Ingram.
Gateway Community College President Dorsey Kendrick received the NAACP’s Susan Moore Lincoln Education Award. She said that a turning point moment in her life was when her fifth grade teacher had to leave the room and selected her to be in charge of the class.
That exemplified another theme of the evening: Larger social conditions such as poverty do not prohibit teachers from having high aspirations for each kid.
“Always give more than you get, always leave more than you take,” Kendrick said she always tells her instructors.
A surprise and unannounced guest of the evening was U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (at right in photo). He hailed DeStefano as “one of the greatest mayors in the United States.” He had even more praise for the African-American voters in the audience who helped him overcome what he called the $50 million challenge of his senatorial race.
Turning to the evening’s theme, he said: “We should be outraged and embarrassed as a nation at what we provide educationally and that we don’t end the achievement gap.”
Jim Rawlings and Richard D’Aquila
Outgoing Greater New Haven NAACP President Jim Rawlings cited a sobering statistic: “Only 4 percent of underprivileged kids get into the top 140 colleges.” That contributes to the creation of a permanent underclass, he argued. “We have failed these children.”
He ended the evening on a quiet call to action: “We seem to be engaged, but it’s not listening tonight, but what you do tomorrow.”
Yale-New Haven Hospital, where Rawlings has worked for 30 years, presented the NAACP with an additional $10,000 in Rawlings’s honor. YNHH’s Chief Operating Officer Richard D’Aquila did the honors.