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city-university collaborations in improvRobert J. Sampson organized ing urban education. Stephen Raudenbush, the symposium. a sociology professor at the University of Chicago who also chairs its committee on education, discussed a number of ongoing collaborations between the university and Chicago’s public school system. The university runs four schools on the city’s South Side, directs an ambitious teacher training program, and conducts policy analysis based on data that have been collected from the city’s public schools since 1991. The work, said Raudenbush, has several important effects. Not only does it improve community relations, but it helps the university develop important Developing knowledge about “how we create the best possible schooling effective for some of the nation’s most partnerships, ones disadvantaged kids.” Such vital work requires actively running that encourage the schools where you want to effective create that change, he said, and training teachers in those same exchanges of schools. Collaborating on Critical Issues information, takes “You have to put your ideas to the test,” At a reception following the event, Harvard Provost said Raudenbush, who also stressed the Alan Garber acknowledged the vital role that citya lot of time, said need to “capture the imagination of the university connections play in addressing critical big universities in taking the lead doing issues such as violence and poverty. Cities “can tell Sarah Glover. this kind of work.” Outstanding schoolus much more about what we should be studying, She called for ing, he said, should be taken every bit and we can learn by talking to one another,” he as seriously as we take “the challenge to said. transparency, finding a cure to cancer.” Examples of such dialogue include various ongoopenness, and Sarah Glover, executive director of the ing collaborations between university partners Strategic Data Project at HGSE’s Center and the City of Boston that were also on display common goals. for Education Policy Research, explores during the reception. A number of Harvard graduhow to bring the right people, the right ate students discussed their work, including a data, and the right analysis together to help “vastly study being conducted by a postdoctoral fellow at improve the quality of decisions that are being the Rappaport Institute and HKS’s Ash Center for made in education today.” Democratic Governance in collaboration with a With the help of 45 fellows who work in 10 doctoral student in engineering at the Massachuschool districts in two states, the group examines setts Institute of Technology. The study explores teacher effectiveness and student trajectories. how regular information and updates about the Glover discussed one study involving teacher predicted arrival times of Boston’s commuter trains placement, which revealed that in hard-to-staff affect the behavior and attitudes of riders. schools, novice teachers were frequently placed “My breath has been taken away” by the event, with lower-performing students. said Lizabeth Cohen, Radcliffe’s interim dean and The findings, she said, helped her colleagues the Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American explore with district administrators the important Studies, praising sessions that offered new ideas question of what it means “to strategically place from a variety of perspectives. “There were people teachers with kids to increase student achievecoming from so many walks of life. Process matters ment.” But developing effective partnerships, ones as much as product, and I think that we all showed that encourage effective exchanges of informathat today.” ƒ tion, takes a lot of time, said Glover, who called for transparency, openness, and the creation of a Colleen Walsh is a staff writer for the Harvard common set of goals. Gazette.
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ra dcl iffe ma ga zi ne Winter 2012