Syracuse University’s Maxwell Auditorium was filled with former, current and past teachers Thursday evening, where Dr. Charles Payne spoke about the difficulties in the past 40 years of reforming urban education.

Payne, an SU alumnus, was chosen to speak at the School of Education’s annual Harry S. and Elva K. Ganders Lecture because of his familiarity with community schools, said Jennifer Russo, the marketing director for the School of Education. The Ganders Lecture is part of the School of Education’s Landscape of Urban Education Lecture Series.

The issue Payne said his speech centered around was: ‘What I think we should have learned from the time I got my undergrad degree here until now’ in regards to race and diversity in public, inner-city schools.

Payne said there is no one way to fix the urban education system, because no school is the same. He said he thinks there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to reform urban schools, but it is not impossible.

Payne provided examples of studies from different school systems that have implemented urban education reform. One system described parents forming support groups within their neighborhoods. Another system discussed the importance of sending kids to preschools.

A further example illustrated the value of giving children responsibility of younger students, such as fourth-graders reading to kindergartners once a week. In this study, Payne noted how the problem students performed as better role models for the younger kids than the good students.

After comparing all of these studies, Payne said he could sum up what he found into one sentence: ‘It isn’t about the program; it’s about the organization of the school itself.’

During urban reform, Payne said trust is necessary between the principal, teachers and the faculty as a whole. With trust, schools can overcome battles more easily, he said. This starts with having the principal present in the classroom on a regular basis. That way, the principal is more connected to the teachers as well as the students, he said.

‘High trust schools are three times more likely to improve than low trust schools,’ Payne said. ‘We trust people that help us grow.’

When reforming schools, Payne said it is never a good idea to focus on one issue. Even if

one issue gets fixed, other problems will still need to be solved.

Rachel Dentinger, a junior music education major, said she agrees that teaching in an urban school is one of the most challenging settings.

‘I think that you need to really, really groom teachers for that setting,’ Dentinger said, although she did not think Payne provided a solution for doing this.

Dentinger said she is optimistic when it comes to teaching students in an urban setting, regardless of the negative connotation. She said she is leaning toward teaching middle school music classes.

‘I want to give kids an opportunity to be creative and expressive and learn new things,’ she said. ‘I want to be able to teach them good morals and how to be a good person through music.’

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Published on September 18, 2011 at 12:00 pm

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