Full Text of Statements on the Announcement of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute National Demonstration Project

United States Representative Rosa L. DeLauro:

I was pleased to learn that the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute has been awarded a grant from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund to establish programs to improve public school curriculum around the country. Congratulations are in order, not only for the recent honor, but for the past 20 years of work which has led up to the award. The grant is a testament to the quality of the Yale-New Haven program and its considerable value to the New Haven community.

Developing a first-class curriculum is an important step in America’s struggle to improve our children’s education. Cooperation between our institutions of higher education and our public schools can lead to informed improvements. The grant will allow other communities to benefit from the Yale-New Haven program by duplicating the Institute’s methods. The collaboration between Yale and New Haven’s public schools has greatly improved the quality of the curriculum of the New Haven area public schools. I believe this system will also help other school systems around the country.

Now that the grant has been awarded, the hard work must begin. Your efforts have the potential to profoundly influence the way we teach the next generation of Americans. I have always been a strong supporter of quality public education. I am proud of the Institute, and the knowledge of the Yale faculty that support it will also be working to improve our public education system. I am extremely confident that the Institute will live up to all of our expectations and that the program will be a success.

I appreciate having the opportunity to comment on this significant undertaking and hope you will keep me informed of all your future achievements. I wish you the best of luck in this important endeavor.

United States Senator Christopher Dodd:

The Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute’s innovative effort to promote and foster the educational partnership between Yale University and the New Haven Public School system is the beginning of a potential revolution in American education – a revolution spurred by a desire to better educate American children. Over the years, the partnership has allowed more than 435 New Haven teachers to work directly with Yale faculty in improving the content and quality of their teaching. And the results are clear. New Haven’s classrooms have been enriched with the implementation of innovative curricula and creative teaching strategies that challenge and engage students. We all talk a great deal about improving our public schools, but in New Haven it is more than talk. I am excited about the expansion of this successful idea to other communities.

United States Senator Joseph I. Lieberman:

A recent report released by Education Week and the Pew Charitable Trusts began by declaring, “It’s hard to exaggerate the education crisis in America’s cities.” The report went on to methodically substantiate that point, showing, among other things, that a majority of urban students fail to meet even minimum standards on national tests in half the states with large cities. This situation is deplorable, and we can’t afford to ignore it any longer.

At the national level, we have finally begun a debate on how the Federal Government can help state and local leaders respond to this crisis and revive these dying school districts, with President Clinton providing some much-needed leadership. But the reality is that our efforts won’t amount to much without a sustained commitment from the states and the urban communities most in need to work cooperatively to engineer dramatic reforms. This is an enormous challenge, and it will require harnessing all the educational resources we have at our disposal.

That is why the national demonstration program the Institute is proposing sounds so promising. In Connecticut, I have seen first-hand the significant contributions that Yale and Trinity College have made to lifting up the school systems in New Haven and Hartford and helping students in those cities realize their potential. There are many other urban colleges and universities around the country that are poised to make similar contributions, especially in terms of sharing their expertise with local public school teachers, and the professional development projects you are planning should help improve the quality of instruction for thousands of students.

This is just the kind of innovative partnership we must develop and replicate if we hope to rescue these schools and provide the children who attend them with the education they deserve. I wish you the best of luck as you go forward with this initiative, and look forward to hearing about the results.

Theodore R. Sizer, chairman, Coalition of Essential Schools:

Elementary and secondary schools will be only as good as the faculty members which drive them, and these faculty members will be no more powerful than the scholarship with which they have been equipped. Even the most devoted and sensitive science teacher cannot teach physics well if she does not know physics. The most politically engaged social studies teacher cannot teach history well if he does not know history. These disciplines are in constant motion, and even the best trained of us become quickly out of date. School-university partnerships, such as that pioneered in New Haven with Yale, provide a mechanism for the constant intellectual invigoration of public and private school teachers. May the tribe of these associations between schools, school systems and universities increase.

Donald M. Stewart, president, The College Board:

On behalf of the College Board, a nearly 100-year-old association of schools and colleges, I salute the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute for launching its National Demonstration Project. The College Board has had the pleasure of supporting the work of the Institute over the years, most notably during the EQ Models Program for School-College Collaboration several years back. The Institute stands as one of the great university-school collaborations in education, a pioneering model integrating curricular development with intellectual renewal for teachers. We applaud the Institutes’ tremendous contribution to the professional lives of teachers, and we sincerely hope that this project will expand its model of service to teachers across the country.

Gerald N. Tirozzi, assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, United States Department of Education:

Universities have the potential to play an important role in helping states and local communities strengthen their schools and boost student achievement. When you consider the vast array of resources found at most universities, it makes consummate sense for them to partner with elementary and secondary schools. The constant cycle of research, talent and technology that is at the heart of every good university can be a lifeline for troubled schools. Universities can also offer sustained, innovative, and resource rich programs of staff development for classroom teachers and specific content knowledge in a wide variety of related areas including public health, psychology, architecture and business.

The Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute has been a beacon of hope for what is possible when a significant partner and an enlightened school district commit to working closely and cooperatively together to enhance teaching and to improve the teaching-learning process. States and school districts across the country should pause and look carefully at the universities and schools that have discovered the power of partnership as a means for implementing meaningful reform - the results speak for themselves.

David L. Warren, president, National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities:

The National Demonstration Project offers enormous promise to establish three new university-school partnerships, based on the highly successful experience of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute.

For 20 years, Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute has modeled a powerful collaboration between Yale and the New Haven School District. This model focuses on a five-month-long seminar in which school teachers, working with university faculty, create and implement new and dynamic curricular units selected by the school teacher.

The grant from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund will allow this unique town and gown, school and college initiative to be disseminated nationally. The beneficiaries of these grants will be not only the three new sites, but all those in the nation who are committed to the improvement of our public school system. This is a great day for education in America.