Dear Friends,
A few months ago I was invited to be in the first class of Sizer Fellows by the Forum for Education and Democracy and I just returned home from my first meeting with the three other school leaders from around the country. This is a particular honor for me because Ted Sizer was a luminary in education reform and his ideas have influenced many educators from around the country. He was the former Dean of the School of Education at Harvard and Brown Universities and the founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools. His ideas have been the genesis for improving hundreds (possibly thousands) of schools around the country including my own.
Our group met at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University where we talked about our practice. I learned a great deal by listening to my three new colleagues from Boston and New York City discuss their schools (you can find their bios of the other fellows at the forumforeducation/about-us/sizer-fellows). After three days, I left inspired by their commitment to their communities and the young people who they serve. I found a group of professionals who are using their immense talent to create schools for the children who need them the most. While our schools are unique, we shared a common approach toward working with our students—care and concern for their social and emotional growth paves the way for learning. In other words, while the missions of our schools and the specific expectations for success differ, we agree that our student’s development as people is a fundamental to their success.
The connection between my new friend’s work in New York and Boston and my work in Albuquerque is clear and it extends beyond the walls of my school. As I have gotten to know company owners from the “real world” through the partnerships at ACE Leadership, I have been struck by how much we have in common: We believe that integrity, ingenuity, determination, and selflessness are the keys to a successful life and we believe that those attributes must be nurtured. Construction industry executives tell me that their best employees are the sons and daughters who grew up in families that are in the industry because their parents cultivated their character. I am struck by the fact that the distance between my private sector friends and the social entrepreneurs who start schools is small and we start from the same place—learning in a school happens in a context of caring just as it does in a family.
I hope you will stay with me on this journey as I continue to learn this from my colleagues around the country.
Sincerely,
Tony Monfiletto, Sizer Fellow 2011
