In my last post, I called for knowledge equality. My hope is all educators and concerned citizens—and policymakers with counter-productive, curriculum-narrowing mandates—will see that broad, shared knowledge is essential to equality of opportunity.
Today I have the great pleasure of highlighting an educator who truly is a knowledge equalizer: Jeff Litt. Litt spent over 30 years in the traditional public schools, but he’s far from a traditional leader. He transformed P.S. 67, the Mohegan School, in the South Bronx from a graffiti-covered nightmare into a loving, high-achieving community of learners. The Core Knowledge Sequence provided a platform for the change, but the heart of it was Litt’s vision for what all schools should be: rigorous and nurturing. As the Chicago Consortium on School Research showed years ago, the combination of high “academic press” with social support yields striking gains in achievement among disadvantaged youth.
After his success at P.S. 67, Litt launched the Icahn Charter Schools, which is now the second-highest-achieving network in New York City—even though it welcomes new students in the upper grades who are far behind and has almost no suspensions. But neither Litt nor the Icahn schools are famous; they eschew the spotlight to stay focused on their students.
With a terrific video and article, Reason magazine gives us a rare look at Litt’s extraordinary work. Here are just a few highlights:
“These kids are like my flesh and blood, and I would do anything for them,” says Litt, who walks the halls of his schools reminding students with motherly consternation to take off their warm coats, tie their shoes, and not to come to school without socks to avoid blisters….
One reason Icahn gets so little attention in the press is that it has been overshadowed by Success Academy…. But while Icahn’s scores are not as good as Success’, the comparison between the two organizations gets hazier when you take into account what’s known as “backfilling.”
When students leave Success Academy schools for whatever reason, the administration stops replacing them with new students after the fourth grade, so the enrollment of each class dwindles over the years. Icahn, on the other hand, replaces the kids who leave with new students from the district schools. Generally, those students have a lot of catching up to do, and they bring down Icahn’s overall scores….
“I think it’s no fluke that they’re the two highest performing charter networks in New York City,” says Charles Sahm, who’s the education policy director at the Manhattan Institute. Sahm has been researching and writing about both Success Academy and Icahn, and he says the reason they’ve done so well is sort of a no-brainer: It’s their rich curricula. “Success and Icahn both focus like a laser beam on what kids are being taught and how,” says Sahm. “It sounds very simple, but actually doing it is quite difficult.”
Don’t miss Reason’s terrific, 8-minute video, highlighting Litt’s dedication to finding successful, experienced leaders.
Thank you for sharing this video. I was privileged to have my three sons graduate from Icahn Charters. My younger son turned down a $14,000 scholarship in a prestigious all-boys private school to come back to Ichan. That says it a lot on how the children at Icahn value their school. Thank you, Mr. Litt.