![\"<p>Richard](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/Urban_education_lg.jpg\" "\\"Richard")
<\/a>UConn\u2019s intensified focus on urban education is consistent with its new Academic Plan, which serves as the University\u2019s guide for becoming one of the top 20 public universities in the nation and cites the importance of partnering to improve K-12 education.<\/p>\n
The poor academic performance of many of America\u2019s urban schools \u201cis a huge issue,\u201d Hogan says.<\/p>\n
The creation of the institute signals an aggressive agenda \u201cnot only to advance urban school education reform but also to advance the research mission of Neag,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s such an important step for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Collaborative Research<\/h3>\n
The institute grew out of a task force on urban education formed more than a year ago by Richard Schwab, dean of the Neag School of Education.<\/p>\n
\u201cEducation schools at major universities have conducted research with limited collaboration with public schools, but we\u2019re changing that,\u201d Schwab says.<\/p>\n
The institute serves as the vehicle for conducting research hand-in-hand with urban schools on practices that directly affect student achievement and then, Schwab adds. \u201cWe\u2019ll share our findings and best practices with schools in Connecticut and across the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the institute\u2019s key elements is the newly created CommPACT Schools project, supported by the state legislature and developed by an unusual alliance of state teacher unions and school administrators\u2019 organizations.<\/p>\n
CommPACT is a five-year plan to redesign eight schools in Connecticut\u2019s largest urban school districts, attempting to stem a pattern of chronic low achievement that finds many low-income and minority schoolchildren lagging far behind their peers. That achievement gap is one of the nation\u2019s most perplexing educational problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe urban achievement gap in Connecticut is as large as it is anywhere in the United States,\u201d says Richard Lemons, assistant professor of educational leadership and director of the institute.<\/p>\n
Students who fail academically are at risk of a host of other problems, he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey show up in mental health institutions, they receive social services more often, they are incarcerated more,\u201d Lemons says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we want to have a positive impact and invest in the future of the state, we have to invest in one of the most precious commodities we have \u2013 human capital.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boosting School Reform<\/h3>\n
The institute is the home for two other major school reform organizations: Accelerated Schools and ATLAS Learning Communities. ATLAS, with a 17-year track record that includes promising results in places such as New York City and Detroit, recently moved its headquarters to UConn from Cambridge, Mass.<\/p>\n
Accelerated Schools has been based at the Neag School for the past nine years.<\/p>\n
Like the ATLAS and Accelerated Schools reform models, CommPACT focuses on strengthening schools from within by promoting collaboration among teachers, principals, parents, unions, local civic leaders, and others.<\/p>\n
The focus on urban education, including direct involvement with the eight CommPACT schools, is in keeping with UConn\u2019s land grant mission to reach out into the community, Lemons says.<\/p>\n
\u201cUrban education is so entwined with other issues we have facing our state,\u201d he says. \u201cThe vast majority of our students go to schools in these metropolitan areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Across the nation, public schools have sought new ways to address the achievement gap, especially since the creation in 2002 of the No Child Left Behind Act.<\/p>\n
UConn joins a growing number of colleges and universities forging partnerships with urban public schools, says Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, a nonprofit organization representing the nation\u2019s largest school districts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese partnerships look very different from place to place, but they are much stronger than they used to be,\u201d he says. \u201cWhere you see good ones, they can be enormously helpful to the schools and the universities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The schools benefit from \u201cthe expertise the universities have and from an outside objective perspective,\u201d he adds. \u201cOn the university side, what they\u2019re getting is a grounding, a connection with the real world that textbooks at the university can\u2019t provide.\u201d<\/p>\n
Support for the urban institute is coming from both the public and private sectors. In addition to a $480,000 appropriation from the state legislature to establish the first round of CommPACT schools, the institute has received $250,000 from<\/p>\n
The NEA Foundation to support research and $55,000 in grants from the Fairfield County Community Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, and the Near & Far Aid Association to support the institute\u2019s efforts at Bridgeport\u2019s two CommPACT schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Neag School of Education\u2019s new Institute for Urban School Improvement received the formal endorsement of UConn\u2019s Board of Trustees recently, the latest step in the University\u2019s effort to become a national model for school reform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1855],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[61],"class_list":["post-1848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neag"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-02 19:04:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1848"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204138,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848\/revisions\/204138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1848"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=1848"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}