| "Wherever
one goes in the world, the good schools all look
and feel the same‹you can feel that the kids
are cherished and the whole place radiates."
The
speaker was Lorraine Monroe, Ed.D., who has made
a career of improving schools all over the world
by honing the skills of the people running them.
She is president and CEO of the Lorraine Monroe Leadership
Institute, located on New York's Park Avenue, which
focuses on training principals.
What
kind of training do they receive? "To
support kids, especially those who are discounted"‹because
of their immigrant status, their socio-economic
status or their race.
"My experience tells me that when children
are held to high expectations, with academic
rigor, schools get results," she said,
adding that teachers must also be held to high
expectations and the schools must offer the
students a rich extra-curricular program as
well as effective classes.
"That's what turns schools around," she
said. "Basically, it means you're giving
poor children what rich people pay for."
In
addition to training and coaching school
leaders,
the institute also works‹through
workshops, seminars and retreats‹in the
development of leadership in women, in parents
and in students.
Dr. Monroe rose to prominence as the founding
principal of the prestigious Frederick Douglass
Academy in Harlem. But before that she had
had extensive experience in the New York City
public school system as a teacher, assistant
principal, principal and Deputy Chancellor
for Curriculum and Instruction. She was educated
at Hunter College, the Bank Street College
of Education and Columbia University's Teachers
College.
Her book, Nothing's Impossible: Leadership
Lessons from Inside and Outside the Classroom,
was published by Random House in 1997 and has
since been translated into Swedish and Finnish.
It was published in paperback by Harper Collins.
She said she has conducted leadership training
programs in 45 of the 50 states and in several
foreign countries, including Japan, Tanzania,
Bermuda, Jamaica, Brazil and Germany and has
just been invited to speak in Italy. The institute
also runs programs in Norway and Sweden.
She
told The Earth Times Monthly that there is
widespread
concern in the field about a
growing shortage of effective school administrators.
She explained that, important as it is for
them to hold students to high expectations,
they must also be able to "train kids
how to reach them."
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