Came across a couple of education pieces, one in print and one an on-line Podcast,  that bear scrutiny from school boards, administrators, teachers, parents, students and the broader communities searching for the means to improve learning in area districts plagued by low achievement.

Writing in Sunday’s Washington Post, columnist George Will takes readers inside an Oakland charter school that brooks “no excuses” when it comes to an educational philosophy that “combats the culture of poverty and the streets.”  You may not agree with Will’s conservative bent, but his observations are almost always grist for thought and discussion.

Pedro Noguera, a professor with the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University and a leading authority on urban education, discussed his new book, “The Trouble with Black Boys: And Other Reflections on Race, Equity and the Future of Urban Education” with Leonard Lopate on WNYC, New York Public Radio.

Noguera, coming from what is arguably the opposite side of the political spectrum from George Will, nonetheless pretty much draws the same conclusion about improving education in impoverished schools. Not surprisingly, he says the secret aren’t one-size-fits-all programs that emphasize order and control, but, rather,  intense one-on-one learning.

The research demonstrates this philosophy works in the Knowledge is Power Programs (KIPP academies), a charter school movement scheduled to open next year in St. Louis. Reforming a school system one student at a time, is also the gambit of the Big Picture Company Schools, another nationally-recognized effort now in its second year of operation locally in three St. Louis Public Schools.

“There are high-performing high poverty schools across the country. And what you generally see in those schools is a rich, learning environment for kids,” Noguera tells Lopate in a Podcast available on-line. “They focus on getting kids motivated and engaged instead of teaching to the test. And guess what? As a result,  tests scores go up. If you get kids to want to read and write they have little problems with the tests.”