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Many educators speak at a frequency inaudible to pundits' ears. Perhaps that's why pundits almost always prefer broad, simple solutions to the nitty-gritty processes of improving schools.

The venerable education pundit Jay Mathews recently exhibited this tendency in his review of a book about the success of Montgomery County Maryland. Leading for Equity, he opines, is all about process, and process is too often ponderous, impenetrable and uninspiring. For Mathews, exhibit A is the cryptic set of lessons the book outlines in its first chapter. For example: "Implementing a strategy of common, rigorous standards with differentiated resources and instruction can create excellence and equity for all students." Poetry it's not.

Still, I have to agree with Elena Silva's judgment that Matthews' "critique of the book as too process-oriented is wrong. Process has tripped up many a reform, and understanding what sequence of events and efforts leads to change is key to ...

Our friends at ASCD's Whole Child Initiative just fired off an email newsletter describing the astonishing success of Thomas Edison Elementary School in Port Chester, New York.  (School success seems to be contagious in Port Chester, whose middle school has won national acclaim for similar strides in the past 10 years.)

Edison owes its achievements to an education approach that addresses the social, physical and academic needs of its largely poor student body.  To quote ASCD's newsletter: ...

Gary Swick has become something of a legend--not only at the Illinois high school where he teaches science, but also among environmental educators nationwide. A winner of the prestigious Milken Educator Award, Swick regularly gets his students into the field, where they actually help protect the environment while they learn science. In one case, his students' careful observation of conditions at a nearby river prompted a City Council to adopt a construction site erosion control ordinance.

In our interview, Swick listed many benefits of environmental education. Among them: Students become better stewards of the world they inhabit; Reluctant or struggling students become much more engaged in science when they can do authentic work in the field.

Perhaps most important, Swick has turned his high school students into evangelists for the environment. They put on "energy fairs" to carry their message of energy conservation and green living to elementary school children and others across their state. He and his students travel to these fairs in a school bus (they call it a "cool bus") they have reengineered to run on biofuels--which can include grease and other waste from the school kitchen. ...

Mimi Bair is the principal of Memorial Middle School in Little Ferry, NJ, and a former staff member at Woodrow Wilson Elementary in Weehawken, where she helped implement an innovative arts-focused curriculum that has helped the school's mostly low-income students outperform students state-wide.  (You can find PublicSchoolInsights.org's story on Woodrow Wilson Elementary here.)

Ms. Bair recently shared some of the secrets of her success.

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