Justify Your Existence: Public Education Foundation

Hot on the heels of their recent Meet-A-Teach event, the latest eager victim in our Justify Your Existence series is the Public Education Foundation. We spoke with Frances Haman-Prewitt and Christa Payne about what they wish they did better, their relationship with the school board and their next horizon. Finally, because this is about education, we threw in a couple of opportunities for bonus points at the end. So, read on and let us know if you think they made the grade.

Chattarati: What do you do?

Frances Haman-Prewitt: I’m the Communications Director for the Public Education Foundation, otherwise know as PEF. We’re a local non-profit that works to improve student achievement in Hamilton County public schools. We do that by partnering with the school system to create programs that provide research into effective teaching practices and training for teachers and school leaders in those practices. Sometimes this means bringing in experts; sometimes it’s sending teachers to see other schools that are working well; sometimes it’s helping put teacher coaches in schools to provide day-to-day support and feedback; and sometimes it’s just holding meetings for teachers across the county to share their best ideas and experiences. We also raise money to help pay for all of this.

Christa Payne: I am the Director of Development and External Relations at PEF. My job is to raise awareness about the work we do and help secure funding for our initiatives, both from the local and national community.

Chattarati: Where do you get your funding?

CP: We get our funding from a variety of sources: local foundations, national foundations, and individuals. We’ve been really successful at acquiring large grants from foundations like the Carnegie Corporation and the Annenberg Foundation, and locally from the Lyndhurst Foundation, the Benwood Foundation and the Community Foundation. We also have some individual local donors, and we’re currently working hard to grow local donations from individuals and businesses.

Chattarati: What do you wish you did better?

CP: We are working really hard to do a better job of getting our message out to the local community. We have received national recognition and funding for our work, as well as great support locally from the Benwood and Lyndhurst Foundations. However, to be a truly effective organization for change, we need to have more individuals and corporations in the community understand who we are, what we do, and how their support can help improve public education.

FHP: I wish we could get the word out that our schools are really doing better than folks think they are. I see so many truly dedicated teachers and principals who work really hard to do a good job, and who are getting great results in improving student learning. I’m constantly looking for ways to share that with the public.

On that note, since you were so kind as to ask, we’ve developed a new podcast series and e-newsletter, and I wish we were better at getting more folks would sign up for them! At www.pefchattanooga.org, that is.

Chattarati: Why should people care about your organization?

CP: Our mission is to improve student achievement in the Hamilton County public schools so that all students succeed in learning and in life. Our work is all about the kids- making sure that regardless of where our children are in school, they are receiving the very best instruction. Public education affects everyone whether or not you have kids in the local public schools. It has an impact on quality of life, business relocation and recruitment, the economy, home values. The stronger our public schools, the more our students achieve, the better for the Chattanooga community as a whole.

FHP: What she said, plus this: PEF has a staff of highly skilled former principals and experts who are passionate about helping students succeed, and we do good work. People who are reluctant to contribute directly to a government entity like the school system can still make a very good investment in school reform by contributing to us.

Chattarati: What would Chattanooga do without you?

FHP: Things aren’t perfect in our schools, but we’ve seen a lot of really good progress. A lot of that progress can be attributed to our partnership with the schools, and I don’t think we’d see as much of that without PEF.

CP: The impact PEF has had on the public schools in partnership with the Hamilton County Department of Education and our supporters has been tremendous. We do a few things at PEF really well, particularly around leadership training for teachers and administrators. We believe that this is one way to affect long-term substantial change within our schools.

Chattarati: How would you describe your relationship with the school board?

FHP: Most members of the school board recognize and appreciate what we’re trying to do. We have very positive relationships with them.

Chattarati: The school board recently released their rankings of Superintendent Scales. How would you rate his overall performance and his cooperation with PEF?

FHP: We’ve worked well with Dr. Scales. He and PEF share the same passion, which is to help children get a great education. He’s got a really tough and thankless job, but he’s navigating the waters well.

Chattarati: Have you encountered any resistance from school administrators or the school board to your involvement with Benwood or Lyndhurst?

FHP: In our experience, most school administrators and most school board members are glad for help. On rare occasion, that’s not the case.

Chattarati: What are your plans to work with the new charter school projects in Hamilton County?

CP: Any new ways to reach students and help them be successful is good for our community. One of our part-time staff members, Edna Varner, was instrumental in getting the charter school started.

FHP: We haven’t really made any special plans regarding the charter schools. Since they are public schools, their principals will be included in the summer and winter leadership institutes that we provide, and we’ll offer their teachers the same professional development opportunities as teachers in other schools.

Chattarati: There’s a lot of information on your website about your successes. Could you tell us about a program that isn’t meeting expectations? How will you turn it around and make it successful?

FHP: We focus so heavily on successes because we feel we need to balance the negative perception that exists about Hamilton County schools. There really ARE good things happening that folks need to know about, but it gets drowned in the noise. That doesn’t mean we don’t recognize weaknesses or work that still needs to be done.

We need to work on math, and especially to decrease remediation rates when students get to college. We need to work on ACT scores. We need to re-examine the academies – some of them are truly stellar, but others never really took off. And we need to continue to increase the number of students who graduate from high school.

What we’ve learned along the way is that a good education hinges on good teachers. We have a lot of those in Hamilton County, but we need to put a LOT of energy into making sure that we are recruiting and developing the best and the brightest to teach our students in the future. That’s where we see our next horizon.

Bonus 1. Are you smarter than a fifth grader?

FHP: Depends on which fifth grader. I have a lot of respect for fifth graders.

CP: You’ll have to wait for my TCAP scores to determine that.

Bonus 2. Have you ever received a haircut from Rhonda Thurman?

FHP: Not physically, but she’s offered us a verbal trim a few times.

CP: Have you seen my hair? That’s the upside of long curly hair. It doesn’t need much cutting.

Bonus 3. Josiah Roe leaves his office at 50 E. Main Street traveling 23 mph on his scooter. Two minutes later, Andy Berke leaves Krispy Kreme at 5609 Brainerd Road traveling 38 mph in a Toyota Prius. Who
will reach the Ochs Center first?

CP: David Eichenthal will need to conduct 6 focus groups of business owners along this route, survey a random sampling of residents in the Chattanooga area who are supporters of Andy Berke and customers of Coptix, run statistical analysis on the data from said surveys and focus groups, write a 400 page report, and provide you with a brief summary at a roundtable discussion of community activists once both Andy and Josiah arrive at the Ochs Center.