Inspiring Greatness in Education A: School of The 21st Century Model at The Independence School District
Inspiring Greatness in Education A: School of The 21st Century Model at The Independence School District
Inspiring Greatness in Education A: School of The 21st Century Model at The Independence School District
com
https://textbookfull.com/product/inspiring-
greatness-in-education-a-school-of-the-21st-
century-model-at-the-independence-school-
district-1st-edition-edward-zigler/
textbookfull
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
https://textbookfull.com/product/psychosocial-skills-and-school-
systems-in-the-21st-century-theory-research-and-practice-1st-
edition-anastasiya-a-lipnevich/
https://textbookfull.com/product/teaching-secondary-school-
mathematics-research-and-practice-for-the-21st-century-geiger/
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-asca-national-model-a-
framework-for-school-counseling-programs-american-school-
counseling-association/
https://textbookfull.com/product/21st-century-c-c-tips-from-the-
new-school-2nd-edition-ben-klemens/
Rethinking 21st Century Diversity in Teacher
Preparation K 12 Education and School Policy Theory
Research and Practice Suniti Sharma
https://textbookfull.com/product/rethinking-21st-century-
diversity-in-teacher-preparation-k-12-education-and-school-
policy-theory-research-and-practice-suniti-sharma/
https://textbookfull.com/product/handbook-of-the-sociology-of-
education-in-the-21st-century-barbara-schneider/
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-past-present-and-future-of-
the-business-school-1st-edition-edward-w-miles-auth/
https://textbookfull.com/product/school-based-partnerships-in-
teacher-education-a-research-informed-model-for-universities-
schools-and-beyond-linda-hobbs/
https://textbookfull.com/product/anthropology-and-
anthropologists-the-british-school-in-the-twentieth-century-
fourth-edition-kuper/
Inspiring Greatness in Education
Inspiring Greatness
in Education
and
1
1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of
Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research,
scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by
Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
© Oxford University Press 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law,
by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization.
Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the
Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zigler, Edward, 1930–
Inspiring greatness in education : a school of the 21st century model at the Independence
School District / Dr. Edward F. Zigler, Dr. Jim Hinson, Jennifer Walker, M.Ed.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–989784–1
1. Community and school—Missouri—Independence. 2. Educational leadership—
Missouri—Independence. 3. School District of the City of Independence, Missouri.
I. Hinson, Jim. II. Walker, Jennifer. III. Title.
LC221.3.I53Z54 2014
371.19—dc23
2013045632
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
This book is dedicated to Matia Finn-Stevenson, Ph.D., director of the School
of the 21st Century and associate director of the Zigler Center in Child
Development and Social Policy at Yale University.
Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xi
Inspiring Greatness in Education xiii
The role that school districts perform in the lives of children and families, and
in serving their neighborhood communities, is more diverse today than any
other time in history.
There are more opportunities for schools to improve instruction with new
technology; there is broader, more convenient access to imaginative educa-
tional programming and learning tools; and there are new ways for schools to
measure the success of new programs and modify them as necessary.
With this being the case, why are U.S. public schools so often criticized by
people inside and outside the system? Why aren’t more school districts enhanc-
ing early education, academic programs and social services that can help chil-
dren and their families in the journey through life?
Some critics blame reluctance by school districts to institute school system
reform. Others blame funding shortfalls or costs for training teachers and staff
when introducing any new program.
If there is consensus among the critics it may be that many school districts
today suffer from lack of visionary leadership and from a lack of willingness to
take risks. What can be the outcome?
School districts that address only rudimentary accreditation requirements
in order to receive funding entitlements and maintain the status quo may over-
look developmental needs that, if not addressed, can stifle students’ abilities to
learn and become well-adjusted young adults. This type of failure can easily
taint a school community and infect its metropolitan area.
The story of how the Independence School District in Independence,
Missouri, in the Kansas City metro area, has avoided that scenario and become
a national model for public school districts is both impressive and inspiring.
Its embrace and expansion of School of the 21st Century concepts has trans-
formed the once virtually-bankrupt district—which literally closed in the 1970s
x Foreword
for weeks—into a district that today has won Missouri’s esteemed “Distinction
in Performance” award six years in a row.
The School of the 21st Century is a community school model that incorpo-
rates child care and family support services. It promotes optimal child develop-
ment from birth through the school years. It is the vision of Dr. Edward F. Zigler,
director, emeritus, of The Edward Zigler Center in Child Development & Social
Policy at Yale University, where The School of the 21st Century is based.
This model is based on Dr. Zigler’s vision that neighborhood schools can be
hubs for child care, early education, family services, healthcare assistance, and
other services. This model program can ensure that children are ready to learn
when they enter school and continue to receive support they need to succeed
academically and in life.
The Independence School District is a national model for facilitating posi-
tive outcomes in whole school reform because of its application and expan-
sion of School of the 21st Century concepts. It has benefited from the passion,
commitment and determination of superintendents who chose to offer the best
education and developmental support possible for children while addressing
elemental family service needs. It embraced School of the 21st Century con-
cepts in 1988, becoming the first urban school district in the nation to do so.
One result in Independence today is a school district developing children’s
potential to the ultimate while offering family service safety nets, being able to
protract these initiatives with innovative funding strategies and well-trained
staff. Another result is that more students in Independence are scoring higher
on academic tests, and higher percentages of students are entering college when
they graduate from high school.
The Independence School District innovations are designed to “serve the
whole child.” Equally important, these initiatives fortify school families. Gains
achieved through these efforts help improve the lives of many parents, families
and neighborhoods, strengthening the community fabric.
This useful book displays what schools can accomplish when their admin-
istrators, principals, teachers, staff—and partners such as local nonprofit and
faith-based organizations—unite in commitments to best serve their commu-
nity, and take bold steps to make it happen.
Inspiring Greatness in Education: Schools of the 21st Century in Missouri—
The Independence School District Model is a chronicle of vision, determina-
tion and optimism for school districts and communities that they serve, and
displays how one determined school district perseveres in its mission. It is an
extraordinary case history for American public education.
This book chronicles the evolution, expansion and continuing success of School
of the 21st Century programming (21C) in the Independence School District
in Independence, Missouri. Many educators consider the Independence School
District a national leadership model of public school administration and pro-
gressive early education. The 21C-related programming has helped generate
positive academic outcomes for students and, in addition, addressed diverse
social and family needs in neighborhoods that the District serves, making the
community stronger.
Independence was the original living pilot program for 21C-related pro-
gramming that today is offered in some 1,300 public schools and school
districts across the United States. In 1987, Independence School District
Superintendent Dr. Robert Henley, a progressive, tough-minded administra-
tor, met Yale University’s Dr. Edward Zigler, architect of 21C programming.
He heard Dr. Zigler’s inspired call to action for public school districts to better
address needs for early education, compassionate care and child development by
focusing on “the whole student” and, in addition, transforming public schools
into hubs for neighborhood family services. Dr. Henley vowed to implement
Dr. Zigler’s vision to provide compassionate care and early education for stu-
dents, including infants and pre-school children, in the Independence School
District while addressing neighborhood family and social service needs.
Results in the schools of the Independence School District, among other
achievements measured by evaluators, have included more positive outcomes
in academic performance, child development, student wellness initiatives and
student physical fitness. In addition, the Independence community has ben-
efited greatly from local neighborhood networking and redevelopment efforts
led by the District. Dr. Zigler’s courage, compassion and commitment for early
education, child development and for offering family services by utilizing
xiv Introduction
I
n 1988, the Independence School District of Independence, Missouri,
became the first urban school district in the United States to implement
School of the 21st Century (21C) concepts for early child development and
before-and-after school programming developed by The Edward Zigler Center
in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University.
Among the approximately 1,300 schools and school districts that have applied
21C concepts across the United States since that time, the Independence School
District has become unique in its embrace of the 21C model as a catalyst for
introducing diverse, school-based child development programs and, in addi-
tion, diverse social and community services that assist students and families
in all walks of life. In this way, the Independence School District demonstrates
how neighborhood public schools can perform as essential hubs not only for
education, child development, wellness, and personal growth, but for helping
children and families while enhancing neighborhood pride and encouraging
vibrant local community-development.
2 I N S P I R I N G G R E AT N E S S I N E D U C AT I O N
The story of how the Independence School District came to be what many
academics and educators consider a national model for facilitating positive
outcomes in whole school reform is notable for its origins and, in particular,
because the District, despite tight budgets, has continued to embellish its 21C
components and grow 21C-rooted programming continuously over nearly
25 years. In succession, four different superintendents in Independence since
1988 have embraced the 21C model with passion and commitment that today
distinguish the District and its community.
As Dr. David Rock, who served as superintendent from 1999 to 2002, says
today, “If I had ever announced to the community, “We have to eliminate our
21C early childhood and before-and-after school programs,” people all over the
District would have been up in arms. It would have been easier for me to cut a
District sports program than to cut School of the 21st Century programming.
That’s how far it had come and that’s how widespread the acceptance was.”
With a population of approximately 117,000, the city of Independence is
located seven miles east of downtown Kansas City in a region that Lewis and
Clark traversed in 1804 during their Voyage of Discovery as their keelboat
headed west on the Missouri River.
The District was established in 1866 with ten instructors. Its first public school
opened four blocks from the Independence courthouse the following year in a
four-story building that was formerly a private academy. The District also taught
students in rented rooms and churches until construction of a new school in 1870.
For 100 years the Independence School District steadily grew, graduating a
bespectacled youth named Harry Truman from high school in 1901. Later, as
president of the United States, Truman would write, “I do not remember a bad
teacher in all my experiences.”
Independence boomed as a center for light manufacturing and as a Kansas City
bedroom community for the 20 years after World War II until super-highways
made it easy for commuters to live in newer suburbs a few miles farther east.
At the same time major industrial manufacturers near Independence began to
discover it was easier to build new plants elsewhere than to upgrade their aging,
post-war technology. So they cut work shifts or closed, laying off hundreds of
employees living in Independence.
“The Queen City of the Trails,” as Independence had been known since
the 1840s, began to lose her luster. Once hailed as a solid, urban district, the
Independence School District began a slide in the 1970s as families moved out
to look for jobs elsewhere, local development slowed, and local tax revenues
decreased. School programs suffered as budgets were slashed. The District was
so poor it canceled classes and closed its doors for two weeks and the Board
of Education fired its superintendent. Families and businesses lost faith in the
District and its credit rating was in jeopardy.
A Need for Change 3
Quickly, the Board decided that Dr. Henley was the change-maker they wanted
and needed. He was hired as superintendent and given this mandate: Save the
Independence School District and change our schools for the better.
4 I N S P I R I N G G R E AT N E S S I N E D U C AT I O N
As much as anyone working in a public school district could be, Henley from
the start was a benign dictator, brusque yet beloved, a tough-talking executive
who wouldn’t accept “No” as an answer from anyone on his staff. The first thing
Dr. Henley, a St. Louis native, did when he assumed the job was put a small sign
on his desk. It read: “Be Reasonable. Do it My Way.” Then he set to work.
Among community leaders, politicians, government bureaucrats, and philan-
thropists he was considered savvy, charming, and a natural leader. Dr. Henley’s
agenda was loud and clear: “Do what’s best for kids.” His initiatives: Close out-
dated school buildings; eliminate poorly performing administrators; hire and
motivate new staff; position the District to gain voter support for bond issues;
and win back community confidence with high-quality education.
Among teachers and administrators he immediately became known as dic-
tatorial but fair-minded—as long as his staff and principals were team play-
ers who followed orders. Demanding prompt, well-planned responses to his
decisions and directives, he routinely listened to alternative opinions that arose
when discussing District issues, but this approach often ended with the cour-
tesy of listening, followed by a decision on the matter based on his own opinion.
At a meeting soon after his arrival when administrators told him that they
didn’t believe it was part of their job to promote proposed school bond issues,
Dr. Henley cleared his throat and then told them bluntly, “If you stay employed
here, you will be involved in school bond elections,” settling the complaint once
and for all.
Within days of his arrival, he set about rebuilding the District’s public rep-
utation, telling his secretary, staff, and principals to book him for as many
neighborhood gatherings and public appearances as possible. “I had 270 coffee
meetings that first year in living rooms full of people,” Dr. Henley says. “We
talked about whatever they wanted to.” Among business leaders, politicians,
philanthropists, charitable foundations—and administrators from other school
districts—he became known as a brilliant and charismatic “can-do” person, a
natural leader who aggressively represented the best interests of his District, its
students and patrons.
Strategically, he also began refreshing the District’s personnel resources. Over
time, Dr. Henley discretely found ways to dispense with the poorly perform-
ing administrators identified on the Board of Education’s list, plus a number
of teachers and other staff—and without negative legal repercussions for the
District. Generally, he delegated teacher-firing to principals, but “We had one
spectacular case when we actually fired a teacher who took it to court—and the
District won. When other principals watch that sort of thing, they don’t want
to get into that, and, in most cases anyway, a principal can make things clear to
the teacher (by saying to them), “We’ve seen your evaluations, and you’re con-
sistently underperforming, you’re not doing very well.” Many people who hear
A Need for Change 5
that take the attitude that maybe the right thing to do is to do something else.
A lot of (underperforming) teachers exited out of the system.”
He replaced them with experienced professionals who, above all, loved chil-
dren and loved helping kids learn. Around the District’s offices, if he was not
engaged in a meeting, talking on the phone or consulting with a staff member,
Dr. Henley, a handsome, dark-haired man with an athletic girth, sometimes
seemed deeply absorbed in his own thoughts, detached from busy goings-on
around him.
Staff members who worked with him remember that Dr. Henley sometimes
was seen in the District offices with his hair slightly disheveled, or with one shirt
collar button loose, or with half of a shirt-tail hanging out, his concentration so
intense that he’d overlooked attending to such miniscule things. This occasion-
ally disheveled, but intensely-focused appearance endeared Dr. Henley to many
people.
“He was a true visionary, focused on the ‘big picture’ ” asserts Dr. Robert
Watkins, who was hired by Dr. Henley to be deputy superintendent. “He was
the brightest man I have ever been around. He had restless creative energy, and
he wanted to create, needed to create . . . and as Superintendent he wanted to
help children excel.”
As the District’s tough-minded, visionary boss, Dr. Henley was not espe-
cially detail-oriented but Dr. Watkins, who had been a high school principal in
Columbia, Missouri, and a superintendent in suburban Springfield, Missouri,
was fastidious and meticulously organized; the men formed an excellent part-
nership. “My role was good for me,” says Dr. Watkins. “I loved working with
Bob. Never in our years of working together did we have a cross word—which
wasn’t always the case with Bob, because he could get on people pretty good.
“I could run the operations aspects of the District, and Bob (with Board of
Education approval) would develop policy and direct our mission and work
with the community. He was great with community connections and associat-
ing with business leaders, money people and foundations, and even bureaucrats
and politicians. In his time he became very much a state and national figure in
education.”
One outcome of Dr. Henley’s creative, if demanding, demeanor, Watkins
recalls, “was that everybody became more creative. The creative thinking of
principals and other people (in the District) began to swell.”
students to fewer than 12,000. He believed strongly that the District should not
only improve learning opportunities for kids, build new schools, and improve
existing infrastructure, but expand services that the District offered to families
to help strengthen the fabric of the community.
“We proceeded to do things that the District needed done that others before
us had avoided doing,” Dr. Henley says. “We had too many schools for our
number of students, and some of those school buildings were very old. Our
student populations were dropping. Families used to have four or five kids in
every house. Then they had less than two. All that happened in one generation.”
Yet demographic and economic changes impacting Independence and
nearby Sugar Creek (also served by the District) starting in the 1970s, such as
manufacturing plant closings that put hundreds of residents out of work, con-
tinued to affect the District. Many upper-middle-class families moving out of
the Kansas City environs to live farther east hop-scotched over Independence
to settle into new homes near superhighways that ensured easy commutes in
the metro area.
Dr. Henley says, “The average income began to drop in this community
and larger percentages of non-English speaking groups began to move in.
Employment patterns kept changing. Lower income people were replacing
higher income people.” More students, many of them poor, lived in homes
where both parents worked—or a single parent, usually a working mother, was
head-of-household.1
“We began closing schools because some of our buildings were very old and
the facilities were below standard. And then, of course, we needed a robust
school building program as well,” Dr. Henley says.
First on the superintendent’s list was to close the Hiram Young School, which
had been established in 1874 by a successful African American entrepreneur
in Independence to educate the city’s population of black children. In pioneer
days, Independence was the origination point for the California, Oregon, and
Santa Fe Trails. Young, a former slave who had bought his freedom and that
of his wife, built wagons for pioneers heading west. For much of the 20th cen-
tury, the Young School was the Independence District’s high school for dis-
abled and special education students. But in 1975, Congress had passed Public
Law 94-142—the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (now codified as
IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)—which required that,
in order to receive federal funds, states must implement policies to ensure a free
appropriate public education to all children with disabilities and to, essentially,
“mainstream” disabled children into conventional high schools.
“Closing the Young school was the first job that I took on when I came into
the District in 1978,” says Dr. Watkins, who was the superintendent’s point
man for most of the 11 school closings or consolidations that occurred during
A Need for Change 7
Dr. Henley’s tenure. “At the same time as I was going through the process of
closing the Young school down, Bob Henley proposed a bond issue and it
passed; it was the first school bond issue to pass in many, many years! We
used the money to build a new wing onto William Chrisman High School, and
we began to bring the special education kids in to Chrisman High and they
began to blend into the whole scene with the other kids, which was the way
it should have been, and it worked out fine. Initially there was concern in the
community among some parents and even among some teachers about mov-
ing those kids from a ‘sheltered’ school environment to attend Chrisman High
School, but the special kids mingled in with the other kids. They had lockers;
extracurricular activities were all the same. It worked fine.” (Chrisman High
and the District’s middle and elementary schools employed teachers certified
in special education, and mentally retarded children attended special classes,
Dr. Watkins says.)
Dr. Henley began brainstorming for ways that the District could improve,
expand—and fund—its services for young school children and their families.
“We were big believers in early childhood and cross-services . . . to me, it was
just obvious. The process of educating kids begins way before kindergarten,
and if you wait ‘til then, you’re losing some opportunities (for their develop-
ment),” Dr. Henley says, noting that he wanted to attract substantial funding so
that the District could implement a unique type of early childhood/family ser-
vice program. One of his ideas in the late 1970s was, he explains, “taking Title
IV money, which was ‘innovation’ money, and creating a pilot for establishing
early childhood programs.”
The federal Title IV program provides financial assistance to schools with
high numbers or high percentages of poor children to help ensure that all chil-
dren meet state academic standards. Then as now, federal funds were allocated
through statutory formulas based primarily on census poverty estimates and
the cost of education in each state. Gaining support and consensus from a num-
ber of his peers in Missouri public education, Dr. Henley visited Jefferson City,
the state capital, to personally lobby Arthur Mallory, who was then Missouri’s
commissioner of education.
Dr. Henley continues, “Of course there was no money. Keep in mind that,
at that time, most people thought that ‘educating kids’ was what the school
did and should do—and that they didn’t have enough money to do even that—
and so schools should not be involved with early childhood programs for four-
and five-year-old kids. I used to go to meetings with public administrators and
they’d say, ‘Hey, you don’t have enough education funding for what you’re doing
now.’ My answer always was, ‘You’ll never be as good as you ought to be until
you work with kids age four and five, particularly in homes where they don’t
have a lot of other kinds of advantages.’ ”
8 I N S P I R I N G G R E AT N E S S I N E D U C AT I O N
His opinion was influenced, in part, by what he saw in his District. “If you
went to a kindergarten class at Randall Elementary School [which was located
in a largely poor neighborhood where the District considered a number of
children and families “at-risk”] a lot of the kids there couldn’t even write their
name. I could go over to Sycamore Hills Elementary [located in a middle-class
neighborhood] where kindergarten kids could not only write their names but a
lot of them were reading at the second or third grade level,” he says. “Obviously,
rates of early child development were a factor.
“[To my thinking] the rates of development were basically the kind of enlight-
enment that young kids got in their own home situation and from among
local people, local resources. It doesn’t take brain science to figure that out,”
Dr. Henley says. “I think one of the problems with keeping early childhood
education at the forefront is that you have to truly believe in it, even if you can’t
satisfactorily gain that point of view by studying data which support that point
of view. We live in a data-worshiping country even if we don’t always know
what it means. But at that time in Independence, we knew there was a problem,
and we wanted a new program to address it, and we wanted Arthur Mallory to
see the wisdom of putting Title IV money in a basket to develop an innovative
program that would help address the problem.”
Dr. Henley engaged the support of Mildred Winter, who was then Missouri’s
director of early childhood education, to help lobby Commissioner Arthur
Mallory. “We talked Arthur into putting Title IV money in a pile to enable
development of the program . . . The program that was established was called
Parents as Teachers.”
Christopher “Kit” Bond, who was then Missouri’s governor and, later, a
U.S. senator, also supported the Parents as Teachers idea. In 1981, thanks in
part to Dr. Henley’s persistent lobbying, the Independence School District
launched one of the four original Parents as Teachers pilot programs.
Designed in part by Winter, the pilot program was funded by the Missouri
Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and The Danforth
Foundation. Passage of a Missouri law in 1984 championed by Governor
Bond required all Missouri school districts to offer the Parents as Teachers
program. Handled by teachers and developmental specialists, Parents as
Teachers provides early detection of developmental delays and health issues,
as well as parent education to help families understand their role in encour-
aging their child’s development from birth to kindergarten to help improve
school readiness. Since its origins in Independence, the program has spread
to all 50 states and many foreign countries. (In 1987, Mildred Winter became
founding director of the Parents as Teachers National Center, which today is
based in St. Louis.)
A Need for Change 9
The child care problem in the United States today is so massive and has
been ignored for so long that it is too late to rely on Band-Aid approaches.
We must institutionalize high-quality child care for each and every child
who requires such care. Our society and our place in the world depend
upon the degree to which we optimize the development of every American
child, as influenced not just by quality education, but by quality of child
care as well.
—Dr. Edward Zigler
Some in the audience thought Dr. Zigler’s vision inappropriate for school
districts—even radical. Not Dr. Henley. Immediately after the speech, as the
applause died, Henley approached Dr. Zigler and said simply: “We will do it at
the Independence School District with your help.”
The commitment that Dr. Henley established that day with Dr. Zigler to
launch School of the 21st Century programming within the Independence
10 I N S P I R I N G G R E AT N E S S I N E D U C AT I O N
School District was a turning point for both men. For Dr. Henley, it launched
an initiative to provide more services to help both children and families that
he considers among the most important and satisfying achievements of his
long career. For Dr. Zigler, it was the beginning of national acceptance of his
School of the 21st Century early child development vision which, today, has
been engaged by some 1,300 schools and school districts in more than 20 states.
Dr. Zigler, who is today Sterling professor of psychology, emeritus, and direc-
tor emeritus of The Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social
Policy at Yale University, grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, during the Great
Depression in an impoverished part of the city, seven miles from Independence.
His parents were immigrants from Poland who did not speak English; his father
owned a vegetable wagon. Young Zigler often accompanied his father on the
wagon’s daily rounds, rising before dawn and returning after dark to his family’s
small apartment.
“As a result of my family’s circumstances, I started working when I was about
seven or eight down at the city market, and it was a rough, tough existence,”
Dr. Zigler says. “Like most immigrant families, my parents worked very hard to
see their children advance above their own status in life. My two older sisters,
who were born in Europe, and my younger sister and I certainly have done that.”
Dr. Zigler’s childhood education in Kansas City “was not of a very impressive
type,” he recalls. “I went to a poor elementary school in Kansas City and then
to a high school that was essentially a vocational school because, in those years,
there was this firm belief that if you were a child of an immigrant the best you
could do would be to master a trade to make a decent living in this country.
However, I knew early on that I was, I guess, a gifted child. I skipped a lot of
grades in grammar school and moved ahead. So I knew early that I wasn’t going
to follow a trade.
“I made up my mind that you had to go to college if you wanted to be any-
thing, and that’s exactly what I did. I was the first member of my family to go
on to college . . . but the only college I could possibly afford [was] the University
of Kansas City, now the University of Missouri–Kansas City. My grades and
accomplishments in my high school years captured a lot of attention because
the high school was so poor in socioeconomic status that it very rarely accom-
plished anything of intellectual merit. But as a sophomore in high school I won
the city oratorical championship in Kansas City. I was in those days a great
debater—I’m still debating—and we won the debating championship. So it
helped me get into college [with]a scholarship because I was born in the city.”
Drafted into the U.S. Army before he graduated, Dr. Zigler fought in Korea
for two years until his discharge and return to college on the G.I. Bill. After
working as a graduate research assistant in the psychology department at the
A Need for Change 11
In fact, when I started at Yale, policy work was scorned . . . If you actually
went to Washington . . . and wrote a piece appearing in Child Development
[a scholarly journal of The Society for Research in Child Development] 300
people read it and that’s a notch in your belt. If you wrote a piece for Parents
Magazine and six million people read it and you impact a lot of lives, in those
days that was called ‘prostituting yourself.’
12 I N S P I R I N G G R E AT N E S S I N E D U C AT I O N
“I still remember distinctly in those years one of the great leaders of our field,
Robert Sears, took me aside and told me that I would be a first-rate child psy-
chologist if I would just give up this ‘policy nonsense.’ . . . But I was convinced
that knowledge was not its own end . . . and I had this sense that our work isn’t
just to fill up journals and books. It is to impact the world out there and try to
help children. I was advocating for that even, I think, before I got into Head
Start. . . .”
While working in the Nixon administration, and in keeping with his pragmatic
views to “help children,” Dr. Zigler created the nation’s first Office of Child Care
and conceptualized and implemented the Healthy Start program, Home Start
(Head Start’s home-based services program), the national Child Development
Associates certification program, and the national Education for Parenthood
program. In addition, Dr. Zigler established the first family support programs
in the network of Child and Family Resource programs. When President Nixon
vetoed the heavily-politicized Comprehensive Child Development Act, which
would have funded universal child care across America, young Dr. Zigler chose
to return to Yale “to continue the battle to improve the quality of American
child care.” It was 1972.
That battle took a dramatic turn 15 years later on that October day in 1987
when he gave his St. Louis speech outlining his vision for the School of the
21st Century. Today his comments still aptly define the problems and suggest
approaches that have been mirrored in the Independence School District over
the past quarter century. For those seeking to implement similar programs,
Dr. Zigler’s remarks, excerpted below, continue to serve as guideposts:
“I have decided to use this very important meeting and this platform in my
native state of Missouri to present to this audience a vision of the future. I’m
going to outline for you this morning the School of the 21st century, as I envi-
sion it. I’m glad to see that a consensus is developing about where our nation
should go. The White House Conference on Children in 1971 voted child care
as the single-most serious problem for America’s families. That was 17 years
ago. The question then and now, “How is this nation going to solve the problem
of child care?” Over the course of the last 17 years, I have worked and thought
about this problem. Now, for the first time in complete form, I’m advancing a
solution to America’s child care problem.
“If we look at the numbers, we will have a sense of the magnitude of the prob-
lem, which is now called America’s child care crisis. The magnitude is reflected
in the number of children and families involved. But most important for devel-
opmentalists, such as myself, is the impact on the development of children that
we will face if we do not solve this problem . . .
“Today in America, roughly 75 percent of the mothers of school-age children
are in the out-of-home work force. Among preschoolers, that number is now
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
saa ostaa mitään edullisella kaupalla englantilaiselta naiselta. Niinpä
minä eilen illalla sähkötin herra Eismanille ja kerroin herra
Eismanille, ettei hän näy tietävän, kuinka kalliiksi sivistyksen
hankkiminen matkustamalla käy, ja sanoin, että tosiaan tarvitsisin
kymmenentuhatta dollaria ja ettei minun toivoakseni olisi tarvis
lainata niitä rahoja keltään tuntemattomalta englantilaiselta
herrasmieheltä, vaikka se herra olisi erittäin komeakin. Ja niin minä
tuskitteluni vuoksi en voinut nukkua koko yönä, sillä jollen minä saa
rahoja sitä timanttidiadeemia ostaakseni, voi käydä kovin vaikeaksi
saada niitä sataa dollaria takaisin englantilaiselta naiselta.
Mutta nyt minun täytyy tosiaan pukeutua, sillä majuri Falcon aikoo
viedä Dorothyn ja minut katsomaan kaikkia Lontoon nähtävyyksiä.
Mutta minä tosiaan luulen, että jollen saa sitä timanttidiadeemia, niin
koko käyntini Lontoossa tietää minulle pettymystä.
Huhtikuun 18 p:nä.
Eilen oli kerrassaan mainio päivä. Tarkoitan, että majuri Falcon tuli
noutamaan Dorothyn ja minut Lontoon kaikkia nähtävyyksiä
katselemaan. Ja minä tuumin, että olisi ihanaa, jos seurassamme
olisi toinenkin herrasmies. Niinpä käskin majuri Falconin soittamaan
sir Francis Beekmanille. Tarkoitan, että minä sain sähkösanoman
herra Eismanilta, joka ei sanonut voivansa lähettää kymmentätuhatta
dollaria, mutta lupasi lähettää tuhat dollaria, mikä tosiaan olisi vain
pelkkä pisara pytyssä timanttidiadeemin hinnan avuksi. Mutta sir
Francis Beekman sanoi, ettei hän voinut tulla, mutta minä kiusasin
häntä yhtä mittaa puhelimitse, kunnes hän lupasi tulla.
Kun majuri Falcon ajoi omaa autoaan, istui Dorothy hänen
kanssaan, ja minä istuin sir Francis Beekmanin kanssa, mutta minä
sanoin hänelle, etten minä aikonut nimittää häntä sir Francis
Beekmaniksi, vaan että todella aioin nimittää häntä Possuksi.
Menimme sitten teelle erään rouvan luo, jonka nimi oli lady
Elmsworth, ja hänellä taas näkyi olevan meille ameriikkalaisille
myytävänä öljyvärillä maalattu öljyvärikuva jostakin esi-isästään.
Mutta minä sanoin hänelle, että minun isäni oli vähintäänkin yhtä
kaunis, mutta ettei minulla ollut hänestä mitään muotokuvaa, sillä
aina kun kehoitin häntä menemään valokuvaajalle, vihelteli hän vain
eikä ollut tietääkseenkään.
No, tästä illasta tulee oikea ilta, koska majuri Falcon aikoo viedä
Dorothyn ja minut tanssiin erään ladyn taloon tänä iltana
tavataksemme siellä Walesin prinssin tänä iltana. Ja nyt minun
täytyy valmistautua Possun seuraan, koska hänestä ja minusta
näkyy tulevan vallan hyvät ystävät, vaikkei hän olekaan vielä minulle
kukkia lähettänyt.
Huhtikuun 19 p:nä.
Huhtikuun 20 p:nä.
Eilen illalla minä todella ajattelin, että minun tulisi alkaa kasvattaa
Possua kohtelemaan tyttöä niinkuin ameriikkalaiset herrasmiehet
tyttöjä kohtelevat. Niinpä pyysin häntä tulemaan teelle saliimme
hotelliin, koska minulla oli pahanlainen päänkivistys. Tarkoitan, että
tosiaan näytän varsin sirolta vaaleanpunaisessa kotipuvussani. Ja
minä lähetin erään näppärän hotellipojan, Dorothyn ja minun
tuttavani, joka on vallan veikeä poika, nimeltään Harry, ja jonka
kanssa me haastelemme aika paljon. Ja minä annoin Harrylle
kymmenen puntaa englantilaisten rahaa ja käskin hänen mennä
kaikkein kalliimman kukkaskauppiaan myymälään ostaakseen
minulle kovin, kovin kalliita orkideja kymmenellä punnalla ja
tuodakseen ne saliimme neljännestä yli viiden mitään muuta
virkkaamatta kuin että ne olivat minulle.
Sitten Possu tuli teelle, ja me joimme teetä, kun Harry tuli sisälle
eikä sanonut sanaakaan, vaan antoi minulle aika ison laatikon ja
sanoi, että se oli minulle. Sitten minä avasin laatikon, ja ihan tottakin
siellä oli tusina mitä komeimpia orkideja. Sitten minä etsin korttia,
mutta eihän siellä tietenkään mitään korttia ollut, ja minä tartuin
Possuun ja sanoin, että minun oli häntä oikein hartaasti syleiltävä,
koska kukkien täytyi olla häneltä. Mutta hän sanoi, ettei hän ollut
niitä lähettänyt. Mutta minä sanoin, että hän se tietysti oli, sillä minä
sanoin, että Lontoossa oli vain yksi ainoa herrasmies, joka oli niin
herttainen ja jalomielinen ja jolla oli niin lämmin sydän, että hän
lähettäisi tytölle tusinan orkideja, niinkuin hän nyt oli tehnyt. Hän
tahtoi edelleenkin kieltää. Mutta minä sanoin tietäväni, että se oli
hän, koska Lontoossa ei ollut toista niin ihmeellisen ihmeellistä ja
merkillistä herrasmiestä, että lähettäisi tytölle tusinan orkideja joka
päivä, kuten hän. Niin minun täytyi tosiaan pyytää anteeksi, että
halasin häntä niin kiihkeästi, mutta minä sanoin hänelle, että minä
olin niin täynnä sysäyksiä ja innoituksia, että kun minä tiesin hänen
aikovan lähettää minulle tusinan orkideja joka päivä, riemastuin siitä
niin kovin, etten voinut itseäni hillitä.
Sitten Dorothy ja Gerald tulivat sisälle, ja minä kerroin heille, mikä
ihmeen ihmeellinen herrasmies Possu näytti olevan, ja sanoin heille,
että kun herrasmies lähettää tytölle tusinan orkideja joka päivä, niin
hän tosiaan oli mielestäni kuin prinssi. Ja Possu punastui kovin ja oli
tosiaan kovin, kovin mielissään eikä enää kieltänyt, että hän oli kukat
lähettänyt. Sitten minä aloin hupsutella hänen kanssaan ja sanoin
hänelle, että hänen oli pidettävä varansa, koska hän tosiaan oli hyvin
komean näköinen ja minä olin niin herkkä, että vielä jonakuna
päivänä saatoin unohtaa itseni ja muiskauttaa hänelle suukkosen. Ja
Possu tunsi tosiaan hyvin, hyvin suurta mielihyvää siitä, että hän oli
niin komean näköinen herrasmies. Hän ei voinut olla punastumatta
tuon tuostakin ja nauraa irvisti kaiken aikaa koko naamallaan
toisesta korvasta toiseen.
Huhtikuun 21 p:nä.
No, niin, eilen illalla minä vein Possun ostoksille Bond Street-
nimiselle kadulle. Ja minä vein hänet jalokivimyymälään, sanoen
haluavani hopeista kuvaraamia, koska minun oli saatava hänen
valokuvansa ja tahdoin kehystää sen sellaiseen. Sillä minä sanoin
Possulle, että kun tyttö joutuu tuntemaan niin uhkean herrasmiehen
kuin hänet, haluaa hän pitää hänen kuvaansa toalettipöydällään
voidakseen sitä oikein paljon katsella. Ja Possu tuli ihan nenästä
vedetyksi. Katselimme siis hopeisia kuvakehyksiä. Mutta sitten minä
sanoin hänelle, että minusta ei hopearaami tosiaan ollut kyllin hyvä
hänen muotokuvalleen; olinhan vain unohtanut, että oli
kultaraamejakin, kunnes niitä täällä näin. Aloimme siis katsella
kultaisia valokuvaraameja. Ja sitten kävi ilmi, että hänen kuvansa oli
otettu upseerin univormussa. Silloin minä sanoin hänelle, että hänen
täytyi näyttää niin komealta upseeripuvussa, että kultakehyksetkään
eivät minusta olleet kyllin hyviä; mutta kun siellä ei ollut
platinakehyksiä, täytyi meidän ostaa paras, minkä löysimme.
Huhtikuun 22 p:nä.
Huhtikuun 25 p:nä.
Niin, viime päivinä meillä on ollut niin paljon hommaa, ettei minulla
ole ollut aikaa kirjoittaa mitään päiväkirjaan, koska nyt olemme
laivassa, joka näyttää varsin pieneltä laivalta ja purjehtii Pariisiin,
jonne pääsemme tänä iltapäivänä. Sillä ei kestä läheskään yhtä
kauan matkustaa Pariisiin kuin Lontooseen. Tarkoitan, että tuntuu
ihan omituiselta ajatella matkan Lontooseen kestävän kuusi
vuorokautta, kun Pariisiin ehtii yhdessä päivässä.
Ja minä olen tosiaan kovin, kovin utelias, kun olen kuullut kovin
paljon Pariisista ja aavistan, että sen täytyy olla paljoa kasvattavampi
kuin Lontoo; ja sormeni syyhyvät nähdäkseni Ritzin hotellin
Pariisissa.
PARIISI ON JUMALAINEN
Huhtikuun 27 p:nä.
Huhtikuun 29 p:nä.
Eilen vasta oli päivä. Tarkoitan, että Dorothy ja minä olimme juuri
lähdössä ostoksille, kun puhelin soi ja ilmoitettiin, että lady Francis
Beekman oli alhaalla ja halusi tulla yläkertaan. Siitä minä ihan
hämmästyin. Tarkoitan, etten tiennyt, mitä sanoin, ja niin sanoin:
hyvä on. Sitten minä kerroin Dorothylle, ja me löimme viisaat
päämme yhteen. Sillä lady Francis Beekman kuuluu olevan sen sir
Francis Beekman-nimisen herrasmiehen vaimo, joka ihaili minua
Lontoossa ja näkyi ihailevan minua niin paljon, että kysyi saisiko hän
lahjoittaa minulle timanttidiadeemin. Ja näytti siltä, että hänen
vaimonsa oli täytynyt siitä kuulla, ja näytti todella siltä, että hän sen
vuoksi oli saapunut suoraa päätä Lontoosta. Ja kun ovelle
kolkutettiin oikein, oikein kovaa, pyysin minä häntä tulemaan sisälle.
Ja lady Francis Beekman tuli sisälle ja hän oli aika kookas rouva,
joka paljonkin muistutti Bill Hartia. Tarkoitan, että lady Francis
Beekman Dorothyn mielestä muistutti paljonkin Bill Hartia, vaikka
hän tosiaan sanoo hänen vielä enemmän muistuttavan Bill Hartin
hevosta. Ja hän lienee sanonut, että jollen heti antaisi takaisin
timanttidiadeemia, nostaisi hän siitä aika melun ja tärvelisi minun
maineeni. Sillä hän sanoi, että koko jutussa täytyi tosiaan olla jotakin
vinossa. Sir Francis Beekman ja hän kuuluivat näetten olleen
naimisissa kolmekymmentäviisi vuotta, ja viimeinen lahja, jonka hän
vaimolleen antoi, oli vihkisormus. Silloin Dorothy avasi suunsa ja
sanoi: "Rouvaseni, yhtä vähän te voitte tärvellä minun ystävättäreni
mainetta kuin upottaa Veitsin laivaston."
Tarkoitan, että olin aivan ylpeä Dorothysta, kun hän täten puolusti
mainettani. Sillä minusta ei tosiaan ole mikään niin ihmeellistä kuin
kaksi tyttöä, jotka tukevat toisiaan ja auttavat toisiaan sekä myötä-
että alamäessä. Sillä näyttipä lady Francis Beekman kuinka
tarmokkaalta tahansa, täytyi hänen tajuta, ettei hän kyennyt
upottamaan kokonaista laivastoa, joka oli täynnä laivoja. Ja niin
hänen täytyi heretä mainettani uhkaamasta. Sitten hän sanoi, että
hän raahaisi minut tuomioistuimen eteen ja sanoisi, että se oli ollut
sopimatonta vaikutusta. Mutta minä vastasin hänelle. "Jos te tulette
tuo hattu päässänne lakitupaan, niin saammepa nähdä, tarvitaanko
siihen tuomarin mielestä mitään sopimatonta vaikutusta, että Sir
Francis Beekman tulee vilkaisseeksi johonkuhun tyttöön." Silloin
Dorothy avasi suunsa, ja Dorothy sanoi: "Ystävättäreni on oikeassa,
lady Beekman. Teidän pitäisi olla kuningatar saadaksenne käydä
rauhassa tommoinen hattu päässänne." Ja lady Francis Beekman
näkyi ihan suuttuvan. Ja sitten hän sanoi, että hän lähettäisi
hakemaan sir Francis Beekmanin, joka oli äkkiä lähtenyt Skotlantiin
metsästämään, kun sai kuulla, että lady Francis Beekman oli saanut
kuulla. Silloin Dorothy sanoi: "Tarkoitatteko, että olette päästänyt sir
Francis Beekmanin valtoimeksi niiden Skotlannin tuhlarien
joukkoon?" Ja Dorothy sanoi, että hänen olisi parasta katsoa
miehensä perään, jottei se jonakuna iltana joutuisi poikaviikarien
seuraan ja tuhlaisi puolta pennyä ihan turhaan. Tarkoitan, että aina
rohkaisen Dorothya suulauteen, kun meidän on haasteltava lady
Francis Beekmanin kaltaisten hienostumattomien ihmisten kanssa,
koska Dorothy puhuu hienostumattomien ihmisten kanssa heidän
omaa kieltään paremmin kuin minunlaiseni sivistynyt tyttö. Ja
Dorothy sanoi: "Parasta on, ettette lähetä hakemaan sir Francis
Beekmania, sillä jos minun ystävättäreni todella tahtoisi käydä sir
Francis Beekmanin kimppuun, niin hänestä tulisi niin putipuhdas,
ettei jäisi jäljelle muuta kuin hänen arvonimensä." Ja sitten minäkin
puhuin suuni puhtaaksi ja sanoin, että minä olin ameriikkalainen tyttö
ja että me ameriikkalaiset tytöt emme piittaa arvonimistä, koska me
ameriikkalaiset tytöt aina sanomme, että se mikä kelpaa
Washingtonille, kelpaa meillekin. Mutta lady Francis Beekman näkyi
tulevan yhä vihaisemmaksi kaiken aikaa.
Sitten hän sanoi, että hän tarpeen tullen kertoisi tuomarille, että sir
Francis Beekman oli järjiltään silloin, kun hän sen minulle antoi.
Silloin sanoi Dorothy: "Jos menette oikeuteen ja tuomari tulee teihin
oikein tarkkaan katsahtaneeksi, niin hän päättelee sir Francis
Beekmanin olleen järjiltään kolmekymmentäviisi vuotta sitten." Niin
lady Francis Beekman sanoi tietävänsä minkälaisen henkilön kanssa
hän oli tekemisissä ja ettei hän halunnut olla minkään sellaisen
henkilön kanssa tekemisissä, koska se loukkasi hänen arvoaan. Ja
Dorothy sanoi: "Rouvaseni, jos me loukkaamme teidän arvoanne