Role(s) of Higher Education in Helping Diverse and Excellent Public Schools Gain Recognition

Authors

Edmund T. Hamann, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Mark Larson, Lincoln Public SchoolsFollow

Date of this Version

10-2018

Citation

Hamann, E.T., & Larson, M. (2018). Role(s) of Higher Education in Helping Diverse and Excellent Public Schools Gain Recognition. Indianapolis, IN: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center.

Abstract

Often education researchers enter schools only to depict inequity and weak practice, but the same empirical skills that illuminate challenges can, under a different premise, illuminate excellence. This brief, laid out as a dialogue between university-based researcher, Dr. Edmund Hamann, and urban high school principal, Mark Larson, describes how graduate students helped a diverse public high school document its excellence and win National Education Policy Center (NEPC) recognition as a 'School of Opportunity'. Although this case is unique in specific detail, other school/higher education partnerships could clearly function like this one did. Good schools may not have staff to document their multifaceted responsiveness, but, with university assistance, they can.