fall 2007 - Seton Hall University

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Mitchel comes to this project with “an unwavering belief
that urban schools control enough variables to ensure
every child learns and masters the identified curriculum.”
Moreover, his conviction grows from solid experience.
In 1975, Mitchel, then a principal at the Franklin School
in Newark, launched a program to turn around that underperforming
school of 1,240 students. The school eventually
won accolades from the New York Times as “one of the best”
in the state, and was featured on CNN and CBS. But, turning
around a low-performing school is a process, not an event,
Mitchel is quick to add. “It took some four years of hard
work, with the philosophy of each day, each week, each
month getting better and better.”
More than 30 years later, “the journey to create a New
Newton is off to its own great start with a new powersharing
system, a new academic focus and training, some
new staff and, most important, new hope,” Mitchel says.
For instance, the “governance committee” of union, academic
and parent representatives now shares power with the
principal and district over budget, hiring and academic
policy, and teachers are actively involved in all improvement
efforts. The union has even agreed to remove teachers
who cannot or will not adapt to the school’s new approach.
At the outset of the project, the Seton Hall faculty,
along with the Newark teachers union and other experts,
completed a comprehensive assessment of the school’s
GETTING BETTER EACH DAY: Above center, Charles Mitchel
and Newton Street School Principal Willie Thomas envision success
through focusing on three major areas: teaching and learning, school
culture and leadership. Other College of Education and Human
Services professors who have helped Newton extensively are Dan
Gutmore, Ph.D., Barbara Strobert, Ed.D., and Lourdes Zaragosa
Mitchel, Ed.D. ’91. Photo at top left by Richard Perry/The New York Times;
photos at center and top right by Ed Murray/The Star-Ledger
needs and identified three major areas to focus on:
teaching and learning, school culture and leadership. The
team then formed three study groups to analyze Newton’s
strengths and areas to improve, and based on the groups’
recommendations, held a five-day training session with
60 teachers and administrators over the summer.
Out of this collaboration came what Mitchel calls
“a vision for the New Newton” — one that will transform
daily life inside the school building, which was built in
1871, and will equip its students for the 21st century.
The joint efforts have also created a teacher population
that is highly motivated. Not only have teachers been redecorating
and sprucing up their classrooms on their own
time, but they also recently petitioned the school’s administration
to extend the school day by one hour, to 4 p.m.
PAYING BACK AN OLD DEBT
In one sense, all of this “empowerment” stems from a
45-year-old piece of advice that came from John Murphy,