Superintendent Dr. Eva Joseph and Dr. Eric Cooper, president of the National Urban Alliance and recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Award, announced Friday, April 7, a partnership to aggressively address the systemic, underlying causes of the achievement gap and safety issues associated with the City School District of Albany and the community it serves.

The National Urban Alliance (NUA) works with urban school districts to instill a belief in the capacity of all children to reach the highest levels of learning and thinking demanded by our ever-changing global community.

The NUA will implement a dynamic process with the City School District of Albany, which will build high intellectual performance through students’ culture, language, and cognition. Consultants will work with the school district to provide ongoing professional development activities for teachers and administrators, with parent participation, to improve classroom instruction, enhance how schools are organized, and accelerate student achievement.

NUA consultants will go into the the schools to assess how each one is organized for instruction, examining its educational environment and how resources are used for student instruction. Consultants will coach teachers to accelerate student learning and deliver state-of-the-art theory and practice.

Dr. Joseph said, “We have realized that the causes of both poor academic performance and safety issues are in many cases linked to problems that extend beyond the schools. Furthermore, closing the achievement gap has been a top priority of the school district for some time, but it will not be satisfied until all students desire to excel. The intense, on-site assessment and eventual staff development that the NUA can provide is a way for the district to make this goal a reality. NUA addresses systemic causes of poor performance. By addressing how we instruct we can enhance teaching effectiveness. This will strengthen student’s abilities to learn. And perhaps more importantly, we can inspire our student’s desire to learn. Furthermore, NUA’s work has proven successful in leading to a direct improvement in safety. Our goals are to use the NUA to help us dramatically improve overall student academic performance and create the safest environment possible. We must continue to improve this school district, for the sake of the children, the city’s citizens and its taxpayers, and this initiative is an important step in doing so.”

Dr. Eric Cooper, NUA President and Founder, stated that: “Dr. Joseph’s invitation to assist in the challenges facing this school district caused us to postpone planned engagements in other major cities so we can allocate the resources necessary to make a dramatic impact on this school district. We agree with Dr. Joseph that Albany represents an historic opportunity to transform a school district that has had long standing challenges, and to create a model for other urban school districts, and other cities with similar challenges, across the country. We are thus delighted to have the opportunity to assist Dr. Joseph and her associates in their continuing actions to improve the school district."