First, a well deserved thank you to our Milwaukee hosts for planning a memorable Forum experience we will not soon forget. It captured in every way the spirit of our Schools That Can movement.
I come away with so many take home values and I hope each of you who attended have your own list. Here are mine in the form of a few key words:
“Momentum” – one respected participant commented to me “this feels like the early days of Teach for America.” I agree.
“Urgency” – I was moved by Howard Fuller‘s call to action and Kole’s reminder to us that we are dealing with life and death issues and that children at risk are relying on we adults to believe in them.
“Community” – In the presence of 450 attendees at the Milwaukee breakfast I was reminded that our movement has a lot to do with building community support around growing seats of quality. We cannot allow issues of separate silos to deter our commitment to the bigger picture – that all children deserve our getting out of our own four walls in common support of of our mission to grow seats of quality to reach tipping points in each of our cities.
“Citywide Movement” – the video we saw at the breakfast offers us the spirit of the Schools That Can movement. I am convinced that regardless of differences from one city to the next, all cities can take our STC Milwaukee model and import it to their own city for a low-cost grass roots movement to reach tipping points that will change the status quo forever. We are busy putting together a simple “how to do this” document for our Regional Council leadership. I sincerely hope in each of your cities our Milwaukee experience ignites the start up of a similar experience in your city.
“Let’s Start” – Kole Knueppel referred to the Schlesinger book, “Action Trumps Everything.” Let’s start in every STC city to get our proven model off the ground. The potential outcomes we are seeing in Milwaukee is worth the effort in each of our cities. Honestly, do we have any other options that look so promising?
The Milwaukee Forum has set a new bar to match at the STC 2014 National Forum: NYC – The Harlem Experience. With your continued support and engagement we will do our very best to meet your well deserved high expectations.