NCEL Press Releases




























Press Release: October 3, 1995

The National Coalition for Equality in Learning at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst has received a $75,000 grant from the Danforth Foundation in Missouri to support its experimental efforts to reform public schools. The National Coalition has received over $600,000 from the Danforth Foundation for its five-year project to improve American schools.

NCEL Director Robert Sinclair, Professor of Education at UMASS, said, "We are discovering that it is possible to improve the learning of young people who have a history of failure." Meaningful school improvement takes place at the local level, he explained, and "reform efforts initiated remotely from the school are short-lived because they are disconnected from the problems students are having with their learning."

The National Coalition is discovering that state and federal reforms which are imposed on local schools do not work. This finding runs contrary to initiatives like the Massachusetts Education Reform Act. The new Danforth grant will allow NCEL to continue its mission to assist students on the margins of school in Massachusetts, Alabama, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Texas.



Press Release: October 25, 1995

Members of the National Coalition for Equality in Learning, based at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, held a crucial meeting in Montgomery, Alabama on 26-28 October to assess their progress in helping at-risk students stay in school. The 120 educators attending the meeting in Montgomery are from school systems that are committed to working together to solve problems of inequality that persist in too many of our nation's schools. Papers that were presented will be published in the UMASS School of Education journal, Excellence and Equity.

NCEL Director Robert Sinclair, Professor of Education at UMASS, said, "Teachers, principals and school administrators from across the United States are gathering in Montgomery to ensure that poor and alienated youth, particularly those youngsters who are struggling in school, receive quality education on equal terms." The education leaders, Sinclair said, also saw first-hand the important progress being made in Montgomery Public Schools in the struggle to help students from poverty learn well.

NCEL has been working in local communities in Alabama, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Texas for the past five years to assist students who are marginal learners become successful in school .



NCEL Home Page-- School of Education-- U-Mass