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Lynches give $20m to train principals By Tracy Jan Boston College will launch an innovative training program for school principals in January to improve urban education and prepare more low-income students for college, with a $20 million donation from Fidelity vice chairman Peter Lynch and his wife, Carolyn. The new Lynch Leadership Academy, to be housed at Boston College's Lynch School of Education, will be the first program in the nation to bring together education leaders from Catholic, charter, and district public schools, said Boston College officials, who will formally announce the gift, one of the largest in the college's history, tomorrow. "America has the best colleges and universities in the world but that's not true for prekindergarten through high school,'' said Peter Lynch, a 1965 BC graduate who at tended Newton public schools. "There's great disparity between suburban and urban schools.'' Lynch, a longtime supporter of Catholic schools and Teach for America, said he wanted the leadership academy to include public schools to reach more students because "parochial schools alone can't solve the problem.'' During the yearlong training, new and aspiring principals from different types of Boston schools will learn from professors at Boston College's schools of education, management, law, nursing, and social work to better understand and respond to the issues facing urban students, said the Lynches in a phone interview. More than ever, schools of all kinds must know how to address a myriad of health and social problems such as neighborhood violence, bullying, homelessness, and childhood obesity, educators said. Urban schools also struggle with how to deal with undocumented immigrants and students whose parents are incarcerated or on parole, they said. "On the public policy level, district public schools, charter schools, and Catholic schools are pitted against one another as adversaries. But on the grassroots level, they have the same commitment to kids,'' said the Rev. Joe O'Keefe, dean of the Lynch School of Education. "We face the same kinds of issues and have the shared mission of providing educational opportunity for underserved populations.'' Each year, 25 school leaders will be selected to participate. They will keep their day jobs and receive a $5,000 stipend and three graduate school credits to attend a two-week intensive summer program, weekly coaching sessions at their schools with assigned mentors, and monthly seminars at Boston College with professors and national experts. The principals will also participate in online seminars and online meetings with colleagues at other schools. Program leaders hope that after the principals' year of formal training they will continue to tap into the program's network of educators for support and new ideas, said Carolyn Lynch, president and CEO of the Lynch Foundation. "This type of communication is especially important for principals. The isolation is inherent in the job, and we're hoping to eliminate that,'' said Carolyn Lynch, whose father was a public school principal in Delaware. Catholic schools, which have a strong track record of academic success in the city, can share lessons about character education, said Mary Grassa O'Neill, secretary of education and superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Boston. And charter schools, she said, could spread innovations such as extended school days and providing health care, counseling, and job-training for parents in the evening. "The more we can stitch together the educational leaders across charter, district and parochial schools, the stronger educational opportunities will be for children and their families in the city of Boston,'' said Meg Campbell, executive director of Codman Academy, a charter school in Dorchester. "It shouldn't really matter what kind of schools children go to in terms of outcomes.'' The fellows will initially be drawn from Boston's 135 district public schools, 16 charter schools, and the 129 parochial schools of the Archdiocese of Boston, O'Keefe said, but could expand to other cities in Massachusetts such as Malden and Lawrence. Lynch said he hopes the academy will be a model and be replicated across the country. Lynch estimates that by 2014 about 45 percent of all school leaders in Greater Boston will have had the opportunity to go through the institute. "From my career in business, the definition of management is getting things done through others, which is what a principal does,'' Lynch said. "It's a complex job, and there's no handbook for it. It's a very uneven educational experience for kids today and principals can turn that around.'' |
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