New York City Vice Mayor Richard Buery is in Cincinnati today and tomorrow touring the city’s groundbreaking community learning centers. He’s in town to glean best practices from CPS as New York Public Schools ramps up its own community learning center program.
"What Cincinnati does, that they have probably done better than any other city, certainly better than New York at this time, is not just to have a collection of great community schools, but to have a system of community schools," Buery said to reporters in New York Monday. "I want to see what it means for a city to build a system of community schools. What did that take in terms of the political will, in terms of how different city agencies and the private sector have to work together."
Cincinnati has gotten a lot of attention for its community learning centers, including write-ups in the The New York Times, NPR and other national publications. The centers, usually established in low-income neighborhoods, contain a number of services for the whole community — dental and vision clinics, mental health therapists, after school programs and more. The city started with eight learning centers and now CPS has them in 34 of its 55 schools.
The model has led to increased cooperation between the city, the school system, neighborhoods around the schools and private enterprise. Last month, the city announced a partnership between Powernet, a Cincinnati-area tech company, and CPS to provide free wireless access to the neighborhood of Lower Price Hill around Oyler School, one of the city’s most recognized community learning centers in one of the city’s most low-income neighborhoods. The school is the subject of a documentary film, called simply Oyler, following the school and neighborhood’s progress.
City leaders expressed excitement about the visit.
“It never hurts to be aware that mighty New York City is here to see some of the good things happening in Cincinnati, especially with our school system,” Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld said today. Sittenfeld said Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black will meet with Buery on Thursday.
Buery is in town with Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers. The UFT represents more than 300,000 teachers in New York City.
New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio was one of four mayoral candidates to visit Cincinnati last summer at Mulgrew’s invitation. He made bringing Cincinnati’s model to New York City a major talking point of his campaign, saying it had “unlimited potential.” DeBlasio wants to model 100 schools in the city after Cincinnati’s learning centers.
