Americans and Israelis Work Together for Student Success in the U.S.

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Research has found that teachers and schools feel unprepared to meet the needs of economically disadvantaged students, most of whom are children of color. Many teachers perceive special education as the only resource available for helping students who are not succeeding in their classroom. But sadly, data suggests that special education is more of a dead-end in terms of helping to improve the life trajectory of students of color.

Good schooling, however, can lift students above the limits of physical poverty, above a social environment that is indifferent to success in school, and above the ingrained policies that continue the sting of separation caused by unintended but institutionalized racism.

The National Urban Alliance for Effective Education (NUA) has done just that. Over the past two years, the NUA has been forming a partnership with the Israel-based International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential (ICELP) to introduce a proven method of student assessment that has a 50-year track record of correctly evaluating student learning potential. With school districts, university educators, and other leading advocates, the NUA and ICELP are now working together to tackle America’s last great civil rights issues: education reform.

This method, pioneered by Professor Reuven Feuerstein, has already transformed culturally disadvantaged students in dozens of countries on six continents—from Scotland to Israel to Brazil to Rwanda.

Feuerstein, a maverick psychologist, now 88, began his life’s work in Israel with child survivors of the Holocaust, and maintains the belief that every child has the intrinsic ability to fulfill his potential. He has worked tirelessly to develop a uniquely powerful cognitive approach to teaching and learning.

The Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment (FIE) is a classroom curriculum designed to enhance the cognitive functions necessary for academic learning and achievement. The fundamental assumption of the program is that intelligence is dynamic and modifiable, not static or fixed. Designed as a two- or three-year program in three levels, FIE consists of fourteen instruments and accompanying teacher’s guides.

Though in its early stages, the initiative has already begun dramatically improving the life trajectory of students taught by FIE trained educators. In Albany and Bridgeport, preliminary results from the two-year project suggest significant student achievement in literacy and mathematics.

The NUA currently works in urban districts across the country from New York to California, and the NUA-ICELP partnership is expected to broaden to all NUA districts in the coming years. Together, NUA and ICELP believe they can bring new tools and effective strategies to actualize sustainable urban school reform gains across America.

As President Obama has stated so eloquently during an election campaign speech: “…We want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a twenty-first century economy.”

Both Dr. Eric J. Cooper, President of the NUA, and Rabbi Rafi Feuerstein, Chairman of the ICELP in Jerusalem (also Prof. Feuerstein’s son) believe their partnership can pave the way in this effort and give educators the right tools to properly evaluate their students’ potentials.

They say, “Education remains the one strategic process for enabling a deeper self-discovery, and in so doing unlocks a potential that defines our destiny. America and Israel don’t give up on their people. That is common ground where all nations can firmly stand.”

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