February 1, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools to Host National Conference on Urban School Reform

Kansas City Kansas Public Schools (KCKPS), in partnership with the Institute for Research and Reform in Education (IRRE), is sponsoring a three-day conference on urban school reform, the Urban Education Innovation Network (UEIN), February 5-7, 2007. With the support of PREP-KC, a local intermediary working to improve the quality of public education in urban Kansas City, the network seeks to bring together educators interested in learning more about the implementation of reform strategies that are now a part of KCKPS' district-wide implementation of First Things First, a nationally recognized comprehensive reform framework. Ten districts, representing ten states and more than 125 people, will be in attendance.

Over the past five years KCKPS – an urban district serving approximately nineteen thousand mostly minority and economically disadvantaged students – has established its role as a national leader in urban school reform through dramatic improvements in attendance, student behavior and persistence to graduation.

• The graduation rate has improved from 48% in 2000 to 83% in 2006
• Reading proficiency on the Kansas Assessment has increased from 11.3% in 1996 to 53.5% in 2006
• Math proficiency on the Kansas Assessment has increased from 3% in 1996 to 48.6% in 2006

"We view UEIN, both as an opportunity for us to share our success with other districts, and as a vehicle to receive feedback from others about how to continue our improvements," said Steve Gering, Deputy Superintendent for Teaching and Learning. With the local support of PREP-KC and the national support of the Gates Foundation, we are able to share our "lessons learned" with a national audience.

Conference participants will spend time learning about the First Things First reform efforts, hearing from panels of students, teachers, administrators, and board members, and visiting district schools to see the reform efforts first hand.