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BACKGROUND AND MISSION
LMLI's mission is to develop and support public school leaders who view solid education as a necessity for transforming children's lives and who are committed to leading consistently high achieving schools where all students, beginning with kindergarten, are prepared to enter and graduate from college.
The Lorraine Monroe Leadership Institute (founded in 1997 as the School Leadership Academy at CEI) is an outgrowth of the groundbreaking work of Dr. Lorraine Monroe, a national and international expert in education, who founded and served as principal of the Frederick Douglass Academy in Central Harlem. Dr. Monroe's extensive experiences-as teacher, Dean of Students, turn-around principal of a school in the South Bronx, New York City Deputy Chancellor of Curriculum and Instruction, and college professor-allowed her to succeed in the revolutionary work with this highly successful middle school and high school. Her work has been featured on 60 Minutes, in Ebony magazine, The New York Times, and in her books, Nothing's Impossible and The Monroe Doctrine. Dr. Monroe is ably assisted by other consultants including Ms. Carrie Simpson, a retired principal from the New York City Public Schools, and LMLI's Vice President, Dr. Lonnetta M. Gaines whose experiences include founding and directing early childhood and community programs in Atlanta, Georgia, Trenton, New Jersey and Louisville, Kentucky and teaching graduate students at the Bank Street College of Education where she chaired the Educational Leadership Department and directed the Early Childhood Leadership Program.
The LMLI Method involves the use of twenty-three training tools and twelve key program components that run from August through June of each school year. The twenty-three tools, based on Dr. Monroe's successes in the New York City Public Schools, are designed to train school leaders and their teams to create school excellence in: school tone, academic achievement, professional development, and school-wide planning. The twelve program components make up a calendar of activities that include on-going school site visits with individual consultations with leaders, training workshops and seminars for principals and their teams, and focused workshops and conferences with parents and students.
THE LMLI HARLEM DEMONSTRATION DREAM SCHOOLS PROGRAM
The LMLI Harlem Demonstration Dream Schools Program is an outgrowth of the LMLI Demonstration Schools Program which began in August of 1999 in order to better demonstrate the Monroe method for building effective schools. LMLI Demonstration Schools serve as teaching models-akin to teaching hospitals in the medical profession-where leaders and teachers are trained to practice the art of leading, administering, and teaching. The LMLI Harlem Demonstration Dream Schools Program serves six selected schools in Central Harlem including four schools that were a part of the original program and two new schools. This narrowed focus is enabling us to deepen our work with the schools and improve our delivery system for training and coaching leaders and their teams in the skills sets that led to Dr. Monroe's successes, thereby increasing the replicability of the LMLI method.
LMLI's six Harlem Demonstration Dream Schools are located in Central Harlem's Region 10 (formerly school districts 3, 4, and 5). According to the 2002 New York City Board of Education statistics, 80% of students in Region 10 are eligible for free lunch, which means that each student's household income is under $19,838 for a family of three and $23,920 for a family of four - both incomes are under the national poverty level. Approximately sixty-five percent of the students come from single-parent homes.
LMLI's Harlem Demonstration Dream Schools Program is a three-year program that trains and coaches school principals, their leadership action teams and their faculties to use proven LMLI tools and techniques for improving student achievement. The LMLI leadership training program focuses on training school leaders to:
- plan strategically for school-wide academic achievement
- observe teachers formally and informally
- use the results of classroom observations to focus internal staff development
- instruct teachers to plan lessons that are tailored to state academic standards and to students' diagnosed needs
- coach and teach test taking success strategies to all students
- create innovative projects that drive instruction
- increase parents' involvement and personal growth
The success of the LMLI Demonstration Schools is based upon the twenty-three tools and techniques that drive student achievement in urban schools. Because these tools are universally applicable, the LMLI Demonstration Schools and leadership training program have proven to be replicable in a variety of urban school settings.
DEMONSTRATION SCHOOLS RESULTS
LMLI has a proven performance record - every school LMLI has worked with on the state SURR list (School Under Registration Review), which are schools at risk of being shut down by the state because of low-test scores, has improved and been removed from the list within a two to three year period.
Further, in an independent study conducted in 2003 by TCC Group (formerly The Conservation Company), a significant number of LMLI schools were found to be "…very successful in achieving the desired outcomes: improved school tone, strengthening of principal leadership, increased student scores on standardized examinations, improvement in teacher instruction, increased collaboration among faculty around curriculum, and improvement in overall school culture." One school principal referred to the LMLI method as a comprehensive blueprint for success.
The following chart, excerpted from the TCC evaluation report, is an example of the improvement in fourth graders' scores in three schools which are currently a part of the LMLI Harlem Demonstration Dream Schools Program. (This information is also available on the website of the New York City Department of Education.) The chart shows how students performed on the standardized Fourth Grade New York State English Language Arts (ELA) exam over the years LMLI has worked with them.
Note: 1999 is the year before the school became an LMLI school.
| SCHOOL |
1999 |
2006 |
| P.S. 161 |
16.2% |
44.8% |
| P.S. 96 |
4.3% |
44.9% |
| P.S. 129 |
25.3% |
44.1% |
Building upon the initial successes charted above, our current LMLI goal is to develop schools in
Central Harlem that will serve as models for excellence. The primary thrust of our work is to institutionalize
excellence in our six focus schools, thereby developing a prototype for excellence in urban schools throughout the country.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS ACADEMY II
June 2006 New York State Regents Test results
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| EXAM |
Percent of students
failing (below 55%) |
Percent of students
passing (above 55%) |
| Global Studies |
0% |
100% |
| Spanish |
0% |
100% |
| Math A |
2% |
98% |
| English |
10% |
90% |
| Math B |
14% |
86% |
| US History |
22% |
78% |
| Earth Science |
27% |
73% |
FUNDING
The Harlem Demonstration Dream Schools Program is funded by foundations and individual supporters including members of the LMLI Board, a dedicated group of leaders in education and business. Funds are used to support a variety of LMLI program activities and events including individualized mentorship for principals, professional development workshops for principals and their teams, student tutorials, student enrichment activities, and parent development events. We invite you to support our important work and help to transform the lives of almost 3,000 students in Harlem's schools. Please join our LMLI mailing list to learn more about our work.
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Background and Mission
is to develop and support public school leaders who view solid education as a necessity for transforming children's lives and who are committed to leading consistently high achieving schools where all students, beginning with kindergarten, are prepared to enter and graduate from college.