Commentary: Education efforts that would make Mr. Rogers proud

By Gregg Behr

and Maxwell King

What happens when one of the most divisive presidential primary campaigns in memory sweeps through Mister Rogers' Neighborhood?

From our positions at Pennsylvania foundations that have long invested in continuing Fred Rogers' legacy of innovation in children's education and development, the question has occurred to us more than once over the past few weeks.

A primary contest should be a fantastic opportunity to excite children about the political process and the issues important to their futures. Instead, it has at times devolved into an R-rated, cringe-inducing media spectacle. And while we're convinced that Fred would be troubled by the bickering, brawling, and name-calling, we think he would be even more concerned about what is not being said: anything substantive about children and their development.

In their campaigning in the state, primarily in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, several candidates called for revolutions of one kind or another, but these have little to do with the future of education, especially the need for innovative learning methods for children in underperforming school districts and under-resourced communities. Yet in many of the southwestern Pennsylvania communities these candidates visited, a grassroots learning revolution already is blooming. It's called the Remake Learning Network, a bold movement 10 years in the making that is dramatically expanding innovative educational opportunities for children.

The network comprises more than 250 organizations embedded in neighborhoods and communities. Its mission is to engage young people in learning that is hands-on, cross-disciplinary, and relevant to their other interests. But rather than focusing on outdated pedagogies and standardized tests, the network emphasizes student self-discovery in creative building and inventing through projects. Today, Pittsburgh is in the forefront of reimagining education by turning learners into makers through science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics (known as the STEAM subjects). Philadelphia is also gaining national recognition for innovative practices.

Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are two of 27 communities nationwide named STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) Ecosystems Initiative cities by the STEM Funders Network for developing rigorous and effective instruction. In March, Philadelphia was one of eight cities awarded City Challenge funding by the organization LRNG. Speaking about the potential impact of the grant, Lisa Nutter of Philadelphia Academies said it would help the city create a community-wide infrastructure of learning that builds on and amplifies the good work already being done in schools and communities. Pittsburgh in 2014 was among the first cities to receive LRNG challenge funding.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education and the White House are taking note: The network has attracted broad support because of its broad base. It also is delivering results. Among its members, which range from day-care centers to large school districts to the Carnegie Library system to Carnegie Mellon University, 86 percent report forming new and productive partnerships as a direct result of participation. In the network's home base of Allegheny County, student participation rates in after-school programming exceed the national average by 10 percent.

As an example of what the network can accomplish in one school district, Elizabeth Forward in Allegheny County climbed 105 slots in the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment and now ranks 145th of 500 districts. Its summer enrichment program has seen a 500 percent increase in enrollment.

But what is truly remarkable, and what surely would make Fred Rogers proudest, is how well technology-focused, human-centered, hands-on learning approaches have worked in school districts serving under-resourced urban and rural communities. These are the very places where intentional exposure to STEAM subjects can lead to careers that break generational cycles of poverty.

Today, the performance and promise of Remake Learning will bring education and technology leaders from across the country to Google Pittsburgh's Bakery Square campus to launch Remake Learning Days, a weeklong demonstration of the region's ascendancy in developing learning programs for the future.

Announced at the event will be commitments totaling more than $20 million in new investments from foundations, businesses, and governments to support Remake Learning programs across southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Also announced will be an expansion of programs in the next year to benefit 350,000 children and 18,000 educators in the region.

This week, 250 community-based events - most of them free and open to the public - will showcase innovative STEAM and technology-enhanced learning programs. Leaders from across Pennsylvania and the country will explore how Pittsburgh's hands-on learning partnerships can be replicated, particularly in under-resourced communities.

With all that we know of Mister Rogers, especially his belief that children should be empowered to contribute to their own learning, we're sure he would be cheering the expansion of this movement across Pennsylvania and to the rest of the country.

"It's easy to say, 'It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem,' " he once told a group of educators. "Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes."

Gregg Behr is executive director of the Grable Foundation, which has led development of the Remake Learning Network. gregg@grable.org

Maxwell King, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Foundation and a former editor of the Inquirer, is a former executive director of the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media. He is writing a biography of Fred Rogers. kingm@pghfdn.org