Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt has taken on the simultaneous challenges of rebuilding the system's middle class student population and making real education progress with the system's 21,000 children from destitute families.

There's nothing easy about these challenges. Nothing. But if anyone is up to it, my bet would be on Mark.

He has Pittsburgh funders on board. He has convinced them to support "Pittsburgh Promise", program designed to help students and families of the Pittsburgh Public Schools plan, prepare and pay for education beyond high school at an accredited post-secondary institution within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center made a $100 million commitment to the Promise, with $90 million of that committed as a challenge to the rest of the community to raise a total of $250 million.

He has also established a three-pronged approach to improving student performance:

(1) Achieve reading proficiency by third grade. Until third grade, students are learning to read. After that, they are reading to learn.

(2) In sixth grade, assign a counselor to meet with every child and parent to discuss that child's life trajectory. This meeting should produce a "portal" into the child's interests and abilities, along with a contract for performance that will be checked quarterly. Mark hopes to organize and radically expand the "random acts of goodness" extended by business, civic and religious organizations to students.

(3) In ninth grade, get kids "adopted" by teachers who show a special and personal interest in them.

The high school delivery model no longer works, according to Mark, and he is determined to reinvent it. He points out that after 10 years, the Gates Foundation found out that it isn't small schools that make a difference. It is the quality of small that matters. Big schools can have that quality, and small schools may not.

Mark talked about the very real difficulty of realizing his strategy, particularly the sixth grade piece. No school system has figured out how to do community and parent outreach effectively. As Mark said, "We don't even have the language to describe" what's needed. He used the term, "adoptive mentorship."

Mark reminded us that the research shows that poor kids who succeed have a deep relationship with a caring adult, resilience (which is most often built on faith which, in turn, produces a sense of...), optimism. Without optimism, there is no reason for kids to try to do well in school.

Mark brings a remarkable candor to his job, a clear sense of urgency, and a fearlessness about tackling the tough task of remaking public education.

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