Houston's public schools are primed for success

If we could see into the future of urban America, the landscape would look a lot like Houston does today. The nation's fourth-largest city is also its most racially and ethnically diverse. The economy is diversifying beyond traditional energy staples into research, technology, health care and education - and is increasingly dependent on a well-educated and highly skilled local workforce to flourish.

What this means is that Houston has the responsibility and the opportunity today to address many of the challenges other urban centers will face over the next three decades, especially in public education.

Here's the good news: Houston is headed in the right direction. In fact, the groundwork for this is happening here because we have the right conditions in place today, positioning our public schools for success and innovation tomorrow.

Houston has emerged as a hub for education reform. While we are still far from closing the opportunity gap between students from low-income communities and their higher income peers, the environment for reform in Houston has accelerated our ability to innovate and make a major impact for students and families across the city.

These seeds of success haven't gone unnoticed.

Last year, the Houston Independent School District became the country's first two-time winner of the national Broad Prize for Urban Education, which is awarded annually to the urban school district making the most consistent progress with its students. Aldine won the award in 2009. And in 2012, YES Prep was the inaugural recipient of the Broad Prize for Urban Charter Schools.

Houston is the only city with three Broad Prize winners - and Houston ISD is a winner of $30 million in coveted federal Race to the Top funds.

Why has Houston been able to make progress so quickly compared to other large metropolitan cities, such as New York and Chicago, serving students from similar socioeconomic backgrounds? Houston has eliminated barriers - politically and socially - to place children's best interest at the heart of our efforts to drive achievement.

The city's business, civic and education communities are approaching the challenge with an unprecedented shared sense of urgency. Private investment is flowing into public schools, and partnerships and collaborations are increasing.

District and charter schools are partnering rather than bickering, and we are beginning to share best practices across our systems through transformative district-charter partnerships like SKY (Spring Branch ISD, KIPP and YES), as well as the Aldine-YES Prep partnership that launched this school year.

Programs such as Apollo 20 in HISD, an initiative to transform the 20 lowest-performing schools in the district, is an integration of best practices from high-performing charter schools. Student achievement has increased significantly since the launch of the initiative.

Two of the largest traditional public school systems in the city - Houston and Aldine - are making significant progress in linking teacher and administrator hiring and contract renewal decisions to student achievement.

By rewarding educators whose students consistently make strong annual academic gains and giving teachers the training and tools they need to drive performance, Houston and Aldine are well ahead of other American school districts. YES Prep has a nationally recognized, novice teacher development program - Teaching Excellence - used for its own teachers as well as for other charter and district schools.

The entrepreneurial spirit and "can-do" attitude is alive and well in Houston. We are the birthplace of two of the nation's leading charter school organizations - YES Prep Public Schools and KIPP. YES Prep, with college graduation rates four times the national average for disadvantaged students, finds 80 percent of its graduates returning to Houston to launch their careers.

That's not to say we've got this all figured out - there is still a huge amount to be done before Houston can make the claim that every child has access to an excellent public education. But we're tackling tomorrow's problems today and, more importantly, creating tomorrow's model today: one where the needs of students are more diverse than ever, but where teachers, school leaders and community partners are united in their effort to help them succeed.

Bernal is president of YES Prep, a network of high-performing public charter schools based in Houston. Bamberg is superintendent of the Aldine Independent School District. Grier is superintendent of the Houston Independent School District.