Disruption Index: Omari Walker

One of 77 people, places and ideas changing cities in 2012.

Credit: Danni Sinisi

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Over the next two weeks, Next City will unroll short profiles of 77 people, places and ideas that have changed cities this year. Together, they make up our 2012 Disruption Index. Forefront subscribers can download the Index in full as a PDF, complete with beautiful designs and graphics by Danni Sinisi. Readers who make a $75 donation to Next City will have a full-color printed copy of the Index mailed to them.

In the Massachusetts school districts of Framingham and Fall River, Omari Walker and his collaborator Janice Manning have been fighting a seemingly endemic problem. High school students — for an admittedly wide range of reasons — were dropping out at especially high rates. To counter this trend, they argued, a different approach was needed. And so, through alternative education programs tailored specifically to students in danger of flunking out, Walker and Manning developed a high school education program that eschews the traditional one-size-fits-all approach to schooling. Dropout rates declined sharply.

To help expand on this work, Walker formed the Resiliency Foundation in 2009. It’s a standalone organization that aims to help public school systems to better meet the needs of their most vulnerable students. The students at risk of dropping out or flunking out shouldn’t just be let go, the Foundation argues. To try to help students stay in school and graduate, it has adapted the traditional school schedule and academic program to help kids catch up, broaden their skill sets and get more personalized attention. In Fall River, upon working with the Foundation, the dropout rate fell by nearly 8 percent between 2007 and 2010. With Resiliency, Walker is hoping to help other school districts achieve similar results.

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Nate Berg is a writer and journalist covering cities, architecture and urban planning. Nate’s work has been published in a wide variety of publications, including the New York Times, NPR, Wired, Metropolis, Fast Company, Dwell, Architect, the Christian Science Monitor, LA Weekly and many others. He is a former staff writer at The Atlantic Cities and was previously an assistant editor at Planetizen.

Tags: public schools2012 disruption index

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