January 19, 1995: Vol26n13: PERSONALITIES:  Leader 'lifts' school reform

By STEVE COX
Reporter Staff
Stephen Jacobson had been teaching special education in New York City
public schools for seven years when he was laid off.
	His 1977 pink slip could have been a reprieve from the
headaches and hassles of working in a "600" school, so-dubbed for the
number of extra annual dollars earned in "combat pay" for teaching
there, explained Jacobson. Instead, it was his call to arms. He
decided to rededicate himself to fixing problems that plagued public
education.
	Eighteen years later, Jacobson is one of the leading academic
innovators in education reform nationally. An associate professor in
the Graduate School of Education, he recently was recognized for his
efforts by his peers with the Jack A. Culbertson Award, given annually
by the University Council for Educational Administration, for his
contributions to the field of educational administration. Jacobson
calls the award, offered by the group of 52 of the leading educational
administration universities in the country, "extremely humbling."
	The Leadership Initiative for Tomorrow's Schools (LIFTS) is
one of Jacobson's innovations. Born from concerns that Jacobson and
area school administrators shared over the quality of "new school
leaders," LIFTS is a cooperative project among UB and seven WNY school
districts to field train tenured teachers as school leaders and
administrators, says Jacobson. With the help of Jacobson's colleagues,
James Conway and Robert Stevenson, LIFTS redefines traditional
educational administration training by integrating course work with
field experience.
	Eight teachers from area schools are currently enrolled in the
two-year program. Selected by their administrators to participate in
LIFTS, the teachers remain on paid leave from their schools during the
program. Currently, the teachers have taken on the task of designing a
"model elementary school" for an unnamed, troubled school district
outside Pittsburgh. This project, explained Jacobson, was selected
from among a number of proposals for assistance submitted to the LIFTS
program.
	"The community is 53 percent black by population, yet this
school district is 99 percent black," explained Jacobson. "Of 180
students who enter first grade, only around 50 expect to graduate from
high school there. Their last class valedictorian had a 2.7 GPA in
high school, but failed out of the University of Pittsburgh after
receiving a full scholarship."
	LIFTS students have studied the financial, labor-management,
facilities and socioeconomic problems of the district for more than a
year, and will draft a comprehensive report for the district at the
conclusion of their training.
	Another of the innovations Jacobson has introduced to
U.S. schools sprang from his personal pink-slip experience: a salary
deferral plan for teachers that can prevent layoffs.
	Jacobson researched and wrote, in 1992, about a program widely
used in Canadian schools that allows teachers to defer a portion of
their pay for a number of years to earn a full year's "sabbatical"
from their district with pay and the guarantee of a job when they
return.
	"For instance," Jacobson explained, "a teacher making $40,000
a year could defer 20 percent of that salary each year for four years,
then take a leave at 80 percent of full pay the fifth year." Jacobson
showed that districts could realize a small saving over layoffs by
deferring part of normal compensation and hiring long-term subs for
teachers on sabbatical. Most important to Jacobson, though, is the
plan's ability to combat teacher burnout.
After leaving the New York
	City school system, Jacobson spent four years as a drug
rehabilitation counselor while earning his master's in special
education through the SUNY College at New Paltz. He went on to earn
his school administrator's certificate through New Paltz, but, he
confesses, "The program was just awful. It was everything I thought
was wrong with these types of programs." He immediately applied to
Cornell University, where, in 1986, he earned his doctorate in
educational administration. He joined the faculty at UB in the fall of
that year.
	Involved with a Cornell University project several years ago
to assist rural school district consolidation, urbanite Jacobson
visited a tiny school system upstate. "I figured a big city guy like
me, what am I going to learn here?" recalled Jacobson, "but, on my
first day there I noticed something I'd not seen in larger districts.
	"Every kid getting off a bus had a name, and every adult there
knew it. They would ask kids who didn't seem like themselves, if
anything was wrong, and they wanted to know the answer. It was a very
nurturing environment." Jacobson carries his impressions of that visit
over to his vision for the schools of tomorrow.
	School buildings will be mere structures, says Jacobson, that
house more vertically and horizontally integrated classes. "Education
will become more student-focused and individualized," he
predicts. "Focus on the program needs of every individual, rather than
on programming for a blocklike regular or special education."
	This model, which Jacobson calls the "inclusive school," will
require a new breed of administrators, like those being trained
through LIFTS, who are both administrators and leaders, with talent
for managing and facilitating.