Educators nationwide have heard the refrain too often: Children from low-income homes have low academic achievement levels. But many public schools are proving that bleak economic backgrounds are not destiny.

In Getting Results, the new education book from the Maryland Public Policy Institute, author Megan Farnsworth examines 12 high-poverty, high performing schools in Maryland to determine what philosophies and practices they use to bring success.

Megan Farnsworth is an independent education consultant. She assists in staff training for Link Institute, an educational organization focused on teacher quality and character education. She appears regularly on a California-based Spanish-language radio network to discuss education issues pertinent to Hispanic parents and students. She was an education specialist for the Massachusetts Department of Education and worked recently at The Princeton Review where she provided staff training and technical assistance to teachers.

Before consulting, Farnsworth worked at The Heritage Foundation as an education fellow. Prior to that she was a curriculum specialist at Walt Disney Elementary, a high-poverty school in Burbank, CA, where she helped raise test scores by focusing on data analysis of performance. She was also a teacher at George Washington Elementary School in Burbank, CA. Farnsworth received a bachelor’s degree in classical studies from Occidental College in Los Angeles and a master’s degree in education and teaching credentials at UCLA in 1993. She also graduated from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education in 1997.
 

"The author has provided a very smart, incisive look at how a variety of schools across Maryland are making a difference in the lives of children. The schools are not only raising test scores under challenging circumstances, but also providing warm enthusiastic environments where children want to learn and teachers want to teach."

-Jerry D. Weast, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools, Montgomery County, MD

"This is a great read! The book offers a very detailed description of the history and state of testing, and gives historical performance models. It is well written and easy to follow. This is a must-read for Maryland policymakers becuase it spells out a formula for success."

-Jeanne Allen
President
Center for Education Reform

 "A first rate analysis of how some of Maryland's schools - too few, to be sure - are breaking the link between poverty and educational perfromance, showing that schools serving young people from low income families can help them learn to high standards."

-Bruno V. Manno
Senior Associate for Education
The Annie E. Casey Foundation