The Education Philanthropist Of The Year

Kelly Posner Gerstenhaber often has children on her mind—and not just her own four cuties, Alexander, Joshua, Dylan and Mikaela. Dr. Kelly Posner Gerstenhaber lives, works and gives in ways that have a notably positive impact on the lives of children. For the past six years, she has been the Founding Chairwoman of the Board and proud champion of Turnaround for Children, whose school-change model has won over teachers, principals, parents, children and key education policymakers and philanthropists across the country with its extraordinary success at transforming some of the most challenged elementary and middle schools. On another important education front, Dr. Kelly Posner Gerstenhaber is one of the founders of the Speyer Legacy School, the city’s first independent school for the gifted, now in its second year, which is emerging as a groundbreaking model for the education of advanced learners—the kind of kids who have the potential to one day become our leading scientists, thinkers, artists, politicians and CEOs. These two innovative initiatives come on top of her “day job” as the Director of the Center for Suicide Risk Assessment at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital.

Among her notable achievements, the FDA commissioned Dr. Posner Gerstenhaber to establish methods for suicide assessment that are now required by most drug development programs. In a front page story, The New York Times characterized this as “one of the most profound changes of the past 16 years to regulations governing drug development.” Dr. Kelly Posner Gerstenhaber has been honored by New York magazine (which cited her as one of the city’s most influential people) and the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology at Yeshiva University (which named her its most influential graduate in the last 50 years). These days she works with organizations as far-ranging as the U.S. Army and New York City public schools, and has even addressed the leaders of the European Union on how to tackle depression and suicide. For her leadership with both Turnaround For Children and The Speyer Legacy School—and with a nod to her monumental work on the treatment of depression and the prevention of suicide—we honor Dr. Kelly Posner Gerstenhaber as our Education Philanthropist Of The Year.

Of all the good causes and organizations one can support, why have you decided to put so much of yourself into Turnaround For Children?

In Turnaround, I saw unparalleled potential to make a difference, to really help kids who need it the most. Turnaround has a very intuitive model. If you want to transform a struggling school you have to address the learning environment, student support issues (including the need for mental health services), and family engagement—all at once. If you just pay attention to one of those things, all of the other systemic problems will minimize the effectiveness of your one initiative. This approach is transforming schools where everything else has failed. And when you think about what it means to transform failing schools in terms of the influence on graduation rates, incarceration rates, and ultimately on poverty and society, the impact of this work is profound. And even more profound because it’s replicable: It can be put into effect by any low-performing school around the country. Turnaround is frequently referred to as “the missing link” in the education reform debate, and I think that’s right. With Turnaround, you have a practical and proven approach for transforming failing schools that keeps them within the public system, as opposed to shutting them down and looking just to charter schools for answers.

Does Turnaround have the support of the Department of Education? And what else does it need—presumably more money?

Without sounding presumptuous, I can say that Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is one of our biggest fans and supporters. He points out that education is the biggest crisis our nation faces—and he has called the work of Turnaround “groundbreaking,” and has said that he thinks that hundreds of New York City schools could benefit from our approach! Former Turnaround board member U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, with whom we worked extensively on his Children Exposed to Violence Initiative, has been another passionate supporter. The good news lately is that Turnaround is also gaining serious attention and support from other important policymakers in Washington and across the country. We’ve also been fortunate to garner support from the kinds of major institutional and philanthropic funders who have access to the work of the most promising educational efforts around the country. Their support is invaluable, but of course we need more. The schools have the ability to pay for a very small portion of the program out of their budget.

Speaking of which, I heard you had a great inaugural benefit last year.

It was amazing. We honored Chancellor Klein along with New York State Chancellor Merryl Tisch and journalist Perri Peltz—all three of whom have been vocal supporters of Turnaround. We raised more than $1.1 million.

How does it feel to be one of the honorees at the upcoming benefit on April 28 at the Plaza?

It’s a huge honor. We’re going to be announcing the other honorees shortly and they are truly special figures in the world of education. So first of all I feel humbled and honored to be in their company. What can I say? I believe so deeply in Turnaround’s potential to make a massive difference in the lives of kids who are stuck in failing schools. This is one of the great honors of my life.

Your other big commitment in education is to The Speyer Legacy School, the city’s first independent school for the gifted, which opened in September of 2009. How did that come about?

When my oldest son was at Hollingworth Preschool, which is a school for advanced learners at Teachers College at Columbia, it was such a positive experience that it really awakened me to how the focus and expertise of a school can make a big difference in the education of an advanced learner. But launching Speyer, like any school, was a huge challenge that required the time and dedication of educators and parents.

Speyer seems like such a radical departure from your work with Turnaround. Or is there a connection?

There is. Every child—regardless of the circumstances they are born into—deserves an appropriate education designed to allow that child to maximize his or her potential. Turnaround focuses on children in the most disadvantaged circumstances and gives them a chance at a great education and a hopeful future. Likewise, Speyer recognizes that advanced learners are more likely to reach their potential if they are engaged early on in purposeful and challenging work and allowed to progress without ceilings.

Is there a shortage of gifted programs?

A big shortage. I’m familiar with the landscape because two of my sons attend Hunter College Elementary School, one of the city’s top gifted programs. But Hunter can only accept 50 students each year. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of other kids who are qualified. There should be a Hunter—or a Speyer—for them too. Last year, by the way, the heads of school at Speyer and Hunter launched a joint program to share a beautiful 50-acre farm in Westchester, which became the cornerstone of an innovative health and nutrition curriculum, allowing the kids to do hands-on cultivation, and study subjects like environmental science and ecological responsibility. Hunter has taken it a step farther by improving its school lunch program as part of its Healthy Hunter initiative, which integrates work on the farm. In fact, both the Speyer and Hunter programs (which include some “farm to table” lunches at Hunter) were showcased on LunchNYC, a TV series on NYC Life (the city’s cable network), which features cutting-edge school lunch and health education initiatives. Opportunities like this remind me of the profound and heartbreaking lessons in Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers,” which is about the nature of success. The lesson is that “giftedness” in a child is just potential. If it’s not nurtured, then it becomes the tragedy of a wasted opportunity. To be the adults they have the potential to be, kids need the right support along the way. In that way, a Turnaround school and the Speyer School have a very similar mission.