While many teachers find themselves bound by the restraints imposed by school administrators in the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Brian Schultz, assistant professor and associate chair, educational leadership and development, has successfully helped inner-city students discover the untapped potential within themselves. Now in his third year on the NEIU faculty, Schultz continues to work with Chicago's underprivileged youth while also sharing his ideas with future educators and school administrators in his university classroom.

At the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association held in New York in March, Schultz received Early Career Awards in "Narrative and Research" and "Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies." Also at the conference, five former students and a parent from his 2003-04 fifth-grade classroom in a Cabrini Green school presented their classroom's efforts fighting for a new community school while featuring youth perspectives on teaching, teacher education, and what it takes to motivate city kids.

Schultz shares this story in his recently published book "Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way: Lessons from an Urban Classroom." The account details the events of a teacher and his students on a journey together trying to solve a problem that was important to the classroom.

Schultz advocates a democratic curriculum where students and their teacher together theorize and develop an integrated curriculum. He said, "We need to rethink the way we do education. We teach about democracy, but we don't actively engage in our democracy. I want my students to learn how to be purposeful participants promoting change."

Schultz's move to teaching from a consulting career took him from a top floor office in downtown Chicago to its shadow, in Cabrini Green. With his fifth-grade classroom, Schultz engaged students by asking them to identify a problem in the community that they wanted to solve. After 89 initial ideas, the students narrowed their focus to one: they wanted to work toward replacing their dilapidated school building.

Instead of teaching spelling at 10 a.m. and math at 11 a.m., Schultz integrated all subject areas into a customized curriculum that centered around the steps to be taken toward solving their community problem. For example, reading and writing skills were developed through letter writing and the creation of a website. Math skills were gained through surveying and data analysis.

While the students did not succeed in getting a new school building, they learned how to follow a passion to reach for something better. Schultz also said that his students reported nearly perfect attendance and improved test scores after the project began.

Currently, Schultz is working on a project called "Grow Your Own" to help provide a no-barrier access to teacher education at Northeastern Illinois for parents or paraprofessionals who are in neighborhoods that have been historically marginalized. Tuition, child care, transportation, test preparation, and academic advisement for teachers in training are provided through a consortium that includes NEIU, Daley College, community-based organizations in the North Lawndale and Gage Park neighborhoods, as well as Chicago Public Schools in those neighborhoods.

The program is designed to help the neighborhoods in which the community-based organizations are located. Schultz said that about half of the students currently involved in the program already work for CPS, and that they have committed to teaching in their home communities for at least five years.

Fourteen students are currently enrolled at NEIU through this program. The goal of the consortium is to certify 1,000 teachers by 2016 in 10 consortiums throughout the state.