literacy · NYC Election · NYC Schools · School Choice · school diversity

What Mayor Eric Adams Might Mean For NYC Schools

As soon as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his $635 million dollar Academic Recovery Plan, focusing on early literacy, increasing digital access, college and career counseling, bolstering special education programs, building a new universal curriculum and expanding emotional support, supporters and detractors leapt in with follow-up questions. This isn’t surprising as, like… Continue reading What Mayor Eric Adams Might Mean For NYC Schools

Advanced Placement · Educational Equity · NYC high school

A Brooklyn School Working to Help Students Share Their Own Voices

(This is a guest post by Natasha Cherry-Perez, Senior Associate Director of Community Engagement at Uncommon Schools and super Mom to an outstanding high school student.) In middle school, Ruth Kendall remembered the mathematical expression Pi (3.14) all the way out to 400 digits. She loves numbers so much, the Uncommon Collegiate Charter High School… Continue reading A Brooklyn School Working to Help Students Share Their Own Voices

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“I Want to Talk About Better Academic and Life Outcomes for Black and Brown Kids. Period.”

(This was first published at Education Post.) If we have really well-prepared young people who are going to the exact college they want to go to, who will graduate from college within six years with little to no debt and who are willing to take over the dining hall and stage a protest or to… Continue reading “I Want to Talk About Better Academic and Life Outcomes for Black and Brown Kids. Period.”

Finding the Right School

NYC Schools Of Choice: Then and Now

In my 2017 post, Beyond the Zone: All Your NYC Elementary School Options (And How To Get Them) Explained, I mentioned Deborah Meier as someone who didn’t believe that the primarily African-American and Hispanic families of Harlem should be forced to settle for the education their zoned public schools were offering. In 1974, she founded… Continue reading NYC Schools Of Choice: Then and Now

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NYC School Hypocrisy Continued: Universal Pre-K Edition – Are Parents Part Of the Problem?

(Photo Credit: Christina Veiga of Chalkbeat) By this point, New York City parents have grown accustomed to the hypocrisy. The hypocrisy of elected officials and celebrities who sent their own children to Screened and Specialized schools, now expressing shock (and judgement) that any other families might want to do the same, and working their hardest… Continue reading NYC School Hypocrisy Continued: Universal Pre-K Edition – Are Parents Part Of the Problem?

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At New Visions for Public Schools, It’s All About Continuous School Improvement. How’s That Going?

At New Visions for Public Schools, it’s all about continuous school improvement. The organization supports a network of 70 district and 10 charter schools in New York City serving, all told, 40,000 students. (When you include individual district support, those numbers increase to 440 schools serving 230,000 students.) Jefferson Pestronk, Vice President of Strategy and… Continue reading At New Visions for Public Schools, It’s All About Continuous School Improvement. How’s That Going?

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Democrats Won’t Dictate Where My Black Children Go to School.

This is a guest post by ShaRhonda Knott-Dawson, who currently resides in the west suburbs of Chicago with her two school-aged girls and her husband, Brian. She blogs at ShaRhondaTribune.com and ChicagoUnheard.org. This piece originally appeared on Education Post. “What you not gone do…”—An African American proverb Last month Democrats for Education Reform released polling… Continue reading Democrats Won’t Dictate Where My Black Children Go to School.

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This Charter Supporter Gets Real about Success Academy. Will School Choice Opponents and Union Proponents Get Real Too?

This is a guest post by Zachary Wright, a national finalist for the United States Department of Education’s School Ambassador Fellowship and 2013 Philadelphia Teacher of the Year. Now he is an assistant professor of practice at Relay Graduate School of Education serving Philadelphia and Camden. Prior to that, he was the 12th-grade world literature… Continue reading This Charter Supporter Gets Real about Success Academy. Will School Choice Opponents and Union Proponents Get Real Too?

Accountability · Blog · Finding the Right School · School Choice

“Why Would the Mayor Want to Block Me and Other Parents From Knowing Our Public School Options?” Parents Speak Out.

StudentsFirstNY reports that dozens of public charter school parents from across New York City rallied outside the NYC Department of Education in support of a longstanding City initiative that allows charter schools to mail flyers to prospective families. New York City has a model program where it protects parent privacy so that no school has… Continue reading “Why Would the Mayor Want to Block Me and Other Parents From Knowing Our Public School Options?” Parents Speak Out.

Accountability · Finding the Right School

Myths Vs. Facts on NYC DOE’s Threat to Limit Parent Information About Public School Options for Their Children.

This is a fact sheet from the New York City Charter School Center that counters myths with facts about the DeBlasio Administration’s threat to block charter schools’ access to Vanguard, the city Department of Education’s direct-mail vendor. Without access, NYC families will have a far more difficult time making public school choices for their children.… Continue reading Myths Vs. Facts on NYC DOE’s Threat to Limit Parent Information About Public School Options for Their Children.