Last year’s post on NYC’s Top 10 Elementary Schools By Test Scores: What Makes Them Special – And How You Can Get In proved such a reader favorite, we’ve updated it! Because many schools make a return appearance, we’ve expanded our list to the top 25, and added details about how some of them get… Continue reading NYC’s Top 25 Elementary Schools for 2018 & How You Can Get In!
This is a guest post by my friend and colleague Lane Wright. Lane lives in Tallahassee with his wife and three children and serves as Director of Policy Analysis at Education Post, a national nonprofit. You can substitute NJEA and other abusive parents for Lane’s references to the Florida Education Association. Imagine a family with 10 kids: Nine… Continue reading The Abusive Parent in The Charter School/Traditional School Family
Last month District 15 in Brooklyn announced the elimination of all screening processes for admission to middle school. (Yes, even the performing arts one).) Instead of taking into consideration grades, test scores and more, Park Slope’s 11 middle schools will assign seats by lottery, with 52 percent of slots in every school set aside for… Continue reading Who Will (And Won’t) Benefit From Unscreened NYC Schools
This is a guest post by ShaRhonda Knott-Dawson, the mother of two free-spirited, strong-willed girls and whose husband should be appointed a saint for co-existing in the madness that is their life. She writes on politics, education, current events and social justice. This piece was originally published at Education Post. Dear Fellow Parent Warriors, While every… Continue reading A Back-to-School Love Letter to Parents of Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities
Earlier this month, The Atlantic ran a piece entitled, Teens Are Protesting In-Class Presentations. Taylor Lorenz wrote: “(S)tudents have started calling out in-class presentations as discriminatory to those with anxiety, demanding that teachers offer alternative options…. “Nobody should be forced to do something that makes them uncomfortable,” says Ula, a 14-year-old in eighth grade, who,… Continue reading Should Schools Push Kids Out Of Their Comfort Zones?
PJ Library, a non-profit which sends out free Jewish children’s books, also has a book club for parents. Their most recent selection was Mamaleh Knows Best: What Jewish Mothers Do To Raise Successful, Creative, Empathetic, Independent Children by Marjorie Ingall. In Chapter 6: Emphasize – But Don’t Fetishize – Education, Ingall, as all New York… Continue reading Should Schools Teach Your Child Values?
With a new school year underway, one of the major issues my school district will be tackling is one that is a growing problem across the United States, chronic absenteeism. Since the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act “fifth indicator” mandate of absenteeism, more and more states are tracking and reporting absences, and that is shedding… Continue reading Did You Know That 28 Percent of New York Students Are Chronically Absent? What’s The Solution?
New York City schools are off for Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, on Monday, September 10, and Tuesday, September 11. (To read why I think all cultures should be allowed to take off their holidays, and how that would work in practice, click here.) One of the rituals of Rosh HaShanah is tashlich, where… Continue reading Why My Kids Accuse Me of Being a NYC Public Schools Hypocrite
“Our challenge is to see the seed or opportunity buried in the soil of conflict.” Dedicated to my heart, my nephew E. Henry Phoenix, Arizona is hot! Muy caliente! It’s so hot that afternoon school sports teams often practice in the evening, after the sun has set. Like many schools, the day begins by 8:00… Continue reading Conflict Resolution, Or, The Story of My Nephew Henry.
Today the New York Times’ Dana Goldstein has an article on a new trend: advocates taking states to court to demand integrated schools. In the piece she quotes one particular education advocate who questions the assumption that integration is a panacea for inequity. That advocate is Khulia Pringle whose daughter attended a St. Paul charter… Continue reading If You Can’t Teach My Black Children, Admit It and Move On.
