Last week, I wrote about The Surprising Integration Skeptics of NYC (It’s Not Who You Think). As one mom on the Lower East Side advised, “Integration activists need to touch base with people they are trying to help” when it comes to proposed school rezoning and mergers. This week, we’re headed uptown for a hearing… Continue reading All We Hear Is Radio Ga-Ga: Is Anyone Really Listening When It Comes To NYC Schools?
On Monday, September 23, the Community Education Council of Brooklyn’s School District #16 (Bedford-Stuyvesant) voted to ask New York City to get rid of all Gifted & Talented programs as advised by the Student Diversity Advisory Group (SDAG). There was the by now familiar rhetoric of how District #16’s schools are not racially or socio-economically… Continue reading Follow the Money and See Where It Goes: NYC Schools Edition.
I give up. New York City School Chancellor Richard Carranza has decreed that the most important issue facing our public high schools isn’t that close to 80% of students aren’t graduating college-ready, SAT scores are well below the national average, or there’s a lack of access to Advanced Placement (AP) classes. No, according to the… Continue reading 3 Things NYC Can Do TODAY To Integrate Public High Schools!
On Tuesday, August 27, 2019, New York City’s School Diversity Advisory Group released a proposal that formally called for the closing of all Gifted & Talented programs and Screened schools. Not included in the report was Hunter College Elementary and High School, the most coveted NYC gifted school of them all. Full disclosure: My husband… Continue reading Calls For Closing All NYC Gifted & Talented/Screened Schools – Where Does Hunter Fit In?
New York City released elementary school test scores for the 2018-19 school year on Thursday, August 22, 2019. In the past, I’ve listed the Top 10 Schools by Test Scores for 2017, and the Top 25 Schools by Test Scores for 2018. While there is some juggling for placement every year, the top-scoring schools tend… Continue reading 10 NYC Public Schools Which Went Up In Test Scores in 2019 — And 10 That Went Down.
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
It’s been an extremely difficult season for New York City public schools admissions. The new Parent Portal found novel and exciting ways to malfunction. Placements would appear and disappear. Results were posted for high school and Gifted & Talented admission, only to be nullified and families informed they weren’t official. One parent shared with me:… Continue reading Parents Helping Parents – When the Department of Ed Won’t (Gifted & Talented Edition)
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.
We really should be used to it by now. The hypocrisy, that is. News broke last week that Cheryl Watson-Harris, whom New York City School Chancellor Richard Carranza promoted to First Deputy Chancellor in July of 2018, had somehow gotten her children into two of Brooklyn’s top screened middle-schools — at least one of whom… Continue reading It’s the Hypocrisy, Stupid: NYC School Choice For… Some
