Most of the eighth-grade students in Jeff Walton’s band class at Uncommon Schools Ocean Hill Collegiate hadn’t picked up an instrument before seventh grade. But you’d never know it from the sounds emanating from Walton’s band room one morning as students were rehearsing for their Spring Concert, a program of songs from New Orleans. Standing… Continue reading “I Am Always Amazed How Fast They Can Learn”: Uncommon Schools’ Music Immersion Program
When she was in elementary school at PS 16 in Williamsburg, Jeanette Garzon Terreros started showing up late for school and missing homework assignments. As a way to set her straight, Gazon Terreros said her mom decided to enroll her in Uncommon Schools Williamsburg Collegiate, the charter school located in the same building, one floor… Continue reading Entire Graduating Class at Uncommon Charter High School in Bed-Stuy Is Heading Off to College!
Assemblywoman Latrice Walker worked the group of energetic children gathered Thursday in the Brownsville Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library like a master teacher. “Every time you hear a name, I want you to clap twice,” Walker told the students ranging from kindergartners to second graders as she read the book “Stevie,” by John Steptoe.… Continue reading No Sliding For These Brownsville Students This Summer!
Of the 329 schools designated by the United States Department of Education as 2016 “Blue Ribbon Schools” for superlative success in closing the achievement gap and maintaining high standards, ten are located in New York City. One is the K-8 Excellence Girls Charter School on the border of Bed-Stuy and Bushwick, one of only three… Continue reading Do Single-Sex Schools Hurt or Help Students?
Every year the U.S. Department of Education awards “blue ribbons” to the nation’s top schools that demonstrate extraordinary success in achieving high standards and making notable strides in closing the achievement gap. Yesterday Education Secretary John King announced that one of those schools was Excellence Girls Charter School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the first charter school in… Continue reading A Brooklyn First: Excellence Girls Charter School Named a National Blue Ribbon School
New York City’s charter school leaders are calling upon Mayor Bill de Blasio to double the number of charter school seats available to students by 2020. According to an editorial published in today’s Daily News by the leaders of Achievement First, Uncommon Schools, KIPP, Public Prep, and Coney Island Prep, NYC students are best served by expanding… Continue reading Mayor de Blasio’s “Moral, Political, and Economic Obligation” to Support Charter School Expansion
Hillary Clinton’s remarks on charter schools during this interminable campaign season seem to have hit that not-so-sweet spot of disappointing everyone. Supporters of alternative public schools, which primarily serve low-income and minority youngsters, were angered by her response to Roland Martin when she claimed that “ most charters “don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or,… Continue reading Dear Hillary: Have Some Chicken Soup and Reconsider Your Charter School Stance
