Dirk Tillotson

Dirk Tillotson is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Great Schools Choices, which supports community-based charter school development and increasing access for underserved families. He has worked over 20 years supporting mostly charter community schools in Oakland, New Orleans, New York and the Middle East. He currently resides in Oakland, California, and blogs at Great School Voices and One Oakland United.
You Call These “Public” Schools? Unconscionable Segregation in NYC’s Specialized High Schools
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You Call These “Public” Schools? Unconscionable Segregation in NYC’s Specialized High Schools

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Segregation won another round in New York City’s most elite “public” schools. The admission numbers are out and they are pathetic. Black and Latino children make up 67.6 percent of the students in NYC schools, yet only 10 percent of the students were admitted to the selective high schools. And get this, only one—yes one—Black… Continue reading You Call These “Public” Schools? Unconscionable Segregation in NYC’s Specialized High Schools

A Different Kind of Integration: Bringing Students With Mental Health Challenges Into Our School and Watching Them Thrive
New York City

A Different Kind of Integration: Bringing Students With Mental Health Challenges Into Our School and Watching Them Thrive

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I have written about John W. Lavelle Prep Charter in Staten Island before. I helped start it as a middle school, built on the crazy idea that you must integrate students with mental health challenges with the general population for them to be successful. Mind you, these students tend to have the highest dropout rate of… Continue reading A Different Kind of Integration: Bringing Students With Mental Health Challenges Into Our School and Watching Them Thrive

The Second Best Charter School in NYC and the Perils of “Accountability”
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The Second Best Charter School in NYC and the Perils of “Accountability”

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I worked with one of the top scoring charter schools in New York City.  It was also one of the worst schools in the City.  This school is a cautionary tale for the unceasing push towards simplistic accountability formulas and how schools can manipulate the numbers while not really delivering the goods. The school had… Continue reading The Second Best Charter School in NYC and the Perils of “Accountability”

“The Crazy Team for the Crazy Kids”: A New Charter School Thrives on Staten Island
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“The Crazy Team for the Crazy Kids”: A New Charter School Thrives on Staten Island

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People said we were crazy when we applied to start John W. Lavelle Prep Charter in Staten Island.   It was a college prep middle school that would cater to students with emerging mental health challenges.  There were no other models to look at in New York, and these kids often faced immense challenges.  This is… Continue reading “The Crazy Team for the Crazy Kids”: A New Charter School Thrives on Staten Island

A Simple Solution to School Segregation
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A Simple Solution to School Segregation

Dirk Tillotson1 Comment

The basics of desegregation are simple.  It just takes will.  NYC’s gifted and talented programs and the specialized high schools are some the most segregated classrooms in the City.  And despite a plethora of studies and plans, little has changed in recent years. The most exclusive public schools, the gateways to real mobility, have largely excluded… Continue reading A Simple Solution to School Segregation