Some ink is starting to spill concerning the recent closure of two Oakland charter schools, Castlemont Junior Academy and Castlemont Primary Academy, assessing what happened, who is to blame, and what should be done. But before we get our chonies too twisted, let’s take a look at what really happened, at least from one perspective.…
Month: January 2017
The Second Best Charter School in NYC and the Perils of “Accountability”
I worked with one of the top scoring charter schools in NYC. It was also one of the worst schools in the City. This school is a cautionary tale for the unceasing push to simplistic accountability formulas and how schools can manipulate the numbers while not really delivering the goods. The school had the second…
What Is ‘School Accountability’ and Why Should Parents Care About It Anyway?
This is a guest post from education blogger Laura Waters, I thought it might be helpful to some of our readers here at Great School Voices. If you’re a parent like me, at the start of each school year you eagerly learn all about the course content your child will study, the enrichment opportunities…
Listening to Our Young Sisters; The African American Female Achievement Initiative
“We are a movement starting from the self that asks what we can do as individuals to make conditions better for young Black women.” That is how the African American Female Achievement initiative (AAFAI) was described to me by Sultanah Corbett, one of the founders of Oakland’s effort to better understand and better serve African…
What The Atlantic Got Wrong About Charter Schools and “Segregation”
George Joseph’s article, What Betsy DeVos Didn’t Say About School Choice, claims that charter schools “have pushed more low-income, minority students into even more racially segregated schools.” While there are many problems in Joseph’s article, I’ll just run through some of the top issues. Black Folks Have Agency First, Black folks have agency. Black folks…