(this is a guest blog from a socially conscious mother, who deliberately took on and struggled with sending her child to a school where he was the “minority”, heartfelt and honest account of the journey) December 2015 Lest anyone imagine that our school integration story has been smooth, that my offspring are always on board…
Teaching Arabic on Staten Island
Walking down the halls of Lavelle Prep Charter School on Staten Island, you hear the typical energy and excitement of a bustling New York City school. One surprising sound is that of students learning and speaking Arabic. For the past 2 years, Lavelle Prep has been enrolled in the Teachers of Critical Languages (TCLP) program granted by the U.S. Department…
Progress on Elementary Teacher Training, But a Long Way to Go
Teacher training in the US has been a crapshoot. Sometimes when hiring 1st year teachers you said “crap” and sometimes you said, “shoot.” Kidding, … with a myriad of programs, some online, some with quality intern experiences and content, and others cranking out degrees en masse for the right price, separating the wheat from the…
A Missed Presidential Moment on the “Trump Effect”
It doesn’t matter who you voted for, if you are listening to the stories from schools, you can’t feel good. The so called “Trump Effect” the empowering of bigoted and hateful bullying in schools has radically increased since the election. The Southern Poverty Law Center highlighted this in a recent report, The Trump Effect: The…
A Simple Solution to School Segregation
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…