Is There a Market for Interdistrict Magnet Schools?
In meeting after meeting with a wide range of community residents and leaders, Great Schools for All proponents hear variations on these...
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Nov 9, 20153 min read
We have to be in it for the long haul
At a rally after the Newtown shootings, I listened to Marian Wright Edelman exhort concerned citizens to be like fleas on the back of the...
Oct 26, 20154 min read
Integration is key to sustaining early childhood gains
Improving outcomes for the youngest children in our poorest schools is probably the single most important thing our community can do...
Oct 5, 20152 min read
Replicating success
Soon the Great Schools for All coalition will propose legislation to enable school districts in Monroe County to collaborate across...
Sep 14, 20153 min read
There is no ‘New Orleans miracle’
No doubt you’ve heard or read somewhere that the post-Katrina New Orleans school system, one of the most under-performing in the country...
Aug 31, 20153 min read
A Tale of Two Classrooms
Capacity: The maximum amount that something can sustain. Raleigh N.C., real estate developer Bill Fletcher shared with us that the...
Aug 10, 20153 min read
The ‘moral’ response to school inequity
When you start a conversation about the impact of high poverty schools on a child’s academic and social success, data doesn’t matter. Not...
Jul 27, 20154 min read
Solutions to high-poverty schools must be Both…And
Research and success stories from across the country make it clear that de-concentrating poverty and increasing socioeconomic diversity...
Jul 13, 20154 min read
A consolidated county school district is not in the cards
For as long as I can remember, the idea of a consolidated school district has been a favorite Monroe County whack-a-mole—a pest to be...
Jun 29, 20153 min read
Yes, it matters who sits next to you in school, and life
Great Schools for All is singularly focused on ending the concentration of poverty in city schools. We are committed to scocioeconomic...
Jun 22, 20153 min read
City children deserve a level playing field
I grew up in small-town Ohio, and from the moment school ended in the spring until the first day of class in the fall, you could find me...
Jun 15, 20153 min read
More Diverse Schools can Create WIN-WIN for All
If Great Schools for All had a mantra, it would be WIN-WIN. We don’t have to accept as inevitable huge gaps between winners and losers,...
Jun 9, 20153 min read
From children ‘at risk’ to ‘Children of Promise’
I am a racist; most likely you are, too. My racism took root in the ’60s in my hometown, Detroit. I was 7 when Detroit burned. If you...
May 25, 20153 min read
Let’s move beyond our poverty stereotypes
I work downtown at the SUNY Brockport Metro Center and just got back to my office with a sandwich from a local establishment. My server...
May 18, 20153 min read
State tax credits offer mostly false hope
My wife and I put our two sons through Catholic schools. It was expensive and difficult at times—and paying that tuition left us with a...
May 12, 20153 min read
A new ‘narrative’ for Rochester: A community that works together
A few times at our May 5 conference I heard people say it feels like we have arrived at a moment when real change in our education system...
May 4, 20153 min read
Urgency and hope make great schools a possibility
What has most impressed me about the Great Schools for All (GS4A) conversation is how open the community is to having it. Ever since the...
Apr 27, 20153 min read
High-poverty schools not just a city problem
That was then, more than a generation ago, with significant concerns being raised about the effects of “bright flight” among both white...
Apr 13, 20153 min read
What Rochester can learn from Louisville
New York State just can’t quite face the fact that until it deals with high poverty schools, its weakest performing schools cannot be...
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