I recently sat in on a Rochester Board of Education committee meeting that focused on approaches to improve student outcomes, particularly graduation rates. You know the context: Despite board priorities and the efforts of a parade of superintendents over the past several years, the district has struggled to move four-year on-time graduation percentages above the …
Taking steps to shape new initiatives with diversity Read More »
“We had counted the cost and decided our children’s future was worth it.” I am inspired, but even more so, profoundly challenged by the moral courage of the Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II. He leads in the tradition and carries on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. on issues of racial and …
When we at Great Schools for All sing the virtues of school diversity to groups who have asked to hear what we have to say, we find a lot of heads nodding in agreement. You can almost hear the thoughts: “Yes, children should be in diverse schools where they can learn to work with and …
I’m offering a symposium at a conference in a few weeks on the use of on-line learning communities to transform critical thinking and biases. I’ll be using some of the many anonymous comments that I have collected from my students the past four years. They include comments like these: “Hearing from 16 other people …
Yes, I know. New Year’s resolutions are made to be broken. Whether it’s giving something up (eating, smoking) or taking something up (exercise, salads), resolutions prime us for disappointment and discouragement. Still, they express aspirations and hopes at the start of a new year. They present an opportunity to start anew on a clean page, …
With the election of Donald Trump, the public school reform debate is about start over again, pushing the narrative back to where it was eight years ago—with a Republican administration insisting that “choice” is the path to dramatically improving outcomes. Never mind that that most of America’s public schools are doing just fine, and never …
I have worked in area schools for almost 30 years, and I have come to know many dedicated and hard-working suburban, rural and urban teachers and administrators. My experience has convinced me that teaching in any school is challenging work especially over the past 15 years as we have adapted to requirements and accountability responsibilities …
It’s easy to make fun of young adults who get their current events from so-called “fake news” on TV, notably Jon Stewart’s (and now Trevor Noah’s) Daily Show. But sometimes, the fake news is truer, or at least more revealing than the “real news.” An Oct. 21 New York Times op-ed by University of Chicago law …
The Urban-Suburban program is nice. Over the years many Rochester schoolchildren who would otherwise be consigned to a high poverty and underperforming school have been given the opportunity to attend a suburban school and learn alongside a middle class population. But there is another side to this successful program. It allows some to think that …
An item in the recent news cycle reminded us of the enormity, complexity and urgency of the problems our community faces: An update to a 2013 ACT Rochester/Rochester Area Community Foundation report confirmed a rising concentration of poverty in city neighborhoods and an expanding number of census tracts where the poverty rate stood at 40 …
