Our Platform « Coalition for Educational Justice

Our Platform « Coalition for Educational Justice:

Our Platform

College-Ready Community Schools for All: Quality Schools, Strong Neighborhoods, Bright Futures!

In neighborhoods across NYC, parents share the hope that their children will graduate high school and go to college. But the realization of that dream varies dramatically. While 80% of children living in Tribeca graduate with the knowledge and skills they need for college, only 8% of students in Mott Haven do. These disparities are unacceptable. To prepare many more students for college and career success, the next Mayor needs a pre-k to 12^th grade plan that combines academic rigor and high expectations with comprehensive supports and the creative, motivating experiences that excite students about their future. All students deserve the kind of high quality education that the best schools offer – without having to leave their neighborhood.

1. Focus on Teaching and Learning

• Redesign the school day and add time for quality programs at low-performing schools
• Provide challenging, high-quality curriculum, including Regents courses available to all middle grade students, college-level courses for all high school students & quality career and technical courses
• Increase access to quality early childhood education in high-needs neighborhoods
• Less teaching to the test and more intellectual challenge through hands-on problem solving, critical analysis, activities that engage and motivate, and opportunities to apply skills to real world issues
• Visual and performing arts, physical education, and other enrichment courses several times a week
• Launch Summer Academies to reduce skills loss over the summer and ease difficult transition years
• Small group and individual tutoring to accelerate struggling students and prepare them for college
• Increase teaching quality through common planning time, new teacher mentoring, school-based professional development, lead teachers, and incentives to attract and retain expert teachers.
• Link teachers and principals with high-performing schools serving similar student populations

2. Build a College-Going Culture in All Schools

• Organize college and career fairs, trips, mentors and guest speakers about the college experience for students and families, starting in elementary school and accelerating through middle and high school
• Hire high school and college counselors in middle and high schools who focus on planning, preparing and completing effective applications to college-preparatory high schools and to college
• Provide college and career orientation courses and workshops to students and families in all middle and high schools to clearly understand pathways to college and graduation 

3. Provide Strong, Comprehensive Supports for Every Child

• Turn existing schools into community schools that partner with local organizations to provide families with health care, recreation, cultural activities, adult education, internships and more
• Organize an Early Warning System that concentrates resources in critical years like the 9^th grade, identifies struggling students immediately, and intervenes swiftly though comprehensive services

• Significantly increase the number of counselors and social workers to support emotional growth

4. Put the Parents Back in Public Education

• Strengthen the home-school connection through initiatives such as Parent-Teacher Home Visits and more frequent, quality parent-teacher conferences that inform parents about curriculum

• Provide high-quality translation and interpretation services at all school functions and events

• Include and support traditional and independent parent groups in decisions about budget and policy

Make All Schools Great Schools!

The high-tech return of high school shop class | toteachornototeach

The high-tech return of high school shop class | toteachornototeach:

The high-tech return of high school shop class

 The high-tech return of high school shop class

by Jamie Gumbrecht

In his State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama talked about redesigning schools for a high-tech future. He gave a shout-out to a technical high school in Brooklyn, and to 3-D printing. In a moment of seeming agreement, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio mentioned incentives for schools to add vocational and career training.

But long gone are the days of shop class, or even “vocational training,” said Stephen DeWitt, the senior director of public policy for the Association for Career and Technical Education. For many years, he saw career and technical education cut by shrunken budgets or “literally and figuratively left in the back of the school, separate from academics.”

What’s emerging in schools now is something tougher to pin down. In one district, it might 

Justice Even When It's Just Us [On Trayvon Martin] - The Jose Vilson

Justice Even When It's Just Us [On Trayvon Martin] - The Jose Vilson:

Justice Even When It’s Just Us [On Trayvon Martin]

Posted by Jose Vilson

Trayvon Martin with his father

He had the most curious face on when we introduced him to his first waves from a calm yet undulating ocean. His curls danced with the wind as he wondered whether the water might reach him. It was 10:40am, and this sunscreen-coated son of mine had neither napped well, nor eaten well, but his face displayed awe and zen, a decade too long for such feelings really.

About an hour away, Trayvon Martin’s justice lies in the hands on twelve of George Zimmerman’s peers. His shaved face and stoic stare in the courtroom belie the acts he committed a year ago. What, then, will I tell my son about this case if / when he asked?

Will I tell him about the injustices done to thousands of children of color on a regular basis because of how they look, how they’re criminalized, or they’re walking wrong? Will I tell him about the centuries of slavery and discrimination across the Americas that led up to the racial tensions of this moment? Will I tell him that, no matter how many people argue that this isn’t a racial issue, race actually plays a role

- See more at: http://thejosevilson.com/justice-even-when-its-just-us-on-trayvon-martin/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheJoseVilson+%28The+Jose+Vilson%29#sthash.uxBGHOTx.dpuf

Diane in the Evening 7-13-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Steve Zimmer on Why Class Size Matters

At a recent meeting of the Los Angeles school board, newly re-elected member Steve Zimmer spoke passionately about the reasons to reduce class size. Watch here to see Zimmer’s address to the board. Zimmer was a TFA teacher who taught in the L.A. schools for 17 years before he ran for school board. Los Angeles has some of the most crowded classrooms in the nation. The board passed a resolution t

by dianerav / 3h 

Why Los Angeles Is Now Ground Zero for Corporate Reform–and Pushback

In this post on the New York City parent blog, activist Leonie Haimson explains the hard-fought battle for control of the Los Angeles public schools, and what is at stake. The reform crowd doesn’t care about class size; the anti-status quo board members do. The reformers do nothing to slow the pace of privatization. We will see if the new board majority is able to create true accountability standa

by dianerav / 38min

L.A. Community Activists Seek Role in Recruiting Néw Superintendent

Received this morning: Short: http://j.mp/12nVmuG http://www.laschoolsmatter.info/2013/07/venceremos-join-community-search-for.html ¡Venceremos! Join the community search for a new LAUSD superintendent! An open letter and call to action to our LAUSD community and national education experts regarding the urgent search for a new LAUSD Superintendent If the union is sound and the teachers voted of th

by dianerav / 4min 

More than TFA Dissidents Meet Tomorrow

A reader comments on an earlier post about a conference tomorrow in Chicago that will discuss TFA and the privatization movement. She writes: “Diane, it is not only ex-TFA members. I am also one of the presenters at the conference, representing traditionally trained teachers in New Orleans who now struggle to find employment. We also have parents, students, and community members who have suffered

by dianerav / 1h  

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 7-13-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Reform as Crony CapitalismResponding to another reader, Robert Shepherd challenges the claim that reformers want a free market in schooling: “We are NOT seeing the emergence of free market alternatives to public schools. We are seeing is crony capitalist alternatives dependent upon federal and state regulation and the public dole t

by mike simpson / 1h  

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH ALL WEEK LONG Diane Ravitch's blog 7-13-13 #thankateacher #EDCHAT #P2

Diane Ravitch's blogLISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH ALL WEEK LONG DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOGTODAYDoes John White Care About Voucher Fraud?Robert Mann, a professor of communications at Louisiana State University, tries to imagine how Bobby Jindal and John White would react if they heard that Headstart centers kept sloppy records and couldn’t pass an audit. He writes: “Imagine if almost every one of those schools

by mike simpson / 2h

The Big Lie in Education. | My Island View

The Big Lie in Education. | My Island View:

The Big Lie in Education.

July 13, 2013 by tomwhitby

“Preparing kids for the Real World” is a phrase that many educators and schools use without regard for the consequence of what they selectively choose as reality for their students. Both educators and institutions in many cases are still choosing for students by educating them traditionally, or more progressively using technology tools for learning. This probably begins with educators’ misconception of the real world.

We cannot prepare kids for the Real World when we still have a 20^th century view of it. We are over a dozen years into the 21^st Century and some kids in the system have another dozen years before they need their real world experience to hit the streets. That would take us a quarter through the 21^stcentury. How time flies.

Yes, one can be a good teacher without technology. I will not dispute that claim. I believe it to be true. That however deals with a method of teaching, and not what needs to be taught. It is the how versus the what. If one buys into the