Uptown Notes

Yesterday the NYTimes ran an interesting Op-Ed piece on Charter Schools by Charles Murray entitled, “Why Charter Schools Fail the Test.” I read through it quickly and thought it to be arguing two main things: standardized tests were weak measures and that school choice was a democratic right. Sounds agreeable, right? But why was this written by Charles Murray author of the thinly veiled racist polemic The Bell Curve?

On February 10th, I had the pleasure of joining an esteemed set of scholars for the 143rd Founder’s Day Symposium [...]

To me, the situation of urban education is much like the common cold, as technology advances, we find more and more options that tend to abate sickness, cover the symptoms, but still there is no cure. The biggest confusion that I see emerging around urban education is the highlight of a few successful schools in a city and mistaking that as the probable, that is what will likely happen, in the city as the whole.

This Monday July 13th I will be speaking at the NAACP Centennial Convention on Educational Advocacy.

The recent death of Chris Jones, attributed to a gang in suburbia has sparked more hysteria about the violence, gangs, and most importantly race without mentioning race.

This past week, renowned Psychologist Richard Nisbett published an opinion piece in the New York Times entitled, “Education Is All in the Mind.” While I’ve come to respect Nisbett for his research and advocacy against polemics such as The Bell Curve, his recent piece misses the mark. The central issue is that Nisbett privileges psychological factors over other factors and leaves the reader to think what it takes to repair schools essentially are “mind games.”

Over a year ago, controversy over the Kahlil Gibran International Academy unfolded, if you don’t know who Kahlil Gibran was stop reading and click here – yeah, he’s that important, in Brooklyn. The visible battle over the mission of the school, its practices, and its leadership put the academy in the national spotlight for discussions of ethnicity, language, religion and identity. But soon, this spotlight faded and many have forgotten that the school still is in operation. Colorlines runs a great web article by Seth Wessler entitled, “Silenced in the classroom” on what is happening with the school now.

Recently, Roland Fryer – economist, NYC Public Schools’ Chief Equity Officer, and the public’s latest cat’s meow, was on the [...]

Over the past week, the media and everyone who could jump on the bandwagon of wagging fingers, frowned brows, and [...]

This weekend, October 17th-19th City College hosts the first CUNY Social Forum. Come out and have your voice heard and develop plans to make CUNY the university system that it was meant to be.