bodner079

I'm sure by now everyone has read the NYT front-page article last week about the "Got to Go" list at one Success charter school ( At a Success Academy Charter School, Singling Out Pupils Who Have 'Got to Go' ). It is terribly unfortunate that this happened, both for the children and parents affected, and also for our movement, as now, every time a charter school posts good test scores, our critics will surely say something like, "Well, I'll bet it's just because they have a 'Got to Go' list…" They'll know it's a lie and a deep insult to the dedicated educators, children and parents in that school – but that's never concerned them.   It's also a good cautionary tale for us all. We all want every child to learn at a high level, and for this to be reflected in the tests they take. And these test scores really matter in so many ways: most importantly, they're an important way we can see the overall level of learning going ...

Here's Eva's response: Yesterday  The New York Times  ran another story about Success Academy, this time using one incident and the experiences of four parents to suggest a network-wide practice of pushing children out. This theme is not new. Two weeks ago, it was PBS, and there were many instances before that. In these articles, the journalists overlook an important fact that disproves their conspiracy theories: Our student retention data shows definitively that we retain more kids than the district schools. The Times article reports on a "got to go" list of 16 scholars at Fort Greene who were disrupting the school. That list was made a year ago, and it was a serious mistake. Within hours of the list being emailed, many people at Success Academy were horrified. Such a practice/idea goes against our belief system. An investigation was conducted and leaders were reprimanded. SA believes that our mission is to educate all children. We must and do go to extraordinary len...

Here's a great article on what's really "Got to Go" in our schools: We're parents of young kids, so you can imagine our initial outrage when we read about the Success Academy principal who kept a "Got to Go" list of difficult students. But now that we've heard the full story, what infuriates us even more than a temporarily rogue principal trying to push a small number of students out of a good school is a rogue system that pushes a huge number of students into bad schools for years. The discipline model at the core of many high-performing charter schools is not for everyone, and it makes sense that some students and parents choose to leave. That, in itself, is not tragic — it's choice. What's truly heartbreaking, however, is what usually happens next for low-income parents: They are forced into their zoned district school based on where they live. And because income and racial patterns in our city's school zones correlate so strongly with...

No surprise that a new study shows that online charter schools are a total disaster for kids – this is 100% consistent with my report from two years ago on the largest online charter operator, K12 (see  www.tilsonfunds.com/K12.pdf ): Students in the nation's virtual K-12 charter schools — who take all of their classes via computer from home — learn significantly less on average than students at traditional public schools,  a new study has found . The online charter students lost an average of about 72 days of learning in reading and 180 days of learning in math during the course of a 180-day school year, the study found. In other words, when it comes to math, it's as if the students did not attend school at all. "There's still some possibility that there's positive learning, but it's so statistically significantly different from the average, it is literally as if the kid did not go to school for an entire year," said Margaret E. Raymond, project director a...

I attended the annual gala for iMentor, the best mentorship program in the country that I'm aware of (through it, I've been a mentor to a KIPP (now college) student), and was moved by this video shown at the gala about one mentor-mentee pair:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk_CAh07Lx4&feature=youtu.be  (5:12). iMentor recently expanded from NYC to Chicago and is about to open in the Bay Area. For more info, see www.imentor.org  and/or contact the Executive Director, Mike O'Brien, at mike@imentor.org .

 A very interesting article re. the discussion/debate about how US kids are doing vs. those in other countries, especially when adjusted for various disadvantages: Here's the good news: American schools may not be as bad as we have been led to believe. Ah, but here's the bad news: The rest of American society is failing its disadvantaged citizens even more than we realize. The question is, Should educators be responsible for fixing this? …The lackluster performance has reinforced a belief that American public education — the principals and teachers, the methods and procedures — is just not up to scratch. There must be something wrong when the system in the United States falls short where many others succeed. But is the criticism fair? Are American schools failing because they are not good at their job? Perhaps their job is simply tougher. In  a report released last week , Martin Carnoy from the Graduate School of Education at Stanford, Emma García from the  Economic Polic...

A very interesting article re. the discussion/debate about how US kids are doing vs. those in other countries, especially when adjusted for various disadvantages: Here's the good news: American schools may not be as bad as we have been led to believe. Ah, but here's the bad news: The rest of American society is failing its disadvantaged citizens even more than we realize. The question is, Should educators be responsible for fixing this? …The lackluster performance has reinforced a belief that American public education — the principals and teachers, the methods and procedures — is just not up to scratch. There must be something wrong when the system in the United States falls short where many others succeed. But is the criticism fair? Are American schools failing because they are not good at their job? Perhaps their job is simply tougher. In  a report released last week , Martin Carnoy from the Graduate School of Education at Stanford, Emma García from the  Economic Policy Inst...

An important report by Ed Trust: Black Minds Matter: Supporting the Educational Success of Black Children in California Oct 26, 2015  by  Ed Trust – West https://west.edtrust.org/resource/black-minds-matter-supporting-the-educational-success-of-black-children-in-california/ "Black Minds Matter: Supporting the Educational Success of Black Children in California," examines how the nearly 1 million Black youth in California are faring from preschool through college and reveals the distressing disparities that newly released state and national data show persist at all levels of their educational journey. The report also highlights the groundbreaking efforts underway to reverse these trends in California and close achievement and opportunity gaps for African American students. The report calls on policymakers, education leaders, and all Californians to prioritize the equity-based changes that California's Black students deserve and have been waiting far too long for. If we bel...

From StudentsMatter – great to see!   Friend,   I'm excited to share with you a  just-announced settlement  of the class action lawsuit, Cruz v. State of California .  As you may remember, Cruz was filed by Public Counsel and the ACLU of Southern California on behalf of students who lost valuable learning time because they were placed in fake, contentless classes that lacked any instructional value.   Please click here to help us share this exciting news on Twitter.   Under this today's historic settlement, the California Department of Education and State Board will provide immediate assistance to six schools in Compton, Los Angeles and Oakland to ensure they comply with  AB 1012 , a new state law that limits the scheduling and course assignment practices that led to students losing valuable learning time.   Please  join us   in celebrating this important victory for students across the State of California.       Than...

 I've posted my marathon tale at: www.tilsonfunds.com/TilsonNYCMarathon.pdf . Here's the intro:   As I woke up last Thursday morning, three days before my 49 th  birthday, I was having a dream about running the NYC Marathon on my birthday. It seemed very real, so I checked my calendar and, having nothing going on, thought, "Why not?" A few emails later (plus a $2,620 donation to the NY Road Runners' charity), I was registered!   A few more emails later with my great friend, David Saltzman, the co-founder and Executive Director of the Robin Hood Foundation, one of my favorite charities, and I was signed up for the 100+ person team raising money for Robin Hood.   Then I had three days to: 1) raise as much money as I could for Robin Hood; and 2) contemplate the fact that I had done no training and, in fact, having never run more than six miles in my life! If I failed at this, I was going to cost Robin Hood a lot of money – and it would be a very public embarrassmen...