Education
Make Time for Mentoring
I want to say thank you, Michelle Obama, for bringing the subject of mentoring to the top of the daily news feed. Recently, the first lady launched a program that pairs some of the most powerful women in the country – those working for the White House – with teenage girls from local public and [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Reading for Life
Recently, I traveled to Seattle, Washington, to meet with representatives from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s eight Making Connections sites. For several days, we shared insights and strategies focused on helping children in the early grades learn how to read.
Why is this so important? (1) Half of the children in this country do not read [...]
Supporting Success in School and Life
We know that one-third of high school students in Philadelphia drop-out of high school. We also know that across the country 9th grade is the critical year for students to either drop-out or stay in school. Navigating the turbulent middle school years and managing the often difficult transition to high school contributes to the staggering [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Where are they?
In Harlem it’s asthma. In Philadelphia it’s taking care of younger siblings. In Texas it’s visiting relatives in Mexico. The root of chronic absence is different across different cities and regions. In September, I wrote about what children miss in school when they are absent. Lately, in addition to thinking about what students miss, I [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Seeds for Learning – Fall Harvest
On any chilly Friday afternoon in the fall, you can find students standing behind a table piled high with carrots, radishes, squash, and flowers in front of Martin Luther King High School in Northwest Philadelphia debating the best methods of cooking okra with folks waiting for the bus. When customers ask, “Where did all this [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Invisible Children
This week I have been given the opportunity to visit classrooms across the nation. As I look out at the faces of children in these classrooms, I wonder about the children that are missing. A timely report by the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), “Present Engaged and Accounted For, The Critical Importance of [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Why coaching?
At Foundations we are constantly asking ourselves how to increase learning not only for children, but for the adults who work with children. We believe that we can broaden and deepen our impact by transitioning much of our energy from running programs for kids to providing excellent professional development for adults who work with children [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Inspiration and Struggle
In the 1980’s homelessness was “the issue”. In recent years homelessness has faded from the national dialogue (however, the issue of homelessness was again in the spotlight briefly this past Fall and Winter when the national press picked up stories about of the rise of homelessness among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans). And, while the [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )What will it take?
This weekend I watched Hard Times at Douglass High, an HBO documentary that chronicles a year at Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore (one of the oldest historically black high schools in the nation) as Douglass struggles to meet AYP under the No Child Left Behind act. As you can tell from my previous post, I [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )I want to be a teacher when I grow up
I have been thinking a lot about teacher quality – what will it take to prepare new teachers and what will it take to retain the best? Is it really about money? What have we learned from research and experience? The volume of research about teacher quality is staggering; there are no less than four [...]
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