In 2001, I started volunteering at Downtown College Prep, a brand-new San Jose charter school with an incredibly ambitious mission: Recruit low-income, low-achieving, Mexican-American students, push them into college-prep classes and prepare them to succeed in college.
Ninth graders came in with fifth-grade reading and math skills, on average. Most weren’t used to paying attention in [...]
Archive for the '"Our School"' Category
Trouble and spin, but no wolves
Published by March 4th, 2008 in "Our School" and Education. 1 CommentRaised by wolves, the orphaned Checker Finn became a leader of a street gang at the age of 13 . . . Well, no. In an age of hoax memoirs, Finn’s Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik, starts with his upper-middle-class boyhood in Dayton, Ohio. His elementary school sounds so much like [...]
I’ve got a column on the benefits of failure and the evils of inflated self-esteem at Sharp Brains. Naturally, I write about the charter high school in my book, Our School.
Honesty is the school policy. No time is spent inflating self-esteem. Instead, students are told that they’re way behind but have the ability to improve [...]
I’m doing some writing on Britannica Blog, starting with a post on Linda Perlstein’s excellent new book, Tested.
What does it mean to “teach to the test� Linda Perlstein’s new book, Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade, goes inside the classroom at Tyler Heights, an Annapolis, Maryland, elementary school that’s working [...]
Forty-four students were graduated yesterday at Downtown College Prep, the San Jose school I wrote about in Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the Charter School That Beat the Odds. The school recruits students who earned less than a C average in middle school and will be the first [...]
My book, Our School, describes a girl who was a class clown as a ninth grader in a San Jose charter school, Downtown College Prep. DCP recruits students with less than a C average in middle school; most come from Mexican immigrant families. All students take college-prep classes; all graduates go on to college.
Gloria (called [...]
If you’re thinking of an end-of-year or graduation gift for the teacher or future teacher in your life, consider the paperback of my book, Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the Charter School That Beat the Odds. The hardcover edition is a few dollars more.
Want an autographed [...]
I’m speaking today at 4:30 in the Sandia room at the National Charter Schools Conference at the Albuquerque Convention Center. The schedule at a glance lists another presentation in Sandia along with mine, “Ride the Carrot Salad: Preparing Latino Students for College.†Rest assured, the room is mine!
I’ll have copies of Our School [...]
For those of you going to the National Charter Schools Conference in Albuquerque. don’t forget to come by tomorrow, April 25, at 4:30 for my presentation, “Ride the Carrot Salad: Preparing Latino Students for College.†Jennifer Andaluz, executive director of Downtown College Prep, the charter school in my book, Our School, will be the [...]
I’m heading to Albuqerque for the National Charter Schools Conference. I’ll be talking on Wednesday, April 25 at 4:30 on “Ride the Carrot Salad: Preparing Latino Students for College.†Jennifer Andaluz, executive director of Downtown College Prep, the charter school in my book, Our School, will be the co-presenter. I plan to [...]
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