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Education Issues for the week of May 14th – May 19th
Wesley International Academy Charter Petition to Move into Cook Elementary
This charter is a mover and shaker in Atlanta and has a lot of good things going on. They just split from Imagine Schools which saves them about $700K and allows them more freedom. They just hired their first new principal as a separate charter and the parents had input. They want to move into Cook Elementary on Memorial which is the same distance from us as their Custer location over by Benteen, but could be much more convenient to residents of our neighborhood. About half of there enrollment is currently from outside of the Southeast Atlanta area.Here’s the link to the petition if you are interested in supporting this move. http://www.change.org/
petitions/aps-wesley Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin’s letter to the Atlanta BOE in support of Drew High School
The former Mayor of Atlanta is now Chief Executive Officer of Purpose Built Communities (a non-profit formed to replicate the East Lake revitalization effort in other cities) and was a founding Chairperson of Drew. One of among her many reasons to let Drew expand and add a high school is:
“Drew was the first APS school to integrate a comprehensive birth to four year old early childhood education component into the larger elementary school experience, a model that has since been adopted at Dunbar Elementary School. The Drew early learning program is now being replicated in 81 YMCA sites across the state.”
Read more…..of former Mayor Franklin’s letter here and if you haven’t read Beverly Fraud in the comments section of this blog, it’s worth a read. You can also find more information about the high school expansion at http://drewcharterschool.org/
Atlanta Public Schools Administrative Transfers
Parents have a Choice transfer option under House Bill 251: The Quality Basic Education Act; Intra-District School Choice, more commonly known within APS as general administrative transfers. A general administrative transfer is a transfer that allows students to attend an out of zone school if space is available in the out of zone school. Check out the choices that you have at http://www.atlantapublicschools.us/studenttransfers
Toomer and Parkside Elementary win Gold Award
The Governor’s Office of Student Achievement recognized 370 schools for outstanding results with the 2011 Single Statewide Accountability System Award Winning Schools.
Two SRT 3, Toomer Elementary and Parkside Elementary received Gold Awards in the Greatest Gain for Students Meeting and Exceeding Standards. Read more at http://www.atlanta.k12.ga.us/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=8590&ViewID=047E6BE3-6D87-4130-8424-D8E4E9ED6C2A&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=26548&PageID=6007More information about Toomer Elementary can be found here http://e2.ma/message/sb8gb/wiwvdb
To Be Black at Stuyvesant High in Manhattan, NY.
Interesting article about high achieving students of different backgrounds and income levels together in a school built on meritocracy, yet they still organize by ethnicity and color. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/education/black-at-stuyvesant-high-one-girls-experience.html?_r=1
Why don’t we have any white kids?
Interesting article about Explore Charter in New York which talks about a lot of issues that we have in the Capitol View neighborhood.
“Tim Thomas, a fund-raiser who is white and lives in Flatbush, writes a blog called The Q at Parkside, about the neighborhood. He has spoken to white parents trying to comprehend why the local schools aren’t more integrated, even as white people move in. “They say things like they don’t want to be guinea pigs,” he said. “The other day, one said, ‘I don’t want to be the only drop of cream in the coffee.’ ”
Decades of academic studies point to the corroding effects of segregation on students, especially minorities, both in diminished academic performance and in the failure to equip them for the interracial world that awaits them.”
Teaching Spanish as a foreign language in school
For those of you interesting in having foreign language at very early ages, check out what they are doing at the Urbana school district which is known for its diversity.
“The district is participating in an international exchange program between the Illinois State Board of Education and the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, which gives it the opportunity to hire teachers from Spain.”
Read more at http://www.news-gazette.com/news/education/2012-05-12/urbana-schools-may-host-teachers-spain.html
