Urban education as you’ve never seen it
Plenty is written about the big issues in urban education, but few are familiar with the sights, sounds, and personalities that go along with those words. A fight at a high school, a student struggling in class, a young teacher learning the profession, a strong-willed superintendent’s battles with entrenched interests–these are abstract concepts to most people. I therefore was excited to come across a wonderful website called Learning Matters, which reports on education for the PBS NewsHour and for the web. Numerous video clips are available on the site, but the following three series were most interesting to me:
1) The story of Michelle Rhee, the young, reform-minded Chancellor of Washington, DC Public Schools, is documented in 11 parts that run a combined 110 minutes.
2) The story of Paul Vallas, former superintendent in Chicago and Philadelphia, who became Superintendent of New Orleans Public Schools following Hurricane Katrina, is documented in 11 parts that run a combined 116 minutes.
3) The story of seven Teach For America corps members in New Orleans (post-Katrina) is documented in 7 parts that run a combined 41 minutes.
Anyone who watches the 4.5 hours of footage above (which isn’t that much, really–just one video clip per night for a month) can, in my opinion, consider themselves up to speed on the state of urban education today. This is the best multimedia resource on the subject that’s available, so please take advantage if you have a chance.
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Here is a snapshot of urban eduction, in a district already shown in court to have massive inequalities. Kansas City is closing 29 of 61 schools:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CLOSING_SCHOOLS
Also I think the Dept of Education buying 27 combat shotguns can’t be a sign of anything good:
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=16f1571b63e3d75d15583cc75b21d58c
jcalton – Good work digging up that shotgun information. That certainly is not a sign of anything good…unless Arne just wanted to take his staff out back for some skeet shooting.
In response to another comment. See in context »Glad to hear that you’ve enjoyed the videos. We truly appreciate your support!
You’re doing great work here, and we enjoy following your writing. Keep it up!
-Carmen @ Learning Matters
Thanks, Carmen!
In response to another comment. See in context »