Susan Ochshorn – Susan Ochshorn

The Cost of Success: How Letting Billionaires Shape ECE Harms Kids – and Democracy

Susan Ochshorn Media September 16, 2020 September 23, 2020 Leave a comment

Read at Alternet (Alternet) Three weeks after New York City expanded its historic preschool initiative to three-year-olds, Richard Buery held forth on his signature achievement at the Puck Building, owned by Charles Kushner and his son, Jared, Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Bill de Blasio’s deputy mayor of strategic policy initiatives, architect of “PreK …

NYC Black Lives Matter Children’s March

Susan Ochshorn Activism September 16, 2020 September 23, 2020 Leave a comment

A small but enthusiastic group of kids, families, and activists—like me, in my first foray out of lockdown—met next to the 96th Street playground in Central Park

Are We Hurting Kids at School?

Susan Ochshorn Media August 31, 2020 September 23, 2020

Read at CNN (CNN) This fall, some 65,000 4-year-olds, backpacks hanging from their tiny frames, converged on the nation’s largest public school district. In just a year, New York City had nearly tripled its number of full-day prekindergarten slots. And before they entered their classrooms, Mayor Bill de Blasio crowed about …

A Conversation with Diane Ravitch

Susan Ochshorn Activism April 30, 2020 September 23, 2020

As the novel coronavirus raged, I talked with Diane and Denisha Jones about the
the state of modern childhood and the assault on play

Creating Citizens for the World (Video)

In Creating Citizens for the World, nine early educators speak straight from the heart, challenging NY’s Common Core standards, which have drastically altered early childhood, damaging students and demoralizing those who educate them.

Children, Guns, and the Bear of Toxic Stress

Susan Ochshorn Adverse Childhood Experiences / Betsy DeVos / Child Well-being / Children and Poverty / Donald Trump / ECEPM Blog / Gun Reform / Gun Violence / Nadine Burke Harris / National Rifle Association / Toxic Stress / Wayne LaPierre / Writing March 12, 2018 June 17, 2020 Leave a comment

Within days of Donald Trump’s victory, I issued the following call to action: As we go forward, holding our children close, we must be vigilant, and relentless. We must be creative and steadfast in our resistance. We must harness the energy in our communities for social progress and educational equity—and …

Bill de Blasio’s Schools Chancellor is Leaving: Who will Restore the Joy to Early Ed?

Susan Ochshorn Bill de Blasio / Carmen Farina / Child Well-being / Chloe Pashman / Common Core / Dana Doyle / Democracy / Developmentally Appropriate Practice / Diversity / Early Childhood Workforce / ECEPM Blog / Ellen Jaffe Cogan / High-stakes Testing / Inequality / Jamaal A. Bowman / Jeannette Corey / Katie Lapham / Lisa North / Michael Hynes / Pay Parity / Play / Preschool / Renee Dinnerstein / Segregation / Writing January 12, 2018 June 17, 2020 Leave a comment

Not long before New York City’s public schools closed for winter break, Katie Lapham posted to Twitter a drab black-and-white photograph of a testing manual she had found in her mailbox, the imprimatur of Carmen Fariña in the upper left-hand corner. An elementary school teacher and long-time critic of education …

A Battle for the Heart and Soul of Public Education

Susan Ochshorn Reviews December 15, 2017 January 28, 2021 Leave a comment

More than two decades ago, Deborah Meier warned that the idea of democracy was in peril. “Is it ever otherwise?” she asked in the preface to The Power of Their Ideas, her elegantly argued manifesto for public education.

Reclaiming Childhood and Restoring Teacher Voice

Susan Ochshorn Activism October 17, 2017 September 23, 2020 Leave a comment

The ECE contingent was small but vociferous in this dynamic NPE session I led, with Denisha Jones, Bianca Tanis, Michelle Gunderson and Geralyn Bywater McLaughlin

New York’s Young Children are Thrown under the Bus

Susan Ochshorn Betty Rosa / Child Abuse / Common Core / ECEPM Blog / General / Neuroscience / Next Generation Learning Standards / NYS Board of Regents / Play / PreK-2nd Grade Standards / Toxic Stress / Writing September 12, 2017 June 17, 2020 One Comment

On September 11th, the education committee of the New York Board of Regents approved the “Next Generation” standards for English Language Arts and mathematics. Our youngest children have been thrown under the bus. We are violating everything that is known, which is considerable, about how children develop and learn best. …