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 …
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 …
Read at HuffPo (Huffington Post) This spring, communities across the nation have been celebrating Safe Kids Day. As the season began, a tweet arrived. “Every minute of every day, there’s a call to poison control because a kid gets into medicine,” it said. “Learn more.” I was overwhelmed. I had …
Read at HuffPo (Huffington Post) I just finished reading your letter, What if? Thank you for the update on your work. The introductory paragraph is stirring: What if infectious diseases could no longer wreak havoc on poor communities? What if women and girls everywhere were empowered to transform their lives? …
Read at HuffPo (Huffington Post) What a winter of discontent for New York’s parents. Strep, sub-zero temps, tantrums. Then Andrew Cuomo declared there was “little” appetite for paid family leave. The governor may be a glutton for women’s equality. Still, there’s only so much equalizing one can do. He had …
Read at HuffPo (Huffington Post) As December loomed, Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top hit a snag. At a meeting of school superintendents, he took “white suburban moms” to task for rebelling against the Common Core academic standards, guidelines for math and language arts instruction. “All of a sudden, their …
Read at HuffPo (Huffington Post) Ivanka Trump made an eloquent pitch for family-friendly policies when she introduced her father at the Republican convention. But his party has other ideas. A week before Donald Trump closed the deal, the First Five Years Fund had announced the results of its annual poll. …
Read at HuffPo (Huffington Post) Just weeks after his landslide victory, Bill de Blasio presided over a children’s summit in New York City. “Economic destiny is determined by education,” he said. “That is true for us as a city, for us as a nation.” So did the incoming mayor of …
Read at HuffPo (Huffington Post) I recently time-traveled with Peter Edelman, who resigned from the Clinton Administration in protest against the 1996 legislation that ended “welfare as we know it.” Citing all the social justice luminaries of the past century — including his wife, the Children’s Defense Fund founder and …
Read at HuffPo (Huffington Post) Two weeks ago, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced that Educare would be coming to Brooklyn next fall. A birth-to-five program that serves at-risk kids, it’s become the darling of politicos from Obama on down, not to mention billionaire …
