Test Nation II: NYC Opts Out

“April is the cruelest month,” T.S. Eliot wrote in the opening canto of The Waste Land.   The month in which America celebrates child abuse prevention. Each spring, the English Language Arts,  math, and science tests arrive, New York City’s third- to eighth-grade public school students busily filling in bubbles.  As …

Test Nation I: Parents Across America Unite

This morning, succumbing to my raging digital addiction, I opened yet another email from Education Week. The American Society of Addiction Medicine defines this malady as a “process” condition—distinct from an obsession with activities such as shopping, eating, and doing drugs. A primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory …

Doing the Right Thing with The New Early Childhood Professional

Early childhood professionals have long been a beleaguered species. For starters, they’ve had to battle the perception that they’re “just babysitting,” providing “day care.” Never mind the field’s heroic history, chronicled in Exchange magazine a few years ago by Roger Neugebauer and Debra Hartzell. Heading the list was the Sheltering …

Segregation: The Achilles’ Heel of Bill de Blasio’s Pre-K Initiative

September 9th marks the first birthday of Bill de Blasio’s universal preschool initiative, a cornerstone of his agenda to combat inequality. On this day the largest and most segregated school district in the nation will greet its children. Segregation is hardly a new phenomenon in New York City. It’s been …