“Poverty is not a learning disability,” declared Pedro Noguera of New York University during a recent guest lecture at Vanderbilt. His presentation on economic influences on student achievement advocated a community-wide focus to improving schools and educational outcomes for students in predominately low-income areas. Although he oriented much of his discussion around models in urban…
Nashville Mayor Karl Dean outlined a major new education goal in his second inaugural address in September: double the number of college graduates in the city. The Mayor pointed to the strong, positive connections between an educated workforce and economic growth. Cities with higher education attainment levels among the population are more competitive when wooing…
Yesterday was an exciting day in the education reform world as U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited Nashville to highlight and celebrate our state’s dramatic work in improving public education. Teacher recruitment, No Child Left Behind, charter schools, the achievement gap, and parental involvement were all topics of discussion during a panel with the…
I’m sitting at a table in a chair designed for bodies much smaller than mine, going through the motions of giving a diagnostic reading assessment to a boy whose face is still wet from tears of homesickness. I point to a list of ten words and say, “Can you try reading these for me?”…