WATCH: Bill Cosby Interviews Deborah Kenny On Revolutionary Schools

Deborah Kenny started the Harlem Village Academy in 2003 after her husband's untimely death left her searching for a new life purpose.

The academy has since blossomed into three schools with more than 700 children who are helping low-income students beat the odds in New York's public education system.

Bill Cosby, an ardent education activist, sat down with Kenny to ask her about how she views public education.

Read more about their conversation at Oprah.com.

WATCH:

Comments

[Helen Olubunmi Oyekan]

06:41 PM on 10/13/2010

Awesome!

[BarbaraTodish]

08:51 PM on 10/12/2010

Check out the great work being done by the "Cease Fire " programs in Illinois. They use "Violence Interruptors". We all need to be aware that SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE is everywhere! We are all bullied or we bully ourself. Perhaps L'il Wayne is promoting symbolic violence in his album "I AM NOT A HUMAN BEING". Social and cultural "identifiers" ie race, gender, ethnicity, class, even tradition and custom are limitations that take away our AUTHENTIC HUMANITY IDENTITY. Flyinginplace.com has discovered language techniques to enable the emergence, maintenance and enhancement of each persons AUTHENTIC HUMANITY VALIDITY. Please consider viewing http://www.flyinginplace.com Flyinginplace.com offers chiasmus linquistics and humor (alternative improv comedy) through its lifecoaching services. These services are offered gratis to Harlem Village Academies, in return for vendor, website listing, etc., as consideration. See: http://www/the7thfire.com/Todish/Life_Coaching_and_its_Implications_for_Communication.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XegltDJLUHo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcyvM8Ap4Xc
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[rjaxone]

11:44 PM on 10/11/2010

Any person whose efforts support our educational system is doing a great thing. BUT, Bill Cosby is hardly an ideal advocate of such efforts.

He has a questionable ED.D. degree and runs around referring to himself as Dr. Cosby. Phoney > His so-called doctorate dissertation was on some aspect of Fat Albert; and I doubt that he actually enrolled in the courses or went through the qualifying exams required to become a doctoral candidate.

Nice try, Coz.

[SaraCE]

09:59 PM on 10/11/2010

Remeind me, how many students do they deny entry too/expel due to behavior?

[samoisdead]

08:00 PM on 10/11/2010

Put on a shirt and tie next time Mr.Cosby. Showing up in the farty, musty, sweatpants and t-shirt you've been lounging around your million dollar home all week in does not bode well. I remember seeing him on Larry King or some show being interviewed behind an incredibly dark pair of shades, another misstep. Sorry, just my pet peeves, don't mine me.

[Holly Rayl]

12:50 AM on 10/13/2010

No, I agree. Those clothes, that stature while sitting in the chair at the beginning? Not professional at all.

[traceydouglas]

07:54 PM on 10/11/2010

And there's a whole pile of money to be made of off poor kids. Hmmm, how can they afford to pay these kinds of salaries???

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2009/12/13/2009-12-13_charting_new_territory_in_ed_salaries.html

[kmichal2000]

08:39 PM on 10/11/2010

"no public funds went toward Kenny's salary. "

[SaraCE]

09:59 PM on 10/11/2010

Said nothing about donar money, eh?? Many charter schools are rather profitable to those who run them.

[traceydouglas]

07:51 PM on 10/11/2010

It's an interesting link:

http://millermps.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/serious-questions-raised-about-harlem-village-academy-is-this-the-model-for-urban-public-school-reform/

[traceydouglas]

07:43 PM on 10/11/2010

It sure would be nice if any of these highly publicized charters would explain specific strategies they employ to achieve the alleged results that they achieve.

[RiddlingSaulie]

08:49 PM on 10/11/2010

For starters, we work for the month of August. We lesson plan with our grade level counterparts and train new teachers. We spend a month getting ready for September; it's is the most important month of the year.

We have a school-wide discipline system that every adult knows very well and is on board with. Our consequences for missing work, not following instructions, and disrespect include lunch detention and extended day detention for three hours on Friday. Students are taught the system for three full days at the start of 5th grade. It's the same system for all four years.

We also have longer school days. Students begin arriving at 7:05. Homeroom starts at 7:40. Classes continue until 4:30. Students who stay after for Homework club leave at 5:30. During the month of September, we meet every day until 6:30 discussing every possible issue from dismissal to bathroom procedures during lunch to parent meetings we need to set up.
We also have "small group instruction" built into our days where every teacher pulls students for immediate remediation based on the days lesson, not just IEP kids.

Honestly, I've been a teacher for nine years. There are a lot of things that I simply didn't learn about teaching until I came to HVA. There's so much to be learned from a lot of charter schools, just as there's a lot to be learned from any great schools. Let's look closer at successful schools rather than making excuses for their success.

[traceydouglas]

10:14 PM on 10/11/2010

Thanks for your response. Were you a credentialed teacher when you began teaching? If not, then no wonder you didn't learn anything about teaching until you came to HVA. According to HVA's school report card, HVA has a rather high number of non-credentialed teachers. All of the teachers at my public school are required to be credentialed and highly qualified. I also noticed that HVA has an extremely high teacher turnover rate. I think looking at reasons for success (or as you call them, 'excuses') is essential. If my public school had ZERO (or nearly that) special education or English Language Learner students like HVA, scores would most definitely be higher. It is worthwhile remembering that public schools teach ALL students. And given that we teach ALL students (and no application is required), my high-poverty school is both a California Distinguished School and a Title I Academic Achievement award winner. Additionally, HVA is the recipient of millions of dollars in private donations. Public schools do not benefit from private donations such as yours, hence, we spend far less per pupil than do you. The diversity of the student population greatly effects the overall academic success of a school. When a charter cherry picks or 'counsels out' certain students, then those charters cannot be held up as a viable scaleable model for public schools en masse, nor should they be viewed as a superior educational model. (Remember, public schools teach ALL children - no choice there.)

[traceydouglas]

10:15 PM on 10/11/2010

Part II: I do credit the physical and mental stamina of your students and staff given the long hours that are spent teaching. How do you not burn out, especially since you probably work for several more hours after the students leave.

[Galia Hannah]

01:16 PM on 10/12/2010

33% of the charters do worse than public schools on standardized tests. these highly publicized charter need to explain what specific strategies they are doing to get such bad results.

[kmichal2000]

06:24 PM on 10/11/2010

Student's comments speak for themselves....

[kmichal2000]

06:23 PM on 10/11/2010

Bill Cosby is awesome. Black community should really listen to him more.

[jessicajuliette]

09:16 PM on 10/11/2010

some did, and they ended up being assaulted by him...

he is a JERK..OR THE FIRST ORDER...

[Yam716]

02:40 PM on 10/12/2010

I think he's a great guy. Many did not like his delivery, but what he said needed to be said.

[jessicajuliette]

09:16 PM on 10/11/2010

TYPO--should be OF the first order..

[LeeCalif]

06:13 PM on 10/11/2010

Bill Cosby is a danger to women !

[Lefty Pockets]

05:32 PM on 10/11/2010

Well Cosby should have changed back into his school clothes after gym class.

[carester]

05:29 PM on 10/11/2010

I am a choice parent. My children attend charter schools, and I love them. I think that it is great that we have CHOICES, isn't it guys? As everyone can see, Charter School movement is here to stay. We are in fact becoming more powerful than before. I hope that soon every child has the opportunity to attend a high performance charter school, magnet school, or whatever school fits that child's academic path. Thank God for CHOICES :-)

[TFT]

07:58 PM on 10/11/2010

You realize that when all children attend charters we will be right back where we started. It's logic, and physics.

You elitists will have to try something else to keep yourselves from the riff-raff.

[carester]

08:28 PM on 10/11/2010

So, I have CHOSEN to send my children to a charter school located in a poor neighborhood over my local better-to-do public school because I am a elitists? Yeap ! !

[verylargehat]

04:52 PM on 10/11/2010

The comments that I've read are fascinating. Some people think she's great and some people are vilifying her.

Regardless of your take on public vs charter or public vs private schools, I tend to agree with Ms. Kenny that there are huge disparities in the way schools and teachers are evaluated. I also feel that people tend to blame teachers, yet no one ever takes a look at the administration of a school or school district.

One of the biggest issues I have is the idea of getting funding for public schools from property taxes. I don't know what the answer is, but getting most funding from property taxes neglects the parts of the country that need funding the most.

We hear about schools that are "under-performing," and the first reaction is to blame the teachers. No one questions the administration or what kind of funding the schools have.

I believe that unions are good, but I don't understand how tenure works into the equation. Why can't we pay teachers more and eliminate tenure? The idea of tenure is like a job guarantees from the communism of the USSR. How can we weed out those teachers who aren't effective educators? How do we measure their effectiveness?

This issue is so complex and it infuriates me when politicians and private citizens think there is only one cure-all step that needs to be taken to fix the whole thing.

[trinity]

06:37 PM on 10/11/2010

If you eliminate tenure, the districts will be free to RIF any teachers that get "too expensive" whenever there is a budget cut, regardless of how good they are. It's all in the $$$$, and they will replace a 10 year veteran with a first year newbie anyday....

[KIVPossum]

04:48 PM on 10/11/2010

Bill Cosby is a hero America has never fully acknowledged. A good man, a brilliant man, and if we had listed to what he had so say our society could be so much better