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If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
We've come a long way from those days in the church parking lot. A decade later my colleagues, students and I are thrilled to officially unveil a 10-minute documentary that chronicles the evolution of the Bronx Prep Performing Arts Academy.
"Do people eat goat balls too?" A boisterous passerby who was walking past 168th and 3rd in the Morrisania section of the South Bronx stopped outside USA Meatpacking Inc. to ask. Mahmoud smiled. He is used to these questions.
Ed Koch was a member of The Greatest Generation and not just by accident of birth. He was an American patriot who spent a lifetime serving his country and his city. He wanted to make the world a better place, root out corruption and help people. In this, he was an outstanding success.
Whether raising money, public awareness or helping kids raise their voice in song, celebrities who act by the first principle of mentoring -- to nurture what already exists -- will find their efforts go the farthest.
After we just completed an election season where democracy was under attack across the country, a movement has sprung up in New York City that seeks to strengthen rather than subvert involvement in the democratic process. It's called participatory budgeting.
One way New York State is considering streamlining its Medicaid costs is by expanding needle-exchange centers to help drug users prevent getting HIV and hepatitis C. But that may take federal funds, and Congress reinstated a ban on such funds last year.
This year there are moments when I'm lost and miserable and struggling with what it means to be an inner-city teacher. For the first time I'd started to wonder if I can go on teaching in the school I love but which is struggling against immense forces it can't control. Had I lost my calling?
In the last couple of weeks, the Archdiocese, as it does nearly every year, released its hit list of schools that it deems expendable come June unless those schools come up with a lot of money and good arguments about why they should not be shuttered.
It is time for Intro 97 to become law, and I look forward to assisting my colleagues in the City Council in their efforts on behalf of this "Paid Sick Leave" legislation. This is the right thing to do.
If Pregones Theater can emerge from the current recession far larger and stronger than they entered it, then why can't every arts organization in America?
All the folks living in the projects in the South Bronx are not suffering like the people living in the high risers in downtown Manhattan.
When a mutually supportive balance is struck between experiential learning driven by students' passions and direct instruction grounded in the skills they need, kids become equally hungry for both.
So, what is new? My school, PS 154 in the Bronx has been slated for closure. Actually a decision has yet to be made, but rather the euphemism, "Early ...
Frustrated by a decade of ineffectual reforms, Bronx students, parents, community advocates and elected officials, including Senator Gustavo Rivera, led a "Walk in Our Children's Shoes" tour of District 9 schools last Wednesday.
I recently talked with Kozol about his new book, the privatization of public schools in the United States, the education policies of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and the lives of his closest friends in the world -- the children of Fire in the Ashes.
There are far too many low-income workers, attempting to climb toward far too few "good" job openings. So, what can be done?
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