Jennifer Parker

Recent Activity

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  Jennifer signed the petition | over 1 year ago

  Deny a waiver to Cathleen Black; she is unqualified to become NYC Chancellor!
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  Jennifer recruited Angelica to sign the petition | over 2 years ago

  SPEAK UP WHEN CONFRONTED WITH HOMOPHOBIA
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  Jennifer signed the petition | almost 3 years ago

  Ask the United Nations to End Violence in Schools
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  Jennifer signed the petition | almost 3 years ago

  Stop Opponents of Health Care Reform from Distorting the Truth
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  Jennifer signed the petition | almost 3 years ago

  Community Choice Act in Health Care Reform!
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  Jennifer commented on the article | about 3 years ago

  Another (Dismally, Comically, Painfully) Bad Week for Joel Klein

  A tasty teaser for Ravitch's response, Clay, and I also relished:
  
  "The fact that NAEP is an audit test for which students do not prepare makes it more valid, as it accurately reflects reading skill and comprehension, rather than test prep. If a city or state does poorly on the audit test, then it is doing poorly. Or, whom do you trust? Madoff's accountant or the federal auditors?"

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  Jennifer commented on the article | about 3 years ago

  A Better Class of Learning: The Sudbury Model

  Bruce, you state that there is "strong evidence" of the effectiveness of Sudbury schools. I just don't see it in your post. The fact that there have been a small number of Sudbury schools for decades is not evidence, per se. Your post is essentially opinion. And your "powerful examples" can be found at all types of schools (with the possible exception of the example of teens being more well-adjusted than 20 - 30 year olds. Really??) I don't disagree with all of your opinions, but I think the general public needs evidence and data, not anecdotes.

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  Jennifer commented on the article | about 3 years ago

  Charters Exclude the Most Challenging Students, part 1

  To Carl, Yes. I think these reforms are possible.

  
  

  To Pamela, Hello! Nice to meet another public school Montessorian. I am one, as well. This is a tough one for me, to be honest. I helped start a Montessori magnet school 12 years ago. After we founding administrators moved on, the district replaced us with non-Montessori admins and started watering down the program. Because of that, Montessori Charters are attractive to me.
  
  However, I used to feel that charters were the only option for Montessori because I wouldn't want to place Montessori in a neighborhood school without a buy-in from parents. I now feel that probably underestimates parental capacity.
  
  And I have to look at the overarching issue and again, I go back to this: innovation, flexibility, and freedom from certain bureaucratic restraints should be allowed in all schools so that we don't have this separate, and unequal, charter system draining the other public schools.

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  Jennifer commented on the article | about 3 years ago

  Charters Exclude the Most Challenging Students, part 1

  Chartered schools were conceived for flexibity and innovation, but there is no one charter law written for this reason. Charter school law consists of a body of individual state laws, with much variance.
  
  I'll speak for myself when I say that every school needs to be flexible and innovative. It's damaging to create two systems: the chartered schools that can be "innovative" and the others that are restricted by bureaucratice constraints. I mean, if the charter concept is so great, why don't we just get rid of the restrictions for all public schools? 
  
  And either way, right now, both are judged on standardized test scores, so how innovative can we really get?

  
  

  Good point about alternative schools, but I feel that if the entire public school system was re-formed along with broader social systems, there would be no need for alternative schools.
  

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  Jennifer commented on the article | about 3 years ago

  Charters Exclude the Most Challenging Students, part 1

  For me, this post provides the determinative facts for freezing charter expansion and working on systemic reform on behalf of ALL schools/children. However -- and I'm sure you'll get into this in Part 2 -- others use/manipulate these points as a mandate to start as many charter schools as possible, to "reach" more and more kids, conveniently side-stepping the evidence that there are good, bad, and mediocre charters, just as there are regular schools. 
  
  I strongly believe that this (the interplay between Socio-Economic Factors and academic achievement and the need for systemic SES together with education reform) is the crux of how public ed supporters need to organize the battle within education policy/law.