Mark Naison Posts

One of the most pernicious examples of the tunnel vision of school reformers is the “school turnaround” concept incorporated in the Obama Administration’s “Race To the Top” legislation and currently being implemented in school districts throughout the nation. “Turnaround” strategy proposes that a school designated as “failing”invariably on test scores — be closed and either replaced with a charter school or reopened as a new school, in the same facility, with a different principal and no more than fifty percent of the current teaching staff.

New York City plans to knock down three public schools in order to build luxury high-rise apartments — many of which are second or third homes for wealthy non-residents — while relocating the students to other area schools. A more potent symbol of misplaced policy priorities in the city could hardly be found.

During my 40-plus years as a teacher, coach and community organizer, I have spent a good portion of my time dealing with angry, wounded young men, often on a one-to-one basis. When I was coaching, I always took the boys that no one else could handle.

Some people were shocked when Occupy Wall Street — a protest movement that aimed to expose the excessive power of the financial industry and its corrupting influence on government — suddenly came to life through grassroots efforts to bring relief to individuals and communities devastated by Hurricane Sandy.

Mark NaisonWhen I read the NY Times article about the psychiatrist in a poor county in Georgia who was drugging kids who do not have ADHD to help them do well in school, I thought “There but for the grace of God go I.”I was lucky I was born in 1946 not...

Food is not the only health issue that the metaphor of a “desert” can be applied to Bronx residents, especially young people, have so much difficulty finding opportunities for sports and recreation in the neighborhoods and their schools that the Borough can be described as an Exercise Desert as well. The following are my criteria for describing a community as an Exercise Desert. I suspect many working class communities around the nation would qualify.