83 Choices!

Darrin Francois, A high school senior at the International High School of New Orleans was accepted to 83 colleges this year. Francois has also been offered close to $3 million in scholarship funding, Fox 8 reported. The 17-year-old told the news station he is happy people want him to attend their schools. Read more here

What You Never Realized You Were Teaching Your Child About Grit & Resilience: MIT Study Captures Techniques That Work for Babies as Young as 13 Months

This article was first posted on the 74million.org By Kate Stringer Even at MIT, no one’s been able to create a computer as powerful as the brain of a baby. “They’re better at doing this fast learning from one or two examples than any computer algorithm we have right now,” MIT graduate student Julia Leonard said. “That’s a big interest here — everyone’s like, ‘We want a computer to learn like a… Read More

The lack of quality seats and a strategic plan is hurting New Orleans students

Several weeks ago, I wrote a blog that criticized the OneApp system in New Orleans and also highlighted the dismay felt by many parents around the city whose children had yet to be matched to a school, had been placed in a school across town, were matched to a school that was not one of their choices or placed in a school that has subpar grades. Parents were also given directives to… Read More

279 Handwritten Notes over 10 hours with 1 Goal

This Baton Rouge Principal wanted to ease the minds of his young scholars during standardized testing with a simple note of encouragement. “I try to build a relationship with them and understand their uniqueness, so when I wrote those notes I wanted to acknowledge that about them first and then say to them good luck this week!” Read more here

Twitter Chat: Lets talk about Gentrification

School Is Not Supposed to Teach You Everything

By Andrew Pillow If you read a lot of parenting and education blogs eventually you are going to come to an obligatory post about, “All the Things They Don’t Teach You in School.” Many writers use this as an opportunity to criticize absent minded teacher or “silly state standards” about how they could forget something so important. That is where this argument goes downhill. Contrary to popular belief, school is not supposed… Read More

If you’re an educator who thinks we need to hold parents accountable, you need to do some soul searching

BY SHARIF EL-MEKKI This article was first published at http://phillys7thward.org Time and time again, I’ve heard educators say that the lack of parental engagement in their schools is what is holding them back. But, when I listen to families, in Philly or Chicago or any other urban city, I hear about the shoes that educators often don’t slip on. Families speak of unwelcoming environments—hostile, even. They speak of educators who fail to consistently… Read More

HBCU Pride. Thank You Beyoncé

By guest blogger Brianna Warren I could not take my eyes away as I sat and streamed Beyoncé’s Coachella performance live via YouTube—I was amazed! I noticed right away her show resembled bleachers at a football game—complete with a marching band, drumline, and majorettes. Her high energy and intensity-filled performance highlighted one of the most prideful and exciting times on a historically black college or university’s (HBCU) campus—homecoming. This is a time… Read More

I Blog for Liberation!

Yes, it is a fact that the nearly 50,000 children that attend Orleans Parish Public Schools need community people that can speak for the community. There is an overwhelming amount of children in my community who live in poverty and who need a voice to carry their plight to the spaces and conversations where they normally don’t exist. It is important to me that at one time or another in my life… Read More

Four Years Old and a Target of Racism

By guest blogger Kristle Pressley Fears. We all have them – fear of heights, fear of spiders, fear of failure. Before becoming a mom, my fears were simple. I don’t do heights, I don’t do insects, and I don’t do clusters of tiny holes (yes, that’s an actual phobia called “trypophobia”). After giving birth to my daughter four years ago, my fears suddenly multiplied. As moms, we try to keep our kids… Read More