IVBE

http://www.ivbe.org/. This organization works with people that have an opinion about better education in America. You can join the organization if you want, or you can follow them.

15th annual HCZ Peace March

http://www.hcz.org/media/hcz-tv?task=videodirectlink&id=21. The video is about the annual peace march that HCZ performs in Harlem. They bring children and signs to the march.

Harlem Children Zone (HCZ)

http://www.hcz.org Harlem Children zone is a organization in central Harlem. They work with kids from when they're born to when they go to college. I wrote them a letter telling them how much i respect them, and encourage them to continue what they do.

Centro Nia

http://www.centronia.org Centro Nia is a local organization that works with low-income and middle class children. They provide aftercare services for parents, and I intern there.

Action summary

I wrote a letter to Mayor Adrien Fenty. I printed out statistics about better education in Washington D.C. I wrote a letter to the Harlem children's Zone.

Blog 4

This article in the Washington Post is about how schools in Fairfax, Virginia with a lot of low-income students had very low literacy and math levels. The first thing Daniel A. Domenech did when he got to Fairfax was to add three hours to the weekly school schedules. The program he invented for these schools was called the “Excel” program. He left the Fairfax school system 17years later and the schools held up very well. I like that Domenech was able to increase the overall test scores in the schools that were doing poorly. Even though I don’t necessarily agree with the way that they solved the problem, I have to respect them for the attempt, and plus it worked.
Now, Domenech’s successor, Jake D. Dale is facing a problem of a major cut in the Fairfax school system budget. The cut in the budget caused the Excel program to be ended. Now, Jake has created a new program called “Priority Schools.” This program works with all schools, instead of the Excel program that works with only the neediest schools in Fairfax. Priority schools is working along the same lines as the Excel program by adding extra school time, and adding an extra $1million to the school budget. I like this project better then the Excel program because this project works with all schools, and not just the schools that need it the most. I think it’s important to keep the work up in the schools that are doing well with their test scores.

Blog 3

This article in the Washington Post argues how education isn’t as much of a factor in determining which college people go to as how much money they make. 74% of Ivy-league students are from the richest part of the population, while only 3% of Ivy-leaguers are from the poorest part of the population. Legacies, meaning a member of your family attended that school in the past, can also be an important factor in whether you get into an ivy-league school. Only 20% of people that apply to Ivy-league schools that aren’t legacies get into that school. The reason these schools allow legacies into their schools so easily is because they say they will not have enough donations from alumni if they don’t; but new research done by Chad Coffman says that schools that don’t have a legacy preference, or never did, have enough alumni donations. It makes me angry that they won’t help out the people that need the education the most. I don’t think that the legacy system is fair because for me, I would only have a 20% chance of getting into an Ivy-league school, since I’m not a legacy. I think that students should get into schools based on their grades, and test scores. Hopefully many more Ivy-league schools will provide better financial aid.
I like that the University of North Carolina has created a good financial aid program. The program says that low-income students aren’t required to take out loans as a part of their financial aid. Research done by Edward B. Fiske says that the UNC program has increased the four-year graduation rate from the college by almost 10%. The truth is that only one hundred of colleges in the U.S. have offered a better financial aid for low-income students. Harvard is starting to accept more low-income students, and giving away Pell grants to college students that need them. The percent of Pell grants that have been given at Harvard as increased from 9.4%, to 15%. I think that it’s good that ivy-league schools are starting to change their financial aid program to accept more low-income students. I think it’s really late for them to realize that they need to accept more, lower-income students in order to help them be successful in their life.