Reconnect
Alumni Spotlight
On August 30, 2010, Teachers College and Congressman Charles B. Rangel hosted a forum for public, charter, parochial and independent school leaders to discuss the needs of schools in Congressional District 15 with special guest Anthony Miller, Deputy U.S. Secretary of Education. This gathering of school leaders, policy makers and scholars featured a panel of experts including Mr. Miller, and TC Alumnus Deputy Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education Eric Nadelstern and TC faculty: Luis Huerta, Doug Ready and Erica Walker; moderated by TC President Susan Fuhrman. We will take your questions in an interactive format. The event was held at the Faculty House on the Columbia University campus, and a lively discussion took place as panelists answered questions posed by members of the audience. A transcript of the event will be available in the near future, for a copy contact tcalumni@tc.edu.
Eric Nadelstern was recently featured in the Spring 2010 Edition of TC Today. Read more about him below.
Embracing Accountability
Originally Published: 5/19/2010
The good news, says Eric Nadelstern, ’73, is that New York City’s high school graduation rate is now 63 percent—up from 50 percent five years ago, where it stood for decades.
The bad news: nearly four in 10 city teens still fall short. Most are male students of color who grow up in poverty.
“That begins to frame the enormity of the problem,” says Nadelstern, the city’s Chief Schools Officer, who attended a Bronx public school, City College, NYU and TC, and has spent his entire career in the city school system. “So our hard work lies ahead of us.”
It would be easy, in defending the graduation rate, to point to the constant influx of new immigrants during New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s tenure, many with little formal schooling. Nadelstern, who earned his TC degree in TESOL (the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages) and later founded and led New York City’s International High School (IHS), bristles when offered that out.
“Educators for far too long have been blaming poverty and race,” he says. “You can go to schools with poor kids who are African American and Latino, from families under tremendous pressure, and they are succeeding at very high levels. And yes, at other schools kids from the same backgrounds aren’t doing well. It’s the variables we control that can make the difference, and we have to accept the accountability.”
Accountability has been the watchword of the Klein era, and Nadelstern has been a major part of translating it into practice. To read more, click here.
Joan Dye Gussow, TC Alumna & Nutrition Professor Emerita, Profiled in New York Times
Published: 8/19/2010
A TC matriarch of the eat-locally-think-globally food movement discusses life, death, gardening and her forthcoming book. Click Here for story.
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