As continuing budget shortages force schools across the city to cut music programs, PS 55 in Queens is about to get a new one. Last spring, LaGuardia High School senior instrumental major David Charles was taking his sister to school at PS 55, when he realized that there was no music program at the school.

He went inside, found the principal, and offered to start one. In his words, “[The principal] warned me that it would require a lot of work and planning, but I told him I was ready for it. We exchanged contact information and I made the first lesson plan and showed it to him. We went over ….[the] cost… the schools budget…who would be interested. Then we handed out letters to the parents explaining what this was going to be about. Parents seemed really interested in the idea….

“Our purpose was to bring diversity to the school and promote musical understanding…. The school found a place (Laconia Music) to buy used instruments for very cheap… I’m going to have to come in before I go to school or after school. I have free periods in the morning and can move some things around.”

Wow. (more…)

As I sat furiously answering emails from high school students around the city last night, on the phone with a student from Queens I’d never met, and trying to keep up with constant facebook notifications from strangers, I told my mother I thought the MTA’s proposal to cut student MetroCards was a blessing in disguise. I didn’t really mean it, of course, but it is clear to anyone working on this issue that the students of this city are uniting and mobilizing to make their voices heard.

There have been student organized rallies and protests, petition drives and press conferences. And the next phase begins this week: a MetroCard drive, organized by the NYC Student Union.

At the end of this week, first semester student MetroCards will expire. Student representatives from schools around the city will be collecting their classmate’s MetroCards, asking them to write a brief message on their card before handing it in. The message should be about how the MetroCard cut will affect them, or anything they want to say about the MTA’s plan. (more…)

“Don’t think. If you think, you will fail.” That’s not a Zen master speaking, but my government teacher. “I’ve seen plenty of students go wrong because they were creative, intelligent people and they thought about the questions. Don’t do it. Copy exactly what’s in the box. Word for word.”

Her lips twitched into a smile, but she wasn’t joking. She was referring to the Document Based Questions section of the U.S. History and Government Regents exam, a test that will be the culmination of my last three semesters and has turned my government class into test prep for the past three weeks.

The sad part? She’s right. And the really sad part? Because she’s right, instead of teaching us how to analyze and understand government, our last 15-plus classes have been spent learning to copy from the box. I don’t blame my teacher at all, her job is to help us do well on the Regents exams and she’s giving us the best advice she can.

Still, isn’t it weird that after more than 12 years of school, the big expectation is that I can copy words of text onto an answer sheet?

Well, I’ll do it. I want a good grade like the next guy, so I’ll turn my brain off when I sit for the Regents next week. I hope that after graduating high school I’ll be able to think again.

At 7 a.m.on Tuesday, I and 15 of my fellow students, stood on the steps of Martin Luther King Educational Campus shaking with cold and clutching signs that protested the proposed student MetroCard cuts. All of us have been to several student protests this year, and we know what to expect. They’re always smaller than we want them to be, always loud and impassioned, always inspiring, and rarely well covered by the press.

This one was different: we were standing quietly on the steps behind NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who was holding an outdoor press conference to speak out against the MTA cuts (particularly to student and senior citizen fares). She criticized the MTA for not discussing this proposal with the City Council, and said that she was open to meeting and collaborating with them to find solutions to the budgetary problems.

A few weeks ago the Student Union received an email from Nick Rolf, the community outreach organizer for Christine Quinn’s office asking us to get 15 students to attend the press conference and stand behind Speaker Quinn. This was a rare and much appreciated attempt by the City Council to involve students in their actions. One facebook page later, we were there. (more…)

As the momentum for yesterday’s student MetroCard protest built up, a heated debate developed on the facebook event page. Because it is the MTA which is proposing the elimination of student MetroCards, the protest was held in front of their headquarters on Madison avenue. But one commenter insisted repeatedly and vehemently that it should be held at City Hall. Another posted an angry, all-caps comment telling them to get their facts straight and insisted that the proposed student MetroCard cut isn’t the fault of City Hall.

The debate left facebook and joined us on the street. About halfway through the protest, one student stood up on a signpost and started yelling for us all to walk to City Hall. Other students yelled back, “it’s not City Hall’s fault!”

A few minutes later, a reporter came up to me and a group of friends and asked “who do you blame for this?” Someone said the MTA, and I agreed. Someone said Bloomberg, and I agreed. Someone said Patterson, and again I agreed.

Naturally it left me thinking: Who’s to blame? (more…)

Calling all students, teachers, and administrators!

Join the New York City Student Union on Monday, Dec. 14t at 5 pm as we host our second Student Government Forum. The forum is being held at the UFT offices downtown (50 Broadway between Exchange and Morris.) We will bring together student representatives from around the city, as well as those who are trying to form new governments.

The goal is to establish a basis for an effective student government, help each other improve or create new entities, and connect our organizations with each other. This is essential to increasing student voice and power in our schools. The event is open to students, teachers, administrators and anyone else who wants to come. (more…)

This past summer I was assigned Henry Jame’s Portrait of a Lady and couldn’t read more than a page without getting a pounding headache and falling asleep. At first I attributed this to the complexity of the language, and assumed that I was having difficulty reading it because it was too challenging and therefore boring. As it turns out, it probably was too challenging, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was my eyes.

Like so many other people, I have vision disorders (in my case, tracking problems and convergence insufficiency) that make reading, computer work and other close-up tasks very difficult. Having convergence insuffieciency means that a person’s eyes do not work well at close distances. They often drift outward, causing that person to see double. The person naturally tries to pull their eyes back in to make the close object clear and single, causing a lot of strain on their eyes.

Fortunately my parents and I discovered the problems when I was in elementary school and I was sent to vision therapy, so I was able to recognize what was going on when the problems came back last summer. Many kids aren’t this lucky. (more…)

Urban Word NYC is a spoken word, poetry, and hip-hop group aimed at serving New York City youth. They were “founded on the belief that teenagers can and must speak for themselves” and “provide free, safe and uncensored writing workshops to teens year round.”

I have been attending their Creatively College Bound workshop this year. The program is enormously helpful. In their words, Creatively College Bound “is a program geared towards high school juniors and seniors who want their creative critical voice to soar over the tedium of the college application process. Poetry, spoken word, and hip-hop are used as inspirations and the creative foundation for the college admissions and college preparatory process.”

Participants write four essays in four different general areas that cover all college/scholarship prompts. These essays are then read at workshops so the writer can get feedback from the other members. The leader of the workshop will give his or her own feedback as well.

I brought a draft of my common application essay to a workshop a couple of months ago. The leader made copies, passed one to everyone, and had someone read it out loud. It was a bit nerve racking, but at the end I got back 15 copies of my essay, covered in suggestions from other writers. They also gave me verbal feedback and explained their comments. I spent the next couple weeks incorporating their suggestions and my own new ideas, and ended up with an essay I was really proud of. In fact I was so happy with my essay that I applied to all my colleges two months early!

Creatively College Bound workshops take place on Monday afternoons at the Urban Word space in Midtown Manhattan.

If you think you’re doing okay on your essay, Urban Word provides a number of other workshops on topics ranging from slam poetry to social activism. Check out the website to see what Urban Word has to offer you!

UPDATE: The City Hall protest on Nov. 13 will now begin at 3 p.m., not 2 p.m. as previously noted.

Please join students from around the city to protest the new regulation on bake sales on Friday, Nov. 13 from 2-6 p.m. in front of City Hall. The protest is being organized by seniors from LaGuardia High School, and we invite anyone and everyone to come.

Department of Education regulation A-812 states that only approved foods can be sold in schools until 6 p.m., and no outside food can be sold during mealtimes. The regulation is so restrictive it is commonly referred to as a ban on bake sales. As Jennifer Medina said in a recent New York Times article, “There will be no cupcakes. No chocolate cake and no carrot cake. According to According to New York City’s latest regulations, not even zucchini bread makes the cut.” (more…)

Last week I attended a historic poetry slam at the Nuyorican Poets Café on East Third Street which determined the first ever Youth Poet Laureate of New York. Our first Youth Poet Laureate is Zora Howard, a senior at LaGuardia High School. As laureate, she will travel around the city performing poetry and encouraging civil engagement in her fellow youth.

The crowd was warm and enthusiastic. There were 12 finalists and about 50 audience members, mostly young people. The audience was very passionate about the performances, snapping and “mmm”ing and encouraging the poets if they stumbled or forgot a line. Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott was also there, giving the event an air of political importance. Each contestant performed one three-minute poem on a subject of their choice, and then a one-minute piece related to voting or civic engagement. (more…)

When the City Council Education Committee held a hearing last week on the implementation of the new school governance law, it was the first time that student views on the law were heard by the Council.

High school senior Ben Shanahan and I testified on behalf on the New York City Student Union. Our message was simple: the changes in our schools’ governance have been made without any student input, they do not recognize the need for student input, and do not provide an outlet for student opinion. (While I believe in student voice on all levels, I am mainly referring to high school students in this post).

The law focuses on increasing the power of parents and superintendents in the context of mayoral control. A new citywide Council on English Language Learners was added to the existing citywide councils on special ed and high schools. The special ed and high school councils were set up by the mayor and have now been made official under the education law. Each of these councils have between 12 and 15 members. Generally nine or ten of those members are parents, and two or three are people who have knowledge or experience in the field. The final member is a high school senior: the only non-voting member on the council. (more…)

After a restful summer unplugged from technology, I’m back to blogging! For new readers, my name is Toni and I’m a senior instrumental major at LaGuardia Arts high school. I am also a member of the New York City Student Union, a student-run organization whose mission is to serve as a powerful, collective voice for NYC’s public high school students.

The student union began in 2006 after a cell phone ban was placed on public schools. Four high school students (who are now in college) were reading articles together about the ban and kept reading quotes such as “a parent says,” “a teacher says,” “a principal says,” “the mayor says,” and “the chancellor says.” They noticed that while students were more affected by the ban than anyone else, their opinion was not publicized at all.

These four students organized a student protest outside City Hall, but very few students showed up. They realized that there was a lack of unity and communication among students across the city, which made it difficult to organize and defend our rights as students. That year, the New York City Student Union was born. (more…)

That tough question is the title of a book by Beverly Daniel Tatum, a psychologist with a focus on racial identity development. It’s also a question that a lot of us wonder about, even if we don’t ask it out loud. I’ve attended four diverse public schools in New York City and in all of them, self-segregation was common. I saw this in the cafeteria, on the street corners, in classrooms, and, most importantly, in the formation of lasting friendships. This has always seemed to me like a weakness of our schools, or even a partial failure of the integration project started in the 1950’s.

Tatum sees it differently. From a psychological standpoint, Tatum believes, the “black cafeteria table” is important. She believes that by the time black children hit puberty, if not before, they began searching for what it means to be black, especially if they are in a racially mixed school or community. Settings like the black cafeteria table, according to Tatum, offer a support group for black children who may feel isolated among their white peers — a place to find a postive black community and identity. Additionally, Tatum believes that a “race-concious parent” raising their black child in a mixed setting should actively seek out a strong black community.

Tatum describes this “racial immersion” as one of several stages in a person’s development. At some point during the book, I started wondering if she was advocating for the self-segregated cafeteria. What about integration? What I came to understand was that Tatum sees integration as the final step, once a person has become comfortable with their racial identity. This last point troubled me. (more…)

Until I was about twelve I wanted to be a teacher.  More recently I’ve felt otherwise, thinking that in order to create real change in education I needed to be in a position of greater power.  But I was reminded of the unbelievable impact that a single good teacher can make after reading the story of Rafe Esquith, a classroom teacher in a tough Los Angeles neigborhood.

His second book, “Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire” tells the stories of his years of teaching, intertwining inspiring anecdotes with education theory, psychological theory and lesson plans.  It’s a must-read for anyone who wants to become  a teacher, a parent or work with kids in any way.

Rafe Esquith is one of those rare teachers who honestly would “do it for free.”  And rest assured, he already  does a lot for free. He comes to school over an hour before the official day begins, only to be greeted by a huge group of students anxious to work on math problems. He stays late after school every day to show educational films, and to rehearse for the rock/Shakespeare production students put on at the end of the year. He takes kids on overnight trips during school vacations, takes former students to visit colleges during their breaks, and has students come in on Saturdays to prepare for their trips in order to get the most out of them. All students who come in for extra school or trips do it voluntarily, and no one is penalized for not participating.

It is not just the insane amount of effort that sets Rafe apart from other teachers, its also his philosophy and his ability to stick to it.  His four core ideas about teaching are: “Replace fear with trust,” “children depend on us, so be dependable,” “discipline must be logical,” and, “you are a role model.”  He also discusses the reasons why students do things (mainly out of fear or want of a reward), and encourages his students to strive for a “level 6: I have a personal code of behavior and I follow it (the Atticus Finch level).” For Rafe, it’s not just talk. Through 25 or so years of teaching, he has found a way to apply all these ideas into his teaching. His classroom is a place that is full of trust, honesty and commitment. He introduces his students to characters such as Harper Lee’s Atticus Finch so that they learn to strive for a truly moral existence. And  you can tell that he is successful a huge percent of the time:  He teaches his students for life.

Rafe is not a young radical who earns his students’ love by burning standardized tests.  (His students do well on tests, though Rafe offers his own analysis of the problems with testing in our system.)  He is, pure and simple, a teacher who pushes himself and his students to do more, mentally, physically and emotionally — and sees it pay off, year after year.

If I ran teacher training, I would definitely make this book required reading.

Break out the popcorn– it’s movie time in Advanced Placement classes around the city!

It’s common knowledge that after the AP tests, which take place in early May, AP classes become a total joke. At LaGuardia, stories are passed down about the dumbest, most irrelevant movies teachers have shown for the last month of school, or which AP teachers expect you to actually show up in class after the test. It would be a lie to say that some part of me does not enjoy this payoff for hard work, but I do think it reflects directly on the test-prep culture that we all have entered. Though APs are test-prep courses by nature, I’ve learned information and study skills that will be useful for life. And unlike most standardized tests and the SATs, I find the AP tests to be measures of real learning and understanding, not of a student’s ability to test well. Learning how to write essays or speak Spanish for the AP test are skills that I will need, and use, forever. But in these last few weeks of school, when all teaching and learning in AP classes ends abruptly, I wonder if my teachers feel the same way. If the AP skills are life skills, why do teachers stop teaching the day after the test?

It seems to me that when the focus of a year is a test, teachers do not push themselves to go beyond. A month of school is a lot of time to waste just because “we took the test.” We could still be learning: The AP Composition test is over, but I have hundreds of essays left to write in my life, not to mention the other ways I will to need to organize and present my thoughts. There are hundreds of good books left to read and analyze, and hundreds of countries I plan to visit where I will need my Spanish skills.

I think the time after the test should be prized teaching time. To me, it seems like every good teacher’s dream: with no test at the end, teachers can teach whatever they want , however they want, and at whatever pace the students need.

Students and teachers complain a lot about the limits of standardized testing, but why don’t we take advantage of the freedom that comes once the big test is over? I would encourage AP teachers and students alike to take advantage of this time of looseness to teach and learn in new, interesting and creative ways. It’s a luxury we can’t afford to squander.

Last week, a  number of LaGuardia juniors found out that their math tracks are being abruptly ended. As a junior in trigonometry this year, I was expected to take pre-calculus in the fall, and take the Math B Regents Exam in January.  Now, because of budget cuts, seniors will not be allowed to take pre-calc. To learn the semester of content and prepare for the Math B exam, tutoring will be offered over the summer.  This is not really an option for people (like me) who have summer jobs.  Also, the only  math classes being offered to seniors next year are Advanced Placement classes.  For the juniors are in pre-calc this year, the situation may not be much better. Calculus may be cut next year, too, giving these juniors no way to complete their math track.  A letter is being sent to all colleges explaining the sudden death of advanced, non-AP math at LaGuardia.

When I expressed my concern, the assistant principal of math told me, “Write to the Chancellor and Mayor and ask them to stop taking our money away in the middle of the year.” I told her I already had, and that was the end of the conversation. But this conversation is far from over. My school has been forced to make hard choices because of circumstances outside its control. LaGuardia has done its best to maintain its unique dual mission to provide students with both good arts and academic educations. But no school should have to make the choice to end a curriculum like advanced math mid-year, without preparation or prior warning.

If, as the Chancellor and the Mayor insist, cuts must be made, they should not come from the classroom and force schools to make decisions like this one. How can these leaders say they’re committed to rigor and higher standards in education, and then limit funding for motivated math students?

Perhaps the cuts could come from the testing budget. It seems that tests are multiplying faster than rabbits;  kids as young as kindergarten are now being tested. Perhaps the needed savings can come from the production and administration of school Progress Reports, which are often inaccurate representations of a school.

The pattern is scary.  Mid-year crunches are resulting in the loss of teachers and classes, which are the last things that ought to be taken away.  If “students” were a budget item, we’d probably be the next to go.

For the past couple of years, the NYC Student Union has ended the school year with June workshops at M.S. 51, where many of us went to middle school. In these workshops, we teach 8th-graders, who will start high school in September, about the steps to creating change by constructively addressing problems in their schools and the education system. We also encourage them to join the Student Union when they start high school. We’ve a had a lot of success in the past, and we have some new ideas for improvement.

This year, we’re also hoping to reach out to more middle schools across the city.  If anyone works in, attends, or is a parent in a middle school and you think the school would be interested in hosting a NYC Student Union workshop, please get in touch with me, by commenting on this post, or  by email, at toni [at] taty.org.  Thanks!

“Senioritis” can hit hard — and there seems to be nothing anyone can do about it.  As one former LaGuardia senior said to me,  “It comes all at once, and it’s really painful.”  But at least one city high school has found the answer to those appallingly unproductive last few months of high school: Internships.

At the Institute for Collaborative Education (ICE),  second-semester seniors have internships instead of classes.  They can choose an internship that suits their interests, so that they  have a daily, real-world activity that  keeps them engaged and challenged.  As an added bonus, they gain experiences in a potential future work field that can help prepare them for college – and improve their resume.

My friend Maya, who is a second-semester senior at ICE, has two internships that mean a lot to her, at a fertility center and a photography center.  So instead of cutting math class for two months, she’s getting these awesome life experiences.

I think more high schools should consider internships for second-semester seniors, because being productive beats waiting for the time to pass any day.

Last week one of my teachers raised a topic that brought up some difficult questions: He reminded us that if he knew a student was cutting him or herself, he was legally required to report them to a higher authority. He expressed his own contradicting feelings on this issue, which prompted an extremely emotional class conversation. In general, my classmates understood the reasoning behind the rule; school authorities have a responsibility to keep young people safe. But teachers are not necessarily trained in dealing with serious issues, like cutting, that may be life-threatening to the student and surely signal deeper troubles. However, many students were extremely opposed to the idea of being sent by a teacher to the guidance counselor against their will. Though there are wonderful exceptions, I have heard from students in many different schools that going to “their” guidance counselor is something they generally seek to avoid.

I think one of the biggest problems is that guidance counselors in many schools do not know their students on a personal level. Big schools and low budgets make it hard to get enough personal attention to every student. I believe in the idea of a small-group advisory period each week, led by counselors, who would have the chance to get to know students and build relationships over time, before a crisis. Additionally, individual meetings should be arranged at some point so every student can meet their guidance counselor.

I know there are some really great guidance counselors out there, and I respect their efforts and their important role in students’ lives. However, many schools need to find a way for counselors to become more involved with their students — not on a disciplinary level, but on a personal one — and really provide the ’safe space’ students need.

My brother and I are almost fluent in Spanish, which is our second language, largely because our parents both speak fluent Spanish and we have traveled to a lot of Spanish-speaking countries in our lives. Many native English speakers do not have the opportunity to travel and don’t have parents who speak a second language, so they rely on their schools to teach foreign language. That is unfortunate, because in my observation, it is very difficult to reach any real proficiency in a second language from our public school foreign-language curriculum.

As far as I can tell, learning to speak a foreign language is not a serious priority in New York City’s public schools. There is no expectation of fluency, or even mastery. Second language is not taught at all in many elementary schools. At my old middle school, M.S. 51, language classes covered the same things three years in a row. As former M.S. 51 student Abby Beatty said, “In eighth grade I was still learning “¿Quien cocina el taco? Mi mama cocina el taco.” ( Who cooks the taco? My mom cooks the taco.) Many high schools, including my own (LaGuardia), only require one year of language.

The idea that learning another language is not as valuable as doing math or studying history is a bad message to send to kids. Learning to speak another language is beyond valuable, it is essential in a city as diverse as New York, and in a world where students in other countries begin to learn English in grade school. New York leads the world in art, fashion and commerce; why can’t our schools lead the country in foreign language education?

[Editor’s Note: State and city graduation requirements mandate a single year of foreign language instruction in high school, no more.]

WARNING: This blog may include spoilers for the Twilight series.

A few weeks ago I was talking to my neighbor, a 10 year-old boy at PS 321 in Brooklyn, and found out that he had just started reading Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. Many of his friends and classmates were doing the same. This surprised me. I knew Twilight had engaged middle- and high-school readers, but I hadn’t realized it had reached a far as fifth-grade boys. And I was more than a little disturbed by this.

I’ve tried to find a non-biased summary of Twilight online, but it doesn’t seem to exist. So the following is my (very biased), but completely accurate, summary: The Twilight series is the story of Bella, a young girl who, in the first two books, falls in love with a vampire (Edward) and a werewolf (Jacob). She then spends the next two books pining over them, threatening to kill herself when one of them leaves her, distancing herself from her friends (so it’s not too hard to say goodbye when she finally becomes a vampire herself to join Edward), jumping off cliffs (to “hear Edward’s voice” getting mad at her), and purposely endangering herself so she will be rescued by these supernatural non-men.

Despite all its modern trappings, the girls of Twilight are still girly girls, and the boys are traditional manly men. More specifically: The boys are muscular and unwaveringly brave, while the girls bake cookies, make supper for the men and hold all-female slumber parties. It gets worse for feminists: Bella is regularly threatened with violence in the first three books, and in every instance she is rescued by Edward or Jacob. In the third book she describes herself as ‘helpless and delicious.”

Is that how we want young girls defining themselves? This is 2009: What about capable and strong? The Twilight books indicate that being “helpless and delicious” are attractive and desirable qualities. And are these hunky netherworld types the role models for young boys to follow? The young men in Twilight are all head over heels for Bella Swan.

Beth Handman, PS 321’s assistant principal, says, “It is a perennial problem in elementary schools that children who are sophisticated readers end up with books laden with concepts that are beyond their emotional development. Young children can be very vulnerable to messages in literature. It would be best if children could wait until they were older to read these kinds of books.”

If that means they’re reading books like Twilight, parents and teachers should be familiar with the content and engage them in conversations on the messages and morals. Better yet, read it yourself — and decide whether it’s right for your child.

Editor’s Note:  Due to a technical error, we published an incomplete citation and link in the post above.  Insideschools regrets any confusion, and thanks the sharp-eyed reader who brought the matter to our attention. 

Over February break I was down in New Orleans with a group called the New York to New Orleans Coalition. As a student activist and a true believer in the strength of youth, it was the most inspiring experience of my life.

A little background on the organization: after Hurricane Katrina, Beacon High School brought group of students to New Orleans to work on reconstruction. After a year or so, Beacon stopped organizing these trips, but a few kids knew there was still work to do. So they started their own non-profit and began taking kids down themselves on every school vacation and every week of the summer. More than 100 students applied to go on their trip next month. Half had to be turned away because they could not be accommodated.

NY2NO is a completely student-led organization, started by kids who are now seniors at Beacon. Their vision is “to create a network of young people who are interested in organizing and mobilizing across New York City. NY2NO works in solidarity with those most affected by the social, racial, and economic inequalities in both New York and New Orleans. Through this, the youth breaks down barriers and works together to combat racism and classism and move towards an egalitarian society.” Despite the idealistic connotation of the word “egalitarian,” the organizers of NY2NO are practical, forward-thinking, active, thoughtful, and above all passionate.

NY2NO’s work in New Orleans is unique in a couple of ways. They go to rebuild, and to be part of a larger movement against racism. The week begins with a levee tour, where I learned that the levees of the Lower Ninth Ward are like ant hills compared to those of the French Quarter. The rest of the week is spent doing work in the Lower Ninth Ward, which still bears wounds from the storm. Mornings are spent on physical work, like gutting houses (yes, three years later, houses still need gutting) and working on community gardens (there is one supermarket, which is more of a deli, in the whole Lower Ninth). Afternoons are spent going door-to-door asking people about what they need, what their community needs, and just generally talking to the residents. Many people find themselves in two-hour conversations that end in tears on both sides.

Forget New Orleans’ stereotyped reputation: NY2NO trips are not about a bunch of teenagers hitting up the music and clubs on Bourbon St. My group spent every night talking about the best ways to combat racism, the idea of “solidarity not charity,” the emotions that were coming up from the day’s work, and the dynamics of our group as a reflection of society. We talked about how NY2NO could be more effective as an organization, how the environmental and education problems of New Orleans were present in New York City, and a million more things. Our trip quote was “If you have come to help me then you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is tied up with mine, then let us work together.” We kept this idea at the heart of all the work we did and conversations we had. After the occasional tears and frustration, I always felt a renewed faith in my generation, as did everyone else I talked to.

The trip brings out the best in everyone: We built real friendships, relationships that challenged our intellects and made us consider how de facto segregation is enforced in our society. A month later, I’m still getting a new Facebook message every few minutes from someone on the trip. NY2NO was a life-changing and unforgettable experience. If any readers are in high school or have children in high school, I give this trip my highest recommendation.

Future Voters of America seeks to improve the lives of youth around the city, by listening closely to the concerns of kids and teenagers and empowering them to take up their own fight. I go to their weekly meetings and find their work and perspective truly unique. Their annual youth congress, which will be held this year on April 24th, brings hundreds of high school students together to discuss and pass resolutions on issues critical to their lives, through four sub-committees on school issues, environmental issues, teen issues and youth in politics. Each sub-committee comes up with two resolutions.

At the end of each congress, students defend their resolutions and get to vote on two final resolutions chosen from the eight presented. Future Voters then works to advance the resolutions with members of the U.S. Congress; they’re currently working on lowering the voting age in municipal elections to 16 - a resolution voted on in a past congress- and are organizing a series of campaigns to do so. Their method is impressive, because it shows a true dedication to the desires of youth and students. Rather than work for the things that the adults who facililiate the nonprofit feel are important, the focus is on what kids are really asking for. The FVA annual congress is a cornerstone of democracy and youth empowerment.

This week, I attended their forum on environmental issues, meant to prepare congress leaders for this year. My dad Kenny Bruno, of Corporate Ethics International, sat on the panel. “I’m impressed by the engagement of the students from Future Voters that I met today,” he said. We spent an hour and a half discussing environmental issues and how schools and student life can be part of the solution. There were about 20 kids there from as many as 10 high schools. Some of the students were appropriately skeptical of claims by companies that they have “turned green.” Another point of high interest was green jobs. The students were intrigued by the possibility of powering schools with solar panels or other renewable energy sources. Eventually, the environmental committee of Future Voters will choose two of these topics and craft two resolutions. I’m very curious to see what they choose to focus on.”

The congress is being held on April 24, and all high school students are welcome; contact FVA for details on location and timing. It is a full-day event, and qualifies as a legal school trip day. Community service hours are given for all students who attend. This is a great opportunity to have your voice heard through a student-led, democratic process.

A week ago today, a lively crowd of students, teachers, and reporters gathered for the first-ever citywide Forum on Student Government, held at the UFT building in lower Manhattan and hosted by the New York City Students Union. The purpose was to discuss ways to create, improve and connect student governments in schools across the five boroughs. Turns out, our vision — to use student governments to create a powerful collective student voice — is bigger than one forum. Since Thursday, I feel hopeful that we might, some day, accomplish that goal.

Students shared their obstacles, strategies, and successes. Many were frustrated by student apathy, lack of cooperation from staff members, inadequate funding, and lack of effective communication with their student body. Students had reccomendations such as forming committees, presenting staff with the Student Bill of Rights, making bright posters and playing music through the loudspeaker to get people to pay attention. We also talked about ways to use social networking sites like Facebook and other internet resources to connect more people to school governance. My favorite moment was when a girl from Millenium turned to a boy from Bedford Academy, who was expressing his concerns about lack of efficiency, and said, “Have you tried forming committees? It worked really well for us.” It was as though she knew that during all our planning we dreamed of interactions just like that.

Student apathy can be frustrating. I truly believe it can only be combatted by student unity. Any students who couldn’t make the forum but would like to stay involved, please drop by a student union meeting (details and more information posted here). We are planning another forum in the Spring, and hope for an even bigger and better turnout; watch this blog for details whenever they’re set.

In the meantime, I hope to see all my fellow students this afternoon at the UFT’s save-the-schools rally — City Hall, 4 pm.

Editor’s Note: Can’t make the rally? Public School Parents Advocacy Committee is organizing an Armchair Protest today, to coincide with the rally. To participate, call 311 (or 212 NEW YORK, if you’re outside the city) and ask to file a complaint with the Mayor’s office about the proposed budget cuts to school funding. One caveat: planners say, be prepared to spend time on hold…

It’s all on the computer. My homework assignments are posted online, at Classjump. My Spanish teacher doesn’t even mention the homework in class; we simply know to check the website every night. Most of my homework assignments involve either typing documents, doing online research, or both. Though I never expected to say this, I miss sitting at my desk with some just graph paper, a textbook and a pencil to do my math homework.

In a way, it’s beautifully environmental. We are on our way (slowly) to eliminating paper completely from school. A few students are already bringing laptops into class to take notes. Rather than having us print assignments, we can save our homework to the class website where they can check it. And I’m glad teachers are encouraging us to take advantage of the revolutions in technology and information availability that have put all in the information in the world at our fingertips.

But in another way, it’s a little sad. I get home, turn the computer on, and spend the next few hours ignoring the pain in my eyes that comes from spending too much time too close to a screen. In the springtime, when I would normally do all my work in my backyard, I have to come inside every other minute to get on the computer for something. Lately, I’ve come to associate the sound of my monitor shutting off with deep relaxation and the knowledge that I am done for the night. I love computers, and am a true member of my tech-savvy generation, but once in a while, I wouldn’t mind trading the clickety-clack of my keyboard for the scratch of my pen on paper.

Things have developed. I am now not only skipping SAT prep, I’m skipping the SATs entirely, in favor of the ACTs. For lots of East Coast schools, the ACTs are newer, less common and therefore less trusted than the SATs. However, almost every college in the country accepts ACTs in place of the SATs. Neither one is a “better” test. But many people who find themselves struggling with the SATs score much higher on the ACTs. When I took the practice tests, that’s just what happened to me.

The ACT is only around three hours long, as opposed to the six-hour SAT, and because it’s divided by subject and doesn’t jump back and forth like the SAT, there’s no gear-switching between writing, reading and math. The ACT also includes a science section, but I found I didn’t need a lot of memorized facts or reference information to do well. It mainly tests your ability to interpret graphs and tables and apply information to specific scenarios.

The math section of the ACT is not necessarily harder or easier than the SAT, but it is different. For the SATs, the key to doing well on the math section is familiarizing yourself with the wording of the test — the tricks that confuse test-takers — and the strategies you can use to decipher their questions. The ACTs, on the other hand, seem to me to be much for straightforward. They really measure your knowledge and learning without trying to mess you up. ACT math questions sound more like questions your teacher might give. You can answer them by thinking of topics you learned in school, rather than strategies you learned in a test prep class.

The reading section of the ACT is very similar to the SAT, though most people seem to find it easier. There’s an “optional” writing section, but most colleges (and guidance counselors) recommended taking it.

Clearly, I am biased: I’m one of those kids who did better with the ACT than the SAT, but everyone is different. I’d just like to remind any fellow SAT-strugglers out there that there are other options.

The best thing to do is take both practice tests; see which one best suits you. (Since the scores are not measured in the same way, it’s hard to do a direct comparison. To determine which one you scored higher on, you can check the ACT and SAT requirements of colleges you are interested in and see which required test score you come closer to — or exceed!) Good luck!

The New York City Student Union is starting the Student Government Project, which was developed to help create and improve student governments in high schools around the city.

On Thursday, February 26th we are launching this project with a forum to develop connections between existing student governments. We also want to collaboratively create a basis for what a successful student government is and how it is run in different institutions. And we’re hoping to “seed” student governments in schools where they do not already exist. Students in schools with successful student governments will share their experiences and give suggestions to students trying to start their own.

Please invite anyone you know who attends or works in a public school! (Let us know you’re coming: RSVP at union@nycstudentsunion.org. )

And of course… if you have connections.. we’d always love some press!

The inauguration is almost here! For the first time ever, the DOE has made an arrangement with ABC News to stream the Obama-Biden inauguration live onto public school computers. I asked my sixth-period teacher yesterday if we could watch the swearing-in during her class, expecting her to smile and shake her head “no,” but she didn’t even blink, before responding with an enthusiastic “Of course!” (I guess she wants to watch, too.) In my old elementary school PS 321, all third- through fifth-graders are crowding into classrooms on the 20th to stare at TVs broadcasting the ceremonies, a highly unusual practice for this school. Obama’s election is an historic moment for a million and one reasons. But one of the most exciting, for me, has been the passion and action that Obama’s campaign inspired in the youth of this country. I’m thrilled to see the DOE and public-school educators embracing this new energy. Teenagers are often considered fairly apathetic, and anyone younger is pretty much written off, considered too uninformed to be labeled at all. But this thinking has really changed. I’m hoping and praying that this energy will hold after January 20th. And in the meantime, I’m thrilled to applaud the DOE on their work to make the inauguration so accessible to students.

Editor’s Note: We’ve informally heard of a few other schools holding school wide assemblies to watch the inauguration. Parents, let us know what your child’s school has planned: Will students be able to watch? Are any special lessons being developed to mark the day? We’d love to have a sense of what’s going on citywide — and hope that schools will take good advantage of DOE’s agreement with ABC to offer their students and staff access to history as it’s unfolding.

Calling all students, teachers and administrators:

On the evening of Thursday, February 12th, members of the NYC Student Union are launching our citywide Student Government Project. This is an evening for students, teachers, and administrators from public schools to come learn about organizing and implementing effective student governments in their schools. It is also a day to begin communication between student governments and between the NYC Student Union and individual governments.

During the meeting, we will collaborate on revising the Student Union’s student government model and help create plans for improving or implementing successful student governments in different types of schools. Participants in schools with successful student governments will share their experiences and give suggestions to students trying to start their own. Students, teachers, and administrators will leave with helpful ideas, plans, tools, and support for the improvement or creation of student governments in their schools.

The meeting will be held at 5:00 p.m. at the UFT Building (50 Broadway between Exchange Street and Morris Street). For directions, check www.nycstudents.org. If you have any questions email Emily, Darien or myself.

Happy Holidays to all!

Dear Mr. Duncan,

Congratulations on your new position as Secretary of Education! My name is Toni, and I’m a New York City high-school student.

I hope you didn’t just stop reading this letter.

I hope that sometime in your busy next four years, you decide to pause for a second and lend an ear to us. The students. Maybe read our blogs. Consider having student advisors. Look up from the policies you’re signing, ones that will change our lives more than anyone else’s. Ask us what we think.

Whenever a new education policy comes out, newspapers are filled with the reactions of parents, teachers, administrators and unions. Ironically enough, no one seems particularly interested in the student perspective. You might consider including students in decision-making during the next four (or eight) years. Maybe you’ll have an advisory board or some kind of representative student council from around the country. Surprisingly, we have valuable opinions on what makes a good learning environment, a good teacher and a good school. We understand the value of arts education, and the difference between good tests and ones that are a waste of our learning time.

This year, high school students, myself included, turned out in tens of thousands to elect our new president. We are thrilled about his victory. He is in charge of bringing the change we need to this country. And now you are in charge of bringing the change we need to our schools. We the students have lots of ideas. All you have to do is ask.

Thank you and good luck,

Toni Bruno

Last week I forgot to bring a lunch to school and found myself standing in front of the vending machines in the LaGuardia High School cafeteria. I expected to find a small, reasonably healthy snack to get me through the afternoon, but when I looked, what I found was chips, cookies, Pop Tarts, pretzels and Rice Krispies Treats. The one healthy drink - a bottle of water- was sold out.

Although the evidence that child obesity affects school performance is limited, nutrition clearly affects academic performance. Anyone who’s taken a test on a morning they’ve missed breakfast will tell you so. Poor nutritional status and hunger interfere with cognitive function and are associated with lower academic achievement. While school health classes encourage balanced and nutritious diets, the vending machines’ crunchy, sweet and salty contents completely contradict this message.

Schools are concerned that if they change vending machine selections to be more healthy, they will lose money. However, in many cases where healthier options were given to kids, there was no decrease in sales. I also know from talking to kids in my school that there are a lot of people, especially girls, who would be grateful for healthier choices in the vending machines.

Being overweight is really difficult. A lot of kids today are interested in eating well, and it’s important that schools encourage this, not just in the classroom, but in the lunchroom, too.

Editor’s Note: DOE has, in recent years, revamped its vending offerings to more healthful choices — some may remember the days when soda pop and high-fat chips were de rigeur in every city school — but snacks still rule at lunchtime, often in lieu of ‘real’ food. All school cafeterias are supposed to have fresh fruit (and salad!) on hand daily, for healthier alternatives to lower-fat snacks, but getting kids to take the fruit is as much a challenge as leading the proverbial (sated) horse to water…

Pennies For Peace is a fundraising campaign run by Greg Mortenson, co-founder of the Central Asia Institute. Mortensen sees education as the main road to world peace, cross-cultural understanding and the overall improvement of our global community. I think it’s a project that all schools could and should be participating in, as a way to engage their students in politics and international issues while supporting a good cause.

Students are asked to contribute only pennies — no nickels, dimes, quarters, or dollars — so everyone can find a way to participate. The pennies go toward schools being built in Pakistan and Afghanistan, a project Mortensen describes in his book Three Cups of Tea. On the group’s website, Mortenson writes that “Pennies for Peace teaches children the rewards of sharing and working together to bring hope and educational opportunities to children in Pakistan and Afghanistan. A penny in the United States is virtually worthless, but in Pakistan and Afghanistan a penny buys a pencil and opens the door to literacy.”

It’s too easy, in this city of plenty, to walk past a penny in the street. To make your pennies count and start Pennies for Peace in your school, visit their website.

Editor’s Note: For one measly little coin, the penny sure gets around: Over 70% of the city’s public schools also sponsor annual Penny Harvests, to raise funds for local, domestic and global projects that each school community determines.

According to the Student Bill of Rights published by the DOE each year, students have the right to “organize, promote and participate in a representative form of student government.” Additionally, they have the right to “representation on appropriate schoolwide committees that impact on the educational process, with voting rights where applicable.”

It’s a shame, then, that most schools don’t have student governments, or don’t have effective ones. Many of the Student Governments that do exist in schools are generally in charge of bake sales and dances but have no real voice in their school. It’s hard to know whether this is because the students are unomotivated, because they recieve little cooperation from their school, or both.

The NYC Student Union has developed a student government model, as part of the Student Government Project, based on the idea that an effective student government is not a privilige but a right. Here’s what we’ve got so far:

A Good Student Government has direct contact with the principal of the school and an agreement by the principal to cooperate with the Student Government and respect their ideas that includes:

* A way to communicate with the student body (announcements, a newsletter) and a way for students to communicate with their government (voting, a suggestion box).

* A fair method of choosing student representatives that ensures enthusiastic and voluntary participation.

* Representation beginning on a smaller level (prefects, classes, grades) which expands to the whole government and the principal.

* Scheduled and consistent meetings in a space provided by the school.

* Fundraising for prioritized purposes derived from the desires of the student body.

* Representation on other, larger committees (school safety, School Leadershi Team, etc.)

* We’re still crafting this basic model. If you have revisions, suggestions or new ideas for us to consider, please let us know, by visiting the Student Union or commenting here, on this post.

The NYC Student Union is launching a new project called “Other Options Day.” This is an educational day for all high school students to learn about options after high school if they can’t – or think they can’t – go to college, and for those who think about delaying college for a year or so. In many high schools with high levels of military recruitment, students are led to believe that there are no good alternatives to joining the military. Other Options Day is not anti-military; our goal is to broaden the playing field and show young people that there are other options besides college and military service. Our plan is to have booths from community colleges, jobs that don’t require college degrees, volunteering and intership opportunities, organizations like AmeriCorps, career counselors and anyone or anything else that seems appropriate.

This plan is in its preliminary stages, and we’re looking for more connections. If you know a person or group who might want to host a booth or assist us in another way, I’d love to hear about it. Also, if anyone spends a lot of time in schools and would be able to promote this day to students, that would be great. My email is toni@taty.org. Thank you in advance, and I’ll keep the updates coming.

Last week I discovered that a friend of mine lives alone in an apartment in midtown Manhattan (at age 16) while the rest of her family lives in Pennsylvania. She gets along well with her mother and sister and misses them a lot, so I wondered why she wasn’t living with them. Her answer was totally unexpected: She wanted to stay at our high school, LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts.

Wow.

In a constantly trashed (usually with good reason) public high school system, why would a public high school cause a 16-year-old to live by herself, miles away from her family? Well, this answer was less unexpected: Acting. My friend is a drama major and her passion for acting wouldn’t allow her to pass up the opportunities that LaGuardia offers. Hearing that definitely made me even more worried that arts education will be threatened by ever-increasing budget cuts. The one thing that inspires so much passion from students is the one thing constantly being taken away.

I see students working harder in their studios at LaGuardia than any other subject of school or life. Students stay until 11:00 at night rehearsing for the musical, putting together an art gallery, working out a jazz arrangement to a piece they composed or choreographing a dance for the talent show. And it’s not just the classic high-achievers who stay late. In fact, the studios at my school do an unbelievable job of uniting students with different grades and attitudes toward school, as well as different races and places in life.

Education activists, teachers, and parents often wonder how they can deal with students who are apathetic towards school and learning. I know for a fact that many kids at my school get up each day mostly for their studio classes. The arts put failing students in center stage and allow them to achieve beyond anything expected of them in any of their classes. Students who struggle in math put their passion into music, drama, dance, visual arts, whatever it is- and find that, as our country just discovered (!!!), yes, they can.

At the NYC Student Union meeting today we discussed the somewhat obvious connection that education has with race, income and neighborhood. We talked about the way people are born onto education ‘tracks’ that are extremely difficult to change. We also found that the system works both ways.

Because I live in Park Slope and went to PS 321, I ended up at MS 51, Lab, and am now at LaGuardia. This succesion of good schools was expected of me– and I was kept well informed of these good options, all the time. Then, there’s the other side. Students who have never heard of specialized high schools because no one imagines that they would go there. And because they are not really prepared, they receive poor 7th grade test scores which then follow them and limit them, making it very difficult to get into these good schools.

We all know that living in a good neighborhood doesn’t make me smarter than anyone else. But it does give me the resources I need to have the highest level of education possible. As a small, relatively uncredible all-student union, we realize that it’s going to be close to impossible for us to do anything about this established norm. Instead, we’re launching a project where we’ll try to get into 7th grade classrooms around the city, especially in lower-income neighborhoods where expectations for students might be lower. We’ll explain to students how to apply to high schools, make sure students know about all the high schools, and offer tutoring for the 7th grade standardized test. Hopefully we can take this small step toward equal acess to quality education. As NYSCU member Hasanur put it, “We can’t get 1,000 kids to change their education paths. But if we can affect the lives of 10 students, we’ve made a difference.”

Last Saturday I showed up at my soccer game and found about half the team missing. They were at PSAT prep classes — as if SAT prep classes weren’t time-consuming enough! When I call my friends to see if they want to canvass for Obama on weekends with me, they say no; they have practice SATs all morning. The same is true for countless other events being missed by juniors (and even sophmores!) who are taking SAT prep rather than taking advantage of all the things they could be doing: There are free programs in music and art, writing groups, sports, dance and countless other opportunities for teenagers. Why should these pursuits be lost to something so tedious as SAT prep?

I don’t blame my friends and fellow students for doing everything they can to ensure good scores on the SATs. College is becoming increasingly competitive and I understand the anxiety of having even the slightest disadvantage. But I can’t help wishing that everyone would just agree to stop taking prep classes and stop spending their Saturday nights studying for one meaningless test. Maybe if the SAT frenzy went down a little it would force colleges to look at something with a little more substance to judge their incoming students.

As teenagers in these exciting electoral times, we have the ability and passion to change our system. I know my ideas are idealistic. I know we’re not about to have an anti-SAT revolution. But I would just love to see all high school students and their parents refuse to prep for the SATs, refuse to give more money to our screwed-up prep system and get back to — or discover — the things they love to do!

Last year, I fell in love with Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. I was deeply moved by the language, the story, the vividness and the warmth of the characters. But it wasn’t my first time reading it. It was assigned reading in sixth grade, and I found it difficult. Rereading it in 10th grade, I wondered why I hadn’t appreciated the story before. But the answer was obvious to me: I had just been too young.

I believe there are best times to read certain books. Just because you can read a book, doesn’t mean you should. Books can be understood on many levels, but great classics deserve deep appreciation. Sixth graders can read Huckleberry Finn, Little Women and Of Mice and Men and “get” it, but these are great books we’re talking about. Books that should be cherished. Over and over again, my middle-school classmates and I complained about the dullness of supposed “classics,” wondering why on earth our teachers, parents and grandparents exclaimed fervently over them. In fact, my grade in seventh grade English dropped 6 points because I failed the Huckleberry Finn pop quiz: I couldn’t bring myself to read another page. Five years later, I adored it.

Beth Handman, assistant principal of elementary school P.S.321 in Brooklyn says, “I hate to see the best books in the world go to waste. When I see my favorite series, like the Narnia series, in the hands of a first-grader I cringe. That same first-grader will read it in first grade and say ‘Oh! Aslan is a lion!’ That really happened, you know’.”

What’s the rush to shove these books on young kids? Are schools trying to prove that they’re more sophisticated by assigning more sophisticated books to students? Just wait a couple of years… Please! It will make all the difference.

News from Toni of the NYC Student Union; visit their blog for articulate, unique, and thought-provoking perspectives on student life in the city.

Yesterday, a friend and fellow student union member told me about a program called the Borough Students Advisory Council (BSAC). It is a DOE-run program that invites every single school in Manhattan to send two students to monthly meetings with other students and higher powers. The idea is to unite students from across the borough and discuss issues in their schools. It sounds ideal, right? It’s a chance to bring together students and give them access to unbelievable resources, connections with the DOE, contact information for every school and a place to meet every month.

Interestingly enough, their mission is almost identical to our mission at the NYC Student Union– the only completely student-run group working toward a collective voice of change in the public education system. So my question is this: Why have we never heard of BSAC? And why, when every school in the borough was invited to send representatives, do only about a dozen schools participate? If Chancellor Klein and Mayor Bloomberg are serious about student involvement, I think they could do a lot better than that.

Every week we meet as a student union and we are constantly frustrated by our limitations: lack of communication with the people in charge and lack of communication with more students around the city (two things that BSAC could offer). And now, as I am discovering, a serious lack of communication between different education activist groups. We are working in isolation for the same cause.

Our union proposed a couple of things today. The first one was a day where all education activists could get together and present their organization or cause. The second one was a wiki page for educational activists, allowing everyone to search for other groups that could work with them on projects, etc. We also considered the idea of using LinkedIn to connect all the people in this education world.

In the past week alone I have heard of two or three organizations with goals closely aligned with ours in the student union. We are trying to reach out to them; today, today two representatives from ICOPE came to our meeting and it was incredibly inspiring to talk to them. We are constantly impressed by the work of other groups trying to better our schools, and yet we rarely find the opportunity to collaborate with them. So contact us! students@lists.nycstudents.org.

Imagine someday all of us education activists will meet together and our concerns will live as one.

Toni Bruno is a sax-playing junior at LaGuardia High School and member of the New York City Student Union; we’re pleased and proud to welcome her regular contributions to Insideschools’ blog this year.

This past Saturday, I had one of the most interesting and educational experiences of my life canvassing for Barack Obama with my parents . Spending the day involved in the political process in Pennsylvania made me think that high schools should be focusing on our two candidates in the months leading up to this pivotal election. I can’t think of anything more valuable to teach teenagers, who will be voting in the next election, then involvement and awareness during election years.

In my former elementary school, P.S.321, fourth and fifth graders are currently involved in an intensive election study. Every four years, teachers take two months out from Revolutionary War/Civil War curriculum in order to get the kids to understand our country’s political systems. The students run as candidates, choosing vice-presidents and discussing practical solutions to their own school problems.

If elementary school students can have such inspiring yet informative political educations, I can only imagine the ways in which a high school faculty could involve their students in the elections. For the first time in my life, my peers and I are really following and caring about our future president. But I notice that whenever our class discussions move in a potentially heated political direction, teachers flash the lights to calm things down, and remind us of our aim for the day (what cash crop saved Jamestown during the early Colonial period of American History?).

I would like to encourage high school staff members to embrace the interest that their students are taking in the coming elections. Encourage discussion and most of all activism. What more could you want to teach your students than citizenship and political involvement at crucial moments in history?

P.S. Obama ‘08!!!! (in case you hadn’t guessed).