While the Tan Yan Kee foundation believes that it is merely scratching the surface relative to the gargantuan problems in the education sector, it envisions that one day it will be able to train more teachers and provide much-needed facilities that will transform schools into more conducive learning environments.
My old school in Liverpool is now a performing-arts school, and I kind of teach there - I use the word lightly - but I go there and talk to students.
City Year is taking on some of the toughest work in education.
We have had this massive effort on K-12 reform, raising standards, great teachers, great principals, turning around chronically failing schools, raising the bar, huge amount of progress. Let's continue that.
I was on the board of Teach for America. And we transformed a failed public school system in the City of New Orleans, probably the most corrupted and failed system in the country.
You [ Peter R. Breggin] have basically implied that they've turned our schools into something other than schools. What do you think the government has in mind by turning our schools into little clinics?
If we are to transition to a new economy and to lead it, we must start by transforming our schools.
The sentiment that I had a little trouble with was the idea that, "You change the school, you change the community." I couldn't wrap my mind around that.
In every case where I've seen a transformational school, there's a principal who really has the foundational experience of having taught successfully.
One of our key strategies has been to restructure traditional high schools into small learning communities with personalized attention and a range of options.
In Los Angeles, we've seen a phenomenon where a school will go from one that no one will go to, to within three years becoming the 'hot' school. I've seen this over and over again.
