There are two ways to react to the stark statistics about the achievement gap: despair and excuses, or hope and action. Unfortunately, until recently, many have chosen the former. In fact, most of the educational community relied on the most famous piece of educational research in history, James Coleman's famous 1966 report, to let themselves off the hook. Coleman found a correlation between socioeconomic status and student achievement: poor, minority kids did worse than affluent, white kids. The dominant educational paradig...

Interview with Jeremy Shedlosky, AF Hartford Academy Elementary

Achievement First Brownsville is highlighted in the newly published book "A Chance To Make History" by Teach For America Founder and CEO Wendy Kopp. Wendy draws on what she has learned in her 20 years at the center of a growing movement to end education inequality in America. We congratulate Wendy on her new book and are excited to join her in doing whatever it takes to achieve our goals. Read one of the AF Brownsville passages below, and buy the book here http://amzn.to/ekm8IT. Across New York City in Brooklyn, at Achievem...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/07/AR2010100705078.html

Achievement First was one of 12 CMOs nationally to be awarded a Charter Schools Program grant from the Department of Education. AF will receive $6.6 million over five years to add additional gap-closing schools to our network. Read more here: http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/education-secretary-arne-duncan-announces-twelve-grants-50-million-charter-schoo

The Quinnipiac University men's basketball team visited AF Bridgeport Academy to encourage students to continue to achieve in the classroom. More information and pictures can be found here: http://www.quinnipiacbobcats.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=17500&ATCLID=205000425

AF was recently awarded a Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grant from the U.S. Dept. of Education in the amount of $6 million! The money will go toward AF's Teacher Career Pathway performance-based compensation model, which will include higher levels of compensation for individual teachers who demonstrate increasing effectiveness, and school-wide bonuses for student achievement growth. The list of all grant recipients can be found here: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/teacherincentive/awards.html

What Educators Are Learning From Money ManagersInnovative schools collect data, look for small changes, intervene quickly and move resources to the formulas that work.By Daniel Fisherhttp://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0607/education-achievement-first-charters-learning-from-money-managers.html?partner=email

It's official ... Achievement First Bridgeport Academy Elementary will open in August 2010! We are hiring teachers. Apply for a position today. Read the Connecticut Post article here -- http://www.ctpost.com/default/article/Achievement-First-adding-kindergarten-classes-312851.php

New Teach For America study on characteristics of great teachers -- http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201001/good-teaching