Talking Ed™ is PFSA’s new web series devoted to topics and trends in education.
Talking Ed™–a frank, online forum devoted to current events, policy issues, and evolving theories and practices in public education–features policymakers, educators, academic leaders, parents, students and education advocates. Led by PFSA founder Mary Conway-Spiegel, guests will speak from firsthand experience about the most pressing matters facing families, educators and policymakers.
We’re currently booking guests and seeking suggestions for discussion topics. Let your voice be heard. If you would like to appear on Talking Ed™, please contact Melanie to join the discussion.
Kate Yourke and Lorna Feeney are parent representatives of WAGPOPS. Williamsburg and Greenpoint Parents: Our Public Schools! (WAGPOPS) consists of district-wide parents who believe in advocating for neighborhood schools. These are parents and community stakeholders who organized with a shared belief in supporting local public schools.
Zak Malamed is the founder and organizer of StuVoice.org and the #StuVoice Twitter chats. Currently, he is a freshman Government and Politics major in the Global Communities program at the University of Maryland, College Park. Malamed also has served on the Do Something Youth Advisory Council and on the National Youth Association’s Policy Council. In 2012, he received the NASSP/Herff Jones Principal’s Leadership Award for his work as a student advocate, in addition to awards from the Long Island Press for his work as a high school journalist. His writings have been published in The Huffington Post, The New York Times, and GOOD Magazine. He has spoken and represented the student voice at education conferences nationwide, namely the International Society of Technology in Education conference, #140edu, and NBC’s Education Nation.
Mark Naison is Professor of History and African American Studies at Fordham University. He is the author of four books and over 100 articles on African American politics, social movements and American culture and sports Dr. Naison is the Principal Investigator of the Bronx African American History Project, one of the largest community based oral history projects in the nation and has begun work on an book of oral histories from the BAAHP, with Robert Gumbs, entitled Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life in the Bronx from the 1030′s to the 1960′s. His articles about Bronx music and Bronx culture have been published in German, Spanish, Catalan, and Portuguese as well as English. When not doing historical research, Naison likes to play tennis and golf, post commentary on his blog “With a Brooklyn Accent” and make periodic forays into the media. Most recently he has done commentary on Occupy Wall Street for ABC News, and BBC America.
Antonio Capellan graduated from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY and later earned a Master of Social Work degree from Hunter College in New York City. Antonio stepped into the role of Teen Services Director at the Chelsea-based social service agency Hudson Guild in 2007. In this role, Antonio has spearheaded program initiatives and partnerships that continually provide young adults with greater opportunities for work, education, and recreation. Under Antonio’s leadership, more than 300 young adults at Hudson Guild receive services and engage in youth-based each year. Since 2007, young adults involved in Teen Services programming through Hudson Guild have toured more than 20 colleges and universities, received 350 college acceptances, and more than $120,000 in scholarships and non-loan financial assistance.
Shaun M. Rasmussen attended John Jay College (CUNY) where he earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in International Criminal Justice, and Mercy College where he earned a Master of Science Degree in Organizational Leadership. Shaun has worked in various areas of education and youth development for more than ten years, including The Princeton Review, NPS and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and Community Works. Shaun moved on from Community Works to work with Good Shepherd Services and Canarsie YABC High School teaching credit bearing courses, counseling students and providing job readiness training. 2011, Shaun left his post at Canarsie YABC to continue this work with a broader young-adult population at the Chelsea-based Hudson Guild.
Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, discusses growing concerns with student data privacy in the second part of her Talking Ed interview.
Leonie Haimson is Executive Director of Class Size Matters, a non-profit advocacy group working for smaller class sizes in NYC and the nation as a whole. She is also a co-founder of Parents Across America, a national grassroots group, that supports progressive and proven education reforms. She is a graduate of Harvard University, worked at the Educational Priorities Panel, and founded Class Size Matters in 2000. She regularly speaks before parent, advocacy, and government groups, and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News and on national radio shows. She writes for several blogs, including NYC Public School Parents and Huffington Post.
Robert L. Hawkins holds an endowed chair as the McSilver Associate Professor in Poverty Studies at the Silver School of Social Work and is a Fellow of the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research. Dr. Hawkins is an international expert on poverty, racism, and social welfare policy. His current research considers how low-income people, especially single mothers, can reach economic sustainability and how poverty is supported by structural racism, lack of positive social capital, and systems failure. He received his Ph.D. and masters in social welfare policy from the Heller School at Brandeis University, as well as a Masters in Public Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Hawkins’s research focuses on examining the effects of complex poverty from an economic, social and psychological perspective.
Jai Nanda was born and raised in New York City. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Urban Dove, and Founder/Board Chair of Urban Dove Team Charter School. Before founding Urban Dove, Jai worked as a teacher in the New York City school system both at the high school level and at the City University of New York; he was also a basketball coach for more than 15 years. Jai is a founding Board member of Up2Us, a national coalition of Sports Based Youth Development agencies and previously served on PASE’s Youth Sport Alliance Council. He has also served as Chairman of the Youth Committee for Community Board 4 and was honored as a Local Hero by Bank of America’s Neighborhood Excellence Initiative. Photos by: Jessica Pester
Hilary Lustick is an education practitioner, writer, researcher, and activist. She has community organized with youth and adults around high-stakes testing, taught high school English, and maintained a column on the education blog and news site Gotham Schools. She was a founding coordinator of the New Teacher Underground, an arm of the New York Collective of Radica Educators that works to acquaint newer teachers with the landscape of public education today. In conjunction with the AFT-sponsored Teacher Leaders Program, she has also prepared teachers to conduct action research on policy issues that impact their classrooms. She is currently a PhD student at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education, Culture, and Human Development, where she is studying the implementation of non-punitive discipline practices in the high school setting. She lives in Brooklyn.
Michael Albertson is a doctoral candidate in music and music education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He taught music at Flushing High School for nine years and has served on the NYSSMA Research Committee since 2008. Michael is the author of the blog Urban Education: Music and Beyond.