Mayor's Commission on Latino Education hearing

Let me preface by saying that I by no means heard everything. A few things I heard, though:

• Opportunities and encouragement: noticing, for example, that Latino students are underrepresented in AP classes, finding the kids who (from grades, scores, history) are capable of doing the work, and going after them to get them signed up.
• Not just getting kids into college, but getting them THROUGH college.
• Making sure that kids see people who look like them in leadership (in and out of ed) AND being sure that assumptions aren't made based on what kids look like (or don't look like, come to that)
• Going in different directions: programs like Dynamy, for example
• "if it doesn't make sense, the student's not going to buy it" (I saw large nods from the students that were in my row at this!)
• "a lot of the decisions that are made by our students are made based on outside influences" (this from a product of the WPS who is now a teacher)
• "My teachers were the ones who told me that I had the potential to do these things."