A summer school kids actually want to attend | Karim Abouelnaga

Summary

The speaker, raised in poverty by a single mother in Queens, New York, discusses the challenges of envisioning a 20-year college investment when survival is the priority. Despite attending struggling schools and having a high school with a low graduation rate, they made it to college, thanks to not being ashamed to ask for help. They highlight the importance of summer school reform to address the achievement gap, sharing their initiative that has served thousands, trained teachers, and created jobs, showing significant progress in eliminating summer learning loss and advancing students academically.

Takeaways

• 🏛️ Growing up in poverty can limit one's perspective on long-term goals like college education.
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 The speaker's family background and the environment of struggling public schools shaped his early life.
• 🤔 Realization in teenage years that the speaker did not want to follow the same path as his parents and their peers.
• 🎓 The importance of asking about college readiness and the impact of the phrasing of such questions.
• 📚 The speaker's older brother's college dropout experience sparked a desire to understand educational disparities.
• 🏫 Attending Cornell as a Presidential Research Scholar provided insights into the educational consequences of poverty.
• 🔍 The speaker noticed a lack of firsthand experience in education reformers, advocating for an empathetic approach.
• 🙏 Recognizing the importance of not being ashamed to ask for help, especially for those from low-income backgrounds.
• 🌞 The summer learning loss is a significant contributor to the achievement gap between rich and poor students.
• 📈 The speaker's initiative to reform public education by redesigning summer school to prevent learning loss.
• 👨‍🏫👩‍🏫 The program's success in training teachers, creating jobs, and advancing students' learning, as shown by independent evaluations.

Q & A

What is the main challenge faced by children growing up in poverty regarding their education?

Children growing up in poverty often lack the foresight to plan for a 20-year investment like college education, focusing instead on immediate needs like food and shelter. Additionally, they may not receive the encouragement or support to pursue higher education.

How did the speaker's environment growing up influence their educational trajectory?

The speaker grew up in low-income conditions in Queens, New York, attending struggling public schools with high absence rates and a low graduation rate, which almost led them to follow a similar path as their older brother who dropped out of college.

What was the turning point for the speaker in their educational journey?

The speaker's turning point was realizing as a teenager that they did not want to follow the same path as their parents and friends' parents, who were doing fine with jobs like driving taxis and working as janitors.

What was the difference in the way the speaker and their friend Brennan were asked about college?

While the speaker was asked if they were going to college, implying uncertainty, Brennan was always asked 'What college are you going to?', which assumed that college attendance was a given and necessary part of his future.

What role did asking for help play in the speaker's success?

The speaker emphasizes that not being ashamed to ask for help was one of the biggest reasons they were able to succeed. In contrast, children growing up poor often lack the social safety nets that middle-class children have, making it crucial for them to seek help.

What is the significance of summer school in addressing the achievement gap?

Summer school can address the summer learning loss, which accounts for two-thirds of the achievement gap between rich and poor students. By preventing this loss, students can avoid falling behind academically.

How does the traditional summer school model contribute to the learning loss?

Traditional summer school is often poorly designed, feeling like punishment for students and babysitting for teachers, which fails to engage them and does not prevent learning regression over the summer.

What is the innovative approach the speaker took to reform summer school?

The speaker proposed a summer program that empowers teachers as teaching coaches, college-educated role models as teaching fellows, high-achieving students as mentors, and all students as scholars, creating an engaging curriculum that eliminates summer learning loss.

What are the results of the speaker's summer school program according to independent evaluations?

The program has helped students eliminate summer learning loss and make significant progress in math and reading, returning to school ahead of their peers.

How has the speaker's team impacted New York City's disadvantaged neighborhoods?

The speaker's team has served over 4,000 low-income children, trained over 300 aspiring teachers, and created more than 1,000 seasonal jobs in some of New York City's most disadvantaged neighborhoods.

What is the potential impact of redesigning the entire calendar year for education?

The speaker suggests that by preventing five months of lost time just by redesigning two months (summer), there is great potential to unlock even more possibilities by tackling the rest of the calendar year.