Star Ledger--Cory Booker’s brother opened a school so bad it got shut down. N.J. just gave him a $150K education job
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A thousand miles from Newark, in a tiny old school building tucked behind a Christian church, Cary Booker delivered the bad news.
It was spring of 2011, and Omni Prep Academy, the Tennessee charter school co-founded and led by U.S. Sen. Cory Booker’s older brother, could no longer pay its kindergarten and first-grade teachers, the elder Booker announced, according to former teachers who were in the room.
The financial woes weren’t a shock — when the school opened the previous fall it provided no books, no curriculum and almost no training for its novice educators, former teachers said in interviews with NJ Advance Media. But now the charming and charismatic face of the school offered no solution.
Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com| Updated Jul 11, 5:23 PM; Posted Jul 11, 7:00 AM
Education Week--Teachers Push for Books With More Diversity, Fewer Stereotypes
Most texts feature white characters
For decades, children's books in school libraries and classrooms have overwhelmingly featured white faces. And as the U.S. school-age population grows more diverse, students of color are less likely than white students to see books with characters that look like them or share their cultural background.
Some educators and children's book authors are trying to change that.
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/06/12/teachers-push-for-more-diverse-books-fewer.html
Sarah Schwartz| June 11, 2019