Joel Klein Visits Horizons at BFS and Thanks
Brooklyn Friends for Starting First Program in NYC
New
York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, who regularly visits public
school children throughout the school year, traveled to a different
destination this summer to check in with 29 first and second graders
who attend Public Schools 307, 287, and 46. It was a sunny August
morning and these children were playing together, reading,
block-building, and doing math projects not at their public schools,
but on the seventh floor of the Brooklyn Friends School building at 375
Pearl Street.
The boys and girls are part of
Horizons at Brooklyn Friends School, a unique program that offers
long-term academic support for public school children of low-income
circumstances, most of whom are at or below their grade level. The six
week summer program began at BFS in 2008.
Chancellor
Klein visited the classroom of five and six-year-old students. He got
right down to the children’s level, putting his elbows on the kid-sized
tables and talking with the students about their latest projects. He
also discussed the curriculum with teacher and program advisor Shoshana
Wolfe, an experienced independent and public school teacher, and asked
her to share her impressions of the differences between Horizons
students and their more affluent peers.
“The
Horizons program demonstrates what can be accomplished when private and
public schools and community and cultural organizations are marshaled
for the benefit of underprivileged youth,” said Chancellor Klein after
his visit. “Until we address the disparity in summer experiences
between low income students and their more advantaged peers, the
achievement gap will persist.”
In fact,
research has demonstrated that low-income students who are at grade
level in June slide academically by two months every summer and
children who are behind their peers slide as much as four and a half
months. Enrichment programs like Horizons have been shown to stem this
tide and keep children engaged in learning.
Horizons’
efforts to help students overcome the challenges they face as a result
of the summer slide in academics resonated with Chancellor Klein, whose
school reforms have helped to narrow the achievement gap in New York
City. The Chancellor took particular note of the public-private
partnership that is emblematic of the program. “Horizons
illustrates the mutual responsibility we have to educate all of our
children so
that all have the potential to dream and achieve,” he
said. “I am grateful that Brooklyn Friends School has stepped forward
as the first school in New York City to provide a Horizons program.”
He
added, “With so many independent schools and public schools side by
side in New York, there is an obvious opportunity for the expansion of
this successful partnership.”
Photo below: Chancellor Klein with Horizons teacher and program advisor Shoshana Wolfe.