A third objective of the Academy is the identification of new leaders for charter schools drawn from the existing pool of talented teachers and administrators currently in charter schools. They are the measure to which these children are held. It is your responsibility and your duty to train the children to get through them, because the external world judges students who do poorly on them as uneducated. School is so powerful that it can override the limitations that the dominant culture places on discounted children . The academic expectations, the clubs and teams, the friends, the ceremonies and rituals, do not cost that much more.
School is where children spend the most vital times of their lives.
We have to realize how incredible the impact of school is on us and on the children. We convinced them that they are capable of achieving great things academically. We told them so a lot of times and proved to them that it s possible. Over the years, we have gotten them to think that they can compete with all of the other kids in New York City. And they do.