If students don't think that you care and can relate, especially as they get older, they tune you out. I didn't get it in my classes at the graduate school of education. I got it intuitively from my own experiences as a student.

Middle-class kids get to play, develop their thinking ability. Poor kids are much more likely to get regimentation under the guise of socialization. On top of it, we have huge segregation in early childhood programs. I don't see these patterns changing anytime soon, and that's a big obstacle.

We need to create schools that are organized to meet the needs of the kids they serve instead of what we've been doing. We expect kids to adjust to the schools and if they can't, we say something is wrong with the child - instead of focusing on engagement and nurturing the love of learning in kids.

California, because of their Equity Funding Formula, moves a step in that direction by sending more resources to communities and students that face greater levels of poverty. But California is doing that from a greater position of real weakness, because they were already so far behind other states in funding per student. It’s a step, but many more steps need to be taken.

All kids are different, even when they come from you and theoretically have the same culture. Some of my kids had been more outgoing and had an easy time at school. Others were more shy and needed more support. As a parent you are very aware of these differences and are not treating them all the same, given who they are as people.

It's been a struggling school for many, many years, and [that's] not surprising since it's serving some of the most disadvantaged kids in the city. It wasn't the only one by any means, but it was among those. It shows that things like good, steady, stable leadership makes a huge difference; focusing on the culture of the schools as a place where kids feel supported and want to be; supporting the teachers, so they want to stay and work hard.

We know that African American students tend to be relational learners. It's about the relationships between a teacher and student. Students respond well to teachers they know, believe in them, care about them, but also who teach in a matter that elicits a more active approach to learning, rather than just sitting and listening. The research on this is strong and has been available for a long time, but it is not widely practiced. That's a huge obstacle.