Omar Wasow

Co-chair of the Coalition for Independent Public Charter Schools

Last week I had the privilege and honor of attending a conference given by Course Technologies and Omar Wasow was the opening and closing host and speaker. You may read about his accolades in any number of places on the web just by searching on his name. I am commenting here because of the reports and *albeit limited) information he provided about the success of charter schools. Charter schools have become his passion, but it was on the web that I learned about his background which may attribute to why his life has taken this direction.

Wasow graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Race and Ethnic Relations. Following school he worked on the Advance Team of Freedom Summer '92 coordinating a 22 city cross-country voter registration drive. Later he became the assistant director of Strictly Business, a non-profit job training program that teaches legal entrepreneurship to ex-drug dealers. Wasow resides in New York. Programming from the age of 11 and online for the first time at 12, Wasow has become a leading commentator on the challenges and opportunities of new media and the new economy. Formerly the founder of New York Online, he was tagged by The New York Times as a "pioneer in Silicon Alley," Newsweek magazine as one of the "fifty most influential people to watch in cyberspace," one of the Silicon Alley "Top 10" by the Village Voice and "one of fifty to watch in 1999" by A-List magazine.

Now on to a couple of the charter schools he spoke about:

Amistad

The Amistad Project was founded in 1998 with the cooperation and involvement of a group of community members who wanted to volunteer their skills to help “lift” the community. Some of these citizens attended a Bar Mitzvah in 1997, and recognized the need to honor the past through celebrating youth in the present. These people felt the need to provide African American children and adults with an intergenerational exchange of ideas, skills, experiences and history, yet make it available to all citizens. The Amistad Project was named after the 1998 film “Amistad”. The film was founded on the understanding of the connection between ancestry and strength.

The project focus is on successful living and learning skills through an array of programs in the areas of life skills, economic development ideas, career goals, outdoors, health, arts, and creativity, academics, computer technology, and much more.

The following is an example of heir exemplary results:


omar2

More results can be found at their web site at:http://www.achievementfirst.org/about.results1.html

An article, “Educating Minnesota about School Choice” explains why the president of the Metro Milwaukee Association of Commerce, believes school choice provides his Wisconsin city with a competitive advantage over other Midwest cities and announces that Omar is the guest speaker.

Omar is the president and creator of several ethnic websites but he states he is more concerned about the literacy divide than the digital divide. An interesting article which applies to all parents and educators can be found at: CNN.com.

Several other subjects addressed lightly (and information is available on the web) is Schoolnet, which has become a buzz world and domain name for resources available for children, educations and parents as does atschool also known as @school (searchable).