Just months ago, he had been scheduled to meet with Asma al-Assad, the president's wife, to discuss the creation of a Syrian version of Teach for America, which trains prospective teachers who commit to spending two years in classrooms in cities and rural communities.
Sylvan Education already has a seat in some of the country's worst-performing classrooms in cities such as Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
After years of staff attrition and budget cuts, the number of overcrowded classrooms in city schools is now the largest it has been in 10 years, the teachers union says.
In schools that add 20 minutes a day, that time is to be used for classroom instruction, city officials say.
The results also suggest that white and black students enter different landscapes in the classrooms of large cities.
They were among the millions of young Americans from classrooms and shops, cities and prairies who went to war.
I've now had my fill of working in classrooms in inner cities and prisons dealing with the group dynamics that so often emerge from having too many grown-ups present.
So clearly, there are a lot of talented people who are recruitable to this work.As a country, I think we can attract more talented people to teaching by raising awareness of educational inequity and getting the public to understand from individual classrooms, schools, and cities that this is an issue that can be solved.
United States Representative Anthony D. Weiner, a Democratic candidate for mayor, unveiled new proposals yesterday for bringing order to city classrooms and called the public school system "the single most important issue" facing the city.
Many city classrooms have more than 30 students.
