Icahn Charter School 1, Bronx, NY
Printer-friendly version
Icahn Charter School 1
Bronx, N.Y.
Icahn Charter School 1 occupies two small buildings on a quiet South Bronx street, in the shadow of the massive Webster Homes public housing project. Inside the school, classrooms buzz with academic activity. While eighth-grade students discuss the Slave Codes, seventh-graders demand to know why tornadoes never threatened the Mayans, fifth-graders solve algebraic expressions and third-graders report on inventors.
Icahn 1 is the brainchild of founding principal Jeffrey Litt, now superintendent of the Icahn Charter School network of five schools. All Icahn schools use the Core Knowledge curriculum, which builds students’ background knowledge through an emphasis on social studies, science and literature. “Core Knowledge is my religion,” Litt says.
The outcome? In 2011, every single eighth-grader in Icahn 1 met state standards in mathematics, compared with just 60 percent of students in the state. In reading, 86 percent met standards, compared with 47 percent of all students — and only about 30 percent of African-American and Latino students — in the state.
The school’s results come from hard work, high standards and a commitment to ensuring that every child masters a rich, coherent curriculum. Principal Daniel Garcia tells his teachers to make sure they help the student in their room who struggles most. “If you can make a difference with the child in greatest need,” he says, “you’ll make a difference for every child in that room.”
