The Notebook

Personal Info

: First Name

Celeste

Last Name

Lavin

Organizational Affiliation

Bio

Celeste Lavin is a junior sociology major, linguistics minor at Smith College in Northampton, MA. She is taking this semester off from school to write full time for the Notebook as an intern. Her interest in Philadelphia public education began when she was a high school student in the suburbs of Philadelphia, seeing the stark inequalities between her public school and those just a few miles away. Through journalism, she hopes to shine light on these inequalities to help bring about meaningful change.

Recent Blog Entries

More by Celeste Lavin

Last call for student journalism contest!!

Submitted by Celeste Lavin on Mon, 05/16/2011 - 15:48 | Permalink

We would like to cordially invite your student publications (print or online) to participate in the Notebook’s 2011 student journalism award competition. Each June we recognize the best work of Philadelphia’s high school newspaper writers and editors.

The postmark and electronic submission deadline is tomorrow, Tuesday May 17, 2011

Commentary: City's condom campaign needs to include gay youth

Submitted by Celeste Lavin on Thu, 05/12/2011 - 14:02 Posted in Commentary | Permalink

I applaud the city’s new youth health initiative called Take Control, which is making condoms available by mail to 11 to 19 year-olds. It is also providing a website for young people that offers sexual health tips and information on protecting themselves against sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancies.

But while this is a great effort to educate and protect our city’s youth, the Take Control initiative ignores the needs of gay youth.

Ackerman mentored next Chicago schools CEO

Submitted by Celeste Lavin on Mon, 04/25/2011 - 16:05 | Permalink

Chicago's mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel tapped former Rochester City School Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard to be the next CEO of Chicago Public Schools.

While Emanuel, the former mayor of Rochester, and others have expressed their support for Brizard, Rochester community groups have been sending their “condolences” to the Chicago public school community, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Key data for school closings released

Submitted by Celeste Lavin on Thu, 04/14/2011 - 13:01 Posted in Latest news | Permalink

Finally, we have some official numbers from the District about individual school facilities.

The District made public on its website a long-awaited document that lists information about each school building, including the facility condition index (FCI), utilization relative to capacity, and academic rankings on its school performance index.

Study: Wide variation in success of PA charters

Submitted by Celeste Lavin on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 18:47 Posted in Latest news | Permalink

Students at middle and multi-level charter schools in Pennsylvania perform worse than their peers in traditional public schools in both math and reading, according to a new study published by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University.

Students at elementary level charters, however, outperform their traditional school counterparts in both math and reading.