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Friday, May 24, 2013

Innovative tool for the NYC mayoral race

Who should be New York City's next education mayor? 

Gotham Schools helps citizens decide with an innovative tool which you can see in the photograph below.  
Visit the site at http://gothamschools.org/2013-mayoral-race/

This tool provides educators with a smart way to think about and discuss what is important to them when it comes to education and the importance of getting the right person in office to do that.  The tool gives you a variety of ways to look at the candidates. 
  1. Choose a topic and see how each candidate compares. Topics include issues like:
  2. Choose a candidate and see how each candidates views on all topics.
    • This is great. Positions take quotes from actual news stories and link back to the story for further investigation.
And, if you're wondering... the site is up-to-date including the latest candidate to announce he is running, Anthony Weiner.  That's because “The Next Education Mayor” is a living feature. According to Gotham Schools:
"Campaigns had a chance to review the opinions we collected and submitted a few new ones in the last couple of days. As candidates release more complete education platforms, and take stands on controversial topics where they’ve remained silent up to now, we’ll be adding their opinions. We’ll also add new topics as they become part of the campaign conversation. And when candidates’ views flip-flop over time, we’ll keep a record of that, too."

And there's even an interactive element where teachers can invite students to be political fact finders and add their content to an outlet for authentic purposes. From the site:
"While we’ve taken on the responsibility of keeping track of candidates’ education statements, we’d appreciate assistance from our readers. Let us know if you see content in “The Next Education Mayor” that needs refining — and please tell us what issues you’d like candidates to take a stand on that they haven’t already. We have lots more education election coverage coming up."
Want to help your students understand how the people they vote for influence the issues that affect them? This informative tool is a great way to do just that.

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If you like this, here are two other sites worth checking out as well.

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