Iranian-American empowers schools in America's crime capital
When it comes to challenges, Iranian-Americans are known as a resilient group of immigrants. Many are successful businessmen, lawyers, scientists, engineers, university Professors, researchers or doctors, but few are managing school districts, and none seems to be welcoming challenges more than Peyman Rouhanifard, who is now credited with turning around schools in America's most dangerous city, Camden, New Jersey. For years Camden has been crowned as America's "crime" capital and recently CNN referred to Camden as "Plagued by drugs, homelessness and poverty, Camden had the highest crime rate in the nation among cities of 75,000 residents or more, according to CQ Press' City Crime Rankings 2014, which are based on an analysis of FBI statistics from 2012."
For about a year, as Superintendant of Camden City School District, Iranian-American Peymon Rouhanifard has been tackling Camden's poor school performance and bloated budget - $22,000 per student, twice the budget for many other cities - and is now credited with turning around some parts of the system. Peymon was yesterday a guest of WHYY's Radio Times (link) describing challenges facing him and the school district, and the progress made so far in curbing the budget and improving student performance. Camden is one of the few in the country that has more than 95% of its students poor enough to be eligible for free lunch.
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