Ivan Rahman first found his place and his passion in the classroom. And his history as a low-income student of color and an English Language Learner in the Bronx makes his work in education personal.
After college, Ivan returned to the Bronx to serve as a Teach For America corps member. He taught fourth grade teacher, and in collaboration with parents and school staff, led his students to remarkable results. All of Ivan’s students achieved Level 4 (of 4) on the New York State Science Exam. It was the first time that an entire grade attained the highest level of proficiency in his school’s nine-year history.
Yearning to take the impact he’d made in the classroom to a school-wide level, Ivan became an Education Pioneers Fellow in 2015 .
- Data & Analysis
Ivan recognized the potential for data to improve student outcomes. As an EP Fellow, Ivan established the data department at Coney Island Prep, a K-12 charter school in Brooklyn, NY. There, Ivan created dashboards that centralized, organized, and analyzed the academic and behavior data of nearly 800 students. As a result, 89 teachers and 25 school leaders are now able to easily discern correlations and patterns, and make smarter data-driven decisions to advance student learning.
Later, as a consultant for the New York City Department of Education (DOE), Ivan sought to raise the bar of achievement for New York City’s 440,000 English Language Learners (ELL). Ivan helped to create short- and long-term bilingual teacher recruitment strategies for the DOE. He also managed the DOE’s bilingual teacher extension program. While overseeing this program, he recruited over 50 individuals—in just eight weeks—to become bilingual teachers. The program has the potential to impact the education of 1,500 ELLs.
Ivan’s work and results to date also include providing analyses and recommendations for how to assist 85 schools in critical need of bilingual services at the DOE; creating a more equitable teacher evaluation system for Coney Island Prep as the school’s Director of Data; building dashboards that enabled CIP staff to make smarter, data-driven decisions that led to a 22.3 percent increase in the English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency rate for CIP seventh graders between 2015 and 2016; and supervising a team of nine to deliver comprehensive services to over 5,000 East New York residents and securing over $42,000 in renewable funding as the Vice President of Bangladeshi American Community Development & Youth Services.
Ivan was a semifinalist for 2016 EPic Alumni recognition.
