Choosing A Kindergarten, Ready for Graduation: Looking at the "Long Haul"

As I've written about before, when my oldest son was ready for kindergarten, I was choosing between the local Hebrew Day School, our local public school, and Ann Arbor Open.

On the side of the Hebrew Day School: all-day kindergarten; small classes; an immersion language curriculum; and a school that was willing to let us sit in on classes and observe.

On the side of Ann Arbor Open: multi-age classrooms; progressive education; and the requirement to volunteer and observe a classroom.

On the side of our local public school: basically, nothing, even though it has a stellar reputation, because I had myself experienced and loved "open" education. It had the same negatives as Ann Arbor Open (half-day kindergarten and larger class sizes than the private school) and--in my opinion--none of the positives. I couldn't sit in on a class there, and kindergarten roundup was very unsatisfying.

To round things out, my husband was a strong public schools proponent and thought we should try the public schools first.

That was then...

In any case, I was reminded of this the other day when I heard someone say they were choosing between a private school or the new Northside STEAM program but were wondering about who the teachers would be at the STEAM school.

[Funny--I just realized I was never worried about the teacher quality at any of the schools I considered.]

I was giving the biggest weight to the full-day kindergarten.

One day I was talking to my colleague Cheryl, whose kids went to the Open School and were much older (like, fifth or sixth grade!)--and she said,

"Ruth, kindergarten is only eight months long. 

You have to look at the long haul!"

And so I did. 

That was the best advice I ever got about choosing a school. If you don't want to be someone whose kids change school every year or two, then you need to think about the long haul.

Gabe and me: This is now!

Maybe because that conversation is embedded in my mind, it's hard to believe that this weekend, the little kid I was worried about then graduated from college.

Time flies when you're having fun!

(Just for fun: You can read a piece Gabe let me publish a few years ago when he was still in high school.)






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Should High Schools Be "College" or Be for Getting Ready for College?

I met Georgina Hickey at the recent Ypsilanti Community Schools meeting that I went to--yes, the one where they chose the Superintendent Triumvirate. (In fact, while there I took a picture of a sign a woman was holding. You can see the picture here.) Although Georgina was holding the sign, she was not in the photo.

In any case, Georgina has just written this letter, reproduced below, to the Ypsilanti Community Schools board. I asked her if I could reproduce this because she raises an issue I've been thinking about a lot. On the one hand, new state rules about credits mean that it's hard for even motivated students to graduate from high school early, and on the other hand we appear to be very focused on getting kids to "do" college before they are even out of high school. Anyway, I could say more, but I'll just say that Georgina's letter raises some really important issues, not just for the Ypsilanti Community Schools but for all schools, and I'm hoping for some discussion about these issues in the comments. (Please?)

Dear Board and Superintendents,
I would like to express my concern about the "college credit or career credentials" pillar that somehow became one of the goals of our new district (I participated in all the public meetings this summer and it was never clear to me who decided these were the pillars). 
I won't speak to career credentials as I have no experience in that area and what I have heard others discussing, such as the culinary arts program, seem realistic and well tended. I can speak to college credit, however, as I am a professor and I regularly teach freshmen and transfers from community colleges.
My recollection from YPSD's strategic planning a 2-3 years ago is that a surprising number of Ypsi students say they intend to go to college (good) but most don't make it through to a degree or even more than one year (bad). This is the disconnect where we need more focused attention: kids think college is an option for them, but for some reason it is not workable once they get there. I strongly advocate we work on excellent college preparation: particularly math and writing skills for the academic realm. Based on what I see at UM-Dearbon students also need more help information literacy and mastering independent learning skills.
My thinking is that college should be a viable option for all of our students who want it. Getting students a handful of credits here or there before they graduate HS is a distraction from the larger issue: making sure they are ready for college with the academic, emotional, and social skills they will need to pursue a degree.
I would far rather promise parents that, should they and their kids want it, this district can prepare the kids to succeed in college. That is a higher and harder goal but more meaningful than 6 credits they will never use because they weren't actually prepared to take a wide range of college classes on a college campus.
I have raised this issue repeatedly since the first time I saw this pillar. It came up again at the forum on Saturday but since no one from this advisory group was there, I wanted to be sure the message got through to you. I know that WCC is helping with this initiative, which is wonderful, but you should know that transfers from community colleges often struggle with the rigors of a four year institution. I hope that at the very least we can include Eastern and other 4-year colleges in the discussion. I think they have much to tell us about where and why students struggle. I'm happy to connect you to college staff and faculty at UM-Dearborn who can help with this.
Thank you,Georgina Hickey

Showing Real Promise

There's an excellent story in the New York Times about the Kalamazoo Promise. It's a nice overview, and it raises some interesting questions about incentives for learning and about the achievement gap.

Results

Community High's lottery results have been posted. It's a game of chance.

Reports are that tomorrow morning (2/16) at 11 a.m., when Gov. Snyder unveils his budget, he'll be unveiling 4% cuts in public school per-pupil funding. Is that a game of chance? I don't think so, but there sure will be losers. It's bad news for struggling schools and let's face it, all schools will be struggling. When your school's classes have 38 students in a class, and the rooms are too crowded to fit all the desks, you will know why.

Which brings me to the P-16 question. You know, should we be funding preschool through college? Because I've also heard that part of the proposal is taking money for community colleges from the School Aid Fun. And my answer is: yes, we should fund P-16, but not at the expense of the mandated K-12 education.

After school break, I'm hoping to get to the subject I know you've been waiting for: evaluating our local charter schools. So let me say this--I don't have any direct experience with any of the charters--although I do have indirect experiences with some of them (in other words, some of my friends have used them). If you want to send me a summary of some of your direct experiences with local (county) charter schools, to share, let me know.

Happy News

Before break, some happy news.

Congratulations to Adams Elementary in Ypsilanti for making Adequate Yearly Progress two years in a row. I'm not a big fan of testing, but I'd much rather have our local schools making AYP than not making it.

And did you know the Ypsilanti Public Schools Foundation now has a ReSale shop? Not only is it a 501(c)3 organization that you can donate to, but YPS students and families that need clothes and household goods can shop free there. And so can YPS teachers, looking for classroom supplies. What a great idea!

Congratulations to the Dexter school board and administration for being brave enough to admit that they need more time to plan a transition to the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum, and plan the switch back to semesters from trimesters. (And hey, their reasoning looks a lot like mine! Great minds think alike:)

Congratulations to Saline Schools for a relatively user-friendly web site and to their Superintendent for his interesting blog. (The Saline Schools twitter regularly too.)

Congratulations to Pioneer and Huron high schools for taking a step toward equity by offering the PSAT in the middle of the week, and not on Saturday; and congratulations to all of AAPS for eliminating the fee for taking the PSAT. I'll bet a lot more kids took the PSAT! (Not only is that the qualifier for National Merit awards, but it also means those students will get more information about colleges and scholarships.)

Congratulations to Judy and Manfred Schmidt for being honored for all of their work on behalf of the Scarlett-Mitchell Nature Area. If you're looking for a nice walk over break, this could be the one for you! There are about 5 miles of trails there. I linked to this lovely article about the woods once before. You can park in the school parking lot, and enter the park right behind Scarlett.

Congratulations to Ann Arbor Open for another lovely Multicultural Festival. It's my favorite (school) day of the year, as you might remember from this post I wrote last year (now it's an oldie but a goodie).

I'm not sure if I will be blogging over break, or not, but...I hope you get some time off.

Happy 2011!

Six Things I Learned about the College Application Process Last Year

Note: The audience here is presumed to be the parent, although the information is good for students too...

1. There is a college for everyone, whether or not you have good grades. So don't panic. That said, once you determine what your "range" school should be (e.g., you think you should be able to get into MSU), apply to more than one of them! And for every "reach" school you apply to, apply to a "safety" school. The application costs only sound like a lot when you forget how much you will pay for college. In the case of my son, that meant two reach schools, two range schools, two safeties. Verdict? Admitted to ranges and safeties; waitlisted at reaches. That made me feel that this system works. (The key, however? Correctly identifying your "range" schools.)

2. Apply early! Yes, that means October. Not only does it improve your chances of getting in to the school you want, but it also makes the rest of the year much more pleasant.

3. Your mileage may vary. If financial aid offers are important to you, then "you'd better shop around." Small schools may give more money than large schools--and this could effectively neutralize the cost of going to a small private school. Some schools--Western Michigan, Indiana come to mind--advertise that if your GPA is X and your test scores are Y, you will get Z amount of merit money. And test scores do matter when it comes to racking up financial aid. Applying to more schools means you will be able to compare more offers--you might be surprised at the variation.

4. Despite that--before you decide that you must pay for Kaplan, Princeton Review, or a private test tutor, why don't you see how your child does on the PACT and PSAT? Or even on the ACT or SAT? You can retake those tests, you know. It may be totally unnecessary to pay for any tutoring at all. In my son's case, after he took the PACT, the ACT, the PSAT and the SAT, I decided to pay for three hours of a private tutor to help with the math part of the ACT. That ended up costing a lot less than a full course, and seemed to do the trick. Most of what he learned related to how to "read" (analyze) the test questions. I also heard the tutor telling my son the same things I had said. "Take your time, don't rush through the material." Somehow, when the tutor said it, it had some weight.

5. Before your student fills out the college application, have him/her make a list of all the activities she/he has done over the years. Think broadly--tutoring a neighbor? Sunday School teacher's aide? Working at Dairy Queen? Read over the essay questions. Expect a question about diversity, and remember that that question does not have to mean racial diversity.  Sure, you can discuss the essay questions and do some editing, but don't write the damn essay--it needs to be the student's work.

6. Work with the school counselor to get the best recommendation letter possible. At Community High, the counselors ask studentss to provide names of people whom the applicant thinks would provide a well-rounded picture of him/her. The counselors then email those people asking for a few sentences about said student, and that detail becomes the backbone of the counselor's letter. I really like this approach and wish more counselors would use it, because many times, students switch counselors partway through a high school career, and the counselor doesn't know the student from Adam.

OK, I lied in the title. Here's one more thing:

7. Despite what all of those education manuals will tell you, college is not for everyone, and certainly it's not for everyone just after they graduate from high school. There are many fabulous gap year programs. (I went on one many, many years ago and boy did it open my eyes.) There is a great big world to explore. And the world still needs electricians and plumbers.

Community High School Graduation: May You Have Many Such Joyous Occasions

Written on 6/2/2010
Last night, my son graduated high school. Many people have asked me, "What was the Community High School graduation like?" Of course, it was AWE-some. It was my son!

Seriously, it was awesome in many ways, not just because it was my son, and if you want to see the video, you can, because it is going to be on CTN (Channel 19)! (It was two-and-a-half hours long; watch the first 30-40 minutes and you will get a very good feeling for the night.) Premier: Friday, 6/4/2010, 7 p.m. Replays: 6/5, 2 p.m.; 6/6/, 9 a.m.; 6/8, 11 a.m. or call 734-794-6150 for more times.

At my high school graduation (public school in the New York City suburbs), we girls wore long white dresses and the boys wore white dinner jackets. We had voted against caps and gowns. The ceremony was held on the football field (inside the track). Those of us in the top 10% (I was 19/26, there were 262 students in my graduating class) sat in rank order. Luckily, one of my best friends was right next to me. The rest of the class sat alphabetically. The superintendent and principal were supremely boring. The student council president gave an insipid speech about rainbows. We were called across the stage one by one. And that's the way it was. Even today, except for the lack of cap and gowns, I think there are an awful lot of graduation ceremonies exactly like mine.

Not so at Community's graduation.

In complete randomness of order (well, not complete randomness--number 10 was chosen to be last), here are ten things I really liked about the Community High School graduation:

1. It was not random. It was very well-planned out, with musical interludes, a cartoon movie and a slide show, and even a stretch break. I was told it would be 2-1/2 hours, and it was.

2. The kids. The dress was very mixed, from jeans to suits to caps and gowns.  For the caps and gowns, well--CHS has the rainbow zebra as its mascot, so any color of cap and gown matched. I loved the variety. There were a lot of kids I had known from my son's preschool and from Ann Arbor Open. Some of them looked exactly the same, and others were unrecognizably different (grown!).

3. The Awards: My daughter pointed out to me that most of the graduating class got recognized in the program. Sure, they had the typical "excellence" awards, but they also gave awards for "Perseverance in the study of mathematics," which went to students who stuck with math for all four years, and for PERSONAL fitness (achieving personal goals) and for personal FITNESS (excellence in conditioning).

4. Could there be a more magnificent place to hold a graduation than Rackham Auditorium? It was full of proud parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters. I know it would be too small for the graduating classes of the larger schools, but the ambience was magnificent.

5. Both Todd Roberts (Superintendent) and Jen Hein (Dean) did a good job. Their speeches were short and to the point. Dean Jen recognized the retiring teachers. Their resumes are impressive! Todd Roberts focused on the students' accomplishments, and he made a small mistake, but it was okay (and funny). I'll tell you why in a minute.

6. Thirty seconds. That's the amount of time each student got to speak. Students stuck to their thirty seconds. There was a lot of thanking, particularly of moms, often of teachers, occasionally of dads. There was a lot of quoting: Dr. Seuss, Yogi Berra ("When you come to a fork, take it"), Babe Ruth, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and more. There was a quote in an eastern European language (Russian? Polish?). There were thank yous in Gaelic and Ojibway. There were exchange students speaking.  ("When I got here, I wondered, this can't be school. Is this summer camp?!") There were some stories. One student said, "My game plan when I started high school was to drop out after my sophomore year. But because of Community, my game plan changed. I'm going to college next year, and I am very happy to say that." There were a few songs. Specific memories. There were ideas: that at Community High one didn't feel one had to change one's personality; that at Community High you could find that you loved ........ (fill in the blank): literature, science, nerdiness, a particular person; that teachers at Community High lived to teach; that forum rocked. There were students who said they didn't think they would finish school, but they had made it. And they were proud. Honestly, I don't think that at my graduation most of us would have had such nice things to say.

7. There was Todd Roberts' very small error. One of the members of the Mock Trial team took his 30 seconds to say, "Todd Roberts is a very modest man. I am not a modest man. Our mock trial team didn't compete in the state championship, we won the state championship!" The crowd roared. And laughed. That Mock Trial team is proud--and competitive.

8. Statistics. I like them. According to the booklet, 122 students graduated. I think all but 3 or 4 were there. The counselors processed 423 college applications, and they reported that students were offered nearly $3,000,000 in merit scholarships. I thought that was a typo! My husband pointed out that if a student applied to 4 schools and got awarded $10,000/year in merit awards from all four, that would be (4 x $40,000) $160,000. So even though that student is only going to one school, and can only accept one offer, they still report all four offers. Still, I think that is pretty impressive. Also impressive? Fourteen students going to the University of Michigan. Twenty going to Washtenaw. Lots of kids going to small midwestern colleges (Kalamazoo, Beloit, Siena Heights, Albion, Oberlin, Denison). Students at Wayne State, MSU, University of Toledo, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Bowling Green...and a few going to east coast powerhouses. Most have plans to go to college.

9. Of course the slide show (baby pictures and grown up pictures) was fun, but my favorite part of the slide show was that they included the retiring teachers in it, with their baby/little kid pictures.

10. Forums do rock. Forum is the class that everyone at Community takes for four years. Forum is way more than a home room. If you are lucky, you get the same forum teacher all four years. With your forum, you go on field trips; you fundraise; you discuss. As a freshman, your forum teacher (not the counselor, generally) helps you plan your schedule. Forum leaders frequently serve as the first stop for other teachers, if a student is having trouble; and a first stop for parents, who need information about a developing situation; and a first ear for students. In other words, they divert a lot of work away from the counselors, and often they develop enduring relationships with their students. If there is one thing, I believe, that is completely transportable from Community to the other, larger, schools, and that would make a huge difference in the lives of students and the experience of high school--it is forum. (That explanation, by the way, was not a digression. That was the object lesson of the evening.) Students got introduced, not alphabetically, but by forum. The forum leaders handed out the diplomas, introduced each student, stood next to each student, hugged each student. And it was clear that there was a lot of love going on in those forums, between and among students and students, between and among students and teachers. There was the love.

Was there joy? You bet. Everybody loves a diploma, even the kids who are sad to leave.
May you have many such joyous occasions in your lives.

Promises, Promises

Last year, I wondered if my oldest had qualified for a Promise Scholarship. Despite the fact that I have two masters' degrees, I couldn't find the spot on the test results paper with the answer. (Who writes those forms, anyway?) Finally, after reading the damn piece of paper about ten times, I figured out that he had, in fact, qualified. Woo hoo!

Of course, that was all theoretical. Someone else told me that their family called it the False Promises Scholarship. After all, it was cut.

Which brings me to today's news:
The U.S. Department of Education is funding 5-year studies, at MSU and U of M, of the Michigan Merit curriculum and the Michigan Promise Scholarship.

So--umm--how does that work? Because the scholarship that was promised, was vanished. So how can anyone study its impact?

Things I Read Recently That I Liked

Time Magazine article on School Lunches
Blogging for Michigan post (mostly) on taxes
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (book)
New York Times article on how to pronounce the name of the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokull
Today's Detroit Free Press article on the Kalamazoo Promise