Reading at Some Private Schools Is Delayed
When I was looking at preschools for my daughter, I was torn between my roots as a progressive educator – a person who firmly trusts in the development of children and the need to educate and nurture the whole child – and pressures to seek out a school that would “maximize my child’s potential”. Looking back, I realize that the single most important thing anyone said to me back then was, “What’s so great about knowing how to read when you’re three!” This article echoes with the conflicts parents go through when trying to do what’s right for their children and get them educated too. These conflicts get more and more pronounced as children get older, the stakes get higher, and our culture of testing frenzy becomes louder and more pervasive.
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(Click here to read our previous post: The Test Chinese Schools Still Fail!)
Playing to Learn
The New York Times’ Susan Engel envisions a world where children learn by doing and are given ample time to master the critical skills they need through activities that are relevant. Engel asks us to: “Imagine, for instance, a third-grade classroom that was free of the laundry list of goals currently harnessing our teachers and students, and that was devoted instead to just a few narrowly defined and deeply focused goals.”
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Obama to Seek Sweeping Change in ‘No Child’ Law
This exciting article, by Sam Dillon from the NY Times, clearly outlines some of the changes to the No Child Left Behind Law being proposed by President Obama and his administration. One of the most exciting changes would be the allocation of federal funds based on districts implementing reforms aimed at remedying problems. Under No Child Left Behind, funds are distributed using measures like the number of students in the district or the number of low income students served. There is no impetus toward change or reform.
“Significantly, said those who have been briefed, the White House wants to change federal financing formulas so that a portion of the money is awarded based on academic progress, rather than by formulas that apportion money to districts according to their numbers of students, especially poor students. The well-worn formulas for distributing tens of billions of dollars in federal aid have, for decades, been a mainstay of the annual budgeting process in the nation’s 14,000 school districts.”
“Race to the Top” Hits Its Stride
With the deadline for Race to the Top Fund applications just 9 days away, California continues to make dramatic changes in favor of meaningful educational reform. Just last week, California passed legislation that would allow “parents to petition, shut down, or convert failing schools, establish a rigorous teacher and principal evaluation system, and let parents move their children out of failing districts.”
Check out Joe Williams’ blog on the the Democrats for Education Reform website for a list of the Race to the Top inspired changes that are sweeping the nation!
L.A. charter schools flex their educational muscles
Check out this week’s L.A. Times for a terrific overview of California Charter Schools and the educational reform movement in California. “Overall, L.A. charter students score significantly higher on standardized tests than their counterparts in traditional schools. But even some of the most strenuous charter advocates are wary of a blanket assumption that charters are superior, in part because they are so different from traditional schools and from one another.”
California could get up to $700 million in U.S. education funds
Our great state of California could get up to 700 million dollars in federal education stimulus funds just for doing the right thing… making policy and legal changes that would enable us to better meet our children’s education needs! It’s called the Race To The Top Fund and hats off to Governor Schwarzenegger for aggressively pursuing these much needed funds.
“Earlier this year, the Obama administration proposed a series of reforms, including abolishing charter school caps and using student test score data to evaluate educators, as part of a $4.35-billion competitive grant known as Race to the Top. The administration accepted public comment for several months before finalizing the regulations.”
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