Valley Charter School

Reading at Some Private Schools Is Delayed

rburkhardt — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:26:52 +0000

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!)

Starving Charters: A new study shows the funding bias against non-traditional schools.

rburkhardt — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 05:29:39 +0000

One of the challenges facing charter schools, particularly in California (where we already spend 20% less on education than the national average) is unfair denial of funds. We’ve had two meetings in the last month that have featured a detailed review of our school budget as well as our plans for rolling out new programs. This article sheds a little more light on why we are conservative and careful with our spending.

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Amy Chua is a Wimp

rburkhardt — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 05:57:20 +0000

David Brooks takes a uniquely balanced look at Amy Chua’s controversial comparison of American and traditional Chinese parenting. Chua’s recent Wall Street Journal article, “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior”, rapidly made its way across the country striking fear in the hearts of Americans. Brooks takes a different view: “I have the opposite problem with Chua. I believe she’s coddling her children. She’s protecting them from the most intellectually demanding activities because she doesn’t understand what’s cognitively difficult and what isn’t.” How can this be?

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The Test Chinese Schools Still Fail

rburkhardt — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 16:26:40 +0000

If you follow education news you’ve surely heard all the talk about China’s PISA test scores being the best in the world. Everyone who has an education agenda has been talking about how much we need to get our test scores up, how we’re being left in the dust, how we’re failing our children. This article is by Jiang Xueqin, deputy principal of Peking University High School. He has a very different perspective. According to him, China has a 10-year plan to reform its schools that includes promoting individuality and experimentation. He says, “One way we’ll know we’re succeeding in changing China’s schools is when those PISA scores come down.” If you’re at all concerned about curriculum and education reforms driven by standardized test scores this article is a MUST READ!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703766704576008692493038646.html

Click here to read more!

Want to get your kids into college? Let them play

rburkhardt — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 06:15:08 +0000

Wow! Stop the presses! This headline says it all. Erika Christakis and Nicholas Christakis are Masters of one of Harvard’s residential houses. They see a distinct difference between students with a play-based preschool and early childhood background and those from “drill and kill” schools. Not only do they feel play is critical to the development of young children, they “wonder why play is not encouraged in educational periods later in the developmental life of young people — giving kids more practice as they get closer to the ages of our students.”

I highly recommend you click here to read more!

The Ruinous Culture We’ve Created in Elementary Schools

rburkhardt — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 06:34:02 +0000

Shaun Johnson makes a clear stand on the testing culture that pervades our school system:

“Throughout January and beyond, social studies, science, and other expendable subjects stop. That’s right, they stop, for months at a time. Schools become mobilized as math and reading academies. And no, it’s not this idealized culture of inquiry and intellectual curiosity; students are not reading and discussing literature of their choosing or building mathematical models to simulate concepts.”

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Talking Numbers Counts For Kids’ Math Skills

rburkhardt — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 21:28:29 +0000

This article/interview from NPR may be talking about preschoolers, but at it’s heart, it’s a great endorsement of experience-based education. When children learn by rote memorization, they are not learning the deeper meanings and qualities of the material – whether it’s numbers or ABC’s. They may learn to read, for example, but without making connections to their own lives and the world around them their ability to really understand what they are reading is deeply limited.

University of Chicago psychology professor Susan Levine finds that “for children to develop the math skills they’ll need later on in school, it is essential that parents spend time teaching their children the value of numbers by using concrete examples — instead of just repeating them out loud.”

Click here to read or listen.

Jeremy Rifkin on “the empathic civilization”

rburkhardt — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:43:33 +0000

Jeremy Rifkin takes a look at the evolution of the brain and how these trends point to the need for change in our societal institutions – government, parenting, business practices, and – you guessed it – our educational system! He argues that we are all empathic beings meant to embrace the singularity and precious nature of all life. At Valley Charter School we believe deeply in educating the whole child, focusing on social/emotional development, community responsibility, and academic growth.

Click here to watch the video.

The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers

rburkhardt — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 07:13:18 +0000

How much is a great Kindergarten teacher worth? $320,000.00 per year. David Leonhardt of the New York Times Economic Scene writes about a unique study that is changing the way the world looks at early childhood education.

“Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more.”

Click here to read more.

LAUSD moves to alter teacher layoffs

rburkhardt — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 07:35:36 +0000

Teacher tenure is a topic being debated nationwide. The same LAUSD governing board that on 6/15 approved VCS’s Charters, also passed a motion to block layoffs based on seniority and make it easier to fire poorly performing teachers.

“We need to be able to make decisions, in times of layoffs, based on who is the most efficient teacher first,” said board member Yolie Flores”

Click here to read more.