PROFILES
I have a question for suburban residents fighting against educational reform—school choice, charter schools, vouchers, revisions in the tenure system. Which category are you in?
Guilt: the past abhorrent treatment of minorities has led you to “help” the “oppressed” by lowering the academic bar so that students can “succeed” and gain the “self-esteem” so necessary to succeed in life. The result in urban education: a 50% freshman to senior drop-out rate, with a majority of the graduates requiring remedial education as their first courses in college. Your participation in racial dialogue is the monthly diversity lunch which lists all manner of ills to be confronted by others.
Closet Racist: Probably 80% of the minorities you interact with are in subservient jobs—and that is fine with you—you treat them nicely and after all, somebody has to do those tasks and why not the underschooled. Besides, if they were educated, they would compete with your kids, who we both know are already somewhat spoiled and frequently lazy.
Ignorant and Blissful: No fault of your own, you are not aware of the perfect correlation between family income and SAT scores, which leads you to be blissfully unaware of whether your precious school is adding any educational value at all. Since you have the time and money to be involved in your child’s education, much of which takes place outside of the classroom without you even thinking of it as education (trips to museums and abroad, etc.), you have this naïve belief that if parents everywhere were simply more interested in their children’s education, reform efforts would be unnecessary.
Your exercise of school choice was moving to an area where the “schools were better.” You do not realize that people elsewhere, with thinner wallets, simply want an analogous opportunity to exercise school choice.
Frustrated and Conflicted: You are aware of the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the education problem, and, on reflection over a Starbucks cappuccino, you and your friends have decided there is nothing you can do to change things, other than writing a check to ease the pain of frustration. You stay committed to family and job and remain apart from the need for controversy and dirty fingernails. You are rendered numb by the variety and scope of the tsunamis and big rocks confronting America at this point.
Proposal: Here is my request: enroll your children in a conventional urban school system—one where your child must attend the school building within your geographic zone, where showing up for school equals passing, and where many teachers work with an eye on the 2:32pm union mandated end-of-day clock. Then tell me how you feel about education reform.
http://BOBHOWITTBOOKS.COM/?page_id=22
Be a Mentor by Monday
Mentoring is all the rage, especially among professionals who desperately want to “give back” without unduly interrupting their money-making activities. And what better way to accomplish the needed interaction between mentor and mentee than through e-mail, Skype, Facetime, Whatsapp, and other communication devices that are oh so convenient. No need to take oneself out of their comfort zone, to walk in the shoes of the young person being saved by the good wishes of the professional.
And many times no real training. Success instead emanates from a big heart and that caring attitude which is so typical of people working long hours to afford their McMansion in suburbia or their high-priced condo in center city. In no time at all, the minority kid will be happily posing for a photo-op, the non-minority arm triumphantly slung around the shoulders of this youngster who has been rescued from a life without hope. No need to delve into the reasons behind the latter; the emotional deficit can be filled by somebody picked from the mentor yellow pages.
http://bobhowittbooks.com/?page_id=22
THIRTY THINGS IN A SCHOOL
Accountability without it, regression to the mean, or lower
Books portable repositories of both knowledge and stimuli
Budget Autonomy dollars and decisions must be coupled
Computers for meaningful research
Copiers quick response to situation
Critical Thinking Skills necessary for negotiating life
Dialogue discussions sharpen and broaden the mind
Dress Code delete consumer competition for a few hours
Extended Day/Year more challenges require more time
Goals if you don’t know where you are going, any route is fine
High Expectations better to aim high and fall short than succeed at low level
Hiring Autonomy vision, mission, and implementers must be linked
Intelligent Leadership necessary in any organization
Intentionality important purposes require a deliberative approach
Inquiry is necessary to stay current and to have perspective
Math without skill here, vulnerable to shenanigans of others
Open Doors friendliness and confidence re all constituencies
Orderliness saves time for important things
Parental Investment education is a 24/7 task
Passion makes the hard stuff easier and the journey fun
Phones communication needed among all involved
Purposefulness want to get some things done, and let others simmer
Reading a self-evident must
Small Classes are better for individuality and dialogue
Small School so everybody knows everybody
Smiles are much preferred to anything else
Teachers are the key ingredients to the whole deal
Teacher Talk Time to share ideas and stories and other information
Vision to be able to rise above the day and see the future
Writing helps all other skills, which in turn help writing
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In addition to reading, writing, and math, learn keyboarding, dancing, swimming, bicycling, cooking. They facilitate social interaction and are sustainable skills/avocations throughout life.