coComments related to Diigo anyone?

Reply: They are extremely clos

2009-09-12T20:45:41.840+02:00

Reply: They are extremely close, but different times.

Last year I believe CABE was t

2009-09-12T20:45:35.174+02:00

Last year I believe CABE was the same weekend as CUE but it’s definitely worth going from what I’ve heard. I’m not sure if I’m going to CUE next year. Reply: They are extremely close, but different times.

I’m actually not sure what you

2009-07-12T16:51:33.298+02:00

I’m actually not sure what your issue with this happends to be. Is it that you have saw some studies that showed that the child is harmed in some way by starting this way because personally being a stay at home mom. I am more then capable of teaching my child what she needs to know in kinder. I however am not keeping her back but toyed with the idea because I am not really ready to let my 4 year old go. I want her to go to school because she is getting bored at home and preschool is expensive. She knows and recognizes her alphabets she knows numbers til 50 we have practice phonectics and she has about 20 site words as well sounding out words begining stages of actual reading she is learning things her 1st grader cousin will learn we she starts school. hence my excitement for a freeeee montesorri school

I have been a K teacher for 7

2008-11-13T13:30:05.908+01:00

I have been a K teacher for 7 years in NC. Until now the child could be 4 until October. In 09/10 the child must be 5 by Aug. 25th. We have a full day with complete academics. Children who come too young can not handle it. Some are just not developmentally ready. I like the birthday change. As for preschool, I think some prior training is absolutely necessary, even if it happens at home. The standards continue to be raised but the children come in the same. There is such a variety of levels. I feel if the standards that we must meet by first grade are higher, the standards for how they come to us should be higher. Parents think we are one more year of good babysitting so they do not support what we do nor encourage their child to do his or her best. There are so many changes but the parents are not aware. Reply: Yeah, you can imagine how messed up things get in California with kids not turning 5 until the end of November and they are either in kinder young, or parents red-shirt their late birth kids, showing up when they turn six in November, and they’re placed in first with NO kinder.

I agree with M. Sommerville.

2008-07-31T09:26:34.077+02:00

I agree with M. Sommerville. There are so many factors that apply to whether a child is ready for Kindergarten or first grade that have nothing to do with age. My son was born on December 2nd. Hence the reason I know the law. He did a two year kindergarten program that was available at the time. He was given a test, when he was 4 years old, to determine whether he was ready for kindergarten. He failed two parts of the test. He only put 4 fingers on the hand of the stick figure he drew (keep in mind that Mickey Mouse doesn’t have five fingers on each hand) and he failed the part of the test that required him to name as many animals as he could in a minute. He named the following animals: Tyrannosaurus Rex, Forceps Fish, Snowflake Morey Eel, Parrot Fish, and another animal that I can’t remember. Our family had just been snorkeling in Hawaii that summer, hence all the tropical fish. He failed that part of the test because he didn’t name enough animals. He also read and could do multiplication in his head that year. I call into question the whole, arbitrary notion of deciding that a child is ready or not ready for school solely dependent upon age. And, as clearly shown by the example, the test or the tester wasn’t particularly good indicator either. I’m also surprised at the notion of “the race” to get kids into school. Where I live, in Northern California, more parents hold their children back from starting school if their birthdays are in the late summer and fall. Great discussion.

I’ve taught half day, “extende

2008-04-17T04:22:42.246+02:00

I’ve taught half day, “extended day,” and full day programs. All have had their pros and cons, but the cons lists tend to get larger and larger as time passes. The need for meaningful preschool experiences gets misinterpreted and sold to the public as yet another necessary way to prep for “real” school earlier and earlier. Add to that unaffordable or unavailable day care…. and parents who try to keep up with the Joneses (or try to blow them out of the water entirely)… or parents who have been told/sold the “oh-my-goodness-your-child-won’t-ace-the-required-assessments” panic…and good programs, no matter how many hours of the day they encompass, get bastardized. Yep, I taught a class of thirty four students. Why? Because the budget was more important than the students. I taught children who were far too young (no, they were not inadequate, they were not “behind..” it just wasn’t their time yet) because of the push, push push to get ‘em younger, get ‘em sooner. Most of us crawl before we walk, babble before we speak, children are no different. What do I advocate for? Developmentally appropriate practice. Stop with the racing, stop with the competition. Stop with the assessments in utero. What’s wrong with a child being six in kindergarten? Really? What’s wrong with letting children be children? In an ideal world, there would be no stigma attached to a child developing at his or her own pace, perhaps requiring another year of pre-school, perhaps staying home another year. Why deal with failure and resistance and possibly retention if the decision to give children the GIFT OF TIME was made at the beginning of school? If the priority must be that every student start first grade at the same exact baseline with the same exact prior schema, sorry folks, a lot of people are going to be disappointed. I advocate for giving children what THEY need and the experiences that will most benefit them when they’re truly ready for it, but pushing them all sooner, faster, competitively at their expense is not okay. There are several schedules out there that can be used to great effect and in appropriate ways for young children. I’ll work on putting some up on my blog this week or weekend if anyone is interested.

BCDS, my sister had a similar

2008-04-17T04:22:32.246+02:00

BCDS, my sister had a similar experience with a 2nd grader, twins in kinder, one in extended Special Ed class, and the other in regular class. And the regular ed twin and 2nd grader went to an “Open” school, so there was not “transport” and it was far away. She shared a mommy carpool, but I remember she looked more frazzled than I did, and she was a stay at home, while I worked.On Finland, I hear what you are saying, but there are some salient culture/language difference when you compare the U.S. to any Scandinavian country. First, there is greater income equality (test scores track to income levels). Their cultures are largely homogeneous, so you don’t have things like the school/home disconnects that can happen in the U.S. I also wonder about differences in language, ex. their languages became written after pronunciations were largely “standardized”. English spelling vs. how it is said is a mess, and therefore can be quite difficult to teach especially when 25% (California) of your students are language learners. That being said, I do often wonder if we “create” reading disorders in our children by pushing them into reading so young?

Reply: absolutely I have a 4 y

2008-04-17T04:22:22.246+02:00

Reply: absolutely I have a 4 year who will be starting and I do not want her to hate school. I would like kindergarted to be her introduction to school. I would like her to think of learning as fun not teachers making them well trying to m ake them sit down at a desk for 5 hours really 4 and 5 year olds wow!!

When I was a parent of a kinde

2008-04-17T04:22:12.246+02:00

When I was a parent of a kindergartner, many years ago, the half day sessions made it virtually impossible for me to go anywhere and get anything done. My kids would have benefited from full day; they were ready. As a former EC teacher of 18 years- 5 with preK and 13 with K, I saw enormous benefits to having a full day for K. I agree that this needs to be structured differently, but that is not difficult to achieve. Mandatory preK? Isn’t it Finland which scores highest on academic testing- where the kids don’t start school til they are 7 or 8? Academically, preK can give kids who come from a background without a lot of stimulation a leg up. It can also help with socialization skills. But when are we going to stop pushing curriculum down? Some of the kids are barely out of diapers! Reply: absolutely I have a 4 year who will be starting and I do not want her to hate school. I would like kindergarted to be her introduction to school. I would like her to think of learning as fun not teachers making them well trying to m ake them sit down at a desk for 5 hours really 4 and 5 year olds wow!!

Reply: You are right most scho

2008-04-17T04:22:02.246+02:00

Reply: You are right most school in california are half day but not all> There has been several schools that have all day curriculum. My girlfriends daughter is in 4th grade and she went to an all day kinder class in northern cali. My daughter will be starting Kindergarden this year in another school district also in northern cali where her class will be all day 8:30 to 2:30 she has a nove birthday 11//27 to be exact.I’m worried it will be too much

Mathew, that’s useful informat

2008-04-17T04:21:52.246+02:00

Mathew, that’s useful information. They are talking about taking Kinder up to 31 next year in my district, which would be BRUTAL without a second adult.MathChique, in my district it and all the ones I know in Northern California it is still a half day (8:00 a.m. – 11:30) Thanks for the catch of that one day error on the cutoff, you are correct it is December 2nd. Reply: You are right most school in california are half day but not all> There has been several schools that have all day curriculum. My girlfriends daughter is in 4th grade and she went to an all day kinder class in northern cali. My daughter will be starting Kindergarden this year in another school district also in northern cali where her class will be all day 8:30 to 2:30 she has a nove birthday 11//27 to be exact.I’m worried it will be too much

I was also surprised to learn

2008-04-17T04:21:42.246+02:00

I was also surprised to learn that kindergarten is still not required in California. I have recently researched the topic in California Ed. Code. The changing day for entrance into school is December 2. Therefore, if a child turns 6 in January, he/she doesn’t have to start school until the following Aug./Sept. (standard school year). The SARB wouldn’t occur until after that date, not when the child actually turns 6. In the California schools that I am familiar with, the Kindergarten class starts at 8:30 and ends at 2:30. That is 10 minutes shorter than my school day when I was in high school (also in California). I would consider that a full day.

There’s a study in LAUSD that

2008-04-17T04:21:32.246+02:00

There’s a study in LAUSD that full day kindergarten has led to decreased test scores and student achievement in kindergarten. This is possibly due to losing the assistance of a second adult in the room as was done with half day kinder and spreading the same number of TA’s across double the amount of classrooms. However, I suspect it is because the same curriculum has often been spread across six hours instead of three leading to less efficiency rather than additional instruction. I like your idea of having some fundamentally different type of instruction in the afternoon (like art and music) but I believe we do have to have a plan in place for what we’re going to do during the day…just increasing the number of hours doesn’t seem to work.

Bravo Alice. Great job. I lov

2008-12-11T21:30:27.924+01:00

Bravo Alice. Great job. I loved reading the details of lives this week. Bonnie

Now I’m just testing comments

2008-04-13T17:09:30.359+02:00

Now I’m just testing comments – Karen

Great job! Really enjoyed rea

2008-04-13T17:09:05.915+02:00

Great job! Really enjoyed reading everyone’s responses and visiting many of the blogs! Thank you!

Loved the intros to everyone’s

2008-04-13T17:08:55.915+02:00

Loved the intros to everyone’s comments. Thanks Alice. Oh dear, we are about to move through autumn into winter so hope those bugs dont follow us down under.

Doggone it – I submitted somet

2008-04-13T17:08:45.915+02:00

Doggone it – I submitted something yesterday – or so I thought. Apparently it never posted (I suspected something didn’t work quite right but didn’t have the heart to compose that paragraph again). At any rate, it was nice to read the paragraphs of others and find threads of my paragraph running through many of them!Thanks for hosting!Karen

Great job, Alice. Wonderful in

2008-04-13T17:08:35.915+02:00

Great job, Alice. Wonderful intros. You are the hostest with the mostest. (red zigzag lines under those two words tell me that they are misspelled words, but oh well …) Have a great week (I see your emotional meeting says “pleased” so that is good) Kevin

Nancy Cavillones has a blog ca

2008-04-13T17:08:25.915+02:00

Nancy Cavillones has a blog called Se Hace Camino Al Andar. I’ve been reading it for quite a while.

Alice,Entertaining and insight

2008-04-13T17:08:15.915+02:00

Alice,Entertaining and insightful presentation. Of course, we’d expect nothing less of you!Larry

encourage you to participate.

2009-01-31T00:18:25.482+01:00

encourage you to participate. Alice Mercer already has posted her four slides. Come on – it’s

I’m glad I didn’t know you wer

2008-07-08T12:12:36.152+02:00

I’m glad I didn’t know you were famous before I talked to you – otherwise we may have never met – just kiddin I agree with you that there seemed to be some walls built, and I was guilt of not talking to some people that I had intended to. However, I made so many great connections, I can’t imagine anymore that I could have fit in!It was a pleasure to meet you and I hope to discuss more with you virtually!

Alice - thank you for continui

2008-07-08T12:12:26.152+02:00

Alice - thank you for continuing the conversation over here — I started it at Scott’s and followed you here…………hmmmm, does that make me a stalker.One of the things I missed MOST about being at NECC this year…..F2F Necc, was the conversations…….but not about TECH….but about life.In fact, usually when I go to conferences, that is one of the last things I do want to talk about — because people are so much more than the tech they hide behind………and when you get to know them as “THEM” and not as “FB” or even “WFB” — the bottom line is, they are regular people……..and we are all struggling to get a handle on this thing called “TECH.” I cherish the conversations I have had that have had NOTHING to do with tech and look forward to having more at upcoming conferences………….And I have to heartily agree with one of your final comments about not being specific when dealing with problems. My admin always does that — and the people who are innocent are wondering “what did I do” and the people who are guilty just look around the room wondering who they might be pointing at. I look forward to getting to know YOU at the next conference we go to.Thanks again! Jen

Alice– Thanks for coming & add

2008-07-07T03:00:13.879+02:00

Alice– Thanks for coming & adding your thoughts…it is an area that educators really need to build an awareness. It was not an ideal presentation environment for sure, but I think that the group did a great job. Keep an eye out for the Temple Media lab http://snipurl.com/tmelcopyright for their statement in the Fall. I wanted to correct my last name so we can continue to connect… It’s Hokanson (khokanson most places I am online) Was great meeting you face2face. Your NECC notes are ones I will be taking a look at and reflecting on!

Hi Alice Thanks again for your

2008-07-04T21:31:07.865+02:00

Hi Alice Thanks again for your contributions and live-blogging during the session. I loved your idea about using Jott for recording notes after special ed meetings. Heck, I just love Jott! It appears that a similar idea was mentioned by Hall Davidson during his session on using cell phones in schools “How about using Jott to document interventions for RTI – use Jott to send an email to yourself” as live-blogged by Hank Thiele at http://henrythiele.blogspot.com/2008/07/hall-davidson-cellphones-in-schools.htmlThe large venue was a bit of a challenge for BYOL. I wasn’t particularly fond of having to lead participants from a stage — I’m usually more of a “walk-around, lets work together,” type of person. Perhaps round tables, in a slightly smaller room, might have made it a bit less formal and easier to collaborate with one another.

Allow me to add my two cents…

2009-01-13T18:23:43.254+01:00

Allow me to add my two cents… I thought you(and company) handled this situation in the proper manner. The students do show an interest in video making, yet just made a poor judgment on what’s inapproriate and what’s not. This happens all the time, and given that they were showing remorse, shows that they did not have the malice of intent. With that, you would hope to build on that interest by showing them what they should have done instead. Great teaching moment!!I think that this is going to be problem that many teachers are going to encounter very soon. I only hope that they are going to handle it with the same caution that you have shown.

debate over the KIPP schools r

2008-12-25T20:31:59.639+01:00

debate over the KIPP schools rages on in the educational

That’s the problem with making

2008-05-16T02:14:18.162+02:00

That’s the problem with making broad statements about “inputs” at KIPP. There is no “KIPP way” of teaching any subject. There are some schools that use traditional reading programs, probably, and there are some that use workshop. What KIPP “mandates” is results, not inputs.I’ve observed reading classes at some KIPP schools that were, to my mind, perhaps even “over-focused” on comprehension, and that you would probably love. KIPP schools are non-profit. They have special education students – in some cases, more than the district has – they have their parents sign an agreement but they have no consequence if the parent doesn’t follow it. It’s just another tool to help parents understand their expectations.

sorry for being cranky. I’m an

2008-05-15T09:25:31.617+02:00

sorry for being cranky. I’m an impatient sort.

re: the “In Practice” blog – c

2008-05-14T12:36:42.388+02:00

re: the “In Practice” blog – comment moderation sort of eliminates the possibilities of conversation. A bit too much control over there.

worth reading as we consider t

2008-05-14T10:36:41.048+02:00

worth reading as we consider this… http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-stager/the-surge-against-first-g_b_100456.html

oops, assume that I oppose cha

2008-05-14T08:36:39.708+02:00

oops, assume that I oppose charters

Just a note: Reading sure look

2008-05-14T06:36:38.368+02:00

Just a note: Reading sure looked scripted to me, and sounds scripted when the teachers talk about it. KIPP has made a decision, not unlike that made by the NYC schools, that reading is a skill independent of content. Their goal seems to be remediation through basic word skills and very basic grammar skills. There is no embrace of the technologies which could improve access to more sophisticated, meaningful, and/or relevant texts. Time is focused on decoding rather than comprehension, and when they work on comprehension, it is surface, short-answer stuff. Again, not much different than your typical NYC middle school, or any other school operating with the lowest expectations.As for your thoughts re: parent requirements. This is what’s wrong – essentially – with charters. Now, Socrates will assume that oppose charters, which is absolutely untrue. My son graduated from a Charter high school, and I coached there. But it was an urban, largely “walking distance” charter, a non-profit, with lottery admissions. But the majority of charters I see in the Midwest are none of those. They require parent transportation, they divert money to corporate profit and management fees, they strongly discourage special education students. In other words, they sub-divide the student population once more. Now, among those with no cultural capital, schools such as KIPP Academies move to block those children who lack “parental capital.” Is it progress to divide the underclass and create an American “untouchable” class? KIPP’s backers think so.

Socrates:I’m not at all sure w

2008-05-13T20:18:46.280+02:00

Socrates:I’m not at all sure why that list would be relevant. As I said earlier, all sorts of schools could list the best results of their education – and typically do. The questions are, where are the other students? how have they done?But you ask why I was horrified, and you identify yourself as a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, a title that has scared me all of my life, so I am not at all sure if I would ever be able to explain this to you, but I will try a story.A Pakistani friend of mine tells of going east from his home town to an Indian/Pakistani border crossing. There, he tells us, every dusk the armies of the respective countries compete in the elaborateness and precision of their flag-lowering ceremonies. Each trying to out do the other and thus somehow prove their national superiority. Of course, neither army is dressed in the garb of their respective cultures. Neither is re-creating any culturally significant ceremony of the Indian sub-continent. And neither is speaking in Hindi/Urdu. On both sides of this artificial boundary the “credentials of accomplishment” are those of the British Empire. The soldiers speak English, dress as English occupiers, and re-enact ancient English traditions.That is what is horrifying. That people like you have decided that the only possible path to success is to learn to conform to your ideas of how “proper subordinates” should behave, speak, learn, and think.I have never been a “liberal” and never will be. “Liberal” requires a belief in protestant redemption, and a belief that those born “flawed” can be fixed by being “born again.” Liberal requires a belief in the absolute progressive superiority of northern European history. Liberal is the British Empire in India and Iraq. It is Teddy Roosevelt in the Philippines. It is Rudy Giuliani with his “one city” crap. It is Mike Bloomberg’s reading programs. It is George W. Bush enforcing democracy in Iraq. It is KIPP academies.I, as I noted above, have a radically different world view.

Here are some data for you: <

2008-05-13T16:10:57.112+02:00

Here are some data for you: http://www.kipp.org/01/list_schools.cfmNo, I don’t work for KIPP. I’m an NYC DOE teacher who doesn’t just fall into lock-step with the union shills who hate good charters because they show up the district schools. I’m also a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who hates the fact that our unions have co-opted the Democratic party.So by your description of the 3 KIPP schools, they’re doing quite well, though the data on these particular schools are insufficient to get a true sense of how well they’re doing. Fine, but why were you horrified?

I need to add, to get back to

2008-05-13T12:03:07.944+02:00

I need to add, to get back to where Alice began this (for anyone who might read), that the gulf between where I stand on this and where “Socrates” stands on this is that vast chasm between “liberal rationalism” and “post-colonial postmodernism.”Socrates (I’ll be unfair here, but it is generally true) sees a single path to success and the future. This is a protestant-modernist idea that, if we simply apply the right pressures, we can change those who are outside the system into people who will fit into the system. This theory has given us “liberal colonialism” (”we’ll teach everyone in India English! We’ll teach them parliamentary procedure! We’ll teach them to wear frock coats and wigs in court!”), it has given us the “Indian Schools” of the United States, and it gives us KIPP academies. This theory is certainly appealing, it suggests that “we are right” and “they are wrong” – and if we can just teach them, or show them, or force them to be right, poverty and ignorance and the problems of the world will vanish and we’ll all sit down at Starbucks and have a good talk.I come from a different angle. I believe that diversity doesn’t mean that people look different, it means that they are different. It means that they may act differently, operate differently, believe differently, and that – here’s the big thing – we can live with that. That’s post-modernism, it is – indeed – relativism. It suggests that, for example, sending poor minority kids to Choate would be (mostly) wrong, just as sending Sioux kids to English-only “Indian Schools” was wrong. And that the path to building communities or nations lies in indigenous-originated paths.I think Socrates acts like the British Empire, and will be proved as wrong in the end as Disraeli was. He thinks that I wish to doom all poor students to being outside forever.It’s an irreconcilable philosophical split.

Socrates: Do you work for KIPP

2008-05-13T07:55:18.776+02:00

Socrates: Do you work for KIPP? Or are you just against poor kids as a political position? And did you train with Fox News? Or do you just shout “liar” whenever someone challenges you because you have no actual response.So, please: Show me the data that indicates that “most” KIPP 8th graders go to private schools. And show me the college completion statistics you have for KIPP graduates. I’ll be happy to read both reports.And just for details. The schools I have been in are in Gary, Indiana (a new Middle School), Indianapolis (an older Middle School), and Chicago (another Middle School, and the longest running of the three). My TFA-alumni friends were quite happy to bring me for visits. The Gary school is too new to judge any results. Indianapolis has tests results which prove progress but still leave their students significantly behind both the state and the local district. The Chicago school has great math results and by teaching the test (almost exclusively from what I saw) in reading, does really bring up scores from 7th to 8th grades. All three surely indicate that discipline is in place. And the teachers sure seem – across the board – excited, committed, really hard-working (and quite young, overall).Compared to general public middle schools in the same neighborhoods they are cleaner, quieter, attendance is MUCH better. There is less student-to-student bullying as well. There also seem to be fewer special ed services in place. This might be because they are doing a better job or it might be because they have a far lower percentage of identified special needs students than do other area schools. (About 10% vs about 30%).That said, I met not one child at any of the three who was planning on going to a private prep school in Connecticut, which doesn’t mean they weren’t, just that I did not not meet any.

Cool, we’re in agreement on vo

2008-05-13T03:47:29.608+02:00

Cool, we’re in agreement on vouchers. Most KIPP students go to private high schools after their KIPP experience, NOT to comprehensive public high schools where most of their neighborhood peers go. You are incorrect about that assumption from the wording of their press materials, another indicator that you lied when you said you’ve actually visited a KIPP school.

I had to visit your blog Socra

2008-05-12T23:39:40.440+02:00

I had to visit your blog Socrates, to begin to understand your tactics. I see, a New York Sun reading, union-bashing, anti-public-school agenda who “screams” “can’t be true!.”Lets see. Why don’t we start with this. Just as with any school reading program which dramatically expands the amount of hours each day devoted to reading instruction will show short term gains in certain reading measures, surely the simple combination of longer school days and longer school years and higher parental involvement could account for the improved math scores of KIPP students, no matter what other methods were involved. – at least for a couple of years which, until recently, was all KIPP worked with.But I like how you pick your competition. You won’t compare KIPP to “good” schools, only to some of the worst in the nation. How nice. “Those Rhodesian colonial subjects sure have it better than those in the Belgian Congo.” It is really sad – but not an unexpected attitude unfortunately in a society dedicated to keeping most students away from actual success.. So, let’s be clear. You decide what is important about poor and minority child behavior, you decide the measurements, you decide the discipline system, and then you decide that you are doing good things for the kids. And then you troll the web, screaming about the integrity of anyone who doubts your mission. (”You’re lying!” “You’re writing a book!”) But let me suggest an argument form that might serve you better. “With only evidence from a few years of actual KIPP high schools it is impossible to say much about the KIPP graduate success rate in college.’ This is true, because despite all the “KIPP kids get into Choate!” claims, that, by KIPP’s own reports, represents less than 1/2 a percent of KIPP students. Most have gone to the standard “college prep” high school (which is what almost every high school in the US is since NCLB) so, you could argue that the KIPP effect gets diluted, and as KIPP high school grads begin to more fully appear, these 1.5 semester results, collected by the Texas state university system, will change. You could also point out, because you have such low expectations for the children of “these” neighborhoods, that 1.5 semesters in post-secondary education is better than the typical (mean) result for most of the other schools they have an option to attend.But then, you continue to intentionally miss the point. The question was never should KIPP schools exist, or are they “better” in some ways than terrible schools. The question is, if this is some sort of ideal system, if its results with student achievement and getting students ready for college are so impressive, why doesn’t Scarsdale adopt this system? Why not St. Bernard’s? Why not Palo Alto? Why not – of course – Bellevue, WA? Why is it only appropriate for low-income children and children of color?As soon as you show me demand for this type of education for the children of the kind of people who fund and promote KIPP academies, I will still see it as colonialism. Not colonialism at its worst, but colonialism, and leaving-children-behind, none-the-less.- Ira Socol- and just a voucher note. I believe that any non-public school which accepts every student equally (by lottery only if more apply than can be seated – no religious preferences, no parenting requirements), which hires without regard to race, religion, or political/social belief, which follows state curriculum, which provides transportation equal to local public schools (and I’ll cut some slack there, for secondary schools in places with effective mass transit systems), and which is fully accessible to every kind of student both in terms of physical access and ICT, should be able to tap into per-student state funding. No problem with that at all.

As far as I know, most KIPP sc

2008-05-12T19:31:51.272+02:00

As far as I know, most KIPP schools use Reading/Writing workshop as their “reading program”. Not sure how you classify that as “drill and kill”. Seems like the very opposite to me.What evidence do you have that KIPP schools are all about enforced compliance? I agree that their classrooms are well-managed and their students become highly disciplined, but discipline is not an antonym for creativity or critical thinking; it is rather a prerequisite. Actually, every single KIPP school outperforms their district sending schools on state tests. And I would estimate that more like 90% of KIPP schools “do well”, as in, knock the cover off the ball, and are in the top 5% of their district. You’re flatly wrong about the typical KIPP student dropping out of community college after 1.5 semesters. As you cite no sources, I imagine you made that up. What is the reason you choose to invent statistics? Do you feel your point is that poorly supported by actual facts?It’s clearly a falsehood that you’ve visited 3 KIPP schools if your knowledge base is this shallow.

The KIPP kids go to the same h

2008-05-12T15:24:02.104+02:00

The KIPP kids go to the same high schools (Choate, et al) that the board members send their kids to. How is that not having the same choices?Does this mean you’re a voucher supporter?

And KIPP is not about social j

2008-05-12T11:16:12.936+02:00

And KIPP is not about social justice at all. Social justice would mean kids from “KIPP neighborhoods” have the same choices kids in the neighborhoods of the KIPP board have. What you are describing as social justice is just colonialism.

Socrates:No. First, I never sa

2008-05-12T07:08:23.768+02:00

Socrates:No. First, I never said KIPP was all drill-and-kill, though clearly, most of their reading program is just that. That wasn’t what horrified me anyway. Most US schools for lower SES students are drill-and-kill – or worse. What bothered me was the training in compliance, in group-think. The evangelical missionary function of the school to convert “these poor heathens” to “the light.” KIPP thinks of itself as a missionary program, with a “single path to the truth.” The KIPP board doesn’t want that for their kids because they believe their kids are from a superior culture, and do not need conversion.Second, yes, the top 1% of KIPP kids do well. I’ve got news for you. The top 10% do well. So do the top 10% of almost every school I have seen. This means nothing. Those are the kids who will be fine anywhere. And lying educators always use that group to prove that if all their kids were just sufficiently good, everything would be fine. But I measure schools by the 20-80th percentiles. And in that zone your typical KIPP graduate drops out of a Texas community college after 1.5 semesters.

SpeedChange,There’s no way you

2008-05-12T03:00:34.600+02:00

SpeedChange,There’s no way you’ve actually visited a KIPP school, not if you think it’s all drill-and-kill, military-style education. And I agree that it would be great to send kids from KIPP’s neighborhoods to schools like Choate – but wait, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT KIPP DOES! KIPP sends a lot of their alumni to schools like (and including) Choate, and they do quite well there. If the KIPP education was doing such a poor job preparing them for a real education, they would never do well at top boarding schools.But Speed, you must love KIPP if you’re a social justice teacher. KIPP is all about that.

Alice:Let me put it this way,

2008-05-11T18:24:56.205+02:00

Alice:Let me put it this way, I believe that you are either teaching social justice or you are teaching something else. I do not think there is any such thing as “values neutral” education. And I think that schools are primarily designed as a means of social reproduction, so it is very, very hard within schools to work counter to that, to prepare kids for a changed society or to prepare kids to change society.(The most important book I know on the “intent” of American schools is Kliebard’s “The Struggle for the American Curriculum: 1893-1958″ – worth some summer reading time – it is remarkably readable – unless you’re dedicated to reading “The Drool Room” first.)A few things: First, we’re always walking a tightrope. Kids (or really almost anyone) need motivations to learn skills. If I say to the average teacher, “you really need to learn to build properly adapting xhtml CSS,” they will stare at me blankly and pay attention somewhere else. If I show them that many people cannot access their existing websites, or if I can demonstrate to them what it is like to not be able to access important information because the information provider hasn’t “bothered,” then, I might get them to understand what CSS is, and I might get them to attend to the conversation to a point where they have a shot at learning the skill. Of course it still won’t work unless I acknowledge that the teachers in the room will come with vastly different computer skill levels, and I differentiate my instruction accordingly, and I have the technology (say DreamWeaver properly set up) on hand for those who find straight xhtml coding just too difficult.There’s another step. If I just make them practice writing xhtml code for even two hours, without letting them work on this with their own websites – with things important to them – they will almost all give up. (based on watching hundreds of actual teachers in in-service training over the years)But (second), school – well, I don’t have to point out the obvious. I’ll just say that US schools continue to move away from integrated and differentiated learning. We now treat reading as nothing more than a skill (see Success for All, or KIPP), completely disconnected from why anyone would read (”there’s stuff I want in those books”). We do the same with math, with history, etc. I think we’re a bit better in sciences, though not at all good (as the classic “middle school science fair” proves year after year). We also stick to the industrial stamping station philosophy, grade after grade, often literally lying to students in the name of “age appropriate” curriculum. And it is important to know that’s a choice. Prior to the 1880s the model of US education was largely ungraded – students worked at their ability levels, and mixed with a wide variety of ages. Multi-age classrooms do exist and usually “outperform” classically graded classrooms by every measure. In the end, students have no reason to learn what we are trying to teach them, and perhaps 75% are not ready, or are past ready, to learn whatever we are teaching at the moment. It is a structure designed to fail.Third, I’ve lived other models. I was lucky to be sent to an alternative high school, way back when, designed by Neil Postman and Alan Shapiro. No grades (as in “academic years”), no grades (as in “A-B-C-F”). No fixed schedule. No required courses. No requirement that you take courses (projects in the community, independent study, group efforts could be used instead). Lots of “special ed” types (LD, EBD, what we’d now call ADHD, primarily). And – this was NY State – you still needed to pass the Regents exams for each “subject.” Well, urban/inner suburban high school and: 99+% graduation rate over 15 years, 95+% college attendance rate, over 80% four-year college attendance rate. And let’s see, colleges? Brown, MIT, Columbia, U of Michigan, Yale, NYU, all the SUNY schools, California, Boston College, Wesleyan (CT), Sarah Lawrence, Fordham, just off the top of my head, plus, obviously, Hampshire, New, Antioch, Kenyon, St. John’s (MD). Then, of course, closed down as “unimportant.” A similar school in Great Neck, NY (The Village School) continues, and continues to have the best success rate for students with “special needs” of any school on Long Island despite having no explicit “special ed” services.And I’ve seen the messiest 1-5 multi-age 125 student (5 teacher) classroom in western Michigan produce the best test results of any public elementary classroom in the state.And I’ve seen dozens of LD-EBD-ADHD students lose all their labels simply by switching to Montessori classrooms.Anyway – the thing for me is to divide the hard stuff this way – stuff there’s an alternative to and stuff there isn’t. If a student is struggling with both reading decoding and reading comprehension, the comprehension is far more important to work on. Technology makes it possible to read perfectly well without being able to decode the alphabet at all. So, it’s a nice skill, but it isn’t important in the way building comprehension skills are. Technology can not fix problems with comprehension. So, focusing on decoding is giving up on the student, leaving them so far behind on the comprehension skills that you have (fairly deliberately) determined that he/she will never get to compete with “your” kids. The same is true with handwriting, with math formula (or times tables) memorization, and often with arithmetic as well. Kids need those higher order skills, and they need either the traditional functional skill set or ways to get around not having those skills, and they need a reason to actually come to school, but they do not need to learn to do things “our way.”

Hang on Socrates:First, yes, I

2008-05-11T04:21:07.502+02:00

Hang on Socrates:First, yes, I have been in three KIPP schools. I was horrified. And I also know the stunning failure rate of KIPP students attempting college. (”KIPP is helping all students climb the mountain to college” – they don’t mention that they offer no training which would be relevant to succeeding in college.) That does not mean that I think they shouldn’t exist. Military academy-type schools have existed for 150 years, I presume that they do work for certain students. What i object to is the sales pitch that these schools are “the solution” for a certain population (or as you put it – “neighborhoods they serve”). Why not try treating those students to the same education offered to the kids at St. Bernard’s in Manhattan, or Choate? – to mention two schools attended by KIPP Foundation member grandchildren. Or why not switch St. Bernard’s or Choate to KIPP-style education? – surely they could afford that without “tak[ing] seats away from kids who need a good free education.”The question is not whether the rich white elite can afford to send their kids to good schools, the question is why good schools are not available to everyone else.Because the issue is this – rich kids often get the accommodations they need. If nothing else, they can switch schools (those classic private military academies have long offered KIPP-like experiences to rich kids who either needed that or were otherwise sent there). If not military academies, then Montessori, or the differing kinds of programs wealthy school districts offer. Rich kids have mobility and access and advocates on their side. Yes, schools fail many of them as well, but these advantages shift the odds dramatically.Kids in poor districts receive a completely false (and colonial) choice. Kids can either get virtually nothing from the basic public school (complete with its TFA teaching staff), or they can be trained in compliance by their KIPP academy. Why colonial? Obviously – “you can stay in your jungle or you can learn to act and think as we expect you to.”If every community which had a KIPP academy also offered Montessori education, and top-level schools like the best suburbs, and well-designed open schools, and high-level exploratory schools, then we’d see what the actual demand for KIPP was, and we might be able to judge effectiveness. And then I wouldn’t object to them at all. Parents who want their kids to be trained to chant in unison would have that option.- Ira Socol

No speedchange, the answer is

2008-05-10T20:49:48.831+02:00

No speedchange, the answer is that board members can afford to send their kids to other good schools, so why would they take seats away from kids who need a good free education? Alice Mercer hits the nail on the head. I’d add that no parent is required to put their children in KIPP schools, so if it’s so bad, why are their waiting lists so long? I haven’t heard anyone saying KIPP is the one size that fits all, but it seems to fit for a lot more kids in the neighborhoods they serve than any other approach does.Have any of you actually visited a KIPP school? I have, and it changed a lot of the misperceptions I had walking in.

I got into a rather large batt

2008-05-10T20:02:11.003+02:00

I got into a rather large battle with people regarding an Inside Higher Ed article about KIPP and I asked, if its so great, why aren’t the children or grandchildren of the board members of the organization which pushes these schools going to schools like this?The answer is that these “leaders” are as racist as anyone else, and they believe that minority children are less important and less capable, and they believe that minority kids are all-the-same (thus the single method behind KIPP), and so they can use training methods they’d never allow to be used on kids of theirs.Just as they believe that Teach for America with its untrained, uncertified teachers modelling rich, white behaviors is “good enough” for poor kids. Just don’t think you’d slip an uncertified teacher into their Connecticut school district.In the end KIPP is really Kipling. It is a colonial education concept. “We will use our rules to teach ‘these kind’ of kids to act just like us – even if they’ll never be our equals.”And it is preserved because it ensures that “the right (white) people” will always remain in power.- Ira Socol

I wasn’t invited to the summit

2009-03-05T21:06:30.011+01:00

I wasn’t invited to the summit. I wasn’t invited to the nadir. I have never given money to causes. Causes have given me very little in life, except grief.You sure have a busy travel schedule set up for yourself this summer!Me, I’m going on multiple, spontaneous trips to the nursery down the hallway from the master bedroom in my house. My wife and I have crafted a series of posters that will hang on a bi-weekly basis on the door of the nursery. Every other week, it’ll ‘feel’ like (’read’ like) we’ve entered a new, nursery-inspired locale.A sampler: - Baby Disneyland - Fetal Fair - St. Poopus - NECC (Nightly Examination of Cribs Conference) - Alan November