I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the increasing frequency with which parents are required to pay fees for programs at their children’s public schools.
These impetus for these fees varies from after-school sports to basics like registration & supplies.

This story touches on a question I have been considering for a while: Should all schools charge at least some tuition?

I believe strongly in the idea that education should be accessible to all children, and that society has both an obligation as well as a long-term self-interest in ensuring the best possible education for its children.

I also believe that families have an obligation to take care of the children they bring into the world, to the best of their ability. If you have more children, then yes, it costs more, and you need to accept responsibility for that.

So paying for education is a joint venture between parents and “society,” which is of course made up of parents as well as non-parents.

People place more value on, and take much more personal responsibility for, that which they have to pay for directly.

To that end, I’ve been considering the idea that every parent should have to pay at least some tuition for their children’s education. This is partially about collecting money, but much more about emphasizing the value of what is being offered, and the idea of shared responsibility. The “tuition” should of course be based on a sliding scale, in order to be fair to all, but should be an amount that is large enough to matter to the family. At 2% of net income for the year, a 2-parent family earning a combined income of $100,000/year would pay $2,000 per year for each student. Tax money from “society” as a whole would make up the difference (and yes, pooled public funding across a wide area would have to make up for the fact that in poor areas, schools would collect much less tuition.)

I think it was three years ago (unbelievable!), the inestimable Sir Ken Robinson gave a fantastic talk about the changing nature of the world – and how our schools are not changing with them. An excerpt from that speech was transformed last fall into a lovely animated graphic, which is making its rounds on blogs and twitter just recently.

About a year ago (May 2010), Freakonomics did a wonderful podcast on The School of One project in NYC, one of my absolute favorite groundbreaking new ideas.  (If you haven’t listened to the podcast, I highly recommend it.)

The pioneers of these movements are still few and far between, but people are starting to “get it.” We need to rethink what we’re trying to accomplish with education, and then really rethink our delivery methods. If we value each child as unique, then every child should have an individual growth plan for education. I never again want to see statistics like “72% of 5th-Graders can multiply fractions.” What about the other 28%? And what does 5th Grade even mean? And how many of those 72% could have been doing even more?

I also have hopes that personalized education can alleviate the pressures we are facing as a society regarding special education. If every child is evaluated as a unique entity, perhaps we can make more inclusive school settings where more children can thrive together. It is a hope.

I believe firmly that there is no meaningful path forward in education reform other than personalization.  Anything else is a shameful waste of time. This is certainly part of the impetus behind the surge in Homeschooling: mothers know instinctively what their own child needs. Gen X Mothers are confident & independent, and have a world of resources at their fingertips – so why settle for less? It is not that the current system is completely broken – my own boys are doing well in a “traditional” curriculum setting. But certainly they would also thrive in an individualized setting, and many other children would be able to succeed there as well, where now they cannot.

So, how do we move forward? The changes that we’re talking about are significant, and it would help if there were a framework in place for at least part of the curriculum. I look forward to hearing more about Joel Rose’s new foundation. Hopefully it will bring a School of One to my neighborhood.

We have to be prepared for the fact that there is going to be some shifting around as we find a new groove with education. And, as a society we will still have to contend with the seemingly overwhelming burden of social services required by children living in poverty or mistreatment. And, we still have to tackle the role of teachers in our society: Highly paid professionals, or blue-collar union workers? (Please let us agree to the former… teachers deserve individualized care and respect, as well.) There are some big issues that will not be solved by a change of curriculum or facilities alone.

But, the path forward actually seems to be clearing. We’re going to be hearing a lot more about these ideas in the coming months & years.

I’m excited.

But there are some kids whose math potential goes above & beyond the ordinary: I’m going to refer to them as Math Kids. If you have one, you know what I’m talking about: A kid who is not just good at math, but who seems to inhale it, and whose skills just seem to keep accelerating. A child who enjoys reading every math book you can bring home from the library.

Unfortunately, public schools often don’t accommodate these kids very well. So if you have a Math Kid, what are your options?

I’ve had the pleasure of becoming Twitter-friends with @GeekAndDad, who has a Math Kid himself. He offers the following suggestions:

Self-Paced Study
In place of the standard math curriculum, you might be able to request an independent self-paced study. This is what worked for @GeekAndDad’s son (the “Geek”). As @GeekAndDad explained to me:

“The Student is allowed to read each chapter and then take the test for that chapter (they take the test in the back of the classroom during normal class time). If they have questions about the chapter they are reading, they may ask the teacher when the other kids are doing their work in class. If the student gets 80% (or 90%?) or higher, they can go onto the next chapter.”

The student is not required to complete all of the “normal” homework problems, which is a big motivation for students to do well on the material! (And as a side comment from me: what a great way to train our kids to be self-starters!)

It should be noted that this Geek is in school in Corbett, where @GeekAndDad reports that many kids are doing this type of self-study, and so kids don’t feel like they are ostracized or “other.”

Another friend of mine with a Math Kid in PPS reports to me that independent study is not working well for her son. My friend had to purchase a curriculum from a private company, and the boy is given little support beyond a proctored room in which to do his work.

Whether self-paced study will work for your Math Kid will certainly depend on the personality of your own child as well as whether they are getting any support at all in the classroom, or are *completely* on their own.

This brings up the point that you may need to provide your own materials, such as workbooks for younger kids. I send my little guy to school with a variety of math workbooks, so he can have a choice of what to do, and the teacher aide helps review his work with him. There are some really great elementary math books on the market now that take a comic-book format or present math in the form of mysteries or jokes. More than anything, make sure math continues to be fun!

PPS: Stay or Go?
For some families, Homeschooling or an online charter school might be the best option (I have heard Connections Academy mentioned, but I don’t know anyone personally who has used them.) I also know families who have moved to Beaverton for the duration of their children’s high school years – as a devoted Portlander this makes me very sad, but I can understand the discouragement that drives them there.

If those are not options for you, at least try to meet with the teacher & school administrators at your Math Kid’s school to create an IEP for your child. You need to advocate for your Math Kid just as you would for any special needs child.

Extra-Curricular Enrichment

Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY) has online classes to augment what the schools can provide. There are many great courses to select from – but be aware that these courses can be pricey and out of reach for some families.

Many kids I know really enjoy the lessons from Khan Academy. While not as structured, they are completely free. Khan does a phenomenal job of breaking down math concepts into bite-sized pieces, which are perfectly suited to short attention spans and also allow kids to follow their own path of curiosity.

There are a lot of resources and information available at the Math Circle website and it looks like there may even be a Math Circle group starting here in Portland!

Also be sure to check out options from Saturday Academy.

Fantastic Summers
Summer can also provide a tremendous opportunity for enrichment. @GeekAndDad recommends the following:

Math Camp is a once a year event that is held in a different location each year in the USA & Canada (and note: this year it’s being held at Reed College in Portland! Lucky us!)

CTY (see above) also has a summer program that some kids swear is the height of their annual schooling.

Other Options?

Do you know of other resources out there for Math Kids? Please let us know so we can share them. What has worked or not worked for your family?

KIPP benefits from rigorous expectations, centralized leadership training, and a process that really works. That is why the recent articles criticizing KIPP for not enrolling enough ELL or special-needs students are disheartening.

Even more upsetting was a recent decision in Baltimore that KIPP has to abandon its process of testing incoming students, on the chance that it might scare some students away. Let’s be clear: KIPP was still taking the kids, regardless of their results.

Our current school system is clearly broken. Expectations are laughably low, and students who don’t meet those even those low expectations are pushed through the system anyway, and then districts throw hundreds of thousands of dollars at students with a wide variety of special needs – many of them “social-emotional.” KIPP has managed to break through all of that and provide opportunity for thousands of kids who otherwise would not have any but the most dismal of options.

But instead of celebrating this success, the powers-that-be are trying to push KIPP to be more like public school, which will ultimately doom them for failure.

What I believe has destroyed our public school system more than anything else is the idea that every school, down to every classroom, has to be everything to every student. This idea is lovely in intention, but ludicrous in practical application. I feel that we are pushing our society towards the dystopian world envisioned by Vonnegut in “Harrison Bergeron.”

I am absolutely convinced that there are models of education that will help celebrate the success of a much wider variety of students than our current factory model provides for, and we should pursue those passionately. And without question, all children deserve the respect of being given every opportunity to succeed at their own best level. (Note: This applies to both high-performing, as well as low-performing, students!) But we have really lost touch with sanity if we start trying to dilute or shut down schools that are showing tremendous promise for one group of students, just because they are not the right niche for other groups of students.

Charter schools exist so that we can try new things, and see what works. KIPP’s system obviously works for many children. So please: stop trying to break it.

http://daveporter.typepad.com/global_strategies/2011/04/the-warm-fuzzies-of-portland-loves-schools.html

I have really been struggling with all of the yellow “warm fuzzy” signs in my neighborhood. I’m not really sure how to respond to them, because “Portland Schools – No!” is not how I feel… it’s obviously more complex than that. “No more money to a dysfunctional system” doesn’t fit so nicely on a lawn sign.

And although I believe very firmly that the entire community is responsible for educating the children, your  own or others’, it is nevertheless the reality that I’m struggling to pay for my own kids’ school tuition and feel utterly, completely, tapped out.

So, I’ll be voting no on the bond measures. Until there are some really radical changes afoot.

There are amazing people out there who are redesigning education. From what I see, there is no one template for a perfect school experience, but there are some common themes. For kids in difficult home situations, it is especially important that they:

• be able to “connect” with a teacher or mentor
• have some feeling of control over their curriculum, and understand its relevance to their own lives

And really: The above two points sound like great ideas for any student!

But after connection & personal relevance, what else does the ideal school provide?
Just about everyone with an internet connection has posted their views on “the schools of the future!” (cue dramatic theme music) so here is my take as well.

1. Start early. Kitzhaber has talked about the importance of his 0-5 initiative, but why does “school” start at 5? (And usually only half-time?) Most schools in other Western countries start earlier, and private schools here in the US start earlier as well. Proposal: Start full-time school at age 4 (which does not in any way negate the need for high-quality daycare & preschool… so really, school starts at birth. But that’s another discussion.)
2. Foreign language from an early age. Cognitive research clearly supports the importance of language acquisition at an early age. We do it completely backwards in this country. Our little global citizens of tomorrow need language for both business skills as well as empathy – the ability to understand & get along with other cultures.
3. Speech & presentation skills. I toss this one in here because it is not in the curriculum of most schools, and yet in my adult life I’ve seen it be one of the most critical skills for success in a wide variety of careers.
4. Hands-on use of a wide variety of technology. Because tomorrow’s adults will need to be very, very comfortable with this stuff. Enough said.
5. Year-round schools. I struggle with this one, because my kids have wonderful, action-packed summers in which they engage in things they don’t have time for during the year (outdoor school, ice skating lessons, zoo camp)… but many kids do not have that experience during the summers, and suffer for it. So maybe this one is the default setup, but not mandatory.
6. Rough age groupings by skill level (not Grade level). As I mentioned in a recent post on this blog, this is currently being done by the CLASS Academy here in Portland. The more I think about it, this seems to be the only rational way to do things. In this scenario teachers are asked to be flexible in teaching to different learning styles, rather than different levels. And students can be different levels in different subjects – ready for chapter books, for example, but still mastering skip-counting.
7. Incorporate game mechanics into skill progression and testing – students don’t “fail” a subject, but have to keep trying until they’ve mastered a level. (This and the elimination of the concept of grade level will radically change our current system of standardized testing… which I don’t think anyone will cry about.) This is a new arena: schools will need to have “game advisors” to help create & evaluate curriculum.

So there we have it – my ideas of the moment, at least. I’d love to hear yours.

Regardless, I want to make the point that it is time for us to stop iterating on the covered wagon – there are jet planes out there ready to fly. “Fixing” the current school system will require stepping back and completely rethinking education. What do we actually want to achieve? Then, let’s go back to the drawing board, and design for it. The good news is, many have already started.

On Friday I had the chance to duck out of work over lunch and see Governor Kitzhaber’s address to the City Club. It was a fantastic talk, and he received a standing ovation at the end!

Unfortunately, I can’t find a link to the OPB broadcast, which is too bad because I would like to listen to parts of it again. The articles I can find online mention the Columbia River Crossing as a major part of his talk; this is so interesting, because I hardly remember this part. I guess it just goes to show that we hear what we care about! To my ears, he talked about two main issues: Education and Healthcare. These are the big issues facing our community right now, and are inextricably tied together.

Kitzhaber mentioned his emphasis on a new K-5 initiative, which is fantastic. (Again, I can’t find anything about this online – help?) The only thing I could possibly add is that I assume (hope!) that prenatal care is included in this category. I have been reading so much lately about the lasting effects of poor prenatal nutrition – it is genuinely astonishing. Just from this past week’s Economist magazine: “In Tanzania, children whose mothers were given iodine capsules when pregnant stayed at school for four months longer than their siblings born when the mother did not get those capsules.” Take a moment to contemplate that: same genetics, same home environment – and a statistical improvement in educational outcome based solely on the addition of one single nutrient during the pre-natal period. There are statistical studies from this country as well, but I think this is an issue we are only just starting to grasp.

If we are committed to improving educational outcome for disadvantaged students, let’s commit to exceptional attention & care for pregnant women.

I loved:

• Small classes. Roughly 12 desks in each room, from what it looked like.
• Emphasis on speech & public presentation. This is such an important life skill!

I didn’t love:

• Tiny Gym: They are in a building right across from Montgomery Park, and do not have a good outdoor play area, although kids do get outdoor time every day. They also have a tiny indoor gym area, which the younger kids spend time in every day, rotating between obstacle course and yoga and other activities.
• Limited Foreign Language: Spanish is introduced somewhere around age 9, but I would want foreign language to be emphasized earlier.

A Few Other Observations:

• They do not do “language arts” (English) as a specific subject, but incorporate writing into every other subject area. I saw a lot of workbook work in every room, including journals of science observation.
• The teacher said more than once, “I am the last resort.” Emphasis on kids learning to work through problems independently.
• Many boxes & shelves & bins of all different types of learning games & manipulatives. Many of them electronic, but many of them not.
• Based on the names & photos on the wall, many Indian & Asian students. I would guess that White kids are not a majority there. (Impressive in Portland.)
• Music class, mostly singing but some bells & recorder, every day.

Overall, I loved this school. If my kids were not happily ensconced somewhere already, I would definitely consider it as a great option.

Well. The reading audience has let me know that I am an idiot. I am grateful for the thoughtful comments on my last ChalkBlogger’s post, which show that we are a city of compassion.

I really, really wanted to start a discussion about the word “Equity.” I still do. To that end, I was being a little bit intentionally pugnacious – and perhaps more than a little bit disingenuous. Because Debate is good, even if it’s not easy. My main goal was to try to express my genuine frustration about what I am NOT hearing in all of the panels & articles on PPS. I want to hear school administration saying things like:

We’re committed to academic excellence in every school!
or
We’re taking concrete steps to make sure that every child has a caring, individualized educational experience.

If those two things were to be implemented appropriately, then we would be well on our way to Equity, no? (Yes of course, we still need translation services and school lunch programs and other support services. But talking about the academic realm.) In starting with the word “Equity,” I really feel like we are starting from the wrong point.

But my post failed, in that the conversation went immediately sideways and was interpreted as being about race. Which was not on my mind. And as excruciatingly painful and hurtful as it was being called “Racist” and “Bigot,” the only thing for me to do is to a) apologize, and b) try to figure out where I miscommunicated.

I stand by my belief that starting with “Equity” is not the way to go – we need to start with the expectation of Excellence, for everyone. That is the goal. We should talk about Excellence. Market our community’s schools as ones of Excellence.

And as another important side note: I do not actually feel at all… isolationist(?)… about people whose mothers haven’t gone to college. That would, to tell the truth, rule out treasured parts of my own and my husbands’ families. Some amazing people who have gone on do do great things. So, why did I suggest it? Because I wanted to spark the debate, that’s why. Because I think there IS a problem, and when we see redistricting battles we are witnessing fights over subliminal issues that no one is really addressing.

There are other big issues here, too much for this post. In our nation as a whole, we are struggling over where to land on the Socialist-to-Libertarian continuum. I am happy living in Portland because I favor the Socialist side… at least in some things. And I certainly get sense that most of the ChalkBloggers audience feels the same. But I am also constantly reminded of the fact that the country as a whole is not Portland, and I wonder how we can engage with the middle-America/Red State/Tea Party contingents in a way that acknowledges and respects both our points of view. But that is surely a discussion for another time.

Anyway. Thank you again for your sincere responses, and for being the community that I value. And always feel free to tell me if I’m being an idiot. (But gentleness would be appreciated.)

Carrying forward the doctor/teacher analogy: Most of us (as children) will spend most of our time with our Primary Care teacher. But on occasion we will probably each need to consult with a Specialist, and some individuals will need more regular assistance from a team of Specialists and a case manager. Everyone would have some regular access to 1:1 individualized attention.

I am not trying to say that students are “patients.” But perhaps we can learn from the different modes & levels of care that we need at different times in our life, and the different specializations that can exist.

From what I see, teachers are year after year being asked to do more with less. I want teachers to be able to do more with MORE, and yes! we have to be willing as a society to pay for that. I think that teachers and doctors have much in common, in that they provide a fundamentally vital service for our community. As such, teaching should be as rigorous in recruitment and training as medicine, and also as respected and well-compensated. This would obviously be a significant departure from how we currently do things. Teaching should be the profession of choice for our bright & capable young people who care about helping individuals & the community, and salary should not be a barrier to entry.

So I trust you, dear reader, to tell me as always if I’m being naive or really looking at this wrong. But if the concept has merit, the next question is: How do we get there? and what can we do to start, here in Portland?