The A+ Activist

A new report released by a group of policymakers and education researchers have determined that without giving disadvantaged children access to health care, preschool and other programs will do little to improve their overall success in school.

No really? You’re kidding right? Wow. Whooda thunk that kids need more than education programs and big idea achievement plans to help them succeed in school?

Haven’t there already been studies that show a healthy child learns better? Haven’t we already been told that children who can attend preschool programs, after school program, and extra-curricular activities perform better in school?

If you’d like to read something you already knew but doesn’t actually offer concrete solutions and ideas, click here .

Frankly, I will wait for the cliffnotes on this one. A “Bold Approach” does nothing for me without an actual plan to back it up. Our kids will still be at a disadvantage while everyone sits around and cuts through the red tape and adds new tape just to get the policies in place.

Something I realized today as I went through my feeds and message boards.

I see a lot of parents taking issue with the way their school is run; they don’t like the teachers, the kids, the administration, and the rules.  The number of things we have problems with seems to grow and grow but in many of the threads I read, there is little to offer in the line of help or solutions.

I’m always pleased when someone offers some great ideas on how to help a parent. My feelings of elation soon dissipate when the parent says they can’t do it because of work.

Here are my thoughts on this and someone tell me if I am wrong but… if you want change, you are going to have to go out and get it. The school is not going to change for you based on your blogging, messages or complaining to your friends.

It’s the same message we try to send our kids, if you don’t like something, you have to do something about it in order for things to get better.

But how? I can hear you asking me already –

That’s what we will work on this week. How we make the changes. How we become the activists in our schools. We must become a presence inside the halls of our children’s schools in order for administrators and teachers to take us seriously.

We have all summer and we can create a better school year for our children.

It seems as though that is what Georgia county school district is shooting for. Greene County is separating the boys from the girls because as it stands, keeping them together doesn’t seem to work as far as school success is concerned.

Even though they’ve been advised by a leading expert in single-sex schools the district is going to forge ahead.

OK, seriously, I suppose you could look at it with a “What more do we have to lose?” attitude but when you do that, then you are pretty much admitting that your school district can’t perform as it should.

That might be true, but it is really a reason we need to separate the boys from the girls? You can read the full article here but I would like to point out one thing that irritated me:

McCollough pointed to research showing that boys and girls learn differently, and said separating them will allow teachers to tailor their lessons. Also, boys won’t misbehave as much because they will no longer be trying to impress the girls, and the girls will be more likely to speak up in class because they won’t be afraid to look smart in front of the boys, he said.

Does anyone see something wrong with that statement? No? Alright perhaps it’s just me then…

I agree that boys and girls do learn differently but then again my boys don’t learn the same as each other. And impressing the girls aside, and girls being afraid to speak up? I think those are pretty flimsy excuses for segregating children. How are boys and girls supposed to learn to socialize with each other if they aren’t permitted to be in the same class together? I don’t understand the logic behind that and maybe someone can explain it to me.

Even though the sub-headline states that it’s a measure to also prevent teen pregnancies, I didn’t see anything in the article about those concerns. (And I’m sorry but if teens want to have unprotected sex, they don’t need to be in the same school together).

I just wonder how successful this will be. They’ve made this decision district-wide and under Federal law, the district is making this move to include every school in the district. A move which some question as being illegal because it leaves the parents with no option for coed education and that… well doesn’t that teach children much about upholding the law now does it?

When it comes to schools that is.

It seems that some schools are already doing what I’ve been thinking for years.

They are taking the initiative and creating smaller high schools so that the kids don’t actually get left behind. While it doesn’t necessarily improve the grades as much as they would have hoped, it does get the kids in the classroom. You can read the full story here .

I like this. I think this should have been going on for years and not in just inner cities where it’s easy for a kid to slip through and get lost unnoticed. No this is something that speaks to a school’s overall success. Not just the success of academics. There is much more to school than academics. Kids need to know that if they have problems, people will be there and be able to help them. In a graduating class of over 400 students like mine was, how many do you think got lost along the way?

Time and time again studies have shown that smaller schools, smaller classes directly contribute to the success of a student. Teachers are able to devote more one on one time to students who need it, problems and issues can be identified faster and acted on as well too.

What’s more is that the schools that are doing this, aren’t waiting for Uncle Sam to get involved and lend a hand with the the pocketbook. They apparently know exactly how much Big Brother is really concerned about a few inner city kids not getting the education they deserve.

We all bribe our kids from time to time. Don’t lie. You do it, I do it - even educated bees and fleas do it (ok maybe not but I’ve always needed to work that into a conversation).

My point is this: With all the bribery we are doing, is it absolutely necessary for schools to do it too? A study out of Standford University found that by creating incentives for kids to do things like read, come to school, behave, get good grades and so on. The rewards vary from cash, mp3 players, and other gifts. The study was done after charter schools realized that many public K-12 school districts already do this with some success.

Our school does something with what is called the Accelerated Reader Program. In which kids read approved books for points, take quizzes on them and then at the end of the grading period or year, the points are totaled and those kids are rewarded. I don’t necessarily have a problem with it because at my house we pay for good grades… and I will explain the pros and cons of that in a different post. However…

First of all, these are things that kids are supposed to be doing anyway? I mean, is school so bad that they have to pay them to come to school in the first place? And if so, How are they involving the parents in the reward systems? To pay kids to behave, (I think) sends the message that “as long as you’re good, we’ll keep doling out the prizes. But slip up and we take that gift away.” Kids have bad days. I know that in the case where there are children who are “prone” to behavior issues, the idea of gifting them into behaving well seems good but what happens when the kids are out of school and are no longer required to deliver such monetary or valuable praise in the form of gifts? What do those kids do then?

I think that if schools are going to offer such incentives (and perhaps they do, I can’t speak for all schools) but if they do offer pay for grades and incentives to do the basic things students are expected to do in school to begin with, there has to be a teaching value that goes along with it and parents should be heavily involved in it.

The sad fact is that over time, kids expect to be rewarded for their “goodness” and without those rewards they may feel like since they aren’t being praised in a tangible way, there is no point in doing what is expected of them. They come to find that the real world doesn’t work that way. Millions of people get up, go to work, behave all day long and they aren’t rewarded. Housewives and moms do the work of ten people in a day and there is little to no reward beyond a hug or kiss from those around them (if it’s a good day and her loved ones noticed she cleaned/washed/cooked).

Too many rewards, I believe set the kids up to expect them and they will be disappointed when they get into the real world. They will have jobs that are virtually thankless though they do what is expected and required - day in and day out.

How do we prepare them for that?