Category Archives: Education

“Skipping” High School

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A fast-paced new initiative is set to launch this coming fall in Prince George’s county:

This fall, 100 ninth-graders will attend classes on the campus of Prince George’s Community College in Largo through a public school initiative called the Academy of Health Sciences. They’ll start with typical classes from high school teachers in such subjects as English, biology, math and Chinese.

By 11th grade, administrators expect these students to be immersed in college life. They’ll have meal plans. Ninety percent of their classes will be with professors and college students. Many are expected to earn enough credits to receive an associate’s degree along with a high school diploma. Continue reading →

Around Town: July 15-18

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Spend a day (or two, or three) with a DC-area non-profit near you:

Friday, July 15

7:30 PM — On The Town, a musical that follow the antics of a trio of World War II sailors on leave, just opened at Theatre Lab. Two shows on Saturday as well (2:00 and 7:30 PM) and tickets are available HERE!

8:00 PM — The Hip-Hop Theater Festival celebrates its tenth year in DC at Dance Place tonight with “Word Becomes Flesh,” a fluid evening-length choreo-poem performed as a series of letters to an unborn son. Continue reading →

7 Questions – Juliana Ratner (Free Minds Book Club)

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Welcome to “7 Questions” … Juliana Ratner, Program Director of Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop. The club meets weekly at the DC Jail, exploring literature and creative writing and empowering young inmates to transform their lives. Learn more!

1. What was your most interesting recent project, initiative, partnership, or event?

Every day is an interesting project with this job! On Friday, however, we hosted guest writer Michael Mattocks, co-author of the memoir Unlikely Brothers, in book club. That day book club met on the unit itself, where the acoustics are bad and it’s hard to hear, and all the book club members were so focused and attentive. Michael talked about his journey from drug dealing and incarceration to being an involved and responsible father of five boys, and what writing a book had taught him — and they were full of questions and eager to read their own writing aloud. Afterwards Michael said that it had been one of the most powerful moments of his life, to have the opportunity to share his story with them, and to hear their poetry.

2. What else are you up to?

We’re in the process of producing a literary journal of our member’s work. We do a book every year, but this year we’re taking it to the next level. The journal has an editorial board of four Free Minds members, three of whom are in prison and one of whom is home. They have been in charge of every aspect of the book, from selecting the themes for each section to doing the final pick of poems, and it has been amazing to watch. They are committed and insightful editors and so deeply pleased to be able to give back in a positive way, especially if it can influence other people’s lives and choices.

Continue reading →

No More Homework

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Most students have tried to dodge homework at some (or several) points in their academic life. But thanks to a new policy in the second-largest school system in the country, students in the Los Angeles Unified School District will have homework count for a maximum of 10% of their grade in a given class. From Monday’s LA Times:

The LA approach is intended to account for the myriad urban problems facing the district’s mostly low-income, minority population. It’s also aimed at supporting LA Unified’s increasing focus on boosting measureable academic achievement.

According to the new policy, “Varying degrees of access to academic support at home, for whatever reason, should not penalize a student so severely that it prevents the student from passing a class, nor should it inflate the grade.” It was distributed to schools last month. […]

The new policy is commendable but should be combined with helping teachers improve their use of homework, said Etta Kralovec, co-author of “The End of Homework” and a University of Arizona associate professor.

Wheelock College associate professor Janine Bempechat said the district should focus on providing students the support they need to complete their homework, which remains crucial. “To make homework worthy of only 10% of a student’s grade sends a message that it is not important,” Bempechat said.

From my perspective, the policy actually provokes two separate debates. First, what value does homework have? Few would argue that a hard-and-fast homework requirement, which in turn leads teachers to assign busywork, is not that beneficial. But would it make more sense to help teachers craft better assignments, rather than just lessen their importance? Is the problem homework, or is the problem “bad” homework?

Second, while the article does not press the point, Professor Bempecha (quoted above) points out that “the district should focus on providing students the support they need to complete their homework.” In other words, the problem is not the volume or even the quality of the homework, but the unequal abilities of students to complete work at home. And in his estimation, fixing those inequalities falls to the school system.

But does it? The obstacles to completing take-home assignments can range from lack of access to a computer and library to the lack of a stable home environment (and quiet room). When it comes to developing study skills and enabling students to practice them, countless obstacles beyond the simple volume of the homework itself come into play. Can the school system alone, realistically and effectively, help students overcome those obstacles — or is that where education non-profits enter the equation? In particular, non-profits whose purpose is to help out at a specific point in a student’s day? … And by eliminating the worth of homework, are schools tackling the problem or just the symptom?

Fathers’ Day

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From NPR Weekend Edition, June 18, 2011:

When Alice Ozma was in the fourth grade, her family was going through a rough patch. Her parents had just split up, and her older sister had recently left for college. Ozma was suddenly spending a lot more time alone with her dad, Jim Brozina, an elementary school librarian. So Ozma and her father made a pledge: to read together every single night for 100 days.

But after 100 days, they just kept going. Their streak ultimately lasted 3,218 days — spanning from Ozma’s fourth-grade year to her first day of college. […] Reading together was one thing they knew they could depend on. As Ozma got older, it got harder to keep it up, but the pair persisted — even on the night of Ozma’s prom.

From epic novels to fairy tales, books have a strange ability to bind two people together. You know that flash of excitement when you realize that a new acquaintance shares a favorite author or series? That giddy realization that you both “speak” the same language, that you have numerous topics of conversation? It’s a great feeling, that closeness. And in the case of Ozma and her father, they share not one book or one writer, but a whole library.

Ozma’s website, The Reading Promise, offers a starter book list to initiate your own “Reading Streak.” And I recommend the list in part because it features Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which I vividly remember reading with my own father when I was about seven or eight. In his edition, the picture of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come was deeply creepy, but I’ll always be glad that I first experienced that story with him. I also recognized quite a few other books on Ozma’s list: Maniac Magee from fifth grade language arts, Sherlock Holmes from middle school science (really!), and Macebth from sophomore English. Certain books can be indelibly linked to certain moments in life — and seeing them is like stumbling on a memory. And when that memory is shared with a loved one, all the better.

In sum, do check out the complete story on NPR and celebrate this week after Fathers’ Day with a quick read — with a parent, child, or friend. Also: learn more about Catalogue non-profits who are working to spread literacy to each and every family in our region. Let’s make sure that everyone has the chance to experience what Ozma and her father did.

In The News …

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Good morning, Washington! Let’s see what’s in the non-profit news this week …

Stewards of the Earth: One Planet, Many Faiths — This past Sunday, CBS News aired a “religion special that examines the ways members of faith communities are caring for the environment.” Featured first on the program were Lisa and Chris Bright, founders of Catalogue non-profit Earth Sangha and practicing Buddhists, “living their dharma (or life’s path) repairing the earth.” You can watch the full video right here.

High school gets teen off the street and into college — Just weeks after their selection for the 2011/2012 Catalogue, Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School celebrated its first graduation … and was featured on CNN. The piece centers on newly-graduated Derontae Mason, who went from homeless to college-bound; Mason is part of the school’s “first graduating class of 70 students, all of whom have already been accepted to various colleges and universities.” Continue reading →

Question for Monday

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From “Reviewing education reform in the 2010-11 school year” in today’s Post:

The 2010-11 school year might not have looked much different from the one that preceded it to all the kids who woke up early, slogged to school, took test after standardized test and went home to study some more.

But to the adults in public education, there was incredible tumult. […]

The clock kept ticking on the 2002 No Child Left Behind law — or, rather, on its “annual yearly progress” provision, which sets a goal for virtually all students to become proficient in reading and math by 2014. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called for an overhaul of the law, saying in March that perhaps 82 percent of American schools would be considered failing this year under the provision.

Congress still has not acted.

As school years around the country come to a close, this whirlwind recap of events (or, in some cases, non-events) in American public education is quite striking. June’s graduations and commencements typically celebrate progress, launch the next phase. But in a year in which schools were arguably at the center of a local election and a major topic of national debate, did DC and the nation as a whole make some real progress? Has the next phase in education reform been launched — or does that next phase still lack definition? Last Monday, we linked to Jay Matthews’ “Class Struggle,” which argued that candidates will likely avoid educational questions in the presidential election as they are both divisive and ultimately local. So is the conversation at a stand-still, at least on the national level, until 2013? (I certainly hope not)

But to me, the first paragraphs of the reform review also hinted at a deeper concern: “all the kids who woke up early, slogged to school, took test after standardized test.” To adults, the school year was rife with upheavals. For kids, it was just another “slog.” In a sense, isn’t that precisely the issue? School shouldn’t be a slog. School shouldn’t be routine and repetitive. It shouldn’t be an endless array of tests (and prepping for tests). School should be fascinating and addictive. It should be variable. And as soon as we start assuming that it is not, as soon as we start taking actual student experience out of the equation, tangible progress becomes less likely.

Of course, the transformation of classrooms cannot happen everywhere all at once. But just to end on another, key question: how can we ensure, moving into the next school year, that the day-to-day experience of students is at the center of the conversation?

7 Questions – Carina Gervacio (Brainfood)

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Let’s welcome … Carina Gervacio, Program Coordinator at Brainfood! In an after-school program that gets at-risk youth off the streets and into the kitchen, Brainfood teaches cooking alongside reading, math, science, creativity, teamwork, and leadership.

1. What was your most interesting recent project, initiative, partnership, or event?

On Thursday, June 2nd, Brainfood graduates led a cooking demo at the Penn Quarter Farmers Market through Fresh Farm’s “Chef at the Market” program. Our students typically cook in our industrial kitchen, so it was a real treat to be making food outdoors, handing out samples, and talking with market customers about easy ways to cook with farmers market produce. The Farmers Market Fried Rice students made featured great market ingredients, including local mushrooms, asparagus, seasonal garlic scapes, and farm-fresh eggs. The best takeaway from the event, however, was seeing how easily Brainfood grads stepped into leadership roles and relished the chance to share their cooking skills with the public.

2. What else are you up to?

There’s really great energy (both nationally and in DC) behind improving food access, promoting urban agriculture, and building community through food and cooking. At Brainfood, we’re trying to build on this momentum with the fall launch of our Community MVPs program. This program is geared towards Brainfood grads who want to stay involved with Brainfood for a second year and use their cooking and leadership skills to give back to the community. The MVPs will develop a curriculum to teach hands-on cooking classes to community groups, and the focus of these classes will be teaching healthy food alternatives to residents and groups in the District. This summer, we’ll be putting all the pieces in place to roll out this new program in the fall. It’s a big task, but one that I’m excited to take on. Continue reading →