A new vision: Making a mark, setting the course!

I wanted to start off tonight with a few quotes by people I greatly admire.  I found them in a blog I read forwarded to me by a friend.   Charles Spurgeon was a great thinker as well a great theologian of yesteryear, however much of what he says applies today.  "The lesson of wisdom is, be not dismayed by soul trouble."  What is soul trouble?  Without waxing philosophical I'll say it's the emotional state we find ourselves in when we face various problems, situations and / or dynamics we can't fix or alter.

Public School, free and equal across the board to all, will not be fixed by the government, a person, many people or entities.  It will be addressed by you the consumer.  The parent, the tax payer who pays for the schools that don't do their job.  The problem is how do you measure "doing their job"especially if the school has achieved "Recongized" or "Exemplary" status?  It's easy to see the schools that are falling on their face.  It's not hard to walk through a school and see that kids don't have books or that the kids, not the teachers are running the show.  The harder part is finding the failure within what is suppose to be beyond reproach.  

Last night I talked about the gulf that separtes those WITH opportunity and those WITHOUT opportunity.  If you have a moment, google YES charter school Houston.  Read through the website and jot down a few thoughts.  Pretty compelling evidence.  This started with parents and a teacher willing to do something to make it so the kids had a chance.  They travel around the country looking at colleges, have computers and do community service.  Yes, I know they get grants and are an attractive place to shower gifts on but the bottom line is the consumers got fed up with the deliverable.  It became unacceptable to be unacceptable.  Good for them.  Now, let's talk about my state Texas and the city I taught in Richardson.  Actually, my school is in Dallas but falls in the Richardson ISD school zone.  My school reached "Exemplary" status last year.  IF a school is Exemplary you should be able to find what within those walls?

1.  Children reading on or above grade level in each grade.

2.  Children doing math at or above grade level in each grade.
3.  Challenging curriculum because most if not all students should be on or above grade level meaning 
     the school has the option of offering more enrichment and less remediation.
4.  Excellent teachers.  The cream of the crop, the innovators, the creative types that come up with
     crazy plans.  I have a friend whose name starts with A.  She teaches at my former school. She's the 
     best.  Innovative as hell, fun, caring and driven.  She accepts nothing but the best from her kids.
5.  A lot of community support from various places.
6.  Large or big PTA / parent volunteer corps.
7.  Variety of field trips made possible through creative grants.

I can go on but you get the picture.  The truth is that only #4 is true.  A is the best of the best teachers around.  NONE of the others are true.  NONE.  That means this school must start again with remediation for the kids that fell below grade level over the summer and didn't make grade level cut off on their reading evaluation.  No enrichment for lots of kids.  What does a teacher do if half her/his class is on grade level and the other below and therefore requires remediation?  That's disaster in the making, unless you are my friend C. who is the master organizer.  She left the classroom after last year to do something else within the district.  Too bad for the kids coming up.  They missed out on an outstanding teacher, but good for the kids she's helping now.

I mentioned A New Vision: Making a Mark and setting a course.  I have begun a program housed in one of the apartment complexes surounding my former school called Out of The Box Opportunities 
It will provide after school tutoring / homework help / enrichment such as history, geography, research and hopefully field trips.  It will also provide parents ESL every day of the week so that they can learn English and participate more fully in our society or advocate for their child.  Across the club house is an empty shell of a former preschool.  We are cleaning it up, painting it and turning it into a preschool where 3 year olds can come for 1/2 a day and parents can participate and learn parenting and education skills.  So far it's just a vision, a dream in my mind.  However, with a little help from some friends, we can pull this off.  So, it looks like I've found my new job.  Heading up this little project.  I tutored for the first time yesterday and had two kids.  It felt great!!  Hopefully when I come tomorrow afternoon, I'll have more.  The numbers don't matter.  The kids do.

If you want to check out some interesting HBO documentaries try these two:  I am Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary made in the 1990's as an assessment of the No Child Left Behind Law and Hard Times at Douglas High.  Both are excellent and chronicle the plight of Urban schools.

I'm off to bed tonight a little earlier than the night before.  Still hoping to hear from someone who is reading.  

Good Night and Make YOUR mark tomorrow!

Hugs,
Adrienne