Friday, September 14, 2012

The Kalamazoo Promise

On another post Anonymous wrote:

The Kalamazoo Promise: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/magazine/kalamazoo-mich-the-city-that-pays-for-college.html?pagewanted=all




5 comments:

Anonymous said...

They have increased enrollment!

My favorite part : "When asked how the conversations that led to the Promise unfolded, Brown demurs. “That, and the identity of the donors, are things I just will never talk about,” she says. But she lets some things slip. “The donors believed that education was the most important thing to invest in, period,” she says, for instance. But she also acknowledges that the donors do regard their gift as a communitywide experiment."

looks like they have an excellent Superintendent too. Dr. Rice.

"Rice then distributed copies of Langston Hughes’s poem “Mother to Son,” an ode to determination, and asked for a volunteer to read. A tiny girl with elaborate braids read it haltingly but bravely. Rice, smiling wide, said, “Wow.” He then recited the poem dramatically, by heart. “So boy, don’t you turn back./Don’t you set down on the steps/’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard./Don’t you fall now — ” . . .

oneparent said...

Ok, I did tear up once or twice reading the article. So many times when our kids are in school you get the feeling that the experts say, "Just let tem talk a while, then they will go away" and sometimes parents are tired and they do go away.

Advocates for early childhood education do not go away easily whether they are a parent or an expert and their success is often noted which gives the campaign more steam. The Kalamazoo artile points to early childhood education as a way to improve the graduation rate for black males. I believe that but also feel we'd better start investing more money and time into the critical middle grade years with programs built to help avoid dropouts. Middle school represents the last chance you get to reach some of the kids who most need help.

Anonymous said...

Good point oneparent! And yet while most other districts have kept a strong middle school organizational plan, PPS has reverted to the 19th century model of k- 8. This way , the dont have to spent money on quality sports programs, introduction of foreign languages, introduction of CTE education, strong science programs etc. this way, they can convince people that " back- to-basics" means continuing the same remedial stuffthey have had since kindergarten. Remember when the Reizensteins and Greenways opened_ students excited about all the new kinds of things they would learn at the middle school level. Or the alternative, 6-12 certainly parents are thrilled to have 11 yearold mixing with 19 year olds as westinghouse opened last year. Every community has students of this age-- this is where others convince kids to stay in school cause some program grabs them -- sports, tech, higher academics for some. Pittsburgh thought that because parochial schools were. Known for discipline, we could ignore programming and keep kids in elementary school longer. Sadly no one complained. This would not have worked in the suburbs, but honesly it wouldnt have worked in any small Pennsylvania town either. Parents would have been screaming about the step backward.

Anonymous said...

Human Capital? Bring back the Gold Standard, please!

Anonymous said...

Why has their Promise increased enrollment? What are we doing wrong in Pittsburgh?