“The tragedy here is that they’re all too well aware that this isn’t good. So, what you see is children who know this isn’t the way it should be, but have no way of changing it for themselves.” — Jezza Neumann, filmmaker
Adding “reading” to the check-up list: National literacy program Reach Out and Read’s new breed of pediatricians — part doctor, part teacher — help parents share books with their children to encourage cognitive development.
But why the doctor’s office? Because that’s the one place where all children, including those most at risk, go regularly before they enter school.
Without some school experience before first grade, most low-income children are almost guaranteed to begin school behind everyone else.
And we are talking about a lot of children here; 5.1 million American children under the age of 5 are growing up in poverty. So what are states doing to get these kids ready for first grade? See for yourself.
Only 10 states and the District of Columbia tell schools they must provide full day kindergarten; 34 states require half-day programs, and six states do not require any kindergarten at all.
Preschool programs like Head Start reach about one-third of 3- and 4-year-olds. And in spite of their proven success, early education programs are now being cut.
That leaves it to programs like Reach Out and Read to pick up the slack. About 11,000 children a year come through the clinic at Bellevue. All are from low-income homes and, for most, English is their second language… More
NOTE: After this segment was filmed, Bellevue Hospital was flooded by Hurricane Sandy and almost all the program’s books were lost. Help rebuild their library by making a monetary contribution here (Donation Category: Reach out and Read) or contact Marie Betancourt at roramarie1@aol.com to determine other ways you can help.
As Civilian Casualties Rise, Syrian Children Attend Secret Schools
According to estimates by activists, more than 28,000 civilians have been killed since the Syrian conflict began in 2011. As schools, bakeries and other community buildings are targeted, some Syrians seeking safety are moving centers of daily life to clandestine locations.
Help us bring student journalism to SXSW!
If you liked our recent segment on 8th-grader De’Qonton Davis and his talent for storytelling, help our Student Reporting Labs team make it to South by Southwest (SXSW)! Our proposed panel for SXSWedu focuses on empowering students to tell their own stories through video journalism.
More than half of the high schools in America have a school newspaper or a video production course — but, how can these programs encourage citizenship and improve the media landscape of the future? We’ve developed a curriculum and news platform that enables middle and high school students to produce video reports on important national topics that impact their local communities. In this panel, we’ll share how video journalism can help young people gain confidence in themselves as capable, socially responsible citizens by discovering the power of storytelling.
To help us out, please:
1. Register: SXSW PanelPicker
2. Vote for our panel: “Kids Who Produce News Become Better Citizens”
3. Share: the last day to vote is Oct. 5, so tell your friends!
Thanks, thanks, a million thanks.
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If we don’t have purpose, if we’re not teaching young people what the purpose of school is, then they will think of school and college as this very abstract 10th planet kind of idea.
I know there’s maybe a 10th planet out there, but I have never really learned about it. And it’s such an abstract concept sometimes. So college becomes very abstract for young people oftentimes.
And so it’s a matter of providing concrete opportunities, persistent care, persistent programming that teaches them. And, unfortunately, sometimes, young people that come from poverty don’t have those parents that are examples that have gone to a four-year university, let’s say.
And so, because of that, I think it’s our obligation as a society to provide role models that have gone to four-year universities who can teach a more concrete example of what it means to go to college.
"— Dr. Victor Rios
Why Students Who Underperform, Fall Behind or Fail Classes Drop Out of School
Under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, a number of students along the bus route in rural Williston, North Dakota, can be considered homeless.
“If you live in a camper, you are considered to be homeless,” said Principal Guglich. “We have a large population of students who live in campers with their families. We have to deal with that as far as meeting their needs because, you know, we’re expecting them to come to learn.”
(Source: pbs.org)
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Well, you know what? The numbers tell a picture. They — the numbers tell a story, but it’s part of the story.
It’s like that beginning or just the middle or just the end. It definitely doesn’t tell you the whole of what great teachers do with kids.
It would be like going to the doctor and having your temperature taken, and the temperature telling us everything we need to know about you. It doesn’t.
It gives us one number on one day, and it tells us your health and wellness at that one moment. But it’s not really that useful a piece of information taken in isolation.
You know, if you looked at my test scores, I have taught every kind of kid imaginable. I have had gifted and talented. I have had English learners. I have had students who have special needs who have been mainstreamed.
And if you look at their test scores, you will just see a whole host of numbers and information that tell you, with some kids, I’m enormously effective just based numerically on their test scores.
You will see other kids, maybe the gifted or talented kids, who very often are already at the peak of their academic performance and maybe come down a little bit.
But what I have done with those kids and for kids really can’t be measured on such a narrow set of questions and information and parameters. That doesn’t show you the whole picture of me and it certainly doesn’t show you the whole of each child.
"— Rebecca Mieliwocki, 2012 Teacher of the Year, on standardized testing
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We tend to underestimate the value of social capital in trying to assess equal opportunity. A high schooler with two college-educated parents may have very similar aptitude to a fellow student with one parent who finished the sixth grade. When it comes time to prepare for college and apply for admission, the educated parents can provide significantly more help with the hidden, inner game of transcript building, standardized tests, application essays, and school selection…
There is mutually assured damage from continuing the way we’ve been going. The United States needs those young people educated. And those young people need us, concerned adults ready to step out of their daily routine and intrude in the steady production of dropouts who go on to less promising adult lives. We can do better.
"— Ray Suarez, Call is Out to Sabotage the Dropout Crisis
