Parents

BAM! Listen Up!

Eduflack BAM, Parents, Presidential campaign, school boards

Over at BAM Education Radio, I’m the guest on two recent shows that look at the intersection between politics, rhetoric, and the classroom.

Most recently, I guested on Jon Harper’s show, My Bad, where we talked about being biased and judgmental, and how we can move beyond that to actually achieve some real progress. I reflected on my time serving on a local school board, and entering discussions with some preconceived notions about some of the constituencies I represented.

I also joined Brad Gustafson and Ben Gilpin on TweetED, where we spoke specifically about how to deal with politics in the classroom, whether that politics is brought in by the teacher, the student, or the parent.

Both are great shows (and are great because of their respective hosts, not because of their poor choice in guests). But give them a listen and a like. You won’t be disappointed.

 

A Family Engagement Advocate for EdSec!

Eduflack early childhood education, Parents, Presidential campaign, Students, teachers

Last week, Education Week published an interesting look ahead at what could be when a new Education Secretary is selected. In her piece, the always terrific Alyson Klein asks what might be if Hillary Clinton bucked tradition and selected, as her next U.S. secretary of education, an individual coming from the higher education side of the realm.

Historically, we are used to EdSecs coming from the K-12 perspective. That’s definitely true of the past four, with Rod Paige, Margaret Spellings, Arne Duncan, and the current EdSec John King all cutting their teeth on the mean streets of K-12. Before that, we had governors like Dick Riley and Lamar Alexander, who brought a policy perspective but whose educational lens — due to the nature of a state chief exec — was far more primary/secondary ed than higher education.

Sure, it is fun to throw out names and rank this state chief over that urban superintendent over this university president over that former governor or congressman, to talk about who the unions will give an approval to versus who some of the big money reform donors can live with. It can even be interesting to envision what an EdSec with a higher ed focus might bring to the bully pulpit when it comes to topics like student loans, for-profit education, and even the threatened reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

But what if maybe, just maybe, we went in a different direction? What if instead of looking at the two sides of the coin — P-12 and higher ed — we instead looked at the ridged edge that brings the heads and tails together? What if we took the cabinet search in a completely different direction, and instead looked for a parent voice, a family engagement advocate who could talk with some authority on the full continuum, from early childhood education through adult professional learning and all points in between?

Imagine a family engagement voice who could lead on the value of high-quality early childhood and the linkages between health and education …

Imagine a family engagement voice who could lead on K-12 issues well beyond “the test” and instead key in on what students should know and be able to do to succeed and how families can be a part of the learning process along with educators …

Imagine a family engagement voice who could lead on higher education issues, bringing real-life experiences to fights over student loans, free college, and gainful employment …

Imagine a family engagement voice who could lead on the role continuing education plays after finishing formal P-16 pathways, or about the importance of career and technical education, or about how education and labor can work together to address workforce readiness issues …

There is a reason groups like the National Assessment Governing Board insist of having specific parent voices on their boards. Parent and family advocates bring a particular focus to a range of education policy issues. They can be the link between practitioner and policymaker. And they can ensure the work focuses on both the inputs and the outcomes, with every action focused on how it impacts the learner.

Sure, we’ve had discreet projects like the Parent Information Resource Centers (PIRCs) that sought to give voice to such parents. And sure, a new EdSec could always appoint a special advisor for family engagement. But such an appointment can be empty. Without a formal voice, and without a formal budget, those special advisors can be hamstrung from bringing the best of ideas into practice.

So let’s forget this East Coast/West Coast style battle of K-12 and higher ed. Instead, let’s look to place the first honest-to-goodness parent advocate in the biggest chair on 400 Maryland Avenue. Let’s give the rostrum to a family voice who can work with teacher and policymaker alike, one who can see that P, K-12, and higher ed are deeply connected and should never be separated.

And if we can’t have such an EdSec, and we have to fall back on tradition, can that new EdSec at least create a new Assistant Secretary for Family Engagement position? Please? Pretty please?

 

The Trump-ization of Local Edu-Politics

Eduflack accountability, Parents, Presidential campaign, school boards

When Eduflack first ran for local school board six years ago, I remember questioning my own sanity. I spent countless hours knocking on doors, wanting to talk education policy with voters who just weren’t looking for such deep dives. Instead, they just wanted the promise that our schools would stay as strong as they had been, that taxes wouldn’t grow astronomically, and that their kids would continue to have the same opportunities that students before them did. They wanted soundbite politics, like they got in other political campaigns.

As a member of the Falls Church (VA) Public Schools Board, I served as both vice chair and chairman. I spent almost as much time working with the public and the schools as I did in my day job. Much of that time was spent talking with families about their own experiences and challenges. And much of it was informing the community of the limited role of a local school board – to approve an annual budget, to hire a superintendent (if necessary), and to review the performance of said superintendent each year. Many failed to realize that a good school board member was one who let the superintendent, the administrators, the principals, and the teachers do their respective jobs. It was to provide the resources to those entrusted with our kids; it wasn’t to micromanage every action, every decision, and every thought that occurred in the district.

I was reminded of this last week in seeing the horrible actions coming out of Bridgeport, CT, where an exemplary superintendent by just about all measures resigned from a challenging urban district. There, the supe didn’t resign because she received a better job elsewhere, or because she struggled managing the budget, or even because of test scores or student behavior issues. No, she resigned because of the school board. One particular board member, actually. There, a member of the board of education dramatically overstepped her role, and  allegedly made it her mission to regularly harass and malign a superintendent who was doing a strong job. Playing the role of the bully, the school board member has now dealt a painful blow to every child and every teacher in that district.

I’d like to chalk it up to a once-in-a-blue-moon experience, but I hear too many stories of school board members who fail to understand their roles, seeing the board as an opportunity to stick it to a supe they disagree with or dislike, or general seeing board service as a stepping stone to world domination. In many of these instances, we see local school board races now taking on the tone, tenor, and vitriol of a Donald Trump presidential campaign, with those seeking a school board seat hurling insults, falsehoods, and blame, all in the hope of securing a job that pays nothing and demands long, thankless hours.

In fact, I’m seeing such a Trump-istation of local edu-politics in my own local school district in New Jersey. Earlier this year, Eduflack wrote about the growing discord in my community on the future of our highly rated public schools. That community infighting has now spilled into next month’s school board election, with some candidates doing their very best to “make WW-P schools great again.”

Most communities would celebrate being a high-ranking school district, particularly in a competitive state like New Jersey. According to the most recent high school ratings in NJ Monthly, our community’s two high schools are ranked number 2 and number 9 in the state. Yet we have two candidates, running as a ticket for school board, condemning the current district leadership for “lowered educational standards and learning.” As an “example” of such mismanagement, they note that “High School South was always ranked in the top 10 high schools in NJ. Now South is ranked 35.”

It’s a terrific soundbite for two candidates seeking to run as change agents and against the system. It’s also a soundbite that warrants four Pinocchios by any political fact checker. That 35th-ranked high school is actually the ninth best high school in the state. But we shouldn’t let the facts get in the way, should we?

This Trumpian duo is also quick to attack “teacher resignations,” noting that educators leaving the job are a reflection that “teachers are unhappy, and leaving in droves.” Of course, these highly educated individuals don’t note how many of those teacher resignations are actually retirements, earned by teachers after decades of service. And they certainly don’t note that many teachers postponed retirement after the collapse of markets (and retirement plans) in 2008, and that we just happen to see the markets now back up to pre-2008 levels. Such distinctions just muddy a good “damn the establishment” talking point.

Sadly, the campaign has also taken on the tenor of a Trump rally, as the two look to scapegoat and blame others for perceived wrongs. The superintendent is to blame for focusing on social-emotional learning and the whole child, and is regularly attacked because he — <shudder> — actually hires administrators to help manage a complex district. The state is to blame for taking away “final exams,” (yes, they are actually campaigning to “restore final exams.”) Technology is blamed for many of our ills, with the added wrinkle of the candidates wanting to “focus on children as individual learners,” but failing to note the very reason technology is used as part of a strong personalized learning program in a district like ours.

The most egregious of the attacks and scapegoating is directed at supposed bleeding heart parents who are concerned about the mental health and general well being of their kids and of students throughout the district. These candidates and those who stand up for him actually have attacked the notion AP classes should be available to all those who wish to do the work. Instead, they say it should just be for the elite of the elite.  The candidates accuse misguided parents for watering down the AP program and costing kids like theirs a chance to get into Harvard or Princeton. The candidates allege that our community has so destroyed the value of AP classes that’s 80 percent of the district’s students are in honors language arts classes, when the actual number is half that (just 40 percent). I guess it is just far easier to attack “those kids” who are devaluing honors classes and denying “our kids” what is rightfully theirs.

Typically, Eduflack chooses to stay out of such local education politics, wanting to keep my views to myself. It’s a tough job serving on a local school board. Those who choose to pursue such public service have to do it eyes wide open, for the right reasons. They have to do so seeking to speak for the community and do whatever is necessary to support a superintendent and all of those who work for the school district. And they have to do so fully not understanding what is — and what is not — the appropriate role for a school board member.

So it is unfortunate when one sees the negativity, blame, and vitriol playing out on the national presidential campaign stage seep into the local edu-politics in a community that would be the envy of most cities and towns across the United States. It is sad to see candidates put forward incomplete stories, whispered innuendo, and downright falsehoods to try to justify a narrative of a school system in crisis. And it is disheartening to see individuals try to heighten an “us versus them” thinking in a community where all should be focused on our kids, what we do well, and how we can do it even better TOGETHER.

Hopefully, such political shenanigans are an anomaly. Hopefully, we see that positivity trumps negativity and that a “rising tide lifts all boats” philosophy beats out “they are out to deny us what is ours” approach. Hopefully, we put the interests of kids above the personal grievances and petty politics of the adults in the room. Hopefully.

But the recent actions in Bridgeport tell us that “hopefully” isn’t a synonym for likely. Sadly, we may soon see many more Donald Trumps in waiting using local school boards to practice the politics of blame, negativity, hatred, and lies to forward their own personal agendas. And it will be great superintendents, exemplary educators, and our own kids who will ultimately pay the price.

The New PDK Poll is Here, the New #PDKPoll is Here!

Eduflack 21CS, accountability, Achievement gap, CCSS, Parents, polls, teachers

Last week, the good folks at PDK released the results of the 48th Annual PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. So what do we think?

The most interesting number each year is how we grade public schools. In 1974, 48% of Americans gave their local schools an A or B grade. Today … 48% are still giving As and Bs to their local schools. The grade for our nation’s schools as a whole doesn’t fair nearly as well, with only 24% giving As and Bs to the nation, but that’s on par with grades over the past three or so decades. (Good thing ESSA is handing over authority from the federal to the localities, huh?)

On the purpose of education, 45% of those surveyed say the purpose is to prepare students academically, 26% say its to prepare students to be good citizens, and 25% say its to prepare students for work. So despite recent-year pushbacks, it seems school ensuring all kids are “college and career ready” is winning the day.

When evaluating the public schools, parents offer a significantly higher opinion on what’s happening than non-parents. Whether its providing factual evidence (47-37), preparing students to work well in groups (43-33), or enhancing critical thinking (36-28), those adults closer to the learners in the classroom are far more likely to say local public schools are doing extremely or very well.

When it comes to learning standards, only 7% think standards are too high, while 43% say current standards are too low. Interestingly, “too low” scores high with urban residents, adults in households earning more than $100,000 a year, and Republicans/conservatives.

Those surveyed still see “lack of financial support” the top problem facing local public schools, coming in at 19%. That’s more than double “lack of discipline” or “concerns about quality,” and almost three times the number who worry about the “quality of teachers.”

Continuing on the money trend, there were a few head scratchers. Of those who were confident higher taxes will help schools improve, nearly 30% said they oppose raising such taxes. And of those not confident higher taxes can result in school improvement, more than a third (35%) said they would support increased property taxes for the purpose. And if those taxes are raised, 34% of all those surveyed want to see it go to teachers.

When presented with an “either/or” decision on ideas to improve the schools, those surveyed:

  • Overwhelming supported more career-technical or skill based classes (68%) over more honors classes (20%)
  • Leaned toward raising teacher salaries (50%) over hiring more teachers (40%), even though smaller classes beat larger classes 51-40
  • Emphasizing more “traditional teaching” and using more technology battled to a draw, 43 all

The full survey results, found here, are definitely worth the read. Of particular interest for all should be a deep dive into thoughts on parent/school communications.

What does this all tell us? The public’s perceptions of public schools, both locally and nationally, aren’t as bad as many have made them out to be in recent years. Like our collective test scores on NAEP and international benchmarks, it seems our views — good or bad — about the schools have largely stagnated. Even with all of the ugliness in recent years about Common Core and testing, things are pretty much holding constant.

More importantly, we see those closer to the classroom — the parents — have more positive views on what is happening. And those parents are eager and hungry for additional information and greater interaction with their public schools.

While there is a lot to parse here, and many will cherrypick those data points that prove their own beliefs (or disprove the thoughts of those they rail against), the PDK poll provides an important foundation for discussion on where we are, where we are headed, and where we want to be.

(Full disclosure, Eduflack served, proudly, as a member of the PDK Poll Advisory Board this year.) 

Learning (and Winning) By Losing

Eduflack Parents, Students, teachers

Today, I write as a matter of personal privilege. Yes, this post isn’t like most of my others. But bear with me, I promise I’ll try to bring it back to the edu-thinking you come to expect.

About a year and a half ago, I took my first kickboxing class. To this day, I couldn’t quite tell you why I did it. But I did. I enjoyed it There was something about hitting a heavy bag that was so much more satisfying than driving a golf ball.

I quickly learned that my time on the mat was the one hour in a day when my mind was completely clear. For 60 minutes, I couldn’t think of work or family or the writer’s block my latest book had triggered. I could only focus on the task at hand. For someone who spent the first 42 years of his life engaged entirely in rhetorical sparring (and spent 40 of those years staying as far away from physical activity as possible), it was a big change.

About six months after I started, the edu-daughter decided to give it a go. This week, she earned her blue belt, inspiring her to now want to “be more serious” about it. Her older brother began earlier this year. And even the edu-wife is giving it a go.

This past weekend, I participated in the Challenge of Champions. Yes, participated as in competed. I strapped on my gloves, stepped onto the mat, and gave it my all. I even have the video to prove it.

Yes, I got hit. But I also landed some of my own. Yes, I got knocked down. But I got back up. Yes, I lost. But I hung in there the whole fight.

And yes, I was fighting an opponent who was about a foot taller and a good 30 pounds heavier than I was, but I didn’t use it as an excuse. Sure, it completely threw my gameplan out the window. But it also helped me see what I need to work on and how I need to improve.

Those who know Eduflack professionally will likely be quite surprised by the video. Surprised to know that I even think of doing such a thing in my limited free time. But what might be a surprise is an incredible learning experience as well.

Each day, I watch the very definition of personalized learning at its best. On the mat, Sensei Billings is able to teach a wide range of students with a wider range of skills and knowledge. Sensei is able to know, on a daily basis, which students need positive reinforcement and which need tough love. And he knows how to get the most out of each and every student.

On the mat, one sees knowing and being able to do and apply what you know are two very different things. It’s one thing to practice the repetition of a single move on a heavy bag. It is very different to throw combinations as a classmate is holding the pads. It is far different to put it all together and spar with your brothers in the school. And even more different to put it all together as you go against a complete stranger with the single goal of beating you on the mat.

As MMA is now a family affair, the experience also provided an ideal moment of teaching by doing. After watching my fights, my kids can no longer say that something is too hard for them to do. They know it would have been very easy for me not to show up this weekend, or to use an injured foot as an excuse, or to avoid engagement once I saw my opponent. I did none of that. Instead, I just brought it. And both the kiddos know that’s what I expect from them. I don’t care if they win or lose. I don’t care what grade they get. All I care about is whether they did their best and worked as hard as they could.

But the most surprising lesson I learned from all of this, and one I should have known from all my years of education advocacy, is the importance of family and community. I’m incredibly fortunate to train at Tiger Schulmann’s in Princeton. With all sincerity, I can say it isn’t a gym and it isn’t a school; it is a family. We are all of different races, ethnicities, and religions. We all come from different backgrounds and different career paths. But at TSMMA Princeton, we are all one family.

At the CoC, I was cheering as hard for classmates and their children as I would for my own wife and kiddos. And i received similar enthusiastic support and encouragement from my mates. Those I spar with are now my brothers and sisters, pushing me harder as I hopefully push them. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

After my fights this weekend, I was originally down. I had lost. Watching the videos afterward, I felt a little better about the situation. I had hung in there and fought good fights. But it was my brothers and sisters at TSMMA in Princeton who truly helped me see all that I accomplished. And it is their words that already have me thinking of what I need to work on and how I need to strategize before I compete in the next CoC.

I get that MMA isn’t for everyone. But the lessons I have learned from Tiger Schulmann’s, particularly in my most recent defeat, are incredibly important to me. They are important not only to what I might do on the mat, but they are important to both my professional and my family lives. Osu!

 

Reforming Education Reform

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, charter schools, equity, Parents, reform

Earlier this week, the Fordham Institute’s Robert Pondiscio wrote of “The Left’s drive to push conservatives out of education reform.” As Pondiscio notes:

Like the proverbial frog in a pot, education reformers on the political right find themselves coming to a slow boil in the cauldron of social justice activism. At meetings like New Schools Venture Fund and Pahara (a leadership development program run by the Aspen Institute), conservative reformers report feeling unwelcome, uncomfortable, and cowed into silence. There is an unmistakable and increasingly aggressive orthodoxy in mainstream education reform thought regarding issues of race, class, and gender. And it does not include conservative ideas.

The gauntlet has been thrown down. In response, Justin Cohen and a number of self-described white education reform leaders offered in an open letter:

We must admit the extraordinary flaws and shortsightedness in our own leadership for letting the field become so lopsidedly white through the early 2000s. In under-representing the communities that we hoped to serve, particularly people of color, in the leadership and decision-making processes of reform, we created a movement that lacked the ability to drive durable change.

As a recovering “white education reform leader,” I’ve actually spent a far amount of time thinking about these very issues over the past three or four years. On the specific issue, Pondiscio is correct in one important regard. Education reform is stronger when it has all political views and all ideological perspectives on the team. For every one of the anonymous conservatives he quotes in his piece, there also needs to be reformers coming from the Democrats for Education Reform side and the social justice community.

But the point Cohen makes, and it is a point that was first and strongly stoked by Leading Educators’ Jonas Chartock on his Facebook page soon after the Pondiscio piece was published, is that education reform needs to be about far more than the market-driven solutions Pondiscio writes about. It can’t be about conservatives and the wealthy funders supporting the “cause” feeling uncomfortable. It needs to be about the kids and communities that are yearning for such a solution.

During my reform days, I described this as the hearts versus minds phenomenon. Too many ed reformers are focused on the latter, believing that if one dazzles with facts and figures, and shows strong enough Excel spreadsheets of data to those resisting, that reform will happen. The data-driven, market-focused approach to reform leaves many focused on the operational and systemic sides of school improvement. We argue about school structure, and why a school should be chartered and how it should be stripped of the teachers’ unions. We call for stronger teacher evaluation tied to student test scores. We use the term equity mainly when tied to the concept of school funding, largely when it comes to comparing traditional public schools to charters. We try to position ourselves as the smartest people in the room, believing that if we use enough of that data, even the strongest of opponents will have to come to his or her senses and see our way is the only way.

But school improvement isn’t that simple, and it certainly isn’t that clean. Ultimately, the theory of change is about very real children, families, and communities, and not about columns and rows in a spreadsheet. It’s about taking financial resources from already under-resources public schools to give them to charters who had previously promised to deliver a better education for fewer dollars. It’s about attacking teachers unions, while trying to enlist parents who themselves are in labor unions and trying to convince good teachers to go to the very schools we’ve labeled as failing and hopeless. And its about believing stronger numbers and market-driven solutions can wipe away generations of institutional racism and inequities, even when we may use the term “urban” students because we are uncomfortable talking specifically about Black and brown kids.

In acknowledging their own shortcomings, Cohen et al (and I’d throw Eduflack on that list as well), admit that, as reformers, we have failed the families and communities we have purported to be fighting for. While reform has helped provide safer learning environments for many kids, and has provided greater educational opportunities for those involved, it at best mitigates some of the social obstacles so many face today. To believe that improved school opportunities for some addresses the problems of poverty and racism for far more is a line of thinking that none of us can actual subscribe to.

When I was leading a state-based education reform organization, I worked hard with the leaders of local churches to ensure their voices were heard in the legislative debate. One weekend, on the Saturday before Easter, I was in the basement of a particular church, talking to a group of pastors. As we were talking about next steps, the Bishop present turned to me and said, “You know what your problem is, you’re white.” And he was absolutely correct. No matter all that I knew, no matter how much data I came armed with,  no matter how convincing and eloquent I might be, it was far easier for me to talk it than it was to live it. I would never experience what the parents and kids I was advocating for experience on a daily basis.

After that gathering, the pastors asked what I wanted from them. I went in prepared to tell them I needed their help to advocate for my agenda. But after having spent that morning listening to their concerns, my response was quite different. I told them something like, “It would be presumptuous of me to tell you what is best for your congregants. So I’m not going to do that. I would just ask that you get involved. Have your voices heard. While I’d love for those voices to agree with me, it is far more important that you be a part of this process.”

And they were. In united voice, a voice last heard in the state during the fair housing debates a few decades prior, those pastors and their congregants made clear what was the best path for education in the state. And change happened as a result.

My proudest moment from that time was being witness to those pastors and the leadership they displayed.

Looking back on that time, I wish I had done more to demonstrate the equity and understanding I often preached. I wish I had been stronger, particularly about how we built our movement. I wish I had focused more on the people and the hearts of the community, and less on the data and trying to be the smartest in the room. And I wish I could pretend that racism and poverty were something that could be eliminated by a bill signing or an ad campaign.

Chartock, Cohen, and others have engaged in an important discussion, and one that needs to continue. Until the reform community is clear on WHY it is advocating reform, what it hopes to achieve, and who it serves, we can bring the true change we are seeking. I applaud them for publicly stating what many of us have been telling ourselves for years.

Now what can I do?

From Opting Out to Opting In

Eduflack accountability, high-stakes testing, Parents, Students, teachers, technology

While the testing opt-out movement is incredibly hot, and is now credited with being far better organized this year, Eduflack gets personally frustrated with those parents who are opting their kids out of testing to make a political point. Forget the impact it might have on their school district, their school, or even their child’s personal education. It seems its is far better to “damn the man” and amplify the urban legends about those dreaded “high-stakes tests.”

Such a position may not come as a surprise from someone who has long advocated for the Common Core, for stronger state tests, and for greater accountability. But it may be a shock that Eduflack was an opt-out parent during the 2014-15 school year. We did so for very personal and real reasons, that I wrote about for Education Post. And now we are opting back in, with that same child taking the PARCC last year after sitting it out the previous.

As I opine:

Yes, this opt-out parent is now opting his child back in.

The reasons for this are simple. Our son has worked very hard over the last year and a half, and it is important for his teachers and his parents to see how he is progressing. PARCC is the best tool available to know where our son falls when it comes to fourth-graders in his school, our state and across the country. And it helps his fifth-grade teacher best know the knowledge and skills he is coming in with next school year.

His IEP is not an excuse, it was merely a new compass. It is also not an opt-out from accountability.

A week into the 2016 PARCC and I can report that both of my kiddos are proclaiming that the state test is “easy.” No stress. No vomiting on keyboards. No emotional breakdowns in the computer lab. Just another test in the course of regular quizzes, tests, and assignments the average elementary school student experiences.

Give the piece a read. Let me know what you think. Just don’t opt out of reading it.

 

 

For Students’ Sake, Let’s Look to Student Data

Eduflack 21CS, assessment, eddata, Parents, Students

Over at Education World, I have a new piece that looks at the important role student research and data can play when gathered and utilized properly. From Data Quality Campaign to ACT to NWEA to Project Tomorrow to ERCA, we can see the value data plays, particularly in understanding student perceptions on key issues, including their college and career aspirations.

As I wrote:

For years, we have grappled with the notion of “assessment literacy,” where educators, families, and policymakers can better learn the importance of data collection and the ability to distinguish a valuable data-gathering tool from a lousy one. At the same time, educators have demanded that any student data collected needs to be used to help the student, and not just as the impetus for punitive action.

Teachers are right. We probably don’t focus on what is helpful to the student nearly as often as we should, particularly when it comes to student data. And that’s a cryin’ shame. The student perception information coming from organizations like Project Tomorrow and NWEA is incredibly important. It provides a glimpse at how what is taught in the classroom aligns with student interests and passions. It helps us better understand the path today’s young learners are on as we encourage them toward college and career success.

I hope you’ll give it a read.

 

 

Can’t We Give Summers Back to Our Kids?

Eduflack changemakers, Parents, Students

I’ll admit it. I’m growing weary of hearing fellow parents brag about all of the academic acceleration they have planned for their kids this summer. Of the additional math they can get in summer boot camps. Of the foreign language immersion or the year ahead they can get in another academic subject by spending their summer months in a dark concrete box with no windows and no distractions.

The edu-wife hates me for saying it, but I want my kids to get “free-range” summers, a short part of their year where they can just enjoy being kids. I yearn to go back to a time when the summers were for bike riding and swimming and whiffle ball and all of those activities that are now seen as “distractions” by the very helicopter parents who once enjoyed them.

Over at Medium, my latest piece for the Ashoka Foundation’s Changemakers series focuses on the need to just let our kids be kids, particularly during the summers. As I write:

I look at my own kids, and their classmates, and feel great empathy for their generation. Too many are denied a real childhood. Too many are told, at the youngest of ages, that if an activity doesn’t help them get into a top-tier college, then it isn’t worth doing. Too many are given a warped sense of priorities at far too young an age.

Happy reading!

 

 

 

Fathers and the Role They Can, Should Play

Eduflack Dadprovement, Parents

When it comes to family-school relationships, too often we still see the old stereotypes. It’s the mother’s responsibility to deal with the school, the teachers, and the homework. But should it be?

Over on Medium, Eduflack has a new piece as part of the Ashoka Changemakers series. In it, I write:

Too often, we leave educational decisions to the mother in the relationship, thinking it isn’t part of a father’s job. In reality, we shouldn’t just show empathy to those fathers looking to get involved, we shouldn’t just be praising those who choose that path, but we should be demanding it from all fathers. Fathers must be more involved in their kids’ education, beyond helping with homework at night. That’s what involvement really looks like. At its very heart, it is a simple, common-sense idea.

I also offer up some tips on how a dad can be a little more involved in the process. I hope you’ll give it a read.