Education Revolution #39

At the heart of this magazine we have a report on last summer’s AERO Conference in upstate New York, written by an AERO intern, and also three essays by alternative school students, which were delivered as speeches at the conference.And on page 52 Mary Tasker makes the case for smaller schools.

A Word from Jerry

At the Brooklyn Free School meeting a while back the adults had introductions and discussion for more than an hour. During that time the children entertained themselves as well as they could. I took a few pictures and did a little videotaping. This seemed to catch the attention of the two- and four-year-old brothers who were in the room. I had never met them before and they never said anything to me but they made eye contact. At one point they left the room. But a few seconds later I realized they were in back of me as they reached through a crack in the double doors and tapped me on the shoulder! We played a little game with that while the meeting was going on.

Later in the meeting it was suggested that we hear something from the children in the room, or have a small ‘meeting’ with them. The discussion started with the two 6-year-olds who had participated in the last meeting and a 13-year-old. The issue came up about what age students should be at the new school. The three doubted whether anyone younger than five could understand the meetings. At that point the four-year-old, Teseo, was playing in the other room. I suggested we invite him in to see if he could understand. I had confidence that he could. One of the kids went to get him.

I explained to him briefly what a meeting was all about, what voting was, and about raising your hand to be recognized. We continued the discussion about ages. Sylvan, the 13-year-old, blurted out that he thought people from age 1 to 34 should be able to come. The 6-year-olds said they thought one was too young. The one-year-old would require too much attention, would mess things up, and would not understand the meeting. The 13-year-old said he hadn’t said that. The four year old raised his hand and said that he had clearly heard him say one-year-olds could come!

Later there was a discussion about the age at which students could safely go outside the school by themselves. The six-year-olds thought 7 would be OK. The 13-year-old thought 8 would be safe. But the 4-year-old thought 10 would be safer. He was worried that younger kids might wander over railroad tracks or be hit by a car.

Nobody after that brought up the idea that four year olds were too young for the meeting!

Let’s start by looking for news where it is bound to be painful and difficult, and get it over with for the rest of this issue. The No Child Left Behind package of laws that President Bush pushed down everyone’s throats is now in the process of being swallowed. This, inevitably, won’t be a pretty sight. First, from the front line:

My, how things have changed in just a few short years! Now it’s hard to find a teacher or administrator who looks forward to the requirements of “No Child Left Behind.” Each school year gets more dismal as elementary teachers are forced to spend much time drilling for standardized tests in the three R’s and reduce, or leave out, the arts, sciences, physical education and social studies — the subjects that make school interesting and learning fun — the subjects that make the three R’s meaningful. Lynn Stoddard Author of Educating for Human Greatness

In the two years since the law passed there has been scattered resistance to the NCLB law in school systems around the country, on the grounds that living with these new requirements is too costly and difficult. Federal money that was supposed to help schools with this process was never allocated and states are having to foot the entire bill to fund this questionable enterprise themselves. Under the new system if the students, teachers, or schools don’t meet annual targets, established through the kids’ test scores, they are penalized. Good schools are having to dumb themselves down and chronically under-funded schools face a whole new crisis. But schools all across the country are being snowed under with red tape:

No Child Left Behind Meets Resistance, by Sam Dillon, NY Times: Three Connecticut school districts have rejected federal money rather than comply with the red tape that accompanies the law, and several Vermont districts have shifted federal poverty money away from schools to shield them from sanctions. Some analysts see the scattered actions as the front end of a backlash that will probably swell next year, when early penalties are likely to be imposed on thousands of schools across the nation.

Under the law, every racial and demographic group in each school must meet rising goals on English and math tests to make “adequate yearly progress.” If any group fails to reach targets for two years running, a school is labeled “needing improvement,” and must provide transportation for students to transfer to higher-scoring schools or pay for tutoring. Continued shortfalls trigger escalating sanctions that culminate in removal of the staff. It is an accountability system with myriad ways to disqualify schools. This year 26,000 of the nation’s 93,000 public schools failed to make adequate yearly progress, according to a teachers union tally, fueling predictions that the law could eventually label nearly all schools as failing.

By the nature of things the response to this law has been local, as different states find themselves having to face their own problems in playing by the new NCLB rules. So far the most active resistance doesn’t seem to be on the East Coast:

Utah Bill to Reject Education Law and Federal Money by Ronnie Lynn, The Salt Lake Tribune: Utah legislators advanced a bill that rejects No Child Left Behind and the $103 million-plus it brings to the state’s revenue-starved schools. The House Education Committee unanimously forwarded House Bill 43 to the floor, a move that has national implications and the potential to devastate more than 200 Utah schools that rely on federal dollars to improve achievement among disadvantaged students. Rep. Margaret Dayton said her bill sends Washington an unmistakable message that it is overstepping its bounds in a domain historically left to states.

Nebraska Schools Skip Mandatory Tests, by Tracy Dell’Angela, Chicago Tribune: With criticism mounting over implementation of the federal accountability law and states scrambling to overhaul their testing systems to comply, Nebraska alone has succeeded in saying no to mandatory statewide tests. The state has persuaded federal education officials to approve the nation’s most unorthodox assessment system, which allows school districts to use portfolios to measure student progress. Nebraska’s system is far from perfect; it is expensive, it is time-consuming for teachers and it makes comparisons among districts difficult. The system works here in part because of the state’s small school districts and homogeneous population. But critics of No Child Left Behind – and the high-stakes testing mania it has spawned – say Nebraska’s example proves that educators can create a different kind of accountability system that meaningfully measures student learning. Federal education officials said Nebraska’s system passed muster because the state’s constitution guarantees local control over school accountability and the state was able to demonstrate that the assessments were valid and reliable.

Oregon May Challenge No Child Left Behind Law by Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian: Gov. Ted Kulongoski is weighing a pitch by the nation’s largest teachers union to make Oregon a plaintiff in a court challenge to block parts of the federal No Child Left Behind school accountability law. The National Education Association has been looking since July for a state to sue the Bush administration, arguing that the law requires sweeping changes in schools without paying for them. No state has signed on, despite widespread complaints by educators that the law requires too much of schools. The Oregon Education Association, the NEA affiliate in Oregon, has urged the governor to take up the cause, said Mark Toledo, the group’s general counsel.

One response to NCLB may be built around the fact that the federal demands being made on local schools are not properly funded:

Wisconsin’s attorney general has issued an opinion that the federal government can’t force states to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act without fully funding it. The opinion was the first in the country from a state attorney general on the education reform measure, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager said “clear and compelling” language in the law itself says the federal government can’t make states or school districts pay the law’s mandated costs for improved education. The opinion could be the first step toward a lawsuit challenging the law, said Scott Young, NCSL education policy associate. Todd Richmond, AP.

It looks as though the Bush administration has been prepared for a certain amount of backlash and is ready to make some small compromises, in order to establish their new program:

A rebellion against the federal No Child Left Behind law in more than half the states’ legislatures has fizzled out, for now, with only a handful of Vermont school districts following through on threats to ignore the new education law, reports Eric Kelderman. At the height of this year’s backlash against President Bush’s signature domestic policy initiative, 27 state legislatures drafted 54 bills to protest the costs, penalties and unprecedented federal oversight of school policy under the 2002 act. U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige and his deputies crisscrossed the country on scores of trips to smooth over differences with state legislators and educators. In the end, only the Democratic governor of Maine and the Republican governors of Utah and Vermont signed bills critical of the act, which is staunchly defended by the Republican Bush administration. http://www.stateline.org

No Child Left Behind Standards Being Changed by Michael Dobbs, Washington Post: Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige said he is planning more changes over the coming weeks, including a new, more flexible interpretation of the requirement that all students be assigned a “fully qualified teacher.” He previously agreed to changes in the way students with disabilities are treated under the law, allowing the most seriously disabled to be tested separately from other students. Under the new regulations announced February 19, states will be permitted to grant a one-year transition period for English-language learners in their first year in U.S. public schools, which means that these students will be temporarily excluded from their schools’ test results. At the other end of the performance spectrum, students will continue to be counted as members of the “limited English-proficient” subgroup for two years after they learn English. About 5.5 million students, or 12 percent of all U.S. K-12 students, are covered by the new regulations.

The next step may be for states in different parts of the country to get together and form a united response to the new NCLB regime:

Fourteen states have asked the Bush administration for permission to use alternative methods for showing academic gains under the No Child Left Behind law, reports Diana Jean Schemo. The 14 states, most of which had their own systems for raising academic performance in place before the federal No Child Left Behind law took effect two years ago, charged that as currently written, the law would brand too many schools “in need of improvement,” and thus squander limited resources. They asked for permission to use “growth models,” in which schools would avoid the federal law’s remedies and penalties if they showed academic gains, even if those gains fell short of the amount required by 2014, as the law mandates. The New York Times

In the meantime the more disadvantaged kids are the first to feel the effects of the new arrangements:

Schools Pressured to Drop Bad Students: In the 2001-02 school year, 17,400 students – 17.6 percent – dropped out of Chicago schools, according to an analysis of state data by the Greater West Town Community Development Project. That is up from 13.5 percent in 1992. The numbers are too high and the pressure on schools to push out truant, low-performing students is only growing, several experts, including Illinois Education Supt. Robert Schiller, testified at a state Senate Education Committee meeting in Chicago. Kate N. Grossman, Chicago Sun-Times.

A national study on the “hidden crisis” of low minority graduation has been released by two nonpartisan groups, the Civil Rights Project (CRP) at Harvard and the Urban Institute (UI). The results of the study should help small-schools educators and activists in explaining the need for change. The study concludes: “America’s minority children are being left behind when it comes to high school graduation. High school graduation rates now are alarmingly low for most minority groups, particularly among young males. In 2001, only 50 percent of all black students, 51 percent of Native American students, and 53 percent of all Hispanic students graduated from high school. Black, Native American and Hispanic males fare even worse: 43 percent, 47 percent and 48 percent, respectively. This compares to about 75 percent of all white high school students graduating on a nationwide basis. “The drop-out problem for minority school children in the U.S. is likely to get even worse due to an overemphasis under ‘No Child Left Behind’ on test-based accountability. Under such an accountability system, it may be easier and more cost-effective to raise overall test scores by removing low performing students from the test-taking pool than it is to invest in the resources and programs needed to improve the academic performance of the struggling students. Mike Klonsky.

It is hard not to get the feeling that there is something built into this legislation that will make thriving under the new rules almost impossible. Gordon Vars, of the National Association for Core Curriculum, has something to say about this:

First of all, what is it that is impossible to do? Probably most obvious is the NCLB requirement that all students reach 100% “proficiency” by 2014. Bruce M. Smith, editor of the Phi Delta Kappan, put it succinctly in his editorial in the October, 2003, issue. He reminded us of “the natural range of human variation” and “the simple fact that children are in school for just a fraction of their lives. To require schools to make up for all the differences in children’s nature and in the conditions of their nurture is absurd”

Schools must demonstrate adequate yearly progress (AYP). For a school to show AYP, all ethnic groups, all socioeconomic groups, English-language learners, and special education students must make AYP separately. Ninety-five percent of each group must be tested, and if any one group fails to make AYP, the school as a whole fails. The official phrase is “needs improvement,” but headlines across the nation reveal how everyone actually thinks about it. Schools must continue to make AYP until, by 2014, 100% of a school’s students must score “proficient.”

So why set up a situation where most of the public schools in the country are bound to fail. Is this legislation part of some sort of corporate sponsored conspiracy? Gordon Vars:

A Conspiracy? To those who suspect a conspiracy, NCLB is merely the “coup de grace” of a war against public education that was declared in the “Nation at Risk” report of 1983 (NCEE). In that rhetorical tour-de-force, corporate interests and the politicians they controlled launched a deliberate campaign to degrade and dismantle public education. Their aim? To turn education of the young over to private schools and for-profit corporations.

Protest, Get Political. Before NCLB was passed, I was urging educators to fight the high-stakes testing mania. Individuals like Alfie Kohn and groups like FairTest (www.fairtest.org) were trying to mobilize educators and the public to pressure legislatures to modify state testing laws. Now the stakes are even higher, involving much more than your individual career, the success of your school, or even the fate of the middle school movement. The struggle is nationwide in scope; the future of the entire public school system is at stake. With all its limitations, publicly-supported education has served for decades as the “bulwark of democracy” and a ladder for economic betterment for countless thousands of people. I doubt very much that democracy, as we know it, could survive the demise of public education.

One group standing up against this law is The Coalition of Essential Schools (CES). To add your name to their effort or download the “Take a Stand” online action kit, visit: http://www.essentialschools.org/cs/about/create/ces_hst

Another group criticizing the bill is the National Center for Fair & Open Testing.

Killy Reopening!

In the 20tth Century two men in the UK held up the banner for freedom and democracy in education – both of them Scots. A. S. Neill had his Summerhill on the East coast of England and John Aitkenhead had Kilquhanity House School up in Southwest Scotland.

Kilquhanity was started early in the dark days of the 2nd World War, in 1940, by John and his wife Morag. For 56 years it took in boarding students from around Scotland and around the world, until it was finally closed under pressure from government inspectors. John died the following year, aged 88.

Now it is to reopen under the auspices of another of the most famous names in democratic education, Shin-Ichiro Hori. Many years ago Professor Hori began translating Neill’s books into Japanese and then went on to start the first democratic school in Japan, Kinokuni, in 1992. Now he has bought the property at Castle Douglas and plans to get Kilquhanity going again, at first as a summer camp. The school is in a beautiful spot out in the country and it should be an ideal place for Japanese and Scottish kids to spend happy summers. Once the school is restored to its former glory Professor Hori hopes to run it year round. This last summer he worked there with a group of 20 Japanese kids, rebuilding a tree house.

Windsor House Threatened

The wonderful Windsor House School, after flourishing for 33 years tucked away in Western Canada, in North Vancouver in British Columbia, has been forced by the provincial government to change itself in ways that threaten its continued existence. Windsor House is perhaps the longest running state supported democratic school in the world. Here is how the school describes itself on it’s website:

The Windsor House community are being forced to “come into alignment” with new British Columbia Ministry Of Education regulations that insist on letter grades for the kids, plus testing and grading and full regular attendance. If they can’t comply they must lose their essential funding. Within this process they have also been forced to move out of their old home into an inappropriate and temporary space, shared with an adult education facility. Meanwhile it looks as if the North Vancouver School District has had secret plans all along to sell their property for financial gain, assuming that they would fold under all this pressure. Canela Michelle, of Windsor House, writes for us of how the school came into being:

You can read more about Windsor House in an essay written by one of the students, Chloe Deaken, on page 34.

For-Profit Charters Crash

In August one of America’s largest charter school operators went into bankruptcy and had to accept that all 60 of its California schools will not be reopening. Sam Bond, of the New York Times, tells the story from the point of view of the school superintendent whose district licensed dozens of the schools:

“Hysterical parents are calling us, swearing and shouting,” Mr. Larson said in an interview in Oro Grande last week. “People are walking off with assets all over the state. We’re absolutely sinking.”

The disintegration of the California Charter Academy, the largest chain of publicly financed but privately run charter schools to slide into insolvency, offers a sobering picture of what can follow. Thousands of parents were forced into a last-minute search for alternate schools, and some are still looking; many teachers remain jobless; and students’ academic records are at risk in abandoned school sites across California.

Investigators are sifting through records seeking causes of the disaster, which has raised new questions about how charter schools are regulated.

“Until the Charter Academy went into its tailspin, few people predicted that these crashes could be so bloody, but this has been a catastrophe for many people,” said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education at the University of California, Berkeley. “The critics of market-oriented reforms warned of risks with the philosophy of let-the-buyer-beware, but in this case, buyers were just totally hung out to dry.”

Coincidence? Gal Friedman – The first Israeli Olympic Gold medallist – is a graduate of the Hadera Democratic School

By Yaacov Hecht

On Wednesday 24th of August Gal Friedman won the Olympic gold medal in wind surfing in the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

Gal started training as a child. At age 13 he won second place in the youth world championships. Later he won the bronze medal at the Atlanta Olympic Games and came in third in the 2002 world championships in Thailand. His latest achievement is the gold medal at the 2004 Olympics.

Gal was born to a family of sea and surf lovers. Both his father and uncle were Israeli champions at sailing and spent much time on the sea.

Gal studied at the democratic school in Hadera as did his sister Maayan and brother Yuval. His mother was an active parent in the school.

Gal loved the sea, He had a special arrangement with the school, his family and sailing club – on days with a good wind he went right to the beach instead of school, on days with no wind he came to school.

In addition to training at windsurfing Gal spent most of his time at school playing. Academics didn’t interest him and school served the purpose of calming his parents (not too difficult a task), and immediate environment, enabling them to see the beauty in enabling Gal to do what he loved and was interested in.

In my opinion, the main factors contributing to Gals success were: his personality and the support of his family.

The role of the school was to enable the existing talents and desires to manifest and not hinder his talents and love for the sea, surfing and sport, the school helped to waver the anxieties surrounding “how will he succeed without trigonometry etc…” School helped to strengthen his belief in himself, and encourage him to develop in doing what he was passionate about – windsurfing.

At some stage, at age 14 Gal decided to quit windsurfing in favor of building remote-operated cars and airplanes. The extended family was up in arms – how can such a great talent go to waste? But his parents were adamant about supporting Gal in doing only what he chose and did not pressure him to return to windsurfing. And of course, Gal did return – he returned a different Gal.

Once again, after winning the Bronze at the Atlanta Olympics, Gal quit windsurfing in favor of biking. Today he does both sports.

All the Israeli newspapers have been assessing Gals victory: the first Israeli to win a gold Olympic medal. The papers noted his willpower and his clear goal as well as his ability to achieve under pressure. The story that left the deepest impression on me was that a year before the Athens Olympics, Gal and the Greek windsurfer Conconstus, who were the two leaders in this sport, decided to train together. They agreed that the best way for both of them to reach their highest achievements would be to train together and take the gold and the silver at the Athens games, leaving the race for the gold to the last minute. And that is indeed what happened.

A day after he won, Gal’s mother, Dganit Friedman, published the following letter in the leading Israeli newspaper “Yedioth Achronot.”

Yesterday I sat with Dad, Maayan and the rest of the family and our friends – we watched you win the Olympic medal. You made history. I knew you could do it, that you had the ability, but I was scared to imagine it. Since yesterday I cannot stop thinking about Yaacov Hecht, the principal of the Democratic School in Hadera where you went to school. He always said that it doesn’t matter what you study and what page you reach in your workbook, that the important thing is to focus on what it is you want and to achieve in your field of choice.

This was the educational motto we followed in raising you and your siblings Maayan and Yuval. When you skipped school, we were not concerned, you had a direction and you followed it. Today we are certain that your principal was right. The small contribution we, your parents made to your gold medal was in giving you the freedom to choose your own way.

I love you my dearest Gal and I am very proud of you and happy for you. You stuck to your desires and made your dream come true. Since you left for Athens I have been sending you hearts over the e-mail and pictures of you with your brother Yuval and girlfriend Michal. I can’t wait to see and hug you. I miss you

Being There

Renaissance School

Beyond the fact that I knew that they wanted some sort of demonstration of the democratic process, I really didn’t know what to expect when I walked in to Renaissance School one day this last June. I didn’t know what age kids I would be working with, how much time I would have and what they wanted me to do. Actually, I’m never very concerned about that kind of situation, and I wasn’t on that day. I got into the building with two minutes to spare.

The class had about 25 students. They were about 11 and 12 years old in the sixth grade. The teacher was excited to have me come in and do this, and it was arranged by Monte Joffee, the principal of the school, who had been at the IDEC in 2003 and who had been instrumental in helping us organize our proposal for the school of democracy, which would have been a public alternative democratic school.

I started out by introducing myself briefly, and asked them a few questions about their class. I took out my book and showed them the title (No Homework and Recess all Day), getting a little rise out of that, but in general this group was rather laid back.

They were mostly minority: black, Hispanic, Asian, and some white. I read the poem that I wrote when I was 15 years old to them (from the front section of my book) about how I felt about school at the time. I told them a few stories about the kinds of things that are possible in a democratic school; such as the time we worked our way to the Bahamas and the time we wound up flying over our school. I decided to show them some of John Gatto’s video, where he talks about why the public school system was set up; that it wasn’t set up to create poets or scientists but to basically keep people in their place so that there is a much larger group to do the dirty work for society and follow orders, buy things, etc. They really got a kick about the section from South Park about how kids are being misdiagnosed for Ritilin.

By the time we were done with that and had some discussion, there were only about 15 to 20 minutes left, but we decided to quickly demonstrate how the democratic process works. I explained to them that the first thing that we needed to do make an agenda: They could bring up either something that they wanted to see happen – we had just finished talking about the possibility of going to India and a lot of kids expressed interest (but it was not put on the agenda) – or things that they had concerns about. One of the items they put on was about the lunches and the food, and a second really surprised me: naptime! They felt that they weren’t getting enough sleep and they wanted to have a chance to take a nap. Another was freetime, another was homework. So, we started with the lunches for discussion.

They complained for a period of time about how bad the lunches were, how little choice they had, how much of the food was unidentifiable, how the portions were small, and how they liked it better when there were vending machines. Finally, a proposal was made that they at least have a choice between milk and juice instead of just milk. The next proposal had to do with the portion size, and someone pointed out that they are allowed to be served what would be considered to be 2/3 of a proper portion. It was passed that someone research why exactly this was.

This brought us pretty close to the end of the period, but what happened then was interesting. The kids all said that they wanted to sit in on the next section and that they wanted to join the next class and keep on doing this. That would double the size of the number of people in the room to 50. That took us to about 11:30, and then we broke for lunch.

During lunchtime, I met with the principal and three other teachers from the school. The teacher of this class commented on how this group was quieter and less responsive than the later group, and they asked me what kind of things you can do about that. I said, “Well, you know, when you have a set group like this, it can develop a certain culture, and so those were the kinds of cultures from the group. That kind of thing was impossible in my school because each class was attended by the people from the whole school that wanted to attend.” This seemed to startle them a little bit because it became clear to them that this was a different paradigm that I was talking about.

When we got back from lunch, there were 50 kids packed in the room First, we tried to summarize what had happened in the morning, and I showed a little more of the video. We then continued the meeting, and several items were added to the agenda. We now had a little more time to work. What was amazing and impressive to me was how quiet they were as a big group, and also how much they got into it. There was more energy in the second group, but of course they were now all combined. A big discussion came up about bringing back the vending machines. Monty was now in the classroom and he said that he thought that they were taken out because of some regulation that stated that they could not operate in competition with the school lunches. There was a possibility that they could lose the school lunch program because of a lack of participation. Then the idea was brought up that the vending machines could be shut off during meal times. A vote was taken and it was unanimously in favor of bringing the vending machines back with the possibility of having them serve some healthy food.

Part of the system I demonstrate includes polling of the minority in all votes, and the possibility of a revote with more discussion. When asking for the minority opinion, Monty expressed his concern about it. Then people mentioned that they had bake sales often and that the kids would take their money and spend it on bake sale stuff, and that that was legitimate. And so I pointed out that instead of doing just bake sales, make healthy food and sell that. One of the proposals was that they have bake sales up to once a week and sell healthy food, and have the profit go to the class. Another proposal was brought up regarding the vending machines, but both of the proposals were shot down. They decided that vending machines were not practical to bring back, and that they didn’t want to do bake sales every week.

We continued on to the next item on the agenda, and by acclimation, the next thing that they wanted to talk about was naptime. They said that they weren’t getting enough sleep, that they had to be in school at 8:30 and so they had to get up at 6-something. If the younger kids could get naptime, why couldn’t they get naptime? They needed it! Someone else pointed out that, for a while, meditation had been done in the class, led by a teacher. One of the teachers, pointed out that they had plenty of time to get to sleep when they got home. The kids reacted by saying that “No! we have all kinds of things to do!” One of the kids said, “I don’t get home from softball until 7 or 8 o’clock, and then I’m supposed to do homework, and when am I supposed to sleep?”

What was cool was that sometimes, when the noise level got up a bit, their teacher tried to shut them up, and I told her that she was out of order! The kids got a kick out of that. The same things happened when Monty spoke out of his turn. They learned to raise their hands. Monty again voiced a certain amount of opposition to this proposal that they have 10 minutes of naptime every day. He said he was afraid of the flak that he might get from the parents or other people that the kids were allowed to sleep all day, or from taking visitors around and seeing all the kids sleeping in the room. So, one of his amendments was that they put a sign up that said that this was an experiment by the 6th grade class to see if learning is enhanced. Another proposal was that they find some way to see if learning was going to be enhanced by this process. A third proposal was that it be tried for one month. The girl who made the original proposal reluctantly accepted the amendments and it was passed.

There is less than one month left of school; it would be interesting to see if they follow up on any of the things that we passed. At one point, one of the kids said, “Is it true? Are these things really going to be put into effect?” And I said, “Well, in a proper democracy yes; in a class democracy where things were being decided, yes! However, since this is more of a demonstration, then this would be more in the form of recommendations. That didn’t seem to daunt them at all; they were pleased to have some sort of voice.

At that point, I gave up being chairperson and said that we should have an election, and that one of the students should take over as chairperson. Many people wanted to chair, but it came down to two kids: one was a black girl and the other was an Asian boy. The black girl got more votes, so she started to chair and did a pretty decent job. We didn’t have much time left, because the meeting had been going on for well over an hour. The topic that they were talking about was homework, and it basically had gotten to the point of the kids complaining bitterly about the amount of homework that they had. We hadn’t yet made any proposals when we had to stop it. I went ahead and summarized the process, and asked the kids if they wanted to do this kind of thing. Somebody was afraid that we were going to take too much time away from class time, and one of the kids said, “We may just wind having to pay for this alone because we’ve taken this time here.” They really had the concept that they would get punished for doing something interesting and fun by having more work loaded up on them. I said that I considered one of the most educational parts of my school to be the school meeting. They liked the idea of doing a meeting once a week. I hope that we can demonstrate democratic decision-making process to many other public and private schools and programs. Anyone interested can contact us in the USA, at 800 769-4171.or at info@educationrevolution.org

Mail & Communication

Notes from National Coalition of Education Activists: Our regular e-bulletin is back! We took a few months off to reorganize our communications systems (web, email, and database). This project remains a work in progress with many exciting new features to be added in the coming months. On a related note, please take a minute to update our contact information in your lists: NCEA, 1420 Walnut St., Suite 720, Philadelphia, PA 19102. Tel: (215) 735-2418. Email: info@edactivists.org.

I just learned about research from several educators that documents the benefit of using a person-centered approach in education. The studies were published in the 1970s and 1980s by highly trained researchers (David Aspy and Flora Roebuck) using statistical terminology. Luckily they also describe the results in a way anyone can understand. In short, the findings were that teachers who use the person-centered approach (for the study this was defined as having empathy for the students, respect for them, being genuine or real with students, and treating them as capable of self-direction), had students who missed fewer days of school, had higher measures of self-regard, made greater gains in academic achievement and I.Q. scores, presented fewer disciplinary problems, committed fewer acts of vandalism, made gains in creativity scores, were more spontaneous, and used higher levels of thinking. Here is a website that explains a little bit of this research (the website is for an organization that conducts workshops and training for businesses): http://www.ridge.com/art-trsel.htm. Dana Bennis

Puget Sound Community School is celebrating our 10th year this year, completing 10 school years of innovative, imaginative education. We have defied the odds, starting a small, independent school and keeping it going for 10 years. PSCS is fully enrolled right now with 35 happy students. We are thrilled to be getting established in our new home base, the University Heights Community Center. In addition, PSCS is now an officially approved State of Washington private school. Students interested in pursuing a state-recognized high school diploma can now do it right at PSCS. Between now and June 30th, the end of our 2003/2004 fiscal year, every dollar raised at PSCS will be matched, dollar for dollar, up to $20,000. For more information: Puget Sound Community School, 5031 University Way NE, #111, Seattle, WA 98105.

We’re delighted to report that Blue Mountain School’s charter proposal was approved by a 6-1 vote of the South Lane School District Board. It has been almost two years in the process. We presented the proposal last November and it was denied in January (2-5). The Oregon law requires that the criteria for denial be spelled out and that we had the right to resubmit with responses amending the proposal, which we did in May. By the time we were done, except for the one Board member, the other Board members who voted no in January changed their position and by their favorable vote they indicated that they understand that the Blue Mountain students are free to control their own education. Now that the proposal has been approved and when the charter is signed and submitted to the state, we’ll be in line for our $300,000 implementation grant and a much greater sense of security. The process has been long and arduous, but it brought the fractious Blue Mountain School community together. And that’s good. Laura Stine, Chair, Charter Proposal Committee, Blue Mountain School, Cottage Grove, Oregon.

From Wal-Mart Pours Riches into Education Reform, by Jim Hopkins, USA Today: Wal-Mart’s founders transformed U.S. business. Now they are taking on a very different subject: the nation’s public schools. The Waltons have quietly become top philanthropists in education reform, including controversial charter-school and school-voucher causes. They have donated at least $701 million to education charities since 1998. The Waltons’ giving could soar to as much as $1 billion a year as they shift more riches to charity. The shift could spur far-reaching education reform, say experts on philanthropy and education. “That could totally transform public education in this country. It’s a mighty thumb on the scale,” says Chuck Collins, co-founder of Responsible Wealth, a group critical of the influence of the megarich. Already, Walton money has helped pay for 62,000 scholarships for needy children in private schools across the USA. Walton money also extends to education politics. Allies say the family’s giving is injecting competition between public and private schools that will produce better-educated children, and so reduce unemployment, crime and other social ills. Critics say the Waltons could do the opposite: weaken public schools by encouraging the flow of tax dollars to less-regulated charter schools and to religious and other private schools through vouchers. The prospect of the Walton billions is “alarming,” says Marc Egan, head of anti-voucher efforts at the National School Boards Association.

From Two New Reports Urge that Policy Makers Critically Examine Virtual Schools and their Curriculum: Two reports, each examining a company that promotes “virtual” education, were released by the Education Policy Studies Laboratory (EPSL) at Arizona State University. The reports conclude that “virtual” education needs to be more carefully scrutinized by policy makers. “Knowledge Universe and Virtual Schools: Educational Breakthrough or Digital Raid on the Public Treasury?” by Gerald Bracey (George Mason University), and “The K12 Virtual Primary School History Curriculum: A Participant’s-eye View” by Susan Ohanian explore the workings of Knowledge Universe, or KU, a little-known but increasingly influential investment firm that supports a number of for-profit companies involved in education; and K12 Inc., a corporation that provides curriculum and related services to “virtual” charter schools. Knowledge Universe is headed by Michael Milken, the former junk-bond promoter who spent two years in prison on charges of insider trading. K12 Inc. is headed by William Bennett, former secretary of education under President George H. W. Bush. The Bracey analysis of KU warns that although KU has the potential for significantly influencing the nation’s public education system through its investment in publicly funded for-profit education activities, its role has not been carefully examined by policy makers. Bracey reports that KU is subject to far less scrutiny than public education institutions. K12 provides “virtual” curriculum at taxpayer expense to students enrolled in “virtual” charter schools. Ohanian, a former teacher, reviewed K12 Inc.’s history curriculum for grades K-2 and reports that the curriculum is unimaginative and inappropriate for its target audience. Taken together, the Bracey and Ohanian reports raise important questions about the policy implications of companies that significantly influence public education policy and practice, but that operate with relatively little public oversight.

Spotlight on Small Schools: A new education website, funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is now online. The spotlight for the site’s debut is on small schools. Future topics include Race and Education, Standardized Testing, and Literature for Young Readers. Features include excerpts from books, and, currently, an interview with Thomas Toch author of “High Schools on a Human Scale: How Small Schools Can Transform American Education.” The site also contains links to model small schools and other resources. http://www.beacon.org/education/

From Daley Set to Remake Troubled Schools, By Tracy Dell’Angela and Gary Washburn: A decade of highly touted reforms have failed to fix the city’s worst schools, Mayor Richard Daley [of Chicago] said Thursday, and the only solution left is to shut them down and start from scratch. With that blunt acknowledgment, Daley officially launched the most ambitious effort in a decade to remake the nation’s third-largest school system, a campaign that will lean heavily on the private sector for ideas, funding and day-to-day management of more than 100 reorganized schools. The switch to smaller, independently operated schools will focus on chronically poor performing high schools. By 2010 the mayor intends to re-create more than 10 percent of the city’s schools – one-third as charter schools, one third as independently operated contract schools and the remainder as small schools run by the district. This latest reform wave will put the responsibility for the city’s most difficult cases on the shoulders of businesses, non-profit organizations and freelance educators, giving them taxpayer support and wide latitude to operate the kinds of schools they think can deliver better results. The plan presents a serious threat to the teachers union, which is not guaranteed a role in staffing the charter and contract schools. The plan also could signal an end to the influence of already diminished local school councils and could exacerbate the district’s projected $100 million deficit. Given the outcry surrounding the closing of a handful of poorly performing schools in recent years, such a massive overhaul may also trigger widespread community protests. The mayor acknowledged that closing schools and then reopening them with new staffs and programs would cause considerable disruption. But he said that is better than prolonged failure. Chicago Tribune.

Starting a School Foundation, a helpful new primer, subtitled, “What you should know before you start fundraising,” was developed by the National School Boards Association to assist school board members in thinking broadly about education foundations at a time when these effective school reform organizations are becoming increasingly popular due to decreased tax revenues, budget cuts, and rising expectations. As Kate Coventry reports, K-12 education foundation activities run the gamut from funding scholarship and innovative programs to improve teaching and learning, to reinvigorating community participation in public education and spurring parent and citizen activism. The downloadable publication also includes key steps to consider in starting a school foundation, local education fund case studies, and an article by PEN’s president Wendy D. Puriefoy on the growing partnership between local education funds and school board leaders. http://www.nsba.org/site/docs/32800/32703.pdf

Audubon Expedition Institute is an academically rigorous alternative to traditional colleges and universities for undergraduate or graduate students pursuing a deeper ecological understanding of environmental education, leadership and advocacy. Our goal is to create experiential learning communities that inspire informed and compassionate ecological leadership. This past summer Audubon Expedition Institute found itself in the largest financial crisis of its 30-year history. Lesley University, which has accredited AEI for nearly 25 years, offered AEI a merger deal that required the school to raise $300,000 in about 75 days. The successful grassroots effort involved contradances, an auction, personal letters to alumni and friends, garage sales and appeals to major donors and foundations. AEI is now working with Lesley University to become a division in one of their five schools. For the foreseeable future, AEI will keep its office in Belfast although some of the administrative will now be done in Cambridge, Massachusetts where Lesley is located. Audubon Expedition Institute at Lesley University is excited about the potential for greater impact and stability. www.getonthebus.org

Citizens’ Endowment for Education and Democracy (CEED) is the working name for a budding campaign to transform K-12 education in America. Participants are an emerging coalition of progressive and holistic education organizations and people in “green” and “socially responsible” business networks. After an initial gathering in February 2004, members of the group are developing an Internet-based campaign to educate voters on education policy issues in the months leading up to the election. A second outcome is working with Harmony Education Center to develop long term strategies to form a coalition for “schools that kids want to go to”. Joan Jaeckel, Director. Tel: (818) 430-2580. www.whole.org (temporary web site).

CORE is the national non-profit organization of residential education programs for economically and socially disadvantaged youth. Founded in 1994, CORE’s mission is to promote residential education for youth whose homes or communities cannot meet their needs, and to strengthen both individual programs and the field of residential education. To accomplish its mission, CORE is enhancing and sharing professional practices and standards by running an association of residential education programs; leading a national advocacy movement to develop policies supportive of residential education; increasing public awareness of this educational alternative; stimulating and assisting the development of new residential education programs. CORE: The Coalition for Residential Education, 888 16th Street NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20006. Tel: (202) 496-9189

From Beating the Bubble Test: The Cost of Becoming an NCLB Success: Literacy first, canoe trips later, is the new bargain at Garfield/Franklin elementary in Muscatine, Iowa. But with increases on standardized tests come other more substantive losses, reports Amanda Ripley. Creative writing, social studies and computer work have all become occasional indulgences. Now that the standardized fill-in-the-bubble test is the foundation upon which public schools rest — now that No Child Left Behind mandates that kids as young as 9 meet benchmarks in reading and math or jeopardize their schools’ reputation — there is little time for anything else. Franklin is one of the new law’s success stories. After landing on the dreaded Schools in Need of Improvement list two years ago, the students and staff clawed their way off it. Through rote drills, one-on-one test talks and rigorous analysis of students’ weaknesses, Franklin has become a reluctant model for the rest of the nation. It has also become a very different place. The kids are better readers, mathematicians and test takers. But while Democratic presidential candidates have been lambasting the law’s funding levels, Franklin’s teachers talk of other things. They bemoan a loss of spontaneity, breadth and play — problems money won’t fix. The trade-off may be worth it, but it is important to acknowledge the costs. http://www.time.com/

The Eight Year Study, considered by many educational researchers to be one of the best program evaluation studies ever conducted, followed the students from more than 30 experimental high schools during the 1930’s. It was originally published in 1942, and is now available online at http://www.8yearstudy.org/index.html.

ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management has ended 37 years of continuous operation at the University of Oregon. We’d like to express our appreciation for your cooperation and support. We also want to inform you about steps we are taking to keep the Clearinghouse’s extensive information resources accessible to our clientele. We’ve decided to keep this Clearinghouse in operation indefinitely, after shedding its ERIC affiliation, so that our clientele can continue to have access to our resources. We will take on a new identity as the Clearinghouse on Educational Policy and Management (CEPM), operated by the College of Education, University of Oregon. Users may go to the website address below for access to all the resources formerly produced by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management. Our shipping and mailing addresses will remain the same: Regular postal delivery: Clearinghouse on Educational Policy and Management, 5207 University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403-5207. Physical delivery: Clearinghouse on Educational Policy and Management, 975 High Street, Suite 100, Eugene, Oregon 97401. Phone (541) 346-5044. Email: sales@cepm.uoregon.edu. Website: http://cepm.uoregon.edu.

Senate approves landmark school voucher plan: The Senate approved the country’s first federally funded educational voucher scheme, which will enable some poor public school students in Washington, D.C. to attend private schools. The controversial voucher plan, so-called because it gives the families of around 2,000 eligible Washington students vouchers worth up to $7,500 each for private school tuition, was part of a delayed 2004 budget bill that passed 65-28. The five-year pilot project approved for the capital will be the country’s first such federally funded plan for primary education. A handful of locally funded voucher programs across the country have stirred deep controversy. The federal government plans to monitor the results of the Washington voucher pilot to see if it should be expanded to other cities with troubled school systems. Reuters, CNN.com.

Montessori Attitude Tests Well, by Suzanne Pardington: Eagle Peak Montessori School downplays the battery of standardized tests all California students must take every spring in public schools. No pressure. No drill-and-kill test prep. Children are simply told to relax and do their best. The 2-year-old charter school is a somewhat reluctant participant in the state’s school accountability program, because high-stakes tests contradict the individualized approach of Montessori education. Yet the school outpaced all the more conventional public schools in the Mt. Diablo school district on the state’s Academic Performance Index for the 2002-03 school year. Now in their third year, Eagle Peak’s founders and teachers attribute the school’s academic gains to its growing stability, high academic expectations and students’ increasing familiarity with Montessori’s hands-on style. They are pleased at making progress on the official scale, but they say the scores don’t tell them as much as daily evaluations of student work in the classroom. For Eagle Peak and other charter schools that are breaking from mainstream public education methods, the state testing program poses a unique challenge: how to maintain the integrity of their vision while complying with state law. The issue creates a constant tension for charter schools that believe assessments should be more individualized, said David Patterson, a former director of government relations for a statewide charter school organization who now heads Rocklin Academy charter school in the Sacramento area. Formal tests are rare in Montessori schools. The school adopted a new Montessori math curriculum last year and started to align the school’s entire curriculum to the state standards to ensure that students were learning what the state expected them to know on the tests. Most of the same skills are covered in Montessori classrooms, but they sometimes come in a different order.

Using Students as Substitute Teachers: Sound scary? Eighth grade math teacher Bob Brems has prepped student volunteers to teach his classes for several years. Unhappy with inconsistent results and lousy reports from substitutes, Brems came up with a new strategy for his planned days off. He turns over the teaching reins to one of his students. In this Education World article, Brems describes his system and its benefits. Of course, there IS an adult sub in the room, but his student-volunteers do the teaching. http://www.educationworld.com.

Free-choice learning is the type of learning guided by a person’s needs and interests. As the world transitions from an industrial society to an information society, learning across the lifespan becomes increasingly important. Adults and children are spending more and more of their time learning, but not just in classrooms or on the job, but through free-choice learning at home, after work and on weekends. The Institute for Learning Innovation is committed to better understanding, facilitating and advocating for this historically under-studied and under-appreciated mode of learning. Access to quality free-choice learning should not be a privilege of the affluent but a right of all citizens. Currently, there is a free-choice learning divide. There is evidence that when provided the opportunity, economically and socially disadvantaged populations equally utilized and benefited from free-choice learning situations. Only through greater public recognition and support can we hope to insure that free-choice learning will truly be accessible to all citizens. Any public education reform effort that does not embrace the benefits of free-choice learning is incomplete. Contact us at info@ilinet.org, heimlich.1@osu.edu, or heimlich@ilinet.org.

From Educators Flocking to Finland, Land of Literate Children, by Lizette Alvarez, NY Times: In Finland children do not start school until they are 7, spending is $5,000 a year per student, there are no gifted programs and class sizes often approach 30. Finland topped a respected international survey last year, coming in first in literacy and placing in the top five in math and science. The rankings were based on reading, math and science tests given to a sample of 15-year-olds attending both public and private schools. United States students placed in the middle of the pack. Finland’s recipe is both complex and unabashedly basic. If one trait sets Finland apart from many other countries, it is the quality and social standing of its teachers. All teachers in Finland must have at least a master’s degree, and while they are no better paid than teachers in other countries, the profession is highly respected. So long as schools stick to the core national curriculum, which lays out goals and subject areas, they are free to teach the way they want. They can choose their textbooks or ditch them altogether, teach indoors or outdoors, cluster children in small or large groups. Students must learn two foreign languages: Swedish, and most also take English. Art, music, physical education, woodwork and textiles (which is mostly sewing and knitting) are obligatory for girls and boys.

From Students Are in No Place to Judge Quality Education: Students would resume giving feedback on their teachers if officials reinstate a program that has attracted strong opposition from SchoolMatch consultants evaluating the school district. The practice of having parents and students give written evaluations on classroom teachers was stopped last June amid concerns that the process was unfair and the results were used inconsistently from school to school. Six months later, an Ohio-based education auditing firm that has been studying the city’s schools for the Chamber of Commerce and many local businesses recommended ending the process permanently, noting that in some cases, the results were allowed to creep into official teacher evaluations. “We’ve audited over 1,000 school districts nationwide and we’ve never seen anonymous surveys used in the teacher evaluation process,” said Dr. William L. Bainbridge, president and CEO of SchoolMatch. “We thought it was repugnant.” Nevertheless, a majority of the school board is ready to approve a new response form, with the only snag being who would collect the forms and compile the data. “I completely disagree with them,” board member Vincent Capasso said of SchoolMatch’s position. “That’s the party line. That’s not very forward thinking.” Capasso is among a group of board members who think teachers, like many professionals, should be reviewed by their customers. Just as a sales manager for a car dealer should know if a customer had a good or bad experience with a sales clerk, Capasso said school administrators should know what parents and students think about a teacher’s performance. But SchoolMatch officials argue that students are the products of a school system, not the consumers. The company doesn’t seek student opinion during their audit process, and they don’t hide that fact. “We frankly don’t care about their opinions,” Bainbridge said when questioned about the absence of student voices in the company’s analysis. “I’m not particularly interested in what minor children have to say.” Bainbridge believes that when given a chance to evaluate their teachers, some students inevitably will call a challenging teacher one of their worst, but years later will change their minds.

First Amendment Schools: Educating for Freedom and Responsibility, co-sponsored by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) and the First Amendment Center, is a national initiative designed to transform how schools model and teach the rights and responsibilities of citizenship that frame civic life in our democracy. The project has four primary goals: (1) Create consensus guidelines and guiding principles for all schools interested in creating and sustaining First Amendment principles in their school; (2) Establish project schools, in every region of the nation, where First Amendment principles are understood and applied throughout the school community; (3) Encourage and develop curriculum reforms that reinvigorate and deepen teaching about the First Amendment across the curriculum; and (4) Educate school leaders, teachers, school board members and attorneys, and other key stakeholders about the meaning and significance of First Amendment principles and ideals. To achieve these goals, the First Amendment Schools project serves as a national resource for all schools – K-12, public and private – interested in affirming First Amendment principles and putting them into action in their school communities. http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/

Brain Waves Used to Work Computers: New computer technology has been invented to allow hands-free steering of sail boats to help students with profound multiple disabilities use computers. Students who cannot walk or talk and have limited use of their arms and legs, wear a headband equipped with three sensors and use brain waves, eye movement, facial muscles and teeth to operate computers. The technology is called Cyberlink Brainfingers is at Cal State Northridge. For more information, visit www.brainfingers. com.

Theatre for Living uses the language of theatre as a means of creating change. It gives a community the opportunity to investigate alternative approaches to controversial issues. Based on “Theatre of the Oppressed” theories and tools originated by Brazilian Director Augusto Boal, TFL is a way of communicating that invites the “living community” to tell its own stories. TFL techniques have been applied to mainstream theatre, interdisciplinary work, personal, community and team development, anti-racism and violence prevention, environmental action, education and counseling. Using a symbolic language, participants develop “emotional intelligence”, move towards open communication and begin to create their desired realities in an active and entertaining way. This training will be invaluable for anyone who seeks skills and techniques to use theatrical language to explore community dialogue. Headlines Theatre is a multi-award winning world leader in developing community-specific, issue-oriented theatre. We have 22 years of experience working in over 320 communities throughout Canada and around the world. Please contact Jennifer Girard, Outreach Coordinator, at 604-871-0508 or outreach@headlinestheatre.com. 323-350 E Second Ave., Vancouver, BC Canada V5T 4R8.

From Study Says U.S. Should Replace States’ High School Standards by Karen W. Arenson: A patchwork of state standards is failing to produce high school graduates who are prepared either for college or for work, three education policy organizations say in a new report. The solution, they say, is to adopt rigorous national standards that will turn the high school diploma into a “common national currency.” Working through what they call the American Diploma Project, the organizations — Achieve Inc., the Education Trust and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation — consulted with higher education officials and business executives in five states to develop standards they say will ensure that high school graduates are equipped to move into either college-level work or a decent-paying job. “For many kids, the diploma is a ticket to nowhere,” Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, said. “In this era, where some postsecondary education is essential, that’s no good.” The report charges that employers and postsecondary institutions “all but ignore the diploma, knowing that it often serves as little more than a certificate of attendance,” because “what it takes to earn one is disconnected from what it takes for graduates to compete successfully beyond high school.” The diploma project recommends that the N.A.E.P. tests be realigned based on standards in the report. Some critics of high-stakes testing say the challenge is not determining what students ought to know, but in teaching them. “They’re saying that if we have one set of standards, students will meet them,” said Monty Neill, executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing in Cambridge, Mass. “But if you are not going to provide the resources to help students meet the standards, they’re not going to meet them, whatever the standards are.” NY Times

Private Kennebunk School to Celebrate its Return Home, by Beth Quimby, Portland Press: The New School, a private high school in Kennebunk, was founded in 2000 as an offshoot of The School Around Us, a private school in Arundel for students in kindergarten through grade 8. There are no grades. Instead, students must provide evidence that they have met learning standards. The courses are largely interdisciplinary and often include work outside of class. The New School has 30 students, three full-time teachers and more than 60 people from surrounding communities who provide instruction. After months of wandering, The New School is back in its building. The small, private high school had to abandon the building last fall when a renovation project at the 38 York St. facility went haywire. Principal Marylyn Wentworth said the school received a $450,000 loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to buy and renovate the building, which was built as an automotive parts store in 1968. The idea was to continue to meet in the school throughout the project. The roof had been removed and replaced with a tarpaulin during Thanksgiving vacation when a powerful rainstorm reduced the tarpaulin to tatters. The students and teachers suddenly needed alternative quarters. St. David’s Episcopal Church in Kennebunk opened its doors to the school for a month. St. Martha’s Catholic Church took in the school for a week. River Tree Arts offered space at the Kennebunk train depot, where the school continued to operate until May 1, when it finally moved back to 38 York St. The renovation has transformed the moldy former auto parts store into an airy, brightly lit space. The project was helped along by a lot of volunteers. Students also got involved in the project.

Yaacov Hecht came to New York and held a weekend-long lecture and workshop series at Calhoun School in Manhattan. Many people came – from New York City, Albany, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Canada, and even one person from Switzerland, Marco Bichsel. The responses from those who came were extremely positive, and connections were made for additional workshops in the future. Yaacov toured around Calhoun on Friday, along with those of us who will be traveling to Israel to spend 5 weeks working with Yaacov and the Institute for Democratic Education. The Calhoun School is a private college preparatory and distinctly progressive school. It has a small size, teachers go by first name, and there is a strong relationship among students and staff. The lower school director, Kathleen Clinesmith, had been instrumental in organizing this event along with the five of us going to Israel. She set up meetings for Yaacov with the head of Calhoun School, who discussed the possibility of Yaacov returning and conducting more intense workshops with the school community. Eighty-five people showed up at the Friday night lecture, including over 25 teachers/parents from Calhoun, several teachers from the Renaissance Charter School in Queens, two groups of democratic school starters in the New York City area, and many other teachers and students. Larry Hutchinson from Pennsylvania brought five grandchildren, who said they had life-changing experiences. A core group of thirty-five people attended the full events, including the two-day-long workshop. The thirty-five were grouped into 5-person groups for much discussion and interaction about pluralistic learning, school creation, and personal goals. Each group produced pictures and statements that were hung up in the “gallery” and viewed by all. Dana Bennis.

From The Real-Life ‘School of Rock’: David Wish started the Little Kids Rock program to bring together professional musicians and school children. As fans flock to “School of Rock,” the hit movie about a rock ‘n’ roller masquerading as a teacher, Wish and friends are doing it in real life. The year-old program called Little Kids Rock reaches about 2,000 children in 130 public schools in New York, San Francisco, Memphis, Tennessee, and Newark, New Jersey. The goal is to fill a void where music education has been cut, while building a curriculum based on improvisation and participation. Children are treated to classroom visits from stars like Bonnie Raitt and Tom Waits, who recently showed up at the Spring Valley Elementary School in San Francisco. Harmonica virtuoso Norton Buffalo, former Metallica bass guitarist Jason Newsted and singer-songwriter Austin Willacy have also turned up in classrooms. In the mid-1990s, when he was a regular first-grade teacher in Redwood City, California, Wish noticed that music as a subject was falling between the cracks. That’s when he first tried out his spontaneous style of teaching in after-school lessons for a few kids. Wish started Little Kids Rock with $60,000 in foundation and individual contributions. Most of the 200 teachers volunteer their time, although some get a small stipend from their schools. Some classes are part of the school day, although many sessions are scheduled after regular school hours. Wish has enlisted a number of stars by sending them samples of the children’s music. CDs of Little Kids Rock were mailed to the likes of B.B. King and Carlos Santana. Some have lent their names to the project; others have volunteered classroom time. Wish hopes still others will record some of the kids’ songs for a fund-raising CD to be released next year.

From Concord School Lets students Rule, At Diablo Valley, Kids Guide the Curriculum, by Jason B. Johnson: There is no bell to start the day’s classes at the Diablo Valley School in Concord. In fact, there isn’t even a principal or teachers in the white stucco building. Instead, the school’s 18 students do what they want when they want. As a group, they make and enforce school rules and mete out justice in a youth-run court. Diablo Valley is a Sudbury school, one of about a dozen in the nation modeled after the Sudbury Valley School, which opened in 1968 in a Boston suburb. Concord residents Ofer and Amy Erez started the school in 1997 as an educational alternative for their son Yo’el, now 10 years old. The private school is not accredited by the state. The students range from 6 to 16 years old. There are similar schools in Santa Clara, Marin and Sacramento, Amy Erez said. Sudbury schools – there are about 20 worldwide – are private schools where students are free to study whatever subjects interest them at their own speed. There is no imposed class time or structure and no age-based classes. Since the state department of public education only deals with public schools, it does not collect data on the Sudbury school format or its results. Lori Shepard, dean of the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said the Sudbury system could benefit students who don’t do well in traditional schools. Usually the younger a child is enrolled at Diablo Valley, the longer he or she stays, according to school officials, noting that older kids often tend to transfer after a year or two because of the stark contrast with traditional schools. Because it is a private school, no standardized testing is required. The schools run counter to many accepted ideas about education because they eschew structure and heavy reliance on standardized testing. Instead of teachers, there are three “staff” members who help guide the children in planning and carrying out daily activities and long-term projects. Two are mothers of students in the school, while the third staff member, Anthony Burik, previously taught at a San Francisco middle school. Students are required to be at school at least four hours a day. They are free to attend activities and classes elsewhere, but must sign themselves in and out. E-mail Jason B. Johnson at jbjohnson@sfchronicle. com.

The information resource you have published on the Internet: Alternative Education Resource Organization (http://www.educationrevolution.org/) has been cited in The Infography as one of the six superlative sources of information about the subject of “Education – Alternative – United States.” This is truly an honor for your online resource because it has been selected for citation by an expert who is a specialist about this subject. Based upon this independent scholar’s recommendation, we at Fields of Knowledge are proud to refer students and librarians to the information you have made available to the learning public. Congratulations, Howard Chesshire, Fields of Knowledge, 27 West View, Springfield, VT 05156. Email: hchesshire@fieldsofknowledge.com. Web: http://www.fieldsofknowledge.com.

Ananda Institute of Alternative Living is looking for students interested in attending our summer camps (located at the institute) and also high school students and college students interested in attending an alternative university. We are located in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Nevada City, CA. Our students learn in the experiential method—for instance they learn traditional physics and math and then learn to apply this through actually creating fuel cells and other alternative energy projects. We also teach meditation & yoga and “Education for Life” methods to help students with self-discovery and finding happiness in their lives. Email Sara Cryer at registrar@anandauniversity.org. Tel: (530) 478-7612.

Public Alternatives

From Charter Distinction Saves Small Schools by Julia Silverman, AP: Just about all 80 students in Paisley Oregon gathered to cheer their superintendent as he headed to the state capital to try and save their school from extinction after $286,000 in budget cuts. Mark Jeffery went to Salem that day looking for a last-ditch miracle – and now, two years later, with his school richer by $350,000 in federal funding, he believes he’s found one. Paisley saved its school by turning it into a charter school, bringing in federal money earmarked to get these new institutions off the ground. It’s an increasingly common option among the small, rural schools in the West as they struggle to survive budget cuts, declining enrollment and forced consolidation with other schools. In Paisley and communities like it, charter startup money buys the chance to breathe life into an existing school. Paisley, a town of about 250 people in south-central Oregon where the big event in summer is the Mosquito Festival, has been fighting for its school ever since a local lumber mill closed in the early 1990s. Residents even built a dormitory for foreign students to boost enrollment, and for a while there were Albanians and Koreans in town. But by 2002, Jeffery had to close the school’s cafeteria and library, cut out languages and the business program, and fire the janitor. Even that wasn’t enough, and families began considering the possibility they would have to bus their kids to another school, 50 miles away on a bumpy two-lane road that ices over from November to March. One concern that was voiced was that a charter school would collapse when the federal startup money runs out and it had to return to reliance on shaky state funding. Paisley’s federal grant stops flowing in May 2005. Jeffery thinks enough has changed since the charter began to allow the Paisley school to survive past the end of the federal funding. “We believe what we have built here is a system that can continue to operate,” he said. “As long as we don’t lose too many more students. Our hope is to last long enough to see changes in funding and tax structures that could enable rural education to survive.” http://www.ruraledu.org/

Our school opened in Sept ‘03. We are a charter school, free, public, for grades 6-9 (eventually through 12) called Imagine Academy. We began with 65 students, grew to 89 during the year and have 140 enrolled for next year. We see ourselves as moving toward a collaborative governance system. We have students, parents and staff on our board. We are scaffolding parents and students into more active participants. Our educational program is project based, experiential, and constructivist. We took on a great deal and are very glad to be nearing the end of our first year with many personal and professional successes for students, parents, faculty and administration. Tel: (818) 368-1557. Fax: (818) 368-1935. Email Sue Bryan at: imagineacademy@hotmail.com

Pacifica Community Charter School and The Center for Nonviolent Communication are pleased to announce that they received $50,000 in funding from the Tides Foundation for a 2-year project that will contribute to Pacifica’s mission by providing Nonviolent Communication training and workshops for the entire Pacifica Community. The Pacifica teaching staff is receiving extensive training. The Parenting for Peace Workshop Series is this year’s offering for parents, board members & families. Parenting for Peace Workshops are designed to contribute to meeting parents’ needs for support, connection, understanding, acceptance, growth, hope, inspiration, and more, thereby supporting parents’ ability to nurture a generation of people who grow up with a peaceful paradigm. Each workshop provides a combination of short presentation with fun exercises for practicing communication skills that help create more connection, cooperation, harmony and fun in relationships with children (and people of all ages). Our request and hope is that you can come to all of the workshops as each one will focus on a different theme, and your skills will grow with repeated exposure and practice. Web: www.cnvc.org.

Home Education

African-American Unschooling is the Internet resource for African-American Homeschoolers with an Africentric approach to learning all the time. African-American Unschoolers encounter math, science, reading, writing, art and history in the Real World because real living leads to real learning! Visit African-American Unschooling for creative ideas on incorporating African and African-American culture into your homeschooling, articles and resources on unschooling, and networking with other African-American Unschoolers and Homeschoolers. Website: http://www.afamunschool.com. African-American Unschooling Press. Contact: S. Courtney Walton, Editor. Email: editor@afamunschool.com. Voice: (623) 205-9883.

Yahoo Group for Home-Educated Students at University: I recently gave an interview to the Times Higher Ed supplement and realised that we had virtually no info regarding the experiences of home-educated students at university. It then occurred to me that a Yahoo group created for this purpose might be very useful for both our selves, our children as they reach the age when university is becoming an issue for them and as a forum for home-educated students actually at university. So I’ve created a yahoo group for this purpose: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HE-Uni/. This group could help close the information gap we have regarding home-educated children at university. Mike F-W

From Unschooling: No rules for free-form education: Close to 3,000 children are being home-schooled in New Jersey, according to the latest figures available from the state Education Department. Traditionally, home-schooling parents follow a set curriculum, plan lessons and set aside time to formally instruct their children. But there are others who reject even that much structure. They are part of a movement known as “unschooling,” a loose-yet-legal amalgam of learning, exploring and “everyday life” activities that replace the classroom for an undetermined number of home-schooled youngsters. The National Center for Education Statistics estimates about 850,000 American children are home-schooled, and some advocates believe roughly 5 percent to 10 percent of them are unschooled. New Jersey law requires only that parents who teach their children at home make sure they receive academic instruction equivalent to that in public schools. If concerns arise that parents might be failing to educate a child, the burden is on the state to prove it in court. Some unschoolers don’t start reading until they’re 12, and some educators warn that unschooled children risk growing up without basic reading, math and social skills. But unschooling’s supporters claim the process works because children, so naturally curious, have more motivation to learn if they are free to follow their own interests rather than languish in regimented conventional classrooms. Copyright 2003, The Associated Press

Since 1994 the Family Resource Center (FRC) been working with over 2,500 organizations, museums, zoos, aquariums, historic sites, science centers and theatres of New England organizing educational programming and group visits for homeschooling families. Homeschooling families interested in exploring regions of beautiful New England would enjoy FRC’s Extended Stay Program multi-day mini trips. The best Museum and Community Education programs are arranged by the Family Resource Center and you are welcome to join us for any or all of the trips. Families are responsible for arranging their own lodging, meals and transportation to and from each site. http://www.homestead.com/prosites-bigbear001/FAQ_ New~ns4.html.

Driver Education for Homeschoolers: I currently have a bill in the Vermont legislature that is an alternative to traditional driver education offered in the public schools. The current language allows for state approval of driver education course for homeschool use by parents and their teens. Homeschoolers would know that the course would contain the necessary components that a Vermont driver would need to know. Homeschoolers find it hard to get into driver education in the schools. We are then left with expensive commercial schools or the children wait until they are 18 and take the road test anyway. The bill passed out of House Education and is now in House Transportation. I have found that the so-called driving “experts” can’t agree how driver education should be delivered. Graduated driver licensing works to save lives and parents are the enforcers of it. Graduated driver licensing works, with or without traditional driver education. I do not want what the schools use moved into my car. I want an alternative that is written for parents to guide them as they apprentice their teen in a car through graduated driver licensing system. Retta Dunlap

From Does Homeschooling Impact Your Neighborhood Schools? Your Wallet: The creative adaptation of school choice policy has beset state officials with troubling questions. Cyber and homeschool charter schools have become a prominent part of the charter school movement and begun to challenge conventional learning by delivering curriculum

Windsor House Threatened

Being There with Jerry Mintz

Renaissance School

A Word from Jerry

Killy Reopening!

Windsor House Threatened

For-Profit Charters Crash

By Yaacov Hecht

Being There

Renaissance School

Mail & Communication

Public Alternatives

Home Education