Public School
There is a lot of drama going on here about the public schools. The state is broke and education is getting slashed right and left. We here in Chicago have been fortunate to have all-day Kindergarten -- the state funds half of that budget and the school funds the other half. Which means that most, but not all Chicago Public Schools have all-day Kindergarten. And keep in mind that we have one of the shortest school days in the country. It varies from school to school. Disney, for example. goes from 8:00 until 1:45. Skinner North, where Aislin will be going next year, goes from 9:15 until 3:00. So half-day Kindergarten means kids going for a little less than three hours a day.
All-day Kindergarten is one of the programs that might be cut. Not at Skinner North because it's a Classical School (meaning the child has to test into the school) and it gets extra funding from the Office of Academic Enhancement. But at a lot of schools. This means that schools have been furiously fund-raising to prepare for next year. So the schools full of middle class and upper middle class kids get to keep Art, Music, Foreign Language Teacher Aids, whatever. And the impoverished schools don't. They get half-day Kindergarten and no specials and 37 or more kids the classroom because their school can't fund-raise.
I think that the bigger a bureaucracy gets, the less it can meet the needs of any one individual. A school program designed to meet the needs of the average Chicago student would not be good for MY child. Gah -- my white liberal conscience hurts just saying that! It's not just that she's academically gifted (although the testing conducted by CPS seems to place her somewhere above the 97th percentile) but more that she's not the typical Chicago Public School student.
Here in Chicago, 83.4% of public school students are low-income. 14% have limited English proficiency. (Racially, our district is 8.8% white, 46% Black, 41% Hispanic, 3.5% Asian so she is atypical by virtue of her race alone.) Of course good education is good education. And most kids in a great educational environment would thrive. But there are quite a few correlates of low-income with regard to education including limited literacy, poorer social-emotional functioning, poorer general health, more absenteeism, and impoverished vocabulary. If the typical Chicago public school kid is coming from a low-income situation, most likely involving one or more of these factors, then his or her Kindergarten experience should provide opportunities to improve these matters. But a curriculum focusing on "what sound does the letter P make?" and don't forget to wash your hands! would be boring I think for my child.
It sounds like I'm saying here that it's not good enough for MY child. And maybe I am saying that, as much as it pains me. I'm really conflicted!
All-day Kindergarten is one of the programs that might be cut. Not at Skinner North because it's a Classical School (meaning the child has to test into the school) and it gets extra funding from the Office of Academic Enhancement. But at a lot of schools. This means that schools have been furiously fund-raising to prepare for next year. So the schools full of middle class and upper middle class kids get to keep Art, Music, Foreign Language Teacher Aids, whatever. And the impoverished schools don't. They get half-day Kindergarten and no specials and 37 or more kids the classroom because their school can't fund-raise.
I think that the bigger a bureaucracy gets, the less it can meet the needs of any one individual. A school program designed to meet the needs of the average Chicago student would not be good for MY child. Gah -- my white liberal conscience hurts just saying that! It's not just that she's academically gifted (although the testing conducted by CPS seems to place her somewhere above the 97th percentile) but more that she's not the typical Chicago Public School student.
Here in Chicago, 83.4% of public school students are low-income. 14% have limited English proficiency. (Racially, our district is 8.8% white, 46% Black, 41% Hispanic, 3.5% Asian so she is atypical by virtue of her race alone.) Of course good education is good education. And most kids in a great educational environment would thrive. But there are quite a few correlates of low-income with regard to education including limited literacy, poorer social-emotional functioning, poorer general health, more absenteeism, and impoverished vocabulary. If the typical Chicago public school kid is coming from a low-income situation, most likely involving one or more of these factors, then his or her Kindergarten experience should provide opportunities to improve these matters. But a curriculum focusing on "what sound does the letter P make?" and don't forget to wash your hands! would be boring I think for my child.
It sounds like I'm saying here that it's not good enough for MY child. And maybe I am saying that, as much as it pains me. I'm really conflicted!