Types of education

Are Gifted and Talented programs racist?

Family, High Schools, News and Happenings, Personal experience, Repost, Respect, Teaching, Types of education /
Seattle Schools are closing its “Highly Capable Cohort” (Gifted & Talented) program because the claim is that too many of the participants are white or Asian…. “in an effort to make the program more equitable and to better serve all students, the district is phasing out highly capable cohort schools. In their place, SPS is offering a whole-classroom model where all students are in the same classroom and the teacher individualizes learning plans for each student.” Think about what that means for each classroom teacher.
Gifted and Talented
Our local schools had a GT program called “Project Challenge”, involving our sons …. until the system abruptly ended the program, leaving stranded students who were taking classes 2+yrs ahead of grade level. We fought the repercussions until we found an advocate who enabled one son to commute daily from middle to high school for math, to skip multiple years of Spanish and to take advanced classes at the university. Those programs are more common now, but they were not at the time we were involved. I wrote about it here: https://www.virtualmusicoffice.com/the-system-worked-for…/
We wrestled with teachers who wanted to use our sons as tutors (noble and helpful, but does not address their “special needs”) or to do individual study in the back of the classroom (like what could happen in a discipline situation).
We are seeing some of the results of closing most mental institutions and “mainstreaming”. How many tragedies are blamed on “mental health” issues? If people need help, let’s help.
And here’s another problem I have with the “too many whites and Asians” racist argument….. Which pro sports teams, such as NFL, NBA, MLB “mainstream” players to ensure they have a balance of ethnicities and abilities? No! We want to win, right? Olympic teams are not balanced per quotas. We want to win, right?
I won’t argue that DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion), which sounds wonderful is the new AA (Affirmative Action), but it all seems so similar, aka fad trend of the era.
Yes, let’s work to benefit those with “special needs”, but special needs at both ends. Let’s NOT label people ‘insane’, but also, let’s not ignore them. We NEED GT graduates coming into our society, even if they are white or Asian.

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17 signs you teach in a factory school

1 Comment / Factory Education, High Schools, Public Schools, Teaching, Types of education /

I attended “10th District” Elementary School and an inner-city, public Jr/Sr High School that had three, 4-floor buildings. Then I went to a 40,000 student state-subsidized University and recently retired from a 1400-student public high school.

Four factors contributed to my writing this post, designed as an introduction.

1. The first reference I recall to anything related to “factory education” was in a meeting between administration/school board and a group of concerned high school parents challenging the predicted negative impact of a schedule change on their audition-based ensemble. Responding to a passionate presentation, an administrative representative boasted,

We’re not here to teach the elite,
we’re hear to teach the masses. 

2. A grad school professor at Ball State criticized “factory education” and emphasized the need to redesign the model and move away from mass production.

3. A colleague at my high school who was in on the planning and there when the doors opened, described how the building was designed like a factory — with the offices in the front and the different department modules.

4. My sons are involved with some non-factory setup educational models (a Classical Christian Academy, a School of Performing Arts, and a Boston area boarding school) and I look forward to utilizing what I learn from their experiences to help me (and you) understand why public schools are sometimes referred to as factory models of education, or education factories cranking out graduates the way assembly lines crank out cars.

The modern assembly line

Henry Ford revolutionized the concept of the modern mass-production factory in the early 20th century when he developed the concept of a revolutionary new process using skilled workers in specialized areas where the workers were stationary and the product parts were assembled as they moved from branch lines to the mainline where the final product was assembled and completed when it reached the end of the line. Prior to that, groups of individuals moved around a stationary vehicle. His approach was all about dividing the labor to speed up the line to produce more product efficiently. The person who inserted the screw was not the one who tightened it, for example. Every worker had a small part in the production until the completed product reached the end of the line.

Looking at these satellite views and floor plans, can you tell which are high schools and which are factories? I’ll share more points following the pictures.

Indiana High School
Indiana High School
General Motors Assembly in Fort Wayne, Indiana
General Motors Assembly in Fort Wayne, Indiana
Floor Plan A
Floor Plan A
Floor Plan B
Floor Plan B
Floor Plan C
Floor Plan C
Floor Plan D
Floor Plan D

Two of the above floor plans are high schools and two are factories. Can you tell which is which? I’ll give the answer below.

Indications that you might be in a factory school.

Factory-vs-School

In the above floor plans, A & D are schools while B & C are factories.

I was trained in public schools and universities. My sons experienced public education through high school. One went on to a public university, is currently attending a private graduate institution, plus involved in a private School of Performing Arts and a Classical Christian Academy. The other son went to a private, top-tier undergraduate university, an Ivy-League graduate school and will be teaching in an elite boarding school outside Boston as a high school professor with his Ph.D.

A few of the questions I hope to address in future posts:

  1. Given today’s circumstances vs those in the ’80s when my children entered school, would I repeat the path of public education or go a different route?
  2. What are some of the differences in the approach of the top-tier universities and elite boarding schools? Should you?
  3. Is it really all about the money, i.e. can those with the means really get a better education?
  4. Are there multiple worlds of education?
  5. Is life fair?
  6. What options do we have?

Thanks for reading. Please SUBSCRIBE to this blog and then RETWEET/SHARE/PIN it.

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Community Choirs of Huntington County Celebrating 30 Years

Family, Personal experience, Show Choir, Teaching, Teaching Music, Types of education /

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CCHC 1993
The Children’s Choir of Huntington County in their first Christmas Concert in 1993 at Huntington University and under the founding director, Dr. Rediger

In 1993 the Children’s Choirs of Huntington County were formed. Originally there were two choirs for younger and older children. Dr. Joann Rediger was the founding director and is on stage with the group in this picture at their first Christmas Concert in 1993. As high school and adult choirs have been added, the group name was changed to Community Choirs of Huntington County and currently includes the Children’s Choir, Copper Sound and Joyful Songsters. Follow them on their website at https://childrenschoirofhuntingtoncounty.org/.

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Need-blind Admissions Could Mean a Better School

Leave a Comment / College Prep, Consulting, Personal experience, Repost, Types of education /
Need-Blind Admissions

Consider THIS ARTICLE and THIS VIDEO

Need-blind admissions could mean a better school for less money.

“Need-blind admissions” was a term our students did not recognize and yet it can be a major difference in where you go to school and how much you pay. Read on for a definition, description and a listing of colleges that profess to have need-blind admissions.

But first, some bullet points about, “ Inside America’s best high school — a boarding school that costs $53,900 a year and feeds students into the Ivy League”….because it is an example of a whole different educational world out there.

  • It is a Boarding School (students live on campus) near Boston
  • Established 1787
  • Some people who had ties to the school included George Washington, Paul Revere, and John Hancock.
  • There are 1154 students on a 500-acre campus with over 100 buildings/sites on their campus map
  • It is a high school, grades 9-12
  • Graduates include two Presidents Bush, Jeb Bush and one of the Facebook founders.
  • 48% are students of color
  • 44 states and 45 countries are represented
  • They have faculty from every Ivy League school. ⅓ of faculty have PhD’s
  • The “head of school” has a Harvard Law Degree
  • Every student must be on an athletic team
  • They have NO AP classes
  • Harvard calls them a “feeder school”.
  • They have a student/teacher ratio of 7:1. (Harvard has 7:1, Yale has 6:1, Public Schools avg 28:1)
  • For the past three years, more than 20 Andover students have gotten into each of the following top schools: Brown, Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale.

What does this have to do with getting into a better college for less money?

As you can see from the last bullet point above, going to a prestigious high school can be a ticket (or at least a significant advantage) to getting into a top university. Similarly, graduating from a top-tier university can be huge when it comes to getting into a graduate school, medical school, law school or a high-level job.

But top-tier universities have top-tier, seemingly unaffordable prices.

Schools like Notre Dame, Duke, MIT and most of the Ivy League schools cost $70,000+ per year. And because we mid-westerners focus so much on the big state schools and lower prices, the downside can be that we get what we pay for.

If you and I are competing for a spot at graduate school at Harvard, or to get into Yale Law School, will your [Big State School] degree get the same consideration as one from Duke, Notre Dame or MIT?

If I have an engineering degree from [Big State School] and you have one from MIT and we both apply for a position at NASA, your chances are better than mine.

But we don’t consider many schools because of the ‘retail price tag’ we see. That is a huge mistake. In some cases, you can go to a top-tier school for less money than you would pay a state-school.  

Increasingly, universities are finding out that accepting students “need-blind” increases both diversity and the overall quality of a student body.

Some top-tier universities (and we had assumed all) consider both your credentials AND your financial ability to pay as part of the admissions process. Not so.

A “need-blind” policy means that they consider ONLY your academic and personal credentials when making a decision to accept you. Then, AFTER they accept you, they consider your finances. And at that point, if you cannot pay the full price, they will use other resources (their endowment, government financial aid, etc) to “get you there”.

THIS PAGE from Notre Dame’s site shows that they meet “100% of every student’s demonstrated financial need”. That means you have to prove it. If you have available funds, they will require that first. And part of your “package” may include loans — but from the amount of loan on the Notre Dame page is manageable.

THIS PAGE is a 2-yr old listing of colleges with need-blind admissions policies. I do not know if it is exhaustive, so check with schools you’re considering. And, as Mr. Petek suggested,

If your first choice does NOT offer need-blind admissions, but your second choice does, that could be a determining factor in where you go to school.

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GT (Gifted and Talented): The System worked for us, but we had to work the system

Leave a Comment / College Prep, Family, High Schools, News and Happenings, Parenting, Personal experience, Public Schools, Repost, Teaching, Types of education /

gifted and talented

For two years during elementary school, our sons were part of a GT (Gifted and Talented) program called “Project Challenge”, which allowed students to advance in several areas. When they got to middle school, the program stopped and that was a problem (for us). The two in this clip, David and Casey, were allowed to take an 8th-grade Algebra class during 7th-grade year — and were the top two students in the class.

When we approached the school to question their plans for math for the 8th-grade year, the teacher explained that repetition was good, i.e. they were going to allow them to RE-TAKE the class. 

Unacceptable….

“You don’t hold back students like these two. They are the top two students in your class. They do not need to repeat it.”

Joan and I met with the principal, who, at one point, angrily pounded his fist (literally) on the desk and barked,

“I am so sick of parents pushing their kids.”

“We’re not pushing him. We just want to make sure there are not walls blocking his path.”

We objected long and loud enough (plus Casey’s parents were a teacher and a principal) that they agreed to bus these two to the high school every day, where they took two math courses that year. (That is the case started a year ago, as mentioned in the clip.)

During Freshman year, David was coming home complaining about a Spanish class he was taking. He didn’t like the “stupid” techniques they were using to learn vocabulary. At a parent-teacher conference, the teacher said he was causing disturbances in class with his lack of participation. We asked the teacher if he was bored in class.

“Absolutely he is bored.”

The teacher worked with us and school administrators to transfer David from Spanish I to Spanish IV. It took him a short while to catch up, but he loved it and soared.

By Sophomore year they were taking calculus and were invited to come to senior awards night to receive the high school’s top math recognitions. 

Out of high school math options, and before it was more readily available, David was allowed to go to the local university for an advanced math class junior year. When the professor objected, the high school teachers said,

“Just let him take the class. He’ll be fine”.

When the college students, thinking he looked too young to be there, asked him what year he was in, David’s response was “Junior year”. 

A few weeks into the college class, the professor accused David of cheating. He wasn’t doing the work to show the answers he was coming up with. 

When confronted, David asked,

“Is the goal to do the work or to solve the problem?” 

Unconvinced that he could get the answers the way he was, he watched David solve some problems, concluding that …

“I don’t know how he is doing it, but he is doing it.”

By the end of the semester, the professor was inviting David to take an even higher-level college class. 

The week prior to a big performance, the show choir toured the middle schools. Students were expected to make up their work. There was a grading period ending and one of David’s teachers asked him to make sure he got a particular assignment completed, recognizing that,

“You and I both know that if there is a negative impact to your grade that your parents will be in here.”

The only teacher or administrator that we confronted angrily was that fist-banging middle school principal. We were persistent, however, especially when we felt one of our sons was being held back or prevented from excelling because of convenience or policy.

Something I’ve said multiple times over the years, usually when encouraging parents to advocate louder,

“The system worked for us — but we had to work the system.”

PS After graduating high school with a perfect, pre-weighted-grades GPA, and in the top 1% at Duke, David went to Ivy-League Penn where he paid $0 for his Ph.D. and is currently a teacher, coach and dean at one of, if not the highest-rated boarding school in the country. His brother is the Worship Pastor at a large church in Washington State. 

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