The North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain

Yesterday, on August 27, I attended a party to celebrate the wedding of my daughter's pre-K teacher, Ms. Franks. The party was at the house where she grew up, in Mandeville on the North shore of Lake Pontchartrain. It was a crazy party, since her family's home is one of only two houses on a man-made lake/pond hidden behind a residential community.

While at the party, I met many guests who were "New Orleans, born and raised." When they hear what we're up to at 4.0, they are encouraging because, "our public schools are so bad" or maybe they've heard that "the schools have gotten so much better recently" (I heard both of these quotes yesterday).

There was one guest's perspective with which, I empathized. She is from Atlanta, and moved to New Orleans a few years ago, fell in love with the place and is never leaving. She lives in Mid-City. When she heard my 'for now' plans, she said, "yeah, open a school in a few years because that's when I plan to have kids, and I want them in a public school." She was interested in Lusher, but said we needed more schools like that. She was dismissive of Morris Jeff, a charter school in Mid-City trying to reflect the ethnic diversity of New Orleans and of Mid-City while also being a community school. When pushed, she said she hadn't heard anything bad about Morris Jeff, just that she hadn't heard anything great either. My guess is that she hadn't heard anything at all.

Later on at the party, I asked her our 4.0 Essentials question: "What kind of school do you want for your kids?" She said that she really wanted a school full of dedicated, wonderful teachers, and a school that really pushed her kids to think. In New Orleans, I think we've got a ways to go on both fronts, but we're getting there.

Project 27 - Day Two!

I came to Nashville for a dinner last night (read Joy’s entry for more info). Today I was able to meet with friends who live in here Nashville:

Jen is a former PE and health teacher. She taught 2 years in a public school and 1 year each in two private schools. As we all know, Physical Education and the arts are often a low priority in the schools because these subjects aren’t tested on state exams, the ACT, or the SAT. However, Jen brought up a good point: “Not every kid will be a rocket scientist, but every kid will have a body, and they need to know how to move their bodies and take care of them.”

There’s a reason Jen is no longer teaching in the schools. She was very passionate about what students should learn, and she brought innovative and exciting techniques to the classroom (gym). The problem was that she wasn’t supported by leadership and/or her fellow PE teachers, so she constantly felt unappreciated.

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Paul and Sondra have lived in Nashville for about 20 years. Sondra works as a secretary at McGavock High School. Last year MHS held a training for support staff so they could know what was going on and have a better understanding of how their roles fit into the mission and activities at the school. Sondra shared about an interesting initiative they’ve adopted, which is to break the high school into Academies. Students choose a track (similar to a major in college) where they then have exposure to classes in particular subjects, such as aviation, digital design, or law. This is an exciting development that the city of Nashville is adopting for several public high schools and hopefully will better-prepare students for college.

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Want to read about other thoughts for improving education? Check out my blog at http://AStarkReality.com.