Comments on Western Sierra Collegiate Academy

The latest Placer Herald includes opinions from Wendy Boyd and Todd Lowell.

Wendy Boyd's OpEd

Todd Lowell's OpEd

Eric Hogue Addresses School Choice Issue in Rocklin and Placer County

Eric Hogue will be interviewing Dr. David Patterson, Executive Director of Rocklin Academy, and Steve Paul from the Rocklin Unified School District on his "Capital Hour" show at 12:00PM Thursday, KTKZ 1380 AM.

You can also listen online live at:

http://ktkz.townhall.com/ by clicking on the "Listen Live" link in the upper left corner of the KTKZ website.

Important School Choice Meeting

Two main PEER goals from our mission statement are:

Support Quality Education and School Choice - We will work to
promote high quality educational options for all students.
Advocate - Provide support for parents regarding education issues
in the community.

Today you have a chance to make your opinion about school choice
known. As many of you know, Western Sierra Collegiate Academy has
been petitioning for a new charter college prep 7-12 school in the
local area.

The Rocklin Unified School Board denied the charter twice, and now
the decision has been appealed to the Placer County Board of
Education.

Tonight, November 13th, the Placer County Board will make their
decision. If you want your opinion heard, I urge you to
attend this meeting. It will be held at:


Placer County Office of Education
360 Nevada Street, Auburn

Time: 7:00 PM

You can also send your opinions to:

ggarbolino@placercoe.k12.ca.us County Superintendent
Don Brophy; dabrophy@pacbell.net
Rich Colwell; rcolwell@placer.ca.gov
Scott Gnile; scott@gnitech.com
Lynn Oliver; lynnoliver18@gmail.com
Ken Sahl; ken2007@surewest.net
Ken Tokutomi; kentokcar@sbcglobal.net

Educational Freedom in Rocklin

Should parents be free to choose what kind of school their children will attend?

Educational Freedom is the question to be answered on Wednesday, January 15, 2008 at 7:00 pm in Rocklin.

The answer to this question will be given by the Rocklin Unified School District Board of Trustees and will have consequences not only for Rocklin, but the entire Placer County area.

If you are involved in your child's education and believe you should have the freedom to choose, you should attend this meeting.

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical"

Thomas Jefferson

School Choice Lessons in Wisconsin

I ran across an interview with former Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist about his experience with school choice.

You can read the interview here.

Are Your Kids Inspired?

The embedded video below is a speech given by Burt Rutan. If you are interested in technology and the future you will probably enjoy the entire video.

The first few minutes should be interesting to everyone with children, including the children themselves. Are we inspiring future generations to push the limits and achieve their full potential? Will they lead our country and our ever shrinking world or are we willing to settle for a few toys that won't mean much in the long run?

Listen in below!

More School Choice for Placer County

There are two developments that expand school choice in the Placer County area.

The first is a new IBO elementary program in the Loomis area. We don't have the contact information for this school, so if anyone has a website or any other information please add it in the comment section. Generic information about the program can be found at www.ibo.org.

The next program is for 7-12 from Western Sierra Collegiate Academy. The school plans on starting in Fall 2008 and they have an information signup on their website. There was an information night on November 13th. We will post any future meeting dates.

Both programs are exciting news for school choice in the local area!

Press Release

Here is the Press Release for Not as Good as You Think

Not as Good as You Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Choice

Not as Good as You Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Choice was just released by the Pacific Research Institute.

If you are concerned and involved in your child's education you should read this book.

The book is available for purchase, but is also available as a free .pdf download at the link above.

We'll be posting more information soon.

Accelerated Reader: Junk Food for the Mind?

If you were interested in the Supplementing Education post and your child is involved in Accelerated Reader, take a look at the links below.

Why Read Shakespeare When Clancy Can Get You a Pizza Party?

Reading for Points Only?

Nancy Drew Outpoints Macbeth

The articles highlight some potential shortcomings with the program.

If your child is in Accelerated Reader are you monitoring what books have actually been read or just looking at points gained?

Are you balancing "just for fun" books with some challenging classics?

Please discuss in the comments.

Supplementing Education

If you're not homeschooling your child but want to ensure a certain level of achievement, supplementing may be for you.

The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to a Classical Education at Home is an excellent book for any parent desiring an academically rigorous, comprehensive education. This is called a "classical education" by the authors, Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer.

If you are not conducting homeschool, the authors suggest the idea of supplementing or reinforcing what your child learns at school.

Supplementing can be a great way to stay involved in your child's education and show your commitment to learning.

School Choice for All?

I stumbled upon an interesting blog post about school choice and politicians.

Stop the bus, my kid is getting off.

Enjoy!

The College Crunch

Christopher Guttentag wrote a very interesting commentary in the April 16, 2007 issue of BusinessWeek titled "The College Crunch: Why Getting in Has Gotten So Tough"

If prominent universities are becoming more exclusive, what can you do to set your child apart and give them the best chance for admission? Attending a world class high school may help.

A group of Rocklin residents has taken the first steps to creating a nation leading, world class high school in the Placer County area. You can find out more about this effort and what you can do to help at www.wscacademy.org.

How is My School Doing? Similar School Rankings

Do you want to see how your school compares to other schools with similar demographics?

The first place to look is the similar school rankings provided by the State of California. The naysayers in the crowd complain about this site, so I'll provide another source that has more details.

Just for the Kids California

This website is very comprehensive. Input the school district on the first page, click "go" and you will receive a list of schools in the district. Click on your preferred school and you will be taken to another page where you can select the test subject and grade level (you can even look at past years). Click on "select chart"

The next page will offer up variables based on ethnicity, etc. You can just accept the given data or change some of the variables. The given data is based on the school you have selected (it will make sense when you see it). Select display chart and you will see the results along with comparisons of other schools.

If you click on a chart you will see the actual data for the comparison schools along with their demographic breakdown. It's a great feature.

Beyond API

The end of August marks the release of STAR test results and API scores. It's a big moment for educators and administrators, but what does it mean to parents?

Problems with API

Can the quality of a schools be reduced to one number? The API score can give us some important insight into a school's performance but there are at least a couple of problem areas, especially for parents.

CBEE has complained about API for several years. One of the primary problems is the "goal" of 800 does not meet grade level proficiency in math, reading and other subjects (it would take 875). This problem was highlighted in a March 28th article by Dan Walters in the Sacramento Bee. But beyond this glaring shortcoming is a more important issue for parents.

API may give a snapshot of a school, but it doesn't tell you anything about the most important issue, how your child is doing. This information must be gathered from your individual STAR testing results. Grade level proficiency is the minimum acceptable result.

I had a discussion with a local educator about API scores and the number of children below proficient. I was told the school had until 2013 or 2014 to meet the standard. That may be fine for an administrative benchmark, but it's not okay for your child. Your child doesn't have until 2013/14 to be proficient. They need to be there now. A child below the proficient level is now stuck playing catch up. The longer it takes to get back to proficient, the more difficult their education will be.

I urge all parents to take a close look at their child's STAR testing results. If there is a subject below proficient make sure you make a plan to get them to proficient (or beyond) as soon as possible.

We're back...

The PEER website and blog are back in service. The web hosting for the site was hacked, and luckily the hosting company noticed the problems and shut down our server. Unfortunately if you attempted to get on the blog or website you were out of luck. The upside is we are back, ready with more content, and on a more robust system.

Stay tuned for some "back to school" posts!