Dorie quotes Lydia Lee: >" We need to > build teacher's skills before creating more K-8s . There are 23 k-8 schools > in the district now and only a handful of them are doing well. "
As someone who had to pick an elementary school within the last three years, I'd say that the trend to K-8s is driven by parents, not board members. That's because - as poorly as Lee might think K-8s are doing - the perception is that "true" middle schools (grades 6-8 only) are doing worse. I don't know if this is perception or reality. My sense is that a lot of us remember junior high as a horrible experience; we look at our little 4-year-olds, look down the road, and do anything we can to get them in a K-8, where at least won't be 100 percent hormonally awakening pre-teens. Our kids ended up in a K-5, not because of the middle school factor. During our search, I heard two interesting things. One was from a parent who was a K-8 veteran, who did not want her kid in a K-8. That was a minority view based on my search, so I asked her why. "You're in the same clique in 8th grade that you were in 3rd grade," she said. The other thing I didn't realize is that - counterbalancing the Lord of the Flies factor - true middle schools offer a wider array of classes (such as foreign languages) than K-8s can. I didn't really check this out; can those in the know say if that's true? I know former board chair Catherine Shreves and others were involved in a big middle-school reform effort in recent years; again anecdotally, I've heard it's made things better. Love to hear first-hand reports. Overall, I'm agnostic (for now) on the K-8 versus K-5/6-8 question. But it seems to me that we need to train better middle school personnel whether or not we change - so why not try something new if we need to do the training anyway? Unless parents flock back to MPS because there are more K-8s - which would be its own evidence of success - we're going to have the same number of middle-school-age kids as we do now. So training is a given; the real question is what is best for kids. Whatever your answer, parent perception is a huge factor in who ends up where, or even in, Minneapolis public schools. David Brauer Kingfield REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
