Our first grader would have had a better chance at an effective reading program had he attended a school on the state's failing list.
He soon recruits our sixth grader, along with a handful of other dubiously magical kids, to super camp, which, upon arrival, past the fierce security, feels nothing like camp after all.
For me, that moment came at pickup one afternoon when I asked our 1st grader, Diego, that rote parental question, "How was school today?" His reply: "Learning, learning, learning, blah-blah….
In the case of our fifth grader, we went to the school guidance counselor and learned several kids felt the same way, which started a dialogue with the school administration about the teacher.
Our seventh grader takes synchronous literary analysis online, collaborating with other students around the world, and asynchronous math online courses through a program for gifted youth offered by Stanford University.
We are blessed that the school our seventh grader attends has made the children's health paramount and has limited the materials list to one three-ring binder, a pack of ruled binder paper, a hole punch and no notebooks at all! Juan Levy Philadelphia, Sept. 4, 2006.
Like countless families, we didn't know about this threat until our tenth grader was raped on a school fieldtrip in 2012.
Sometimes good parenting means doing things because they are easy and fun, not because we want our first grader to get into a decent law school.
This particular morning, our fifth grader had a special project to turn in: a tri-fold rendition of Marie Curie's biography.
It's time to face the facts and speak the truth: When we fail to insist that our most capable teachers be assigned to teach our first graders and second graders, WE are putting our children on a dropout track.
