Flies, Fairy Tales, and Shakespeare

Somebody left the screen door open, and now our house is overrun with flies. I keep killing them with fat insurance envelopes and a TCF Bank flyer printed on sturdy coated stock. I wish I had a fly swatter, but thank gooodness we still live in a world where there's junk mail.

C. Peevie has killed a few flies also, and likes to brag about it. 

He walked out of the bathroom and said, "I just killed another fly."

"Me too," I said. "I added three more notches to my belt this morning."

"You put the notches on your belt?" he asked. "I put them on my knife." I pictured him throwing a Bowie knife and pinning flies to the wall, their tiny legs flailing. 

He is apparently unfamiliar with the Grimm fairy tale, The Brave Little Tailor--so I sent him the link.

"Read it," I told him. "Clearly, your education has been sadly neglected."

"OK," he said. 

We both know he won't. You might want to re-read this clever story, however. It's more entertaining than I remembered.

The flies, however, who understood no German, would not be turned away. 

When he drew it away, and counted, there lay before him no fewer than seven, dead and with their legs stretched out.

His heart wagged with joy like a lamb's tail.

I could go on--but I'll just let you read it for yourself.

There are good reasons to read fairy tales even beyond the fact that they're entertaining.  Albert Einstein is questionably credited with saying, "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be very intelligent, read them more fairy tales."

Whether he actually said those words or not, the essence of the quote -- that developing the imagination is key to an educated mind -- correlates with his belief that "imagination is more important than knowledge." Others have extolled the value of the imagination for learning, success, and life as well. 

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night. --Edgar Allan Poe

Imagination rules the world! --Napoleon Bonaparte

You can find dozens of pages of quotes on BrainyQuotes, ThinkExist, and similar sites--but the chain of proper attribution on these sites unreliably begins and ends at "I read it on the Internet!"

I don't know how I got from a fly infestation to Shakespeare, but I leave you with these words from Theseus in A Midsummer Night's Dream:


Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, 
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt;
The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heavne to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name. 

Disambiguation

When we first started investigating home schooling A. Peevie for high school, I met with my friend X-Mom several times. X-Mom homeschools four kids, and is my go-to girl for all things homeschool--but I was getting panicky because I was not getting the answers I needed.

I kept asking, But how do we do it? and she would just ambiguate: "There are SO MANY options! SO MANY ways to do things." I wanted answers, but she knew that we had to discover our own path. Meanwhile, the part of my brain that requires certitude was starting to need an adult beverage.

We kept on talking. I kept on reading. I joined a homeschool co-op. We learned about multitudinous opportunities for learning, and unlimited permutations of homeschool choices. There's Kahn Academy; RadioLab podcasts; high-level online learning opportunities from Coursera, Udacity, and EdX; LiveMocha, or a free online language learning program (Mango) from Chicago Public Library; and tons more.

Meanwhile, well-meaning friends, family members, and others kept saying, "But what about socialization?" and "What about transcripts?" and "How will he get into college?" and "You will be such a great teacher!" Ack. That last one is the most disconnected from our reality of all. If homeschooling depended on me teaching A. Peevie, then we would both be doomed. I could not even teach my kids to use the potty, let alone teach them polynomials or the periodic table. (They had to potty train themselves, when they were ready.)

Quinn Cummings in the Wall Street Journal calls homeschooling "roam schooling," and describes a high school schedule that combines classes in a brick-and-mortar high school, a variety of online learning opportunities, community college classes, park district activities, and non-traditional learning settings. This is the multi-faceted approach that home school is becoming for us; and this is the reason X-mom stuck to her ambiguity: she couldn't tell us how to do it, because she didn't know what options would work for us, and in what combination.

 

We finally have A. Peevie's schedule mostly ironed out for his first semester of high school, and I am feeling MUCH less panicky about potentially ruining his life.

Here's what we've got on tap for A. Peevie's fall line-up:

Monday:

• Algebra I (self-study using the textbook Life of Fred; supervised by Mr. Peevie)
• Latin (self-study using the textbook and Internet workbook Oxford Latin Course)

Tuesday

• Writing and Poetry (taught by a Ph.D. instructor in a private home)
• AP Music Theory (homeschool co-op class in a real piano lab in a private home)

Wednesday

• Introduction to Christianity (Gospel of John, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and a study guide; supervised by E. Peevie)
• Some kind of science, still undefined

 Thursday--open

Friday--homeschool co-op 10-week classes including:

• Druidawn writing class (a creative writing class based on a fantasy world)
• Magic the Game
• A User's Guide to the Brain
• Archeology in Mesopotamia 

 Now tell me that schedule doesn't make you want to become a homeschool student yourself!

Bi-Polar Home Schooling

I'm home-schooling myself in the art and practice of home schooling. So far I've read two books on the topic, and they are diametrically opposite in many ways. One is an unedited, self-published, self-indulgent 400-page verbal emesis: 60 percent diatribe, 30 percent anecdotes, and 10 percent ideas.

The other is a 700-page, well-organized thesis that documents the history, method, and curriculum of a classical education.

One of them makes me want to hug a filing cabinet; the other makes my stomach hurt from insecurity and anxiety. Is there a Middle Path?

The first book, The Teenage Liberation Handbook, inexplicably gets a 4.5 out of 5 star rating on Amazon. It's inexplicable because the organization, writing, and editing are terrible--but it's also understandable because it has a powerful, counter-intuitive message to teenagers and parents. The message is this: schools don't have all the answers. They may not even have some of the answers for some kids; and many kids will be better off, and get a better education, through home schooling and/or unschooling.

I asked A. Peevie and Mr. Peevie to read "Chapter 16: Starting Out: A Sense of the Possibilities," because it offered a glimpse into the first baby steps toward homeschool, or as I'm starting to think of it, self-directed education. This chapter attempts to describe a different kind of educational structure, one which is goal- and student-directed. I don't find the "morsels of advice" from unschoolers and their parents to be particularly helpful or informative; but if you wade through those, and through the lessons in Chinese philosophy, and if you get past the author's overstated aversion to "school-style structure"--there are one or two nuggets of helpful advice, such as this:

If you are completely confused as to how to start structuring your life, here's one way: do "academics" for two hours each day--not necessarily lots of subjects, or the same ones every day; you are not going to dry up if you don't do 45 minutes every day of "social studies." Do some kind of work or project for four hours. In the rest of your time, read, see friends, talk with your parents, make tabouli. Take Saturdays and Sundays off. Sound arbitrary? It is. I made it up, although it is based on a loose sort of "average" of the lives of a hundred unschoolers, most college-bound. Once you try this schedule for a month, you will know how you want to change it.

The next chapter, "Your Tailor-Made Intellectual Extravaganza," presents a couple of good thoughts as well, explaining the method and value of interdisciplinary studies and offering a few strategies to enhance learning. "Create a small museum that relates to your interest," Llewellyn suggests; I could totally see A. Peevie doing this--although his museum might include gross things like a box of toenails, or things with questionable museum value like used cream soda bottles.

"Write letters to people and organizations, asking thoughtful questions"--also a cool idea. As a member of the Save the Manatees Club, and A. Peevie could initiate correspondence with someone from the Club to ask questions or even organize a fund raiser. I'll bet they don't have very many fundraisers in the midwest to benefit manatees. 

I think A. Peevie might find some useful ideas in the second half of the book, which focuses on "how to study all the school subjects without school." Handbook is over-written and under-edited, but like an all-you-can eat buffet, we will find something to meet our needs, and ignore the rest.

The second book, The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home (TWTM), offers a "step-by-step, grade-by-grade, subject-by-subject guide to the classical pattern of education called the trivium." And yes, it is as detailed, systematic, polysyllabic, and guilt-inducing as it sounds.

The classical education is language- and history-intensive; it helps students learn to analyze and draw conclusions; and it requires self-discipline and dedication. The trivium structure "recognizes that there is an ideal time and place for each part of learning: memorization, argumentation, and self-expression." These three stages, or methods, of learning are known as grammar, dialectic (or logic), and rhetoric.

Grammar refers not just to the grammar of language, but in a broader sense, to the building blocks of all subjects: words, facts, and dates. The dialectic, or logic stage, teaches children to "connect the facts she has learned and to discover the relationships among them. The first grader has learned that Rome fell to the barbarians; the fifth grader asks why and discovers that high taxes, governmental corruption, and an army made up entirely of mercenaries weakened the empire." This critical thinking stage builds on the foundation of basic skills and knowledge. The third stage, rhetoric, refers to expression. It is dependent upon the first two stages of the trivium: "the student uses knowledge and the skill of logical argument to write and speak about all the subjects in the curriculum."

The massive text of TWTM applies the trivium step-by-step to each subject in each grade. Most chapters include comprehensive reading and resource lists that will make your eyes water, plus examples of daily schedules, methods, timelines, and activities to create the most perfectly educated robotic child ever known to mankind.

OK, that was a bit harsh. I'm sure that anyone who chooses to apply TWTM will nurture well-rounded and well-educated children--but if you check the index, you won't find any reference to child development, play, or fun--except for Fun With Hieroglyphs on page 311. In fact, the authors go so far as to say that if you find yourself hooked up with a group of unschoolers, you may want to find yourself another group (p. 617).

I'm sure this kind of home-schooling is great for some people--but on the continuum of unschooling to classical education homeschooling, we will fall far closer to Liberation than Well-Trained.

One More Reason to Hate School

I was looking through M. Peevie's online grade-book, and noticed a big fat zero for her latest assignment in reading, a short story. I knew she had worked hard on this story, as she always does on her homework assignments. I knew that she wrote a messy first draft and had copied it over neatly on another sheet of paper.

"M. Peevie," I said, "Why do you have a big fat zero on your short story assignment?"

M. Peevie's normally cheerful countenance clouded over. "When Ms. Swamps asked me for it, I didn't have it at my desk. I said, can I please go to my locker to get it, and she said I had to give it to her right that second or I would get a zero."

"You are freaking kidding me," I said.

"No, Mommy," M. Peevie said, worry lines creasing her forehead and tears filling her eyes. "I had one more sentence to copy over from my rough draft, and she wouldn't let me go get it. I wanted to turn it in, but she wouldn't let me!"

Grrr. I would like to know what philosophy of education, what principle of child development, this punitive stance is based upon. I'm guessing it comes from a German authoritarian and Lutheran dogmatic perspective that elevates discipline, responsibility, and obedience above all other developmental goals.

Don't get me wrong: I want my children to learn discipline and responsibility. But this hyper-punitive approach completely negated the effort, compliance, and creativity that M. Peevie had brought to the assignment to that point. Couldn't Ms. Swamps mark M. Peevie's paper down a grade or two for being late, instead of giving her a zero?

Mr. Peevie has addressed this very question to the teacher, and we await a response. I will keep you posted. I'm not optimistic.

What Home School is NOT Going to Look Like

I don't exactly know what home-schooling A. Peevie will look like--but I have a pretty good idea of what it will NOT look like.

It will not look like A. Peevie and me sitting at the dining room table, with me as teacher and A. Peevie as student. For one thing, our dining room table is far too cluttered for that to work.

It will not look like A. Peevie doing spelling workbooks and reading history textbooks and writing papers.

It will not look like traditional school--except when we choose a traditional classroom approach to a particular subject. We may, for example, request permission for A. Peevie to attend the freshman biology class at our local high school. Our initial forays into this experiment in part-time public schooling have been so far unsuccessful.

Illinois law stipulates that public schools are compelled

To accept in part-time attendance in the regular education program of the district pupils enrolled in nonpublic schools if there is sufficient space in the public school desired to be attended. Request for attendance in the following school year must be submitted by the nonpublic school principal to the public school before May 1. Request may be made only to those public schools located in the district where the child attending the nonpublic school resides.

So I called the school, and wrote a letter (from me, the principal of Peevie Academy of Fun and Learning, or PAFL) requesting possible part-time enrollment for A. Peevie for the fall. The counselor said she'd never heard of such an arrangement; and she referred me to the assistant principal. The assistant principal had also never received a request for part-time attendance by a home-schooled student; and he said he'd do some research and get back to me. One consideration, he said, is that the school is already at or above its intended capacity.

[It does not make sense to me that the school would be required to accept him for full-time enrollment, but would be permitted to deny him admittance for one class. Does that make sense to you? I believe that either way, the school received funding for every enrolled student, whether that student is enrolled part- or full-time.]

I hope that most of A. Peevie's learning will be autodidactic and driven by his own passions. I can envision him starting a reading group with other kids who want to read classic horror fiction by Poe, Shelley, Stevenson, et al. I think he might be interested in participating in a Model United Nations program. My friend Zaby directed my attention to RadioLab, a public radio show "where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy and human experience." Perhaps this might become part of A. Peevie's science curriculum.

As the word gets out about this whole nutty home school thing, some people are skeptical--but a surprising number are supportive beyond the call of friendship. The mom of one of A. Peevie's good friends offered to tutor him in math and chemistry. Zaby put together an annotated list of potential resources and ideas for us to investigate. And X-Mom has already offered her insider intel to help me begin to get my brain around the alien notions of home 
schooling and un-schooling; and she has offered to include A. Peevie in her own home school academy as we see fit, and we hope this will be a symbiotic relationship.

This whole process has raised the intriguing question: What does a kid need to learn in high school? and also: What does an 18-year-old need to make his way in the world? What are the foundational pillars of education?


I'm pretty sure that the traditional academic model does not have a corner on the market for the answers to these questions. It's still unsettling, and a bit scary; but also: I'm convinced that for A. Peevie, at least, we will be able to do at least as well, and probably better, than any high school at preparing him for what comes next.

Boxification

In my first post about homeschooling A. Peevie, I neologized "boxification" to describe how education in a traditional environment sometimes looks.

Everything is boxed up, planned, and rigidly controlled; there is very little room for exploration, imagination, or inspiration in a traditional educational setting.

I'm not saying that this is true in all schools at all times for all students. I am asserting, however, that for some kids, the strictures of a traditional school detract and distract from real learning.

For example: A. Peevie has been studying about WWII in school. He asked Mr. Peevie, "Did the emperor of Japan commit suicide after Japan lost the war?" Mr. Peevie encouraged A. Peevie to do some further study on his own to find out.

The problem is, A. Peevie has tons of stupid homework every night. This is what I mean by detracting and distracting. Left to his own devices, A. Peevie would be researching and learning about post-war Japan. That WWII study unit would not be over just because an arbitrary curriculum said it was over. His interests might take him to the World War II Database, or to the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie; or he might call his grandfather to ask about his experience in WWII, check out his army medals, and research what each one means.

Instead, he spends hours after school working on math problems that he still doesn't understand after two years of traditional instruction, filling in the blanks on spelling workbook pages, and answering questions from a 20-year-old social studies book.

Let's talk about that math situation for a moment. Why is this bright kid struggling so much to understand the basics of pre-algebra? Why are his standardized test scores dropping? He used to test in the 60th percentile, and now he is testing in the 30th. Clearly what we're doing is not working--but what is the response of the school? Do more of the same, in the same way, with the same teacher.

As Albert Einstein famously did NOT say, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (Einstein may not have said it, but it has verisimilitude, wouldn't you agree?)

There has got to be a more effective way for A. Peevie to learn algebra. We are going to start with the Kahn videos, and go from there. Honestly, I think all he needs is a little bit of compassion, a lot of patience, and a teaching approach that correlates effectively with his learning style--whatever that is. I don't know what this looks like; my own math-phobia precludes me from dealing with algebra any more than absolutely necessary.

I also think I will ask A. Peevie to read Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences. It's been awhile since I read this tiny tome (only 180 pages), but I remember that it made math accessible, interesting, and relevant.

Mr. Peevie and I want A.Peevie to be educated. We want him to have the tools to be successful in college and in life. At this point, I believe that we will prescribe certain learning objectives that we want him to accomplish by the end of his high school years. We will also help him develop and pursue his own learning goals. Our hope is that A. Peevie's high school curriculum will primarily derive from his own interests; and that these interests will lead to an unparalleled learning experience for him.

But I'll also admit that I am terrified. It's possible that this could be a big mistake; and it's unclear what the consequences will be if it is a mistake. We're moving forward on homeschool because it feels like keeping the educational status quo for A. Peevie would be an even bigger mistake.

Fingers crossed.

Their Loss

My last post, Drastic Measures, has generated a bit of controversy.

"You are making a big mistake," one friend offered.

"Don't leave your job! Don't isolate A. Peevie!" another friend worried. (She wasn't the only one who worried about socialization--it's the obligatory objection whenever the topic of homeschooling comes up.)

These comments do not offend me; I know they spring from love and concern. But they are also driven by ignorance--and I mean that in the dictionary sense of the word, and with no rancour.

We started thinking about high school for A. Peevie sometime during his sixth grade year. We knew that the Chicago Public School selective enrollment high schools were out of our reach, and we started researching other public and private high school options. We visited the Chicago Waldorf School, and I posted on my FB page that I couldn't imagine A. Peevie going anywhere else for high school.

And then, guess what? I was a little too honest about his struggles with anxiety and organizational skills, and they turned him down. Here's the letter I wrote asking them to reconsider:

I've been thinking about Waldorf's thumbs-down on accepting A.Peevie in the high school in the fall. I don't know if you have a waiting list or not, but if so, I'd like to ask the admissions committee to reconsider his application.

One of the things you mentioned is that you are looking for students who are self-motivated learners. This is exactly the reason we are looking for a non-traditional school for him. The traditional academic environment seems to crush his spirit and his enthusiasm for learning; but when he is on his own, he takes the initiative to learn many new things. For example, he was learning about Leif Erikson in school, and he was so interested in him, and in the time period and his background, that he started teaching himself to speak Norwegian.

One of his heroes is Albert Einstein. When he learned that Einstein loved geometry (when he was about 11 years old), he decided he wanted to learn it himself--so he went online, looked up related websites, and printed out 15 pages of beginning lessons. He worked through all 15 of those pages on his own because of his own interest and curiosity.

He showed you one of his unfinished games that he had started to create. He has created several different similar games, with characters that he has drawn himself; he made duplicate card packs that he distributed to friends and neighbors, and they have ongoing games and battles using his unique characters and scenarios.

Currently, he is writing an adventure story--on his own, and not for school--that is in the fantasy/adventure genre. It's already about 15 chapters long, with unique characters and names, imaginary settings, and dramatic conflict.

You also mentioned that he might need more help than what Waldorf can give him with regard to his organizational skills. But again, it seems to me that Waldorf has exactly the environment he needs, and the study skills class seems specifically designed for kids like A.Peevie. He also has two very involved and supportive parents who are determined to make sure that he learns what he needs to learn in that arena in order to be successful.

He has managed to keep his creativity and imagination alive in spite of (I'm sorry to say) the stultifying atmosphere of a school that is not equipped to handle kids that fall outside of the traditional academic mold. He struggles, but he perseveres. He has dealt with many difficult challenges in his life, and this has given him a great deal of empathy for other people who are struggling. He is a heroic, charming, beautiful soul who will someday change the world.

A.Peevie would be a great addition to your school, and I am confident that he would thrive in an atmosphere that values individuality and creativity. I hope you'll bring my letter to the attention of TPTB (the powers that be), and that they will reconsider.

I don't know how Waldorf turned him down after that inspiring (if I do say so myself) plea, but we got a two-line response saying, "No, we're not going to reconsider; good luck; try this other school." Bastards.

After I got over being angry, I felt like God was firmly closing that door so that we could move on; and we did.

Drastic Measures

If you have ever met me, you will know that what I am about to tell you is completely and utterly unexpected, out of character, and insane.

We are going to homeschool A. Peevie for high school in the fall.

I KNOW.

I sense a whole bunch of blog posts in my future about this decision--which, BTW, just became final this very evening.

As you may recall, we are not satisfied with the experience A. Peevie has had at the little Lutheran grade school he's been attending since kindergarten. I'm sure that most of the teachers and staff are well-intentioned--but that place is almost as inflexible as the character of the Almighty himself--only not in a good way. 

For a kid like A. Peevie, who does not have a typical learning style, and who thinks so far outside of the box that he doesn't even know there is a box, it is a prison of random, painful tortures.

One problem is the rules. They love rules, those Lutherans; they love making new ones, and allowing no exceptions to the existing ones. Even about things that really should not matter. Midway through the school year, for example, we learned that his teacher had banned the wearing of hooded sweatshirts. This was well before Geraldo Rivera infamously blamed Trayvon Martin's death on his hoodie. The reason: Hoodies make kids feel too comfortable, too relaxed.


Seriously, Ms. Lutheran School Teacher? You believe that feeling relaxed is a deterrent to learning? For A. Peevie, who lives in hoodies and finds comfort in their relaxed fit and warmth, this was a terrible blow.


This teacher is very young--which is sometimes a good thing in a teacher. But she appears to have no clue how to relate to adolescent boys. Day after day, A. Peevie would come home with a story about how she embarrassed one boy, spoke harshly to another, or teased another. This is the last thing a boy needs to deal with, when he's already trying to figure out how to navigate the scary, hairy, testosterone-fueled world of male adolescence.

Remember those unseasonably warm weeks of early spring in Chicago, when the temperatures reached the 80s on eight days in March? The principal was unwilling to allow exceptions to the rule on the books that stipulates "no shorts before April 1," and even punished kids who wore shorts on those days.


Mr. Peevie requested a special dispensation, and even offered a script for how this rule exception could be presented; and the response was, "The students will be able to wear shorts on March 23 for Fun in the Sun Day. What a blessing we have with this warm weather!" 

Predictably, and ironically, Fun in the Sun Day turned out cold and rainy.


But these are not really the reasons we are quitting school. Our reasons have to do with the random boxification of education. Everything is boxed up, planned, and rigidly controlled; there is very little room for exploration, imagination, or inspiration in a traditional educational setting. Some kids still learn and thrive and grow--possibly in spite of the boxification. 


But a kid like A. Peevie does not flourish in this kind of environment, and this is the reason we are contemplating turning our lives upside down.

Twelve THOUSAND dollars

Mr. Peevie and I are trying to impress on C. Peevie the importance of getting good grades in high school. He's a good student, but not as good as he has the potential to be.

My colleague Shawty was telling me that her son ShawtySpawn had qualified for a significant scholarship at the private liberal arts college he would be attending in the fall. They received a letter from the financial aid office charting the relationship between grade point average and scholarship amount, and she showed it to me.

"If his grade point average had been .2 higher," she said, "he would have qualified for $4,000 more per year."

"Can I have a copy of that letter?" I asked. "I want to show it to C. Peevie."

So I brought the letter home to use as an object lesson to motivate my gifted but distractable #1 son to kick his academics into high gear.

"Look at this, C. Peevie," I said, thrusting the letter in his face. "This is from my friend Shawty at work. Her son is getting a scholarship, which is great. But if his GPA had been .2 higher, he would have qualified for $4,000 more per year."

I paused for dramatic effect.

"Four thousand dollars per year," I said. "That's twelve THOUSAND dollars."

I waited for the significance to sink in. C. Peevie waited for the part of my brain that does math to catch up.

It didn't catch up.

"Is he only going to school for three years, then?" C. "Smarty-Pants" Peevie asked innocently. It took me a full minute to get it.

"Sixteen THOUSAND dollars!" I corrected myself, but it was too late. "Crap."

"You just ruined your entire point," C. Peevie laughed.

Mr. Peevie was sitting nearby, shaking his head, as he often does when I attempt to do math.

"Did you even go to college?" he asked.

Well, I did, but you don't learn simple multiplication in college. Apparently I was absent that day in third grade.

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

Stupidity abounds.

The president is broadcasting a nationally televised speech on Tuesday to school children in Arlington, VA, urging children "to set goals, work hard, and stay in school." The White House is hoping that schools around the country will show the speech, and the Department of Education has prepared a "menu of classroom activities" to encourage student engagement.

That's not the stupid part. The stupid part comes in with the reactionaries getting their shorts in a bunch because they fear the president will be indoctrinating their children into socialism and recruiting them to liberal thinking.

"As the father of four children," Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer said, "I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology." It is an "infuriating...invasive abuse of power."

Seriously, Mr. Greer? What part of "stay in school" and "set goals" is socialistic, I wonder?

It's remarks like that one from Republican leadership that makes me think that the party is going off its rocker. I also heard a commenter on WGN Radio (can't find a link) suggest that Obama addressing schoolchildren reminded him of how Fidel Castro indoctrinated school children when he first took power in Cuba. I guess he's forgetting that the first President Bush did the same thing in 1991; and Ronald Reagan broadcast a Q&A with high school students in 1986, according to PolitiFact.com, a political fact-checking website.

I think if President Obama said he was planning to buy his daughter a teddy bear, the Far Right would somehow connect it with socialism. If he said he was naming his new dog Clifford, they'd say, "Oooo, Clifford--the big RED dog! He's a communist!" If he said he liked to read the book before seeing the movie, they'd say, "AHA! He discriminates against film-makers!"

People like Mr. Greer should realize that it does not help their cause to make much ado about nothing. Disagree about the health care bill; argue about how to handle the war in the Middle East; criticize him for his handling of the economy with the stimulus package. But going on the attack because the President wants to encourage kids to do well in school?

It's just stupid and desperate.

UPDATE: Here is the text of the speech that President Obama will be giving tomorrow. Go ahead. Try and find something in there about socialism or promoting liberal values.

Chicago High School Woes

The process for getting into one of Chicago's top high schools continues to attract investigation and criticism. Mr. Peevie, my VP of Information Management, sent me this article from the Chicago Tribune about the "complicated and secretive" selective enrollment process.

If you click on the link on the left you'll get to this graphic which charts the admission stats for each of the nine selective high schools. It indicated that anywhere from 3 percent to 9.9 percent of applicants earned one of the approximately 3,000 coveted slots. Jones College Prep, where C. Peevie will be attending in the fall, enrolled 3.1 percent of its applicants, the second lowest percentage of all the selectives.

Some complain that the federal desegregation guidelines essentially punish high-performing white students who lose out to minority students with lower scores. The guidelines stipulate that 15 to 35 percent of a selective enrollment school's students can be white, and the rest must be minority. The 2000 Census indicates that nearly 42 percent of Chicago's population is white (I wonder if that percentage has declined in nine years?), which might indicate an unfair distribution of scarce educational resources. But the mandated ratio is based on the fact that less than nine percent of Chicago Public School students are white.

The girl in the story scored in the 90th percentile "on her middle school tests," which I assume means her standardized tests. That could be one of the factors that kept her out of Payton. Most of the kids I know who are going to the top four schools (North Side, Payton, Jones and Whitney Young) scored in the 98th or 99th percentile in both math and reading.

Also, it's not clear what the Trib reporter meant by "aced the selective enrollment high school entrance exam." Does it mean she did really well? Or does it specifically mean she received all possible 300 points for her test performance? This is a critical distinction when thousands of students are competing for a couple hundred slots.

All this is not to say that things are hunky dory in the Land of Selective Enrollment. It's not right that thousands of Chicago high school students and their families have to settle for fewer educational opportunities because many, if not most, CPS high schools can't offer the kind of focus, community, and academic challenge that the selectives (and the IB programs, as well) offer.

I'm grateful that C. Peevie has essentially saved Mr. Peevie and me about $40,000 in private high school tuition by working hard enough to get into Jones. I don't really have a point in this post, except to acknowledge that many, many other kids also worked hard, and didn't get in. They'll end up at schools like Amundsen, where only 24% of students meet state minimum standards and where students average 43 absences per year; or Clemente, with a 13% dropout rate and an average ACT score of 15.5; or Marshall, where 4% of students meet state minimum standards, only 40% of freshmen graduate in five--yes, five--years, and students average 95 absences per year.

It's a sad situation, and I don't know what the solution is. Do you?

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be High Schoolers

After his long journey navigating the tortuous road to high school, C. Peevie has officially enrolled in classes for fall 2009 at Jones College Prep.

Just to backtrack a teensy bit: When C. Peevie was a sweet-smelling angel of a baby, I would hold him close and feel sorry for my friends whose kids were gigantic high schoolers. I would think to myself, Oh, how sad that they don't get to have the baby experience anymore. They must miss it so much: the cuddling, the adorable clothes, the cooing and gurgling, the toothless smiles that made everyone within a six-mile radius smile back.

And now, with my baby boy entering high school and wearing man-size pants and shoes three sizes bigger than mine--I have to tell you folks who are feeling sorry for me because my babies are no longer babies: Don't.

I do not miss those days AT ALL. I don't miss the stinky diaper smell that pervaded the entire house. I do not miss the constant gnawing on my breasts. I do not miss sleeping next to a staticky baby monitor for the slightest sigh, and wondering if I should get up YET AGAIN to make sure he's still breathing. I don't miss carrying around all the baby equipment: diapers, wipes, Cheerios, bottles, toys, extra outfits, and kitchen sinks.

I don't miss measuring the disgustingness of a poopy diaper by the number of wipes it took to clean it up ("Yow! It's a 12-wiper!"). I don't miss having to carry him everywhere--although it was kind of nice to be able to shove him, in his car seat, under the table at a restaurant during dinner. Now he takes up space and costs money.

Don't get me wrong: I enjoyed every minute of those days. OK, maybe not every minute, but many, many of them. But now that we're past them, I don't miss them. However. This week my little boy hopped on the Brown Line by himself, headed downtown, got off at the right stop, and met Mr. Peevie at his office. They walked to Jones and enrolled him in his freshman classes: math, world studies, lit, physics, French, P.E./health, and theater.

I am a little bit verklempt.

Here I am, facing the looming prospect that C. Peevito is headed to high school in a few short months, and taking public transportation all over the city--and part of me just wants to tell him STOP! Just stop growing up. I can't take it any more.

He is straddling the fence between childhood and adulthood. His voice is deepening, he'll be taller than me in about an hour (if he's not already; I didn't check today), and he's pretty much accepted the fact that he needs to shower every single day. At least once.

But in many ways, he's still a child. Being within 30 feet of his younger siblings causes his maturity level to plummet. His pre-frontal cortex won't reach maturity for another ten years or so, according to this Chicago Tribune article. That means he lacks impulse control and emotional stability.

It means he still drives me nuts--but he literally can't help himself. It must be tough being an adolescent. I remember a tiny bit about those years, myself, even though they were in a completely different geologic era. I remember my dad yelling at me for doing something I wasn't supposed to do, and my standard answer was, "I couldn't help it. It was an accident."

" 'You couldn't help it!' " my dad would growl, "That's what you always say!"

Turns out I was right. And now the Universe is getting back at me with my very own man-child. Who's almost in high school.

Wah.

Desperation and Potential Insanity

Here's how desperate I'm feeling about finding work: I'm thinking of taking A. Peevie and M. Peevie out of the Lutheran school and...wait for it...homeschooling them.

Remember in January when I homeschooled for one morning, and I was so happy when it was time to take them to school for the rest of the day? Yeah. I'm not sure that our major medical will cover that much mental health treatment. Do they still do electro-shock therapy?

Even though this solution would save our family about $8,500 in expenses for the year, I do not envision myself as a homeschooler. I do not have the patience, wisdom, patience, creativity, patience, or desire to home school my two younger children--and yet, what are my options? Sending them to the local public school? Not gonna happen.

I'm not opposed to public schools in general--just under-performing ones, where my kids won't get the right combination of challenge and support. The school within walking distance from us is one of those. I've helped the neighbor kids with their homework from that school, and it all looks like lame-ass busy-work to me. In 2005, for example, only half of their fifth graders met the state standards for reading. The school's numbers are improving--and good for them; but meanwhile, I want my kids in a place where they will be expected to perform well above the state-mandated minimums.

The only way to continue sending them to their friendly, mostly wonderful Lutheran school is for me to build my freelance writing business (I've been trying--I expect to receive my Professional Resume Writing Certification any day now) or get an actual job. The job situation is tricky. If I'm going to get a job outside of the house, it probably needs to be part-time during school hours. Does that kind of job even exist?

My creative friend Mrs. D'Onofrio suggested that I find a job as a part-time astronaut or possibly a part-time runway model, which made me start thinking about all sorts of other interesting vocations that I could pursue part time: carnival game operator, brain surgeon, criminal defense attorney, financial advisor, professional television watcher.

My blog and I are open to your suggestions. And meanwhile, if you have a friend who is looking for a writer with mad skilz, please give her my name.

High School Drama: The final chapter

Saturday morning the phone started ringing with calls from C. Peevie's 8th grade buddies.

"Did you get your letter yet?" his friends asked. "Where are you going?" Many of them had gotten perfect scores on their entrance exams, and had garnered the full 1000 points in the selective enrollment horse race. C. Peevie did not have a perfect score, but he's a bright boy and he had worked hard. We were optimistic that he had a good chance of getting accepted at several of the schools where he had applied.

We waited...and waited...and waited. The phone kept ringing with more happy news from classmates. The mailman kept not showing up. We waited some more. It was like giving birth, only without the agonizing abdominal cramps.

Mr. Peevie and I had plans that night, and we were hoping to be out of the house by 5:30...but still no mailman. Some days our mail doesn't come at all, and we started to figure that this would be one of those days, on the worst possible day.

Fiiiiiiinally, at 6:10 we saw the U.S. Mail truck on the street. We hovered by the front door, waiting as he slooooowwwwly delivered catalogs, bills and other extremely unimportant mail three doors down...two doors down...next door. AHA! We met the letter carrier at the front door, hands outstretched. He probably only gets that kind of reception from fat guys in wife-beaters waiting for the new Victoria's Secret catalog*.

I was ready to rip into the letter the moment we identified it in the packet of third class junk-- but Mr. Peevie rightly held me back. "Let C. Peevie open it," he said. "He's been working hard, and he deserves to be the one to open it." Oh, fine. Be mature.

One letter, four high school choices--three acceptances. I am proud and happy to report that C. Peevie was invited to attend his first choice selective enrollment high school, Jones College Prep.

It's challenging (read: nearly impossible) to find real stats on the number of kids applying for the selective enrollment high schools, the number of slots available, and especially the number of applicants for each slot in a particular school. One blogger and parent of a successful selective enrollment applicant (who also happens to be NY Times best-selling author James Finn Garner) suggests that "CPS keeps a lid on [the real numbers] because the system would look even more ridiculous and unfair than it already does."

This Chicago-based "elite educational coach" reports that only 7% of the 5730 students who tested for 214 slots at Jones were invited to attend. This compares to 6% at Northside, 4% at Walter Payton, and 8% at Whitney Young. The Coach sources her information from Chicago Board of Education, but I could not find a primary source online. Here's another really interesting post about the selective enrollment admission process last year, including a transparent discussion of the role of race and other preference statuses (scroll down to the February 29 entry).

C. Peevie was also accepted at Lincoln Park IB and Lane Tech. Now he just has to decide if his first choice is still his first choice. I asked him about this the other day, and he said that one reason he was leaning toward Jones was that he'd get to ride the train with his dad every day. Since he can't make a bad choice here, I'm thinking that that's a pretty sweet reason to choose a school.

Anyway, we're breathing again, now that the high school drama is over. When you see my boy, give him a high-five.

In three years, we'll be doing it all over again.

*Did you really think I would link to that? Gotcha!

You can read the first two chapters of High School Drama here and here.

High School Application Primer

I mentioned in an earlier post that we have been traveling the road to high school with our oldest spawn, C. Peevie. It's a stressful and time-consuming process--and at the end of the road, our child either receives an offer to attend one of Chicago's top tier public high schools, or I will end up selling my own flesh by the pound down on Rush Street in order to pay for private high school. You can guess which option we--and, let's be honest, all of Chicago's residents--prefer.

CPS reports that every year they receive applications for selective enrollment high schools from more than 12,000 students--but they have only 2,500 slots available. The pressure is on!

Here's where our process has taken us to date:

• Researched the selective high school options. Some we eliminated as possibilities because of location, others because of the extreme unlikelihood that C. Peevie (I just typed C. Poovie by accident--hee!) would gain admittance based upon the thousand-point scale.
• Researched and discussed how to rank the selective high school options for the application form. If you aren't careful, you might rank yourself right out of a selective enrollment option because you aimed too high or too low. Many of the selectives, we heard, would not put a student at the top of their admit list if they listed the school as anything but their first choice.
  
• Completed and submitted the selective enrollment application, indicating Jones, Whitney Young, and Lane as the top three choices.
  
• Meanwhile, C.P. also completed a separate application for the International Baccalaureate program at Lincoln Park High School (LPHS), which is "designed for students who are highly motivated and desire a rigorous academic program." This highly regarded program received silver medal status from U.S. News and World Report in its Best High Schools report in December 2008. The only question is, is C. Peevie highly motivated. Motivated to play? Yes. Motivated to watch Frasier and Angel on DVD? Yes. Motivated to study for four hours a day? Not so much.
• Nevertheless, we still decided to continue in the LPHS/IB application process. The next step was a three hour test on a Saturday morning.
• The application process for the three selective enrollment schools also included a three-hour test.
  
• Then we went to open houses for each of the four high schools he was interested in.
  
• In addition, C.P. attended a half-day shadow day at Whitney Young.
• Also, C.P. and I attended a three-hour IB tour at LPHS, where we learned about the IB curriculum in great detail. We were really impressed with the fact that the teachers were excited to be teaching at LPHS, and very proud of the IB program there.

LPHS has one of only three Arabic programs for high school students in all of CPS. The Arabic teacher walked into the classroom and said, "Salaam 'Alaykum!" There was silence, and then one brave and brilliant mom replied, "'Alaykum As-Salaam!" It was me, of course. C. Peevie and I were both impressed with and interested in the Arabic program.

• Unfortunately, this good experience was followed up with a bad one. C. Peevie was invited to do a personal interview at LPHS; here's how it went:

Interviewer, handing CP a list of activities: What extra-curricular activities do you like?
CP: Baseball, basketball, football...
Interviewer, interrupting: Good, good. What kind of books do you like to read?
CP: Fiction, and...
Interviewer, interrupting: Good, good. Keep reading fiction. What is your favorite subject?
CP: I'd choose two, social studies and literature.
Interviewer: Literature, huh? Well, you didn't do well on the essay part of the exam.
CP: Um...
Me: Grrrrr...
Interviewer, oblivious: Do you have any questions?
Me: Where do your students go to college?
Interviewer: Everywhere.
Me: Oh. That's helpful.
Interviewer: Well, thanks for coming in.

I'm not sure what the purpose of the interview was, except perhaps to see if C. Peevie would even show up--because the interviewer, who I believe is the primary decision-maker, did not learn anything about C. Peevie that would inform her decision one way or another. In what possible way was it constructive for her to tell us that he didn't do well on the essay? Like I said: oblivious. Which is not a really great characteristic for a dean of admissions.

So now we wait. Letters go out on February 20 to let students know where they've been accepted. After that, I think we have two weeks to make a decision.

This whole crazy process is more complicated and stressful than the college admission and application process, and I cannot wait until it's over.

Salaam Alaykum!

Update: We're in!

One Day as a Homeschooler

Homeschooling is not my thing. It is so far from my thing that if it were a continent, it would be Antarctica.

However, some things are too important to be left up to the school to handle, among them religious education, sex education, and inauguration education. So today being the inauguration day of our 44th president, I decided to do homeschool with the littlest Peevies. (No one was sure at the Little Lutheran School That Could whether the kids would be able to watch the events on TV, and I didn't want to take the chance of them missing it.)

Meanwhile, C. Peevie's school had the whole day devoted to inauguration-related learning activities, including an oath of office activity, ballroom dancing, watching the swearing-in and inaugural speech on TV, a parade, and toasts with apple juice in plastic stemware.

So, over a leisurely breakfast of French toast, the little Peevies and I talked about U.S. government, the Constitution, the presidency, and the inauguration.

"How many branches of government do we have?" I asked.

"Four!" A. Peevie shouted.

"Five!" M. Peevie screamed. And then in an inside voice she added, "But I don't really know what that means."

Obviously I needed to tailor my material a little differently. "OK," I began again, "Here's what we have. There are three branches to our government: The legislative, which is Congress, that makes the laws; the executive, which leads the country and makes sure the laws are obeyed; and the judicial, which is the Supreme Court and all the other courts and judges that decide what the laws mean."

Two blank faces looked at me. "Um, yeah, so which branch is Mr. Obama going to be in?" I asked.

"Executive!" they both screamed. So why the blank faces? I wondered. And why does there have to be so much screaming? This homeschooling nonsense is too much work and stimulation for me. But we hadn't even gotten through breakfast, so I plodded on.

"Who knows what the Constitution is?" I asked. "And try to answer the question without screeching."

"Is it when the President gets elected?" M. Peevie ventured.

"Is it the people who go to Congress?" A. Peevie attempted.

"No, guys, nice try though," I said encouragingly. "It's the main group of laws that tells us how to run our country. And when the new president takes his oath of office, he promises to protect it and make sure we keep on following it."

"What's an oath?" M. Peevie asked. It's a promise, I told her; and then we read the oath of office together: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of the president of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Then we did an inauguration vocabulary worksheet, read a brief biography of Obama, and drew a picture of Mr. Obama getting his oath on. Both of the kids' pictures included a picture of Batman administering the oath--or maybe that was supposed to be the Chief Justice in his judicial robes.

Finally, we turned on the TV in plenty of time to watch the dignitaries and former presidents being escorted to their special seats--and the kids shouted out the names of those they recognized.

"It's Joe Biden!" A. Peevie said as Bill Clinton walked onto the stage.

"And looks who's with him," M. Peevie said, "It's the girl who ran for president against Obama!" Tiny pause. "Oh, yeah, Hillary!" she remembered suddenly.

They thought Aretha's hat was amazing and a little bit hilarious. "Is she a good singer, Mom?" M. Peevie asked me.

They said Yo-Yo-Ma was way cool, because they knew him from the PBS kids' show, Arthur; and when I told them that he was probably the best cellist in the world, and certainly the best-known, they were even more impressed with Obama's clout.

We watched--me with tears in my eyes--as the oath was administered to our first brown-skinned president. Immediately afterward, A. Peevie observed, "This is a really important day for our country." We cuddled together on the couch, listening to Obama's often-pointed speech:

"...we will restore science to its rightful place..."

"...power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please..."

"...we will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people..."

"...we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist..."

and these most inspiring words

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

As he talked about where we are and what we are facing, and where we will go and how we will get there, my kids leaned up against my legs, listening intently. And when he concluded with this exhortation,

America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

my kids were only just beginning to get restless. A. Peevie was actually anxious to get started on writing his essay, and M. Peevie was ready and willing to put her thoughts down on paper as well.

From A. Peevie, on the Inauguration of our 44th President:

Barack Obama is the first African-American president. This is a great time for America, because we have never had an African-American president. I think Obama will teach us great things. I also think that he will lead our country with great power and great intelligence. I think that he will fight for our country and he will help us all live better and more sufficient lives.

I liked the inauguration a lot. I think it gave a very powerful feeling to everybody there and who saw it on TV. There were a lot of people there, some were famous and some were just regular day citizens. But they were all there, people who voted for Obama and people who didn't vote for Obama, former presidents, famous musicians like Yo-Yo-Ma, and a poet.

And here's little M. Peevie's contribution:

We watched the inauguration today. The inauguration is when Obama becomes president. During the inuguration they said prayrs, they sang songs and read poems. There were millions of people on the mall and we saw a lot of famous people there. We even saw Yo-Yo-Ma playing in a band. The inauguration is very important.

And then we packed up our homeschool papers and headed off to finish up the school day in a more traditional school setting. Because as inspiring as all this was, it is also quite tiring, and mommy needed a little nappy-poo.

I do not know how real home-schoolers do it. God bless 'em.

Second Grade Field Trip

Today I went to The Grove on a field trip with M. Peevie and the Second Grade Class. I rode on a bus with about 40 very loud children. Sometimes I wanted to cover my ears. Sometimes I was loud, too. The bus ride was fun and bouncy.

At The Grove, we followed our leader, Miss MacDonald, to the old-fashioned school house, where she pretended to be our schoolmarm. A schoolmarm is an old-timey school teacher who teaches all the children of all ages together in one room.

We had to sit up straight and fold our hands on our desks and not talk. It was very, very hard not to talk.

We got wooden nametags to hang around our necks, and we pretended to be children from 1862. M. Peevie's name was Mercy, which is a very cute name, I think. Maybe I will start calling her that in real life.

Sometimes I snuck my cell phone out of my purse and sent text messages to J1 & J2's mom. This was her first time sending her girls off on a field trip without her, and she was a little worried about them. (She obviously does not subscribe to my parenting philosophy: "Leave 'em early and often.") I told her that my rule is No Bleeding Or Choking On My Watch--so she felt relieved, because I am so mature and responsible.

There were many things that I did not like about 1862. We had to do "recitations" in class, which meant repeating sentences after the teacher. How would this help anybody learn anything? We had to read aloud from a McGuffey's Reader--the same paragraph over and over. Again: BORING.

We had a class spelling bee, which was totally hilarious because nobody could spell the first word, which was BONNET. We tried one more word, BUFFALO, but when three kids couldn't spell it, Miss MacDonald had had enough. I think maybe she was not impressed with our spelling abilities.

We sang some songs, and then we got to write words on our slates with chalk. Miss MacDonald told us to write three-letter words with the letters A and T in them. I wrote down 25 words, and I think I won. Not that I am competitive or anything.

When we went outside for recess, it was dumb that the girls could not play with the baseball thing. Miss MacDonald said girls in 1862 had to only play games that were ladylike. I do not like being ladylike, and I was glad all over again that I live in 2008 and not 1862. When Miss MacDonald went inside the schoolhouse, I played with it anyway. I hit the ball really far.

I think Mr. S, the daddy chaperone, wanted to tell on me, but he didn't. I bet Mr. S. that he could not pop the ball into the cup two times in a row with the wooden stick/string/ball thingie, and he did it, so now I owe him one dollar. But don't gamble, boys and girls.

Back in the schoolhouse, we did readings from our McGuffy Readers. When the pretend third-grade girls got up to do their reading, all the boys started pounding on their desks real loud. Miss MacDonald made them stand up in the front of the room and she pretended to swat their behinds with a stick while they hollered.

That's how teachers disciplined their students back in 1862, and that one more reason I am glad to be here in 2008.

When we left the schoolhouse, we walked down a path to a duck pond. On the way we saw guinea hens, which were very beautiful, with fluffy poka-dotted feathers. Mr. S. said they are good to eat, but I did not want to think about eating them when they were walking around looking so sweet and adorable and alive.

However, if the guinea hen had look like this I would not have any problem thinking about eating it. Does that make me a hypocrite?

At the duck pond we saw many beautiful ducks. I think maybe they were mallards: the boys had green necks with a white ring at the top, and the girls were brown, white, and black. I told J1 that she should jump in the pond because her mom said to be sure and come home wet! But she did not believe me, and Mrs. MiPi really quick-like said, "Um, no, I think she said DO NOT come home wet." They are no fun.

We walked to another building where they had a big tank of turtles. There was other stuff, too, but I didn't see it because I was trying to email pics of J1 and J2. Sometimes technology gets in the way of real life. Let that be a lesson to you.

I had a good time on my trip to The Grove with the Second Grade.

The Road to High School

When I went to high school, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there were no decisions to be made, no entrance exams to take, no open houses to visit, no applications to fill out.

I just walked two blocks up the street, walked in the front door of William Tennent High School, and that was that. Even when my parents rudely picked up our lives and moved them to Broken Arrow ("Arruh"), Oklahoma, there were still no complications. There was one huge high school in town, and I attended it--even though the school only offered first and second year Spanish, and I was hoping to take fourth year. And even though the girls basketball team played using archaic half-court rules for girls. (I am not even kidding. It was like we had not only moved halfway across the country, but backwards in time as well. To the Victorian Era.)

Here in Chicago, the road to high school is a bit more complex. The eight selective high schools in Chicago use a thousand-point rating scale to weed out losers less-qualified applicants. The scale combines points for seventh grade final grades, ISAT scores, and attendance. If you get straight As in seventh grade, deliver top scores on the ISATs, and don't get sick, you will have your pick of any selective high school in the Chicago Public School system.

The selective high schools, plus a few non-selective schools are the ones that you want to aim for in the public school district that Secretary of Education William Bennett labeled the worst in the nation in 1988. Things have improved since then: last year the State Board of Education ranked three CPS schools (Northside, Payton, and Young) as the top three high schools in Illinois.

The selective high schools accept fewer than one out four applicants; the process is more competitive than most colleges. My talented son, C. Peevie, although a stellar human being and an excellent student, will none-the-less not have his pick of any high school. He will have to go through the lengthy process of visiting, applying to, and testing for any school he's interested in attending, including up to four selective schools. We've been told to apply to a minimum of four high schools to ensure that at least one gives us the thumbs-up.

Our weekends for the next six weeks are booked with high school open houses. Most of the selectives won't even put you on the short list unless you list them as your number one choice--which puts even more pressure on us to do the application process exactly right. If C. Peevie is borderline qualified for a couple of the top schools, he could theoretically lose out on both of them by listing the wrong one first.

No matter which high school C. Peevie enters, he will be navigating public transportation to and from school. Barely 14 years old, he will be riding the bus with cubicle-dwellers, barristas, homeless people, maids, artists, and college students. He might sit down next to a gang member, a really smelly guy, or a stock broker. He'll be exposed to a lot more Life than I ever was at age 14--or age 24, for that matter.

Actually, he's already doing this once or twice per week, to get home from his relocated middle school after flag football practice. I probably should have been worried sick the first time C. Peevie hopped aboard the Foster bus all by his lonesome--but I wasn't. When I learned that he actually got on the wrong bus, headed east instead of west, I retroactively worried--but there he was standing in front of me, telling me how he asked the bus driver if he was headed in the right direction; hopped off a half-block later; and eventually, two buses and a short walk later, made it all the way home.

C. Peevie is resourceful, smart, cautious and brave, and I could not be more proud of him. And in ten short months my sweet baby boy will be a big-shot high school kid, and that, my friends, is a punch in the gut. In a good way, of course.

Cash for Good Grades

Some high school students in Chicago will be earning cash rewards for good grades this fall. The program, called Green for Grades, is targeted to 5000 freshmen at 20 CPS high schools with very high poverty rates. It's funded by private donations, not tax dollars.

Students will be measured every five weeks in math, English, social sciences, science and physical education. An A nets $50, a B equals $35 and a C still brings in $20. Students will get half the money upfront, with the remainder paid upon graduation. A straight-A student could earn up to $4,000 by the end of his or her sophomore year. ("Earn An A? Here's $50." Chicago Tribune, September 11, 2008)

The kids will get half of the money up front, and the rest upon graduation from high school--providing further incentive to stay in school and get that diploma.

I know what you're thinking, but HOLD YOUR HORSES, THERE, KEMOSABE. Try to stop your eyes from rolling into the back of your head, and keep reading.

Many Chicagoans are irate about this program as though the schools are giving away their own hard-earned money instead of (probably) Oprah's. They're irked because the students don't want to learn just for the sake of learning, and their righteous undies are all in a bunch because the teachers and parents are not doing their job and motivating the kids to stay in school.

The comments at the bottom of this Chicago Tribune article were running four to one opposed to the cash incentives.

One poster commented, "With the poverty level in Chicago, I bet a lot of parents are going to be buying food, gas and paying rent with this money, or putting undue pressure on their kids to get the money. Not good." This type of thinking is self-righteous and elitist. She is concerned that parents are going to put pressure on their kids to get good grades. And that is bad why? And she's also concerned that poor parents are going to use the money to buy food or pay rent. And again, why exactly is that bad?

She doesn't even take the normal knee-jerk anti-social-service reaction and suggest that the parents will be using the money to buy drugs or alcohol. No, she's critical of people living at poverty level using money to buy food or pay rent.

I confess that when I originally heard this idea discussed on the radio about a year ago, I had the same WTF reaction that many of you just had: You are freaking kidding me. We're going to pay kids to stay in school and get good grades? It's crazy! It's insane! It's a sign of the apocalypse!

But now that I've taken some time to actually think about it, I've changed my mind. I invite you to do the same.

My perspective, having worked with social service agencies in Chicago, is that there are a whole lot of parents out there who are working hard but are just barely able to pay rent and put food on the table. They live paycheck-to-paycheck, and if their car breaks down, or their kid gets sick and they need to spend $100 on prescriptions, they're screwed. So my feeling is, if their kids can contribute a few bucks to the household by staying in school, and studying hard enough to earn good grades, good for them.

Many--not all--of the kids who will receive incentives already have the odds stacked against them. Did they get a healthy breakfast in the morning? Did they get enough sleep the night before? Do they have a parent at home in the afternoon to make sure that they eat a healthy snack and do their homework? Do they even have a healthy snack waiting for them?

Are they responsible for younger siblings when they should be focusing on their math problems? Are they surrounded by children and families who value education, or do they live in a neighborhood where half of the adults don't even have a high school diploma themselves? Are they afraid when they're walking home from school?

And it's true that some of the kids have parents that are not equipped even to parent them, let alone to provide a home learning environment, or to make sure they get breakfast in the morning. Yes, it's likely that some of the school problems are the direct result of inadequate parenting. But it doesn't matter whose fault it is. What matters is, they are having a hard time, and what we're doing to fix the system is not working.

Maybe it's time to try something new and radical, something that, on the surface, defies common sense: cash for good grades.

If you look at the 2007 School Profiles and State Report Cards for each of the 20 schools, you will find

• The percentage of low-income families ranges from 82.6% to 98.8% (median 93.65 percent)
  
• With the exception of Uplift, which has relatively high-performing readers, 13.8 - 55 percent of students are making adequate yearly progress (AYP) in reading (median 22 percent)
  
• 2.3 - 36.3 percent of students are making AYP in math (median 12.3 percent)
  
• Average days absent per student ranges from 14.9 to a shocking 42.5 (median 26.4 days)
  
• Dropout rates range from .8 to 16.4 percent (median 10.5 percent)
  

These are kids who, for whatever reason, need drastic intervention to turn their "educational expectancy" around! With the truancy rates so high, it's remarkable that the drop-out rates aren't two or three times higher.

The Trib reporter quoted an egghead from Swarthmore College whose argument against the cash incentives amounted to "but they won't learn to love learning." Seriously. We are talking about kids in schools where you get an attendance award if you've only missed 15 days of school!

He added, "They'll do well in school, maybe, but they won't take any of it out with them. Instead of trying to cultivate an interest in learning, curiosity...you are just turning this into another job." Honestly, if this is the best argument against cash incentives for good grades, then the debate is over before it has even begun. I have used the job analogy with my own kids, and I don't think it's a bad one. School IS their job right now, and this is a good attitude to cultivate.

If you are concerned that this privately-funded pilot program will eventually become a taxpayer liability, I'd like to point out that taxpayers are going to be putting money into these students at some point, either way. The incentive program has the potential to reduce the number of social service and criminal justice dollars needed in the future to deal with kids who became adults with no HS diploma, no job skills, and limited employment opportunities.

Is it ideal to pay kids cash money to get them to do what they should be doing anyway? No. But Chicago is facing an educational crisis, not an ideal North Shore situation, where mom and dad both have advanced degrees and there's not a guy selling crack on the corner. I'm just saying.

I'm not a big fan of Arne Duncan, you might remember; but in this case, I'm in his corner.

Are you?