So....I'm going to do what my mother did.

So....I'm going to do what my mother did.

The San Diego Quick Assessment is a dandy tool, I think.

If you're going to use it with your own child, use this link.

^* The quest for rescue-by-parochial-school has begun early this year.

That made sense, but what's a more complicated book?

This question led to lots of cruising of readability websites & white papers.....

I haven't finished reading that chapter, but Elaine said she was depressed by the research on this, so naturally I became depressed, too. Being sick in bed with the flu helped.

That made sense, but what's a more complicated book?

Over the weekend, this seemed to mean cruising reading comprehension websites.....

The "challenge" here in Irvington is that we have a spiral curriculum in math and ELA classes that assign novels two years below grade level. This results in predictable not-great achievement by the end of middle school, at which point we throw the kids into ferocious competition and tracking for accelerated and Honors classes.

I haven't finished reading that chapter, but Elaine said she was depressed by the research on this, so naturally I became depressed, too. Being sick in bed with the flu helped.

That made sense, but what's a more complicated book?

I haven't finished reading that chapter, but Elaine said she was depressed by the research on this, so naturally I became depressed, too. Being sick in bed with the flu helped.

That made sense, but what's a more complicated book?

I haven't finished reading that chapter, but Elaine said she was depressed by the research on this, so naturally I became depressed, too. Being sick in bed with the flu helped.

That made sense, but what's a more complicated book?

I haven't finished reading that chapter, but Elaine said she was depressed by the research on this, so naturally I became depressed, too. Being sick in bed with the flu helped.

That made sense, but what's a more complicated book?

oh!

Elaine McEwan's book Raising Reading Achievement in Middle and High Schools: Five Simple-to-Follow Strategies arrived with depressing news: just having your kids read books doesn't seem to be enough.

As I was saying, I'm trying to figure out exactly how panicked to be what to do now.

oh!

We're paying $20,000 a year in property taxes for Darwinian gatekeeping.

If the school told Christopher he had to read X number of books this year, he'd read X number of books.

As I was saying, I'm trying to figure out exactly how panicked to be what to do now.

Their SAT scores are "above average."

As I was saying, I'm trying to figure out exactly how panicked to be what to do now.

The goal is to make cuts. Figure out who doesn't "belong."

Last year an Irvington administrator told me that "Irvington is the most heavily tracked district I've ever seen."

Only the children who "belong" in Honors and/or accelerated courses gain admission, and the admissions process is grueling. Students have to write essays; parents have to sign letters saying they know their kids are applying to Honors and giving their OK.

The "challenge" here in Irvington is that we have a spiral curriculum in math and ELA classes that assign novels two years below grade level. This results in predictable not-great achievement, at which point we throw the kids into ferocious competition and tracking for accelerated and Honors classes.

No effort is made to recruit students into the Honors track.

The "challenge" here in Irvington is that we have a spiral curriculum in math and ELA classes that assign novels two years below grade level. This results in predictable not-great achievement, at which point we throw the kids into ferocious competition and tracking for accelerated and Honors classes.

No effort is made to recruit students into the Honors track.

Only the children who "belong" in Honors and/or accelerated courses gain admission - and the admissions process is grueling. Students have to write essays; parents have to sign letters saying they know their kids are applying to Honors and OKing the process.

So....I'm going to do what my mother did.

The one Bayesian prior I have to hope is gold in the bank is me: as far as I can tell, I owe my own recentered Verbal 790 not to anything my schools did, but to the fact that I was a natural born bookworm. I read all the time, from age 5 on. I read whatever I wanted to read, and what I wanted to read was fiction up 'til high school when I started reading the Great Works of authors like A.S. Neill, John Holt, and Eldridge Cleaver.

Elaine McEwan's book Raising Reading Achievement in Middle and High Schools: Five Simple-to-Follow Strategies arrived with depressing news: just having your kids read books doesn't seem to be enough.

Elaine (we're on a first name basis at this point, Elaine & me) thinks students have to be "held accountable" for their reading - i.e. they have to do something, such as writing a summary, to show they not only read the thing, they understood it - and they have to continually read more complicated books.

I gave it to Christopher and discovered that his "reading for pleasure" level is grade 6; his "instructional" level is grade 7. I suspect he's going to come out higher than that on the ITBS, but the San Diego was helpful. The two words Christopher couldn't read were science vocabulary: "relativity" (grade 6) and "capillary" (grade 7).

I gave it to Christopher and discovered that his "reading for pleasure" level is grade 6; his "instructional" level is grade 7. I suspect he's going to come out higher than that on the ITBS, but the San Diego was helpful. The two words Christopher couldn't read were science vocabulary: "relativity" (grade 6) and "capillary" (grade 7).

Plan A has to be figuring out whether there is or is not a decent Catholic boys' school somewhere in Westchester County. At this point I think even Ed would be on board for packing Christopher off to the Jesuits for the next few years. (He's come a long way, baby.)