Reflections on the Marion School System

My son now has three days of Kindergarten in Marion under his belt, and I for one am proud of him. Has he struggled to keep his hands to himself, be quiet, and refrain from entering into collective backpack war? Of course he has. But he's really trying, and he's in a fine arithmetic progression of Skittles at the end of the day (he received the full 2 today).

And I'm of course trying to be patient with him. The first two days after school we went for a walk and chatted about how if you mess up, you go to bed, get up, and it's a brand new day. You start all over again. Of course that'll preach.

But we've been a little worried about the state of kindergarten in Marion. For one, it's all day. For Tom, that's an immediate liability. It's always afternoon that he's lost any Skittles. But he's coping and adjusting to it.

Then there's the fact that there are twenty kids--way more than should be in a kindergarten class. That leads us to speculate about next year after they close Center because we at IWU are growing so well. Where are these already crowded classes going to go?

Finally, there's curriculum. No longer is kindergarten just a place to play and grow in your social skills. Now there are things that must be learned. If you don't, you don't get into first grade.

Reflections:
First, I think I understand what Andrew Nixon, our school superintendent is doing. Given the "inner city" dimension of Marion, I think he's pushing for longer time in school, all year round school, because it keeps kids at risk in a better environment for longer--and away from their drug-filled, unhealthy home environment.

But what about the rest of us who like the traditional summer with the fam?

As far as Center closing, I think it only benefits the city for IWU to succeed, so I'm not going to villify the university. However, if the city is going to enter in on this deal, it better make sure it has a plan to keep the class sizes from going up even higher.

As far as the curriculum, I'm not against learning in kindergarten. The key is that we don't push our kids into hating it from the beginning. So far Tom loves it.

But I hear Francis Slocum is in trouble if their kindergarten doesn't pass this year. No Child Left Behind will close them down. Now, what exactly does that mean? That they'll be forced to go to the other already overcrowded kindergartens in the city? Are we giving the poverty level parents a chance to send their kids to the private schools in town? (insert laughter) So we're penalizing the teachers and administration because they have the most depressed constituency in the town?

Standards are good. And I'm seeing some really creative textbooks on the middle school level. I can tell that given the demands being made of them, they are showing a good deal of creativity in meeting those goals. I do resent a situation where Bush puts a gun to their overworked, underpaid and overloaded heads and says "fix it or else." They didn't cause the problem. It's a typically immature view of parenting (and I've been guilty of it) of only looking at the behavior without addressing why the behavior is happening.

But they're doing a great job. Our teachers are finding ways to meet Bush's goals without any guidance or money from him.

Now, I'm waiting to see if Nixon has some of that same creativity. Whether he can figure out how to address the societal problems of one segment without making the rest of us hate living here.