A Parent's Quest: Navigating the Education Maze

Navigating the Education Maze Presented by News21, funded by the Carnegie-Knight Initiative for the Future of Journalism Education.

Project based at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Full project online at:

http://northwestern.news21.com

Turning point

Program focuses on making gains early to improve overall student performance

By Courtney Subramanian

Some experts say if a child is not up to grade level in reading by third grade, the struggle continues for remainder of schooling. Others believe the battle begins much earlier.

In Chicago Public Schools, just over half of third grade students meet the reading benchmark in the Illinois Standards Assessment Test, and as most know, meeting benchmark does not translate to comprehension.

And although the Illinois class of 2011 marked the highest ACT score in a decade with an average of 20, reading readiness hovered at 48 percent for the second year in a row.

After closing a $712 million budget deficit, CPS is cutting an estimated $320 million in spend-

ing, including scaling back on after school programs, bilingual education and literacy initiatives that combat these type of statistics.

A small nonprofit isn’t letting budget problems stand in the way.

Reading in Motion, a local organization that uses an arts-based approach to teach kindergarten and first graders to read, has crept into classrooms around the city, raising classroom-reading levels higher than 90 percent.

Reading in Motion founder Karl Androes, who created the program in 1983 as Whirlwind Performance Company, believes first grade is the marker for measuring literacy rates.

“By the end of first grade, where a child is at as a reader is 88 out of 100 times where they’ll be as a reader in eighth grade, fourth grade, 11th grade,” he said.

The program involves small group stations with stimulation like drawing and coloring to engage children in learning to read.

Emphasis on STEM at public high school Focus on math, science important at Illinois’ only public boarding school

By Randy Leonard

Illinois Math & Science Academy in Aurora prepares high school sophomores through seniors for careers in the sciences.

Illinois Math and Science Academy has provided an immersive, hands-on approach to preparing high school students for college and careers in the sciences since 1985. Students from all over Illinois live on campus and learn to “do real science,” in the words of

IMSA president Max McGee. Students collaborate with university researchers to produce studies that are sometimes published in journals like Nature and the Journal of Physical Chemistry.

Outside of the bound of any school district, IMSA answers directly to the Illinois General Assembly, a hierarchy that provides both flexibility and necessitates showing a return on investment, McGee says.

Visit http://northwestern .news21.com for an in-depth look at life at this school.

El Valor builds C

Center offers holistic approach to early childhood education For the rest of this story, go to: http://northwestern.news21.com

Guillermina Diaz and her son Angel at El Valor.

Two girls play outside at the annual family picnic at El Valor’s Carlos Cantu Center.

ourage. That’s the promise of nearly 40 years to Spanishspeaking residents of Chicago by an organization that has a simple yet complex mission –preparing kids for school and preparing parents to do their part in getting their children ready.

A site director at one of the organization’s facilities explains: “Many of us think that becoming a mother comes naturally, but it does not.”

That’s where El Valor steps in. Founded in 1973 by pioneering Latina activist Guadalupe Reyes, the non-profit serves about 1,150 kids at three locations in Chicago annually. Its outreach and influence extends far beyond that.

To call El Valor a daycare center misses the point. The center offers more than just a place for parents to drop kids for the day; disability analysts and caseworkers work with families to diagnose cognitive or physical disabilities, offer trainings for parents and community members, and teachers provide in home care visits.

Nina Duenas, site director at Cantu Center, the newest of El Valor’s facilities, said the programs are all geared toward preparing children for school. And the second mission, teaching parents to be educators, is crucial.

“Some moms need help connecting with the baby. We help make sure that happens.”

This holistic approach to early education is also bilingual, with teachers moving effortlessly between Spanish and English.

As people debate conventional education issues such as the charter school movement and teaching to the test, largely lost is an emphasis on early childhood education.

Decades of research and studies point to the economic benefits of investing in early childhood: huge savings to the money spent on the criminal justice system, a large return on investment and less need for mental health and substance abuse services. But despite the evidence and the support of some key advocates, such as U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, federal and state funding for such programs remains perpetually in jeopardy.

Waiting lists are commonplace for Head Start providers. The free program serves more than 900,000 low-income children nationwide, but the gap between the amount of children qualified for preschool and those actually enrolled is growing. El Valor isn’t immune to that reality. Duenas said there are currently about 60 families on the waiting list at the Cantu Center alone.

Lauri Morrison-Frichtl, executive director of the Illinois Head Start Association, said the threat of deep budget cuts for the federal program is a constant. “What we’ve seen is a tremendous growth in our waiting list across the state.”

Morrison-Frichtl said a proposed 5 percent cut to the federally administered Early Childhood Block Grant looms over all early childhood advocates, and as Congress labors over a budget, the specter of even deeper cuts is omnipresent.

The demand for high quality early childhood education has never been greater, and the population surge for Latinos points to the dire need for more organizations such as El Valor in the coming years.

Latinos accounted for more than half the population gains in the U.S. over the past decade, according to the latest census data, and 40 percent of Chicago children under the age of 5 are Latino.

community G uillermina Diaz was an assistant bank manager for 14 years. She and her husband both worked to support their three children. They worried as their neighborhood near 58th and Albany on the West Side deteriorated, so they moved. Then they had a fourth child.

A blessing.

But Angel Diaz was born with hydrocephalus, a rare and devastating condition in which fluid gathers in the skull and can lead to an enlarged skull, impaired cognitive abilities and even death.

Diaz decided to quit her job and care for her son. “It was hard for me to make that decision,” she said, “but I said my son is first.”

Her sister, herself the parent of a child with Down syndrome, recommended taking Angel to El Valor, which excels in caring for both Latinos and families with special needs.

Diaz recalled her conversation with her sister, “If you put your son, you’re not going to regret it because he’s going to do real good. It’s going to help

him a lot.”

She beams at Angel, who will be 5 next month, and his progress. “He’s been coming along a lot of improvement, because he wasn’t walking, then they told me he wasn’t going to talk,” Diaz said.

“He’s doing everything slowly, but he’s doing everything.”

Educators and observers talk about the continuum of services, and Angel Diaz’s story reads like a case-study.

The family attempted to enroll Angel in an early intervention program through his neighborhood school, Twain Elementary in Garfield Ridge, adjacent to their Gage Park home on the West Side. School officials said they didn’t have the appropriate services for a 3-year-old with disabilities as extensive as Angel’s.

But Twain called other schools on behalf of the family and found services at nearby Edwards Elementary.

“They set up a meeting with PT (physical therapy), speech therapy, vision person, and the hearing person and everything that he was going to need,” Diaz said.

During that time, El Valor worked with Edwards staffers to construct a learning itinerary for Angel and he continued to receive special in-home visits, as well as treatment at El Valor.

“I’m really excited and happy,” Guillermina Diaz said. “Because he’s … Well, compared to what the doctor said, I’m like, ‘Whoa.’” She also credits CPS for providing crucial help.

Caring for special needs kids is at the heart of El Valor’s mission. Today, 20 percent of the 3-5 year olds who are served through the Head Start program have special needs, and 10 percent of the children up to age 2 in Early Head Start programs have special needs.

El Valor excels in treating kids with special needs, using a Hungarian disciple called Conductive Education.

By Andrew Theen

Face painting was one of the attractions for children at El Valor’s annual family picnic.

A girl playing the bongos at the Cantu center’s expansive outdoor play area.

The Future of

Innovation

By Sara J. Martinez

Northwest suburban Chicago-area Team No. 111, WildStang, won the U.S. FIRST Robotics Competition national championship.

From January through April, thousands of students worked together to design, build and program the robots that made it to the main event. The U.S. FIRST Robotics Competition national championship, held each April, is the Super Bowl of innovation in high schools across America.

The national event in St. Louis this year resembled a NASCAR race with more than 11,000 teenagers and 358 robots, done up like stock cars covered in sponsor logos.

And if President Obama and the likes of Jackie Moore of Chicago have their say, this will change and the numbers will sharply – and quickly – climb as more schools emphasize stronger STEM education.

Since 2005, Moore, a mentor and team manager for the Chicago Knights robotics team, has reached out to develop a team

representing the diversity of Chicago and all academic settings.

Students have become more positive about school and have shown an increased willingness to help others in and out of school, Moore said.

The team gathers at a public meeting space at Ford City Mall in Chicago’s West Lawn, an area composed of mainly Hispanics and whites on the southwest side of the city. The Chicago Knights hope to bring FIRST to surrounding communities by starting and mentoring new teams in the area.

“As popular as FIRST is globally, it is still one of the best-kept secrets in Chicago. As word spreads, so do the myths — FIRST is too expensive, it is only for the rich schools, you need an army of mentors to be successful,” Moore said. “We try to show potential team members and mentors that it can be done by anyone who is motivated.”

A Parent’s Quest: Navigating the Education Maze shows how teaching and learning does not happen secluded in a classroom, and education is not just a political buzzword.

For the full version of each story you’ve read here as well as a wider array of articles on issues that will impact your child’s education, visit our website at:

http://northwestern.news21.com Produced by 10 fellows at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism: Tavaner Bushman, Christen Carter, Randy Leonard, Kyle Jahner, Megan Jonas, Sara J. Martinez, Gulnaz Saiyed, Courtney Subramanian, Andrew Theen, Joel Withrow