FREE SPEECH ZONE | Lighting a torch, not just a candle with Spanish Speaking Families in St. Paul

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A unique collaboration recently brought more than 200 St. Paul, Spanish-speaking parents and students together to learn critical details of college preparation and college entrance.  It’s one of a series of meetings the St. Paul Public School’s Office of Family Engagement & Community Partnerships is holding this academic year with a variety of partners.  The goal is to help produce a significant increase in the number of  Spanish speaking students who not only graduate from high school but also enter and graduate from some form of higher education. In just under three hours, more than 200 Spanish speaking parents and their children recently ate dinner and talked with a variety of resource people knowledgeable about preparing for, and being admitted to some form of higher education.  Speakers included: Josephine Books, World Language Faculty, Inver Hills Community College Rodrigo Marquez, Mexican Consulate Trumanue Lindsey Jr., Student Success Coordinator, Inver Hills Community College Maria Steigauf, ELL Teacher, Paul and Sheila Wellstone & Brooke Stadler, ELL TOSA, Saint Paul Public Schools Barb Schlaefer, Minnesota Office of Higher Education Denise Linares, Associate Director, NAVIGATE and this author from the Center for School Change, Macalester College.Free Speech ZoneThe Free Speech Zone offers a space for contributions from readers, without editing by the TC Daily Planet. This is an open forum for articles that otherwise might not find a place for publication, including news articles, opinion columns, announcements and even a few press releases. Continue Reading

FREE SPEECH ZONE | Drums, Dancing & Drama Help Illustrate Value of Arts for Young People

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What an unusual but remarkable trio – drums, drama and dancing.  I watched all three kinds of student performances last week in the space of 30 minutes.  Each received a lengthy ovation.  And I was struck by the incredible value of arts for young people.First, there was a remarkable drum/dancing corps from Minnesota Transitions, an inner city Minneapolis charter public school.  They were remarkably synchronized, highly polished, visually dazzling.  The approximately 15 participants clearly were having a great time as they demonstrated that while each individual was very talented, together they could accomplish so much more.  They had learned to work together, and the results were stunning.Then there was something I literally had never seen before – two young men reciting “The Challenge of the Light Brigade” as a verbal duet.  I’ve read and heard someone read this deeply moving poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  But having it done as a duet gave it a power that I’ve never encountered.  Try it with a friend, a child, your husband, wife, or ….  Amazing!Free Speech ZoneThe Free Speech Zone offers a space for contributions from readers, without editing by the TC Daily Planet. This is an open forum for articles that otherwise might not find a place for publication, including news articles, opinion columns, announcements and even a few press releases. “Half a league, half a league, half a league onward…all in the valley of death rode the 600…theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.”  It’s a deeply moving poem depicting a charge of British cavalry against Russians in 1854. You can read it as a statement of courage, tragedy, or folly.  But two young men presenting the poem via alternating stanzas gave it remarkable intensity.  These students from the Academy of Sciences and Agriculture in Vadnais Heights did a most masterful job, in a most memorable manner. Finally, a young woman from the Academy for Sciences and Agriculture danced and dazzled to a pop tune, “Son of a preacher man.”  She leaped, dipped, and twirled.   Incredibly expressive. Continue Reading

Getting everyone ready for kindergarten means adults as well as children

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“We can clearly answer the question, ‘Is everybody ready for kindergarten’ when we understand that ‘everybody’ does not apply to just children.”  That’s one of many wise insights in a new, brief book making a big, important point:  We need to be equally concerned about helping students be ready for kindergarten, and helping kindergartens (and schools) be ready for students and t Continue Reading

Some schools share great websites with families

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Call me amazed!  We’re going to skip educational controversies today and focus on family fun – the kind that’s available via computer, with guidance and suggestions from teachers.  Rushford-Peterson Elementary School teachers many great, family-friendly web pages on their website.  A friend told me about the web pages elementary school teachers in Victor Continue Reading

“Waiting for Superman” movie worth seeing, acting on

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Despite its critics, the new movie “Waiting for Superman”  (WFS) is well worth seeing and acting on.


For me, the movie, which I have seen twice, is about part of what’s most right and what’s most wrong about American public education.  The title comes from Geoffrey Canada,  a New York school reformer who is interviewed in the movie. Continue Reading

District/charter public school educators & students join to help promote “Green” schools

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Give several hundred district and charter school teachers, businesspeople and students an “A” for making our planet a priority.  They’re coming together from 50 states, October 24-26 in Minneapolis, for what they describe as the nation’s first conference bringing together schools, non-profits, government and corporate partners to help encourage the growing “National Green Schools Movement. Continue Reading

Advice from school leaders for parents

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Over the last two weeks, I talked with school leaders and supts in 25 suburban and rural Mn communities, asking them what advice they would give to parents who wanted to help their youngsters do well this year.  I interviewed suburban and rural educators because I write regularly for their papers.  So no disrepect is intended to urban educators.  Below  is som Continue Reading

Four free, valuable “back to school” items

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You won’t find four of the most valuable things students can take “back to school” for sale on line, or at any store.  They are free.  These are things families can provide at absolutely no cost – but they are extremely valuable.  We’re talking about a positive attitude toward learning and school, a willingness to help out the school in some way, well-rested students and an Continue Reading

FREE SPEECH ZONE | Powerful Insights From Stillwater Inmates

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In summing up a slim but stirring 129-page book, Carleton Professor Deborah Appleman wrote, “For them, writing is the key to healing, to redemption, to the survival of the soul.”In the recently released “From the Inside Out: Letters to Yong Men and other Writing,” 16 Stillwater prison inmates offer insights, advice and encouragement.Fourteen of them have life sentences.But their lives are not over. Appleman told me recently, “I didn’t meet one person who tried to convince me that they are innocent. If they cannot help themselves, they want to help someone else. They want to save at least one young man or woman from a path that many thought glamorous but which they now know is devastating.”In a letter to himself, at age 17 (25 years ago), inmate Warren Bronson writes, “My hope is that by the simple act of reading this, your future will not become my past. Believe me, my past isn’t one to look forward to.”Terrelle Shaw advises, “It is unfortunate that the wrong people are the most willing to take an interest in you. Continue Reading