http://www.achievementfirst.org/ Latest news from Achievement First Chalkboard en http://www.achievementfirst.org/typo3conf/ext/tt_news/ext_icon.gif http://www.achievementfirst.org/ 18 16 Latest news from Achievement First Chalkboard TYPO3 - get.content.right http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Thu, 10 May 2012 10:30:00 -0500 http://www.achievementfirst.org/chalkboard/post/article/these-kids-can-learn/ In Connecticut, Achievement First’s 10th grade writing scores were ranked second in the state... th grade writing scores were ranked second in the state behind only Simsbury, with 100 percent of our scholars achieving proficiency and 92 percent achieving  at goal. On the New York eighth grade math test, scholars at both Achievement First Bushwick Middle and Achievement First Endeavor Middle outperformed their peers in Rye, NY, one of the wealthiest and highest-performing school districts in the state. Our student body is 98 percent African-American or Latino and 79 percent of our students receive free/reduced lunch. However, after several years at an Achievement First school, our students’ results in most subjects have topped those of districts like Greenwich, Westport, and Madison – some of Connecticut's most affluent towns. Since Achievement First students are selected by a blind lottery and the network has a higher percentage of poor and minority students than our host districts as a whole, the argument that poor, minority students cannot achieve seems clearly false. What does this mean for Achievement First? Our measure of success will never be to do just a little bit better or to compare ourselves only to other schools serving poor, minority students. Many schools and districts generate great applause and much back-slapping for raising student achievement from the 27th percentile nationally to the 32nd percentile nationally. While those gains are somewhat admirable (and rarely attained), Achievement First believes such gains are insufficient, for they do not fundamentally alter the life options of students. We are interested in taking students from the 27th percentile to the 72nd percentile and students at the 44th percentile to the 88th percentile. These are life-changing gains that put ALL students on the college-bound path and put some students on the path to go to our nation's most selective colleges and universities. We are not interested in reducing the achievement gap: we want to close it. Every Achievement First school is expected to raise student achievement to at least the state average within three years. Our internal “AF Report Card” sets goals that every student who has been at the school three or more years earn scores equal to (or better than) the scores in the wealthiest suburbs.  All Achievement First schools are also unapologetically college preparatory. In Greenwich, Westport, Scarsdale, and the Upper East Side, the question is not IF but WHERE the young people will go to college. Our society has changed, and we can no longer accept the fact that one-third to one-half of all youngsters will drop out of school. There was a time when those students would go on to take good, secure, blue-collar, factory jobs. These factory jobs are now in Guatemala, India, or Bangladesh. All Achievement First students know they can and will go to college. In order to cultivate a college focus, all Achievement First classrooms are named for colleges (instead of asking "Ms. Fernandez's class" to line up, AF teachers will ask "Tufts" to line up). Every AF student will be able to name the year that he or she will graduate from college, and at least one field trip a year for all K-12 students will be to a college campus.]]> Doug McCurry News Home Thu, 10 May 2012 10:30:00 -0500 http://www.achievementfirst.org/chalkboard/post/article/test-post/ Now that we have focused on how we can shift our own behaviors to better use our prep periods,... 1. Don’t be a “Penelope”.  Who is Penelope? Good question. Penelope is a fictional teacher invented by the team at Amistad Academy Elementary School. She was invented during a role play illustrating how to have a difficult conversation with a colleague who wants to chat during an entire prep period. This can be a tricky situation, especially when you like the people you work with, so now Amistad Academy Elementary has language teachers can use when they find themselves interrupting precious work time. Teachers can say to each other, “I’m feeling really Penelope right now” when they want to come into a colleague’s room to chat. This gives a teacher the freedom to respond with something like, “I have to get these materials prepped, so can we talk later?” Does your school have common language that allows you to nicely say, “I really need to get some work done?” 2. Design a separate workspace. After surveying teachers about what would improve their lives, AF Brownsville Elementary wanted to create a social teacher area and then a separate workspace. Teachers can head to “Café Brown” – where they can do work, talk, eat and copy things. Kids are allowed in there. If teachers have serious work to do, they can head to “Hard Word Café” – where they work, eat and copy. Kids are not allowed to join. While Hard Word Café is not totally silent due the photocopier and teacher collaboration, teachers can enter and work without distraction. If your school doesn’t have space to do that, create an “office” in your supply closet or the back of someone’s classroom. No one can find you and you can grade papers quietly. Where in your building can you really maximize your prep periods? 3.Set your desk for success. Many of us sit down to finally start working (after the bathroom break, water refilling, and a breather), only to find that our hole puncher is missing, we don’t have our favorite grading pen, or the resources we need to write the unit plan are in the teacher resource room. We then have to jump up, race to another location to secure the materials and risk getting ambushed by someone else’s emergency or sucked into a fun conversation about what happened on Glee last night. Now, I’m not saying to just be an anti-social robot that ignores your colleagues, but I want you to be able to make the most of the limited “free” time that you have. Take time to stock your desk for your common prep period activities. Make sure your planning resources are nearby, your printer is hooked up and working and your student data is available. What materials do you need in your teacher workspace? None of these tricks in isolation will help you get more done at work, but if you train your brain to think, “protect the prep at all costs!” you may find that you are able to take a little less work home each evening.]]> News Home Maia Heyck-Merlin Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:29:00 -0500 http://www.achievementfirst.org/chalkboard/post/article/making-the-most-of-that-prep-period-emergencies-procrastination-and-distractions/ This is the first in a series of monthly posts by AF’s Chief Talent Officer, Maia Heyck-Merlin. She... The Together Teacher: Plan Ahead, Get Organized, and Save Time! Part 1--Making the Most of That Prep Period: Emergencies, Procrastination and Distractions! Let’s describe what happens to most of our prep periods. You talk to one student right after class, race to the restroom, stop to fill your water bottle, pop into a colleague’s classroom for a “quick” chat, check your email and your favorite blog, and then—wait, the kids are back already?! How on earth did that happen? At the end of the day, you find yourself lugging a backpack of papers to grade or progress reports to write or parent phone calls to make. If you want to better maximize your limited free time, or maybe work less during evenings and weekends, read on to find tips that work!

1. Make it Bite-Sized. No one writes an entire unit plan during a prep period, so stop writing “unit plan” on your to-do list, avoiding it like the plague and checking your email. Instead, break down your to-do list into smaller pieces, a tactic used by teachers at AF Amistad High. Their teacher to-do lists have things like “Write Unit Three aims sequence,” “Create Unit Three scope and sequence,” and “Design Unit Three assessment.” That is work you can chew on in a 40 minute block. Take a look at your to-do list. Are there any tasks that you can shrink down to size?

2. Urgency, Not Emergency. Unpredictable events confront teachers every day. We tend to make everything an emergency to solve right now because we can be so helpful. . . Oh, that behavior issue?  Well, I’ll talk to the student after class. Does a colleague want to borrow some of your supplies? Pause, evaluate and ask yourself: does this need to happen right now? Is there a more efficient way to solve this problem? At AF Brownsville Elementary, they say, “We have urgency, but it’s not an emergency.” Maybe that challenging student gets a five-minute conversation, and then has to sit beside you and write an apology to her classmates while you grade papers, and then you can review the letter in the last five minutes. Are there any situations when you fall into this trap?

3. Batch Process. Nilda Velez, a teacher at AF Bushwick Middle School, has carefully planned out her preps so she tackles lesson planning work on Mondays and Tuesdays and handles departmental and coach responsibilities on Wednesdays and Thursdays. This way she is not bouncing around her prep period spending five minutes on this and five minutes on that, without completing anything. She picks one thing and focuses on it until it is done. Now that you have broken your to-do list into smaller pieces, can you divide them into categories and focus on one category in each prep period?

While none of these ideas will magically give you hours back in your busy day, each one will help you reclaim a few precious minutes, and that time adds up!]]> News Maia Heyck-Merlin Home Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:03:00 -0500 http://www.achievementfirst.org/chalkboard/post/article/what-inspires-and-challenges-a-founding-af-principal/ Interview with Stephanie Blake, founding principal at AF Endeavor Elementary AF Endeavor... AF Endeavor Elementary                          
Opened: August 2011
Grades served: K-1 (growing to K-4)
Enrollment: 177 What inspired you to found an Achievement First school?
Having taught in the classrooms of public schools in various settings, I’ve seen many approaches to closing the achievement gap. When I came to AF, I realized that this experience was going to be different. I was instantly surrounded by like-minded people who believed that every child can and will meet high standards, succeed in our schools, go to college, and graduate from college. The AF Endeavor Elementary founding team is no exception. All 22 staff members have incredibly high expectations for scholar’s academic achievement and character development as well as a fire to close the achievement gap in NYC and across the country. What are you most excited about for the 2010-11 school year?
During my commitment meetings, over 40% of families shared that they were concerned about the confidence level of their scholars. One parent shared, “She just doesn’t believe that she CAN do it.” I am most excited about scholars having success at school and developing the confidence and knowledge that they can achieve anything that they want to accomplish. What is the biggest challenge you are anticipating? How can the network support you?
I think that we will face two huge challenges this year. First, our 1^st grade class is coming in significantly below grade level. Only one out of our 90 incoming 1^st graders is coming in reading at grade level. Despite where they are coming in, we know that we must push our scholars so that all 90 of them reach the proficiency benchmark for 1^st grade by the end of the year. While daunting, the AF Endeavor Elementary team knows that not only is it possible that we reach our goal…it is necessary if we want to put these scholars on the road to college. The second challenge that I think we will face this year is staying consistent with our school-wide management system. While the entire AF Endeavor team believes in our system and knows that it will build the character of each of our scholars, we also anticipate that we are going to need to build our skill in administering effective consequences so that scholars learn from their mistakes.   What is one idea you learned from another Achievement First school and are using at your school?
Last year, I worked at AF Brownsville Elementary as a principal-in-residence. Over the year, I developed incredibly close relationships with the leadership team and the staff. The AF Endeavor Elementary team and family steals at least one of their brilliant ideas every single day.]]> News Home Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:18:00 -0600 http://www.achievementfirst.org/chalkboard/post/article/how-does-achievement-first-close-the-achievement-gap-what-have-we-learned-1/ There are two ways to react to the stark statistics about the achievement gap: despair and excuses,... There are two ways to react to the stark statistics about the achievement gap: despair and excuses, or hope and action. Unfortunately, until recently, many have chosen the former. In fact, most of the educational community relied on the most famous piece of educational research in history, James Coleman's famous 1966 report, to let themselves off the hook. Coleman found a correlation between socioeconomic status and student achievement: poor, minority kids did worse than affluent, white kids. The dominant educational paradigm became, therefore, that "those kids" can't learn. For years, politicians routinely make excuses for their city's low test scores, repeatedly saying that one just can't expect the scores in low-income communities to be as good as those in affluent – or even middle-class – ones. In one issue of Forbes magazine over a decade ago, the editor wrote that we cannot expect the sons and daughters of dishwashers and janitors to have the same academic achievement as the sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers because intelligence is "largely inherited." The good news for the country is that this line of thinking is coming under increasing assault, and Achievement First completely rejects this line of thinking. Instead of making excuses for why urban students can't learn, America must simply do a better job teaching urban students. Working on school reform issues for over a decade, the leaders of Achievement First have learned a great deal about how to close the achievement gap. Achievement First’s core beliefs inform our approach and suggest clear actions for us to take. The "top 10" beliefs are summarized below: 1."Those Kids" CAN Learn
2. Leadership Matters - Mightily
3. Teachers Are More Important Than Curricula ...
4. ... But Some Curricular Are Better Than Others
5. "Mere Mortals" Not "Superhumans"
6. An Unwavering Focus on Student Achievement
7. Interim Assessments and the Strategic Use of Data
8. One Hundred 1% Solutions
9. Serve ALL Urban Kids
10. Sweat the Small Stuff

Over the next few months, we will share more details about these lessons and the impact that they have had on our scholars, teachers and communities.]]> Doug McCurry News Home Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:39:00 -0600 http://www.achievementfirst.org/chalkboard/post/article/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-academic-dean/ Interview with Jeremy Shedlosky, AF Hartford Academy Elementary Why did you choose Achievement First?
The people. There are a lot of place where I could do similar work but I get to collaborate and be challenged by the most intelligent, most passionate, and most downright hilarious people in the business at Achievement First. I couldn’t imagine doing this work anywhere else. What did you wish you knew when you started at AF?
Where it would take me.  It’s taken me from Brooklyn to Hartford (and back on several occasions).  My wife, Stephanie, and I met so many great friends through AF and are making more each day.  It’s been truly life changing. What’s your favorite thing about your job?
I get to learn and grow in my practice every day as I work to help other people do the same. I teach different groups throughout the week and I am still working at doing it better and better. Then I get to engage with teachers about their own learning and development for their students.                                                           What is your favorite hobby?
Stephanie and I enjoy traveling in our spare time. We’ve already booked our spring break trip to Jamaica and are in the process of planning our summer trip to Germany and Austria.                                    What superpower do you wish you had?
As a comic book junkie I take this question very seriously and after years of contemplation, I feel pretty confident in my answer. Telekinesis is by far the greatest super power. The ability to move objects with your mind trumps every other. You can levitate yourself and fly, bend light to become invisible, create electricity and fire with just a thought, and the possibilities are endless. The only thing missing would be to have a tail but that’s just silly, right? What have you learned in this role?
That’s a tough question. I feel like if you were to ask me tomorrow I might have a different answer because I learn something new each day. Today, it’s about balancing the importance of sticking to your original plan and seeing it through versus making necessary and swift changes to get to your goal. ]]> Home News Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.achievementfirst.org/chalkboard/post/article/100-of-af-seniors-accepted-into-college/ Have you heard the news? 100% of our seniors have been accepted into four-year colleges! Yeah, very... http://www.vimeo.com/24699723]]> Home Default Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:06:00 -0500 http://www.achievementfirst.org/chalkboard/post/article/the-af-teacher-career-pathway-acknowledges-the-importance-of-great-teaching/ I’ll be joining 10,000 other Teach For America corps members and alumni this weekend at the... th Anniversary Summit in Washington, DC. I could not be more excited. Several years ago, for the first time, I was beginning to question my career path. I had started my career as a TFA corps member and then entered education policy, but was beginning to wonder if I wanted to continue working in education. Was this a fight that could be won? At this pivotal moment, I attended Teach For America’s 15th Anniversary Summit and was filled with the inspiration and hope that was first ignited in my classroom. I talked with countless friends who were doing extraordinary work for children – both in and out of the classroom. I listened with awe as a long-time friend stood on stage and spoke about the summer camp he had started for students at Yes Prep. I met with another friend from the corps who shared her impressive special education research, and another who shared stories of the school where we met and she continues to teach. My passion for education reform was once again sparked as I looked across the large ballroom at people who were -- and still are -- changing the world. The AF Teacher Career Pathway Re-energized, I joined Achievement First and have the honor of working with our teachers to develop the AF Teacher Career Pathway, an initiative designed to identify and reward excellent teachers as they advance through five career stages. I am extremely proud to be a part of an organization that truly values great teaching. As a corps member, I wanted to be the best teacher possible. I wanted to understand what excellent teaching looked like, to receive honest feedback and to have a clear path to improvement. Like many others, however, when I first started teaching I did not have that experience and struggled in the classroom. It was through this struggle that I came to know, without a doubt, that there is nothing more important for a child’s education than his or her teacher.

The AF Teacher Career Pathway acknowledges the importance of great teaching. We have spent the last two years working with our teachers to create clear standards of excellence, fair evaluation and exceptional rewards. With the Teacher Career Pathway, AF teachers have the opportunity to progress through five career stages, accompanied by increased compensation, recognition and professional growth opportunities. In addition to significant salary increases, our teachers encouraged us to include individual professional development budgets because, more than anything, they want to hone their craft. They also reminded us that teaching is a team effort, so we included a school-wide bonus for all members of a school that successfully meets its goals. Partnering with our teachers resulted in one of the most comprehensive teacher evaluations in the country, and includes both student outcomes (student achievement and student character) and teacher inputs (quality instruction and planning and core values and contributions to the team). The Beginning of a National Movement We believe that this investment in our teachers will lead to greater student achievement at AF because it will set clear standards and raise the bar for instructional excellence, while at the same time enable talented teachers to remain in the classroom through professional-level compensation. Achievement First’s mission, however, includes ALL children, not just the nearly 6,000 in our 19 New York and Connecticut schools. As a promising sign, many districts and charter management organizations across the country are beginning to reward excellent teachers. In fact, I’ll be joined at the TFA Summit by colleagues from DC, Los Angeles, Louisiana and Texas on a panel entitled “Defining Teacher Excellence” – all cities and states beginning to reward their very best teachers. This shared movement is going to change how teaching is perceived and re-define the type of person who chooses to enter the profession. If teachers can earn professional salaries, our very brightest high school and college students will see teaching as an attractive and long-term career. Their families will support them to enter teaching because, as Lee Iacocca said, “In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less.”  I am encouraged by the message that President Obama sent in his recent State of the Union speech: “Let’s also remember that after parents, the biggest impact on a child’s success comes from the man or woman at the front of the classroom. In South Korea, teachers are known as ‘nation builders.’ Here in America, it’s time we treated the people who educate our children with the same level of respect. We want to reward good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones.   And over the next 10 years, with so many baby boomers retiring from our classrooms, we want to prepare 100,000 new teachers in the fields of science and technology and engineering and math. In fact, to every young person listening tonight who’s contemplating their career choice: If you want to make a difference in the life of our nation; if you want to make a difference in the life of a child -- become a teacher. Your country needs you.” I’m even more encouraged that my young cousin posted the President’s words on her Facebook page and made a commitment to teaching when she graduates. This is the beginning of a national shift. I’m proud that Achievement First is a leader in this movement and is partnering with others toward this goal. The AF Teacher Career Pathway celebrates teachers who are committed to mastering their craft and affecting change from within the classroom. At the TFA 20^th Anniversary Summit, I look forward to meeting many teachers who are eager to become part of Achievement First, a network that truly celebrates excellent teachers. Please find me -- I’ll be wearing my “Bay Area ’01” badge with immense pride. To learn more about the AF Teacher Career Pathway, click on this link, visit the AF booth at the TFA Summit or attend the “Defining Teaching Excellence” panel on Saturday, February 12^th at 1:15 p.m. Sarah Coon is the chief of staff at Achievement First.]]> Home Development Thu, 10 Feb 2011 09:01:00 -0600 http://www.achievementfirst.org/chalkboard/post/article/standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants/ The phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants" has meant a number of things over the course of... th Anniversary Summit draws near, it has me thinking about Bruce McCandless and how he used the phrase when inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame. He took a moment to thank everyone who contributed to his success as the first astronaut to fly in space un-tethered to another vehicle. He expressed his gratitude for those around him and those who had laid the groundwork with the words, "We have truly ridden on the shoulders of giants.” Different than when Newton originally used the phrase to thank the geniuses who went before, I use the phrase as I think McCandless meant it—the quiet heroes who have helped many of us succeed along the way. As I reflect on my second decade in education reform (started in 1999 when I joined Teach For America as a corps member), I am reminded that I would not be doing what I’m doing if it weren’t for the “giants” who have trained, supported, and encouraged me over the past 12 years. As we prepare to reflect on our 20 years of progress as a movement, let’s take a few moments to thank giants who helped make us outstanding (and still learning) educators and leaders along the way. The first giant I encountered in the summer of 1999 was Lynne Lay. When I was poking around my placement school figuring out which trailer was mine, she helped me get inside and showed me the supply closet. Ms. Lay was the reading interventionist and literacy coach at Delmont Elementary School in Baton Rouge (and went on to become principal). She literally taught me to teach fourth graders how to read. She came into my classroom and modeled great guided reading, trained me to select the right leveled books for my struggling readers, and sat on the floor with me when I cried about a fight in my classroom. Ms. Lay introduced me to books by Reggie Routman, championed my efforts to get more professional development, and helped me assess the quality of my students’ writing with a rubric! Ms. Lay went on to lead a high-performing elementary school in Baton Rouge. The second giant I was privileged to work with was Ms. B Jackson. Truthfully, I was a little intimidated by Ms. B Jackson. We both taught fourth grade, and she had 20+ years of teaching experience. When you walked into her classroom, you could hear a pin drop. She was that teacher for whom a student—even Richard Dixon—would not DREAM of misbehaving. Once I gathered up the courage to ask her, she allowed me to observe her classroom, see her no-nonsense tone, watch her set expectations, and witness her celebrate learning. She also let me delve into the treasure trove of lesson plans she had developed over the years. My students would have never understood sedimentary rocks if Ms. B Jackson hadn’t instructed me to bake my rocks so that they were easier to break apart. I would not have survived my first year of teaching without Ms. B Jackson. The third influential person was Heather Peske, a 1991 Teach For America alum herself. Heather had taught in Baton Rouge some years before me—and was my school director when I was training at the TFA Summer Institute. In other words, she was a big deal. Heather introduced me to a great former colleague of hers who taught at Delmont Elementary, and wrote me encouraging letters when I was frustrated with teaching in a high-stakes testing environment. She pushed and challenged me to see what was best for kids, and she showed me that the fight would not be won in one day. I pasted some of her letters in my teaching journal, and I read them when I needed a dose of perspective and a kick in the pants. She had one line that I read over and over, “Remember, even when everything around you seems without logic or hugely frustrating, your kids need you and it is why you are here.” After I completed my two-year commitment, I moved on to teach fifth grade at a charter school in Baton Rouge. There were two more people who were instrumental to my growth as a teacher. The first was the principal of Children’s Charter School—Jim Geiser. “Mr. Jim,” as he was known to our students, was all about kids in a way I had never seen. He would call students who were notoriously late to school and drive the Mr. Jim van to their homes to bring them in on time. He was also fiercely stubborn about how he used our school’s budget, and he refused to hire a full-time custodian—preferring that all of his teachers had full-time assistants instead. It was not uncommon to see Mr. Jim sweeping the playground in his trademark khaki shorts and baseball cap while on his cell phone with a potential donor. The last giant in my life was Mary West—to date the best teacher I have ever encountered. I went to Children’s Charter thinking I was a reasonably good teacher. I mean, I was nominated for Teacher of the Year by my peers in my last school. In about two hours at Children’s Charter, I realized I knew NOTHING. Mary West was probably in her fifties at the time, a mid-career changer, and taught kindergarten. She arrived at school every day by 4:30 a.m. and sat in her trailer creating individual assignments for every one of her students—all of whom arrived at our school below where they needed to be for kindergarten. She wouldn’t let kids go to recess until they successfully completed their math exit tickets, and she voraciously CONSUMED any resource about teaching elementary literacy. Together, as Teach For America alums, we have accomplished and learned a lot as an education reform movement. At the same time, for every TFA alum who developed into a great teacher, school leader or professional impacting these issues in some way, there are people who may not be alums to our movement but supported us in moving forward. I’m positive there are at least five unnamed giants who took time and energy to show each of us how to teach, motivated us when we thought it wasn’t possible, and modeled what true grit looks like on a daily basis. We need to publicly acknowledge and privately thank our allies in this movement. I know I plan on printing this letter and mailing it to Ms. Lay, Ms. B Jackson, Heather, Mr. Jim and Mary tomorrow. Maia Heyck-Merlin is the chief operating officer at Achievement First.]]> Home Maia Heyck-Merlin Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:40:00 -0600 http://www.achievementfirst.org/chalkboard/post/article/af-brownsville-is-highlighted-in-the-newly-published-book-a-chance-to-make-history/ Achievement First Brownsville is highlighted in the newly published book "A Chance To Make History"... "A Chance To Make History" by Teach For America Founder and CEO Wendy Kopp. Wendy draws on what she has learned in her 20 years at the center of a growing movement to end education inequality in America. We congratulate Wendy on her new book and are excited to join her in doing whatever it takes to achieve our goals. Read one of the AF Brownsville passages below, and buy the book here http://amzn.to/ekm8IT. Across New York City in Brooklyn, at Achievement First Brownsville, an elementary school serving students in one of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods of New York, Gina Musumeci also does not accept "catching kids up" as success. She intends to completely close the achievement gap between her students and students in high-income, well-resources schools -- a bar much higher than the state and standardized assessments' measure of "grade level." "State proficiency levels are nowhere near these students' potential. We have to set our sights higher. Our vision is that we are preparing them for the day they graduate from college. We are asking ourselves, 'What knowledge, values, and habits do they need to be ultimately successful in life?' and we're planning backwards from that vision. We are creating a rigorous and loving school around that purpose." Gina's school, in only its second year, is posting dramatic results. Starting with children who come through its doors well below grade level in kindergarten, in the 2009 school year more than 95 percent of children were proficient across the school, and more than 55 percent were more than a year ahead. (54-55)]]> Home News Mon, 31 Jan 2011 12:12:00 -0600