"Leave no child a dime" - best description of that program ever. (No Child Left Behind)
First problem with the NCLB mess was they of course failed to provide adequate funding. So they have the stick part of the equation to beat schools and students with, but no carrots for you!
The thing that really struck me in the story with the Reyes family is the program she found for her second family kids - MECA – Multicultural Education and Counseling though the Arts. Plus she admits that it really took her involvement and dedication to their education.
There is no doubt that any process to improve the results and performance needs the whole family approach. And like the story of the Reyes family that came when the home situation was stabilized (second marriage vs single Mom). All families need additional help but certainly single family homes that are barely getting by don't have the time to give their kids the help and support they need.
There was another section in the article about another program for flexible learning.
About five years ago, Amstutz responded to the problem by starting a unique program that today has grown into a new campus — Liberty High School, a 200-student, six-day-a-week, afternoon-and-night campus, serving mostly older students.
The creation and financing of the school required legislative help in Austin, which Hochberg provided in a bill that allowed for flexibility in the timing of the school day and year. Previously, the state would only finance students who attended on the school’s schedule and only allowed them to go to school until age 21.
Now, Amstutz can educate students up to 26 years old and get prorated financing for them even if they don’t attend full-time. It’s a model worthy of expansion, he said.
"It’s so easy for kids to drop out. We have to make it just as easy for them to drop back in," Amstutz said. "Clearly we have to look at the traditional 175- or 180-day calendar — it’s broken. It works for some students and others not at all. We don’t need to stop learning for three months... and we have kids that come enroll all throughout the year."
Solutions for different kinds of problems. That's what we need more of.
Sonia