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Great teachers, TSN, music fundraiser, open houses

Education Roundup

A new study found evidence that even a single year with a great teacher can have a lasting impact on your child’s future education and earnings. As the New York Times reported, “Having a good fourth-grade teacher makes a student 1.25 percent more likely to go to college, the research suggests, and 1.25 percent less likely to get pregnant as a teenager. Each of the students will go on as an adult to earn, on average, $25,000 more over a lifetime – or about $700,000 in gains for an average size class – all attributable to that ace teacher back in the fourth grade. … Great teachers not only raised test scores significantly – an effect that mostly faded within a few years – but also left their students with better life outcomes. A great teacher (defined as one better than 84 percent of peers) for a single year between fourth and eighth grades resulted in students earning almost 1 percent more at age 28.” Harvard researcher Raj Chetty based the study on a huge database of 1 million students followed from fourth grade to adulthood. The report received widespread attention in the media on Jan. 11.

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A friend gave me “The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens” by Brooke Hauser, a journalist who spent months following the students at International High School in Brooklyn, N.Y. It was a quick and very engaging read. I posted on Twitter how much I liked it and got an email from the author. The drama of the book, as she pointed out to me, was that that the students she met “were also learning America: Some had never left their villages before coming to the U.S., and suddenly found themselves having to navigate mass transit in New York City. Other students were dealing with cultural traditions from their native countries that made it harder to adapt to life here – pressure to get married, for instance.” She said, she “admired the staff at the International High School for working with such variable circumstances and trying to see each student in context. It’s important to remember that, while language is a crucial part of a student’s education, there are many social and cultural experiences that should be factored in as well.” I recommend the book highly for anyone interested in education and the challenges and opportunities of successfully integrating an immigrant population.

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In related (bad) news, California has the largest Hispanic student population in the nation but ranks at the bottom for Hispanic reading and math achievement. Only 11 percent of the state’s 1.6 million English learners – the vast majority of them Spanish speakers – reached proficiency levels in English in the last school year. About a third drop out of school. Experts say the numbers point to the need for a statewide overhaul of how schools teach kids English. Not sure how Sonoma’s numbers compare but I will try to find out.

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Parents of children entering kindergarten in the fall of 2012 are invited to a Dual Immersion Kindergarten Information Night at Flowery School. For anyone considering enrolling their children at Flowery, this is the night to learn about the program, ask questions and consider the benefits. The event will be at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 25, beginning in the library and continuing in kindergarten classrooms. Childcare will be provided.

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Teacher’s Support Network (TSN) and the Sonoma Ed Foundation are hosting a meet and greet with coffee and scones for the teachers and TSN volunteers active and inactive at Sonoma Valley High School in the school library on Jan. 19 from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.  It’s an opportunity to meet Sallie Moore from TSN and Laura Zimmerman from Sonoma Valley Education Foundation and board directors from TSN, Steve Kyle and Dick Drew.  

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Sonoma Valley High School senior Lauren Popenoe is helping the high school music department raise much-needed funds through her senior project, “Taste of Star Quality.” On Jan. 22, there will be a pancake breakfast from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Sonoma Valley Veterans Memorial Building, featuring blueberry pancakes, live music, a silent auction and raffle. Tickets are $10 for adults/$8 for children. Whole Foods is again helping with food donations. Along with breakfast, there’s a great music lineup with different local acts playing on the hour each hour. Donations for the silent auction are still needed. Call 338-0545 if you can help. The high school is hoping to send its band and choir to Anaheim to compete in the annual Heritage Festival. Last year, its bands and choirs competed against 70 other schools and came home with three silver medals and a bronze medal.
Great news that Stone Edge Farm has donated $80,000 to the Sonoma Ecology Center to support the center’s K-12 Watershed Education programming and support the fifth-grade Water Wonders program.
Santa Rosa’s Jewish Community Center, 1301 Farmers Lane, Santa Rosa, is offering a seminar on “Mindful Parenting” which includes such topics as better communication, sibling relationships, social networking, substance abuse, self-harm, socialization, the transition from middle school to high school and more. The seminar meets Jan. 22 and 29 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and costs $36 (no charge for spouses). For details, call 528-4222.

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On Jan. 17, National History Day Sonoma County has partnered with Sonoma Academy to offer a free screening of “The Barber of Birmingham,” a short documentary about the foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement.  It starts at 7 p.m. at Sonoma Academy, 2500 Farmers Lane, Santa Rosa, with a Q&A with filmmakers to follow.

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OPEN HOUSES: St. Francis Solano School will be celebrating Catholic Schools Week Sunday, Jan. 29 to Friday, Feb. 3.  They will also be hosting an open house on Thursday, Feb. 2 from 6 to 7 p.m. Parents who would like a tour and more information are invited to tour the school on Friday, Feb. 3 at 9 a.m. … Woodland Star Charter is hosting a kindergarten open house on Saturday, Jan. 21 at 9:30 a.m. On Friday, Feb. 3, there’s a school tour for parents of English-language learners at 8:30 a.m. On Wednesday, Feb. 8, a school tour and on Thursday, Feb. 16, a school tour and curriculum discussion with their education director … Sonoma Charter will host an orientation night for grades K-7 on Thursday, Feb. 2, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. School tours are scheduled for Feb. 7, 8, 9 from 8:30 to 10 a.m. Call Molly Koler at 935-4232. To apply, you must attend the orientation or a tour.

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Sonoma Charter seventh grader Whitney Fay recently interviewed grad Heidi Hirvonen about her first year at prestigious Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Fay asked Hirvonen how attending Charter changed her life. This is what Fay wrote:
“… Once again, the sense of community came up. She said that if she hadn’t gone to Charter, she wouldn’t have gone to the college she goes to now. She said, after graduating from Charter and going to Maria Carrillo High School, she found that the sense of community had gotten lost. She started looking at small East Coast colleges, trying to discover the sense of community she loved so much before. Heidi chose Wesleyan University for its intimate environment and close relationships between students and professors.
“Because Wesleyan has an open curriculum (no general education requirements), students get to immediately explore classes of interest to them. This creates a great atmosphere to be in because all the students are really passionate about the classes they are in; no one is in a class they do not want to be in. It also builds good student/professor relationships because both are enjoying learning together.
“When Heidi graduated from SCS there were 20 students with her. The average number of students in a class at Wesleyan is about 19, again creating an intimate environment instead of a lecture environment …”

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I just heard that Presentation School grad Jamie Fehrnstrom has been accepted Early Action at Princeton University (the Fehrnstrom family now live in Orinda). Keep the good news coming my way.

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I love hearing about Sonoma students now in college and their experiences. Also, I am very eager for feedback on this page and my column. What do you like most and what are you less interested in? Let us know at ourschools@sonomanews.com.