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My daughter loves to read "And Tango Makes Three," although we haven't read it in quite some time. She loves penguins and thinks that lil Tango is "oh, so cute!" Through the book and other real life interactions I believe that she has a good grasp on the idea that families come in many different varieties. But I've been intentional in this part of her life. What if I hadn't been?

The reality is that she might have grown up to expect all families to look the same. A momma and a papa. Maybe even living in the same home too. Of course there's nothing wrong with that - That's how our family is crafted. But not my colleague Keesha's family. 

Chicago Parent recently profiled her family and the bullying that her daughters have faced. It's a bit ironic that this bullying happens in Chicago. A city where I feel like I escaped to from suburban living where I grew up not thinking that families looked different or that other religions existed among my friends. One reason we stay in Chicago is for all the "diversity."

In the profile, Janean, Keesha's partner suggests that schools incorporate diverse families into the curriculum. Of course, the more conservatives among us will yelp that teaching kindergarteners about "alternative lifestyles" is a horrible idea. It's amazing how predictable some people are...A decade after "Heather Has Two Mommies" and we're still worried about teaching our kids that difference is not to be feared.

Instead of classes, I suggest that school libraries stock up on books that feature same sex parents, text books show same sex couples parenting, and even story books that don't focus on *** or gay parents, have them in the background. I've noticed how often a kid in a wheelchair pops up in the backgrounds of my daughter's books. Essentially I don't think we need to address same sex parents directly - at least not in the early grades - just have them be there, all around. Once we start to see things on an every day basis, we aren't so fearful of them. Once we start to talk to kids about s-e-x, we can include same sex couples without advocating for "alternative lifestyles."

But we should also be teaching our children to never bully or taunt other children no matter what. Now that I think we should all agree on from pre-school at the very least.

Veronica clearly recalls her 5th grade teacher lecturing her on bullying and teasing and vows to make sure her daughter doesn't repeat that mistake. Veronica also blogs at Viva La Feminista, WIMN's Voices, and Work it, Mom!

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In January of 2006 Newsweek put four white boys on their cover with the headline "The Boy Crisis." Inside they told the tale that was so shocking that the myth grew so fast that the factual evidence that quickly came out was ignored. What was this myth? That boys were being left behind.

By almost every benchmark, boys across the nation and in every demographic group are falling behind, reports Tyre in the January 30 Newsweek cover story "The Boy Crisis" (on newsstands Monday, January 23). With boys' standardized test scores and college enrollment rates dropping, and diagnoses of learning disabilities rising, educators are searching for new tools to help tackle the problem. In the last two decades, the education system has become obsessed with a quantifiable and narrowly defined kind of academic success, experts say, and that myopic view is harming boys. 

Adbusters and others quickly came to the defense of the public school system and girls. They called into question the validity of the statistics, but the myth was born and if fed into a a deep seeded feeling that many in this country are unable to admit to - That girls were getting smarter and making our boys look bad. It wasn't just girls making boys look bad, but the media as well. Boys were lazy. Boys don't have ambition. I was appalled by this monster myth for two reasons - 1) I knew better. Having worked in education my entire adult life, I knew that boys were far from being left behind and 2) This was horrible for boys and girls in terms of a gender frame work.

For both boys and girls, the stories played up stereotypes. Boys slack because they have a sense of entitlement. Girls sit nicely in class. Yet I'm sure that each of us can think of one high strung go-getter boy and one trouble making girl. Stereotypes sell, they don't solve problems. Yet, the data was still not parroting the party line.

Yesterday, the American Association for University Women (AAUW) released a study covering 35 years of educational data from grade school to college to look for that so-called gender gap. Well folks, it's there...only it's not what we've been told:

Girls’ successes don’t come at boys’ expense: If girls’ success comes at the expense of boys, one would expect to see boys’ scores decline as girls’ scores rise, but this has not been the case. Geographical patterns further demonstrate the positive connection between girls’ and boys’ educational achievement. In states where girls do well on tests, boys also do well, and states with low test scores among boys tend to also have low scores among girls.

On average, girls’ and boys’ educational performance has improved: From standardized tests in elementary and secondary school to college entrance examinations, average test scores have risen or remained stable for both girls and boys in recent decades. Similarly, both women and men are more likely to graduate from high school and college today than ever before.

Understanding disparities by race/ethnicity and family income level is critical to understanding girls’ and boys’ achievement: Overall, educational outcomes for both girls and boys have generally improved or stayed the same. Girls have made especially rapid gains in many areas,
but boys are also gaining ground on most indicators of educational achievement. Large discrepancies by race/ethnicity and family income level remain. These long-standing inequalities could be considered a “crisis” in the sense that action is needed urgently. But the crisis is not specific to boys; rather, it is a crisis for African American, Hispanic, and low-income children. (emphasis mine)

In the end, there is a crisis, but it is far from as simple as boy versus girl. Rather it is a problem that this country has been struggling and ignoring for many years. How do we ensure a quality education for all? For the rich, the poor? For whites, for minorities? For boys, for girls? For all.   
 

When Veronica isn't pouring over education reports, she blogs at Viva La Feminista, WIMN's Voices, and Work it, Mom!

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In case you haven't heard, the Chicago Public Schools will be opening a few new schools next year and they are magnets plus a gifted center. So you CPSers know what that means - LOTTERY TIME! More choices in that whole "school choice" thing. In reality we know it's more school luck than choice, but put as the commercials say, you can't win if you don't play. So read on about the new schools and how you can try to get your lil one in them.

Here's the skinny from CPS themselves:

    Dear CPS Community,

    We're very excited about five new elementary magnet schools and a new regional gifted center that will open this fall, expanding school options for students in a variety of neighborhoods.

        * *Disney II Magnet School*
          3815 N. Kedvale Ave., will offer a fine/performing arts and technology integration curriculum.
        * *LaSalle II Magnet School*
          1148 N. Honore St., will provide a world language program that allows students to learn one of four different languages.
        * *Sir Miles Davis Magnet Academy*
          6730 S. Paulina, a brand new facility, will offer the district's first-ever children's engineering program.
        * *Joshua D. Kershaw Magnet School*
          6450 S. Lowe  Ave., will offer the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme for children in kindergarten through fifth grade and the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme for students in sixth through eighth grade
        * *Oscar Mayer Magnet School*
          2250 N. Clifton Ave., will offer the Montessori Program for students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme for sixth- through
          eighth-graders.
        * John Coonley Regional Gifted Center, 4046 N. Leavitt, will receive a new regional gifted center for academically advanced students.

    These schools will offer a variety of highly coveted academic programs in neighborhoods that haven't always had access to these kinds of high-quality education options.

    The CPS Office of Academic Enhancement will accept applications until April 25 for the 2008-2009 school year. The magnet schools will not require academic testing, but will accept students from the neighborhood and through a citywide lottery. Students will have to test into Coonley Regional Gifted Center.

    For an application, please click on the school name (Coonley applications will be available in the fall for the 2009-2010 school year); to read the press release about this project, please click here: http://www.cps.k12.il.us/magnet_pdf/magnet_schools_final_release_letterhead.pdf

    Sincerely,

    Arne Duncan

 

Veronica wishes you the best of luck in almost all the lotteries. She won't say which one her daughter's entering. Veronica also blogs at Viva La Feminista, WIMN's Voices, Chicago Moms Blog and Work it, Mom!

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We all know that the Chicago Public Schools are in a state of um, flux. They are trying things that other school systems don't do or maybe even, don't need. One of the experiments that seem to work in some schools is the Local School Council:

Local School Councils (LSCs) are elected bodies at nearly every Chicago Public Schools (CPS) elementary, middle and high school. The LSC has 6 parents, 2 community members who are not parents of students at the school, 2 teachers, the principal, and, in high schools, a student member. The parents and community members are elected by the parents and community residents around the school. Teachers are selected by the school staff. These members serve for a two-year term. High school student members serve for one year. By law, the LSC chairperson must be a parent representative.

The LSC's major responsibilities are to approve the school budget and annual strategic plan (called the school improvement plan), to evaluate the principal every year and to decide every four years if they want to renew the principal's contract or hire a new principal. This is the strongest site- based management system in the nation.

The LSC system is well known in my home as my husband served one term as a community member just before our daughter was born. He didn't run for a second term because we moved out of the school area. He learned a lot from being on the LSC and quickly became connected to some of the community organizations that work on education issues. He learned a lot about CPS and how political things are even at the local school level. It was an experience that he relishes. It's 1) The only campaign he has worked on where he was on the winning end; 2) Loved the campaigning - meeting parents, talking to kids about what they wanted (recess!); and 3) Even if it was a lot of work (more than just the monthly meeting) he did have a good time. Some days he might debate that last point, but I know him. He had fun.

Monday is the last day to file for the current LSC election cycle and according to PURE, 38 schools are in danger of not having enough people to fill their LSC!

Look at this list. Look for your school, for other schools in your community, your relatives' schools, schools located near your place of worship or community center. See if they need one or two or three people to step up and volunteer.

Consider becoming a candidate yourself. With such little competition, you might just win! And there's a lot of help on this web site and elsewhere to support you as an LSC member.

Nomination forms must be submitted at the school by 3 pm Monday March 24. Forms are available on the CPS web site. You can also drop your forms off at the PURE office up until 2 pm Monday.  

Take the weekend to assess if you have the time, energy, and passion to make a difference in the lives of the young people of Chicago. I know that once our lil one hits kindergarten next year, I'll be well known on the PTA/LSC circuit. But remember, you don't have to have a child there! Community member slots are just that, for those in the community.
 

Veronica is still obsessed with CPS and blogging at Viva La Feminista, WIMN's Voices, Chicago Moms Blog and Work it, Mom!

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Do you ever read headlines and you interpret them as your failure? That's what I did when I read yesterday that 1 in 4 teenaged girls have a STD.

The overall STD rate among the 838 girls in the study was 26 percent, which translates to more than 3 million girls nationwide, researchers with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. They released the results Tuesday at an STD prevention conference in Chicago.

For once I have the same position as anti-sex ed folks - Parents must be the primary knowledge base for their children when it comes to sex. Of course I also think that school-based sexuality education is a good thing and must be medically correct without ***-shaming. ***-shaming goes like this - Jill has sex with John on Friday gets a STD and then has sex with Bill on Monday and gives it to him. Jill should have abstained from sex! Um....where did Jill get the STD? Oh, yeah...maybe John?

Thankfully the article I link to does mention the role that boys play in this apparent epidemic of STDs:

"This is pretty shocking," said Dr. Elizabeth Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Montefiore Medical Center's Children's Hospital in New York.

"To talk about abstinence is not a bad thing," but teen girls — and boys too — need to be informed about how to protect themselves if they do have sex, Alderman said.

And even better than that, the article has a  major focus on this rise in STD rates could be a direct result of abstinence only sex education.

"Those numbers are certainly alarming," said sex education expert Nora Gelperin, who works with a teen-written Web site called sexetc.org. She said they reflect "the sad state of sex education in our country."

Thankfully my daughter is only 4 1/2 and "the talk" is on the horizon. And I'm doubly thankful that I'll have Jennifer's wisdom to turn to when the time comes.

I also am not dumb enough to think that the teens having sex and getting STDs are doing this only because they have no idea what is going on. Teens are notorious for thinking that they can survive anything. Thus, I would like to think that anytime my daughter "fails" in life, I won't take it so personally. But I know otherwise.   

When she's not wallowing in Mommy Guilt, Veronica blogs at Viva La Feminista, WIMN's Voices, Chicago Moms Blog and Work it, Mom!

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Saturday ushers in March and the hope that spring will overcome winter, some televised spring training games, Shamrock shakes, and of course, notification from the Chicago Public School lottery and all those privates & parochial schools on whether or not your child was selected. All of this is because Chicago Public Schools have school choice. It's a nice slogan. It lulls you into the belief that you, the parent, has control over where your beloved offspring will be learning their three R's. In fact it is a madness that pushes parents into an annual emotional marathon.

The Chicago Tribune points out the intense competition to get into not just CPS schools, but religious and private schools:

Statistically, it's more difficult, for example, to get into Drummond Montessori, a public magnet school in Bucktown, than it is to get into Harvard University. About 995 children applied for the 36 openings at Drummond next school year, a 4 percent acceptance rate. Harvard accepted about 9 percent of its applicants last year.

At Sacred Heart, an independent Catholic school in Rogers Park, the competition is so fierce, parents are applying now for "early admission" for 2009-10.

And at the private British School, which just last month opened a $25 million, five-story schoolhouse in Lincoln Park, the preschool and kindergarten classes for next year already are full, with a waiting list. Annual tuition: about $18,000. 

 

Of course, we could chuck it all and head into the suburbs where school choice is much more limited and honestly, people buy in suburbs based on what school they want and can afford. And that right there is what is so wrong with the school system in general.

For the record, my husband & I sent in at least a dozen magnet school applications, had our daughter tested for both gifted programs, and applied to one independent/private school. We are both products of public schools in the suburbs and had vastly different experiences. Heck, my sisters & I had vastly different experiences! But we fled the suburbs for the city and fell in love. We love being surrounded by different people, having the choice to hop on the el to go to a Cubs game, and how different neighborhoods are just a few blocks down. We want her to grow up in an environment that might be a bit more forgiving of difference than the suburbs (sorry suburbanites, I lived it, I know what I went through).

Also for the record, I lived in a working poor suburb. My parents chose a house for us that was barely in district for one of the top high schools in the state. I am not a trust fund baby who lives in Lincoln Park who wants a prep school for my child inside a Chicago Public School. What I do want is for every child to have access to quality education, inspiring teachers, and the ability to make friends of all types - that includes academic. While I was in honors classes most of my school career, I had friends in average classes as well as friends who were far more smart than I was. Diversity of thought is important for everyone.

While touring some of the tuition-based preschools, I saw exactly what John Kass tongue-in-cheek suggests - almost total separation of the neighborhood kids from those whose parents are writing a check:

Now, a so-called gifted academy will be saved, to reopen in a building of non-gifted (or is that regular students?) school on the Northwest Side. Parents of the gifted are worried that the non-gifted parents may try to squeeze new kids into the gifted program. Happily, the school bureaucrats have come up with a plan.

They'll keep the children separate, so they don't mingle, perhaps with fences, as if the non-gifted are diseased with cooties. I suggest a moat filled with ravenous crocodiles, to keep the non-gifted in their place. Just wondering, but surely the gifted parents must consider themselves Democrats, as their gifted children are in "public school," right?

 

I live in the city FOR the diversity. I'm not going to pay thousands of dollars to keep my Latina daughter away from others like her. I say that because I rarely saw other people of color on these school tours. I suspect because tours are during the day so we can ooh and ahh over the darling children while they learn algebra in 2nd grade. Thankfully magnet schools have to keep a certain racial breakdown. While the one independent we did apply to isn't full of racial diversity, it is one where we feel very comfortable with in every other aspect - outside the tuition bill, of course.

Why don't I just stop complaining and send her to our neighborhood school? If we need to, we will. But again, my main thesis is that we shouldn't have to choose whether or not to send our kids to a school 30 minutes away from home just because they have recess or art or new computers. In magnet schools they can keep a handle on classroom size while neighborhood schools have to take everyone. I firmly believe that classroom size is one of the biggest factors in a student's success. It just makes sense.  

School choice lets us believe that every child has a shot at being in a top school. That blind lotteries are fair, no peeking at the parents bank account, no play parties to see if the kids fit in, and no testing. In reality it's not as even of a field as we would hope. Not even the gifted schools are safe. On Super Tuesday the voters around the South Loop school voted in favor of a non-binding referendum to ask CPS to remove the gifted students because their commuting was causing too much traffic. Ah, yes...traffic trumps the education of our children. I have no idea what CPS will do with this request, but I'm happy that we didn't apply to a school where outsiders are clearly not welcome.

In the end, my husband and I have to choose the best school for our daughter. Gifted, private, neighborhood, or magnet, we just want a school where we know that she can learn and be respected. I'm grateful that we had the time to visit open houses and fill out applications. I'll continue to work and agitate so that kids can go to school with their neighbors & not worry that they aren't missing out on fresh air, Beethoven, or science fairs.
 

Veronica also blogs at Viva La Feminista, Chicago Moms Blog and Work it, Mom!

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I'm a child of the '80s and thus grew up in the hey day of MTV. You know, when they actually showed music videos and the non-music shows were related to music (Remote Control 4EVER). So I logged more than my fair of time watching, acting out music videos and yes one of my favorites is "Love is a Battlefield."A few years ago I heard of a new summer camp for girls - Girls Rock! How freakin' kewl is that? One week learning the ins and outs of an instrument, writing music, and forming your own band? Hell yes! Can I be 10 again?

So when I received an email about a Girls Rock! movie, I was so all over it. Watch it. I'll wait for ya...

Yeah, now you want to be 10 again too, eh? I have to admit that I cried like a baby watching the trailer.

While I grew up post-Title IX, it was also pre-Girl Power. I hung out with the boys during recess because I liked playing sports, I liked getting dirty and honestly kicking their butt (seriously, no matter how many times I would tackle them, they still thought they could take me). I rejected all things pink, hated wearing skirts, and fought the nail polish & make-up thing all through grammar school. I lived in a place and time where a girl needed to choose. Tomboy or girly girl. Skirts or jeans. To see girls today, especially my 4 1/2 daughter, float effortlessly between rugged grrrrl and pretty princess, well, it is pretty overwhelming for me. To see them rock out and find and USE their voice as seen in the trailer, you get a big pile of ooze that was me. Joan Jett, Pat Benatar, Heart, and Lita Ford were the rockers I wanted to be. Oh, yeah, and Leather Tuscadero.

My daughter is more interested in soccer and dance class (see, I didn't think you could balance those two in my day!) right now, but I'm pretty sure that by the time she is 9, she's gonna want to attend camp. She already does a good air guitar and air fiddle & banjo to the Dixie Chicks.

There is a Girls Rock! camp in Chicago, but doesn't seem to be affiliated with the Girls Rock! from the movie. But hey, we're in Chicago and we gotta rock with it. If your girl will be nine by the summer, check 'em out. They take girls on a sliding scale, so don't fret if your fave punk rock girl isn't flush with cash. If you are, you can donate to the cause.

H/T to Kim at Hormone Colored Days & Momformation for sending me the trailer link!

When Veronica isn't practicing her shoulder struts, she blogs at Viva La Feminista, Chicago Moms Blog and Work it, Mom! This post is cross-posted at VLF and CMB.

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Technorati tags: Pat Benatar, Natalie Maines, rock & roll, guitar, Girls Rock!, movie, feminism

Remember the days when you just needed patience and a dollar to see a movie? Well now all you need is patience and five dollars! Kerosotes Theaters have this nifty club ingeniously called, The Five Buck Club. I read about it on Gapers Block a few months ago, filled out the application, and within a week or so, my member card showed up in the mail.

I've used it twice and it's easy schmeezy.  All you do is wait (that's where the patience comes in) for a movie to be out 2-3 weeks and be shown at a participating Kerosotes theater, show your card to the ticket seller and BAM! You get in for $5. Technically the website site says it is good for one ticket, but both times we've gotten both our tickets for only $5. My husband & I just saw Juno on Monday with this baby. Other movies that have been on the list for this special included "Alvin & The Chipmunks" and "I Am Legend," so there is a good mix between family movies and date night movies. And with the going rate for babysitters, us parents need a way to save money at the movies other than sneaking in red rope licorice & bottles of water.

Veronica loves her popcorn with all that fake butter & popcorn salt, not table salt. She also blogs at Viva La Feminista and Chicago Moms Blog. 

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