New Salem Educational Initiative
Program Summary and Funding Request
Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
The New Salem Educational Initiative is a unique program that for five years has been demonstrating that the achievement gap is bridgeable, offering a program that rationally shows how children from economically challenged families can succeed academically. The program was launched during the 2003-2004 academic year by Dr. Gary Marvin Davison, who brings 35 years of experience to the task of addressing the academic and life challenges faced by young people of the inner city.
The following characteristics have allowed the New Salem Educational Initiative to achieve unprecedented success in bringing children attending schools located mostly in North Minneapolis up to grade level in reading and math, then pointing them along an academic road designed to prepare them for success at the college and university level:
>>> rigorous testing and retesting to determine
and monitor skill level
>>> weekly 2-hour academic sessions designed to
address the skill gaps indicated by testing
>>> transportation provided to all students,
with infinite patience exercised in keeping up
with shifting residences and telephone
numbers--- and rescheduling as necessary to
assure nearly 100% weekly attendance
>>> weekly interaction with parents and
extremely strong relationships developed with
families of students
>>> lifelong, permanent commitment made to
all students once enrolled in the New Salem
Educational Initiative
The New Salem Educational Initiative serves a total of 115 young people (and some adults working on their GEDs). During the academic year the program functions under the name Salem, Inc., Educational Initiative under contract to the Minneapolis Public Schools as a Supplemental Educational Services provider under No Child Left Behind guidelines. Many poor students and children of color, though, do not qualify for services under these provisions, funding does not prevail during the summer, and as a government funding source the future will be determined by shifting political winds.
The cost for serving each student enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative is $2,000 for an entire 12-month period. We are asking that as individuals and private groups, people concerned about the future of inner city young people step forward and become annual donors in that amount to the New Salem Educational Initiative.
Commitment to Funding for a Student Enrolled in the
New Salem Educational Initiative
Name of person, persons, or organization committing to $2,000 toward annual funding for a student enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative:
Name, address, telephone, email:
Name, address, telephone, email
Name, address, telephone, email
Name, address, telephone, email
Name, address, telephone, email
Please use the back of this form to provide contact information if there are more than five individuals participating as a unit in committing to $2,000 in annual funding for a student of the New Salem Educational Initiative.
Checks should be made payable to New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, which is recognized by the United States Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)3 nonprofit agency. The church is located at 2519 Lyndale Avenue North in Minneapolis. Checks should be mailed to the following address:
Dr. Gary Marvin Davison
Program Director and Director of Development
New Salem Educational Initiative
312 South Linden Place
Northfield MN 55057
(Cell) (507) 301-9902
garymarvindavison@earthlink.net
Individuals and groups committing to annual funding of a student enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative will be provided with frequently conveyed information on the student’s life circumstances and academic progress. A person or persons supporting this student are always welcome to observe academic sessions, generally held at the church (address at Lyndale and 26th Avenues North in North Minneapolis, given above) to see for themselves the results of their generosity.
I wish to express my deepest thanks to you for the difference that you are making in the life of an inner city young person living in Minneapolis, and therefore for what you are doing to end the cycle of poverty and make of our community a better place in which to thrive.
Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
Director, New Salem Educational Initiative
Aug 7, 2009
Aug 4, 2009
Student Profile: Theresa
Student Academic and Social Circumstances
Theresa was in Grade 7 and throughout the academic year of 2008-2009 enrolled for Supplemental Educational Services (SES) in the New Salem Educational Initiative. Theresa began an association with the Initiative during the summer after her Grade 3 year, at which time she was enrolled in Cityview K-8 of the Minneapolis Public Schools. She has only one stable and authoritative adult family member in her life, an aunt who attends New Salem Missionary Baptist Church. This connection to New Salem became especially important as Theresa began to move through several different foster care situations and to find herself in changing school settings, all of which for several years were not eligible for SES and mostly outside the Minneapolis Public Schools that is the focus of the New Salem Educational Initiative. The importance of the connections mentioned above lies in the fact that when SES was not available to Theresa, she was able to come to the New Salem Tuesday Night Tutoring program, which is a non-SES, 15-year program that I also coordinate.
Theresa was thus able to stay connected to me throughout the years during which she was not available for Supplemental Educational Services. I was far from satisfied with her academic progress during these years, though. Her unstable living environment and life circumstances made her attendance on Tuesday nights undependable; she missed many of those Tuesday evenings and in fact would at times go through many weeks of nonattendance before her ever-faithful aunt was able to convince the reigning adults in her life to make her available for transport to Tuesday night tutoring. This made necessary the constant review of key concepts and skills in both math and reading, none of which Theresa seemed to be able to master in the regular school environment, which was ever-shifting and apparently not very flexible in its ability to respond to Theresa serious life challenges.
Blessedly, Theresa ended up back in North Minneapolis and enrolled in an SES-qualifying school for academic year 2008-2009. Her attentive aunt was able to keep in much better touch with Theresa’s residential circumstances and to maximize the chances that she would be available at the appointed time for me to pick her up for SES sessions. Even so, Theresa’s life circumstances were hardly stable by middle class standards. Her mother was making a real effort at the beginning of the academic year (September 2008) to get clean from her drug habit and to take responsibility for Theresa and her sister (Stephanie, also enrolled in the Salem, Inc., Educational Initiative and facing the same serious life challenges). But by October 2008 it became clear that her mother’s attempts to get her life together were collapsing and the girls went through three foster care situations before gaining some sense of residential stability by January 2009.
Theresa, though, became very distracted and moody as time wore on. Despite our years developing a teacher-student relationship, with increasingly rude and distracting behavior she easily presented my most serious academic challenge. In time, it became clear to me that the standard 3-5 student group setting was not going to work for Theresa; I decided to arrange a one-on-one with her late Tuesday evenings and at other times when I could fit additional sessions in. This was very difficult considering the work load that I have carried this year, but I was and am committed to saving this life if I can. By March, it was clear that Theresa was responding to my aggressive and logically sequenced academic program and to the love and concern that her attentive aunt and I constantly conveyed. She recovered considerably many of the math and reading skills that had atrophied during the times when I could not work with her as regularly.
But with the arrival of late March and the advent of spring, Theresa began to act out more frequently at school and to resume a seriously distracted and rude form of behavior during my sessions with her. I counseled her frequently, during sessions and in transport to and from those sessions. I made the pitch oft-heard by my students as to the importance of education, the need to secure certain academic skills as the high school years approach, and the absolute necessity in United States society of the 21st century to prepare for post-secondary training. I reminded her of the need to respond to the love and concern that her attentive aunt and I have for her and have expressed for her over the course of many years.
Still, Theresa arrived for two sessions in a row in May totally unprepared emotionally to take what I had to offer her in the way of academic instruction. She was rude to the point of grossness in her behavior. I have a strong sense as to the source of this acting out, but with bated breath decided that I had to make a strong statement. At the end of our session on May 19, I told Theresa that I would be seeking dedicated funding for her continued participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative for the 2009-2010 school year, since it seemed likely that her behavior at school was likely to land her in the SPAN program for students with serious behavioral difficulties at a school that would not qualify for SES as we looked to the 2009-2010 academic year. I told her that I had to be sure that she was going to respond appropriately, because I had other students in similar situations for whom funding had to be sought. And, though it tore me to pieces even as I spoke the words to her, I told Theresa that if she was not ready for me with a better attitude upon pick-up on Tuesday, May 26, I would forgo the request in her behalf and make the case for someone else instead.
The attentive aunt and I went into a private huddle to strategize. I confided to this auntie that much of this was a front on my part. I was not likely to forgo a funding request in Theresa’s behalf, but I thought that it was important for Theresa to think this and to know that even my much-enduring patience had been exhausted. I left the exact consequences open, but the auntie and I agreed that if Theresa did not present a better attitude on 26 May that that would be the end of the 2008-2009 sessions and would require expressions of contrition on her part before the resumption of academic sessions in the New Salem Educational Initiative summer program.
Lo and behold, Theresa showed up with a much improved, more mature, more respectful attitude on 26 May. She worked hard, as did I, toward her recovery of key math skills leading to mastery of various operations with fractions, decimals, and percents that are so vital to conduct many math operations in the courses that lay ahead for her.
We talked seriously during transport to and from the session. I reminded her how much her attentive aunt and I care about her, how much we want her to succeed, that this is a love and concern that has endured and will never go away. I told her how much her attitude on this particularly evening meant to us. I told her that as long as her responsiveness to what I have to offer continues, I will continue to request funding in her behalf.
One never knows for sure. But my experience working with inner city young people tells me that a life may have been saved and that an all too frequent cycle of poverty, dysfunction, street life, and all too often years wasted under incarceration may have been averted on this very night of May 26, 2009.
After I had delivered Theresa to her current residence, I called her auntie as to the night’s success and we exchanged tearful expressions of relief and joy.
Since Theresa will not be attending a school qualifying for Supplemental Educational Services under No Child Left Behind guidelines during academic year 2009-2010, it is imperative that funding for her continued participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative be found among private sources.
Theresa was in Grade 7 and throughout the academic year of 2008-2009 enrolled for Supplemental Educational Services (SES) in the New Salem Educational Initiative. Theresa began an association with the Initiative during the summer after her Grade 3 year, at which time she was enrolled in Cityview K-8 of the Minneapolis Public Schools. She has only one stable and authoritative adult family member in her life, an aunt who attends New Salem Missionary Baptist Church. This connection to New Salem became especially important as Theresa began to move through several different foster care situations and to find herself in changing school settings, all of which for several years were not eligible for SES and mostly outside the Minneapolis Public Schools that is the focus of the New Salem Educational Initiative. The importance of the connections mentioned above lies in the fact that when SES was not available to Theresa, she was able to come to the New Salem Tuesday Night Tutoring program, which is a non-SES, 15-year program that I also coordinate.
Theresa was thus able to stay connected to me throughout the years during which she was not available for Supplemental Educational Services. I was far from satisfied with her academic progress during these years, though. Her unstable living environment and life circumstances made her attendance on Tuesday nights undependable; she missed many of those Tuesday evenings and in fact would at times go through many weeks of nonattendance before her ever-faithful aunt was able to convince the reigning adults in her life to make her available for transport to Tuesday night tutoring. This made necessary the constant review of key concepts and skills in both math and reading, none of which Theresa seemed to be able to master in the regular school environment, which was ever-shifting and apparently not very flexible in its ability to respond to Theresa serious life challenges.
Blessedly, Theresa ended up back in North Minneapolis and enrolled in an SES-qualifying school for academic year 2008-2009. Her attentive aunt was able to keep in much better touch with Theresa’s residential circumstances and to maximize the chances that she would be available at the appointed time for me to pick her up for SES sessions. Even so, Theresa’s life circumstances were hardly stable by middle class standards. Her mother was making a real effort at the beginning of the academic year (September 2008) to get clean from her drug habit and to take responsibility for Theresa and her sister (Stephanie, also enrolled in the Salem, Inc., Educational Initiative and facing the same serious life challenges). But by October 2008 it became clear that her mother’s attempts to get her life together were collapsing and the girls went through three foster care situations before gaining some sense of residential stability by January 2009.
Theresa, though, became very distracted and moody as time wore on. Despite our years developing a teacher-student relationship, with increasingly rude and distracting behavior she easily presented my most serious academic challenge. In time, it became clear to me that the standard 3-5 student group setting was not going to work for Theresa; I decided to arrange a one-on-one with her late Tuesday evenings and at other times when I could fit additional sessions in. This was very difficult considering the work load that I have carried this year, but I was and am committed to saving this life if I can. By March, it was clear that Theresa was responding to my aggressive and logically sequenced academic program and to the love and concern that her attentive aunt and I constantly conveyed. She recovered considerably many of the math and reading skills that had atrophied during the times when I could not work with her as regularly.
But with the arrival of late March and the advent of spring, Theresa began to act out more frequently at school and to resume a seriously distracted and rude form of behavior during my sessions with her. I counseled her frequently, during sessions and in transport to and from those sessions. I made the pitch oft-heard by my students as to the importance of education, the need to secure certain academic skills as the high school years approach, and the absolute necessity in United States society of the 21st century to prepare for post-secondary training. I reminded her of the need to respond to the love and concern that her attentive aunt and I have for her and have expressed for her over the course of many years.
Still, Theresa arrived for two sessions in a row in May totally unprepared emotionally to take what I had to offer her in the way of academic instruction. She was rude to the point of grossness in her behavior. I have a strong sense as to the source of this acting out, but with bated breath decided that I had to make a strong statement. At the end of our session on May 19, I told Theresa that I would be seeking dedicated funding for her continued participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative for the 2009-2010 school year, since it seemed likely that her behavior at school was likely to land her in the SPAN program for students with serious behavioral difficulties at a school that would not qualify for SES as we looked to the 2009-2010 academic year. I told her that I had to be sure that she was going to respond appropriately, because I had other students in similar situations for whom funding had to be sought. And, though it tore me to pieces even as I spoke the words to her, I told Theresa that if she was not ready for me with a better attitude upon pick-up on Tuesday, May 26, I would forgo the request in her behalf and make the case for someone else instead.
The attentive aunt and I went into a private huddle to strategize. I confided to this auntie that much of this was a front on my part. I was not likely to forgo a funding request in Theresa’s behalf, but I thought that it was important for Theresa to think this and to know that even my much-enduring patience had been exhausted. I left the exact consequences open, but the auntie and I agreed that if Theresa did not present a better attitude on 26 May that that would be the end of the 2008-2009 sessions and would require expressions of contrition on her part before the resumption of academic sessions in the New Salem Educational Initiative summer program.
Lo and behold, Theresa showed up with a much improved, more mature, more respectful attitude on 26 May. She worked hard, as did I, toward her recovery of key math skills leading to mastery of various operations with fractions, decimals, and percents that are so vital to conduct many math operations in the courses that lay ahead for her.
We talked seriously during transport to and from the session. I reminded her how much her attentive aunt and I care about her, how much we want her to succeed, that this is a love and concern that has endured and will never go away. I told her how much her attitude on this particularly evening meant to us. I told her that as long as her responsiveness to what I have to offer continues, I will continue to request funding in her behalf.
One never knows for sure. But my experience working with inner city young people tells me that a life may have been saved and that an all too frequent cycle of poverty, dysfunction, street life, and all too often years wasted under incarceration may have been averted on this very night of May 26, 2009.
After I had delivered Theresa to her current residence, I called her auntie as to the night’s success and we exchanged tearful expressions of relief and joy.
Since Theresa will not be attending a school qualifying for Supplemental Educational Services under No Child Left Behind guidelines during academic year 2009-2010, it is imperative that funding for her continued participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative be found among private sources.
Student Profile: Stephanie
Student Academic and Social Circumstances
Stephanie first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative during the summer of 2005, between her 2nd and 3rd grade years in school. She entered the Initiative with significant academic deficits in both math and reading but, as is typical for students enrolled in the Initiative who have completed just the K-2 sequence in school, she was able to make up these deficits quickly during that summer of 2005 and enter her 3rd grade year at grade level performance in both key skill areas.
Three years went by, though, before Stephanie was able to enroll for New Salem Educational Initiative small-group academic sessions during the regular school year. This was the result of two main factors: an itinerant residential pattern for Stephanie and her sister Theresa, engendered by their mother’s instability and drug abuse; and the limited capacity of the New Salem Educational Initiative to serve students enrolled at schools not eligible for Supplemental Educational Services/No Child Left Behind funding. The latter became all the more true as some of the schools at which Stephanie found herself were in the Greater Metro outside the Minneapolis Public School System.
An attentive aunt, Carlotta Madison, did bring Stephanie and Theresa, as often as she could work things out with various guardians, to the Tuesday Night Tutoring Program at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, a program closely associated with the Initiative and for which I also serve as director. Stephanie’s attendance in this program, which on a given night may attract 25 students in the large room where I and my staff of five additional tutors offer academic assistance, was able to maintain much of the progress that she had made. The Tuesday night program cannot offer the level of personal individual attention that I can offer in the small, 3-5 person groups that I instruct professionally, but Stephanie’s attendance on Tuesday evening was more regular than that of Theresa, and much of her progress in math continued. Most of our attention on those Tuesday evenings, though, had to be given to math, so that I was never satisfied with the forward movement that I could observe in Stephanie’s reading skills during these years when the Tuesday program was the only option.
Stephanie also was able to attend small-group sessions that I conducted during summers when the Initiative was funded by the General Mills Foundation (2005 and 2006) or when in summer 2007 I was able to donate my fee for writing a book under contract with the Minneapolis Urban League (summer 2007). But neither funding source was available during summer 2008, so that Stephanie’s skills languished, making especially fortunate her arrival in autumn 2008 back in Minneapolis at Anwatin Middle School, which qualified during academic year 2008-2009 for Supplemental Educational Services/No Child Left Behind funding.
Of the 65 students who were enrolled for small-group academic sessions in the New Salem Educational Initiative during school year 2008-2009, Stephanie was second only to her sister Theresa in presenting me with my biggest teaching challenge. The severe familial dysfunction and life setbacks that Stephanie has experienced has made her wary of failure, so that it takes a great portion of the session just to get her beyond the “I can’t do this” stage. With great patience, I remind her that she has faced new and challenging material many times before and mastered skills that she has thought she could not. I show her step by step how a math operation or reading passage can be mastered, she sees that she can perform the skill successfully, confidence is gained and, after much energy exertion and verbal exhortation on my part (and hers), she continues her movement toward grade-level performance.
There is no other program that can connect with Stephanie right where she lives as does the New Salem Educational Initiative. There is no other program in which the instructor himself knows her familial background so thoroughly; communicates continually with the few stable people in her life (and the many unstable ones, as well); picks her up at school; transports her to a quiet academic setting; gets her into a proper frame of mind to receive instruction; delivers carefully sequenced, adroitly delivered, appropriately challenging academic material; offers counsel and encouragement on the way home; and communicates with family members after every session.
Because Stephanie is likely in any year or part thereof to find herself in a different home, under shifting guardianship or foster care, and in a new school that will not qualify for Supplemental Educational Services funding, it is imperative that private funders step forward to ensure that Stephanie continues to receive the academic support that only the New Salem Educational Initiative can offer. Even with this support, Stephanie is struggling as she enters Grade 7 to maintain grade level performance. The seventh and eight grades are years where lives are won or lost on the ability to succeed in school. When a young person is not successful in the most important area for future success (the academic life) during her or his early teen years, the adolescent will seek baser rewards where they may be found. Very often success is either won or lost forever during these years on the treacherous sands of academic life. If the ground can be secured and the foundation built, the chance for a life of economic independence and personal happiness is maximized. If such ground cannot be made stable and the foundation constructed, the alternatives for inner city young people frequently lead to mean streets that are precursors to incarceration.
In the interest of seeing a face, taking interest in a particular case when that case is presented, and of availing oneself of the opportunity to witness the ongoing result of one’s generosity in promoting success and averting failure, the case of Stephanie should be embraced and financially supported by those willing to offer the funds and personally witness a life that hangs in the balance unfold successfully.
Stephanie first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative during the summer of 2005, between her 2nd and 3rd grade years in school. She entered the Initiative with significant academic deficits in both math and reading but, as is typical for students enrolled in the Initiative who have completed just the K-2 sequence in school, she was able to make up these deficits quickly during that summer of 2005 and enter her 3rd grade year at grade level performance in both key skill areas.
Three years went by, though, before Stephanie was able to enroll for New Salem Educational Initiative small-group academic sessions during the regular school year. This was the result of two main factors: an itinerant residential pattern for Stephanie and her sister Theresa, engendered by their mother’s instability and drug abuse; and the limited capacity of the New Salem Educational Initiative to serve students enrolled at schools not eligible for Supplemental Educational Services/No Child Left Behind funding. The latter became all the more true as some of the schools at which Stephanie found herself were in the Greater Metro outside the Minneapolis Public School System.
An attentive aunt, Carlotta Madison, did bring Stephanie and Theresa, as often as she could work things out with various guardians, to the Tuesday Night Tutoring Program at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, a program closely associated with the Initiative and for which I also serve as director. Stephanie’s attendance in this program, which on a given night may attract 25 students in the large room where I and my staff of five additional tutors offer academic assistance, was able to maintain much of the progress that she had made. The Tuesday night program cannot offer the level of personal individual attention that I can offer in the small, 3-5 person groups that I instruct professionally, but Stephanie’s attendance on Tuesday evening was more regular than that of Theresa, and much of her progress in math continued. Most of our attention on those Tuesday evenings, though, had to be given to math, so that I was never satisfied with the forward movement that I could observe in Stephanie’s reading skills during these years when the Tuesday program was the only option.
Stephanie also was able to attend small-group sessions that I conducted during summers when the Initiative was funded by the General Mills Foundation (2005 and 2006) or when in summer 2007 I was able to donate my fee for writing a book under contract with the Minneapolis Urban League (summer 2007). But neither funding source was available during summer 2008, so that Stephanie’s skills languished, making especially fortunate her arrival in autumn 2008 back in Minneapolis at Anwatin Middle School, which qualified during academic year 2008-2009 for Supplemental Educational Services/No Child Left Behind funding.
Of the 65 students who were enrolled for small-group academic sessions in the New Salem Educational Initiative during school year 2008-2009, Stephanie was second only to her sister Theresa in presenting me with my biggest teaching challenge. The severe familial dysfunction and life setbacks that Stephanie has experienced has made her wary of failure, so that it takes a great portion of the session just to get her beyond the “I can’t do this” stage. With great patience, I remind her that she has faced new and challenging material many times before and mastered skills that she has thought she could not. I show her step by step how a math operation or reading passage can be mastered, she sees that she can perform the skill successfully, confidence is gained and, after much energy exertion and verbal exhortation on my part (and hers), she continues her movement toward grade-level performance.
There is no other program that can connect with Stephanie right where she lives as does the New Salem Educational Initiative. There is no other program in which the instructor himself knows her familial background so thoroughly; communicates continually with the few stable people in her life (and the many unstable ones, as well); picks her up at school; transports her to a quiet academic setting; gets her into a proper frame of mind to receive instruction; delivers carefully sequenced, adroitly delivered, appropriately challenging academic material; offers counsel and encouragement on the way home; and communicates with family members after every session.
Because Stephanie is likely in any year or part thereof to find herself in a different home, under shifting guardianship or foster care, and in a new school that will not qualify for Supplemental Educational Services funding, it is imperative that private funders step forward to ensure that Stephanie continues to receive the academic support that only the New Salem Educational Initiative can offer. Even with this support, Stephanie is struggling as she enters Grade 7 to maintain grade level performance. The seventh and eight grades are years where lives are won or lost on the ability to succeed in school. When a young person is not successful in the most important area for future success (the academic life) during her or his early teen years, the adolescent will seek baser rewards where they may be found. Very often success is either won or lost forever during these years on the treacherous sands of academic life. If the ground can be secured and the foundation built, the chance for a life of economic independence and personal happiness is maximized. If such ground cannot be made stable and the foundation constructed, the alternatives for inner city young people frequently lead to mean streets that are precursors to incarceration.
In the interest of seeing a face, taking interest in a particular case when that case is presented, and of availing oneself of the opportunity to witness the ongoing result of one’s generosity in promoting success and averting failure, the case of Stephanie should be embraced and financially supported by those willing to offer the funds and personally witness a life that hangs in the balance unfold successfully.
Student Profile: Raymond
Student Academic and Social Circumstances
Raymond enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative as a Grade 6 student during the 2007-2008 academic year. He reenrolled in the Initiative for the 2008-2009 academic year and thus has completed his second year of participation in our program. For both of these years (Grade 6 and Grade 7) he has been a student at Cityview K-8 School, which seems will also be his school of attendance for Grade 8 during the 2009-2010 academic year.
It is likely that Cityview K-8 will not qualify for No Child Left Behind/Supplemental Educational Services funding during the 2009-2010 academic year, which makes financial support for Raymond’s participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative all the more vital. Cityview will be at the “Restructuring” stage during academic year 2009-2010. When Northside schools Lucy Laney K-8 and Nellie Stone Johnson K-8 reached that stage, the Minneapolis Public Schools appealed to the Minnesota Department of Education to define these as “new” schools on the basis of substantially new staff and principal and thus to place them at Stage One in the process that eventually leads to No Child Left behind funding for tutoring. Despite continuing to have some of the worst MCA scores in the city, state, and nation these schools have not qualified for No Child Left Behind funding for two years now.
Prior to enrolling in the Initiative, Raymond had gone through both academic and behavioral problems at Green Central K-8 school, the school at which he had been enrolled prior to moving to North Minneapolis (from South Minneapolis) and becoming a student at Cityview. His participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative imbued Raymond with a sense of confidence and support that he had not theretofore felt, and he began to make steady progress in his mastery of math concepts and reading skills. When Raymond enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative, he was functioning three grades below level of school enrollment in both math and reading. During his period of participation in the Initiative, Raymond has risen two full grade levels in both of these key subject areas and now stands at the cusp of full grade level performance.
Raymond’s family qualifies for the Free Lunch program and faces the sort of economic challenges that are typical for families who live in North Minneapolis. It is vital that Raymond continue his participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative so that he continues his ascent to full grade level performance during his Grade 8 Year and enters high school at Grade 9 with strong academic skills and a healthy self-image. If funding for Cityview under No Child Left Behind/Supplemental Educational Services is not forthcoming for the 2009-2010 academic year, Raymond’s full participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative on a weekly, two-hour, small-group, individualized instruction basis will be threatened. This cannot happen. Raymond must continue his participation in the Initiative for his academic and personal development to continue.
Raymond is quick to smile, generally maintains a cheery disposition, and has a better family support system than many of the students in the New Salem Educational Initiative. His mother is highly attentive and a great supporter of mine. We connect weekly on the progress of Raymond and his brother, Grayson, and sister, Tracey (these two are also enrolled in the Initiative; the former will be a Grade 9 student at an as-yet-to-be determined high school, the latter will be a Grade 10 student at Roosevelt). Raymond and his siblings also have a supportive aunt whose son, Matthew, has for two years been enrolled in the same Monday night academic session of the Initiative with his cousins.
Raymond has these advantages of personality and family support. But, starting as he did academically so far behind, he is still struggling to achieve grade level performance. Raymond is a capable student, but he is easily distracted and has drawn a special education label in the school setting. He has thrived in the small-group setting of the New Salem Educational Initiative, and he has responded to academically aggressive instruction delivered in a warm, personalized style. He now faces the challenge of achieving grade level performance during the vital Grade 8 year, when so many lives are won or lost. When students do not master academic material sufficiently to enter high school with the requisite skill set and attending confidence, and when they do not therefore succeed academically at the high school level, they will seek their rewards, attention, and identity in unsavory ways and places.
Raymond must continue to receive the academic support that I am particularly well-placed to render in order to thrive in high school and to avoid the all too familiar pitfalls of inner city adolescence. Thus, funding for Raymond’s participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative is one of my paramount concerns.
Raymond enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative as a Grade 6 student during the 2007-2008 academic year. He reenrolled in the Initiative for the 2008-2009 academic year and thus has completed his second year of participation in our program. For both of these years (Grade 6 and Grade 7) he has been a student at Cityview K-8 School, which seems will also be his school of attendance for Grade 8 during the 2009-2010 academic year.
It is likely that Cityview K-8 will not qualify for No Child Left Behind/Supplemental Educational Services funding during the 2009-2010 academic year, which makes financial support for Raymond’s participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative all the more vital. Cityview will be at the “Restructuring” stage during academic year 2009-2010. When Northside schools Lucy Laney K-8 and Nellie Stone Johnson K-8 reached that stage, the Minneapolis Public Schools appealed to the Minnesota Department of Education to define these as “new” schools on the basis of substantially new staff and principal and thus to place them at Stage One in the process that eventually leads to No Child Left behind funding for tutoring. Despite continuing to have some of the worst MCA scores in the city, state, and nation these schools have not qualified for No Child Left Behind funding for two years now.
Prior to enrolling in the Initiative, Raymond had gone through both academic and behavioral problems at Green Central K-8 school, the school at which he had been enrolled prior to moving to North Minneapolis (from South Minneapolis) and becoming a student at Cityview. His participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative imbued Raymond with a sense of confidence and support that he had not theretofore felt, and he began to make steady progress in his mastery of math concepts and reading skills. When Raymond enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative, he was functioning three grades below level of school enrollment in both math and reading. During his period of participation in the Initiative, Raymond has risen two full grade levels in both of these key subject areas and now stands at the cusp of full grade level performance.
Raymond’s family qualifies for the Free Lunch program and faces the sort of economic challenges that are typical for families who live in North Minneapolis. It is vital that Raymond continue his participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative so that he continues his ascent to full grade level performance during his Grade 8 Year and enters high school at Grade 9 with strong academic skills and a healthy self-image. If funding for Cityview under No Child Left Behind/Supplemental Educational Services is not forthcoming for the 2009-2010 academic year, Raymond’s full participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative on a weekly, two-hour, small-group, individualized instruction basis will be threatened. This cannot happen. Raymond must continue his participation in the Initiative for his academic and personal development to continue.
Raymond is quick to smile, generally maintains a cheery disposition, and has a better family support system than many of the students in the New Salem Educational Initiative. His mother is highly attentive and a great supporter of mine. We connect weekly on the progress of Raymond and his brother, Grayson, and sister, Tracey (these two are also enrolled in the Initiative; the former will be a Grade 9 student at an as-yet-to-be determined high school, the latter will be a Grade 10 student at Roosevelt). Raymond and his siblings also have a supportive aunt whose son, Matthew, has for two years been enrolled in the same Monday night academic session of the Initiative with his cousins.
Raymond has these advantages of personality and family support. But, starting as he did academically so far behind, he is still struggling to achieve grade level performance. Raymond is a capable student, but he is easily distracted and has drawn a special education label in the school setting. He has thrived in the small-group setting of the New Salem Educational Initiative, and he has responded to academically aggressive instruction delivered in a warm, personalized style. He now faces the challenge of achieving grade level performance during the vital Grade 8 year, when so many lives are won or lost. When students do not master academic material sufficiently to enter high school with the requisite skill set and attending confidence, and when they do not therefore succeed academically at the high school level, they will seek their rewards, attention, and identity in unsavory ways and places.
Raymond must continue to receive the academic support that I am particularly well-placed to render in order to thrive in high school and to avoid the all too familiar pitfalls of inner city adolescence. Thus, funding for Raymond’s participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative is one of my paramount concerns.
Student Profile: Raul
Student Academic and Social Circumstances
Raul is one of sixteen students who enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative late in the 2008-2009 academic year, beginning only in March. His mother expressed deep concern over the state of Raul’s performance in math at school, indicated by an ongoing series of “F” grades on progress reports and report cards. I immediately started Raul on our logically sequenced math assignments, which revealed that Raul has at least average math ability for his Grade 6 status, although many skills had gone seriously underdeveloped. Raul’s mother asked if we might be able to work him into more than the typical two hours per week.
Given our high enrollments, this took considerable logistical maneuvering over about two weeks before we could accede to the request, but in time we found a way to offer Raul up to eight (8) hours per week. With this aggressive program of intervention, Raul rapidly improved his reading as well as math, with the latter having been given particular emphasis. He achieved a “C-“ in math for the final quarter marking period of the 2008-2009 academic year and was reveling in his ability to understand and not feel lost. He is very proud of the expressions of approval over his greatly enhanced performance that he received from his math teacher at school.
Raul is the child of parents who were born in Ecuador. Raul was born in the United States but is still considered an English language learner and undergoes special English as a Second Language support at school. His mother speaks virtually no English, and the English language capability of his father is severely limited. Thus, although I work through elder siblings and other adept family members as interpreters for more nuanced communications, my Spanish language capability is appreciated for basic conveyance of information as to Raul’s weekly performance and other routine matters.
Raul’s linguistic challenges lie mainly in his attachment to concrete interpretations of reading matter. He comprehends very straightforward, informational material reasonably well, but anything resembling abstract verbal expression is a challenge for him. This can include word problems in math, something to which we have given considerable attention. Raul’s improving ability to deal with abstract reading material has in part accounted for Raul’s enhanced performance in mathematics.
During his tenure as a student in the Minneapolis Public Schools, Raul has at times acted out his academic frustrations in such ways as to gain an Emotionally and Behaviorially Disordered (EBD) label. At the time that Raul enrolled in the Initiative, teachers, counselors, and social workers at Emerson were recommending that he undergo further evaluation for possible enrollment in an anger management program. One of the extended discussions that I had with Raul’s mother, for which I utilized the interpretation services of a linguistically adept uncle, focused on my own interaction with Raul and my perspective on Raul’s behavior and anger management problem. I was able to convey to Raul’s mother and other family members that Raul has never been anything remotely resembling a behavioral problem in his sessions with me. In fact, his behavior has been just the opposite: respectful, disciplined, and responsive to instructions. We have good conversations during transport to and from New Salem.
My interpretation of Raul’s acting out, conveyed to his mother and others, is that Raul has often been deeply frustrated in school, particularly in math, leading him to express frustration as anger, aimed at people who may themselves be tangential to the real problem. But, while many of these individuals are not themselves the problem, the educational system that they represent does have some culpability. The rapidity of Raul’s improvement under my instruction and his excellent demeanor as a student in the New Salem Educational Initiative serve as strong indicators that the educational system has not been tapping into Raul’s talents or bringing out his best behavioral self.
Raul is in fact a highly inquisitive young man who asks persistent and perceptive questions on a range of topics. He has been fascinated in my authorship of a number of books and has inquired with great sophistication as to the process for writing manuscripts, getting them accepted for publication, and carrying forth with the myriad details necessary to bring the book at last before the reading public. At one point I lent Raul my A Concise History of African America (2008), of which he read several chapters. Then, when he became even more interested in my Tales from the Taiwanese (2004), I promised him that I would give him a signed copy with inscription if he would read and write detailed summaries of five of the stories. The very next time that I picked Raul up at his home for transport to New Salem, he opened a folder to reveal five neatly written two-page summaries of each of the tales that he selected. These summaries contained a few errors both of detail and composition, but in general they revealed a grasp of the essential characters and plot description, and they certainly revealed Raul’s keen interest in the stories that he had read.
Raul’s mother has understandably not been pleased with her son’s experiences at school and talks about switching him to another school. Some of the schools under consideration are charter schools that are not in the Minneapolis Public Schools system. Should she follow through with one of the latter options, Raul’s status in the New Salem Educational Initiative, funded during the academic year through the Minneapolis Public Schools under No Child Left Behind/Supplemental Educational Services guidelines, would be tenuous. We would maintain as much connection to Raul as we can, and we would always welcome him to New Salem’s longstanding Tuesday Night Tutoring program, which sometimes draws as many as 25 students and cannot offer the level of individual attention under which Raul has thrived.
For Raul to maintain, therefore, the kind of progress that he has made, as described above, at the level of sensitive individual attention that he has received in small-group sessions and in transport to and from his home for these sessions, it is imperative that private sources step forward to ensure that Raul's continued participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative is possible.
Raul is one of sixteen students who enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative late in the 2008-2009 academic year, beginning only in March. His mother expressed deep concern over the state of Raul’s performance in math at school, indicated by an ongoing series of “F” grades on progress reports and report cards. I immediately started Raul on our logically sequenced math assignments, which revealed that Raul has at least average math ability for his Grade 6 status, although many skills had gone seriously underdeveloped. Raul’s mother asked if we might be able to work him into more than the typical two hours per week.
Given our high enrollments, this took considerable logistical maneuvering over about two weeks before we could accede to the request, but in time we found a way to offer Raul up to eight (8) hours per week. With this aggressive program of intervention, Raul rapidly improved his reading as well as math, with the latter having been given particular emphasis. He achieved a “C-“ in math for the final quarter marking period of the 2008-2009 academic year and was reveling in his ability to understand and not feel lost. He is very proud of the expressions of approval over his greatly enhanced performance that he received from his math teacher at school.
Raul is the child of parents who were born in Ecuador. Raul was born in the United States but is still considered an English language learner and undergoes special English as a Second Language support at school. His mother speaks virtually no English, and the English language capability of his father is severely limited. Thus, although I work through elder siblings and other adept family members as interpreters for more nuanced communications, my Spanish language capability is appreciated for basic conveyance of information as to Raul’s weekly performance and other routine matters.
Raul’s linguistic challenges lie mainly in his attachment to concrete interpretations of reading matter. He comprehends very straightforward, informational material reasonably well, but anything resembling abstract verbal expression is a challenge for him. This can include word problems in math, something to which we have given considerable attention. Raul’s improving ability to deal with abstract reading material has in part accounted for Raul’s enhanced performance in mathematics.
During his tenure as a student in the Minneapolis Public Schools, Raul has at times acted out his academic frustrations in such ways as to gain an Emotionally and Behaviorially Disordered (EBD) label. At the time that Raul enrolled in the Initiative, teachers, counselors, and social workers at Emerson were recommending that he undergo further evaluation for possible enrollment in an anger management program. One of the extended discussions that I had with Raul’s mother, for which I utilized the interpretation services of a linguistically adept uncle, focused on my own interaction with Raul and my perspective on Raul’s behavior and anger management problem. I was able to convey to Raul’s mother and other family members that Raul has never been anything remotely resembling a behavioral problem in his sessions with me. In fact, his behavior has been just the opposite: respectful, disciplined, and responsive to instructions. We have good conversations during transport to and from New Salem.
My interpretation of Raul’s acting out, conveyed to his mother and others, is that Raul has often been deeply frustrated in school, particularly in math, leading him to express frustration as anger, aimed at people who may themselves be tangential to the real problem. But, while many of these individuals are not themselves the problem, the educational system that they represent does have some culpability. The rapidity of Raul’s improvement under my instruction and his excellent demeanor as a student in the New Salem Educational Initiative serve as strong indicators that the educational system has not been tapping into Raul’s talents or bringing out his best behavioral self.
Raul is in fact a highly inquisitive young man who asks persistent and perceptive questions on a range of topics. He has been fascinated in my authorship of a number of books and has inquired with great sophistication as to the process for writing manuscripts, getting them accepted for publication, and carrying forth with the myriad details necessary to bring the book at last before the reading public. At one point I lent Raul my A Concise History of African America (2008), of which he read several chapters. Then, when he became even more interested in my Tales from the Taiwanese (2004), I promised him that I would give him a signed copy with inscription if he would read and write detailed summaries of five of the stories. The very next time that I picked Raul up at his home for transport to New Salem, he opened a folder to reveal five neatly written two-page summaries of each of the tales that he selected. These summaries contained a few errors both of detail and composition, but in general they revealed a grasp of the essential characters and plot description, and they certainly revealed Raul’s keen interest in the stories that he had read.
Raul’s mother has understandably not been pleased with her son’s experiences at school and talks about switching him to another school. Some of the schools under consideration are charter schools that are not in the Minneapolis Public Schools system. Should she follow through with one of the latter options, Raul’s status in the New Salem Educational Initiative, funded during the academic year through the Minneapolis Public Schools under No Child Left Behind/Supplemental Educational Services guidelines, would be tenuous. We would maintain as much connection to Raul as we can, and we would always welcome him to New Salem’s longstanding Tuesday Night Tutoring program, which sometimes draws as many as 25 students and cannot offer the level of individual attention under which Raul has thrived.
For Raul to maintain, therefore, the kind of progress that he has made, as described above, at the level of sensitive individual attention that he has received in small-group sessions and in transport to and from his home for these sessions, it is imperative that private sources step forward to ensure that Raul's continued participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative is possible.
Student Profile: Marybeth
Student Academic and Social Circumstances
Marybeth has been a participant in the New Salem Educational Initiative since the program’s inception in the 2003-2004 academic year. She was just in kindergarten during that first year. It immediately became apparent to me that she was a very special talent. Within two months Marybeth came to grasp concepts in math and reading descriptive of the typical first grader, and by the end of that first academic year she was performing mathematic functions at grade level 2 and easily mastering reading material at grade level 3.
Marybeth family has always faced serious economic challenges. Her father is only sporadically employed as an adept but unlicensed carpenter without union affiliation. Her mother works as a nurse’s assistant. The family’s children, five in all, qualify for free lunch in the Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program of the Minneapolis Public Schools. They have lived in three different apartments during the time that I have known them, all of them ramshackle affairs owned by landlords of questionable reputation. But the mother of the children, Martha, is a stalwart proponent of education and a huge backer of everything I offer to her children. And the four older children (in addition to Marybeth, Jason, Carla, and Preston) are to a person thoroughly engaged during our academic sessions and possessed of high motivation and tremendous will to succeed in school. Selma, the youngest, will be in kindergarten this coming academic year and will also be enrolling in the New Salem Educational Initiative.
During our time together, Marybeth has continued to soar far above grade level performance and to demonstrate more and more breathtaking feats of academic accomplishment with each passing year. This past year, Marybeth, as a Grade 5 student at Green Central K-8 School, was doing math typical of grades 7 and 8, while in reading she took on material that is usually challenging for high school students. Toward the end of this past (2008-2009) academic year, Marybeth recorded her most impressive academic accomplishment to date. After she had achieved a perfect score on her practice Grade 5 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment in Reading, and noting that she would regularly digest any reading material that I put before her, I decided to offer Ionia a chance to take the practice Grade 10 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment in Reading. She passed this test at 80%, five percentage points above the score needed for the typical Grade 10 student to demonstrate grade level competence.
Let me stress this last piece of information again: Marybeth, just a fifth grader, passed a test tied to the Adequate Yearly Progress (under No Child Left Behind requirements) of high schools that administer this test in Grade 10. Lamentably, only about 30% of African American Grade 10 students in the Minneapolis Public Schools pass this test. After she had accomplished this remarkable feat, I had an interesting conversation with Marybeth as I drove her home that went like this:
“Marybeth, have you ever heard of the Ivy League?”
“Nope.”
“Well, that’s a term given to a few universities in the Northeast, places like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton that have traditionally been considered the best. And, you know, there are some other really good schools, places like the University of Chicago, University of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and McGill University in Montreal, in Canada, where my son goes. Do you think that you would like to go to a really great, challenging university like one of these?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And you wouldn’t mind living someplace far away from Minnesota, say, like Boston?”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, Marybeth, I know that you can go to such a place if you stay on the course that you’re on. And, you know, there is a test that you can take when you’re in the tenth or eleventh grade that can qualify you for something called the National Merit Scholarship. So, we’re going to keep challenging you, developing your vocabulary, having you read a wide variety of difficult material, get your math in a very advanced state--- and I think that you have a real chance to achieve at that level. You think so, too, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
For Marybeth to continue to achieve at a level that can give her a chance to become the National Merit Scholar that I know that she can be, it is imperative that she continue as a student under my guidance in the New Salem Educational Initiative. The kind of training that she gets in this academic program is the kind that children of upper middle class and upper class students now get as a matter of routine--- in the form of well-funded suburban schools, a variety of enrichment classes beyond school, and advanced training through SAT and ACT tutorials--- as a matter of course.
But Marybeth’s school, Green Central, has been for several years now on list of schools not making adequate progress and therefore qualifying for Supplemental Educational Services (SES) under No Child Left Behind regulations. It could now reach the restructuring stage, at which schools are often declared new schools after a staff overall and thereby ironically no longer qualified for SES funding. This has become a problem in the instance of several students who have thrived in the New Salem Educational Initiative for years but whose participation is now threatened for lack of funding. It is my policy as Director of the Initiative never to break the relationship that we have established with a student once she or he has enrolled in the program.
This need for alternative funding sources provides the impetus for the current drive to raise funds for students whose lives, whose ability to break the cycle of poverty that in many cases goes back four and five generations, depends on their maintaining their enrollment in a program that is uniquely structured to give them the academic boost that they need.
For reasons implicit in her remarkable rise above the circumstances of her birth through her participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative, securing funding for Marybeth is one of my chief goals as academic year 2009-2010 approaches.
Marybeth has been a participant in the New Salem Educational Initiative since the program’s inception in the 2003-2004 academic year. She was just in kindergarten during that first year. It immediately became apparent to me that she was a very special talent. Within two months Marybeth came to grasp concepts in math and reading descriptive of the typical first grader, and by the end of that first academic year she was performing mathematic functions at grade level 2 and easily mastering reading material at grade level 3.
Marybeth family has always faced serious economic challenges. Her father is only sporadically employed as an adept but unlicensed carpenter without union affiliation. Her mother works as a nurse’s assistant. The family’s children, five in all, qualify for free lunch in the Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program of the Minneapolis Public Schools. They have lived in three different apartments during the time that I have known them, all of them ramshackle affairs owned by landlords of questionable reputation. But the mother of the children, Martha, is a stalwart proponent of education and a huge backer of everything I offer to her children. And the four older children (in addition to Marybeth, Jason, Carla, and Preston) are to a person thoroughly engaged during our academic sessions and possessed of high motivation and tremendous will to succeed in school. Selma, the youngest, will be in kindergarten this coming academic year and will also be enrolling in the New Salem Educational Initiative.
During our time together, Marybeth has continued to soar far above grade level performance and to demonstrate more and more breathtaking feats of academic accomplishment with each passing year. This past year, Marybeth, as a Grade 5 student at Green Central K-8 School, was doing math typical of grades 7 and 8, while in reading she took on material that is usually challenging for high school students. Toward the end of this past (2008-2009) academic year, Marybeth recorded her most impressive academic accomplishment to date. After she had achieved a perfect score on her practice Grade 5 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment in Reading, and noting that she would regularly digest any reading material that I put before her, I decided to offer Ionia a chance to take the practice Grade 10 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment in Reading. She passed this test at 80%, five percentage points above the score needed for the typical Grade 10 student to demonstrate grade level competence.
Let me stress this last piece of information again: Marybeth, just a fifth grader, passed a test tied to the Adequate Yearly Progress (under No Child Left Behind requirements) of high schools that administer this test in Grade 10. Lamentably, only about 30% of African American Grade 10 students in the Minneapolis Public Schools pass this test. After she had accomplished this remarkable feat, I had an interesting conversation with Marybeth as I drove her home that went like this:
“Marybeth, have you ever heard of the Ivy League?”
“Nope.”
“Well, that’s a term given to a few universities in the Northeast, places like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton that have traditionally been considered the best. And, you know, there are some other really good schools, places like the University of Chicago, University of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and McGill University in Montreal, in Canada, where my son goes. Do you think that you would like to go to a really great, challenging university like one of these?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And you wouldn’t mind living someplace far away from Minnesota, say, like Boston?”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, Marybeth, I know that you can go to such a place if you stay on the course that you’re on. And, you know, there is a test that you can take when you’re in the tenth or eleventh grade that can qualify you for something called the National Merit Scholarship. So, we’re going to keep challenging you, developing your vocabulary, having you read a wide variety of difficult material, get your math in a very advanced state--- and I think that you have a real chance to achieve at that level. You think so, too, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
For Marybeth to continue to achieve at a level that can give her a chance to become the National Merit Scholar that I know that she can be, it is imperative that she continue as a student under my guidance in the New Salem Educational Initiative. The kind of training that she gets in this academic program is the kind that children of upper middle class and upper class students now get as a matter of routine--- in the form of well-funded suburban schools, a variety of enrichment classes beyond school, and advanced training through SAT and ACT tutorials--- as a matter of course.
But Marybeth’s school, Green Central, has been for several years now on list of schools not making adequate progress and therefore qualifying for Supplemental Educational Services (SES) under No Child Left Behind regulations. It could now reach the restructuring stage, at which schools are often declared new schools after a staff overall and thereby ironically no longer qualified for SES funding. This has become a problem in the instance of several students who have thrived in the New Salem Educational Initiative for years but whose participation is now threatened for lack of funding. It is my policy as Director of the Initiative never to break the relationship that we have established with a student once she or he has enrolled in the program.
This need for alternative funding sources provides the impetus for the current drive to raise funds for students whose lives, whose ability to break the cycle of poverty that in many cases goes back four and five generations, depends on their maintaining their enrollment in a program that is uniquely structured to give them the academic boost that they need.
For reasons implicit in her remarkable rise above the circumstances of her birth through her participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative, securing funding for Marybeth is one of my chief goals as academic year 2009-2010 approaches.
Student Profile: Maria
Student Academic and Social Circumstances
Maria first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative in September 2007, at the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year. She was an enthusiastic student from the start, but she gave evidence of serious academic deficits. At that point, Maria was functioning two academic levels below her Grade 5 level of enrollment at Cityview K-8.
When I introduced Maria to the logically sequenced math and reading curricula of the New Salem Educational Initiative, she dove into the materials with alacrity. She quickly gained mastery of her multiplication tables, secured her skills in all four basic arithmetic operations, applied these to calculation in problems with decimals, learned the relationship between fractions, decimals, and percentages, and used these latter skills in a variety of real-world applications. Maria would now tell me, “I love math!”
Reading at first was another matter. She declared early on that “I don’t like to read.” Upon entrance into the New Salem Educational Initiative, Maria was still considered an English language learner and took ESL classes at school along with regular classroom curriculum. She read English slowly, with limited comprehension, and with the weak foundation of a very limited vocabulary. But her confidence built as we worked to strengthen her vocabulary and to entertain the kinds of conceptual questions asked by an instructor sitting side by side with the student that can efficiently build reading comprehension.
A revolution took place in Maria’s life when I introduced her to the Core Knowledge materials produced by E. D. Hirsch and associates. The What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know edition contained the usual rich variety of readings that this series presents in the academic areas of math, science, literature, fine arts, and history. Maria demonstrated deep concentration in her sessions reading from the Fifth Grader edition. It was as if, indeed it was truly that, a previously unexplored world of knowledge now unfolded before her eyes. She couldn’t get enough. She was enchanted. Her eyes lit up each new session when I brought this book out. She answered my questions with great enthusiasm and asked me even more. When she would look at me as I answered her questions, her gaze seemed at times as if it would bore a hole in my face, so eager was this remarkable young person for knowledge. She was now declaring unabashedly, “I love to read.”
In time Maria came to know that I have written several books and to ask to read these. She enjoyed my Tales from the Taiwanese (2003) but took particular interest in my A Concise History of African America (2008). I signed a copy of the latter book and wrote an inscription exhorting her to explore the world of knowledge as far as her great interests would take her. This book is written for college students and sophisticated adult readers. This erstwhile English language learner immersed herself in the book and within three weeks had read three chapters, saying that her favorite was the chapter detailing the horrors of the slave trade and the journey through the Middle Passage.
When Maria returned to the New Salem Educational Initiative during her Grade 6 year at Cityview, I gave her a personal copy of What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know. I do this with many of my students in whom I have witnessed particular academic engagement, and whom I think will really explore the book in detail as a matter of driving intellectual interest. Maria came to our weekly two-hour session each week with some new and astute observation concerning something that she had read. I noted that she was never more enthusiastic than when she had encountered material on African America history. Among the rich literary materials in Sixth Grader is a section reprinting the “I Have a Dream” speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I asked Maria if she would be interested in memorizing and delivering this speech at the annual banquet of the New Salem Educational Initiative. She paused not one second in saying, “Oh, yes!”
We practiced week after week, spinning numerous vocabulary assignments off of this amazingly poetic and metaphor-rich speech. We got in a long Saturday evening session in late May, by which time Maria had exhausted her official Supplemental Educational Services (SES) hours. She gave the speech to perfection at that annual banquet on June 1, 2009, bringing tears to many an eye, none more prominently than my own.
Fittingly, this former English language learner, now a sophisticated reader of adult works of history and fiction alike, this master of one of the most highly literate speeches in the English language, was designated “Student of the Year” and given the appropriate certificate of accomplishment at this academic year 2008-2009 banquet of the New Salem Educational Initiative.
During the 2009-2010 academic year, Maria's school of attendance will be in the “restructuring” stage under No Child Left Behind regulations, having failed to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for several years in a row. Heretofore when this has happened in the Minneapolis Public Schools, such a school undergoes a more than 50% staff overhaul and gets a new principal. Ironically, at that point the institution is considered a new school and ineligible to receive No Child Left Behind funding until failing to make AYP for several more years. Since the New Salem Educational Initiative is dependent on No Child Left Behind funding as a Supplemental Educational Services provider during the academic year, the status of students such as Maria becomes threatened.
This cannot happen. One of the major reasons for the stunning success of the New Salem Educational Initiative is our ability to retain students at least until the end of their K-12 experience once they enroll in the Initiative: We endeavor to hold on to every single child with whom we establish a relationship. Maria needs to retain her position in the New Salem Educational Initiative to continue her trajectory of success, and it is thus one of my key priorities to secure dedicated private funding for her continuance in the program.
Maria first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative in September 2007, at the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year. She was an enthusiastic student from the start, but she gave evidence of serious academic deficits. At that point, Maria was functioning two academic levels below her Grade 5 level of enrollment at Cityview K-8.
When I introduced Maria to the logically sequenced math and reading curricula of the New Salem Educational Initiative, she dove into the materials with alacrity. She quickly gained mastery of her multiplication tables, secured her skills in all four basic arithmetic operations, applied these to calculation in problems with decimals, learned the relationship between fractions, decimals, and percentages, and used these latter skills in a variety of real-world applications. Maria would now tell me, “I love math!”
Reading at first was another matter. She declared early on that “I don’t like to read.” Upon entrance into the New Salem Educational Initiative, Maria was still considered an English language learner and took ESL classes at school along with regular classroom curriculum. She read English slowly, with limited comprehension, and with the weak foundation of a very limited vocabulary. But her confidence built as we worked to strengthen her vocabulary and to entertain the kinds of conceptual questions asked by an instructor sitting side by side with the student that can efficiently build reading comprehension.
A revolution took place in Maria’s life when I introduced her to the Core Knowledge materials produced by E. D. Hirsch and associates. The What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know edition contained the usual rich variety of readings that this series presents in the academic areas of math, science, literature, fine arts, and history. Maria demonstrated deep concentration in her sessions reading from the Fifth Grader edition. It was as if, indeed it was truly that, a previously unexplored world of knowledge now unfolded before her eyes. She couldn’t get enough. She was enchanted. Her eyes lit up each new session when I brought this book out. She answered my questions with great enthusiasm and asked me even more. When she would look at me as I answered her questions, her gaze seemed at times as if it would bore a hole in my face, so eager was this remarkable young person for knowledge. She was now declaring unabashedly, “I love to read.”
In time Maria came to know that I have written several books and to ask to read these. She enjoyed my Tales from the Taiwanese (2003) but took particular interest in my A Concise History of African America (2008). I signed a copy of the latter book and wrote an inscription exhorting her to explore the world of knowledge as far as her great interests would take her. This book is written for college students and sophisticated adult readers. This erstwhile English language learner immersed herself in the book and within three weeks had read three chapters, saying that her favorite was the chapter detailing the horrors of the slave trade and the journey through the Middle Passage.
When Maria returned to the New Salem Educational Initiative during her Grade 6 year at Cityview, I gave her a personal copy of What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know. I do this with many of my students in whom I have witnessed particular academic engagement, and whom I think will really explore the book in detail as a matter of driving intellectual interest. Maria came to our weekly two-hour session each week with some new and astute observation concerning something that she had read. I noted that she was never more enthusiastic than when she had encountered material on African America history. Among the rich literary materials in Sixth Grader is a section reprinting the “I Have a Dream” speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I asked Maria if she would be interested in memorizing and delivering this speech at the annual banquet of the New Salem Educational Initiative. She paused not one second in saying, “Oh, yes!”
We practiced week after week, spinning numerous vocabulary assignments off of this amazingly poetic and metaphor-rich speech. We got in a long Saturday evening session in late May, by which time Maria had exhausted her official Supplemental Educational Services (SES) hours. She gave the speech to perfection at that annual banquet on June 1, 2009, bringing tears to many an eye, none more prominently than my own.
Fittingly, this former English language learner, now a sophisticated reader of adult works of history and fiction alike, this master of one of the most highly literate speeches in the English language, was designated “Student of the Year” and given the appropriate certificate of accomplishment at this academic year 2008-2009 banquet of the New Salem Educational Initiative.
During the 2009-2010 academic year, Maria's school of attendance will be in the “restructuring” stage under No Child Left Behind regulations, having failed to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for several years in a row. Heretofore when this has happened in the Minneapolis Public Schools, such a school undergoes a more than 50% staff overhaul and gets a new principal. Ironically, at that point the institution is considered a new school and ineligible to receive No Child Left Behind funding until failing to make AYP for several more years. Since the New Salem Educational Initiative is dependent on No Child Left Behind funding as a Supplemental Educational Services provider during the academic year, the status of students such as Maria becomes threatened.
This cannot happen. One of the major reasons for the stunning success of the New Salem Educational Initiative is our ability to retain students at least until the end of their K-12 experience once they enroll in the Initiative: We endeavor to hold on to every single child with whom we establish a relationship. Maria needs to retain her position in the New Salem Educational Initiative to continue her trajectory of success, and it is thus one of my key priorities to secure dedicated private funding for her continuance in the program.
Student Profile: Brittany
Student Academic and Social Circumstances
Brittany first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative during the 2007-2008 academic year, when she was a Grade 8 student at Olson Middle School in North Minneapolis. It was apparent to me from the beginning that Brittany is quite bright, but when she first came into the program she was recording mediocre grades at school and did not have a very strong self-concept.
Brittany is a person of mixed African American (mother) and Caucasian (father) parentage who has for many years now lived with a foster mother, Marcella Baker, who serves as primary caregiver and legal guardian. Brittany’s mother is at best remote in her life; she does, though, maintain a relationship with her father, whom she visits every other weekend and on holidays at his home in northern Minnesota. She has been offered a chance to live with her dad permanently but considers Marcella to be the most important adult in her life and has adamantly stated her preference to continue her schooling in Minneapolis.
Brittany’s family situation now has an acceptable rhythm and predictable pattern, but when she first entered the program she gave evidence of personal insecurities typical of a young person whose home life has in the past known tumult. At certain points in her school years, Brittany’s life situation had proven disruptive to her educational progress, so that only her natural intelligence had allowed her to operate just below grade level at the beginning of her Grade 8 year. As the year progressed, though, Brittany gained much more confidence as she worked her way through the challenging curriculum that I placed before her. By the end of that academic year 2007-2008, Brittany had mastered all skills typical of a Grade 8 curriculum, and she was taking on reading material more descriptive of a Grade 10 student.
Only slowly did Brittany internalize my comments as to the high intelligence that she was manifesting in rising to the academic challenges of the New Salem Educational Initiative. After I had repeatedly told her how smart she is, she asked me during one of our weekly sessions, “Do you tell everyone that they’re smart?”
This was a bit tricky for me, since I do start with the assumption that all students are capable of rising to high expectations and, upon the accumulation of a requisite skill and knowledge set, operating in the way that describes a “smart” student. But I do not believe in building self-esteem through shallow praise; I believe, rather, that the “smart” moniker should be earned through high level academic performance. Brittany had moved through the curriculum at a much faster than average pace, and it was with specific reference to that pace that I ultimately got Brittany to believe that she is, indeed, very smart.
When she entered her second academic year (2008-2009) of participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative as a Grade 9 student, Brittany and I both had high achievement goals for her. She moved quickly through a set of vocabulary and comprehension exercises that I had for her and passed her practice Grade 9 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) in Writing, then went on to pass a practice Grade 10 MCA in Reading. These verbally oriented tests come first in high school. Since Brittany appeared ready for both of these at an early juncture, we were by the end of the year able to get an early start on the Grade 11 MCA in Math, a challenging test for which preparation two years in advance is highly advantageous.
Even during the 2008-2009 academic year, Brittany only technically qualified for participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative as an organization drawing funding as a provider of Supplemental Educational Services under No Child Left Behind regulations. This is because our contract is only with the Minneapolis Public Schools, and Brittany had by this time transferred to a Catholic school, to which she had gotten a scholarship on the strength of her rising academic performance resulting from her training in the Initiative. In the early portion of the academic year, though, computer records still showed Brittany officially enrolled at a Minneapolis public school, so that I was able to enroll her on that basis by being quick to process the paperwork.
This will not work during academic year 2009-2010, though, since Brittany is now officially recorded in computer files as attending the Catholic school. In order for Brittany to maintain the kind of progress that she has made in consecutive years of participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative, it is imperative that she continue her training in this program. Although it would be unusual for an inner city student to enter the Initiative so close to the high school years and still gain enough academic ground to attain National Merit Scholarship status (when many suburban and private school peers have had advanced training for several years), I have told Brittany that she has shown that level of potential if she continues to dedicate herself to the challenging math and verbal skills curriculum of the New Salem Educational Initiative.
It is my vow never to let go of a student once she or he has entered the Initiative. My pledge is to continue to train my students up to the college years and beyond. For this to be possible for a student no longer enrolled in the Minneapolis Public Schools, though, a private funding source must be found. Given Brittany’s potential and its life transforming possibilities with the proper training, securing such a private source for Brittany’s continued participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative is one of my chief funding goals as I anticipate the 2009-2010 academic year.
Brittany first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative during the 2007-2008 academic year, when she was a Grade 8 student at Olson Middle School in North Minneapolis. It was apparent to me from the beginning that Brittany is quite bright, but when she first came into the program she was recording mediocre grades at school and did not have a very strong self-concept.
Brittany is a person of mixed African American (mother) and Caucasian (father) parentage who has for many years now lived with a foster mother, Marcella Baker, who serves as primary caregiver and legal guardian. Brittany’s mother is at best remote in her life; she does, though, maintain a relationship with her father, whom she visits every other weekend and on holidays at his home in northern Minnesota. She has been offered a chance to live with her dad permanently but considers Marcella to be the most important adult in her life and has adamantly stated her preference to continue her schooling in Minneapolis.
Brittany’s family situation now has an acceptable rhythm and predictable pattern, but when she first entered the program she gave evidence of personal insecurities typical of a young person whose home life has in the past known tumult. At certain points in her school years, Brittany’s life situation had proven disruptive to her educational progress, so that only her natural intelligence had allowed her to operate just below grade level at the beginning of her Grade 8 year. As the year progressed, though, Brittany gained much more confidence as she worked her way through the challenging curriculum that I placed before her. By the end of that academic year 2007-2008, Brittany had mastered all skills typical of a Grade 8 curriculum, and she was taking on reading material more descriptive of a Grade 10 student.
Only slowly did Brittany internalize my comments as to the high intelligence that she was manifesting in rising to the academic challenges of the New Salem Educational Initiative. After I had repeatedly told her how smart she is, she asked me during one of our weekly sessions, “Do you tell everyone that they’re smart?”
This was a bit tricky for me, since I do start with the assumption that all students are capable of rising to high expectations and, upon the accumulation of a requisite skill and knowledge set, operating in the way that describes a “smart” student. But I do not believe in building self-esteem through shallow praise; I believe, rather, that the “smart” moniker should be earned through high level academic performance. Brittany had moved through the curriculum at a much faster than average pace, and it was with specific reference to that pace that I ultimately got Brittany to believe that she is, indeed, very smart.
When she entered her second academic year (2008-2009) of participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative as a Grade 9 student, Brittany and I both had high achievement goals for her. She moved quickly through a set of vocabulary and comprehension exercises that I had for her and passed her practice Grade 9 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) in Writing, then went on to pass a practice Grade 10 MCA in Reading. These verbally oriented tests come first in high school. Since Brittany appeared ready for both of these at an early juncture, we were by the end of the year able to get an early start on the Grade 11 MCA in Math, a challenging test for which preparation two years in advance is highly advantageous.
Even during the 2008-2009 academic year, Brittany only technically qualified for participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative as an organization drawing funding as a provider of Supplemental Educational Services under No Child Left Behind regulations. This is because our contract is only with the Minneapolis Public Schools, and Brittany had by this time transferred to a Catholic school, to which she had gotten a scholarship on the strength of her rising academic performance resulting from her training in the Initiative. In the early portion of the academic year, though, computer records still showed Brittany officially enrolled at a Minneapolis public school, so that I was able to enroll her on that basis by being quick to process the paperwork.
This will not work during academic year 2009-2010, though, since Brittany is now officially recorded in computer files as attending the Catholic school. In order for Brittany to maintain the kind of progress that she has made in consecutive years of participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative, it is imperative that she continue her training in this program. Although it would be unusual for an inner city student to enter the Initiative so close to the high school years and still gain enough academic ground to attain National Merit Scholarship status (when many suburban and private school peers have had advanced training for several years), I have told Brittany that she has shown that level of potential if she continues to dedicate herself to the challenging math and verbal skills curriculum of the New Salem Educational Initiative.
It is my vow never to let go of a student once she or he has entered the Initiative. My pledge is to continue to train my students up to the college years and beyond. For this to be possible for a student no longer enrolled in the Minneapolis Public Schools, though, a private funding source must be found. Given Brittany’s potential and its life transforming possibilities with the proper training, securing such a private source for Brittany’s continued participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative is one of my chief funding goals as I anticipate the 2009-2010 academic year.
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