The Week That Was: From SAT to Steve Jobs

Posted: October 11, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: back to school, Education, Long Island Schools, Nassau county schools, New York Schools, Parents, Principals, school, school district, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

There is a gaping chasm between the values of the high school students involved in the SAT cheating scandal in Great Neck, L.I., and those of Steve Jobs, the genius inventor who died last week at 56. 

What messages and what kind of pressure did these young people get that made them abandon common sense, ethics, and the law in the pursuit of stellar SAT scores they believed they were incapable of getting on their own? What beliefs did Jobs have that gave him the confidence to drop out of college and invent products that truly transformed the way that we live, learn, communicate and work?

I suspect the Great Neck teenagers felt pressure to achieve – from their peers and from their parents.  They are certainly not alone in succumbing to that pressure. You have only to watch Toddlers and Tiaras to know that parental pressure has no age or geographical boundaries. Does anyone really believe that three-year-olds aspire to be beauty queens and actually enjoy having false eyelashes glued onto their faces?

The high school students who paid someone to take their SATs for them had swallowed a bill of goods that led them to believe that to be successful, they needed to attend a top tier college. Likely, they thought they would forever be defined by the college they attended and their prospects for future success would be set in stone their freshman year. They did not have confidence in their own skills or abilities, believing instead that the top tier schools they attended defined success.

It never occurred to them that they could distinguish themselves at a third tier school, or even that they could transfer from Nassau Community College after two years.  Ironically, according to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, about 775 U.S. colleges and universities – including some first rate schools — are now test optional. Some schools exempt students who meet grade-point average or class rank criteria, while others require SAT scores only for placement purposes.

Contrast the mind-set of these young people with the advice Steve Jobs gave to the graduating class of 2005 at Stanford University:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

“You’ve got to find what you love.”

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition…”

What can parents learn from these words?

Stop pressuring your children to live up to some ideal standard. If they get a 93% on a test, don’t ask them what happened to the other seven points. If they want to and can get into an Ivy League school on their own power and desire, that’s great. But don’t keep telling them they have to go to Harvard or Yale. And please, don’t make them think they have failed if they can’t reach that goal – just because you want it. There are tens of thousands of high schools in the U.S. and each has one valedictorian and one salutatorian — and all are trying for the same nine top tier schools.

Encourage your children to live their own lives. Don’t pressure them to live out your dreams; let them have their own. Enable them to become the best they are capable of being, not the best your neighbor’s child is capable of being.

Help them find their passion and to pursue it. If they follow their interests, they will not only distinguish themselves but also be true to themselves.

Most of all, children of all ages need unconditional love, ethics and values from their parents. As hard as schools may try, they can’t teach character education without parental agreement and support.

Steve Jobs never finished college.  And most successful people didn’t have perfect SAT scores. Without character, commitment, and emotional intelligence it really doesn’t matter where your kids go to school.

Knowledge Plus Participation Equals Power

Posted: September 15, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: back to school, Education, Long Island Schools, Nassau county schools, New York Schools, Parents, Parents bill of rights, Principals, school, school administration, school complaint, school district, school supplies, Suffolk county schools | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I cannot emphasize enough how much it benefits your child for you to be actively involved in his or her school. Over the years, I have attended countless PTA and Board of Education meetings as a parent, teacher, and administrator, and I will tell you that the prescription for power is knowledge and participation. I have come to understand the crucial role parents play not only in their own children’s education, but in determining the quality of the schools they attend. Indeed, research indicates that the more involved parents are, the better the schools. Conversely, when parents are uninvolved, uninformed – or worse – apathetic, their children and their schools suffer.

The current bus situation in the Smithtown School Districtis a perfect case in point of why parents have to be informed and involved.  On May 17, 2011, a transportation referendum to reduce busing limits was passed by voters inSmithtown. The minute it was passed there was an outcry from parents that the proposition was confusing: they didn’t know what they were voting for and, worst of all, that they were unaware that a vote on transportation had been scheduled.  Parents were up in arms that their children’s safety was being jeopardized and that their lives would be in danger because they would now have to walk to school on streets without sidewalks and cross large thoroughfares where numerous pedestrians have been injured and killed.

Clearly, this debate should have taken place before the vote.  But not enough parents were aware – until it was almost too late.  After the vote, large numbers of parents began to systematically lobby the Board of Education for a revote.  They circulated petitions, discussed the topic at PTA meetings, wrote letters to the board and to the newspapers, and came to board meetings en masse. This impassioned and organized effort had the desired results, and the board scheduled a new vote for September 19. Stay tuned for the results.

There is no question that parents are their children’s best advocates, but parents can’t be effective unless they are informed; they need to play with a full deck.  They need the facts, and they need tools and tactics. My mission is to empower parents to better understand and navigate their children’s schools with the insider information, unvarnished truth, and useful strategies I have acquired in the trenches and at the top levels in public and nonpublic schools. I fully understand that each child has only one chance to experience a particular grade in a school. My passion is caring. I wish that all schools would operate from an ethic of caring – understanding and meeting each child’s needs with respect and sensitivity.  My goal is to help parents make the schools more accountable for the benefit of their children.