[Applause]
let me tell you about Annie she is
halfway through a third grade year she’s
eight years old in fact she’s the
youngest 8 8 year old in her class she
loves baking cookies with her grandma
she loves riding her bike as fast as she
can she loves playing with her dogs lilo
and stitch and she hates going to school
she had been a precocious preschooler
and when that decision came to either
start kindergarten a little bit young
for her grade or wait a full year the
preschool teachers had told her parents
that she should start then she was
totally ready to go but now three short
years later she hates school she cries
in the morning she isn’t reading at
grade level and she just cries after
school before school it’s a mess the
third grade teacher has told her parents
that she thinks maybe Annie should be
retained in the third grade and her
parents really don’t know what to do
they’re afraid that if they hold her
back it’ll further impact her fragile
self-esteem they wonder where that
little girl with all that promise went
there’s a study that was released in
2011 and it gave some suggestion about
school success and it said that if a
child can’t read at 3rd grade level by
third grade that child is 4 times less
likely to graduate high school by 19
years of age let me repeat that for you
if a child can’t read at grade level 3rd
grade level by third grade there are 4
times less likely to graduate high
school why do I care well if things had
been even the slightest bit different in
my life I would have been Annie I was
lucky 3rd and 4th grade were great years
for me
very funny strange reasons that if you
meet me sometime I’ll be happy to tell
you all about but it changed the
trajectory of my education I graduated
high school college and law school for
14 years I was an attorney specializing
in juvenile justice and for the last 20
years I’ve been a judicial officer here
in Humboldt County fifteen of those
years specializing in juvenile court I
have seen over 5,000 children come
through our court you can double back if
you count my years as an attorney and
sadly when children come into the court
no matter what the circumstances are
they seemed to be behind in school
there’s a phrase for it and you heard it
in the last TED talk it’s school to
Prison Pipeline and I could give you
some formal definition but I can tell
you from my front-row seat
children that are successful from school
even when they’ve had the most
horrendous traumas in their life tend to
end up to have happy healthy productive
lives than those children who are not
successful in school
in fact those children that aren’t
successful from school get trapped in
our juvenile justice system and we try
we really do try to engage them in
school process but they have such
self-doubt such self issues about
self-worth that it’s hard to get them on
track and it’s so much harder to fix
something that’s been broken than it is
to never break it in the first place
sadly when we don’t succeed
it is those children that don’t graduate
high school but many graduate into our
adult criminal justice system why should
we all care will incarcerate in people
is very expensive and if we turn off
that school to Prison Pipeline we would
be saving countless tax dollars
conversely those happy healthy
productive adults would be contributing
to our communities and they’d be paying
taxes but it isn’t just about economic
equation if we want to preserve the
American dream that dream that any child
can grow up to be anything that child
wants to be education is an essential
component there are a lot of factors
that contribute to school success
and age is only one of them but if we
control for age and take a different
approach I think we would have better
outcomes
we have an entire transitional
kindergarten program in California that
adjusts for age but the fact is is that
we can do better what would we do
well kindergarten class sizes are now
about a year age span we would shrink
that down to three months we would have
four cohorts of kindergarten classes
those born in January February March the
second cohort would be April May June
July August and September and then the
fourth cohort would be October November
December and since five and a half seems
to be that sweet spot to begin
kindergarten curriculum that’s when they
would start the formal kindergarten
there’d be waves of classrooms class
beginnings throughout the year
those oldest cohort beginning in August
next November then February and May the
kindergarten curriculum would change to
be in 3-month blocks as well each
building on the other to maximize school
success now obviously there would be
things we have to do with those younger
children and we’d still have four four
and a half to five year olds a
pre-kindergarten and we need to come up
with a better name but that those
children would focus on the attributes
necessary to be ready to learn those
things like thinking independently
paying attention organizing their
materials following school rules and
with that if we did that we’d be able to
launch those children into kindergarten
curriculum with the most with the best
chance of success now you can’t make
changes in first second we can’t make
such a change in kindergarten without
making corresponding changes in first
second and third grade and as children
grow developmentally you could expand
the age range in the cohorts from four
months to six months to a year and
folding them into traditional learning
once they say they got into middle
school but if we were to change our
public school system so that we would be
able to maximize success
we would then be able to have children
hopefully be successful and no matter
what traumas they may have be successful
it is doubtful that in these times that
a child could be successful in school
without having the benefits of an
education Chief Justice Earl Warren said
that 63 years ago we’ve had study after
study after study but if what we’re
doing now isn’t working for all children
shouldn’t we make changes
another quote would be John F Kennedy
who said a child miss educated is a
child lost I agree I do not know which
child has within her the secret to world
peace or which child has within him the
cure for cancer or some other problem
that we don’t even know exists yet but
if we waste that child we lose that
child loses that child is lost so if we
create a system that in fact launches
children into learning that allows them
to read at third grade level in third
grade graduate from high school with the
abilities to develop skills to reach
their full potential to be anything they
want to be we would be able to then
benefit all of us would benefit and in
fact children would be able to reach
that American dream thank you
[Applause]
let me tell you about Annie she is
halfway through a third grade year she’s
eight years old in fact she’s the
youngest 8 8 year old in her class she
loves baking cookies with her grandma
she loves riding her bike as fast as she
can she loves playing with her dogs lilo
and stitch and she hates going to school
she had been a precocious preschooler
and when that decision came to either
start kindergarten a little bit young
for her grade or wait a full year the
preschool teachers had told her parents
that she should start then she was
totally ready to go but now three short
years later she hates school she cries
in the morning she isn’t reading at
grade level and she just cries after
school before school it’s a mess the
third grade teacher has told her parents
that she thinks maybe Annie should be
retained in the third grade and her
parents really don’t know what to do
they’re afraid that if they hold her
back it’ll further impact her fragile
self-esteem they wonder where that
little girl with all that promise went
there’s a study that was released in
2011 and it gave some suggestion about
school success and it said that if a
child can’t read at 3rd grade level by
third grade that child is 4 times less
likely to graduate high school by 19
years of age let me repeat that for you
if a child can’t read at grade level 3rd
grade level by third grade there are 4
times less likely to graduate high
school why do I care well if things had
been even the slightest bit different in
my life I would have been Annie I was
lucky 3rd and 4th grade were great years
for me
very funny strange reasons that if you
meet me sometime I’ll be happy to tell
you all about but it changed the
trajectory of my education I graduated
high school college and law school for
14 years I was an attorney specializing
in juvenile justice and for the last 20
years I’ve been a judicial officer here
in Humboldt County fifteen of those
years specializing in juvenile court I
have seen over 5,000 children come
through our court you can double back if
you count my years as an attorney and
sadly when children come into the court
no matter what the circumstances are
they seemed to be behind in school
there’s a phrase for it and you heard it
in the last TED talk it’s school to
Prison Pipeline and I could give you
some formal definition but I can tell
you from my front-row seat
children that are successful from school
even when they’ve had the most
horrendous traumas in their life tend to
end up to have happy healthy productive
lives than those children who are not
successful in school
in fact those children that aren’t
successful from school get trapped in
our juvenile justice system and we try
we really do try to engage them in
school process but they have such
self-doubt such self issues about
self-worth that it’s hard to get them on
track and it’s so much harder to fix
something that’s been broken than it is
to never break it in the first place
sadly when we don’t succeed
it is those children that don’t graduate
high school but many graduate into our
adult criminal justice system why should
we all care will incarcerate in people
is very expensive and if we turn off
that school to Prison Pipeline we would
be saving countless tax dollars
conversely those happy healthy
productive adults would be contributing
to our communities and they’d be paying
taxes but it isn’t just about economic
equation if we want to preserve the
American dream that dream that any child
can grow up to be anything that child
wants to be education is an essential
component there are a lot of factors
that contribute to school success
and age is only one of them but if we
control for age and take a different
approach I think we would have better
outcomes
we have an entire transitional
kindergarten program in California that
adjusts for age but the fact is is that
we can do better what would we do
well kindergarten class sizes are now
about a year age span we would shrink
that down to three months we would have
four cohorts of kindergarten classes
those born in January February March the
second cohort would be April May June
July August and September and then the
fourth cohort would be October November
December and since five and a half seems
to be that sweet spot to begin
kindergarten curriculum that’s when they
would start the formal kindergarten
there’d be waves of classrooms class
beginnings throughout the year
those oldest cohort beginning in August
next November then February and May the
kindergarten curriculum would change to
be in 3-month blocks as well each
building on the other to maximize school
success now obviously there would be
things we have to do with those younger
children and we’d still have four four
and a half to five year olds a
pre-kindergarten and we need to come up
with a better name but that those
children would focus on the attributes
necessary to be ready to learn those
things like thinking independently
paying attention organizing their
materials following school rules and
with that if we did that we’d be able to
launch those children into kindergarten
curriculum with the most with the best
chance of success now you can’t make
changes in first second we can’t make
such a change in kindergarten without
making corresponding changes in first
second and third grade and as children
grow developmentally you could expand
the age range in the cohorts from four
months to six months to a year and
folding them into traditional learning
once they say they got into middle
school but if we were to change our
public school system so that we would be
able to maximize success
we would then be able to have children
hopefully be successful and no matter
what traumas they may have be successful
it is doubtful that in these times that
a child could be successful in school
without having the benefits of an
education Chief Justice Earl Warren said
that 63 years ago we’ve had study after
study after study but if what we’re
doing now isn’t working for all children
shouldn’t we make changes
another quote would be John F Kennedy
who said a child miss educated is a
child lost I agree I do not know which
child has within her the secret to world
peace or which child has within him the
cure for cancer or some other problem
that we don’t even know exists yet but
if we waste that child we lose that
child loses that child is lost so if we
create a system that in fact launches
children into learning that allows them
to read at third grade level in third
grade graduate from high school with the
abilities to develop skills to reach
their full potential to be anything they
want to be we would be able to then
benefit all of us would benefit and in
fact children would be able to reach
that American dream thank you
[Applause]
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