Posted on 11/09/2008 6:58:52 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
"No child will be left inside."
That's the theme of the Green Charter Schools Network, an organization headquartered in Madison that links environmental charter schools around the nation. It was also the theme of a conference Saturday at the Pyle Center that drew 200 people from around Wisconsin and more than 10 other states.
"We hope to make this a national movement," said Jim McGrath, president of the new Green Charter Schools Network. "We have identified 135 green charter schools around the country, and we believe there are another 150."
That includes 18 in Wisconsin, in locations as far flung as Green Lake, Merrimac, Rhinelander, Oshkosh and Stevens Point.
Charter schools are innovative public schools that provide educational choices for families and school-site accountability for results. Forty states allow charter schools, and they are formed in Wisconsin when a contract is signed between a charter school and its school district or school board. The arrangement gives the school more autonomy, more on-site decision-making, but also considerable responsibility for results.
Green charter schools strive to teach required subjects such as math and English in the context of environmental education, often through projects that improve the environment. Components of green schools include standards-based environmental learning integrated with other subjects, green and healthy practices and facilities, and efforts to take care of the land and natural resources.
"Our network mission is to support green schools with environmentally-focused education programs and practices," McGrath said. "We would like to help all charter schools become green."
Victoria Rydberg, who founded the River Crossing Environmental Charter School in Portage in 2002, is the lone teacher for 20 seventh and eighth graders. Children apply for admission, and are selected by lottery. About 25 percent of applicants are turned away each year, said Rydberg, who hopes to someday expand the school through the 12th grade.
Some come from nearby districts under open enrollment, and last year a student came all the way from Oregon in southern Dane County.
"We get the academics done but we go out in the field, too, to restore prairies and wetlands," she said. "There are not isolated subjects. We integrate science, math, social studies and literature through the environment."
For instance, literature instruction would include reading Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac."
"I teach kids how to think, problem-solve and see the world around them," she said. "We meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind, but there is not a set curriculum. We have different projects every year, and the projects show what the students have learned."
Brittany Roberts, who was in the first class at River Crossing, came to the conference to participate in a workshop with Rydberg.
"River Crossing gave me the knowledge of how to learn," Roberts said.
The green charter school students, who go to school in a two-room trailer on the grounds of a regular junior high school, were first regarded by the other students as "tree-hugging hippies," but are no longer seen as outsiders, she said.
Roberts is now a student at Northland College focusing on environmental education and hopes to eventually teach at River Crossing.
"River Crossing extends beyond our four walls," said Rydberg. One year, the students conducted a debate among several candidates for mayor of Portage, and they have also written letters to state legislators about various issues.
Students work in teams to solve problems.
Others speaking at the conference included Lewis Gilbert, associate director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which partnered with the Green Charter Schools Network to put on the conference.
"A role of the Nelson Institute is to advance environmental literacy," Gilbert said, adding that education in that regard must start long before students set foot in a university.
If Sally has two Endangered Owls and Timmy has one Endangered Owl, how much firepower should they take with them when they go up against the Loggers to save the habitat of the Endangered Owls?
*SMIRK*
What’s their mission statement? “Making science a joke” ? or “Scamming The Next Generation”?
I strongly favor a “No child left uneducated” movement in this country. That, of course, would trump “No child left inside,” “No child left behind” and “No child left unindoctrinated.”
No child left to the public school system
I vote for “No child educated by left wing nuts”
Retorical question.
Will the NEA have anything to say when the Iowa test scores of these schools suffer?
Parents, take note.
Yet more ways for children to attend classes and not learn a damn thing. Why is it that primary and secondary education has morphed from learning the skills you need to succeed in life into day after day of politically correct, group learning, sit in a circle and talk about your feelings, BS?
Given how much some parents blow on the college education of their children, you’d think they would be a bit more concerned about what their child learns before he or she leaves home for the ivory tower.
“River Crossing gave me the knowledge of how to learn,” Roberts said.
no comment.
They could cure homelessness by calling the act of living outdoors “green”.
So when is the Pro-Life Charter School starting up?
I was thinking the same thing, based on the Bible. We have several Christian schools in town, but they are expensive. How have the privatized public schools done? Haven’t heard a word about them, so are they working and the MSM doesn’t want anyone to know, or did they crash.
LET ARE KIDS WALK!
We have one in my state that just got a blue ribbon prize. It’s a classical school — real history, science, traditional math, English, Latin, Junior Great Books curriculum — no trash. In an urban area, forty-five percent below poverty line, most speak another language at home, aced the state tests, 53% advanced proficient in math this year, the majority proficient. Uniforms, no frills, no wasting time, longer school day and year (but worth it). The students have their choice of public high school or private school. Everyone who applies to private school gets in and so far no one has paid full tuition (partial or full scholarships).
This school beat out my town’s middle school which spends at least $14,000 per student, if not more. The charter spends $7,000. My school is in a very affluent area and pays its teachers extremely well, as well as its administrators. The teachers in this charter are rewarded if they meet specific goals, and they divvy up the administrative duties.
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