Parents: when evaluating a school, what happens outside of the classroom is just as important as what happens inside of the classroom.

What is this thing called: “extra-curricular”? And is there a national apartheid system of quality when it comes to after/out of school activities?

Over the years I’ve had a very “strained” philosophical relationship with the word “extra-curricular” (thus the insistence of centering the term between two quotation marks). In part because its usage is based on a terrible misunderstanding of: what actually constitutes a school’s curriculum. As I always tell school administrators: A school’s clubs, teams, and non-classroom activities that take place before, after, during the school day and on weekends; are very much reflections, products and producers of the school’s approach to curriculum.

There is an obvious and definitive national “enrichment-quality divide” when you compare “extra-curricular” activities in many different schools; based on wealth, race and societal entitlement. This is unfortunate, because my experience is that even those students who languish in academically underperforming schools, they are still interested in things like: Robotics, Chess, Creative Writing, STEM, Drama, Law and Debate, Art, Sculpture, Photography, Dance, etc.; and besides, all of the students in these academically underperforming schools are not underperforming! What programs are available for the non- academically underperforming students? You can learn so much about a school by simply noting the type and academic-related quality of the “out of classroom” activities and experiences they offer their students.

Too many poor kids in this nation get a lot of remedial, but very little enrichment programs. In public education we operate with a well-meaning, but inadequately bad funding formula, that essentially rewards schools, financially for academic failure. As a principal of two very successful title 1 high schools, I found in both cases I was forced to “go in deep, hard and wide” to raise funds and find resources outside of my budget allocation for enrichment programs like Art, Dance, Music, Shakespeare Scholars club, STEM programs, STEM teams and competitions, college tours, special trips, etc. I was also fortunate to have “unofficial” help from many central district office personnel in order to pull off some of this resource acquisition (I will just leave that there without further explanation!)

In high schools these “extra-curricular” activities take on an even greater significance. Students are (should be) seeking to strengthen and enhance their post high school employment, college admissions, and college scholarships profiles. Part of this is done through the choice of clubs, internships, teams, electives, advance classes, and AP courses. (Which is why I always warn 9th graders: This is another reason to not fail any classes, because you will later need some “strategic space” in your transcript to build up your post-high school plans and opportunities profiles.) An important way of enhancing a student’s employment, college admissions-scholarships profile; is through the school’s offerings of “extra-curricular” activities. I have even warned some of my strongest and most committed STEM students, that they need to think about “rounding out” and balancing their college scholarship-admission’s profile by joining the soccer/volleyball team; the band, art, drama, poetry or dance clubs.

Interestingly, too many male students of color, will often have the “best”: “Out of school” and “extra-curricular” portfolio building plans for the pursuit of a professional sports career, even as the odds are overwhelming against the majority of those who seek this path. Many of these students actually have a well-organized adult led-organized-coached “career-path-plan” that starts in elementary school (i.e. Pop Warner Football). The problem for the majority of these students who don’t make it to the “Pros”, is that these plans more often than not, see academics more as an inconvenience rather than as a joint partner! But for those students who are good at, and want to pursue a: STEM, Astronomy, Dance, Creative Writing, Sculpture, History, Anthropology, Paleontology (even if they don’t know the word, they know they are fascinated by dinosaurs!), Forensic science, and Meteorology, etc.; where are the developmental programs? Students with interest and talents in the before mentioned areas, could also benefit from early and well organized: guidance, coaching, mentoring and support system; starting in the elementary, middle and high school years!

I hope the National Super STEM Competition initiative, along with the great work being done by the folks at FIRST Robotics (http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc ) can start to expand and enhance the too often limited “extra-curricular” activities-teams-programs conversations that presently exist at too many of our majority Black and Latino schools. My experience is that students don’t know that they like something, until they are exposed to it! And so, let’s get the word out on:

A NATIONAL SUPER STEM COMPETITION!
“The first annual United States Super STEM Competition (USSSC) is a new educational competitive event happening in 2017 to challenge the creative mind of all middle school, high school and college students. The main focus for the 2017 USSSC is to provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate their innovative knowledge and skills by competing towards one goal …success! It is easy to enter….simply register for any of 15 divisions online, build the project based on the official rules, then ship it to us for a chance to win awards for your school, students or classroom.” http://www.unitedstatessuperstemcompetition.org/ (Note: This competition is open to all US public, private, vocational, charter, magnet and home-schooled students.)

The: “Remove Algebra from the H.S. required curriculum” movement: Trick or Treat?

I am going to be kind here and not go with my initial dismissive assessment that this idea, is one of many recurring ideas in public education, that seeks to bring “negative tracking” through the back door, since the front door is being watched, somewhat. I will treat this as a serious proposal. After spending most of my adult life in public education, I am instinctively inclined to ask a lot of questions whenever “help”, is being proposed, and specifically being proposed to help poor students, “struggling students”, and students of color. Any goal of expanding the graduation capacity of high schools is great; but it seems that too often the public education traditional response for adding more students to the graduation rolls, is to subtract courses, “soften” requirements and, lower the level of rigor; not improve the learning capabilities of students.

First, no one, (including I hope the proposers) is in disagreement about the role of algebra as a major “gatekeeper” for pursuing a future STEM career. Who then will serve in our schools as gatekeepers of the “gatekeeper” when advising students to pursue, or not pursue an “algebra track” math program? If history is a guide, I would be very wary as a parent of color to assume that all students will be advised properly and fairly.

And we know in high school when it comes to “college major readiness” that we are juggling the two variables of: courses successfully taken, as well as time. As a Dean of a School of Engineering once told me: “Our first math course is “calculus for engineers”; this course assumes that calculus was taken in high school.” And so if a student does not decide to take algebra in the 9th grade how is it that they are going to be able to realistically get to calculus by the 12th grade? Too many students by virtue of living in the wrong “zip code”, are already at a STEM disadvantage when competing with those students who were able to take algebra in the 8th grade. Besides, I have met many 10th or 11th graders, who after visiting a science research lab, going on a college tour, participating with a Robotics team, decided that the STEM path was what they seriously wanted to pursue.

Now, I have often seen and cringed when I read some of those widely trending social media posts that proclaim: “I never had to use the Pythagorean Theorem in my everyday life!” But these understandably (not written by professional educators) misguided affirmations missed the entire point of all education, and specifically education relating to science and mathematics. What a student should take away from a high school science and mathematics course is not just the theorems, or “laws and principles”. But rather an approach, process, a method of thinking, a systemic problem posing-solving view of the world; learning to be inquisitive, and to be able to make sense of the STEM events in the world that directly impact everyday citizens. Every student is not going to pursue a professional STEM career; but every person in society must be able to function with some degree of STEM literacy, or they will become victims and/or subject to the misinformation and exploitation of those who purport to speak as STEM experts. If this 2016 presidential election has taught us anything, it is that the lack of literacy and awareness in any subject area will lead to the most simplistic, racist, bigoted, and uninformed solutions to very complex problems. The study of mathematics suggests that problem-solving is connected to the creative and thoughtful development of appropriate algorithms; not prejudicial/subjective emotions. There is no accident that one candidate’s core constituency are in his braggadocio’s words: “The highly uneducated!”

I would ask the “remove algebra” folks to return to the drawing board and address my concerns before continuing their campaign. Especially the question of which students get selected to take algebra; what is the criteria, and who is in charge of the selection process? I would further say, that if they truly want to increase the graduation rate, and algebra is a hurdle in achieving that goal (I personally think it is a little more complex than that, however); then why not increase the mathematical learning capabilities of students in the K-8 world. After all, we already know how to accomplish that based on the large number of students who are presently able to successfully complete algebra in the eighth grade. And so algebra is a stretch for high school students? There is no unknown (X) in this “remove H.S. algebra requirement movement” equation; the solution will result in the least politically protected children of our society being zeroed out of a future STEM career.