Earth Partnership for Schools
 

EARTH PARTNERSHIP FOR SCHOOLS (EPS)
Earth Partnership for Schools


RESTORE Institute
Earth Partnership for Schools


2011 Earth Partnership for Schools Teacher Institutes in CA, ID, NV, OR, WA; and also KS, IL, IN, MN, MO, NC, NE and WI
UW-Madison Arboretum: News: 2011 Earth Partnership for Schools Teacher Institutes in CA, ID, NV, OR, WA; and also KS, IL, IN, MN, MO, NC, NE and WI
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A wonderful concept that I wholeheartedly applaud, but I just wonder how long it will take before the extreme right paints this as an attempt to inculcate children with a liberal/anti-business agenda...

A truly wonderful concept that has done little, if anything, to improve academic skills since its introduction in 1991.

I just wonder how long it will take before we realize that programs such as this are not capable of meeting the needs of students from lower socioeconomic families where academics are not frequently stressed and supported by their families.

Earth Partnership, a nationally recognized model for teacher professional development, is a utopian ideal that further burdens educators while providing students from the highest socioeconomic families with an advantage.

You know those poor people, all a bunch of slackers without a thought to the damage they cause with all that consuming they do.

This program helped my sister in law and their school do a very good study on children with a variety of educational problems, use a pond and wooded area on school site along with a teacher mentor for the children. They recorded what the students said and did, as well as how the classroom teacher that had recommended each student, evaluated the program and the student, afterwards. The mentor also gave comments for each student. What an eye opener with value to all, from the students to the staff. The school is in a lower income, semi rural, small town area of Wisconsin.
We must see past our preconcieved ideas of what is possible to make a difference.

“You know those poor people, all a bunch of slackers without a thought to the damage they cause with all that consuming they do”. “Slackers” exist in all segments of our society and poor people consume considerably less than the middle class so I’m sorta left scratching my head at those comments.
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The program I mentioned is in Waukegan IL…. where I volunteer. It’s a quality program that introduces at risk kids to the wilds with plenty of adult supervision that we could use more of across the US in lower socioeconomic communities if but for nothing else other than to provide kids from crime riddled neighborhoods with a stimulating academic program to “safely” while away the months of summer reinforcing what they learned during the school year. Anyone local with a police scanner can tune into Waukegan and hear what these kids are up against…. we’re not talking suburbia or rural America here where many kids are sent to camps or are free to “explore” on their own. I know most kids would benefit from this type of summer programming but rather than fooling ourselves pretending we’ve got enough $$$ to fund this properly coast to coast….why don’t we get the biggest bang for our tax dollar by providing it ONLY to the children from school districts that need it the most…. where hopey, feely, changey isn’t working as in…. the schools where our children’s raw NAEP scores are the lowest and drop out rates are the highest.... they’re ALL our children and we’ve got to stop “raising” human crops of minimally educated consumers and workers, http://icw.uschamber.com/publication/ugly-truth-state-state-snapshot-education-america.
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And… the money is out there to provide this type of programming to socioeconomically deprived children…. all we have to do is ditch this recently mandated database that does zip nadda nothing for our children and redirect ALL the funds to the lowest performing schools, Student privacy at risk from feds—Emmett McGroarty & Jane Robbins - NYPOST.com

A bit of sarcasm dear...

Oopsie.... whack me when you see me for not catching that. I love sarcasm... too bad I don't always spot it right away.