Word: maths
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...result is that many traditional extracurricular activities, from basketball leagues to math clubs and choirs, have all but disappeared from inner-city schools. "If you're a child growing up in a poor community, your chances of being involved in an after-school activity are almost none," says Geoffrey Canada, president of the Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families in New York City...
There is nothing token about the new outreach programs. They are not remedial but creative, even difficult. Dick and Jane have been replaced by Antigone and Pericles. Middle-school math tutorials go on for hours and progress to higher algebra. SAT drills are constant, and college essays are rewritten many times. "Its a huge difference," says U.C. Irvine student tutor Sonia Velazquez. "Kids know when it's remedial and they're being talked down to, no matter how nice you put it." But to be in the outreach program means to be special, bright, even cool. When Willard held sign...
...their children to be part of the math academies, parents have to commit to 4-hr. Saturday-morning sessions of U.C. Irvine's Parent Academy. There they are coached in what classes their kids need to get into college, how to gauge SAT scores and how to apply for financial aid. "These programs help parents have self-esteem, feel proud," says Mel Pelayo, a computer-network administrator who left school in third grade. "I didn't go to college, but I'm not a loser. I can help my kids...
...should have been doing this before," says Cicerone. "209 pushed us to go harder and faster." University and local school officials agree they're doing now what they should have done all along--honing verbal and math skills, preparing students to take advanced classes and tests like the SATs. "People can talk about tests being biased, but that's not going to fly anymore," says Santa Ana school superintendent Al Mijares. "No longer should we expect extra points for skin color and ZIP code...
Still, U.C. Irvine's major programs directly affect only a handful--about 3,500--of Santa Ana's 50,000 students; 80% of students still test below the mean in reading and 70% below in math. "You've got to be strategic and pick your classrooms," U.C. Irvine English professor Julia Lupton laments. "There are a lot of kids not getting reached." It would be difficult enough to get them to qualify under affirmative action, when schools could dip into lower test rungs to get promising students. With the end of those programs, however, the kids must slug...