Austin, Be Proud!

The Austin community and this nonprofit believes in making the world a better place. Time and again it has proven its willingness to come together to support a worthy cause. In just a few short years, we changed Austin schools by informing the public about Dual Language programs to help prepare our students for a global world. It has gone viral in Austin and surrounding communities because it is one of the best educational programs today. Working with the Austin community, together we helped facilitate this innovational change without yet paying out a single salary in this all-volunteer organization.

Public Schools Need Our Help.

It is time to stop looking for blame among the teachers who work so hard with less and less and give them our support. The education budget has been systematically robbed of teacher pay over the years while the public has been led to believe teachers are overpaid and under-worked. With the public convinced they were paying too much for schools, it was easy to get people to support increased accountability in schools. Accountability is excellent when used appropriately to assess students in a formative way so their educational plan can be adjusted. But this was not how the accountability movement played out. It actually started a downhill slide in education that must be stopped. The fact is severe educational budget cuts hurt our number one resource, our children. It is so bad that a Central Texas school recently told their teachers they can only have one ream of paper to last them all year, 500 sheets of paper with 175 students a day per teacher. Schools without teachers or resources can't do a good job of teaching. Period. Even General Colin Powell agrees that education of our youth is a critical governmental program that is important to the economic survival and national security of our country.

Teachers are not to blame. Money that would have been used to bring in and retain high quality teachers with continuing professional development has been instead diverted to purchase high stakes tests produced by outside corporations. Pearson, a UK corporation has a contract with Texas to earn $468,392,617 over the next five years. These tests do not align with what is being taught in the classroom or for that matter, what our students need to learn to become the next doctors, lawyers, engineers. Teachers blindly prepare students for a test they can only guess what is on it. Students can't prepare for it either.

We must get away from teaching test taking tricks to prepare students for the global workforce, to become cognitive thinkers, and engaged leaders. The stakes are extremely high, if a student cannot pass the test, regardless if they are ill that day, are generally poor test takers or are emotionally distraught, this one test, taken on one day, in the year can close the door on their future ...and ours. Already we have damaged a generation who had no escape from dropping out. The downhill fall is continuing at the rate of 7,000 students dropping out every day. Without a high school diploma, students have few choices for work and there are only so many McDonald's. We are leaving our children, our teachers and our American way of life behind. We don't have to and ACS wants to change that now. So please help us as we are looking at some new innovative programs for schools.

Dual Language

When the vibrant Austin community, rallied around the proposed Dual Language (DL) charter school, offered by Austin Community School, Inc.’s (ACS) nonprofit (501(C)3) organization, it began an inroad to increased high school and college graduation rates. Beginning in Kindergarten, DL prepares students from all backgrounds for the global workplace as they become bicultural and biliterate --developing fluency in two languages simultaneously – accomplishing writing, speaking and reading -- by 5th grade. Austinites signed on and pushed for change. It was soon clear that not one DL charter school, but many DL schools were needed. The founders, Lori May, Justin Scott, and Crystal Marchand-Hunter, ACS board members, many city leaders, donors and the progressive Austin community joined together to approach Austin public schools superintendent and school board. They listened and opened 4 Dual Language schools. This historically effective curricular design change went viral. Austin announced a plan to open DL in all of their public elementary schools by 2014. For more, go to Dual Language under the Education link in the left column.

Introducing SMart Infusion

Our newest Rock and Learn program focuses on creating educational experiences that capture the imagination of our youth and drive their interest in science, math, arts, technology, music, as well as the natural laws that govern the world around us, and wishes to instill the power of human ingenuity and invention. This is a groundbreaking format engaging students (and teachers and parents!) in the world of Science, Math and arts, via technology, in a live concert and multimedia road show! We are currently trying to work out the details with House of Houchins' producer Oscar Houchins, of Tommy James and the Shondells fame, to bring The Great Planet Earth Debate to one of its first stops stateside in Austin, Texas! This phenomenal show offered in English and Spanish, is the brainchild of Puerto Rican rock star, Ignacio Pena. Forward thinking, Mr. Pena created this show in the media students prefer with compelling visuals and original musical scores which when blended together fully engage our diverse student population as well as teachers and parents.

Hear what Spanish and English teachers have to say about the Class in a Concert series after seeing the pilot show or a demonstration in educational conferences: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlFZcbwNyLM&list=PLDD9DCE3E4A4E7EE1&featu...

The Debate series are still in development but we are preparing to book shows in early fall 2012 with the first show, Energy. You can watch a sample of the videos used in the road show production at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl1ZjhAITKQ&feature=BFa&list=PLDD9DCE3E4A...