We had a busy day on our first full day in Washington, DC.  Our day started with a great breakfast made by Halle and Mr. T our wonderful friends at the Embassy Suites kitchen.  It is so heartwarming to see our old friends still here.  Everyone ate a good breakfast thanks to them.

We learned about the White House at the Visitor’s Center.  Many children were thrilled to see the pets of the children through the years.  Jackie O’s timeless beauty caught many of our girls’ attention.  They commented on how pretty she was “back in the day.” We also got our Junior Park Ranger stamp on our booklets providing an introduction to the National Park system.  We were saddened to hear that “our” ranger, Jennifer Epstein, who has helped us so much in the past years is out on sick leave.  We hope she gets better soon.

Our visit to the top of the Washington Monument was exciting.  The students loved seeing all the places we’ve studied about from so high up. We learned that a monument was created when someone is still living whereas a memorial is created after someone has died.  Interesting!

We also had a fast-paced visit to the Air and Space Museum.  It was filled with interepretive talks, hands-on demonstrations and all of the usual interesting airplanes, rockets and space things.  The students loved touching the moonrock.  There were also lots of space things made out of Legos, including Star Wars spaceships.

Tony Cheng’s Mongolian Barbeque is always a highlight and today was no exception.  The staff there has taken care of our students for the last 17 trips to DC.  We LOVE their food.  Some students are wary of selecting raw food to be cooked but loved it once it’s cooked.

The remodeled Ford’s Theater rounded out our day and everyone got a t-shirt from here.  We also visited the House Where Lincoln Died.  The students thought it was really small.

Swimming, Italian food and working in our books rounded out the day and we’re ready for more DC!

April 22nd, 2009 by Alan Gottlieb ( http://blog.ednewscolorado.org)

Before 8 a.m. today, I was treated to one of those studies in contrast that make life so interesting.

It started with Thomas Friedman, over my morning coffee.

Friedman is an excellent columnist, turns a nifty phrase, and has changed many people’s thinking on globalization. Some would say by parroting corporate CEOs, but that is a topic for a different blog.

He comes a bit late to the school reform debate, but it’s a big (circus) tent and all are welcome.

In his column today, on America in decline, Friedman quotes a McKinsey consultant who makes an important point:

There are millions of kids who are in modern suburban schools “who don’t realize how far behind they are,” said Matt Miller, one of the authors. “They are being prepared for $12-an-hour jobs – not $40 to $50 an hour.”

All too often many people assume that the woes besieging our nation belong to cities alone. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There are a lot of satisfied consumers (and, truth be told, educators) in the ‘burbs who think their kids are being well prepared for post-secondary life. But a look at remediation rates should set them straight.

After reading Friedman’s column, I headed over to Denver’s high-poverty Kepner Middle School for a breakfast honoring the Kepner Educational Excellence Program. Miracle worker Carrie Olson, a one-in-a-million teacher, has been taking inner-city kids on trips to Europe for the past six years and Washington D.C. for the past 16. Kids and their parents raise all the money for the trips, with a boost from KEEP a non-profit created to support the program.

At today’s breakfast, the mother of one girl, now in high school, broke down in sobs while describing how her daughter’s eighth-grade trip to Europe propelled her out of the neighborhood mind-set of girls wanting to start having babies as soon as they are biologically able to reproduce.

And two eighth-graders described being moved to tears while standing in the room in Amsterdam where Anne Frank penned her diary, which they read before and after their trip.

I’m betting Ms. Olson’s kids will beat the odds and make it to college and beyond. One big reason is that their teacher is driven by a sense of urgency that, despite rhetoric to the contrary, seems to be lacking in too many schools, urban and suburban.

See Alan Gottlieb’s full blog at “education news Colorado.” http://blog.ednewscolorado.org