PSS Community

Why I Chose McCall: 2010-04-01 School Selection Report

Date Submitted: 4/1/2010 What school did you decide on? McCall Elementary Calendar year your child entered/will enter 2008 and 2010 Grade your child entered/will enter in 2010, 2nd grader and K What neighborhood are you in? Center City What schools did you consider? Independence Charter School Meredith Greenfield Russell Byers Charter School What factors were most important to you? Location, Public...

Len Lipkin

School Success Criteria Vol 1: Parents

In the news lately there has been a lot of talk of underperforming “Renaissance” schools who will forced to dismiss many of their teachers.  On the one hand, I applaud the attempt to shock our worst schools into improvement.  On the other hand, I am dismayed that the teachers are being disproportionately punished for the failures of their schools.  It occurred to me that so many factors...

Len Lipkin

More On Language Immersion

After my post last week on language immersion programs in the area, an Independence Charter parent emailed me a list of resources on the philosophy of language immersion.  This list is from the Independence Charter website. Recommended Websites Research on language acquisition Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) Parent/teacher...

Len Lipkin

Language Immersion And Philly Primary Schools

In the book, Critical Issues in Early Second Language Learning, Myriam Met collected a series of essays and studies on foreign language study in early childhood

Len Lipkin

Wild Waldorf Ride

Wow.  I visited The Waldorf School over the weekend.  It was really a game-altering experience for me.  Their program is like nothing I had ever seen or heard of before.  One of the teachers that I spoke with summed up the uniqueness in their program stating that ‘The most impoverished public school has more in common with the most well-endowed private school than we do.’  It was really...