Guess Who's Going to College -- Letting Go

On Monday, May 3 from 6:30-8:00 PM, Bill Dingledine, President of the Southern Association for College Admission Counseling (SACAC), and Harry Shucker, former Vice-President for Student Affairs at Furman University, will discuss the nature of the transition, characteristics of students and parents, roles and responsibilities of each and how parents can help their students (and themselves) move successfully into this next important developmental stage in their lives. The presentation will be held at the Main Branch of the Greenville Public Library and is free and open to the public. Please call 864.467.1838 for more information.

Stand and Deliver Hero

Jaime Escalante passed away yesterday. He was an inspiration not only to his many students but to educators world-wide. His legacy is proof that it is not family background, economic status, "ranking" of one's school or college, fancy facilities or any other extraneous factor that leads to successful learning and thus successful students -- it is inspired teachers who believe in their students' ability to learn and do not allow students to not believe in themselves.

He took students who had been written off not only by society, but unfortunately even by teachers and the school system. He took students from one of THE worst schools in America and produced learners whose accomplishments on the AP exam were exceeded by only a small handful of exclusive high schools in the country -- Andover, Exeter, and New Trier being three of them.

His accomplishments fly in the face of comments (made to my face by Senate aids in 2009) that many students should not go to college. This country can only be its best when we educate all students and we do not discriminate on potential based on prejudices that are either socio-economic, racial, or intellectually elitist.

Imagine if we all fought for and believed in our students as Jamie Escalante did in his. May he be an inspiration to all of us in the years to come. Long live "Kimo"!

Note: If you have never seen the movie "Stand and Deliver", you should!