public v. private school, first in a series

For a few weeks now, since a bunch of my friends seemingly simultaneously moved their kids from public school to Chiara and Mario's private school, I have been dealing with a nagging fear that I am at least partly responsible for white flight from our public schools. I think the issues are more than I can address in one blog post. So I am going to confront the various issues one-by-one and hopefully a common theme will emerge.

Topic #1 Class size matters. A lot!

At a kid birthday party this last weekend, I got to talking to another mom and it turns out that she's a kindergarten teacher at a school in the area. Her school is 99% free and reduced-lunch (which is another story entirely, but we'll get to race, class and SES/Socio-economic status later), and she has personally dealt with not only being repeatedly pink-slipped, but also class sizes that have grown from 20 to nearly 30 just within the last few years. She told me that her original plan was to send her son to public schools, but then class sized increased. As she put it, "once they went to 29? No way! I know how my kids are!" So now her son is in kindergarten at Carden, benefiting from a class size of....12?

"But wait!" some would argue. What about teacher training and quality? That is another tough topic and one that I will leave for another post.

Ask ANY teacher in any school and they will tell you that absolutely class size is critical, but I cannot even begin to convey with words how significant the effect is in those critical first few years of education. Most people in education can tell you that K-2 are the most important grades because that is when a kid really needs to learn how to read. Many kids face HUGE drops in their grades after that time, because it is in the 3rd grade where you stop learning how to read and start reading for comprehension. This is a critical change. Studies show that if a student is not reading at grade level by grade 3, they will never read at grade level. They just fall further and further behind. Grades K-2 lay the foundation for ALL the learning that follows. In a class of 20, a single teacher can be fairly sure that she (and it's almost always a she) has worked with each student. This is especially important when you have many different levels in the same classroom, i.e. kids who are already reading mixed in with kids who don't speak English and/or have never had a book read to them. The varying ability levels is another topic for yet another day, but suffice to say that when class sizes increase even by 5, the teacher just has that much less time to get to all the kids. A friend of mine told me that she feels like she has to work with the lowest kids, that the top kids will take care of themselves, but that it's the kids in the middle who get lost. Do we want any kids to get lost in this shuffle??

I have 36 kids in almost every one of my classes right now, and of course I would LOVE to have smaller classes, but really, at the secondary level, we are dealing with the survivors. By the time they get to me, a great many kids have dropped out and/or gone to alternative schools. Half of the kids who start school as Freshmen are not there by their Senior year. This is yet another subject for another post, but my point is that our resources really need to be focused on elementary education and especially on class size. Now that kids are being pressed to do so much at earlier ages (hey! yet another topic!), and are coming to school with such wildly varying levels of preparation, the dismantling of class size reduction is such a tragedy.

This is one topic where my public school advocate friends are going to lose; smaller class sizes matter. and please don't tell me that parent volunteers can make up all the difference! They make a difference in neighborhoods where you have middle-class or affluent parents (not to mention literate parents!) who can afford to take the time out of their day to go into the classroom to read or otherwise work with kids. This type of community involvement is of course what we need to help fill the gap, but it cannot completely make up for an elementary school classroom teacher who is stretched to her limits. I'm sure it is significant in some schools where that type of participation is strong, but it is definitely not apparently in all schools. The kindergarten teacher friend tells me that at her school, they essentially have to bribe parents to show up to school events by offering free food. Otherwise they won't show up. I have a feeling that parental involvement at this school is not going to help close the gap that was opened when class sizes went from 20 to 30.

I know that Governor Brown's budget proposals are tough and I know that community redevelopment personally helped me financially (the city of Riverside guaranteed our loan to move downtown), but in an economy that demands tough choices, I really think that elementary school education should get the highest priority. Increasing class sizes make sense economically in the short-term, but I am afraid that the long-term implications will be disastrous.

Okay, now that I've thrown this bomb down, think about where and why you send your kids to school. why class size matters. and why, as a society, we don't seem willing to pay for it.

have these children never seen real food?

I've noticed over the last few weeks, since I've been making an effort to pack more of my own snacks and lunches, that my students are inordinately fascinated with what I am eating. When I bust out my ak-mak crackers and laughing cow cheese, they ALL want to try them. I guess anything that isn't a Dorito or Goldfish must seem strange and exotic. And my yogurt? They have never heard of Greek Yogurt and are highly skeptical of my statement that I make my own. They seem confused that it's not brightly colored and doesn't extrude from a tube. And when I break out my actual lunch (chili, soup, lasagne), they ALL have to take a gander at it and wonder aloud how it tastes.

I am no culinary genius. It's not like my lunches have been torn from the pages of some fancy cooking magazine. I'm not doing anything special. What I am doing, however, is actually cooking.

I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record here, folks, but I sometimes feel like some of my students are deprived of good food. I don't think they suffer from hunger (we do have a HUGE line of kids waiting for free breakfast and lunch), but I do think they suffer from very limited horizons. I wish there was something I could do to expand those horizons.

Why do I hate New Year's Eve?

and just about every other major holiday?

Because I am married to a chef.

I also intensely dislike Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.

Why?

For most people, these dates are reason for celebration ("I love you mom!"), but for me, they are a reminder that my Chef will be stressed out, busy, and will work A LOT. Of all the holidays, however, I think New Year's Eve may be the worst, mostly because of the logistics of the evening. The Chef is up and out of the house early on the 31st, making last-minute tweaks to the menu (because OF COURSE he can never have it settled and ready ahead of time) and prepping like a mad man. The stress will have occupied his head since at least December 26th. He will not fully be able to relax until the night is over.

If I went to the restaurant, I'd be doing a lot of hanging out, trying to stay out of the way of the paying customers and just doing a lot of ....waiting! The Chef will be too busy to talk to me until just before New Year's Eve when he'll come out briefly to kiss me and then go back into the kitchen to celebrate with his other family; the guys in the kitchen. Unless I have particularly stellar company, it's mostly a night of feeling lonely, because EVERYONE else is in a couple, or at least with the one that they love. Yes, the Chef is nearby, but he is busy and really doesn't have time to come out and hold my hand, if you know what I mean. Then he will sleep for half of the day on the 1st. In the meantime, I will wear myself out trying to keep the kids quiet so that the Chef can sleep until at least noon. He'll wake up for awhile, eat, read the paper and then fall back asleep around 4:00 p.m.. This routine is so ingrained, I can practically set my watch to it.

I know this post sounds really whiny. After all, I knew he was a chef when I married him and I knew what kind of life I'd be leading with him. It is no coincidence that the kids call the restaurant "Babbo's house"! However, in this economy, it really is a blessing to have work! I am thankful that we are busy and that the Chef isn't worrying about no one coming out to eat tonight. Still, New Year's Eve for me is more a signal that after a very long and busy month of December, I will finally be getting my husband back! Tonight is the last major night of the holiday (and major money-making) season, and tomorrow we will begin the process of getting our family back together. I miss my husband. The kids miss their Babbo. Everyone else can go ahead and party on New Year's Eve. As for me, I'll take a relaxing New Year's Day with the Chef awake, lucid, at home with his family any day.......

Cooking Light weeknight dinners? yes, please!

These last two weeks have been just awful in terms of getting home in time to prepare healthy foods for the family. We ate out far more often than I'd like to admit. One solution to the time crunch has been to use my slow cooker more often. Although it brings back unpleasant childhood memories for Leone, I'm going to make chili this week.

I also bought a new Cooking Light cookbook. It's called "Fresh Food Fast: weeknight meals," and although it goes against some of my food purist impulses (more about this later), so far it's looking promising. I made the first recipe tonight, Italian Beef and Polenta casserole and it was a big hit. I used 6% ground beef, although you could certainly use ground turkey. I also used two zucchini, which made me feel better about the dish. next time I could probably throw a lot more vegetables in, since Chiara pronounced the zucchini bits quite tasty.

Mind you, Chiara ate the dish after initially making gagging sounds when she first looked at it. Yeah, that's an encouraging sign! Of course my tomato wouldn't come near it, but I never expected him to. He ate an apple, two wedges of laughing cow cheese and a tortilla, so he's good. What a strange, strange child. Chiara was initially not all that crazy about the polenta in the recipe, but then she got over it when I showed her how to mix it with the beef. Then she was quite excited about it. I also pointed out to her that polenta is really the food equivalent of her heritage; i.e. indigenous corn with an Italian twist!

As I mentioned earlier, this recipe does violate some of my food purist impulses. It calls for a jar of spaghetti sauce. I used Classico garlic, because I firmly believe that you cannot have too much garlic. It also called for a sliced up tube of polenta. I know I can get it from the restaurant for free (not to mention tastier and more authentic), but in a pinch, those polenta tubes are sure convenient! I didn't chop any tomatoes or onion. It all came together surprisingly easily. The dish was pretty darn fast, certainly easy, and made six servings. Next time I'll use less beef and put i more vegetables. If I had to work tomorrow, the leftovers would probably be pretty darn tasty. Next up is spaghetti with zucchini and cannellini beans. Hopefully that will be successful too-and just as easy!

Harry Potter-you know you are over-educated when

as you re-read book four of the Harry Potter series, you can't help but marvel at the depth of the false consciousness of the house elves. They are just so darn happy slaving away and serving their masters, you're almost a little upset with Hermione for suggesting living wages and a 40-hour work week (exhibit A: Winky)! I wonder how many Marxist studies courses Jo Rowling took in college? hmmmmmm

Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook was NOT a complete waste

because although the overwhelming majority of her recipes I tried were HORRIBLE, I did come away with one good idea. I call them "sneaky baked potatoes."

This is the idea. It's so amazingly simple.
Chop up a head of cauliflower and steam it until it's soft. Puree it in a food processer, adding water as necessary, until the cauliflower has a smooth, mashed potato like consistency. Do you see where I'm going with this?

bake your potatoes, then scoop out 90% of the potato pulp. Save it for another use.
Now mix 10% of the potato into a bowl with the cauliflower, adding salt, butter etc to your taste. Then spread the mixture into the shells of the baked potato, pop it back into the oven for a few minutes and serve! We top ours with cheese and steamed broccoli.

the kids will get a good dose of vegetables, some obvious and some not-so-obvious.

so simple, right??

Unfortunately the overwhelming majority of the Seinfeld cookbook was absolutely awful (Chef points out that you should not buy a cookbook from a celebrity. point taken), but the idea of hidden cauliflower has proven surprisingly useful.

and PLEASE don't tell me that my kids should love vegetables on their own, that I shouldn't hide them, blah blah blah.
yes, some kids are surprisingly adventurous and will eat anything. and then there are others that just....won't. I've got one of each. So sometimes, yes, I sneak in veggies. I refuse to feel ashamed of this. I hope that one day, my kids will appreciate the beauty of cauliflower on its own, but in the meantime, sneaky baked potatoes make me feel better and make them happy. It's a win-win situation, don't you think?

three kitchen appliances that I love

now that I am thinking about it, it's kind of irrational that I love these three small kitchen appliances so much, but they really do make my life SO much easier. Now that I'm working full-time again, it's even more important to be organized and have my appliances do as much of the work for me as possible!

1. My yogurt maker is the BEST. Yes, I know you can make it in the crock-pot, but my crock-pot is otherwise occupied right now. We here at Casa Palagi are crazy about yogurt, and especially greek yogurt, so this was a very good investment. I'm making yogurt right now that later I'll strain into greek yogurt, but because of his handy-dandy machine, it's all MUCH less expensive and pretty darn convenient. Sadly, I have run out of Sage Mountain Farms organic locally-made strawberry jam, so I guess I'll have to flavor our yogurt with something else.....

2. My crock pot is making baked potato soup right now and my house smells wonderful! This last week was extra busy and we ate out WAY too much. It's time to bust out the crock pot and have a nice meal waiting for us when we get home from our various extra-curricular activities.

3. It is now the one-year anniversary of me buying myself my wonderful kitchen aid mixer for Christmas. Merry Christmas to me! Now that I have it, I'm not sure how I ever lived without it! Sure, it would be nice to have it in fire-engine red (from Sur la Table, I think), but it has helped me make countless muffins, cupcakes, breads etc despite the fact that it is plain white. I love it.

I must also note the presence of my slowly dying kitchen cabinet undermount iPod/radio stereo. I don't think I could cook without having access to NPR and/or good music from my iPod!