Small Steps at Bruce Elementary Show the Way — Skills Gained in Pre- K Help Youngsters Succeed Later On

In Room 100 at Bruce Elementary, pre-K teacher Linda Price has the job of getting 13 black children, three Vietnamese, three Hispanic and one white student – all poor – ready for kindergarten.

Some students come to her not knowing English. Others, even those from English-speaking homes, have weak vocabularies.

Without pre-K, their deficiencies might be identified and addressed in kindergarten. If not, their language delays might mar their academic performance well into middle and high school.

It’s Price’s job to catch these children while they’re young, while their deficiencies are still malleable enough to change.

“I have to teach them to . . . line up quietly, learn how to behave in school,” Price said. “But I have to teach them how to write their names, learn the alphabet, learn routines and schedules, too.”

Nearly 38 years after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., teachers like Price are working to realize his dream that “little black boys and black girls . . . join hands with little white boys and white girls . . .”

But, if “joining hands” means academic parity, then American educators continue to face a daunting task. Despite gains in math and reading on state tests, many of the nation’s minority, disabled and poor students still lag behind their peers.

For example, in the Memphis City Schools district, 74 percent of black K-8 students are considered proficient or better in math, compared to roughly 93 percent of their white peers.

In the Shelby County system, mainly Hispanic, limited English- speaking students missed federal benchmarks in reading.

And while those findings echo national trends, the disparity goes beyond test scores.

A report released last month by Education Trust, an advocacy group that has examined racial and fiscal inequities in education, found that the nation spends roughly $900 less per pupil on students educated in the country’s poorest school districts than those educated in the wealthiest.

Those gaps trouble local districts, educators and policy makers across the nation who see education as the best way to level the playing field for all students.

“What many poor and minority youngsters need is to have access to the same criteria and materials as rich kids,” said Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association. “People aren’t going to do that because it’s going to cost money.”

In financially strapped urban districts like Memphis, an acute focus on building strong pre-K programs is helping children of various races and backgrounds start kindergarten on equal footing. Armed with a growing body of research that shows students who start school behind fall further behind with every passing year, districts like Memphis are investing more – not just in terms of actual money spent, but also quality teacher training.

The district is focusing on greater “access, equity and rigor,” for all of its students, said Supt. Carol Johnson.

At Bruce Elementary, that equity begins with some of the district’s youngest learners.

The children gather in groups of twos and threes at learning centers.

They draw. They work with alphabet and number puzzles and build with blocks. They listen to alliterative stories and answer questions by coloring objects that start with similar letter sounds.

It looks like child’s play, but there’s something more profound taking place here. Drawing develops the fine motor skills that will help the children learn to write.

Puzzles and blocks help teach spatial reasoning that ten years down the road will help them with higher math like geometry.

The phonics-filled stories help them learn to read.

What Linda Price is able to do in this key year before kindergarten could mean everything for her students’ success in fifth grade, eighth grade, 12th grade, college and beyond.

“The goal is to teach the whole child,” Price said.

– Halimah Abdullah: 529-5806 – Ruma Banerji Kumar: 529-2596

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INSIDE THE CLASSROOM: Students, teachers and schools

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Memphis City Schools

Optional programs set open house

Optional Memphis city schools will have open houses over the next several weeks. Parents can get information about enrollment requirements and meet principals and teachers. Optional school transfers begin Jan. 27, from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Memphis Board of Education Administration Building, 2597 Avery. For more information, call 416-5338.

Schools

Brownsville Road Elementary, Thursday, 6:30 p.m.

Central High, Tuesday, 6:30 p.m.

Colonial Middle, Jan. 26, 6:30 p.m.

Cordova Elementary, Tuesday , 6:30 p.m.

Craigmont High, Wednesday, 6 p.m.

Craigmont Middle, Jan. 23, 6 p.m.

Delano Elementary, Tuesday, 6:30 to 8 p.m.

East High, Jan. 30, 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Idlewild Elementary, Tuesday-Friday, 9 a.m. to noon

Keystone Elementary: Call school at 416-3924 to schedule a tour.

Kingsbury High, Jan. 25, 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Lester Elementary, Tuesday, noon to 3 p.m.

Overton High, Thursday, 6 p.m.

Peabody Elementary, Thursday, 9 a.m. to noon.

Rozelle Elementary, Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Sherwood Elementary, Thursday, 6:30 p.m.

Snowden School, Jan. 24 – Elementary, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Middle, 6 p.m.

Springdale Elementary, Thursday, 9 to 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 to 2 p.m.

Vollentine Elementary, Wednesday, 9 a.m. to noon; Jan. 19, 9 a.m. to noon.

White Station High, Jan. 24, 6:30 p.m.

White Station Middle, Thursday, 6:30 p.m.

Willow Oaks Elementary, Thursday, 5:30 p.m.

Wooddale Middle: Call the school at 416-2420 to schedule a visit

– Ruma Banerji Kumar