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At the end of my State of the School presentation, I mention three challenges we will focus on in the year ahead. One of these will be the tension between our school's mission (A Learning Community Committed to Discovery, Innovation and Collaboration) and AP exams. I have been asked to explain this tension.

Two of the core elements of our school's mission are discovery and collaboration. Infusing these elements into a course results in greater depth of exploration and less content coverage. When the course follows an AP syllabus, this can create tension.  

We have long felt that discovery learning -- students discovering new information or solving problems on their own (under a teacher's guidance) -- leads to increased intellectual curiosity and enhanced student learning. Discovery learning happens when students take responsibility for making key connections, divining principles, proving theorems, conducting their own research, and designing their own experiments. Our upper school physics program, under the direction of Dr. Greenwolfe, employs a discovery approach where students derive principles and formulas from experiments they design with their instructor. This "modeling" approach has been very successful and is now being adapted by some of our upper school English and history teachers.

But the most common use of discovery learning at CA occurs when students select a topic they find particularly interesting and explore it deeply and thoroughly. For example, a student in a U.S. history class may be extremely interested in the causes of the civil war, another might be intrigued with the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and yet a third smitten with the colonization of North Carolina.  These students would learn more about the study of history, that is, how to be a historian, by spending a month developing and carrying out a research project on their topic of interest, rather than covering selected material for the AP exam.

Opportunities for discovery and collaboration are difficult to near impossible to include in many AP courses without sacrificing content covered on the exam.  Some AP courses, such as English literature and World Languages, have enough flexibility in their content that building discovery and collaboration into the course is easy to do and still prepare students well for the exam. Other courses, like U.S. History and Biology do not. Hence the notion that our students might be better served in their academic growth by taking advanced courses that are taught on a college level but do not follow the AP curriculum and do not lead to the AP exam.

I attended our home varsity basketball games last Friday night and was pleasantly surprised by the large turnout. There were a couple hundred students, families and friends for the girls' game against North Raleigh, and by the time the boys tipped off the crowd had doubled. Led by an exuberant X-factor section, our students cheered our teams to victory. The mixing and mingling between games and during half-time clearly added to the fun of watching our athletes compete.

The next evening 280 upper school students gathered for an inaugural Sadie Hawkins dance. Sponsored by student council, this first of its kind dance at CA drew nearly 2/3 of our upper school student body. It wasn't long ago when 100 students attending a dance was considered a resounding success.

This coming weekend we will experience our thriving community in yet another way, as 94 students in grades 6-12 perform Les Miserables. Saturday and Sunday performances are sold out, so those of you wishing to catch what will undoubtedly be an extraordinary performance should act immediately to secure tickets for Monday evening's show.

Last week I received an email from alum Nadia Kahn ('04), sister of Nushmia (‘07) and Saffa (‘10).  She and her fiancé had just flown into town from Washington, D.C., where they met studying calligraphy. Nadia invited me to attend their Nikkah (Islamic ceremony for the signing of a marriage contract) on Saturday.  Her parents, Rashid and Fatima Kahn, are long-time members of the CA community, having entrusted us with their daughters' education since CA's first year.  I am grateful to Nadia and the Khan family for inviting me to be a part of this joyous day and broadening my cultural experience in the process.

This was my first Muslim wedding.  Upon arriving at the Islamic Center of Raleigh, I was warmly greeted by a gentleman who graciously answered my etiquette questions, showed my wife and me where to place our shoes, and ushered us in to sit in separate areas of mosque. The ceremony began with a Muslim prayer, followed by a warm welcome from Mr. Khan that included an introduction of his family and out-of-town guests. The Imam then recited traditional Islamic blessings, which were subsequently translated into English, that expressed the holiness of the marriage contract and the importance of marriage to Allah.  Finally, Mr. Khan, acting on Nadia's behalf, signed the marriage contract with the groom.   It was a short, but beautiful and dignified ceremony, and Nadia looked radiant.

I was thrilled to be a part of Nadia's Nikkah, yet I had another thrill in store: when Mr. Khan invited the groom's brother, Aakif Ahmad, to introduce his side of the family, I suddenly realized I knew the groom and his family!  The groom, Aasil, and his two brothers Firas and Aakif, are former students of mine!  Before moving to Virginia, all three boys attended Manlius Pebble Hill School in Syracuse, New York, many years ago when I was the Dean of Students and then Upper School Head.  (I taught Aakif in a section of English during his Junior year nearly 20 years ago!) . What a delight to see two great families from different chapters in my career joined together!

CA's starting date in August (13th this year; 12th proposed for 2009) can hamper family and student summer plans. This has been a challenge since the school began. We are committed to a trimester academic calendar for important educational reasons that are directly linked to our school's mission. When you combine the trimester calendar with a 180-day school year, it makes for a slightly longer year than most public and private schools. This leaves two options to alter our start date.

First, we can start later in August, but then we'd have to end later in June. We believe this is not a good educational decision because students clearly are primed for more effective learning in August at the year's start than in June at the year's end. It is also unclear whether ending later in June interferes with summer planning for students less than starting early interferes with student summer planning.

Second, we could shorten the holiday break around Christmas. However many days shorter could delay the year's start by that amount. Faculty prefer a full two week break in order to visit family, fully recharge, take a good vacation, etc.  It is unclear whether parents would trade a few days at the year's start for a shorter holiday break. Students also seem to prefer a full 2 weeks around Christmas. Perhaps students do not need a full two weeks then, particularly considering students had a full two weeks at Thanksgiving (faculty had only 1 week). However, we should also consider how much student learning takes place if you hold classes on the Monday and Tuesday of Xmas week versus the morale and extra rest given faculty and students if we have those days off.

So, when the school's Leadership Team has considered all these factors, we have opted for the early August start.

Parents are considering not re-enrolling at independent schools for a variety of reasons: their current jobs may be on shakier grounds than they were just a few months ago, they may have already lost a job, or their savings for their children's college education may have been depleted due to the stock market's precipitous fall. While all of the above warrant serious thought, I encourage parents to include the following considerations before deciding to leave CA.

On the employment front, families where parents have lost jobs should explore the school's financial aid program before making a re-enrollment decision. Cary Academy offers families with financial need aid that ranges from $1,000 all the way up to full tuition and fees! Furthermore, our financial aid process gives priority to current CA families before allocating dollars to new families. And if you lose a job after the year has begun, Cary Academy has a variety of ways to work with your unique situation so that your children can stay at the school.

As for depleted investments that were intended to fund a child's college education, I would argue for using current dollars to provide the best education possible right now rather than saving for future education.  Keeping a student at CA increases the likelihood of the student being successful at college. Furthermore, because so many CA students receive scholarship money from colleges there is a good chance of some financial return return on your CA investment. Most important, the value of a CA education in terms of preparing students to succeed at college, and instilling the character traits that will serve our students well in life beyond school, as that credit card company says, is priceless.

And finally, at a time when financial turmoil may be creating family stress, maintaining consistency in a child's school becomes all the more important. In total, a Cary Academy education is the best hedge against a struggling economy!

There is nothing more rewarding as an educator than watching your students excel.  I had the opportunity to be so rewarded yesterday at the North Carolina Music Educators Annual Convention, as I watched our middle and upper school jazz bands and boys choruses perform.  They sang and played with skill and poise well beyond their years. As I enjoyed the music, I was struck by a couple of noteworthy thoughts.

Jazz students perform

Chorus students perform

First, too often our arts programs don't get the recognition they so richly deserve. Being selected to perform at NCMEA is the equivalent of winning a State championship in the sports arena. Now we can debate the role awards and recognitions should play in the arts, but in a culture that awards everything from yodeling to yo-yoing, it seems to me we need to recognize accomplishments in an area of our culture - the arts -- that are crucial to defining our humanity, developing creativity, and adding beauty to our world. Congratulations to our middle and upper school Jazz Bands, and our middle and upper school boys choruses, for winning a State Championship this year and adding beauty to our lives!

Second, the arts, as do athletics, provide ideal learning opportunities and serve as a model for all academic disciplines. Students have a clear vision of what their finished product should be. They also clearly understand why their rehearsals are so important to achieving the finished product. When our middle school Jazz band practices Count Basie's Blues in Hoss Flat, they understand what they are trying to achieve and how the practice will help them reach this goal. Are we this clear with our math and writing programs? Do students know clearly what their essay on Romeo and Juliet should look like? And do they know why their grammar and mechanics exercises will help them achieve the ideal essay? And in math, is it clear what final performance they are preparing for? Do our students understand why the practice problems are necessary to achieving a desired end? At CA we do try to make all disciplines' assessments authentic with an end product that's clear to students from the start.

In addition to setting the pedagogical example for all disciplines, hats off to Cary Academy faculty and student artists, who have contributed as much as anyone to our school's stellar reputation, and have enriched our lives in the process.

Yesterday was the last of my fall Breakfasts with Berger. These breakfasts are opportunities for parents to meet with me and with other parents at a specific grade level to ask each other questions, share information, and express opinions. I find these breakfasts to be very interesting and helpful because they provide me with insight into what is happening at Cary Academy and they also give me a chance to convey useful information to parents. So I hope that in the future more parents will attend these breakfasts, and for now, I'll share with you two topics of conversation that I found to be particularly insightful and a brief reaction to each.

Social Networking Concerns (6, 12): Parents are worried about the enormous amounts of time students are spending on social networking sites (Facebook, Myspace) and the negative content and exchanges that too often occur there. I can understand parents' anxiety. Our students' poor choices - be they publishing inappropriate pictures or making harmful comments - can have incredibly large consequences in our electronic world. Like it or not, however, social networking sites are here to stay and are integral to the social fabric of our culture. It is our job as parents and teachers to help students successfully navigate this world through reasonable, developmentally appropriate monitoring of their child's activity and continually helping their child to consider the ethical dimensions of their behavior. In short, teaching our children to respect themselves and others should be a top priority and develop good decision making that influences behavior on-line and off-line.

Collaboration: Parents understand the value of our collaborative work at CA but wonder if students are receiving appropriate instruction on how to carry it out. Are we spending sufficient time coaching students on how to work in groups and how to solve group dynamics problems? And given the importance of collaborative work, is it being appropriately assessed by teachers, with helpful feedback shared with students and parents? I had the honor of touring Erskine Bowles around Cary Academy today, and during our running conversation Dr. Bowles commented on how wonderful it was to visit so many classes where group work was in progress. He continued by stating that in his many interactions with business leaders in North Carolina the two skills he continually hears that the UNC system needs to strengthen in preparing workers of the future are communication and collaboration. Cary Academy is right on target with our emphasis on collaboration; yet, there is room for improvement in the quality of our coaching students on the skills of collaboration.

In short, the SATs were designed to predict success in the freshman year of college. Student grades were deemed inadequate indicators of potential college success. While courses in high schools all over the country may have identical names, their curricula, standards, and assessments vary.  Does an "A" in a chemistry class in Bismarck High School (ND) indicate the same level of knowledge and skill as an "A" in a chemistry class at Lindale High School (TX), Liverpool High School (NY) or Woonsocket High School (RI)?

While the answer to this question is a resounding "no", what is also a resounding "no" is the answer to the question, "do the SATs improve colleges' ability to predict freshman success?" This finding was acknowledged in a recent report by a committee of college admissions counselors from around the nation commissioned by the National Association of College Admissions Counselors.

In addition to maintaining that the SATs were not a particularly effective tool in predicting college success, the commission's chair, William Fitzsimmons, dean of Harvard University's office of admission and financial aid, conveyed concern "that test scores appear to calcify differences based on class, race/ethnicity and parental educational attainment."

Yet when asked if Harvard had plans to discontinue using the SAT in its admission process, Fitzsimmons, as well as all the commission members save one, replied it did not. Rather than take that dramatic step, the commission urged universities to give greater consideration in the admission process to the cultural challenges that students have overcome to reach their current achievement level.

So the SATs remain with us, which raises the question how students should prepare for the exam. Mr. Fitzsimmons opines that:  

"It would be much better for the country to have students focusing on high school courses that, based on evidence, will prepare them well for college and also prepare them well for the real world beyond college, instead of their spending enormous amounts of time trying to game the SAT."      

But as long as colleges weigh them so heavily in the admissions process, why shouldn't students continue to "game" the SATs? Why shouldn't students study for the SATs or take a test-prep class with one of the companies that have done extensive research on how to do well on the test? The commission tried to downplay this approach by asserting that the multi-billion dollar test prep industry had a small impact on student test scores - 20 to 30 points. Yet it failed to point out that this was an average score and that thousands of students see their SAT scores increased significantly more!

On the other hand, I do believe that preparing specifically for the test, as Mr. Fitzsimmons argues, is not the best use of school instructional time. After all, if I have the choice of being in a Joe Staggers seminar or Sam Morris math class, participating in a Robin Follet discussion, or taking a writing lesson from Carole Hamilton, versus a proscribed SAT prep lesson, I'll take the CA teacher with his or her original lesson every time.