Schools Boards in America: A Flawed Exercise in Democracy
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School case cited in new book |
Lesson learned from tuition charge |
| Cincinatti.com -> The Enquirer 2006-08-30 |
| By: William Croyle |
| CRESCENT SPRINGS - Shauna Bomkamp didn't expect her battle for her 6-year-old daughter's education to go as far as it did last year.
Now it's gone even further, becoming part of a book. "Building Blocks: Making Children Successful in the Early Years of School" is about early childhood education in America today by Gene Maeroff, a Columbia University senior fellow and former correspondent for the New York Times. The section on the Bomkamps is brief - about 370 words - but it's there. "I've never been in a book," said Shauna Bomkamp. "That it's received this much attention has just blown me away." The family's story made national news after it was reported last summer that they received a $3,000 tuition bill from Kenton County Schools for their daughter Alison, 5 years old then, to attend first grade at River Ridge Elementary School in Villa Hills. Alison had tested at a second-grade level. Her parents had her skip kindergarten for the 2005-06 school year and start in first grade. But state law and an attorney general's opinion said at the time that if a child isn't 6 years old until after Oct. 1 (as was Alison's case), "the child would be eligible to enroll only in a public school's kindergarten program rather than first grade." Since they enrolled her in full-day first grade and the state only funds half-day kindergarten, where she was supposed to be by law, the district said it would only be getting half of the money it needed to fund Alison's education. That's the reason for the tuition bill. "Advocates for gifted students want them to advance through the curriculum according to their ability. Yet, misguided policies such as the one that affected Alison Bomkamp often deny America's brightest youngsters this chance," Maeroff says in the book. "It's an irony, because the whole thing about KERA (1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act) is kids are supposed be able to go through school smoothly ... and faster if they can," Maeroff said Tuesday. "All in all, this story fit in real well with what the book was about." By December, state legislators stepped in and a law was passed in the spring that will allow a child to be advanced at the primary grade level if it's determined he or she has acquired the academic and social skills taught in kindergarten. |
| Article retrieved from: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006608300406 |