Living in a city where music refuses to die! I feel like singing the down home blues right now for our city and the lack of knowledge people have about some of the new changes in the school system here in the Memphis area. In order for the students to grow they will need positive reinforcement, mind challenging work, and the support of the community. That is why lowering the grading scale cannot be the only answer and is not the only change being made.

Positive reinforcement is important and will work if you give a child more encouraging words like great job, keep up the good work.  It will make him or her want to do better in their school work. In the Whitney Achievement School the children receive a paper check at the end of the week and on Friday they get to spend their earnings at the school’s bookstore or pay their way to future school field trips. This is preparing the children for the real world outside of class because at a job after working so many hours you in return receive a check for your hard work.  Each teacher has an iPod with a list of their student name with an app that connects all teachers to that child’s behavior in that grade; moreover, like on a job, for a different action money can be deducted from your check.  The children can lose money for a host of thing as well.

For example, if a child leaves their homework at home he or she will lose a dollar off of their paycheck. If a child is not dress in the correct uniform then a dollar will be taken as well. In order for the children to not lose focus of the main point, which is encouragement, no more than five dollar will be deducted per day. This is to try and keep more positive outlook than negative.

Then aside from lowering the grade scale the school has implement two hours of nothing but reading. They have added more subjects to the curriculum. Exposing them to more knowledge then before and they also have added classes that they call support classes.

Another change aside from lowering the grading scale the school has extended the school-hours. This is for two reasons: the first reason, is to keep the children in a positive environment to keep them for negative activities like gangs, stealing, and hanging on corners and the second one; is to introduce them to different things like band, choir, kickboxing, and Zumba and many more activities. Finally, stop putting all the responsibility on the school!  It starts at home. It takes a village to raise one child so get involved and volunteer your time and money. The most selfish thing people can do is turn their back on the problem that the school system is having because those same children will be the next doctors, lawyers, nurses, and congressmen and women they will service their parents and teachers in old age.

In a city where resources for attracting industry, such as low wages, low tax rates, and cheap natural resources, that have benefited private investors, often at the expense of investments in public service. This change is an upgrade to our children because clearly there has been more value added to their life, so before judging these changes, we need to check their price tags because our children clearly have been removed from the clearance rack!