First, the state of Florida published a ranking of 3,078 public and charter schools based on academic performance in standardized testing. The number one school was Bevis Elementary in Lithia. The school reports it was the recipient of 13,000 parent volunteer hours last year and said the many hours parent volunteers spent tutoring students contributed to these results.
Meanwhile, a Grand Rapids, Mich., publication reported on a presentation at Hope College from the founders of the Watts Learning Center in Los Angeles, a K-8 charter school founded in the late 1990s in a historically poor neighborhood. The school has been named California state school of the year four times. It requires its parents to volunteer, attend parent workshops, and participate in parent-student-teacher meetings.
Congratulations to both of these schools.