The Fletcher-Maynard is featured in an AP story on the trend of extending the school day. F-M is one of two schools in Cambridge (the other is the King School) participating in this pilot program. Gov. Patrick has just proposed doubling state grants for this program.
The most interesting thing to me in this story is the quote by Education Commissioner David Driscoll, who has been a voracious champion of MCAS, to the exclusion of just about everything else. Cambridge has often felt his heat due to its ambivalence about using this test as the sole indicator of school quality. [It's well known that narrowing the curriculum to beef up test scores can put a damper on student's interest in school.]
In this story, however, Driscoll talks up the benefits of extending the school day because of the *enrichment classes* that can now be offered to students beyond the tested subjects.
The direct quotes from the AP story:
"Once [students are] engaged, they'll learn other lessons," Driscoll said. "I think the big mistake that everybody makes is they think that education is all about the academics."
All I can say is, it's nice to see the pendulum swinging back ....
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