Curriculum
Let’s start with the centerpiece of a good education - the curriculum. The state of California sets the instructional minutes and the standards for core curriculum, so a curriculum that offers your student plenty of enrichment is what can really distinguish your child’s educational experience. In the early years, popular enrichment options include choir, orchestra, art, coding, robotics, foreign language, and at faithbased schools, religion. But if you’ve toured a few schools, you may have noticed a disparity in offerings among schools, in both the public and private arena. Some schools gain extra classroom time through a strategic master schedule, use of zero period, or by keeping P.E. time to the state-mandated minimum. And some schools just run a longer school day. Pay attention to not only what enrichment opportunities a school is offering, but to how much instructional time is devoted to these activities and where that additional instructional time is coming from. In middle school, vertical alignment of the curriculum becomes important. A school that allows your child to pack in a year or two of high school level foreign language or accelerate to a higher-level math course
12 WellSchooled
clears the deck for more rigor and electives in high school. This is important from a college admissions standpoint. In high school, it’s all about a course of study that allows students to develop their interests, nurture their passions, and distinguish themselves as a college applicant. CTE pathways, embedded academies and conservatories, along with dual enrollment, honors, and advanced placement coursework are key to these objectives. Access to desired courses can be limited by a school’s poorly designed master schedule or because of overly restrictive pre-requisite requirements. Drill down on what coursework is offered, and whether electives and opportunities are available to more than just a small number of students.
Classroom Experience
The classroom is where the rubber meets the road, so finding the right learning environment for your student is an essential aspect of school selection. The traditional classroom has given way to an abundance of new instructional models that benefit different types of learners, such as project-based learning, experiential learning, inquiry-based learning, adaptive learning, differentiated instruction, a flipped classroom, and more.
