The Advantages of Back2School: Getting Ready For College

"Back2School: Getting Ready for Kindergarten," a national curriculum-reform initiative, has been embraced by many parents as a time-saving alternative to traditional back-to-school shopping excursions. While the program offers some valuable tools to help kids prepare for the academic standards set by the Common Core State Standards for grades K-3, it falls short when it comes to preparing for higher education. This report examines the curriculum's shortcomings.

One of the best ways to prepare a student for kindergarten is to introduce him or her to the different concepts and frameworks used in the subject. The Back2School: Getting Ready For Kindergarten Curriculum program does an inadequate job of providing this kind of background information. Rather than presenting pages of lined-up academic facts and figures, this booklet only provides three pages that outline the various courses available in the Back2School program. Even those three pages provide scant information, so it is difficult to know which courses to expect in the program, and how many to select.

Parents should also be concerned about the number of hours a teacher has to spend teaching each lesson. In addition to being scheduled during normal school hours, Back2School breaks up teaching time between normal class times by using "power seats" to shorten the teacher's lecture-lengthening hours. That practice should not be repeated with this one-on-one program, since the curriculum's "flow" will likely be altered by introducing only one or two concepts at a time, with plenty of time to review them in a typical half-hour class period.

One of the biggest challenges parents face is getting their children interested in the academic subjects taught in Back2School. The one-on-one nature of the program allows some instruction to be given in the classroom, but many classes are taught by teachers who are teaching different subjects from their own list of subjects (thus requiring scheduling of even longer weekends during Back2School). Many of the kindergarten students attending Back2School are in some ways already behind the average in their academic progress and may need additional support in subjects beyond the ones taught in regular public elementary schools. Even when the classes are well-structured and well-attended, some children find them boring and do not retain much of what they have learned.

Even though most Back2School programs are designed to help a child's academic performance, not all of them will prepare your child for college. Back2Schools offer courses that cover only kindergarten concepts, which are helpful if your child needs some college prep courses (especially if he or she has already started studying in high school), but these courses usually fall short of covering all the topics needed for college preparation. If your child needs an advanced college course, he or she should be encouraged to attend a separate Back2School program in order to receive the additional preparation.

One final advantage of Back2School: it provides a sense of community for the parents of your Back2School students. These programs are often co-ed, and the parents of Back2School students often play key roles in the success of the program. You can spend time with other parents while you work on homework, play sports together, or discuss any issues that you feel could lead to the success of your child's schooling. The involvement of the other parents helps to build the self-confidence of your child, which is a key ingredient in his or her ability to succeed academically. You will be able to express your concerns to others, and this confidence could mean the difference between your child's success or failure.