School's in session at the Slavyansko-Anglo-Americankanskaya Shkola

Yesterday was our first day to visit a school here in Russia. The day was much more than seeing a school, however. Besides a tour and several chances to pop into a few classes and interact with students in small groups*, it was a round-table forum discussion with several area principals, teachers and education officials from the City of Moscow's Duma and the federal government.

First, the school:
"Marina" is a private school in Moscow, a "Slavyansko-Anglo-Americankanskaya Shkola" (the Slavic-Anglo-American School). It is a school that focuses on teaching English along with all the other major subjects, but also requires its students to study other languages (when did we stop requiring foreign languages for high school graduation?). Being a private school, the students obviously come from a background of privilege but they are amazing. With a 100% college bound student body, the level of instruction is rigorous and intense, but the students are completely engaged. Each year, they travel to San Jose, CA, to compete in science fair. They also travel to San Diego to participate/compete in a Shakespeare festival.

A few students from one of the 11th-grade English classroom.

As we walked the halls of this grades 1-11 school with about 250 students, it was amazing how friendly everyone was to us, or their willingness to engage us in conversation. With their proficiency in English  One wouldn't know they were in a Russian school as the students darted past us saying, "Hi!" or "Good morning!" in perfect English with an American accent.  This school has small classrooms sizes and, get this, zero attendance problems! Each time a teacher or administrator walks into a classroom, the students all stand at attention to great them. Nice!

Here in Russia, kindergarten starts at age 3. By age  6 they start 1st grade, and preschool starts age age 1! "A good education starts in pre-school," said Mr. Krugloklov one of the directors of education in the Moscow Duma (local Moscow legislature) a former district superintendent and a career social studies teacher. (My very personal opinion here: It was so refreshing to see someone in in charge of public education who is an actual career educator as opposed to our local state superintendent's office that is used more like a stepping stone to higher political office and who uses his/her office to exert partisan political ideology). It is very clear that education in Russia is an extremely high priority. It is funded by the local city governments, with federal standards. In Moscow, Kruglokov said, 14% of the entire city budget in spent on education to support about 2 million students in 4500 educational institutions spread out over 124 school districts with more than 280,000 teachers. That comes to 125,000 Rubles per student/per year (or $3,472 per student in US dollars in the current exchange rate). School here are financed based on the number of students attending each school and the rubles follow the student if they move from one school to another. There is no transportation provided to/from school (schools are built centrally located within every community). That is up to the parents and the parents are responsible and held accountable for their child being in school every day. And yes, parents do have the right to choose which school their children will go to, making schools more competitive. The city does have some school busses (yes, they are yellow) which are used for field trips or other excursions.

In Russia, grades are broken down like this:
Grade School: Grades 1-4
Middle School: Grades 5-9
High School: Grades 10-11

School here is compulsory for grades 1-9. After 9th grade, the schools conduct some high-stakes testing (the Russian Unification Test) after which the decision in made by the students, parents and school as to whether the student will be focusing on a college-ready educational track in high school or a vocational career track that focuses on the industrial world. The Unification test focuses on Russian language proficiency and math, as well as one other core subject  as (I think) decided by the school. The school year runs from Sept. 1st through May each year, with a week off between each quarter. Like in our school system, schools, teachers, and administrators are graded by the performance of their students based on each years' standardized tests.

Oh, did I mention that school administrators in Russia also are required to teach -- I think I heard it is at least 12 hours of classroom instruction time per month???

Nearly 100% of students in  Moscow schools on the college-ready track go on to universities. If they score high enough on their tests, university education is free. They also are judged on their student portfolios (mostly digital now) which they begin at grade 1 and include service projects. Being so competitive and with the emphasis on education, we were told that student and parent participation is at a very high level. Indeed at this school it is. Universities here have a 95% retention/graduation rate.

Failing schools: If a school is considered failing and ranked near the bottom, Krugloklov explained it could be dissolved and combined into a successful school's administration. Textbooks: the Russian federal government is moving to have all of its textbook publishers convert to a multi-media, interactive e-book format in the very near future. The presentation for these e-books looked pretty good.

Today we also met several Russian teachers who were in a very similar program as this Teachers for Global Classrooms program. They spent a couple of months living and studying/teaching in the U.S. Next, we'll be visiting two public schools and it will be interesting to see the comparisons.

I offer my congratulations to the visionary work of the "Marina" school's headmistress, principal and staff and students. If ever there was a model for everything that is "right" in education, this is it.

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* One 6th grade science classroom I popped into was studying Earth Day. The teacher very graciously let me give a little mini lesson about sustainable living like I do back in Arizona. When I told them I live off-the-grid 100% on solar and wind power, and that we only get about 30cm of rain per year in our part of Arizona, you should have seen their eyes!