#it’s just an elementary introduction to the idea of equity

[ovrgrwn]

EQUITY OVER EQUALITY ALWAYS

Never have I ever heard of a white woman preaching this (I’m sure it does happen but I have yet to see it more often) - let alone in a comedy stand up. Alex Borstein is a gift.

[robbiejpennebaker1954-blog]

Navigating The Preschool Admissions Process: Getting In And $1,000 Application Fees

When my wife was pregnant in late 2016, a friend told me, “You need to apply to preschool within the first three months after he's born.“

He had one kid in private elementary school and two kids in private middle school. He is also a centimillionaire. 

“Absurd!” I responded.

“Hey, it's up to you buddy. Getting into preschool in San Francisco is harder than getting into Princeton. Don't let your lack of preparedness hurt your son's chances for a bright future.“

Damn it. Guilt sets in.

“Well since you put it that way. I guess I'll get on it. Want to give us a recommendation when he goes in 2019 or 2020?“

“Of course I will,” my friend replied as we resumed our tennis match.

This post is an introduction into how daunting it is for families living in big cities to get their kids into preschool. It should also give some sense as to why there's so much anxiety among parents and children early on.

As someone who has questioned the necessity of paying for private grade school tuition, yet who also wants the best for his son, this post serves as a type of mental penance for going through this process. I've spent the last seven years trying to escape the grind, but somehow, I'm always getting pulled back in. 

I also hope this post brings joy to families who live in lower cost areas of the country who don't have to worry about hyper competition due to a lack of supply. Living in a big city has its perks, but helping your child get a quality education is not one of them. It's only until kindergarten where all families are eligible for a free public education.

The Beginning Of The Preschool Grind

When it comes to getting your child into a top preschool in a big city, it's all about who you know, rather than your child's abilities. After all, your little one isn't going to cure malaria at two or three years old.

The demand is so high simply because there aren't enough schools. I heard through a board member at one preschool that 100 kids applied for the four spots available to non-sibling children. Siblings get automatic acceptance.

Since our boy is our first child, we have to blaze our own trail, Financial Samurai style, in order for him to get in anywhere. But we enjoy the challenge, partly because we like the excitement that uncertainty brings.

Given the average acceptance rate for the top-rated preschools is around 5%, the logical conclusion is to apply to 20 in order to get into one.

We didn't go that far, but we did apply to eight preschools in San Francisco and one preschool in Honolulu. Three of the applications are for 2019 when he's first eligible to attend at 2.5 years old. The remaining five applications are for 2020, when most preschools allow children to enroll.

Each application fee cost us between $80 – $150, or $1,000 total.

Since all preschools cost more or less the same in tuition (~$1,500 – $2,600 a month depending on how many days a week), we figured we might as well apply to the top-rated ones. Surely you would do the same.

If our son gets rejected by all nine, then we will home school him since we have maximum flexibility. That doesn't sound like a bad idea at all actually.

Why Our Chance Of Getting In Is Slim

I don't remember the last time I felt like an idiot. Actually, maybe it was last summer when I didn't sell my House Sale Fund portfolio when it was up 13%. Yeah, that was dumb to not take profits when it surpassed my 10% blue sky target.

But with this preschool stuff, I feel lost because I realize the odds are extremely stacked against my family and there's really not much I can do to improve these odds. And to spend $1,000 on preschool applications alone leaves me with a funny feeling – like I'm a sucker.

Here are some of the reasons why I believe we've got little chance of getting our boy into a top-rated preschool. These reasons should help you appreciate what you have and question the choice of living an unconventional lifestyle.

1) We have a small network. As two stay at home parents who've been away from the traditional workforce for years, my wife and I don't have a large network of parents who have kids at XYZ preschool who can vouch for us. As a result, we are at a large disadvantage simply because not enough of the community knows who we are.

One can easily imagine a colleague or a manager on the board of a preschool who provides a fellow colleague an in. Many large corporations have tie-ups with preschools as a benefit to their employees. That's just the way the world works. We take care of people who we know and like. Being away from networking activities for seven years is likely going to hurt us.

2) We have low-level jobs. On our application, I say I'm an assistant high school tennis coach (not even the head coach) and a stay at home dad. My wife says says she's a freelance writer and a stay at home mom. We don't ever say we run Financial Samurai due to our desire for privacy.

I think being a stay at home parent is an extremely important job, but we can't compete with parents who are executives at a hot startup or partners in venture capital, private equity, or investment banking. I swear all the parents who attended the open houses we went to worked in these fields.

Society does not appreciate creatives as much as they appreciate high powered money making occupations. If society did, it wouldn't push our artists, writers, poets, and teachers out of the city. 

From the school's perspective, they want parents who can be ambassadors of the school in their large networks and also be financial backers down the road. If you work in private equity, you will naturally have lots of rich friends who will have children and donate big bucks down the road.

If you're an assistant high school tennis coach who makes $1,200 a month like I do, your circle of friends probably isn't going to be as desirable to the school.

And yes, I spent one month's of coaching salary on preschool application fees.

3) We lead unconventional lifestyles with no recognition. It's funny. I dislike fame. But you better believe that if I was famous in a good way, my son would have a huge leg up getting into schools. Do you really think any college would reject Malia Obama even if she had terrible grades and test scores? Of course not. Alas, we are nobodies.

The only thing we do is help people achieve financial freedom sooner in order to live their best lives possible. Helping people achieve financial security is nice, especially since we do so for free, but a school would rather have parents working conventional jobs at well-known companies. It's part of the cachet, even if the employer is known to feature fake news and manipulate your private data.

The only reason I'd ever give up my privacy or lead a more conventional lifestyle is if I could help my son. And I'm not sure preschool is worth the price.

We really cherish being able to spend as much time as possible with our son as stay at home parents. But we recognize we will be viewed as misfits given less than 1% of households have two stay at home parents.

4) We do not come from a wealthy legacy family. I know many people in San Francisco who live in multi-million dollar mansions, but who have occupations that cannot afford such luxurious lifestyles. What's going on is that multi-generational family money has allowed them to live a life of leisure.

For example, one family founded a newspaper and sold it for $660 million in the mid-1990s. Surely the $660 million has grown to over $1 billion today. By setting up multi-million dollar endowments at several schools (preschool, middle school, high school, college), their heirs get guaranteed entrance to these schools forever. Are the heirs bad people? Of course not. They're just like everybody else, except with tremendous advantages.

We know that kids of legacy donors have a 70%+ acceptance rate at Harvard versus

5) We are not part of the majority. Schools without racial bias would generally reflect the overall racial makeup of the city e.g. a preschool should have a similar demographic makeup as San Francisco: 48% White, 33% Asian, 6% Black, 0.4% Pacific Islander, 0.5% Native American, 6.6% Other, and 4.7% Bi-racial or Multi-racial.

Unfortunately, based on the data we've read and what we've observed after visiting several preschools, about 75% of the student population is White versus 48% for the entire San Francisco population. A ~27% difference is statistically significant, which means something is up. 

Perhaps the huge discrepancy is because of legacy and family connections, which has carried on for generations. After all, these preschools are private, and it's natural to take care of their own.

Although I belong to a private tennis club where the racial demographic is quite skewed like at many private preschools, I'm not sure we want our son growing up in such a homogenous environment. As a kid growing up overseas attending international schools, I found it wonderful to be immersed in so many different cultures.

When I entered the real world, it was much easier to assimilate and grow. 

See: How The Rich Get Richer: Competing In A Rigged Game

Just Got To Keep Trying

Whatever you do, know the odds are stacked against you. You can either give up, or you can keep on going. I've always chosen the latter. As a parent now, I've got no other choice but to stay on the ball.

Of course I will always have fear of rejection. I fear the continuous rejection I've experienced will continue on with my son. And unless we move to Asia or Honolulu, it stings knowing that my son will one day be discriminated against and rejected like his old man was growing up.

But on the bright side, the difficulties I went through growing up helped make me who I am today. And frankly, I feel pretty darn good about my situation. It's healthy to sometimes get told you're not good enough so you develop a chip on your shoulder to prove your detractors wrong.

A part of me hopes we get rejected by the early start preschools we applied to for 2019 so that we can go on a great adventure and travel the world again.

How amazing would it be to relocate to Honolulu this summer and enjoy the islands until the fall of 2020 when he's eligible for a larger number of preschools at 3.5 years old? There's always a bright side in everything. 

If you're a parent in a big city applying to a top preschool, let me leave you with some following thoughts:

* Get on the ball and apply early since you will eventually have to apply. Make sure you meet every deadline and send follow up letters to show your continued interest. Schools want to hear about the progress of your little one. The latest you can usually apply is the fall before your kid is planning on attending.

* It's worth building relationships with parents who have kids attending your target preschools or board members of your target preschools. Worst case, you'll make some friends or know you don't want to be part of their community.

* Attend all recommended “get to know you and the school” events. These include lunches, dinners, fundraisers, etc.

* Create a picture collage and tell your story. Don't just upload one picture in the application, make a collage of pictures that show progression over time. Preschools want to have a good community of parents they can rely on to be good ambassadors and available volunteers.

* Attending an “elite preschool” might worsen your chances of getting into a good grade school program. Therefore, look to diversify. It's not the end all be all if you don't get into the top-rated preschool.

* So long as the preschool has a good reputation, has a good teacher:student ratio, and has involved parents, it should be good enough. Don't underestimate the value of proximity either.

* Consider parent co-op preschools, public preschool if you qualify, or for-profit education systems like Gymboree that accept everyone.

Apologies if this post has raised the anxiety level of some parents who might not have thought about the preschool application process in such detail. I just like to write out my thoughts because I'm thorough.

At the end of the day, we're only applying to preschool, so don't sweat it! I just thought it'd be fun to chronicle this journey.

The most important things we can provide our children are love, time, and attention. Besides, the internet has democratized learning and opportunity.

Here's to the excitement of the great unknown!

Related:

How To Stop Worrying About Your Child's Future In This Brutally Competitive World

Why Households Need To Earn $300,000 A Year To Live In A Middle Class Lifestyle Today

Is Private Grade School K-8 Worth It?

What If You Go To Harvard And End Up A Nobody?

Readers, have any of you gone through a similarly rigorous process of applying to preschool for your children because there was too much demand and not enough schools? Do you think schools should refund the application fee, or at least part of it, if your kid is not accepted? Why don't preschools want more racial and socioeconomic diversity? Do you think highlighting Financial Samurai would be helpful since we don't have full-time jobs?

The post Navigating The Preschool Admissions Process: Getting In And $1,000 Application Fees appeared first on Financial Samurai.

[samuelfields]

Navigating The Preschool Admissions Process: Getting In And $1,000 Application Fees

When my wife was pregnant in late 2016, a friend told me, “You need to apply to preschool within the first three months after he’s born.“

He had one kid in private elementary school and two kids in private middle school. His is also a centimillionaire. 

“Absurd!” I responded.

“Hey, it’s up to you buddy. Getting into preschool in San Francisco is harder than getting into Princeton. Don’t let your lack of preparedness hurt your son’s chances for a bright future.“

Damn it. Guilt sets in.

“Well since you put it that way. I guess I’ll get on it. Want to give us a recommendation when he goes in 2019 or 2020?“

“Of course I will,” my friend replied as we resumed our tennis match.

This post is an introduction into how daunting it is for families living in big cities to get their kids into preschool. It should also give some sense as to why there’s so much anxiety among parents and children early on.

As someone who has questioned the necessity of paying for private grade school tuition, yet who also wants the best for his son, this post serves as a type of mental penance for going through this process. I’ve spent the last seven years trying to escape the grind, but somehow, I’m always getting pulled back in. 

I also hope this post brings joy to families who live in lower cost areas of the country who don’t have to worry about hyper competition due to a lack of supply. Living in a big city has its perks, but helping your child get a quality education is not one of them.

The Beginning Of The Preschool Grind

When it comes to getting your child into a top preschool in a big city, it’s all about who you know, rather than your child’s abilities. After all, your little one isn’t going to cure malaria at two or three years old.

The demand is so high simply because there aren’t enough schools. I heard through a board member at one preschool that 100 kids applied for the four spots available to non-sibling children. Siblings get automatic acceptance.

Since our boy is our first child, we have to blaze our own trail, Financial Samurai style, in order for him to get in anywhere. But we enjoy the challenge, partly because we like the excitement that uncertainty brings.

Given the average acceptance rate for the top-rated preschools is around 5%, the logical conclusion is to apply to 20 in order to get into one.

We didn’t go that far, but we did apply to eight preschools in San Francisco and one preschool in Honolulu. Three of the applications are for 2019 when he’s first eligible to attend at 2.5 years old. The remaining five applications are for 2020, when most preschools allow children to enroll.

Each application fee cost us between $80 – $150, or $1,000 total.

Since all preschools cost more or less the same in tuition (~$1,500 – $2,600 a month depending on how many days a week), we figured we might as well apply to the top-rated ones. Surely you would do the same.

If our son gets rejected by all nine, then we will home school him since we have maximum flexibility. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all actually.

Why Our Chance Of Getting In Is Slim

I don’t remember the last time I felt like an idiot. Actually, maybe it was last summer when I didn’t sell my House Sale Fund portfolio when it was up 13%. Yeah, that was dumb to not take profits when it surpassed my 10% blue sky target.

But with this preschool stuff, I feel lost because I realize the odds are extremely stacked against my family and there’s really not much I can do to improve these odds. And to spend $1,000 on preschool applications alone leaves me with a funny feeling – like I’m a sucker.

Here are some of the reasons why I believe we’ve got little chance of getting our boy into a top-rated preschool. These reasons should help you appreciate what you have and question the choice of living an unconventional lifestyle.

1) We have a small network. As two stay at home parents who’ve been away from the traditional workforce for years, my wife and I don’t have a large network of parents who have kids at XYZ preschool who can vouch for us. As a result, we are at a large disadvantage simply because not enough of the community knows who we are.

One can easily imagine a colleague or a manager on the board of a preschool who provides a fellow colleague an in. That’s just the way the world works. We take care of people who know and like. Being away from networking activities for seven years is likely going to hurt us.

2) We have low-level jobs. On our application, I say I’m an assistant high school tennis coach (not even the head coach) and a stay at home dad. My wife says says she’s a freelance writer and a stay at home mom. We don’t ever say we run Financial Samurai due to our desire for privacy.

I think being a stay at home parent is an extremely important job, but we can’t compete with parents who are executives at a hot startup or partners in venture capital, private equity, or investment banking. I swear all the parents who attended the open houses we went to worked in these fields.

Society does not appreciate creatives as much as they appreciate high powered money making occupations. If society did, it wouldn’t push our artists, writers, poets, and teachers out of the city. 

From the school’s perspective, they want parents who can be ambassadors of the school in their large networks and also be financial backers down the road. If you work in private equity, you will naturally have lots of rich friends who will have children and donate big bucks down the road.

If you’re an assistant high school tennis coach who makes $1,200 a month like I do, your circle of friends probably isn’t going to be as desirable to the school.

And yes, I spent one month’s of coaching salary on preschool application fees.

3) We lead unconventional lifestyles with no recognition. It’s funny. I dislike fame. But you better believe that if I was famous in a good way, my son would have a huge leg up getting into schools. Do you really think any college would reject Malia Obama even if she had terrible grades and test scores? Of course not. Alas, we are nobodies.

The only thing we do is help people achieve financial freedom sooner in order to live their best lives possible. Helping people achieve financial security is nice, especially since we do so for free, but a school would rather have parents working conventional jobs at well-known companies. It’s part of the cachet, even if the employer is known to feature fake news and manipulate your private data.

The only reason I’d ever give up my privacy or lead a more conventional lifestyle is if I could help my son. And I’m not sure preschool is worth the price.

We really cherish being able to spend as much time as possible with our son as stay at home parents. But we recognize we will be viewed as misfits given less than 1% of households have two stay at home parents.

4) We do not come from a wealthy legacy family. I know many people in San Francisco who live in multi-million dollar mansions, but who have occupations that cannot afford such luxurious lifestyles. What’s going on is that multi-generational family money has allowed them to live a life of leisure.

For example, one family founded a newspaper and sold it for $660 million in the mid-1990s. Surely the $660 million has grown to over $1 billion today. By setting up multi-million dollar endowments at several schools (preschool, middle school, high school, college), their heirs get guaranteed entrance to these schools forever. Are the heirs bad people? Of course not. They’re just like everybody else, except with tremendous advantages.

We know that kids of legacy donors have a 70%+ acceptance rate at Harvard versus <6% for the overall admissions rate. We also know that many schools of similar stature conduct similar practices for the wealthy and powerful. This is the way the world works, and the rest of us have no choice but to compete with what we have.

5) We are not part of the majority. Schools without racial bias would generally reflect the overall racial makeup of the city e.g. a preschool shoild have a similar demographic makeup as San Francisco: 48% White, 33% Asian, 6% Black, 0.4% Pacific Islander, 0.5% Native American, 6.6% Other, and 4.7% Bi-racial or Multi-racial.

Unfortunately, based on the data we’ve read and what we’ve observed after visiting several preschools, about 75% of the student population is White versus 48% for the entire San Francisco population. A ~27% difference is statistically significant, which means something is up. 

Perhaps the huge discrepancy is because of legacy and family connections, which has carried on for generations. After all, these preschools are private, and it’s natural to take care of their own.

Although I belong to a private tennis club where the racial demographic is quite skewed like at many private preschools, I’m not sure we want our son growing up in such a homogenous environment. As a kid growing up overseas attending international schools, I found it wonderful to be immersed in so many different cultures.

When I entered the real world, it was much easier to assimilate and grow. 

See: How The Rich Get Richer: Competing In A Rigged Game

Just Got To Keep Trying

Whatever you do, know that the odds are stacked against you. You can either give up, or you can keep on going. I’ve always chosen the latter. As a parent now, I’ve got no other choice but to stay on the ball.

Of course I will always have fear of rejection. I fear the continuous rejection I’ve experienced will continue on with my son. And it hurts knowing that my son will one day be discriminated against and rejected like his old man was growing up.

But on the bright side, the difficulties I went through growing up helped make me who I am today. And frankly, I feel pretty darn good about my situation. It’s healthy to sometimes get told you’re not good enough so you develop a chip on your shoulder to prove your detractors wrong.

A part of me hopes we get rejected by the early start preschools we applied to for 2019 so that we can go on a great adventure and travel the world again.

How amazing would it be to relocate to Honolulu this summer and enjoy the islands until the fall of 2020 when he’s eligible for a larger number of preschools at 3.5 years old? There’s always a bright side in everything. 

If you’re a parent in a big city applying to a top preschool, let me leave you with some following thoughts:

* Get on the ball and apply early since you will eventually have to apply. Make sure you meet every deadline and send follow up letters to show your continued interest. Schools want to hear about the progress of your little one. The latest you can usually apply is the fall before your kid is planning on attending.

* It’s worth building relationships with parents who have kids attending your target preschools or board members of your target preschools. Worst case, you’ll make some friends or know you don’t want to be part of their community.

* Attend all recommended “get to know you and the school” events. These include lunches, dinners, fundraisers, etc.

* Create a picture collage and tell your story. Don’t just upload one picture in the application, make a collage of pictures that show progression over time. Preschools want to have a good community of parents they can rely on to be good ambassadors and available volunteers.

* Attending an “elite preschool” might worsen your chances of getting into a good grade school program. Therefore, look to diversify. It’s not the end all be all if you don’t get into the top-rated preschool.

* So long as the preschool has a good reputation, has a good teacher:student ratio, and has involved parents, it should be good enough. Don’t underestimate the value of proximity either.

* Consider parent co-op preschools, public preschool if you qualify, or for-profit education systems like Gymboree that accept everyone.

Apologies if this post has raised the anxiety level of some parents who might not have thought about the preschool application process in such detail. I just like to write out my thoughts because I’m thorough.

At the end of the day, we’re only applying to preschool, so don’t sweat it! I just thought it’d be fun to chronicle this journey.

The most important things we can provide our children are love, time, and attention. Besides, the internet has democratized learning and opportunity.

Here’s to the excitement of the great unknown!

Related:

How To Stop Worrying About Your Child’s Future In This Brutally Competitive World

Why Households Need To Earn $300,000 A Year To Live In A Middle Class Lifestyle Today

Is Private Grade School K-8 Worth It?

What If You Go To Harvard And End Up A Nobody?

Readers, have any of you gone through a similarly rigorous process of applying to preschool for your children because there was too much demand and not enough schools? Do you think schools should refund the application fee, or at least part of it, if your kid is not accepted? Why don’t preschools want more racial and socioeconomic diversity? Do you think highlighting Financial Samurai would be helpful since we don’t have full-time jobs?

The post Navigating The Preschool Admissions Process: Getting In And $1,000 Application Fees appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from Finance https://www.financialsamurai.com/navigating-the-preschool-admissions-process/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[ronaldmrashid]

Navigating The Preschool Admissions Process: Getting In And $1,000 Application Fees

When my wife was pregnant in late 2016, a friend told me, “You need to apply to preschool within the first three months after he’s born.“

He had one kid in private elementary school and two kids in private middle school. His is also a centimillionaire. 

“Absurd!” I responded.

“Hey, it’s up to you buddy. Getting into preschool in San Francisco is harder than getting into Princeton. Don’t let your lack of preparedness hurt your son’s chances for a bright future.“

Damn it. Guilt sets in.

“Well since you put it that way. I guess I’ll get on it. Want to give us a recommendation when he goes in 2019 or 2020?“

“Of course I will,” my friend replied as we resumed our tennis match.

This post is an introduction into how daunting it is for families living in big cities to get their kids into preschool. It should also give some sense as to why there’s so much anxiety among parents and children early on.

As someone who has questioned the necessity of paying for private grade school tuition, yet who also wants the best for his son, this post serves as a type of mental penance for going through this process. I’ve spent the last seven years trying to escape the grind, but somehow, I’m always getting pulled back in. 

I also hope this post brings joy to families who live in lower cost areas of the country who don’t have to worry about hyper competition due to a lack of supply. Living in a big city has its perks, but helping your child get a quality education is not one of them.

The Beginning Of The Preschool Grind

When it comes to getting your child into a top preschool in a big city, it’s all about who you know, rather than your child’s abilities. After all, your little one isn’t going to cure malaria at two or three years old.

The demand is so high simply because there aren’t enough schools. I heard through a board member at one preschool that 100 kids applied for the four spots available to non-sibling children. Siblings get automatic acceptance.

Since our boy is our first child, we have to blaze our own trail, Financial Samurai style, in order for him to get in anywhere. But we enjoy the challenge, partly because we like the excitement that uncertainty brings.

Given the average acceptance rate for the top-rated preschools is around 5%, the logical conclusion is to apply to 20 in order to get into one.

We didn’t go that far, but we did apply to eight preschools in San Francisco and one preschool in Honolulu. Three of the applications are for 2019 when he’s first eligible to attend at 2.5 years old. The remaining five applications are for 2020, when most preschools allow children to enroll.

Each application fee cost us between $80 – $150, or $1,000 total.

Since all preschools cost more or less the same in tuition, we figured we might as well apply to the top-rated ones. Surely you would do the same.

If our son gets rejected by all nine, then we will home school him. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all actually, since we have the time.

Why Our Chance Of Getting In Is Slim

I don’t remember the last time I felt like an idiot. Actually, maybe it was last summer when I didn’t sell my House Sale Fund portfolio when it was up 13%. Yeah, that was dumb to not take profits when it surpassed my 10% blue sky target.

But with this preschool stuff, I feel lost because I realize the odds are extremely stacked against my family and there’s really not much I can do to improve these odds. And to spend $1,000 on preschool applications alone leaves me with a funny feeling – like I’m a sucker.

Here are some of the reasons why I believe we’ve got little chance of getting our boy into a top-rated preschool. These reasons should help you appreciate what you have and question the choice of living an unconventional lifestyle.

1) We have a small network. As two stay at home parents who’ve been away from the traditional workforce for years, my wife and I don’t have a large network of parents who have kids at XYZ preschool who can vouch for us. As a result, we are at a large disadvantage simply because not enough of the community knows who we are.

One can easily imagine a colleague or a manager on the board of a preschool who provides a fellow colleague an in. That’s just the way the world works. We take care of people who know and like. Being away from networking activities for seven years is likely going to hurt us.

2) We have low-level jobs. On our application, I say I’m an assistant high school tennis coach (not even the head coach) and a stay at home dad. My wife says says she’s a freelance writer and a stay at home mom. We don’t ever say we run Financial Samurai due to our desire for privacy.

I think being a stay at home parent is an extremely important job, but we can’t compete with parents who are executives at a hot startup or partners in venture capital, private equity, or investment banking. I swear all the parents who attended the open houses we went to worked in these fields.

Society does not appreciate creatives as much as they appreciate high powered money making occupations. If society did, it wouldn’t push our artists, writers, poets, and teachers out of the city. 

From the school’s perspective, they want parents who can be ambassadors of the school in their large networks and also be financial backers down the road. If you work in private equity, you will naturally have lots of rich friends who will have children and donate big bucks down the road.

If you’re an assistant high school tennis coach who makes $1,200 a month like I do, your circle of friends probably isn’t going to be as desirable to the school.

And yes, I spent one month’s of coaching salary on preschool application fees.

3) We lead unconventional lifestyles with no recognition. It’s funny. I dislike fame. But you better believe that if I was famous in a good way, my son would have a huge leg up getting into schools. Do you really think any college would reject Malia Obama even if she had terrible grades and test scores? Of course not. Alas, we are nobodies.

The only thing we do is help people achieve financial freedom sooner in order to live their best lives possible. Helping people achieve financial security is nice, especially since we do so for free, but a school would rather have parents working conventional jobs at well-known companies. It’s part of the cachet, even if the employer is known to feature fake news and manipulate your private data.

The only reason I’d ever give up my privacy or lead a more conventional lifestyle is if I could help my son. And I’m not sure preschool is worth the price.

We really cherish being able to spend as much time as possible with our son as stay at home parents. But we recognize we will be viewed as misfits given less than 1% of households have two stay at home parents.

4) We do not come from a wealthy legacy family. I know many people in San Francisco who live in multi-million dollar mansions, but who have occupations that cannot afford such luxurious lifestyles. What’s going on is that multi-generational family money has allowed them to live a life of leisure.

For example, one family founded a newspaper and sold it for $660 million in the mid-1990s. Surely the $660 million has grown to over $1 billion today. By setting up multi-million dollar endowments at several schools (preschool, middle school, high school, college), their heirs get guaranteed entrance to these schools forever. Are the heirs bad people? Of course not. They’re just like everybody else, except with tremendous advantages.

We know that kids of legacy donors have a 70%+ acceptance rate at Harvard versus <6% for the overall admissions rate. We also know that many schools of similar stature conduct similar practices for the wealthy and powerful. This is the way the world works, and the rest of us have no choice but to compete with what we have.

5) We are not part of the majority. Schools without racial bias would generally reflect the overall racial makeup of the city e.g. a preschool would have a similar demographic makeup as San Francisco is 48% White, 33% Asian, 6% Black, 0.4% Pacific Islander, 0.5% Native American, 6.6% Other, and 4.7% Bi-racial or Multi-racial.

Unfortunately, based on the data we’ve read and what we’ve observed after visiting several preschools, about 75% of the student population is White versus 48% for the entire San Francisco population. A ~27% difference is statistically significant, which means something is up. 

Perhaps the huge discrepancy is because of legacy and family connections, which has carried on for generations. After all, these preschools are private, and it’s natural to take care of their own.

Although I belong to a private tennis club where the racial demographic is quite skewed like at many private preschools, I’m not sure we want our son growing up in such a homogenous environment. As a kid growing up overseas attending international schools, I found it wonderful to be immersed in so many different cultures.

When I entered the real world, it was much easier to assimilate and grow. 

See: How The Rich Get Richer: Competing In A Rigged Game

Just Got To Keep Trying

Whatever you do, know that the odds are stacked against you. You can either give up, or you can keep on going. I’ve always chosen the latter. As a parent now, I’ve got no other choice but to stay on the ball.

Of course I will always have fear of rejection. I fear the continuous rejection I’ve experienced will continue on with my son. And it hurts knowing that my son will one day be discriminated against and rejected like his old man was growing up.

But on the bright side, the difficulties I went through growing up helped make me who I am today. And frankly, I feel pretty darn good about my situation. It’s healthy to sometimes get told you’re not good enough so you develop a chip on your shoulder to prove your detractors wrong.

A part of me hopes we get rejected by the early start preschools we applied to for 2019 so that we can go on a great adventure and travel the world again.

How amazing would it be to relocate to Honolulu this summer and enjoy the islands until the fall of 2020 when he’s eligible for a larger number of preschools at 3.5 years old? There’s always a bright side in everything. 

If you’re a parent in a big city applying to a top preschool, let me leave you with some following thoughts:

* Get on the ball and apply early since you will eventually have to apply. Make sure you meet every deadline and send follow up letters to show your continued interest. Schools want to hear about the progress of your little one. The latest you can usually apply is the fall before your kid is planning on attending.

* It’s worth building relationships with parents who have kids attending your target preschools or board members of your target preschools. Worst case, you’ll make some friends or know you don’t want to be part of their community.

* Attend all recommended “get to know you and the school” events. These include lunches, dinners, fundraisers, etc.

* Create a picture collage and tell your story. Don’t just upload one picture in the application, make a collage of pictures that show progression over time. Preschools want to have a good community of parents they can rely on to be good ambassadors and available volunteers.

* Attending an “elite preschool” might worsen your chances of getting into a good grade school program. Therefore, look to diversify. It’s not the end all be all if you don’t get into the top-rated preschool.

* So long as the preschool has a good reputation, has a good teacher:student ratio, and has involved parents, it should be good enough. Don’t underestimate the value of proximity either.

Apologies if this post has raised the anxiety level of some parents who might not have thought about the preschool application process in such detail. I just like to write out my thoughts because I’m thorough. At the end of the day, we’re only applying to preschool, so don’t sweat it!

The most important things we can provide our children are love, time, and attention. Besides, the internet has democratized learning and opportunity.

Here’s to the excitement of the great unknown!

Related:

How To Stop Worrying About Your Child’s Future In This Brutally Competitive World

Why Households Need To Earn $300,000 A Year To Live In A Middle Class Lifestyle Today

Is Private Grade School K-8 Worth It?

What If You Go To Harvard And End Up A Nobody?

Readers, have any of you gone through a similarly rigorous process of applying to preschool for your children because there was too much demand and not enough schools? Do you think schools should refund the application fee, or at least part of it, if your kid is not accepted? Why don’t preschools want more racial and socioeconomic diversity? Do you think highlighting Financial Samurai would be helpful since we don’t have full-time jobs?

The post Navigating The Preschool Admissions Process: Getting In And $1,000 Application Fees appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from https://www.financialsamurai.com/navigating-the-preschool-admissions-process/

[mcjoelcain]

Navigating The Preschool Admissions Process: Getting In And $1,000 Application Fees

When my wife was pregnant in late 2016, a friend told me, “You need to apply to preschool within the first three months after he’s born.“

He had one kid in private elementary school and two kids in private middle school. His is also a centimillionaire. 

“Absurd!” I responded.

“Hey, it’s up to you buddy. Getting into preschool in San Francisco is harder than getting into Princeton. Don’t let your lack of preparedness hurt your son’s chances for a bright future.“

Damn it. Guilt sets in.

“Well since you put it that way. I guess I’ll get on it. Want to give us a recommendation when he goes in 2019 or 2020?“

“Of course I will,” my friend replied as we resumed our tennis match.

This post is an introduction into how daunting it is for families living in big cities to get their kids into preschool. It should also give some sense as to why there’s so much anxiety among parents and children early on.

As someone who has questioned the necessity of paying for private grade school tuition, yet who also wants the best for his son, this post serves as a type of mental penance for going through this process. I’ve spent the last seven years trying to escape the grind, but somehow, I’m always getting pulled back in. 

I also hope this post brings joy to families who live in lower cost areas of the country who don’t have to worry about hyper competition due to a lack of supply. Living in a big city has its perks, but helping your child get a quality education is not one of them.

The Beginning Of The Preschool Grind

When it comes to getting your child into a top preschool in a big city, it’s all about who you know, rather than your child’s abilities. After all, your little one isn’t going to cure malaria at two or three years old.

The demand is so high simply because there aren’t enough schools. I heard through a board member at one preschool that 100 kids applied for the four spots available to non-sibling children. Siblings get automatic acceptance.

Since our boy is our first child, we have to blaze our own trail, Financial Samurai style, in order for him to get in anywhere. But we enjoy the challenge, partly because we like the excitement that uncertainty brings.

Given the average acceptance rate for the top-rated preschools is around 5%, the logical conclusion is to apply to 20 in order to get into one.

We didn’t go that far, but we did apply to eight preschools in San Francisco and one preschool in Honolulu. Three of the applications are for 2019 when he’s first eligible to attend at 2.5 years old. The remaining five applications are for 2020, when most preschools allow children to enroll.

Each application fee cost us between $80 – $150, or $1,000 total.

Since all preschools cost more or less the same in tuition, we figured we might as well apply to the top-rated ones. Surely you would do the same.

If our son gets rejected by all nine, then we will home school him. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all actually, since we have the time.

Why Our Chance Of Getting In Is Slim

I don’t remember the last time I felt like an idiot. Actually, maybe it was last summer when I didn’t sell my House Sale Fund portfolio when it was up 13%. Yeah, that was dumb to not take profits when it surpassed my 10% blue sky target.

But with this preschool stuff, I feel lost because I realize the odds are extremely stacked against my family and there’s really not much I can do to improve these odds. And to spend $1,000 on preschool applications alone leaves me with a funny feeling – like I’m a sucker.

Here are some of the reasons why I believe we’ve got little chance of getting our boy into a top-rated preschool. These reasons should help you appreciate what you have and question the choice of living an unconventional lifestyle.

1) We have a small network. As two stay at home parents who’ve been away from the traditional workforce for years, my wife and I don’t have a large network of parents who have kids at XYZ preschool who can vouch for us. As a result, we are at a large disadvantage simply because not enough of the community knows who we are.

One can easily imagine a colleague or a manager on the board of a preschool who provides a fellow colleague an in. That’s just the way the world works. We take care of people who know and like. Being away from networking activities for seven years is likely going to hurt us.

2) We have low-level jobs. On our application, I say I’m an assistant high school tennis coach (not even the head coach) and a stay at home dad. My wife says says she’s a freelance writer and a stay at home mom. We don’t ever say we run Financial Samurai due to our desire for privacy.

I think being a stay at home parent is an extremely important job, but we can’t compete with parents who are executives at a hot startup or partners in venture capital, private equity, or investment banking. I swear all the parents who attended the open houses we went to worked in these fields.

Society does not appreciate creatives as much as they appreciate high powered money making occupations. If society did, it wouldn’t push our artists, writers, poets, and teachers out of the city. 

From the school’s perspective, they want parents who can be ambassadors of the school in their large networks and also be financial backers down the road. If you work in private equity, you will naturally have lots of rich friends who will have children and donate big bucks down the road.

If you’re an assistant high school tennis coach who makes $1,200 a month like I do, your circle of friends probably isn’t going to be as desirable to the school.

And yes, I spent one month’s of coaching salary on preschool application fees.

3) We lead unconventional lifestyles with no recognition. It’s funny. I dislike fame. But you better believe that if I was famous in a good way, my son would have a huge leg up getting into schools. Do you really think any college would reject Malia Obama even if she had terrible grades and test scores? Of course not. Alas, we are nobodies.

The only thing we do is help people achieve financial freedom sooner in order to live their best lives possible. Helping people achieve financial security is nice, especially since we do so for free, but a school would rather have parents working conventional jobs at well-known companies. It’s part of the cachet, even if the employer is known to feature fake news and manipulate your private data.

The only reason I’d ever give up my privacy or lead a more conventional lifestyle is if I could help my son. And I’m not sure preschool is worth the price.

We really cherish being able to spend as much time as possible with our son as stay at home parents. But we recognize we will be viewed as misfits given less than 1% of households have two stay at home parents.

4) We do not come from a wealthy legacy family. I know many people in San Francisco who live in multi-million dollar mansions, but who have occupations that cannot afford such luxurious lifestyles. What’s going on is that multi-generational family money has allowed them to live a life of leisure.

For example, one family founded a newspaper and sold it for $660 million in the mid-1990s. Surely the $660 million has grown to over $1 billion today. By setting up multi-million dollar endowments at several schools (preschool, middle school, high school, college), their heirs get guaranteed entrance to these schools forever. Are the heirs bad people? Of course not. They’re just like everybody else, except with tremendous advantages.

We know that kids of legacy donors have a 70%+ acceptance rate at Harvard versus <6% for the overall admissions rate. We also know that many schools of similar stature conduct similar practices for the wealthy and powerful. This is the way the world works, and the rest of us have no choice but to compete with what we have.

5) We are not part of the majority. Schools without racial bias would generally reflect the overall racial makeup of the city e.g. a preschool would have a similar demographic makeup as San Francisco is 48% White, 33% Asian, 6% Black, 0.4% Pacific Islander, 0.5% Native American, 6.6% Other, and 4.7% Bi-racial or Multi-racial.

Unfortunately, based on the data we’ve read and what we’ve observed after visiting several preschools, about 75% of the student population is White versus 48% for the entire San Francisco population. A ~27% difference is statistically significant, which means something is up. 

Perhaps the huge discrepancy is because of legacy and family connections, which has carried on for generations. After all, these preschools are private, and it’s natural to take care of their own.

Although I belong to a private tennis club where the racial demographic is quite skewed like at many private preschools, I’m not sure we want our son growing up in such a homogenous environment. As a kid growing up overseas attending international schools, I found it wonderful to be immersed in so many different cultures.

When I entered the real world, it was much easier to assimilate and grow. 

See: How The Rich Get Richer: Competing In A Rigged Game

Just Got To Keep Trying

Whatever you do, know that the odds are stacked against you. You can either give up, or you can keep on going. I’ve always chosen the latter. As a parent now, I’ve got no other choice but to stay on the ball.

Of course I will always have fear of rejection. I fear the continuous rejection I’ve experienced will continue on with my son. And it hurts knowing that my son will one day be discriminated against and rejected like his old man was growing up.

But on the bright side, the difficulties I went through growing up helped make me who I am today. And frankly, I feel pretty darn good about my situation. It’s healthy to sometimes get told you’re not good enough so you develop a chip on your shoulder to prove your detractors wrong.

A part of me hopes we get rejected by the early start preschools we applied to for 2019 so that we can go on a great adventure and travel the world again.

How amazing would it be to relocate to Honolulu this summer and enjoy the islands until the fall of 2020 when he’s eligible for a larger number of preschools at 3.5 years old? There’s always a bright side in everything. 

If you’re a parent in a big city applying to a top preschool, let me leave you with some following thoughts:

* Get on the ball and apply early since you will eventually have to apply. Make sure you meet every deadline and send follow up letters to show your continued interest. Schools want to hear about the progress of your little one. The latest you can usually apply is the fall before your kid is planning on attending.

* It’s worth building relationships with parents who have kids attending your target preschools or board members of your target preschools. Worst case, you’ll make some friends or know you don’t want to be part of their community.

* Attend all recommended “get to know you and the school” events. These include lunches, dinners, fundraisers, etc.

* Create a picture collage and tell your story. Don’t just upload one picture in the application, make a collage of pictures that show progression over time. Preschools want to have a good community of parents they can rely on to be good ambassadors and available volunteers.

* Attending an “elite preschool” might worsen your chances of getting into a good grade school program. Therefore, look to diversify. It’s not the end all be all if you don’t get into the top-rated preschool.

* So long as the preschool has a good reputation, has a good teacher:student ratio, and has involved parents, it should be good enough. Don’t underestimate the value of proximity either.

Apologies if this post has raised the anxiety level of some parents who might not have thought about the preschool application process in such detail. I just like to write out my thoughts because I’m thorough. At the end of the day, we’re only applying to preschool, so don’t sweat it!

The most important things we can provide our children are love, time, and attention. Besides, the internet has democratized learning and opportunity.

Here’s to the excitement of the great unknown!

Related:

How To Stop Worrying About Your Child’s Future In This Brutally Competitive World

Why Households Need To Earn $300,000 A Year To Live In A Middle Class Lifestyle Today

Is Private Grade School K-8 Worth It?

What If You Go To Harvard And End Up A Nobody?

Readers, have any of you gone through a similarly rigorous process of applying to preschool for your children because there was too much demand and not enough schools? Do you think schools should refund the application fee, or at least part of it, if your kid is not accepted? Why don’t preschools want more racial and socioeconomic diversity? Do you think highlighting Financial Samurai would be helpful since we don’t have full-time jobs?

The post Navigating The Preschool Admissions Process: Getting In And $1,000 Application Fees appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from Money https://www.financialsamurai.com/navigating-the-preschool-admissions-process/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[ronnykblair]

Public Pension Fund Investment Management: Interviews, Jobs, and More

Have you noticed that roles at pension funds attract almost no interest online?

There are countless articles, videos, and threads about investment banking, private equity, and hedge funds, but almost nothing about pensions.

But pension fund investment management roles can offer plenty of benefits, from solid work/life balance to access to the best portfolio managers in the world.

And, unlike in traditional finance roles, you might even help people who need it and do something good for the world – as our reader today found out:

Public Pension Fund Investment Management: What It Is and How to Break In

Q: Can you summarize your story for us?

A: Sure. I grew up in “a Southern state” in the U.S., studied finance at a non-target university, and then joined a rotational program at a middle-market investment bank.

One of my roles in that program was to analyze and recommend investment managers (mutual funds and hedge funds) to clients, and the job intrigued me.

I couldn’t network my way into a full-time role there, but a few months later, I found a similar role at a public pension fund in a “large state” (i.e., in the top 10 by population).

I interviewed for the role, won an offer, and have been here ever since.

I’m at the hedge fund allocator here, which means that we evaluate funds, hire and fire managers, and find new managers who fit our strategies.

It’s similar to what a fund of funds does, with a few key differences – which we’ll get into later.

Q: OK. Can you briefly describe what pension funds do and the key benefits of working for one rather than a hedge fund or private equity firm?

A: Sure. First, note that most U.S.-based funds are quite different from the ones in Canada, which increasingly operate like traditional private equity firms and hedge funds.

In the U.S., pension funds invest employee contributions into pension plans, aim for a certain annualized return, and then distribute the proceeds to the beneficiaries when they retire.

Public pension funds are ones run by federal, state, and local governments to provide for the retirements of public-sector employees such as teachers and police.

Some of these funds have groups dedicated to direct investing, but most also do a significant amount of fund-of-funds-style investing, where the goal is to back the best hedge funds, mutual funds, and private equity firms.

The main benefits of working in pension fund investment management include:

Building Relationships and Learning from the Best Investment Managers and Hedge Funds – I get access to managers at funds like Bridgewater, Pershing Square, Citadel, Millennium, PDT Partners, Two Sigma, AQR, and Marshall Wace here.

Improving Beneficiaries’ Lives – My work directly contributes to beneficiaries that truly need the help, such as teachers in underfunded elementary schools. This is in sharp contrast to many other roles in finance, where the goals could be summarized as “make the rich even richer.”

Work/Life Balance – I work 45-50 hours per week and travel 1-2x per quarter to meet with hedge fund managers. We’re not under pressure to do deals constantly, so the 80-hour workweeks you see with investment banking hours simply don’t exist.

The downsides of working in pension fund investment management include:

Much lower compensation than in IB/PE roles.

More bureaucracy since you’re working for the government.

Undesirable living locations at some funds (e.g., Sacramento if you’re at CalPERS in California).

Q: Thanks for that summary.

What types of candidates do you usually recruit? Could someone get in straight out of undergrad?

A: Funds usually want candidates with some full-time experience, either as “capital introduction analysts” (professionals at large banks who introduce their prime brokerage clients to potential investors) or in other buy-side roles.

Your work as a cap intro analyst is quite similar because you analyze investment managers and recommend them to institutional investors based on their preferences.

You’ll also develop a useful network of fund managers, an understanding of investors’ mentality, and an understandable story (e.g., you have experience and still want to be in the industry at a high level without the hours and stress due to family/other commitments).

If you’re a recent grad at the MBA or undergrad level, it’s often best to start at a college endowment fund.

Many of these funds have $1 – $10 billion in AUM, they tend to be open-minded, and they make faster decisions about hiring investment managers.

You can learn the ropes there and then leverage the skill set at a pension fund.

Q: And what should you expect in the recruiting process for pension fund investment management?

A: First, the process will take 3-4 months between the first interview and the final one, mostly because of the bureaucracy that comes with a government entity. That would be an eternity at an investment bank, but it’s par for the course here.

You’ll go through at least 3 interviews, a case study (“Should we keep or fire Hedge Fund Manager X?”), and an Excel test.

All the interviews questions revolve around teamwork, communications, and your investment beliefs.

Every decision here is a team decision, so there will be quite a few behavioral questions, and the same goes for communication skills; your guide to investment banking fit questions applies to pension funds as well since you need to present concrete examples and stories.

For the questions about investment beliefs, you can prepare and learn more by:

Investing and developing your own track record, especially using more complex strategies such as ones that include derivatives.

Studying the strategies used by famous hedge funds. For example, I’m a big fan of Cliff Asness at AQR and read a lot of his writing and his firm’s whitepapers, from which I developed some of my own beliefs (e.g., that quality + momentum investing is a killer combination and the Warren Buffett is overrated as a “value investor”).

Pension Fund Interview Questions and Strategies

Q: Any chance you could share some of the questions that candidates might receive in pension fund investment management interviews?

A: Sure. I’ll separate these by category:

Resume, Teamwork, and Communications

“Walk me through your resume.”

“Tell us about a time when a colleague treated you unfairly and explain how you dealt with the situation.”

“When you are a member of a team, what type of role do you tend to assume? For example, do you generate ideas, take notes, run the numbers, or plan out tasks?”

“Can you describe a time when you told a team about some uncomfortable truths that the other members did not want to acknowledge?”

“What’s the best way to communicate a complex topic to an audience who doesn’t know you?”

“Tell us about a project that met resistance initially, but which you pushed through to completion. How did you organize your efforts and overcome the resistance?”

These questions may seem a bit different, but they’re not difficult if you’ve outlined your story and prepared your 3 “short stories.”

Most of them are just disguised strength/weakness or success/failure questions.

Investment Beliefs

“What’s your view on active vs. passive investing? How might a move to more passive investment approaches impact the equities market?”

“How would you think about factor exposure (e.g., value, momentum, and quality) when building an equity portfolio?”

“Suppose that you’re aiming to build a portfolio of long-only equity managers who will outperform the global equity markets. How would you implement this portfolio, and which issues would you consider?”

“What is the most overused statistic when measuring performance and risk, and which statistic does not get enough attention?”

“You’re going to meet with a hedge fund manager for the first time. What would be the 3 most important takeaways from that meeting?”

“Suppose that you’re analyzing a fund, and your gut feeling contradicts the numbers. How would you resolve the conflict?”

There are not necessarily “correct” answers to these questions – but there are well-thought-out answers and poorly reasoned ones.

Q: Great. And what about the case study and Excel test?

A: The Excel test is fairly basic and assesses your knowledge of functions like IRR, NPV, HLOOKUP/VLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, and other financial formulas. If you have at least some experience with modeling and valuation, it’s straightforward.

The case study involves an exercise like the one you described in your private equity funds of funds article, where look at criteria such as historical performance in different markets, realized vs. unrealized gains, team structure/cohesion, and strategy and risk exposure.

For example, if a fund has consistently delivered 20% annualized returns, the fund size and senior managers have been very consistent, and no “one-time wins” have propped up its returns, you might recommend investing.

On the other hand, if the fund’s performance has been spotty, with huge variations from year to year, and it wants to double its size next year, you might recommend against it.

The Pension Fund Analyst Job Description: A Day in the Life

Q: Thanks for that explanation. Moving on, can you tell us about the job itself?

Also, can we return to that point about how pension fund investment management is different from a fund of funds?

A: I spend most of my time sourcing new potential managers and evaluating existing managers, so hire/fire decisions are always top of mind.

I take an average of 1-2 calls or meetings per day, which usually means speaking with team members or external managers.

Once we make a hire/fire decision, we present a lot of analysis to make the case to the broader team and the investment committee.

These activities take up around 95% of my time.

The work is different from fund-of-funds jobs because we focus on finding specific types of managers that meet our criteria for AUM and strategy.

Funds of funds are often more general in their sourcing; they see a lot of managers and can write smaller checks, but we don’t even pay attention to the manager unless we can write a 9-figure check.

They also tend to make investment decisions (both “hire” and “fire” ones) more quickly, which is why some in the industry view FoF investments as “low-quality capital”: it comes and goes easily.

Q: Digging into this in a bit more depth, can you explain how you would analyze a hedge fund and make an investment recommendation?

A: First, I would try to understand the specific market inefficiency that the manager is trying to exploit.

Then, I would assess whether or not they have an “edge” in exploiting it, and then I would try to understand how they make decisions.

Most managers cannot even articulate the inefficiency they’re taking advantage of, so they get eliminated in step one.

If the manager can explain this adequately, and it seems like they have a clear “edge” regarding proprietary technology/data, a niche market, or a different investment philosophy, I might take a deeper look.

We can figure out the first two parts – the inefficiency and the edge – via the sourcing process, the investor deck, and an introductory call; the time-consuming part is understanding how the investor makes decisions.

That includes everything from how they size positions to when they buy/sell/add/trim positions to when they hire personnel and how they handle underperformance.

This process can take years because we have to observe the manager in different market conditions.

But if the person seems promising, he/she will be seriously considered once a spot in our portfolio is available.

Pension Fund Salary Levels and Hierarchy

Q: You mentioned earlier that the hours and lifestyle are fairly good, but the compensation is also much lower than IB/PE pay. Can you quantify that?

A: I can try!

The usual hierarchy in pension fund investment management is Investment Analyst, Investment Officer, Senior Investment Officer, Portfolio Manager, Program Director, and Chief Investment Officer (CIO).

At the Analyst level, base pay is a discount to base pay in equity research, which, in turn, is a discount to investment banking salaries.

Your base salary will grow as you advance, but by far less than it would grow in IB, PE, or even ER, and your bonus will never come close because you’re working for the government.

Rather than paying you a large bonus, public pension funds would prefer to increase beneficiaries’ benefits or save the money for a rainy day.

My rough estimates for pay in pension fund investment management roles in mid-sized-to-larger U.S. states would be (as of 2018):

Investment Analyst: $60 – $100K

Investment Officer: $100 – $125K

Senior Investment Officer: $125 – $175K

Portfolio Manager: $200 – $300K

Program Director: $300 – $400K

CIO: $400 – $600K

Some CIOs at large funds can earn more than that (e.g., closer to $1 million), but the path to the top is much slower than in investment banking, and pay is far lower in entry to mid-level roles.

You can also Google terms like “[State Name] pension fund compensation” and look up the data for yourself because governments are required to report salaries publicly.

The trade-off is that the hours are far better (45-50 per week), and my schedule is very predictable; my hours tend to spike only when I’m part of a team bringing a hiring recommendation to the investment committee.

Pension Fund Exit Opportunities

Q: Thanks for that overview. What are the potential exit opportunities from pension fund investment management?

A: If you’re earlier in your career, the most common exit opportunity is to move to another buy-side role, such as at a hedge fund or asset management firm.

I’ve seen ambitious Analysts join emerging market macro hedge funds, become quant researchers at the top hedge funds, and even start their own hedge funds.

You could also get into a good MBA program from here, though the top 3 programs will still be challenging regardless of your background.

If you’re later in your career, this role is typically the end goal, and the main exit opportunity is joining another pension fund.

If you want to do that, I strongly recommend working for a firm that believes in active management because it will help you develop your views and will lead to better lateral opportunities.

Q: Great. To sum up everything, what are the best and worst parts of the job, and how can someone decide if it’s right for them?

A: The best part is that you get to learn investing from the smartest minds in the industry and pick the brains of the top managers about their entire decision-making process.

And while you are taking risk and investing money, you are doing so in a less stressful way than at the typical hedge fund, and you’re helping people who need the financial security.

The worst parts are the bureaucracy and the number of meetings – some days, you will simply run from meeting to meeting without getting any real work done.

Everything moves slowly, and sometimes you can’t bring ideas to the committee because a single person is opposed to the manager’s style.

The Board of Trustees may also get in the way of investment decisions, though that’s more common on the private equity side.

The best way to decide if this role is right for you is to complete an internship in a related area, such as at a fund of funds or in a group that deals with asset allocation and fund manager selection at a large bank.

Q: Thanks for your time! I learned a lot.

A: My pleasure.

The post Public Pension Fund Investment Management: Interviews, Jobs, and More appeared first on Mergers & Inquisitions.

from ronnykblair digest https://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/pension-fund-investment-management/

[kacydeneen]

2 States Are Making Teachers Talk Mental Health in Classes

At New Design High School in New York, students spend just as much time in their “Design for Life” class as they do in English and math. Students are required to take the class in the fall and spring semesters during all four years of high school. 

In past semesters, students created suicide prevention posters that lined the schools’ hallways. They frequently discuss what to do when feeling sad and how to approach asking for help.

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When the students use slang terms like “psycho,” the instructor talks about what disorders mean, what the signs of them are and why it could be hurtful to engage in name-calling. Melissa Dorcemus, who teaches 9th grade math at the school, said the classes enable students to discuss meaningful mental health topics.

The Manhattan school created the program by choice, said Dorcemus, whose colleagues teach the courses. There’s one teacher for each grade level.

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Comparable classes could begin appearing in other New York public schools and at schools in Virginia. New laws that went into effect on July 1 require mental health to be made part of public school curricula in those states.

The laws come as intentional self-harm remains among the top-10 causes of death in the U.S., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. In 2016, suicide was the second-leading cause of death for Americans between 10 and 34 years old.

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“This is making mental health not a thing that exists outside the school,” said David E. Kirkland, the executive director of NYU’s Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools. “We’re thinking about mental health how we think about English, math or science.”

Mental health was previously included in Virginia’s education standards for seventh through tenth graders. Virginia’s new law requires the state’s board of education to review and update the existing mental health education standards after consulting with several agencies, including Virginia’s National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

The Virginia Department of Education hasn't arranged a timeline yet for revising the standards, a department spokesman said. Changes to standards typically take about three years, though these alterations might take less time because state tests won't need to be revised. 

Under Virginia’s current standards, by the time students reach their junior year in high school, they should be familiar with the help-seeking process for mental health concerns and understand why pursuing help for mental health issues is significant. Health lessons also reveal how to identify and advocate for school and community mental health resources.

Districts will be required to abide by the new standards but can design their own curricula. 

While the Virginia law modifies existing education standards, this marks the first time a law calls for a mental health education requirement in New York, a New York Department of Education spokesman told NBC.

The New York legislation, which was enacted in 2016, calls for mental health to be incorporated into elementary, middle and high schools’ health curricula.

Schools will be responsible for creating a curriculum that’s aligned with the new state standards. The changes will roll out for the 2018-19 school year, the education department said.

In a document sent to schools, the New York Department of Education outlined new learning standards across grade levels, provided guidance on how to create a healthy school culture and described a tiered support system for at-risk students.

Promoting positive mental health for students and staff and decreasing the stigma related to talking about mental health are among the standards’ goals.

Matt Shapiro, policy director for NAMI New York, said some teachers resisted the idea of teaching mental health.

“Teachers don’t want to be taught what to teach,” said Shapiro, who pushed for New York's new law. “It’s very important to teach kids how to identify potential illness and it’s more importantly OK to talk about it and ask for help.”

While not every mental health lesson will resemble those at New Design, Kirkland anticipates some lessons covering awareness and others utilizing mindfulness and meditation techniques.

Kirkland, who before joining NYU's faculty had taught in Michigan schools, also said that some parents for religious reasons might want their child to opt out of such instruction. But rules for opting in and out of curriculum lessons are already in place, he said.

At New Design High School in New York, teachers train with on-site social workers and work with counselors to address mental health-related issues that might arise, Dorcemus said. Comparable training for educators will likely follow the new standards' introductions.

Teachers are required to file a report when they believe students could harm themselves. They also participate in training related to when they should discuss a student’s mental health with a guidance counselor, Dorcemus said. 

“We’re not just there to teach math or English,” said Dorcemus, who is also a member of the advocacy group Educators for Excellence-New York. “We’re there to help them through the transition of being a child to becoming an adult.”

If you are in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting ‘Home’ to 741741.

Photo Credit: Getty Images via Hero Images 2 States Are Making Teachers Talk Mental Health in Classes published first on Miami News

[acornwaldorfschool]

“Naming letters and numbers is superficial and almost irrelevant in relation to the capacities we want to help children develop”

“The most important competencies in young children can’t be tested—we all know this…”

How ‘twisted’ early childhood education has become — from a child development expert

By Valerie Strauss (Reuters)

Nancy Carlsson-Paige is an early childhood development expert who has been at the forefront of the debate on how best to educate — and not educate — the youngest students. She is a professor emerita of education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Ma., where she taught teachers for more than 30 years and was a founder of the university’s Center for Peaceable Schools. She is also a founding member of a nonprofit called Defending the Early Years, which commissions research about early childhood education and advocates for sane policies for young children.

Carlsson-Paige is author of “Taking Back Childhood.” The mother of two artist sons, Matt and Kyle Damon, she is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the Legacy Award from the Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps for work over several decades on behalf of children and families. She was just given the Deborah Meier award by the nonprofit National Center for Fair and Open Testing.

In her speech accepting the award (named after the renowned educator Deborah Meier), Carlsson-Paige describes what has happened in the world of early childhood education in the current era of high-stakes testing, saying, “Never in my wildest dreams could I have foreseen the situation we find ourselves in today.” Here’s the speech, which I am publishing with permission:

Thank you FairTest for this Deborah Meier Hero in Education Award. FairTest does such great advocacy and education around fair and just testing practices. This award carries the name of one of my heroes in education, Deborah Meier—she’s a force for justice and democracy in education. I hope that every time this award is given, it will allow us to once again pay tribute to Deb. Also, I feel privileged to be accepting this honor alongside Lani Guinier.

When I was invited to be here tonight, I thought about the many people who work for justice and equity in education who could also be standing here. So I am thinking of all of them now and I accept this award on their behalf — all the educators dedicated to children and what’s fair and best for them.

It’s wonderful to see all of you here — so many family and friends, comrades in this struggle to reclaim excellent public education for all – not just some – of our children.

I have loved my life’s work – teaching teachers about how young children think, how they learn, how they develop socially, emotionally, morally. I’ve been fascinated with the theories and science of my field and seeing it expressed in the actions and the play of children.

So never in my wildest dreams could I have foreseen the situation we find ourselves in today.

Where education policies that do not reflect what we know about how young children learn could be mandated and followed. We have decades of research in child development and neuroscience that tell us that young children learn actively — they have to move, use their senses, get their hands on things, interact with other kids and teachers, create, invent. But in this twisted time, young children starting public pre-K at the age of 4 are expected to learn through “rigorous instruction.”

And never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that we would have to defend children’s right to play.

Play is the primary engine of human growth; it’s universal – as much as walking and talking. Play is the way children build ideas and how they make sense of their experience and feel safe. Just look at all the math concepts at work in the intricate buildings of kindergartners. Or watch a 4-year-old put on a cape and pretend to be a superhero after witnessing some scary event.

But play is disappearing from classrooms. Even though we know play is learning for young kids, we are seeing it shoved aside to make room for academic instruction and “rigor.”

I could not have foreseen in my wildest dreams that we would have to fight for classrooms for young kids that are developmentally appropriate. Instead of active, hands-on learning, children now sit in chairs for far too much time getting drilled on letters and numbers. Stress levels are up among young kids. Parents and teachers tell me: children worry that they don’t know the right answers; they have nightmares, they pull out their eyelashes, they cry because they don’t want to go to school. Some people call this child abuse and I can’t disagree.

I could not have foreseen in my wildest dreams that we would be up against pressure to test and assess young kids throughout the year often in great excess — often administering multiple tests to children in kindergarten and even pre-K. Now, when young children start school, they often spend their first days not getting to know their classroom and making friends. They spend their first days getting tested. Here are words from one mother as this school year began:

“My daughter’s first day of kindergarten — her very first introduction to elementary school — consisted almost entirely of assessment. She was due at school at 9:30, and I picked her up at 11:45. In between, she was assessed by five different teachers, each a stranger, asking her to perform some task.

“By the time I picked her up, she did not want to talk about what she had done in school, but she did say that she did not want to go back. She did not know the teachers’ names. She did not make any friends. Later that afternoon, as she played with her animals in her room, I overheard her drilling them on their numbers and letters.”

The most important competencies in young children can’t be tested—we all know this. Naming letters and numbers is superficial and almost irrelevant in relation to the capacities we want to help children develop: self-regulation, problem solving ability, social and emotional competence, imagination, initiative, curiosity, original thinking — these capacities make or break success in school and life and they can’t be reduced to numbers.

Yet these days, all the money and resources, the time dedicated to professional development, they go to tooling teachers up to use the required assessments. Somehow the data gleaned from these tests is supposed to be more valid than a teacher’s own ability to observe children and understand their skills in the context of their whole development in the classroom.

The first time I saw for myself what was becoming of many of the nation’s early childhood classrooms was when I visited a program in a low-income community in north Miami. Most of the children were on free- and reduced-price lunch.

There were 10 classrooms – kindergarten and pre-K. The program’s funding depended on test scores, so — no surprise — teachers taught to the test. Kids who got low scores, I was told, got extra drills in reading and math and didn’t get to go to art. They used a computer program to teach 4- and 5-year-olds how to “bubble.” One teacher complained to me that some children go outside the lines.

In one of the kindergartens I visited, the walls were barren and so was the whole room. The teacher was testing one little boy at a computer at the side of the room. There was no classroom aide. The other children were sitting at tables copying words from the chalk board. The words were: “No talking. Sit in your seat. Hands to Yourself.”

The teacher kept shouting at them from her testing corner: Be quiet! No talking!

Most of the children looked scared or disengaged, and one little boy was sitting alone. He was quietly crying. I will never forget how these children looked or how it felt to watch them, I would say, suffering in this context that was such a profound mismatch with their needs.

It’s in low-income, under-resourced communities like this one where children are most subjected to heavy doses of teacher-led drills and tests. Not like in wealthier suburbs where kids have the opportunity to go to early childhood programs that have play, the arts, and project-based learning. It’s poverty — the elephant in the room — that is the root cause of this disparity.

A few months ago, I was alarmed to read a report from the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights showing that more than 8,000 children from public preschools across the country were suspended at least once in a school year, many more than once. First of all, who suspends a preschooler? Why and for what? The very concept is bizarre and awful. But 8,000? And then to keep reading the report to see that a disproportionate number of those suspended preschoolers were low income, black boys.

There is a connection, I know, between these suspensions and ed reform policies: Children in low-income communities are enduring play deficient classrooms where they get heavy doses of direct teaching and testing. They have to sit still, be quiet in their seats and comply. Many young children can’t do this and none should have to.

I came home from that visit to the classrooms in North Miami in despair. But fortunately, the despair turned quickly to organizing. With other educators we started our nonprofit Defending the Early Years. We have terrific early childhood leaders with us (some are here tonight: Deb Meier, Geralyn McLaughlin, Diane Levin and Ayla Gavins). We speak in a unified voice for young children.

We publish reports, write op eds, make videos and send them out on YouTube, we speak and do interviews every chance we get.

We’ve done it all on a shoestring. It’s almost comical: The Gates Foundation has spent more than $200 million just to promote the Common Core. Our budget at Defending the Early Years is .006 percent of that.

We collaborate with other organizations. FairTest has been so helpful to us. And we also collaborate with –Network for Public Education, United Opt Out, many parent groups, Citizens for Public Schools, Badass Teachers, Busted Pencils Radio, Save Our Schools, Alliance for Childhood and ECE PolicyWorks —There’s a powerful network out there – of educators, parents and students — and we see the difference we are making.

We all share a common vision: Education is a human right and every child deserves one. An excellent, free education where learning is meaningful – with arts, play, engaging projects, and the chance to learn citizenship skills so that children can one day participate — actively and consciously – in this increasingly fragile democracy. – Valerie Strauss covers education and runs The Answer Sheet blog.

[zipgrowth]

Tomorrow’s teachers are sitting in today’s classrooms. Is your district recruiting them?

The K–12 teacher shortage problem is two-fold.

We all know that teacher attrition rates have hovered at all-time highs for the past several years. And while new research and school-conducted exit surveys are giving us a better of idea of where teachers are going, school districts are still struggling to find the magic formula for boosting retention and increasing teacher recruitment.

But a potentially more serious threat to the future of teaching is the dramatic drop in college students who are pursuing education degrees. Enrollment in teacher prep programs has dropped by more than 40 percent since 2010, according to The Tampa Bay Times.

“There’s so much competition now for the hearts and minds of young people,” Dr. Gerald Dawkins, a former superintendent in Louisiana and Michigan, told us back in February. “We have to show them what the rewards and benefits are to becoming an educator, beyond just compensation.”

But this recruitment can’t start in college, Dawkins says. It should start much earlier—as early as middle school. Instead of waiting and hoping for talent to appear, K–12 school districts should be cultivating that talent among the students in their classrooms, he says.

Many districts already are.

Denton ISD looks for tomorrow’s teachers in today’s students

Denton (Texas) Independent School District’s Teach Denton campaign aims to “create a talent pool that offers career opportunities for Denton students who exhibit natural talents and traits.”

The program targets every grade level in the district—from kindergarten to 12th grade. It encourages staff members to identify students who would make good teachers. Those students are then paired with mentors and provided education and training classes in the district’s Advanced Technology Center. The mentors also help students with the college application process. And students who seek teaching positions in the district after graduating college are given priority hiring status.

For more teacher recruitment ideas, sign up for the TrustED newsletter.

// <![CDATA[ MktoForms2.loadForm("//app-ab20.marketo.com", "951-FKM-381", 1249); // ]]>

If kindergarten sounds a bit too young to be recruiting teachers, check out the video below about “Mr. Flowers,” a Denton ISD 6-year-old kindergartener who signed a letter of intent to teach at the district when he graduates college.

“Mr. Flowers is showing that desire to be a teacher and impact the future,” says Tracy Johnson, Denton ISD’s human resources coordinator. “When we see 6-year-olds in kindergarten that exhibit a desire and a passion for teaching and really making an impact on students such as themselves, we want to foster that.”

Missouri encourages districts to “grow your own” teachers

When you can’t find enough quality teachers, grow them. That’s the strategy proposed by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in a resource guide released last year for K-12 school districts.

Like Denton, Missouri’s “grow your own” approach encourages districts to target students at all levels—whether it’s through elementary career day presentations, middle school shadow-a-teacher days, or high school career fairs.

The guide also recommends that districts “cultivate authentic early learning experiences” in middle school and high school for potential teachers. That includes establishing education-oriented clubs, hosting college fairs, and identifying and supporting potential teacher candidates by offering education-related electives.

Missouri officials hope the strategy will not only boost the number of teachers in the state, but also will encourage more diversity and equity in Missouri’s classrooms.

New educators rise in Delaware

As a freshman interested in teaching at Smyrna High School in Smyrna, Delaware, Michael Shaner joined the Future Educators Association (FEA) to learn more about the profession with his teachers and fellow students.

As Shaner tells Mind/Shift, joining that club, which has since changed its name to Educators Rising, “is the reason I am a teacher. It allowed me to fall in love with what I wanted to do and be sure that’s what it was.”

Shaner is now not only a teacher, but also an Educators Rising advisor at his alma mater.

The goal of the Educators Rising program is to give K–12 students across the country who are interested in teaching an immersive introduction to the profession. Shaner starts by teaching the history and philosophy behind teaching. Students then learn practical skills like how to write lesson plans and implement Individualized Education Programs (IEP). As seniors, students can observe and work in district classrooms—and eventually lead a class of their own.

Recently, Educators Rising introduced micro-credentials, which students can earn to prove their competency in specific skill sets.

“When they go to college they are so far ahead of the game that they are able to excel and dig deeper,” Shaner says. The hope is that students who are better equipped for teacher development programs in college will also be better equipped when they enter the classroom.

How is your school or district working to inspire a new generation of teachers? Do you have programs in place for teacher recruitment? Tell us in the comments.

The post Tomorrow’s teachers are sitting in today’s classrooms. Is your district recruiting them? appeared first on Trusted.

Tomorrow’s teachers are sitting in today’s classrooms. Is your district recruiting them? published first on http://ift.tt/2x05DG9

[zipgrowth]

Tomorrow’s teachers are sitting in today’s classrooms. Is your district recruiting them?

The K–12 teacher shortage problem is two-fold.

We all know that teacher attrition rates have hovered at all-time highs for the past several years. And while new research and school-conducted exit surveys are giving us a better of idea of where teachers are going, school districts are still struggling to find the magic formula for boosting retention and increasing teacher recruitment.

But a potentially more serious threat to the future of teaching is the dramatic drop in college students who are pursuing education degrees. Enrollment in teacher prep programs has dropped by more than 40 percent since 2010, according to The Tampa Bay Times.

“There’s so much competition now for the hearts and minds of young people,” Dr. Gerald Dawkins, a former superintendent in Louisiana and Michigan, told us back in February. “We have to show them what the rewards and benefits are to becoming an educator, beyond just compensation.”

But this recruitment can’t start in college, Dawkins says. It should start much earlier—as early as middle school. Instead of waiting and hoping for talent to appear, K–12 school districts should be cultivating that talent among the students in their classrooms, he says.

Many districts already are.

Denton ISD looks for tomorrow’s teachers in today’s students

Denton (Texas) Independent School District’s Teach Denton campaign aims to “create a talent pool that offers career opportunities for Denton students who exhibit natural talents and traits.”

The program targets every grade level in the district—from kindergarten to 12th grade. It encourages staff members to identify students who would make good teachers. Those students are then paired with mentors and provided education and training classes in the district’s Advanced Technology Center. The mentors also help students with the college application process. And students who seek teaching positions in the district after graduating college are given priority hiring status.

For more teacher recruitment ideas, sign up for the TrustED newsletter.

// <![CDATA[ MktoForms2.loadForm("//app-ab20.marketo.com", "951-FKM-381", 1249); // ]]>

If kindergarten sounds a bit too young to be recruiting teachers, check out the video below about “Mr. Flowers,” a Denton ISD 6-year-old kindergartener who signed a letter of intent to teach at the district when he graduates college.

“Mr. Flowers is showing that desire to be a teacher and impact the future,” says Tracy Johnson, Denton ISD’s human resources coordinator. “When we see 6-year-olds in kindergarten that exhibit a desire and a passion for teaching and really making an impact on students such as themselves, we want to foster that.”

Missouri encourages districts to “grow your own” teachers

When you can’t find enough quality teachers, grow them. That’s the strategy proposed by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in a resource guide released last year for K-12 school districts.

Like Denton, Missouri’s “grow your own” approach encourages districts to target students at all levels—whether it’s through elementary career day presentations, middle school shadow-a-teacher days, or high school career fairs.

The guide also recommends that districts “cultivate authentic early learning experiences” in middle school and high school for potential teachers. That includes establishing education-oriented clubs, hosting college fairs, and identifying and supporting potential teacher candidates by offering education-related electives.

Missouri officials hope the strategy will not only boost the number of teachers in the state, but also will encourage more diversity and equity in Missouri’s classrooms.

New educators rise in Delaware

As a freshman interested in teaching at Smyrna High School in Smyrna, Delaware, Michael Shaner joined the Future Educators Association (FEA) to learn more about the profession with his teachers and fellow students.

As Shaner tells Mind/Shift, joining that club, which has since changed its name to Educators Rising, “is the reason I am a teacher. It allowed me to fall in love with what I wanted to do and be sure that’s what it was.”

Shaner is now not only a teacher, but also an Educators Rising advisor at his alma mater.

The goal of the Educators Rising program is to give K–12 students across the country who are interested in teaching an immersive introduction to the profession. Shaner starts by teaching the history and philosophy behind teaching. Students then learn practical skills like how to write lesson plans and implement Individualized Education Programs (IEP). As seniors, students can observe and work in district classrooms—and eventually lead a class of their own.

Recently, Educators Rising introduced micro-credentials, which students can earn to prove their competency in specific skill sets.

“When they go to college they are so far ahead of the game that they are able to excel and dig deeper,” Shaner says. The hope is that students who are better equipped for teacher development programs in college will also be better equipped when they enter the classroom.

How is your school or district working to inspire a new generation of teachers? Do you have programs in place for teacher recruitment? Tell us in the comments.

The post Tomorrow’s teachers are sitting in today’s classrooms. Is your district recruiting them? appeared first on Trusted.

Tomorrow’s teachers are sitting in today’s classrooms. Is your district recruiting them? published first on http://ift.tt/2x05DG9

[zipgrowth]

Tomorrow’s teachers are sitting in today’s classrooms. Is your district recruiting them?

The K–12 teacher shortage problem is two-fold.

We all know that teacher attrition rates have hovered at all-time highs for the past several years. And while new research and school-conducted exit surveys are giving us a better of idea of where teachers are going, school districts are still struggling to find the magic formula for boosting retention and increasing teacher recruitment.

But a potentially more serious threat to the future of teaching is the dramatic drop in college students who are pursuing education degrees. Enrollment in teacher prep programs has dropped by more than 40 percent since 2010, according to The Tampa Bay Times.

“There’s so much competition now for the hearts and minds of young people,” Dr. Gerald Dawkins, a former superintendent in Louisiana and Michigan, told us back in February. “We have to show them what the rewards and benefits are to becoming an educator, beyond just compensation.”

But this recruitment can’t start in college, Dawkins says. It should start much earlier—as early as middle school. Instead of waiting and hoping for talent to appear, K–12 school districts should be cultivating that talent among the students in their classrooms, he says.

Many districts already are.

Denton ISD looks for tomorrow’s teachers in today’s students

Denton (Texas) Independent School District’s Teach Denton campaign aims to “create a talent pool that offers career opportunities for Denton students who exhibit natural talents and traits.”

The program targets every grade level in the district—from kindergarten to 12th grade. It encourages staff members to identify students who would make good teachers. Those students are then paired with mentors and provided education and training classes in the district’s Advanced Technology Center. The mentors also help students with the college application process. And students who seek teaching positions in the district after graduating college are given priority hiring status.

For more teacher recruitment ideas, sign up for the TrustED newsletter.

// <![CDATA[ MktoForms2.loadForm("//app-ab20.marketo.com", "951-FKM-381", 1249); // ]]>

If kindergarten sounds a bit too young to be recruiting teachers, check out the video below about “Mr. Flowers,” a Denton ISD 6-year-old kindergartener who signed a letter of intent to teach at the district when he graduates college.

“Mr. Flowers is showing that desire to be a teacher and impact the future,” says Tracy Johnson, Denton ISD’s human resources coordinator. “When we see 6-year-olds in kindergarten that exhibit a desire and a passion for teaching and really making an impact on students such as themselves, we want to foster that.”

Missouri encourages districts to “grow your own” teachers

When you can’t find enough quality teachers, grow them. That’s the strategy proposed by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in a resource guide released last year for K-12 school districts.

Like Denton, Missouri’s “grow your own” approach encourages districts to target students at all levels—whether it’s through elementary career day presentations, middle school shadow-a-teacher days, or high school career fairs.

The guide also recommends that districts “cultivate authentic early learning experiences” in middle school and high school for potential teachers. That includes establishing education-oriented clubs, hosting college fairs, and identifying and supporting potential teacher candidates by offering education-related electives.

Missouri officials hope the strategy will not only boost the number of teachers in the state, but also will encourage more diversity and equity in Missouri’s classrooms.

New educators rise in Delaware

As a freshman interested in teaching at Smyrna High School in Smyrna, Delaware, Michael Shaner joined the Future Educators Association (FEA) to learn more about the profession with his teachers and fellow students.

As Shaner tells Mind/Shift, joining that club, which has since changed its name to Educators Rising, “is the reason I am a teacher. It allowed me to fall in love with what I wanted to do and be sure that’s what it was.”

Shaner is now not only a teacher, but also an Educators Rising advisor at his alma mater.

The goal of the Educators Rising program is to give K–12 students across the country who are interested in teaching an immersive introduction to the profession. Shaner starts by teaching the history and philosophy behind teaching. Students then learn practical skills like how to write lesson plans and implement Individualized Education Programs (IEP). As seniors, students can observe and work in district classrooms—and eventually lead a class of their own.

Recently, Educators Rising introduced micro-credentials, which students can earn to prove their competency in specific skill sets.

“When they go to college they are so far ahead of the game that they are able to excel and dig deeper,” Shaner says. The hope is that students who are better equipped for teacher development programs in college will also be better equipped when they enter the classroom.

How is your school or district working to inspire a new generation of teachers? Do you have programs in place for teacher recruitment? Tell us in the comments.

The post Tomorrow’s teachers are sitting in today’s classrooms. Is your district recruiting them? appeared first on Trusted.

Tomorrow’s teachers are sitting in today’s classrooms. Is your district recruiting them? published first on http://ift.tt/2x05DG9

[zipgrowth]

Tomorrow’s teachers are sitting in today’s classrooms. Is your district recruiting them?

The K–12 teacher shortage problem is two-fold.

We all know that teacher attrition rates have hovered at all-time highs for the past several years. And while new research and school-conducted exit surveys are giving us a better of idea of where teachers are going, school districts are still struggling to find the magic formula for boosting retention and increasing teacher recruitment.

But a potentially more serious threat to the future of teaching is the dramatic drop in college students who are pursuing education degrees. Enrollment in teacher prep programs has dropped by more than 40 percent since 2010, according to The Tampa Bay Times.

“There’s so much competition now for the hearts and minds of young people,” Dr. Gerald Dawkins, a former superintendent in Louisiana and Michigan, told us back in February. “We have to show them what the rewards and benefits are to becoming an educator, beyond just compensation.”

But this recruitment can’t start in college, Dawkins says. It should start much earlier—as early as middle school. Instead of waiting and hoping for talent to appear, K–12 school districts should be cultivating that talent among the students in their classrooms, he says.

Many districts already are.

Denton ISD looks for tomorrow’s teachers in today’s students

Denton (Texas) Independent School District’s Teach Denton campaign aims to “create a talent pool that offers career opportunities for Denton students who exhibit natural talents and traits.”

The program targets every grade level in the district—from kindergarten to 12th grade. It encourages staff members to identify students who would make good teachers. Those students are then paired with mentors and provided education and training classes in the district’s Advanced Technology Center. The mentors also help students with the college application process. And students who seek teaching positions in the district after graduating college are given priority hiring status.

For more teacher recruitment ideas, sign up for the TrustED newsletter.

// <![CDATA[ MktoForms2.loadForm("//app-ab20.marketo.com", "951-FKM-381", 1249); // ]]>

If kindergarten sounds a bit too young to be recruiting teachers, check out the video below about “Mr. Flowers,” a Denton ISD 6-year-old kindergartener who signed a letter of intent to teach at the district when he graduates college.

“Mr. Flowers is showing that desire to be a teacher and impact the future,” says Tracy Johnson, Denton ISD’s human resources coordinator. “When we see 6-year-olds in kindergarten that exhibit a desire and a passion for teaching and really making an impact on students such as themselves, we want to foster that.”

Missouri encourages districts to “grow your own” teachers

When you can’t find enough quality teachers, grow them. That’s the strategy proposed by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in a resource guide released last year for K-12 school districts.

Like Denton, Missouri’s “grow your own” approach encourages districts to target students at all levels—whether it’s through elementary career day presentations, middle school shadow-a-teacher days, or high school career fairs.

The guide also recommends that districts “cultivate authentic early learning experiences” in middle school and high school for potential teachers. That includes establishing education-oriented clubs, hosting college fairs, and identifying and supporting potential teacher candidates by offering education-related electives.

Missouri officials hope the strategy will not only boost the number of teachers in the state, but also will encourage more diversity and equity in Missouri’s classrooms.

New educators rise in Delaware

As a freshman interested in teaching at Smyrna High School in Smyrna, Delaware, Michael Shaner joined the Future Educators Association (FEA) to learn more about the profession with his teachers and fellow students.

As Shaner tells Mind/Shift, joining that club, which has since changed its name to Educators Rising, “is the reason I am a teacher. It allowed me to fall in love with what I wanted to do and be sure that’s what it was.”

Shaner is now not only a teacher, but also an Educators Rising advisor at his alma mater.

The goal of the Educators Rising program is to give K–12 students across the country who are interested in teaching an immersive introduction to the profession. Shaner starts by teaching the history and philosophy behind teaching. Students then learn practical skills like how to write lesson plans and implement Individualized Education Programs (IEP). As seniors, students can observe and work in district classrooms—and eventually lead a class of their own.

Recently, Educators Rising introduced micro-credentials, which students can earn to prove their competency in specific skill sets.

“When they go to college they are so far ahead of the game that they are able to excel and dig deeper,” Shaner says. The hope is that students who are better equipped for teacher development programs in college will also be better equipped when they enter the classroom.

How is your school or district working to inspire a new generation of teachers? Do you have programs in place for teacher recruitment? Tell us in the comments.

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