Navigation

Homepage

Documents

Papers

Research

Friends

An Education Better than School™

This paper was originally submitted as an interview pape for ENGL-134: Composition with Barbara Morningstar during Fall Quarter 2005.

Money may make the world go around, but it certainly does not buy everything.  Take education as an example.  Does money guarantee that our children will grow up to be successful individuals?  Every year I watch our local families open up their checkbooks to pay tens of thousands of dollars to private educational institutions.  Contrary to these parents’ thoughts, the programs, services, and accountability of public schools surpass those available at many private schools.  Why don’t voters worry less about measures that are insignificant and put more pressure on our leaders to regulate private schools?  Dr. Janine Jellander Ed.D., Assistant Principal of Activities and Technology at Agoura High School, a public school in Agoura Hills, California is an outstanding individual who ensures that public school education is equal to or superior to private school education.  She believes in analyzing where there are student needs and filling them, and that “the value of education is not equated with a dollar sign.”  Jellander, a thriving graduate of USC for all three of her collegiate degrees, attributes her success and philosophy to her mom’s inspiration and influence on her as she grew up.  Jellander’s mom, also a public school administrator was a major reason Jellander decided to choose the profession.

When Jellander began her current job at Agoura High School, she wasted no time in tackling one of the school’s major issues--its lack of organizational trust.  Building on her philosophy of catering a school’s academic and co-curricular programs to the needs of students, Jellander demanded that communication lines be opened between administrators and teachers and between parents and students.  I know that I was one of the students that her open interactions touched.  As the school’s webmaster, I have worked directly under Jellander for the past three years and have had the opportunity to see her philosophies in action.  As Jellander got to know me, she saw my skills as a web designer and recognized my weakness as a writer.  Carefully editing, proofreading, and checking my longer posts to the website, Jellander made sure that I left Agoura High School with a broader vocabulary and a more dynamic writing style.  Jellander also has put much work into her new program, Bridging the Gap.  This program, which Jellander conducts on her own time after school, consists of a series of seminars for parents, facilitated by counselors and teachers.  In these group discussions, parents learn how to better communicate with their teens about different issues.  It is programs such as Bridging the Gap that have allowed her to identify crucial student needs in order to work on improving the quality of the school’s education.

Jellander’s success can be measured not only by the quality of students that she graduates but also by the awards and appreciation bestowed upon her by the people she has touched and those that have seen what a positive influence she has brought to the public school system.  Most notably, Jellander was honored with the “Sallie Mae First Class Teacher Award” in 1999, an award given yearly to a first-year teacher.  Picked out of a national applicant pool of over 1,400 applicants, Jellander was honored with the award, a $1,500 scholarship, and expenses-paid trip to Washington D.C.  After receiving the award, Jellander reminded students in an article on USC’s website that “no matter your failures in high school, you can become a success.  It just takes effort and determination” (www.usc.edu).  Jellander is a prime example of her own message.  She did not achieve the echelon of academic achievement in high school that she did later in her collegiate career.  Due to her low grades in High School, below a 3.0, Jellander was not accepted to USC straight out of high school.  Instead she attended the University of Northern Colorado.  After the death of her twin brother, who was accepted to USC, Jellander realized that she “wanted what he [had] wanted” (www.usc.edu) and reformed her study habits.  In 1994 she was accepted as a transfer student to the USC Rossier School of Education where she graduated with Summa Cum Laude honors.  Jellander’s cheerful attitude, dedicated work-ethic, and strong commitment to ensuring student success have led her to inspire thousands of students towards “finding their own success,” and she will continue to inspire thousands more throughout her career in the public school system. 

Dr. Jellander knows that it takes much more then just open communication to create a successful educational institution.  She believes that public schools, such as Agoura High School, are commonly superior to private schools which are sometimes run with loose organization and little regulation.  For instance, private schools are not held accountable to any curriculum standards.  This encourages them to focus their curriculum towards honors and Advanced Placement programs, leaving other parts of the education missing.  Private schools are also free to hire anyone to serve as an instructor.  Public schools eliminate this problem as their teachers must complete an undergraduate education and attain a teaching credential.  Although there is no way to guarantee the quality of a teacher, someone who as completed five years of school is more likely to have self motivation for the job.   Additionally, many private schools do not offer tenure or retirement benefits that attract teachers to public school jobs.  Jellander believes that these factors detract quality teachers from private schools.  Without teachers that are capable of adequately communicating information to students and assessing their needs, a school cannot do the best possible job.

Another way Jellander helps to produce quality individuals is through her emphasis of the balance between academic education, life skills, fun, and most importantly empowering students with the tools they will need to achieve their life goals.  While many private institutions are able to boast the same test scores as Agoura High School does, Jellander, along with her team of staff ensures that Agoura High is able to be proud of more then just that.  Agoura High School provides numerous athletic teams, performing arts groups, a vast assortment of clubs, job shadowing, career counseling and other outlets for students to explore some of the goals they have for their future.  She believes that this variety of ways for students “to find their own success” is precisely what makes her programs so successful.  As she says, “students are whole puzzles not just pieces and you need to let them discover how to put them together.”

Along those same lines, Jellander and I agree that parents should be cautioned when choosing a school for their child.  During your search, private schools will be sure to throw many statistics your way.  I want to caution parents to only consider the statistics which tell something meaningful about the school.  The passing rate, for instance, may make a school sound glorious, but does that mean the school’s classes are too easy?  Does that tell a parent anything about their child’s future?  Parents should be putting more emphasis on statistics such as the number of students that get a job or go to college after graduation.  I hope that you, the reader, will evaluate educational choices more closely before choosing a school for you or your child to attend.

Works Cited