Rainbow Primary School

Kalpana Madam just wrote in describing the fun at the school on Children's Day. Here is her report: ***** From 8.45 to 10am all the children were in their classrooms having fun with their respective class teacher. Then they all assembled down and the program started at about 11am. Debate 4th class topic- Nehru(as november 14th, his b'day is celebrated as childrens day). There were 5 participants. Debate 5th class topic-polution. there were 6 participants from rainbow plus 3 from other schools. This was followed by singing and dancing. After that it was drama. 3rd class did a great show, Lion and the rabbit/ the clever rabbit. It was all a great effort from Gowri and sujatha.They had made animal masks for each animal. The play was simple, with only masks and no other costumes, but it was a very good show. 2nd class also did a great show. The play was 'bottle gourd wedding'. About 12to 13 kids showed up, each with a vegetable mask. The bride was the bottle gourd, groo

While all is very well at the Rainbow School, I'll pause to highlight a "sister organization" supporting budget private schools in India. Gray Matters Capital and the Rockdale Foundation have an annual symposium in Hyderabad, called "Enterprising Schools." Buddies of mine from here in Palo Alto, the Hewlett Foundation and IDEO, are heading out there next week. More info is on www.enterprisingschools.com My IDEO fellas organized a whole list of very low-cost teaching aide ideas to present at the symposium. Ideas like using old newpapers to teach literacy. They put the list up on the website under "STEAL THIS IDEA" - click here for the list! (in pdf form) BEST WISHES for a successful symposium, I miss you all in Hyderabad!

The government official for the Rainbow School is the Mandal Education Officer, the MEO. He has dozens of schools, the most populated part of our district which has 1 million students total (big district!). His name is Jagan Mohan Chary. He is the most wonderful man. You can see him here, standing, in the white shirt. Other than my work with the Rainbow School, my focus is how to support public servants like Chary. But I want to do this throughout the world. There are almost 5 billion mobile phones in the world, and I hope to use SMS to reach the millions phones in the hands of public servants who seek to do good. More more on this kind of work, check out Mobile Active: http://mobileactive.org/ I miss you Chary!

Another Challenge: The State government decided that all teachers (junior teachers, too) had to pass 10th grade exams. It is very hard to find young men and women to work in a school in a slum who have passed 10th. We can find teachers who are training to pass 10th. Most of the Rainbow School teachers are training right now to take their 10th exams. But until they have a 10th pass certificate, no government salary support. No government salary support = big budget problem for the Rainbow School. (For an example of the difficulty of this exam click here .) The Good News: Our Kalpana and Vijaya Madams will try to get an exception to the rule by appealing to the MEO. And we found a temporary solution with a private donor. But it will only be for the rest of the school year. Other news: 1. We will send pictures later, but the veranda classrooms will have reinforced rain/sun shielding by the next month thanks to some American donors. 2. A lovely donation was made via Rangoo Madam:

Rangoo Madam, our volunteer, just took the ladies and gentleman out for a nice, leisurely lunch. THANK YOU! Great way to start the school year.

The Rainbow School could not exist without the partners. These non-profit and government organizations do everything from deliver the mid-day meal to sponsor extra teachers. We are only successful with our rugged, go-to partners. We can not go it alone. Today, I want to write about Manmohan Jain and the India Literacy Project (ILP). The ILP is a volunteer group of corporate employees from all around the Hy-Tech city area. Manmohan does a fantastic job, with his staff coordinator, making sure each government school gets at least one visit each week from the ILP volunteers. They have worked at the Rainbow School since 2007, one of our longest partnerships. They provide help with scholarships, stock and help with the library, and provide mentoring alongside their usual "teach-ins." When volunteers come to teach, they use big books made from huge posterboards. The children can read along even from the back of the room. This method, developed at the Columbia Teacher's

School reopens June 14. It is almost time to welcome back the students! Unfortunately, our teachers were pulled for Census Duty. Can you imagine how hot and tiring it is to take a census in 115 degree (f) heat? They will need to have an easy first week to recharge.

Again and again, I look at the picture of the teachers in our last meeting in the huts. They are amazing. I took a video for the record of how the teachers were expressing their ideas and needs to the headmistress. Here it is...

Our partner, Kalpana, reports exams are over. This year, the Rainbow School won "A" grade for student performance up from "B" grade in 2009. CONGRATULATIONS TEAM!! HUGE WIN! This means that the team is providing high quality teaching in a very sustainable way. Congratulations teachers! Congratulations Vijaya Madam! And thanks to all the partners, the Rainbow School is very lucky to have wonderful, wonderful partner organizations like WIM, Lion's Club, and the Naandi Foundation. Here are some of the students, taking part of their exams in the courtyard, back in 2009. Next steps: Compete with the local budget private schools, win best government primary school in the state, and English + Telugu instruction

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1TH824/www.good.is/post/12-year-old-girl-runs-make-shift-school-for-village-children1/ What an inspiration: "As an infant, Bharti Kumari was abandoned at a railway station in Bihar, one of India’s poorest states. Now, at the age of 12, she has become the head teacher at a school in Kusumbhara, her adopted village. Every morning and evening, under the shade of a mango tree, she teaches Hindi, English and maths to 50 village children who would otherwise receive no education. In between, she attends a state school in Akhodhi Gola, a two-mile walk away. Dressed proudly in her school uniform, she passes on the knowledge gleaned from her lessons to the village children, aged between four and 10, in her own class. “I have a long day. My school is from 10am to 3pm and I study late,” she said. “This is what I love doing. I enjoy teaching children their ABCs as well as the Hindi alphabets.” Kusumbhara is a poverty-stricken village 87 miles from Patna, the state

OK, look at the lady in the coral farthest from the camera...squint and try again? That is Rangoo Madam, our new volunteer. She found room at the Google Hyderabad office and pulled in our teachers for English class. But an English class with awesome technology! Here she is again, this time you can see her. Look at the happy teachers! This will help with teacher retaining, plus help us move towards the goal of English Medium (in part) at the Rainbow School. THANK YOU RANGOO!

I'm getting a lot of new emails from my teachers, thanks to a partnership with some Googlers in the Hyderabad office. The teachers are now going to computer classes every Sunday. THANK YOU GOOGLERS! Here are some of the emails: Ashok Teacher, 5th Standard, March 28, 2010 "Hello madam how ru how ist your family ,Roy sir, your daughtr how ist .she what are doing and how ist health so we are all fine and we learn english,and computer with Rangoo madam she is every week come and take class so we are happy.we continue computer class .ok by madam" [Rangoo Madam is our brilliant new volunteer, more on her on the next post (she finally got me to use Google WAVE). She is the mother of an outstanding young woman who works at Google in Hyderabad.] Sunitha, Preschool Teacher, March 20, 2010 "Hai madam. How are you. how is your family Iam pre-class teacher sunitha. My class is good . class total students 32 numbers .We are miss you I am pass 10th class. Degree also

This kid was in a fifth standard class in a government school, but when called in court to write his name... HE COULDN'T DO IT! We need schools that DELIVER quality education. "Class-V student fails to write his name, Court summons school" Updated on Saturday, February 20, 2010, 15:42 IST ourt here as witness in the murder case of his father, little did he know that his educational backwardness would be exposed in public. Though he was a class V student of Khalibagicha government UP School here, Bikash could not write his name when asked to do so by the court on Wednesday last and had to put his LTI (left thumb impression) instead. The judge took cognisance of the situation seriously and summoned the school authorities seeking details on how the boy could be promoted to class-V though he failed to write his name. Bikash had appeared as prosecution witness before the additional sessions judge, Boudh, B Kar as an eyewitness to the murder of his father last year. After e

Our 2009 annual report is available! See it on line, click on this link: http://www.box.net/shared/96el98hr2v or email leighanne@gmail.com You can see pictures from the report on the slideshow overhead, we have such LOVELY students, wonderful faculty, and so many energetic, go-to, rugged partners! Highlights for 2009 2007, 2008, 2009: Top Government Primary School in Hy-Tech Area 300 Students 10 Teachers, one with a university degree, four more enrolled in university classes 1 Headmistress, university degree, 10 years experience 3 Staff members, we have the cleanest government school buildings you will ever see 2 Buildings, 6 classrooms in the main building (which also has electricity), 2 in the other building. “B” average for nearly all the standards on Central Government Tests in 2009, “A” for fifth standard. A strong preschool program for 2 to 5 year olds. 70%+ funded by the Government of India! ***** Goals for The Rainbow School Create a child-centered school for 500 slum child

There is a lot of political turmoil following the December 9 Central Government announcement to support the separation of Andhra Pradesh into two states, AP and Telangana. More is here, check it out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telangana

Report Card Grade: B! Using the Central Government exam for primary school students, the average grade for most Rainbow School classes are B for the permanent students (and 10% earning A grades), and C for transient students. Last year, on the old state exam, most of the classes earned A grades. But an A on the old exam would earn a C on the new exam. B grades on the new exam are actually an indication of improved student learning. Raising the standards with more challenging exams has helped the school. Transient students make up about one quarter new students: every few months some families migrate in and out for work. I expected lower grades from the transient students, I’m not sure what is going on here but will investigate. (i.e.: Are the other schools they migrate in an out of showing signs of effective teaching?) Last night, I talked to Vijaya Madam, the headmistress. She reports that the next quarter exams are in April and the teachers are working hard so that more student

Our mid-day meal at the Rainbow School is made in a central kitchen and then delivered to the school by the extremely competent and experienced folks at the Naandi Foundation, our main NGO partner. This meal is engineered and fortified to provide an entire day of nutrition for a child. I noticed that new students look substantially different after one week of mid-day meals at the school. They have shining eyes and they are full of bouncy energy. And I noticed in past years that after school holidays - like during the last week - all the children look drawn and tired. They do not get enough food at home. It makes me happy to know the mid-day meal was there for them this week when school started again. A few days ago, one of the trucks from the Naandi Foundation's mid-day meal program was attacked as part of a larger outbreak of political violence. This is an example of the type of random events that threaten support structures for schools in the developing world. This artic