5 pages

The no-homework experiment

Susan Ohanian Notes:


A three-year-old school in 
Coconut Grove wants students to pursue after- 
school passions in the arts and athletics, so 
no homework is the rule. That's the good news. 
The sad part is that a family has to be able to 
afford from $11,000 to $13,000 a year to 
protect a child from homework. The school uses 
curriculum designed for independent study and 
popular with some homeschoolers-- Calvert and 
Keystone. 

By Risa Berrin 

When the school days ends, 10th-grader Claudia 
Tomas usually leaves all of her books at 
school. At MCA Academy, a small private school 
in Coconut Grove, there is a "virtual no 
homework" policy. 

The school's founder, Brigitte Kishlar, 
believes that by eliminating homework and 
ending the school day at 2 p.m., students will 
have time to develop other skills, such as arts 
and athletics. 

"During these years, they can discover so many 
things," said Kishlar, who opened the school in 
the fall of 2006. "I wish every child to one 
day discover a passion." 

For Claudia, free afternoons mean she now has 
time to practice piano. She hopes to be a 
professional pianist when she is older. 

"Before, I didn't have time for my [piano] 
studies. Too much homework," said, Claudia, 14, 
who lives in Hialeah. 

As the director of the Miami Conservatory of 
Music, Brigitte Kishlar saw first-hand the toll 
that traditional schools were having on Claudia 
and the conservatory's 200 other student 
musicians. 

"I met everyday so many parents coming in with 
all these students swamped with homework -- not 
kids anymore," she said. 



STARTING OUT 

So Kishlar decided to create a school where 
students could meet the challenges of a core 
curriculum and excel in their respective extra- 
curricular activities. Now in its third 
academic year, the school has 20 students in 
kindergarten through 12th grade. 

Tuition ranges from $11,000 to $13,000 per 
year, depending on the grade. Students are 
accepted based on an application, interview and 
entrance exam. MCA is in the process of 
applying for accreditation. 

"Just because we don't have homework doesn't 
mean we don't work hard in class," Claudia 
said. "We have benchmarks and the same kind of 
assignments as public school." 

Principal Scott Crumpler describes MCA as "a 
home school, but not your mom and dad." 

While there is a core curriculum for each 
grade, each student can advance through the 
material at his or her own pace. 

"It's a group of students sitting around the 
table while the tutoring is going on," he said. 
"You don't have to keep up with the rest of the 
class." 

Lara Jonasson, a teacher at MCA, loves that the 
school provides students with individual 
attention. 

"I have the time and the ability to focus and 
work with them one-on-one," she said. "The 
other kids, they go to town. They work super-independently." 



SELF-MOTIVATED 

Konasson says the students feel more relaxed 
without the pressure of hours of homework. 

"After awhile, the kids ask for homework," 
Jonasson said. 'It inspires this go-get 
attitude. They think, `If I take it home, I can 
do more and meet my benchmark.'" 

Nathalie Kanzky did not want to homeschool her 
daughter, Athena Trouillot, an aspiring tennis 
professional. Kanzky was looking for 
alternatives when she discovered MCA. 

"I wanted her to be at the same competitive 
level as her peers," said Kanzky, who lives in 
South Miami-Dade. "I was looking for a 
nontraditional setting, but I did not want to 
give up on good education principles." 

At her previous public school, Trouillot was 
always behind in her work because of frequent 
absences when she was away at tennis 
competitions. 

"School, coupled with my daughter's tennis, put 
her under a lot of stress," Kanzky said. "It 
took a lot of work, a lot of late nights. She 
was losing her enthusiasm for learning." 

Camille Wagner, a 9th-grader, says she, too, 
had lost enthusiasm for learning before she 
came to MCA. 

Now, Wagner, 13, says the homework policy gives 
her time to explore her hobbies and passions. 

"It makes me feel very good because I really 
like fashion," said Wagner, who lives in Key 
Biscayne. "This school gives me some more time 
to work with that." 

Crumpler says he recognizes that there are 
trade-offs at MCA. The school is missing many 
of the fundamentals of conventional schools. 
MCA does not have traditional electives other 
than foreign language classes. There are no 
health and physical education classes nor 
school-based clubs. The physical space at MCA 
is small. There are only a few classrooms and a 
common administrative area. 

While the intimacy of the academic environment 
is great for some students, Crumpler admits 
that the school isn't for everyone. 

"It takes a pretty special student. It can be 
very distracting," he said. "You have to be 
focused on your work."

— Risa Berrin
Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/education/story/756176.html