This weekend some friends were at our house and I overheard a conversation between two 30-somethings and my daughter, age 5. It went a little like this: Them: "How's kindergarten?" My daughter: "Hard." Naturally we all turned and looked at my 5-year-old and recounted how awesome kindergarten was, for us. She later explained that kindergarten is way harder than pre-school because she has a schedule and she has to do things like math, writing, and other things -- on a schedule. Clearly it was the schedule that was getting to her, but it reminded me that my own kindergarten experience was much, much different. I was eating paste and trying to learn how to tie my shoes. Maybe learning the pledge of allegiance, unless that came in first grade.

Then I had a conversation with a 15-year-old in our neighborhood, who goes to a school that it's quite possible my own kids will attend, and now I'm totally freaking out.

If you got a letter home next week from your kid's school, asking you to rate their teacher, how do you think you'd vote? Would it change if you knew that the school would use your answer when it came time to cut the teacher's paycheck? A movement in Idaho to let parents have a role in determining how educators are paid sounds like a great idea in theory.

Pay-for-performance is starting to take off all over the nation, with educators being expected to accept that their bonuses will be based on kids' test scores. Getting parents to weigh in too sounds like a great idea; we want a say! So why am I hoping the idea doesn't catch on in my neighborhood?

Ah, the comment box. Between the three blogs I contribute to, I always get a heap of input — sometimes heated backlash — about the stuff I post. I dish it, so of course I can take it. One post sticks out in my mind. A reader couldn’t focus on the point I was trying to make in my writing for being distracted by the way I was writing it. My language choice was stereotypical and offensive to my people, she balked.

I blog exactly how I talk in real-life conversation, much to the chagrin of that commenter and others who’ve corrected my grammar, apparently. It’s not that I don’t know the straight-laced, more formal way of expressing my thoughts — I have a degree in English (gasp!) and I’m a writer and editor by trade. But Ebonics is the way my family and plenty other black folks talk. It’s familiar and comfortable. That’s why I think it’s appropriate not only for blogging, but teaching black students. 

The size of my attention span, give or takeLast year, I went into one parent-teacher conference expecting to leave feeling completely bummed. It was a roundtable discussion including all of the folks charged with educating my child and they had been giving me plenty of heads up that Miss Thing was treating her school experience more like a social event at the country club. So I trudged into the meeting knowing that it was not going to be an immersion in feel-good.

But as I was soaking up their comments and observations, I noticed a pattern in what they listed as her problems: “Skylar is a bit flighty.” “She doesn’t stay on any one thing for longer than a minute.” “Her attention span is about thisbig.” “She has the potential to do better, but she’s so restless.” I could’ve punished the child, but I would’ve been dead wrong. Poor baby got all of those qualities fair and square straight from her mama.

You hear about parents fighting to get their kid's school to push their child to the next grade all the time. So what do you call a mom who is fighting to force her son's school to hold him back? A good parent. 

At least Rose Colon sounds like a pretty darn good one to me. Her 11-year-old son Cristian failed his state exams last year, and he still struggles to read. But teachers at his New York City School pushed him into sixth grade this year anyway. It doesn't take a whole lot of common sense to guess he'll just continue to struggle with the more difficult work. Unless someone cares enough to stop the social promotion, this little boy will become a statistic.

Listening to other parents before my daughter started kindergarten — and struggling with the decision of where to enroll her — I heard over and over again that once your kid started in private school, it was all but impossible to transition them to public. The curriculums were too different, the standards were too inconsistent, the atmospheres were too varied. I wondered if the chasm was really that big, particularly because some moms are private school elitists. You know, snobs.

When it comes to our kids’ education, hear some of us tell it, no other institution could possibly be as great as St. So-and-So Academy or This, That, and The Other Prep. There are those of us who have a tendency to turn up our noses at public school when, in actuality, some of those classrooms are just as good as the ones we’re shelling out thousands and thousands (and in my case, thousands) of dollars for our children to attend.

Here's one thing you might consider adding to the back-to-school shopping list: cold, hard cash. Yes, for your massage appointments after waiting in the pick-up line, and driving to after school-soccer and back across town. But also for those kids who need an extra push to bring home the grades. So, you think this sounds crazy? It kind of is. But it's also kind of genius.

Before you bring out the pitchforks and torches (and remind us all about the bad economy we're in right now), let's take a minute to consider paying kids for grades.

The bigger your kids get, the more complicated their school work becomes. You don't want your child to get completely frustrated when a subject gets tough and, even worse -- give up. But sometimes your kid just needs to focus, not for you to call in the troops. It's a fine line between giving your child what she needs and going overboard in the pursuit of a perfect GPA for her transcript.

Tutors can be an excellent tool for a kid who needs a boost, but knowing when to make the call is as important as knowing who in the heck to call in the first place. Here are three reasons to hire a tutor for your child, and three ways to make sure you're getting a quality tutor.