Using Technology to Improve Nutrition

July 1^st marked the date public schools were required to be in compliance with the new nutrition standards in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program.  Recently, the New York Times reported at the annual conference held by the School Nutrition Association and explored some of the innovative menus being served in our nation’s public schools (for more information see http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/us/school-menus-get-a-fresh-look.html?ref=education).  With many children eating two, even three meals a day at school, the need for better nutrition standards is dire.   However, filling students’ plates with servings of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains will be useless unless they are educated about the healthful effects their changing lunch menus..  How do we educate our students about the benefits of good nutrition so that they are making healthy choices outside the walls of the school building and into their adult lives?

            One answer to this question is the University of Maryland’s Text2BHealthy program, tested in eight Maryland public schools this past school year.  Utilizing ubiquitous technology to target parents, Text2BHealthy sends text messages to parents with practical suggestions on how to improve their children’s diets and keep them active.   As one of the eight test schools, my school, Moravia Park Elementary Middle welcomed educators from the program who cooked with students and taught them about the importance of eating fruits and vegetable  Now in its second year of operation, Text2BHealth will be studied by University of Maryland Department of Family scholars Stephanie Grutzmacher and Katherine spheres to test the efficacy of the project.  With grass roots programs like Text2BHealthy and a new set of nutrition standards aimed at improving our students’ health, there is hope that education about healthy and active lifestyles will be re-integrated into the public school system.

To keep updated with this study, see:http://sph.umd.edu/news/whats_new.cfm?id=18221

The Baltimore Development Initative

Prior to embarking on my first year teaching, I was an Out of School Time Coordinator for an organization called Elev8 Baltimore. Essentially, I was responsible for coordinating and managing an after school program  for fifth through eighth graders at an East Baltimore school. My time in the position was formative insomuch as it made painfully clear to me that students in Baltimore City were struggling on many fronts and mere good intentions would not be enough help them succeed. It seemed obvious to me then that there needed to be radical changes in the community and the overall responsibilities of schools.

I continued to formulate the lessons I learned but I held little optimism for any real change in Baltimore until I read about Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) and Geoffrey Canada's work to once again establish Harlem as a thriving community through education. I found myself compelled by Canada's success and wondered why no-one ever tried this type of reform in Baltimore. Baltimore, as a city of neighborhoods, seems the ideal location to create a community based school -- the small communities are homogenous in nature and certainly in need of revitalization. Indeed, Elev8 and the East Baltimore Development, Inc. that operates it were born as a response to the steady decline of housing, schools, businesses, and human capital in the area north of the JHU Medical Campus. Though the impact these initiatives may have on East Baltimore are largely unclear, they speak to the possibility of significant reform.

At present time, EBDI and Elev8 provide supplemental services to four schools in the community -- out-of school time opportunities, school-based health services,  support and outreach for the families they serve. Further, EBDI works to provide infrastructure, workforce development, and housing and employment counseling among other services. In East Baltimore then, it would seem that significant, though slightly disjointed, changes are being made. However, to truly work these initiatives need complete and utter cohesion. There cannot be any gaps in the model or any uncertainty about the end goal because that is the point at which reform faces death as Geoffrey Canada can attest to. Speaking of Canada, the initiative also requires a clear leader. Currently, there is no official leader of spear-header of the project -- it is run by a board. While democratic,  I believe that the lack of an official leader weakens the promise of the initiative. 

Baltimore needs EBDI to succeed and, despite its shortcomings, I think it will prove a worthy initiative.  It is my hope that change in East Baltimore will begat change in West Baltimore and so on.

Educating the Mind, but at the Expense of the Body?

What is the purpose of public education?  What subjects do we think are most important to teach?   When we discussed these questions throughout the course of the last two weeks, our answers to the first question (many of us agreed that the HCZ model of providing holistic education to our students and other members of the community was crucial to ending the achievement gap) came in slight conflict with our answers to the second question.  We were asked to identify what we saw as the order of importance of the subjects taught in public schools.  The overwhelming majority of us ranked Physical Education at or near the absolute bottom of our list; while Health was ranked slightly higher on average it was still usually in the bottom ten as well.  Then, when the public response to the same question was revealed, we were shocked to see the importance responders placed on these subjects.

As we began studying Harlem Children's Zone as a model for education reform, however, many of us cited Canada's efforts to educate parents, children, and other community members on issues of public health that are often a major issue in low-income neighborhoods.  In comparing the KIPP model with HCZ, most of us agreed that it was, in fact, the responsibility of public schools to provide some form of Health and Physical Education. 

Recently, the New York Times reported that despite growing public concern over childhood obesity rates, Physical Education classes are being cut nationwide.  The article suggests that the growing emphasis on tested subjects such as Reading and Math, combined with increasingly tight budgets in public schools, has led to this decline in programs.  Unfortunately, the very Physical Education programs that are being cut in favor of "more academic content" have been proven to have a positive impact on student achievement. 

Keeping in mind the positive impact Phys. Ed can have on our students, as well as the apparent public opinion that Health and Phys. Ed. should be priorities in our schools, why have major urban districts turned their back on these subjects? 

Master Teacher Corps

Today the Obama administration announced a new plan to create a corps of master teachers with the goal of improving education in high-need subject areas.  The plan would cost $1 billion and would focus specifically on math and science teachers.  These master teachers will receive a yearly stipend of $20,000 in exchange for several years commitment to the program.  The program aims to have 10,000 teachers in the Master Teacher Corps within four years.   Master Teacher Corps hopes to encourage science and math education by providing incentives for high-performing teachers and equipping them with additional tools and knowledge to share with their colleagues.

While Obama's plan is specifically geared toward encouraging science and math, it made me think of the Baltimore City tracks for "master" or "lead" teachers, where high-performing teachers can earn almost $100,000.   Reading about plans like Obama's and seeing some increase of reforms based around merit-pay for teachers make me really encouraged, especially after our class discussion on teacher retention and recruitment.

Closing the achievement gap will never be possible without high-quality teachers in every urban classroom (although we know defining 'high-quality' is a whole other subject of its own).  One reason schools like KIPP are so successful is because their teachers are essentially self-selected to share a certain mindset and a work-ethic.  Great teachers flock to schools like KIPP because it is a chance for them to have the support and incentive to perform at the peak of their craft.  Why can't public schools offer this same appeal?  Unfortunately, teaching does not usually have the same draw as law, medicine or business - which is typically where top talent ends up.   Creating corps of "master teachers" and offering high salaries for top-achievers is a great step in attracting more talent into the realm of teaching and giving them the incentive (and hopefully the support) to perform.  

I hope there continues to be more programs like the one Obama is proposing and I hope Baltimore City continues to use merit pay and reward high-performing teachers.  If we are going to attract the best teachers to our cause (and get them to stick around), we need to create a professional system that appeals to the top talent in our country.

The not so silver (but still rather shinny) bullet: Character

If you are a typical new teacher in Baltimore City, you will most likely have at least heard of the book Mindset and perhaps, like myself, have somehow come into possession of three (or more) pocket sized copies of the book. If you are even more like me (in which case, your procrastination is particularly attuned), after your third copy you read enough to learn its general premise of viewing failure as a means of growth and integral to one’s personal development. Similarly, if your classroom looks anything like mine (“Mr. Bradunas, this is just too much!”), you perhaps realized that this is a message missing in your students’ mindsets. 

A few months ago, NYT released an article (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/magazine/what-if-the-secret-to-success-is-failure.html?pagewanted=all) that spoke to our failure to teach students this lesson that they called grit. It made a small splash when released in the education field and after reading it, I became determined to make grit central to my classroom. Charts were made. Lessons taught. Lessons reinforced. Chants chanted.  Fast forward to May. Through an assessment of the highest rigor (watching my students during independent practice) it became apparent that my attempt to create a character development system had eroded in the daily grind of MSA prep. I leave it to you to infer exactly what happened. 

I am of the camp that education is two fold. Character and academics. I come from a background of private education and while I can barely remember trigonometry or chemistry (besides what I have relearned watching Breaking Bad), I can still remember my schools motto; Men of Faith, Intellect and Integrity. According to this, academics (intellect) is only 1/3 of the equation. Granted, mottos are not made with proportion in mind and so I’ll settle with saying that character is, I believe, paramount to what education’s true purpose is. 

The NYT article referenced research that stated grit is the single strongest predictor of future success. I’ll go on to say that character in general is a better predictor of future success than any MSA score. Out of curiosity, I created a couple wordles of education blogs and found that none of them had character as one of the words in the wordle. The greatest predictor of academic success does not appear in blogs whose singular purpose is to talk about education. (Caution: this was not done with any true consistency and so I would be more than happy if anyone found a blog that mentioned character on a consistent basis). 

The reasons for this are quite simple. Character is abstract, hard to measure, and not tested (and therefore not related to funding, evaluations, etc…). Character is a long-term variable that takes more than one year to develop. Character is not possible to standardize. I mean, if we can’t get together to agree on social studies standards, can you just imagine the meeting that would arise if we were to create a character system for the city? Character is also strongly related to morality which is strongly related to religion. And therein lies the problem. Character is complicated. Too complicated to be the silver bullet. Too complicated to be used to justify funding. And so, while we may possess three copies of a book that helps make us effective, we fail to pass on this knowledge to our students. The key to committing something to memory is repetition. Perhaps we should start talking about character a bit more. 

The Summer Slide

I recently read an article from the Des Moines Register presenting the argument for year round schools. The data from the Des Moines Public Schools, where five elementary schools, who serve a high number of low income (87% FARMS) and ESOL students are proving the case that a shortened summer break, from 12 to 6 weeks is helping keep students on track and lessening the dreaded summer slide. Standardized testing scores are not off the charts, but a move from the lowest performing spot in the district to outperforming the district averages shows progress in the right direction.

I wonder how such a shift from the traditional school year to a year round model would benefit our students here in Baltimore City? We see our students make so much progress during the year, only to have to spend the first couple months of the school year re-teaching material as well as classroom expectations. Those opposed to the idea argue that a shortened summer break does not allow for family time, summer camps, and part time jobs. While this argument might hold up in a suburban community where these programs are easily accessible,  many of our students here in Baltimore City do not have the same level of  opportunity to attend such enrichment camps or summer reading programs.

The article failed to discuss the positives and pitfalls for teachers with a year round calendar. Based on my own experiences I would have to believe that such a system with more frequent breaks would allow for rejuvenation, self-reflection, and the opportunity to attend professional development. With such a system I also wonder how student growth could be better assessed on a more frequent basis and the findings could be applied to instruction in a timely fashion?

You can read the full article at: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120709/NEWS02/307090051/1004/NEWS02/Year-round-schools-Des-Moines-report-improved-test-scores

Pennies for Thoughts

With great reform comes great price tags. It seems that at the center of any reform conversation is the question of where the money is going to come from to fund the project. An obvious way to generate funds is through taxes, but even the slightest increase can be met with huge disapproval. In San Antonio, a 1/8th cent tax to fund the city’s full-day preschool programs in an effort to even the playing field for low-income and minority students is being met with significant opposition. According to the New York Times, the tax would cost the average family less than $8/year. With the importance of preschool and the devastating effects of the achievement gap before Kindergarten being demonstrated consistently across studies, is a couple of dollars too much to ask? Perhaps, especially since a June report from the US Census Bureau indicated that per pupil spending is up 1.1% from the previous year, once again stimulating the debate over whether spending more money leads to gains in the classroom. DC Public Schools, which consistently spend the most per student, is often the subject of great scrutiny because their test scores put them well below the national average despite their spending. Baltimore City ranks third highest among the 50 largest school districts in the country in per pupil spending, up at $14,711/student in the 2009-2010 school year and that’s only going to go up.  Less than three weeks ago, Mayor Rawlings-Blake signed the Bottle Tax into law, which will go into affect next year to improve school facilities. Because taxpayers are often very aware of how much money is going to schools due to new ballot measures and extensive media coverage, they are often quick to judge the quality of schools, increasing the pressure of reform efforts to show immediate effects.

Perhaps taxpayers and politicians could be better swayed with a cyclical argument (that admittedly, is not particularly new and rather cyclical itself.) Janet English discusses an economic model that suggests that a good teacher can dramatically impact the economy. High school graduates, she argues, earn 133% of what high school drop-outs make, and if a teacher could help a student reach their potential and earn as little as 1% more per year, that would equate to about $40,000 over the course of a lifetime per student.

 The question is, can we find the efforts to fund that given a few dollars here and there will amount to thousands of dollars at the end? And is it the lack of resources or the improper allocation of them that are causing are schools to fail? While 1/8 of a cent seems like such a trifle to provide an intervention that has shown to be so successful, since failed efforts have been so widely publicized and critiqued, it makes sense that the public is so resistant to these changes. Regardless, stronger and more sound studies of reform efforts will help us make sense/cents of it.