NCLB and Multicultural Education

What does the current standards-based reform infusing state schools mean for multicultural education? The answer to this question lies, of course, in how one defines the concept of "multicultural education." According to Sonia Nieto, author of Affirming Diversity, multicultural education is basic and pervasive--it is not in conjunction to any "standard" education, but is critical daily pedagogy. Taking this for granted, can multicultural education exist in the new culture of No Child Left Behind? This article argues that "the increasing reliance on textbooks and standards undermines multicultural education." Nieto would agree, using a chapter of her book to highlight the NCLB's "particularly negative effects on students living in poverty, those whom the law was purportedly intended to help." So what exactly is it about an emphasis on standards that prohibits meaningful multicultural education?

To me, holding the entire nation of children to one set of standards is like a doctor prescribing one treatment plan to all of his or her patients. I understand how standards may be perceived as great equalizers--high expectations should be had for all! However, it is ignorant to expect that all can (and should) produce the same outcome by the same method(s). This type of thinking does not account for different historicities, cultures, or experiences.

In the article, Christine Sleeter suggests that there is a difference between a standards-DRIVEN and standards-CONSCIOUS curriculum. This implies that the NCLB's emphasis on standards should not be discarded altogether. I agree, primarily because I love how standards have highlighted the importance of accountability. However, if we are truly going to accept Nieto's demand that the lack of a pervasive multicultural education is socially unjust, we must necessarily reform the emphasis of NCLB.

InsideEd: An Awkard Addiction

I have found myself reading InsideEd on a daily basis - along with the Baltimore Sun's education articles. I am tempted to write about the recent foray of articles about school violence, but I'm unsure I know everything there is to know in order to make any intelligent contribution here. It seems like everyone has an agenda, and the truth is muddled along the way. For instance, I have to question Marietta English's air time. She has been all over broadcast and newsprint media. Isn't there an election coming up? What perfect timing for her. According to WBAL, Nancy Grasmick is calling for a school violence summit. I’m tired of hearing about meetings and not seeing any specific change.

What really, really interested me was Neufeld’s post on zero-basing. She references a study that makes some interesting points on restructuring. One of the findings was that schools with zero-based staffs, as part of their restructuring plan, experienced problems of low staff morale and teachers spending more time focusing on job security issues. Sounds like my school. When a school decides to restructure, they can choose some of the following options: contracting with an outside organization with demonstrated effectiveness operating schools, reopening as a charter, replacing all or most of the staff who are relevant to the failure, turning operation over to the state if the state agrees, and the potpourri category of "any other restructuring of the school's governance that produces fundamental reform."

In my school, one of the ways that we were told restructuring would be developed was through a TCNA (Teacher Capacity Needs Assessment). I was formally trained as TCNA facilitator in my school. Honestly, it was an incredible waste of time for our staff. The idea seems great, but we did not develop possible solutions or explanations for the root causes of failure or success in teaching the Voluntary State Curriculum. Hopefully the results were not used to inform specific strategies per each of the TCNA areas.

So here's the disconnect: I'm confident my school is zero-basing - the school board approved it and now we're waiting on the state. Everyone at my school is concerned about job security, and not knowing what is happening is causing an uneasy atmosphere. Procedures for what teachers need to do have not been outlined, yet the voluntary transfer fair is Monday. What the school is asking of its teachers seems misaligned when relating it to restructuring. So if we are going to be "fired" from our current site because we are ineffective, why are we the ones identifying the root causes in the TCNA? The staff was forced (that was the sentiment of the staff) to forgo their professional development to complete the TCNA. The actual TCNA process itself was a perfect image of a bad teacher handing students a worksheet to complete to keep them quiet and busy without any instruction making it relevant. Did this happen so that teachers just felt involved?

Furthermore, if we are pushing so-called ineffective teachers out of failing schools, why are we okay with them going to other schools in the system?

NAEP Writing Results: Basic is Not Enough

Results of the 2007 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), the Nation’s Report Card writing test are now in. The April 4, 2008 Baltimore Sun article, “Tests show low writing proficiency” by Nancy Zuckerbrod highlights the findings of the assessment given to a sample of eighth and twelfth grade students nationwide. Results were compared to the 1998 and 2002 (the last time the test was given) data. I accessed this data at

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2008468.

The article discusses the difference between male and female scores, noting that girls once again preformed better than boys. I agree that boys too are just as capable of writing, but this “gender gap” is evidence that educators and society have been guilty of being unable to break down the stereotypes that girls excel in language arts while boys may shine in other subjects. I believe that both boys and girls will develop a positive attitude towards writing when they are exposed to it at an early age. Additionally, teachers must use a variety of texts in order to engage all learners. Students will undoubtedly be turned off to a subject and are more likely to perform lower when they have little interest in developing their skills in that area.

Both the article and NAEP executive summary seem to take a celebratory tone toward the overall increases in the test results. While the scores are moving in the right direction and that is a good thing, I find it appalling that after five years the numbers are not higher. Students need to be proficient, which as the article suggests is also the goal of policy makers. However, only 33% of eighth graders and 24% of twelfth graders achieved proficient or higher scores. Putting aside all debates over standardize testing; these numbers are simply not enough. It is unacceptable for our students to be basic; unable to compose different pieces of prose, lack writing mechanics and grammar.

As an elementary teacher in Baltimore City, I see this deficit on a daily basis. It is unnerving to watch my students struggle with writing. Although my school and fellow educators realize the necessity of writing, instruction in this area has taken the backseat to tested subjects such as reading and math. In order to prepare students for the MSA, our team decided to cut language instruction for several months in favor of spending more time on explicit instruction of BCRs (brief constructed responses). Although students were encouraged to use proper mechanics and grammar, we as teachers were asked to not spend too much time on this since it is not graded on the MSA. From an early age the focus is so strong on math and reading, it seems there is less and less time to incorporate writing. Without the chance to participate in writing activities at a young age, students become more and more turned off and the task of writing becomes more and more challenging. It seems today that a subject is only valued if it assessed. In order to help our students succeed at writing, we cannot wait until eighth grade. However, in this day in age, perhaps the only way for schools to include purposeful writing instruction is to test it.

Fair Student Funding –Easier Said Than Done

Is fair necessarily equal? Baltimore School of the Arts receives more funding than other high schools. No doubt, they use their money well and those select few who are admitted benefit greatly from the extra programs and equipment that money buys. But with a budget deficit looming, extra money dedicated to BSA inevitably means a loss for more disadvantaged students throughout the district. Alonzo has stated that the central office will continue to provide the increased funding for “flagship” programs such as the Baltimore School of the Arts. It’s the right choice but it’s not fair.

It gets tougher. Imagine two public high schools. One serves a population at an 80% FARMs rate while the other has just 20% FARMs. Should they be equally funded? Alonzo believes that the wealth or poverty of students should not factor into the equation but perhaps achievement should. So a student performing at the 10th percentile receives more funding at the expense of the student at the 90th percentile. Fair? As of March 20th, the district has not decided. Alonzo has made it clear however, that if there is to be a funding bias towards lower achieving students, the measure of low performance should only apply to students as they enter a school. Otherwise, the district would create a financial disincentive for increasing achievement.

I absolutely agree with the decentralization of the Baltimore City School District and the idea of fair student funding. But neither the centralized or decentralized model of our school district will provide truly “fair” student funding. It is a subjective term and in the end someone will get more at the expense of another.

Principal Turnover and School Stability

With my current school coming under alternative governance for the 2008-2009 school year, school leadership and administration has been a highly debated topic around my building. With the principal job posted and interviews underway, various questions have arisen as to how this change will impact the faculty, school climate and culture, and student achievement.

I was motivated to look into principal turnover after coming across an article in the Education Section of today’s New York Times about the firing of a popular principal in Westchester County, New York. This article discussed the release of a principal on somewhat questionable grounds, including the failure to attend a specific cabinet meeting and the answering of his cell phone during a meeting. The author compared the principal’s wrongdoings to “stealing strawberries” in the face of far greater offenses. The article went on to suggest that this principal was pushed out by the school superintendent in an attempt to fill the position with a “friend” who had been previously promised hire. Though the facts were unclear on either side, I couldn’t help but be struck by the fact that a principal’s firing on the grounds of missed meetings made front page of the education section considering what I have witnessed with school leadership in Baltimore City.

I think it is particularly interesting how personal conflicts between faculty and administration seem to affect the school climate, resulting in a lack of stability in the school. Though not proven so, I think that the aforementioned article suggests that personal issues were heavily influencing this principal’s dismissal. I am in the process of watching teachers be “interviewed” to retain their jobs at my current school based heavily on their ties to the current principal. Highly qualified teachers who have demonstrated a commitment to their students are not even being given the chance to interview, because they haven’t been in the “right clique” this year. Weak leadership will not only impact student achievement, but also allow personal conflict to inappropriately impact hiring and firing decisions.

A study published in December of 2007 by “Advocates for Children and Youth” investigated the principal turnover rates of ten Baltimore City middle schools. What they found was that 90% of the schools had at least one principal change in the five-year period between the 2002-2003 and 2007-2008 school years. 80% of the schools had two or more principal changes, and 50% had three or more principal changes in this period. This turnover results in a lack of stability in leadership, programming, and student success – supported both by data in this report and by my observation just over the past two years. It is a serious problem that demands attention. When hiring new principals, it is imperative that we seek out leaders that will not only positively impact the school, but also show a commitment to the position over time. Just as we seek to retain teachers, we must also be both realistic and innovative in retaining our principals.

State Funding: All Students Prison Ready?

A recent report issued by the Pew Project on the States, found that our society now spends more money on prisons than on colleges. The Pew Charitable Trusts reports that those states are (in order of spending the most proportionally on prisons in 2007): Vermont, Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut and Delaware.

The Pew Project makes the case for individual states to reconsider mandatory sentences and other such policies for which they attribute the swell in prison population. With 1:100 American citizens currently behind bars, and rates of recidivism remaining consistent over the past few years, how can we rationalize this clear value judgment? But, just how much of an investment is it? The Pew report found that, “During the last 20 years, state based corrections spending has increased by 127 percent on top of inflation, while spending on higher end has increased only 21 percent.” What positive trend in upward mobility or economic prosperity do we have to show for this type of monetary investment? Back when Joe Biden was a viable presidential candidate, he made a statement that really resonated with me: Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget. Regardless of what candidate is claiming to throw more funding at education, the statistics clearly speak to our national values.

The NEA fact sheet shows that 75 percent of America's state prison inmates are high school dropouts. This type of data is sickening, yet helpful for lawmakers who use literacy rates to project future construction of prison facilities. The connection between education and incarceration is so clear, yet funding does not reflect this reality!

The consequences for children who do not leave our classrooms “college ready” is much greater than the empty space in the 80% mastery sticker chart. They are real and life determinative. As educators we know that high school graduation is the bare minimum necessary for accessing institutions of higher education, job training and successful entry into the job force. As a nation we cannot afford to invest such minimal social capital in this fight to reform the system.

Currently, we see nothing but a negative return on our prison investments. As discussed above, rates of both incarceration and recidivism are up. Don’t tell me you value education and then allot marginal amounts of a state budget to prevention programs or character education programs. We must move funding towards well researched prevention initiatives and successful school models that will transform our children into college matriculants instead of prison statistics.