In the hopes that "settlement" does not mean "settle for..."

On March 8, 2010, Liz Bowie of the Baltimore Sun reported that “a federal judge ended 26 years of oversight of the school system and paved the way for a final settlement in two years.” The lawsuit was G. Vaughan vs. the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore et al., filed in 1984 by the Maryland Disabilities Law Center on behalf of students with disabilities who had not received appropriate services.

In a press release issued the same day under the auspices of Dr. Andreas A. Alonso, Baltimore City Schools C.E.O., Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and Neil E. Duke, Esquire, Chairman of the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners, Dr. Alonso was quoted as saying,“As a city, we should be proud. The progress exemplified by this Settlement Agreement is yet another signal that our schools are emerging as a model for urban schools across the nation.” The press release included MSA results that indicated that special education students had outpaced gains by general education students in Math and Reading.

Certainly, percentile improvements in M.S.A. results for Special Education students are a positive change. In examining the scores themselves, however, we find a broad disparity in scores between the M.S.A. snapshot scores, which include MSA and Mod-MSA scores this year, scores for Special Education students, and scores for the Mod-MSA itself. In sixth grade Reading, for example, snapshot scores were 68.4%, Mod-Reading scores were 35.0%, and Reading Special Education scores were 41.5%. For eighth grade Reading, snapshot scores were 61.6, Mod-MSA scores were 35.8, and Special Education Scores were 32.2%.

Seque to Math. In 2009, snapshot Math scores for sixth grade were 58.1% versus 32.2% for Mod-MSA, and 34.9% for Special Education. Eighth grade snapshot Math scores were 39.2%, versus 23.6% for mod-MSA and 20.6% for Special Education. Furthermore an examination of scores from sixth, seventh, and eighth grade indicates that scores were consistently lower in all but two areas in higher level grades.

Are these disparities acceptable in a school system that acknowledges that 15% of its students require Special Education services? Perhaps it is time that Marylanders and Baltimoreans take a closer look at COMAR 13A.05.01 Provision of a Free Appropriate Public Education, specifically B.09A(1)(i): Meeting the student’s needs that results from the student’s disability to enable the student to be involved in and progress in the general curriculum. Does being “involved in and progress in the general curriculum” mean that we are mandated to help the child reach his potential as a self-supporting, active citizen?

In the State of Connecticut, Special Education laws are written so that school systems are legally required to meet the potential of the child. There is a huge difference. We high school teachers see it daily: inaccurate diagnosis and inadequate remediation; “cured” LD students mainstreamed to the regular classroom who are not ready for prime time; one-size-fits-all IEP accommodations that cross disability; upward grade mobility due to the pressure to pass; poor to no intervention services; Special Education teachers administering more than teaching; and General Educators left to figure it all out.

Perhaps the settlement of this lawsuit will bring good things to Baltimore City: freeing up our Special Educators so they can do what they do best: teach children with handicapping conditions. Or perhaps the loosened compliance restrictions will make us lackadaisical once again. Whatever the result, they are our children and our future, and they deserve better.

Charter Schools, School Choice and Competition – Unintended Consequences

A recent New York Times article, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/education/10marketing.html, mentioned how the influx of charter schools has led to many traditional schools spending time, money, and resources on marketing their school. School Chancellor Joel Klein stated that dwindling enrollment is one of the criteria in deciding which schools to close; he argues that parents and students “voting with their feet” is a legitimate indicator of school quality.

A few schools have worked with professional marketing firms to create sophisticated Web sites and blogs, though most marketing firms have either worked for free or charged a small fee, amounting to less than $500. The article mentions that some schools are “revamping school logos and encouraging students and teachers to wear T-shirts emblazoned with the new designs.” “River East Elementary, on East 120th Street, draws students throughout Harlem and typically has more applicants than seats. But at this time of year, staff members spend hours scurrying to day care centers, churches and apartment complexes to find prospective parents.” One has to wonder whether school choice advocates had ever imagined that this would be one of the consequences of the movement.

While it seems that schools should just focus on academic achievement, and that academic achievement will trump any marketing pitch, past history of consumer choice has shown that our minds are malleable and can be swayed by gimmicks and good marketing (e.g. VHS vs. Beta). How much, if any, focus should be put on marketing a school? Can this marketing instill a school pride in students that translates into improved academic achievement?

Teaching Diversity

I just recently watched the film Crash for the first time a few days ago. Although many of the vignettes in this film are meant to be shocking, I found myself not so shocked by a lot of the prejudices that occurred in the film. It sometimes feels like the focus of diversity as teachers in Baltimore City is strictly on black-white relations. I was most particularly drawn to the dichotomy between Cameron (a wealth black male) and Anthony (a poor black male). It seems to me that economics, class, and race are at times completely inseparable. As a student of School Reform, then, how do we discuss and teach diversity within our schools to the “Anthony’s?” I use this topic of the film because I see a lot of my students finding it difficult to wade through the inequalities that they see everyday. I’ve heard students comment before on how “unfair” it is how poor our school is. There’s a chapter in Kozol’s Savage Inequalities that depicts the irony between a school named after Martin Luther King, Jr. and the conditions in that school. It is true, that such a leader who fought for civil rights, should adorn some of the most segregated and urban schools. This film, in its popularity, should allow us to jumpstart a conversation about diversity within our school communities. In an environment that usually lacks racial diversity (my school is 99% African American), how can these conditions continue? How can such segregation be allowed to exist?

Teaching high school-ers, they are in their socially formative years, where they struggle to find their own identity in the face of a dominant mentality. For most of my students, they are in an adolescent stage where they are struggling between their own identity and a larger, more pervasive mentality. They want to become independent and discover who they are in terms of interests, yet feel pressured to become part of a certain group. This relates to Cameron’s story, in that his role is defined by a society that is predominately white and wealthy. However, Cameron is much older than my students, and can negotiate between these conflicts of character. Nevertheless, my students, in their adolescent development, sometimes have trouble negotiating their identity with the dominant one they see around them. In this sense, they are surrounded by images of white wealth, and notice the difference in their own lives. Similarly, the character Anthony very much represents the “modern, hip-hop” culture of black youth; he notices the prejudices and stereotypes that other people may have about him. Like my students, some of them understand this and some of them do it. Overall, how can we be transparent with our students about inequality and race? Kozol, in his book, writes about a report from the Community Service Society (taken from an official from the NYC Board of Education), that remarks “that there is ‘no point’ in putting further money ‘into some poor districts;’” Kozol goes on to write that “the perception that the poorest districts are beyond help still remains,’ and perhaps the worst result of such beliefs, says the report, is the message that resources would be ‘wasted on poor children.’ …Children hear and understand this theme—they are poor investments—and behave accordingly’” (Kozol, 99). Ultimately, I want to instill in my students that they are worth the investment, that they can change the community around them. But, as one single teacher, it is not enough. There is an imbalance in the way we use testing to mechanize student achievement in school districts; and this testing is inextricably linked with funding. To change our students belief on not just their own race, but their inherent belief in success, there needs to be a systemic change which allows for the “Anthony’s” of Crash to rise above their situation.

Student Achievement: Whose Job is it?

At the end of each grading period I like to push my 9^th grade English students to reflect on their work and their accomplishments. I do this by asking them to think about the following things: What did they do to ‘own’ their achievement, what do I (the teacher) need to do better to help them learn, did they reach their goals, and who is responsible for their academic success. The first time that I did this, I predicted that students who did nothing but perfect their paper ball throwing skills would get under my skin by saying that they worked hard and deserved to pass with flying colors. I was dead wrong.

While there was the occasional student who came to class only one time during the grading period and thought that they did “okay,” more often the answer was very different. When asked about who they thought was responsible for their academic success, they surprisingly and without hesitation said almost 100 percent of the time: “I am.” Not the school, not their parents or family members, not even the teacher; they seemed to view themselves as the sole stakeholder of their academic futures.

Yet the sad reality of this knowledge is that most of my students did not work hard enough to do well in my class -- and they seem to know it, and to a certain extent, even accept it. In these reflections students write insightful and honest comments like, “I need to stop playing and show people how smart I am,” or, “I did not try hard enough because I never did my homework and I was always late.” But despite the ability to reflect on paper, it has rarely translated into much more. So, the question I find myself asking is: are the students writing this because they think this is what I want to hear, or because they really believe they aren't doing their part? Furthermore, if the latter is true, why doesn’t this reflection translate into better work in the classroom?

As it stands, I take full responsibility for the achievement of my students. Although I know that there are many other factors connected to achievement, such as socioeconomic status, parental support, and my students’ academic histories, and that in reality I am only a small part of a very large puzzle, I still operate as though I am the make it or break it force in my students' lives. It’s all I can do.

And so in my second year as a teacher I have read maybe hundreds of articles about the teacher’s role in getting students to learn, I stay up late at night writing lessons, I spend my day herding students into my classroom and then fighting I-pods and cell phones to get their attention, I spend my weekends making phone calls and reaching disconnected numbers, I spend hundreds of dollars at Staples and Office Depot, and I often feel very alone and very helpless in trying to get my students to achieve, because if research claims that the teacher is really the key to student achievement, then I must be doing something wrong. My students aren’t achieving nearly as much as they should, and even though my students think they are responsible, I know that this is a shared endeavor.

But even though I often feel like a failure as a teacher, and I see that my students often choose not to do the work when it isn’t fun or entertaining, the truth about the teacher’s crucial role to student achievement comes out slowly and in snippets, whether it is during lunch when I overhear what students are learning and doing in other classes, or after school when my students tell me entertaining, yet somewhat alarming tales about their years in the Baltimore City public school system. I know that I make my students work hard every day, but through my students I hear too often about teachers who did not. According to one student, there was the teacher who showed movies every Friday, the teacher who feel asleep during class every day, and the teacher who was always late.

So while I continue to expound to my students that they need to take responsibility for their success, this leads me to echo a very simple and straightforward belief: teachers have a resounding impact on student achievement through high expectations, rigorous instruction, and getting students to understand that every moment in that class is essential. When students are consistently asked to work hard throughout their school experience, then they will work hard. As teachers, we can ask for nothing less.

But the reality is that even in my own school, teachers have very different ideas of what it means to teach, and they give our students very different ideas of what it takes to make the grade. To the left of my classroom is a Biology teacher who has shown Transformers, Final Destination, and 2012 in 6 weeks time. When I ask my student how he is doing in this class, he tells me, “I have an 88 in that class, and I honestly don’t know how. I don’t do anything.” He emphasizes the word anything.

So while I know that parents and students play a major part in student achievement, I begin to see more and more that it is the teacher’s responsibility to show students what they are striving for, and to set the achievement bar high, so that we can teach them the lesson that is of equal importance to the content we teach: Hard work is essential for success.

In my classroom, and in other classes they attend, many are learning a hard lesson, and despite their previous guise of success in classrooms with low expectations, as a teacher I will continue to show my students that it is important to be responsible and to work hard. But when I think about student motivation and student achievement in my classroom, I begin to see that when students can earn a high B in a class while watching movies, then is it really so unbelievable that students come into my classroom unmotivated and unable to meet the demands of my classroom? Even more, why is it that my school and scores of others in Baltimore City and around the nation seem to have equally low expectations of their teachers?

President Obama's Support of Closing Schools

According to “School’s Shake-Up Is Embraced by the President” in The New York Times, a school board in Rhode Island decided to fire all of the faculty and staff of an underperforming school. Although the opinion is split whether or not this was a good decision, the shock has been that President Obama supports this decision. Teachers’ unions and national educational agencies are outraged that he would support such a bold action. Because it seems that this is quite a common experience in Baltimore with ineffective schools being shut down, restructured, all staff forced to reapply for their positions, etc., it surprises me that so many across the nation are shocked by the support of the president. This is the direction that education is headed. Schools are expected to perform. Students are expected to learn and to do well on standardized tests. The question that should be asked about this school in Rhode Island is: are the scores representative of the actual performance and learning of the students? If the scores are accurate, then action should be taken to transform that learning environment. It might be more appropriate to offer more professional development for teachers, to change up the administration, to change the curriculum or some other solution, but that is a decision that should be made looking at the needs of the individual school and situation. If the scores are not reflective of the actual learning of the students, then as a nation we may need to look at our standards and our assessments of them. It could be beneficial to consider whether our standardized tests set an appropriate bar for students to work towards. If what happened in Rhode Island becomes a common occurrence across the nation, then I feel that it is more important to know that the standard we are using to close down schools is an appropriate and accurate measurement.