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.

The Problems of Housing Discontinuity

A few weeks ago I came across a local newspaper entitled Word on the Street which “aims to educate the community and expose the underlying causes of homelessness.” The front page story of the issue was titled “Lack of affordable housing key to homelessness and poverty”.  It explored the history of budget allocations for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and how they have attributed to a stark increase in homelessness in Baltimore. In particular, the article mentions the effects of the HOPE VI program initiated in the 1990s. HOPE VI manifested itself in Baltimore with the demolition of existing housing projects and replaced them with mixed-income developments, which displaced over 20,000 residents, of which only a small fraction of would end up living in the HOPE VI sites.

As a proponent of the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) and community schools, I couldn’t help but see homelessness and/or frequent relocation as significant obstacle that would have to be addressed. Not only does this affect children’s ability to focus one getting to school and to focus in school, but it also compromises the continuity of a child’s education. Part of the allure of what Geoffrey Canada has been able to set up so successfully in Harlem is that there is sustained support for children and their families. These supports, from parenting information to test prep to healthcare access, are able to have a compounding effect for the children and families in the neighborhood, but what if you have to move out of the neighborhood? In my opinion, what is so critical about the HCZ and the concept of community schools is that they provide the stability to build up positive momentum over a long period of time. Unfortunately, families that move in and out would have a difficult time building up enough momentum to see significant educational outcomes.

For community schools or HCZ-like endeavors to be successful in Baltimore, I believe ensuring that students have stable living accommodations must be a priority. While this may not be an issue in some communities, in others this is sure to be a significant challenge. Although the HUD programs of the past may not have been helpful in this area, this agency could be a very strong ally for school and community leaders. After all, the Department of Education shouldn’t be the only one looking out for the best interests of children.

You can find more information about Word on the Street at http://wordonthestreetbaltimore.wordpress.com/

Rewinding a Year

Just one year ago today, everybody in our class was surviving the intensive Teach for America summer training program called Institute. I thought back to that time, when I was so full of hope, so full of inspiration, and so full of the belief that students everywhere can achieve. Fast-forward a year, to this School Reform class, and I hear on a daily basis the same complaints that cynics everywhere shower upon our inner-city children. If it isn’t being short on resources, it’s having an under qualified administration, a central office that makes poor decisions, or a curriculum that doesn’t make sense. What happened to the belief that our children can achieve?

I stumbled on this story earlier, about a woman named Dr. Camika Royal, who was a TFA Baltimore member in 1999, and gave the speech at the opening ceremony of induction recently in Philadelphia. Speaking of school reform, Dr. Royal has kept a close eye on the happenings in Philadelphia, where they are completely eliminating the school district in favor of charter management organizations. Her point is that, as teachers, we are the ones who, in her words, “control the weather.” Educators, she says, and I agree with, are not bad, but they are tired and reform weary. And our students are more than test scores, subgroups, and graduation rates- they are human beings, who want the best for themselves and for the people around them.

A year later, I feel that a part of me forgot that simple truth.  The simple truth that, despite the challenges we face as educators on a daily basis, we are here because we believe that our students can do well for themselves and for the world. Maybe there are some things that schools or school districts can change along the way to make our jobs easier, such as creating smaller schools, supplying us with more resources, etc. But, in the end, our job is to teach. Whatever reform the school districts have in store for us shouldn’t effect our simple ability to teach to our fullest.  

Why Higher Order Thinking Should be Abolished (according to GOP Texans)

 While I was home in Dallas, Texas,  I came across an article on the Huffington Post that stated that the 2012 GOP platform opposes "higher order thinking skills." Naturally, I guffawed. Isn't this what we want to happen in classrooms across the country? Apparently, Texas Republicans think not.

The GOP platform believes that higher order thinking skills and critical thinking skills challenge "students fixed beliefs" and, ultimately, undermine "parental authority." At the heart of the matter are parents' roles in their child's education. If students are taught to think critically, then they must eventually challenge what their parents have taught them, Republicans believe. What is more frightening to me, though, is the notion that we should not challenge students' fixed beliefs. I'm sure some of us can imagine what would happen if we didn't challenge some of their beliefs, or if some of our beliefs were not challenged when we were students. As teachers, and as future parents, we must begin to question what our roles in our children's education might be. Will we be the primary source of not only knowledge, but also beliefs, in our children's lives? To what extent should our children question what they have been taught by parents and teachers?

What was interesting to me, though, was perusing what other items made it onto the section "Educating our Children" on the platform document. If you would like to see the platform document, it is linked here. Along with opposing higher order thinking, Texas GOPs opposes any "sex education other than abstinence," advocates for corporal punishment, and believes that the "Department of Education (DOE) should be abolished."

I recommend reading the full document to understand the entire position from which the GOP is coming. It was not until I read it completely that I found their other recommendations. Regardless of your political beliefs, it is crucial that as educators we understand the platforms of political parties, especially in an election year. It is our duty to know the education platform of these parties and vote for who we think will fight for the best for our students.

David Brooks is one among many journalists to recently lament America’s divided future. Though the divide to which he refers to in his most recent New York Times article is an educational one, and not a political one.  In his article, “The Opportunity Gap”, Brooks reviews recent research completed by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam.  Putnam attributes the discrepancy in opportunity to social factors that affect children at young ages.  He frames the opportunity gap in terms of two additional gaps: an attention gap and a behavior gap.

Affluent parents spend more time reading to their children when they are young, and have the money, time, and resources to be more involved in their children’s lives.  These days, college-educated parents spend an hour more a day with their kids than non-college educated parents (a gap that has grown over the past 40 years).  The attention gap may also be attributed to a shift in social norms.  More and more children are born in single-parent households.  With the current job market, many working-class parents are too stressed and have less time, money, and resources to dedicate to their children.  This fact puts working-class children at a sad disadvantage, as upper-income parents are spending increasingly more money on their kids’ extracurricular activities.  This last difference has contributed to the behavior gap in students.

Putnam notes that poorer children who are not are not involved in extracurricular activities are more pessimistic and detached than their affluent counterparts.  These attitudes are attributed to the fact that the majority of our social institutions – family, friends, school, and community – have failed working-class youths.  It is no surprise that failed children consequently lack a sense of purpose and responsibility, thus causing a behavior gap.

Brooks ends the article by writing: “Equal opportunity, once core to the nation’s identity, is now a tertiary concern.”  If Americans want to change that, then “…people are going to have to make some pretty uncomfortable decisions.”  Brooks mentions three such decisions to remedy the opportunity gap:

1. Liberals should prioritize marriage over childrearing in order to provide children with two parents and adequate attention in a home environment.
2. Conservatives need reconcile that tax increases and benefit cuts are necessary steps to provide funding for programs that benefit the working class.
3. Politicians need to spend their time trying to remedy class divides instead of exploiting them and making the divide even wider. 

Are such concessions necessary to close the attention and behavior gaps, and ultimately the opportunity gap?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/opinion/brooks-the-opportunity-gap.html?ref=davidbrooks

Education Behind Bars

Over the weekend, I read an article about how Missouri rehabilitates juvenile offenders. In many of the "schools" in detention facilities across the united states students attend classes for only a few hours a week in classrooms overcrowded with behavioral problems and special needs. These "schools" often causes juvenile offenders to fall further behind their peers academically, socially, and emotionally. 

The new approach of the Missouri's Division of Youth Services (DYS) has helped thousands of juveniles rehabilitate. Students are taught in small groups fostering communal trust. Students then attend group therapy to develop positive ways of creating relationships with others and positive anger management. 

This article highlights the amazing results that are possible if people are willing to truly be revolutionary. I strongly believe that if a child internalizes an identity of a criminal or a failure, that is most likely what they will become. This new model in Missouri gives students a chance to positively reflect on their poor decisions in the past and use their mistakes and the mistake of their peers to help them make better decisions in the future. This model should not be confined to Missouri. While juvenile crime rates in Baltimore have declined since 2007, the number of youth who would benefit from this therapeutic model is enormous. The students we see or the students that commit crimes and are then committed to detention facilities are not acting out because they want to fail. They have unmet needs and they are doing the best they can with the resources available to them, often using inappropriate methods to meet their needs. By addressing the whole student, their strengths, their weaknesses and transforming the prison educational system from that of a punitive model to that of a therapeutic model, the Missouri DYS is giving these students the best chance for achievement in the future. Their success merits attention from school districts nation wide. This revolutionary shift in educational philosophy could transform the way the youth in Baltimore and other cities are educated. 

If you would like to read the article, here is a link to the PDF of the journal:

http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/summer2012/ae_summer2012_sml.pdf

NCLB Left Behind

        Today, the Department of Education announced that it has granted waivers releasing two more states – Washington and Wisconsin – from key provisions of the decade-old No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). With these waivers, Secretary Duncan has now relieved 26 states from meeting NCLB’s goal of making all students proficient in math and reading by 2014. To earn a waiver, states are required to set new targets aimed at preparing students for colleges and careers and base teacher evaluations, in part, on test scores.

        Maryland earned a NCLB waiver earlier this year by setting annual measurable objectives (AMOs) for the coming six years. By 2017, all schools are expected to cut their percentage of non-proficient students, overall and by subgroup, in half. Additionally, a new School Performance Index takes into account achievement, gap, and growth measures, an improvement from NCLB’s exclusive emphasis on proficiency. Maryland’s agreement also rewards schools that make progress. Whether the incentives motivate schools to improve remains to be seen, but any positive reinforcement seems to be a welcome departure from NCLB’s emphasis on what’s not working.

        Though these waivers represent a bold maneuver to advance the administration’s education agenda, something had to be done. For the 2010-11 school year, nearly half of schools across the nation failed to meet adequate yearly progress (AYP). And that rate was even higher in states like Virginia (61%) and Massachusetts (80%). When AYP status becomes meaningless and Congress fails to re-authorize NCLB, the policy needs to be adjusted, and that is exactly what Duncan has done. Though House Republicans are calling the waivers an abuse of executive power, many of the states they represent have applied for one.

        Montgomery County Schools Superintendent Joshua Starr doesn’t believe waivers do much to shift education reform, but I question the notion that a major policy shift is what we need. The law certainly needs tweaking, but much of NCLB’s failure has been attributed to flawed implementation. States have set standards too low and written poor assessments, causing a narrowing of the curriculum. Teachers and school leaders – some right here in Baltimore – have cheated on tests. But despite flawed implementation, the ‘big idea’ behind NCLB – accountability for results from our public schools – is tremendously important. Let’s not forget that NCLB’s requirement to disaggregate achievement data holds schools more accountable for the education of the poor and minority children we teach. And let’s not step back from testing accountability altogether just because it’s put pressure on the system. We need to sustain this push for accountability over time and maintain bold expectations for our schools.

        Duncan’s waivers may force some real progress here in Baltimore. The administration’s Blueprint for Reform focuses the most attention on the bottom five percent of low-performing schools, some of which are here in Baltimore. Though this will relax some of the sanctions our schools faced under NCLB, these schools will still be expected to meet annual performance objectives. If our high-poverty schools see real rewards for results, perhaps leaving NCLB behind in favor of fresh accountability measures can close gaps for Baltimore's students.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/education/no-child-left-behind-whittled-down-under-obama.html?_r=1&ref=education

DOES SIZE MATTER?

Does Size Matter?

In the readings that we’ve discussed in class, there has been much debate on the importance of class size for student achievement. In summary, research seems to show that it does not have much of an effect on the student success, with the exception of elementary school-age students, mainly kindergarteners. And while that may be true, it does not really take into account the differences in learning atmosphere between small and large classes.

Last year, Baltimore County eliminated nearly 200 teaching positions in an effort to cut budget costs. This decision has resulted in the increasing of class size on the high school level. Most schools have between 25% and 36% of classes with 30 or more students, and average class-sizes have increased from about 25 to 28 students. The exception is however, lower performing schools, which have maintained very low increases in class size throughout the transition. The justification for this is that students come into school on different levels and struggling schools can benefit from the extra attention from teachers. This does mean however, that gifted and talented classes, as well as other important core-classes performing on higher levels are experiencing greater increases in class size.

The question becomes, does size really make a difference? Some teachers welcome the increase, stating that they are able to do more group work and have richer discussions than they were with smaller classes. Other teachers, students, and even parents have been complaining that the class size increases make students less likely to speak up in class and cause teachers to spend more time dealing with discipline problems. Teachers also say that the increases inhibit them from being able to give specialized attention to students, stay on top of grading, and give timely feedback.

Also, if schools are already making precautions to keep small classes in struggling schools, is it fair to not offer this option to schools that have routinely been performing well? Shouldn’t we be ensuring that all students have what they need to be successful, whether they are high performing or struggling students? And yes, if teachers are more creative and able to adjust to the larger class sizes, then this change will not make much difference, but what if the teacher is new or less experienced, are not able to make those adjustments effectively? Are schools taking this is account when they arrange student placement?

Baltimore County high schools see class sizes grow School system cut 200 teaching positions; struggling schools protected

Under Our Roof

According to a recent article in the Baltimore Sun, the U.S. Department of Education recently reported that there are more than 1 million homeless students in the United States.  This number is up 57 percent since 2007.  In Maryland there are 14,117 homeless students, which is drastically higher than 6,721 five years ago. 

These shocking numbers made me stop and think about our role as teachers in a district where many of our students come to our classrooms with the weights of difficult home lives on their backs.  Teaching a child who is hungry or worried about where he is is going to sleep tonight, no matter how engaging the lesson, is an uphill battle.  This article quickly reminded me of the importance of creating a classroom culture that feels like home for our students.  For some of them, school may be the closest thing to home that they have.

Education reform cannot take place in a bubble – welfare reform and health care reform are just some of the other hugely politicized issues that must be addressed for students in the United States to have the opportunities they deserve.  Teach for America tells us that the problems of poverty don’t have to be fixed before we can give students an excellent education – and I wholeheartedly agree.  But, I do think that the answer to school reform – whatever that looks like – will find a way to improve the communities that urban children are living in so that we can stop telling them that an education is their “ticket out” of the poverty-stricken areas where they were raised.  Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone is one example of what that could look like.

Advocating For What Our Students Deserve.

     After reflecting on all that happened during my first year teaching, I found myself puzzled as to why I did not incite more change in my school. Yes, it was my first year; I was learning the curriculum and figuring out how to teach at the same time, but I questioned why I spent so much time noticing the problems that existed within the walls of my school and very little time changing them. Because of this, I was intrigued to be thinking about the teacher's direct role in school reform. 

     I was thinking about my experience and how there are so many things at my school that I would be interested in changing. Yet, do I even have the power to do that? What if no one will listen to me, and what if they don't like what I have to say? Will I eventually be hurting my own career as an educator by trying to advocate for change for the good of my students? These are all questions that I had as I sought to improve upon all of the structures that were put in place for my students to "succeed." Yet, I never stirred the pot. I voiced my opinion in a submissive way that never really encouraged change. Reform needs to start somewhere, but if the people who are working most directly with the students don't do it, who will?

     This is why I believe KIPP has been able to find so much success. Both David Levin and Mike Feinberg, the founders of the Knowledge is Power Program, fought for their students. They went over people's heads to get what they wanted, and they were not backing down from anyone...all in the name of advocating for their students. In order to incite change, you have to be willing to take risks. This is something that the KIPP founders are famous for, and their grit and determination has enabled so many students to now have the quality education that they deserve. 

     So, as I think about all that Levin and Feinberg did, I start to think about what I could do, what my co-workers could do to improve the situation for all of the students in my school. I'm not suggesting that we start going over people's heads and going straight to Dr. Alonso for what we want, but demanding a better education for our students is not only our job, but it is our duty as educators. Everything that we are trying to instill in our students - resilience, persistence, drive - needs to first be engrained in teachers. If there is something at your school that needs reform, make it known. If we do not advocate for the changes in our schools that our kids deserve, who will?

It Takes So Much More

     As my first year of teaching drew to a close during the second week of June, I inevitably began to think about everything that had happened over the course of year.  Good, bad and everything in between, there are definitely things that I hope to change in my classroom and there are also things on a school level that I hope will change before the beginning of my second year.  After talking about the numerous issues that surround the topic of school reform in this class, I began to think about the place that the teacher-student relationship has in all of this, even the school-student relationship.  We can talk about reform efforts like vouchers, charter schools and small class sizes until we are blue in the face, but I wonder if any of that really matters if the personal support is not there.  After reading Whatever it Takes by Paul Tough, my mind travelled back to that second week in June when I also happened to read an incredibly emotional yet eye-opening article about one young woman in particular who overcame extreme adversity to fulfill her dreams, but not without the help of her school.  Let me just preface what I am about to reflect on by saying that, while not a structured aspect of school reform, the type of behavior reflected in this article as well as what I saw to be the most important aspect of Geoffrey Canada's work as chronicled in Whatever it Takes are in my opinion directly related to our students and what it would take to "reform" our schools.
     The article, linked here, tells the story of a homeless teenager.  Abandoned by her parents, she was taken in by one of the school's custodians and given the opportunity to finish out her last year at her high school.  The school community banded together to help her- she had somewhere to live, food to eat, a job as a custodian when she was not in school.  And, you can read for yourself everything in between.  In the face of all of the challenges that met this young lady as she was homeless and struggling to complete high school, she eventually completed her studies as a straight-A student.  In the end, she wound up getting accepted to Harvard.  While this may seem like "fluff" in terms of the topics of school reform that we have been discussing, what struck me while reading the article was how similar this young lady is to some of my students in terms of the challenges that she faces on a daily basis.  She was born into a family that did not give her the opportunity to be successful, but that is really what she wanted.
     I thought about how the principles of what her school did for her relate to Canada's quest to change Harlem.  While a story like this young lady's is not something you see everyday, it is clear that her adversity is not unlike the adversity of others.  The only difference was the support that she was given.  In the case of the Harlem Children's Zone, Canada sought to put students on a different trajectory than the one they were born to follow.  He established programs that allowed students and parents to make the changes necessary to be successful both inside and outside of school.  Now, this may be the humanitarian in me, but I firmly believe that this aspect of school reform, building a community that supports students and parents 100%, is just as important as the conversations about vouchers and charters.  I honestly do not think that we can ever successfully reform schools if the personal aspect of schools that Canada painstakingly etched into the HCZ and that the school community in the article showed is not an integral part of reform.  In truth, we should all have that "Whatever it Takes" mentality and know that it actually takes so much more.

Dealing with Trauma

The vast majority if not all of us have at one point or another experienced some form of behavioral issue in our classroom. From my own personal experience, one of the most common points of commiseration among teachers, and one faced widely by those of us in urban school systems in particular (such as Baltimore City and County) that have high rates of minority students, is that of behavioral challenges in school. As a chronic issue, it is one that deserves to be considered under the lens of school reform. If we use suspension rates as a proxy for behavior, we see that urban districts have higher than average amounts of “misbehavior.” While the average suspension rate in counties across Maryland is 6.8% of students (46% persons of color statewide), with Montgomery County and Howard County coming in at lows of 2.6% and 3.3% respectively, Baltimore City’s 2010-2011 year showed a rate of 9.1% of students suspended at one point or another (72% persons of color citywide) (Baltimore Sun - Suspensions)(Maryland Demographics). And, to be frank, not all of the students that I personally might have recommended for suspension were ultimately suspended, and I know that the case was similar for many others.

But why is it that students are suspended, or “misbehave,” at higher rates in metropolitan areas, and where there are higher rates of minority students? The National Child Traumatic Stress Network reports that one out of four children in the United States will experience a traumatic event before the age of 16 (Curtin, 2008). However, Parson (1994 - link to pdf) found that black children in the inner city experience traumatic events at more than 3 times the rate of children nationally, with 84% of elementary students saying that they had seen someone physically assaulted.

There may be a correlation between trauma and suspension rates, but then the question of how effective suspensions are in actually decreasing “misbehavior” in schools and classrooms is asked. The answer is disheartening. Jane Ellen Stevens, in a recent article on the Huffington Post, reports that one suspension triples the likelihood of a child becoming involved with the juvenile justice system, and doubles that child's likelihood of repeating a grade. And then when it comes to the classroom, it was rarely my experience that students were better behaved, motivated, or adjusted when they returned from their suspension.

So what is an acceptable alternative to suspending chronically “misbehaved” students who may be dealing with some form of trauma?

Trauma-informed improved plans are a new way of addressing these issues. School districts in Massachusetts, Washington, and other states have begun to adopt such plans which include courses for teachers on how to teach traumatized children; whole-community involvement in informing schools about and responding to students who have experienced trauma; and the positive behavior interventions program.

As communities continue to change, it is impossible for students to learn and for teachers to teach if the students’ basic needs are not met. Providing outlets and productive alternatives to punishing “misbehaved” children should ever be towards the top of the school reform agenda. 

Links:

Main Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-ellen-stevens/traumasensitive-schools-part-two_b_1632126.html?utm_hp_ref=education 

PBIS: http://www.pbis.org/school/default.aspx

Trauma-Sensitive Schools: http://www.istss.org/source/stresspoints/index.cfm?fuseaction=Newsletter.showThisIssue&Issue_ID=80&Article_ID=1353

Inner City Children of Trauma Report PDF: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&ved=0CGcQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.giftfromwithin.org%2Fpdf%2Fparson.pdf&ei=1u3wT9nvKKGC6QGwvvG6Bg&usg=AFQjCNFexXFOKaSLAUc_fV44nIYOyUDphQ&sig2=1PSiMfzwO_pRXmF0tHSOmw

Demographics: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/24/24510.html

Baltimore Sun- Suspensions: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-12-25/news/bs-md-co-school-suspensions-20111225_1_suspension-issue-suspension-rate-stricter-discipline-codes

"More Kool Aid Please"

Is TFA making transformational change within the students or are those that participate in TFA are the ones that are transforming. The simple fact that most who transforming and making student academic gains, are few in number. It is one due to the lack of training to be an effective teacher. Secondly, it is the fact that most are just trying to improve self for their resume and not really in it for the cause and most leave after their two year commitment. Third, is that even though those that are TFA participants are great at being a student and learning does not mean that their academic success will transpire into the classroom with students that most do not relate to because are not from or have not experienced at least few of the hardships that the students they are required to teach have and are going through. Lastly,  is that there is a strong emphasis on leading adolescents and those that we are putting in the classroom have for the majority never had major responsibility of taking care of children, or being a leader outside of peers and are yet thrown into a situation that requires them to be an ADULT with students that are close to their own age, when most are still young themselves. I can imagine it being hard as a student to see such young teachers and have to look up to them as a role model and learn how to be an adult when there is only ten years difference in age between them. I mean people get married with ten years between the two of them.  I am not saying that makes a person less effective as a teacher, but some of the things that administrators look for is a leader or someone they can entrust to discipline and educate their students. To be honest most coming out of college just do not have it and actually have a hard time with the management piece of teaching and are not effective in their instruction. The key to first being able to make transformational change is to have command of the classroom and most are still figuring out themselves as adults, let alone becoming a disciplinarian, and just can’t completely do it. Not only that teachers actually have to be provided a solid educational foundation towards how to teach and in developing their teaching style, and that is not something that can happen after two years where most TFA step out of teaching; and furthermore, can not be done with the summer training for month and a half at institute.  From speaking to veteran teachers it really takes 3-5 years to figure out a management style that works for you followed by instruction that will make a teacher effective. TFA teachers mostly do not stay around long enough to learn how to be an effective teacher but a leader and commander of the classroom to be transformational. These school invest money in their training and the turnover or costs of helping these corp members are more then what the schools actually get out of those teaching. Not saying the TFA corp members are not motivated and not want to do well, but not most are in it for a career.

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/04/deepening_the_debate_over_teac.html

http://greatlakescenter.org/docs/Policy_Briefs/Heilig_TeachForAmerica.pdf

Eventhough, teaching always requires much reflection in practice and being flexible and making changes, which can bring some changes it is hard to say it will be transformational. With most corp members leaving after their two years and a new set of teachers coming in, the system of change is still not healthy for students because there is no consistency with the people around them and since most of them leave, I am sure that transfers into negative thoughts for the students who were in their classrooms and return negatively affect their scores academically. With nearly 15 – 23% of the incoming corp members not completing their two year commitment and nearly 60% leaving after the two year commitment. When looking at the numbers only 23% stay after 5 years. Which these would be just classified as becoming effective teachers.  Yet, the experience gained by the corp member they are transforming into better adults by learning responsibility and gaining experience in planning and data analysis, they are mainly transforming themselves and not the students that are in their classroom, which was the main goal of TFA to provide a quality education to those students where the need is great in efforts of closing the achievement gap between students in affluent and low income areas.

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2012-04-27/story/low-teach-america-retention-rate-examined-duval-embraces-program

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-indialogue/2012/04/deepening_the_debate_over_teac.html