Although parents are concerned about their child’s academic success, who defines parental involvement and what does the school, teachers and community expect regarding parental involvement. Many researchers and writers have noted that parental involvement is associated with academic achievement.

Talking to a 29 year veteran teacher, I posed several questions, the first of which was this: “What is parental involvement’? The typical response was given, “I want the parent to come to the school when I contact him or her, to check on his or her  child weekly, and to let me know he or she  parent is concerned.” However, when I posed   the same question to a parent, a lawyer,  the response was different: The teachers want me to come to the school to be hands-on with my child.  That is not what teachers actually want. The question then is this, “What does the teacher want the parent to do to show concern?” The next question was, “Do you think every teacher has the same definition of parental involvement as you do?” The response given was, “I guess that is the problem. All teachers do not have the same definition of parental involvement.” Teachers define parental involvement as it relates to how each of their  parents is  involved or how a parent perceives that a  teacher is involved with his or her child.  Because of the different perceptions of parental involvement, it is important that the term  is defined so that parents will know what is expected.  We advocate that  teachers and administrators in a particular school define parental involvement so that parents  know what is expected.  An operational definition of parental involvement is a parent or parents helping a child to be accountable and responsible for learning by doing the following:

• making sure the child is at school on time
• making sure the child has eaten before school
• making sure the child has had at least eight hours of sleep
• making sure the child has school supplies
• making sure the child has homework completed and is correct
• making sure the child is dressed appropriately
• making sure the child is disciplined and respectful
• make sure there is weekly contact with the teacher (telephone, visit, texting, email or Skype)
• attending the child’s activities
• volunteering in the child’s classroom or school.

That definition and the items making it up, should be on the entry wall into the school, in the hallways, teacher’s workroom, office and parent handbook. The definition will provide a list of choices in terms of how the parent can become involved and make involvement universal for the school. It then becomes the responsibility of both parties to ensure that some form of parental involvement takes place. Each parent can then decide what of this list he or she can do. Teachers should play a role in helping the parent to become involved by doing the following:

• contact parents weekly to gain parental support (telephone, texting, written correspondence, email or Skype)
• encouraging parents to visit in the classroom
• always be a mature adult
• always give a child a second chance
• never make assumptions about a child’s background
• take time to self-reflect

Since the results of parental involvement are positive, why is parental involvement low for ethnic-minority and language-minority students?  Is it because ethnic minority parents do not love their child? Absolutely not. However, there are issues related to being involved.  Some ethnic minority parents did not have a good school-experience and, therefore, have issues related to going back into the experience that was not positive.  Some of the same teachers are still there, and the parental involvement may cause the bad memories to resurface.  Some teachers are not kind to parents. Some teachers do not understand the cultures of ethnic parents in terms of contact. Some parents are embarrassed by not being able to help their child.

How can teachers and administrators get parents involved?  Teachers should make a habit of contacting five to seven parents of students each week by telephone, email, texting, US mail, or Skype.  The contact can help parents become more comfortable in sharing what they can or cannot do academically to assist their children. I think parents will become more involved if teachers reach out to parents. The weekly contact lets a parent know that the teacher is concerned about his or her child. As such, the concern can be reciprocated. Parents need to know that they are welcomed in their child’s classroom.  The school can provide nontraditional ways to get parents involved, for example, by taking the school to the community, or by having PTO or PTA meetings in community centers, the local library or church facility. Another nontraditional means is by having give-a-ways for parents who have visited or volunteered at the school during the week, month, or grading period. Local grocers or merchants, movie theatres, restaurants, Wal-Mart, Target can donate gift cards to the school to use as give-a-ways. Finally, teachers can bring items to organize a gift basket that can be used as a give-a-way. We are not advocating paying parents to be involved, but we are advocating using incentives to encourage and promote involvement. Now is the time for parents and educators to form true partnerships that are open and honest to foster an environment for the success of students, for parents, and for educators.

Applications for the U.S. Department of Education’s fifth cohort of Teaching Ambassador Fellows opened on January 21^st and are scheduled to close on February 22^nd, 2012. Since 2008, this highly competitive program has enabled a total of sixty-nine outstanding teachers, each with a record of leadership, strong communication skills, and insights into educational policy based in classroom expertise to work with the Department on a full or part time basis.  For more information about the application process, you can visit our program page at www.ed.gov/programs/teacherfellowship or go directly to the applications for the  Washington, Classroom, and/or Regional Fellowship onwww.usajobs.gov.

The Teaching Ambassador Fellowship was created because we believe that teachers should have meaningful opportunities to both contribute to and understand the policies that impact their students and school communities. Also when families, students, and teachers want information about education, it is most often to teachers that they turn.

The Teaching Ambassador Fellowship program offers three separate year-long paid positions: the Washington Fellowship is a full-time appointment based at the Department’s Headquarters in Washington. The Classroom Fellowship enables teachers to participate on a part-time basis for the Department, in addition to their regular school responsibilities, working in collaboration with the Department’s Regional Offices. For the 2012-2013 year, the Department has proposed a third track, the Regional Fellowship, which is a full-time appointment based at one of the Department’s Regional Communications Offices  – Atlanta, GA; Seattle, WA; and either Boston, MA, New York City or Philadelphia, PA.

All Teaching Ambassador Fellows spend one year learning about key federal programs and policies; sharing their expertise with federal staff members; and providing outreach and communication about federal initiatives to other educators on behalf of the Department in order to help teachers understand and implement these efforts at the federal, state and local levels, to improve the likelihood of their success.  For the Fellows, the program adds greater knowledge of educational policy and leadership to their toolkits to contribute to solutions at all levels for long intractable challenges in education.

Teacher leaders — please consider applying and share this information with your colleagues!  Call 1-800-USALearn or email us at TeacherFellowship@ed.gov with questions.

Teachers of Color Magazine is a diversity recruitment resource guide for prospective teachers and is published biannually, February/Spring Issue and October/Fall Issue. The national publication is distributed on a controlled request basis (free) to 35,000 prospective teachers on 450 colleges and universities Departments of Education, at career fairs and to paid subscribers.

The editors are calling for articles and research papers on topics relevant the issues and events occurring within the education community.

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What is Teachers of Color looking for in an article? We look for two qualities: educational significance and readability. The article must in some way be usable by our readers – to inform, to increase their knowledge, to improve their practice, and to influence their decisions. Content should relate to real issues, concerns and solutions. Content should be factual, logical and well focused. To be readable, it should avoid the use of jargon, it should include concrete examples, and should be concise.

• Expand the pool of prospective teachers of color and increase cultural competence of all teachers and administrators.
• Identify specific resources targeted to the recruitment process, the interviewing process, and the hiring process of ethically diverse and culturally competent teachers.
• Provide information, tips, recommendations, strategies, advice, stats, and data that support cultural diversity in the education industry.

NOTE: Include a brief 40-50 word biography of each author at the end. Include the author(s) full name(s), suffixes, degrees, job title, employer name and location, and a high resolution photograph, etc. Length Must be a minimum of 1,000 words and no more than 2,000 words.

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You may email your work to editor@teachersofcolor.com.

Every child living in America deserves to be taught by a highly-effective teacher. In addition to being highly effective, teachers who reflect the diversity of their students have an added benefit in that they frequently understand the cultural experiences of those they teach. That understanding can lead to higher expectations for students, increased graduation rates, and greater college opportunities.

While roughly half of the nation’s students are of color, only about 15 percent of teachers nationwide identify themselves as being of color.

As the nation works to find new ways to recruit a diverse teaching force to serve our nation’s schools, the fact remains that students need teachers who are not only diverse in background, but also accomplished and effective in their teaching practice. This commitment to diversity and excellence is reflected in the work of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), which developed and administers the standards and assessment process for National Board Certification. Teachers who achieve National Board Certification have demonstrated that they are not only effective and accomplished in their teaching subjects and teaching practices, but . among the nation’s best teachers. More than 10 percent of all National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) are of color, a figure that has nearly doubled in the past five years.

Research documents that National Board Certification improves student achievement, but also retains and recognizes effective teachers. For example, in the most rigorous and comprehensive study to date about National Board Certification, the National Research Council found that students taught by NBCTs make higher gains on achievement tests than students taught by other teachers.  Students of NBCTs, particularly minority students, scored 7-15 percentage points higher on year-end tests (Goldhaber and Anthony, 2004). In addition, NBCTs certified in math areas helped their 9^th and 10^th grade students achieve larger testing gains––with particular benefits among African American and Hispanic students (Cavalluzzo, 2004). Many NBCTs provide mentoring and guidance to new or struggling teachers who are most likely to leave within the first five years of teaching (Yankelovich, 2001; Sykes, et al., 2006).

To help increase the diversity of effective teachers, NBPTS is involved in collaborations with the nation’s HBCUs. Given that these institutions graduate 50 percent of African American teachers with bachelor’s degrees, programs like the Thurgood Marshall College Fund’s Teacher Quality and Retention Program are critical to the National Board’s work. In addition to recruiting minority teachers to serve in high-need rural and urban schools, the program also provides participants with three years of mentoring with a National Board Certified Teacher. That focus is critical to teacher retention in some of our nation’s most challenged schools, since teachers who experience early support are more likely to continue teaching than those who struggle on their own. Since the program’s inception, committed NBCTs have guided teachers of color into the world of quality teaching with supportive and caring mentor relationships.

In addition to our work with HBCUs, the National Board continues to focus on breaking down barriers to underrepresented groups participating in National Board programs through a variety of initiatives. The National Board’s Direct Recruitment Efforts to Attract Minorities (DREAM) Team, led primarily by NBCTs, recruits and supports teachers of color to pursue National Board Certification. NBPTS also works with Hispanic-serving institutions and Tribal Colleges and Universities to improve the quality of teaching through National Board programs.

The National Board’s Targeted High Need Initiative (THNI) program recruits and supports candidates serving in high-need schools—many located in underrepresented communities. THNI supports the development of Comprehensive Candidate Support Centers—cohorts of teachers participating in National Board programs.

The National Board is committed to ensuring that every student has access to effective, accomplished teachers––either directly in the classroom or through the leadership and mentoring of other teachers in their schools. Every day, accomplished teachers from diverse racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds are changing the lives of learners in classrooms across the nation. We urge all teachers of color to become candidates for National Board Certification or its related programs. Join us in advancing accomplished teaching and furthering our nation’s commitment to access and equity for all students.

Christina Brown, M.A.

Director of the Performance Assessment Initiative at the Center for Collaborative Education (CCE). Masters in Literacy from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Areas of interest and expertise include equity and diversity issues, school leadership, and curriculum development.

THE TRUTH

“A Piece of Our Minds”

Teachers, don’t you absolutely hate it when the stock broker or the car salesman or the accountant or even your own beautician sits next to you and complains about how the problem with public schooling is bad teachers?

Complaints about teachers have  always been somewhat of an issue since many folks buy into the idea that because they have gone to school all their lives, they know what it takes to be a good teacher, and it’s not really all that much. Lately, however, this bad teacher narrative has gone viral. In the last couple of years there has been a rash of magazine and newspaper articles (Newsweek, Time, and the Wall Street Journal among others) reiterating and reinforcing this highly problematic and fundamentally misleading narrative. And let’s not forget the latest and perhaps most powerful performance in this ongoing drama—Waiting for Superman—which brings to light some painful truths about the malfunctioning of public schooling, but pivots just a little too much on the assumption that the primary and most pressing problem in public schooling is bad teachers protected by bad union practices.  As a teacher of teachers, I find that the  most difficult aspects of their assumption for me to swallow are the ways in which this bad teacher narrative is used to push policies that use tyranny or corporate incentive models to scare/ motivate people into good teaching, never mind that it would be good teaching in a fundamentally outdated, if not tragically flawed, system. I am most frustrated with the fact that all of this does, in fact, have many new teachers scared to death, not sure how to stand up for themselves much less for the wellbeing of their students. So I just want to give, in the few paragraphs that follow,  the politicians and the rest of the non-teacher public, a glimpse into our worlds, a piece of our minds, a serious response to the out of control bad teacher narrative, and as such hope you find the some encouragement to talk back or maybe even just the gumption to quietly drop these words in the mailboxes of those who need to hear them.

First, let’s just start with the fact that there are indeed some really bad teachers in the system. I know there are some, because I have seen them and witnessed their devastating impact. So it is indeed a fairly reasonable fact to offer. Doubtless, there are ineffective people in every line of work, and sometimes they are fired and sometimes they are not. And sometimes such people are not only not fired but also rewarded with  unimaginably large material rewards, far greater than we anything we would consider possible even for the most brilliant of teachers, despite the fact that they have a large part of the responsibility for nurturing and developing our most priceless resources—our children.  So conceding that there are bad teachers is no problem, but it doesn’t make sense to do so without thinking about how much of a problem bad teachers really are. In other words are they 100% of the problem or 3% of the problem? I venture to say that there are many, many more good hardworking yet unsupported teachers than there are truly bad ones.

Moreover, who exactly is a bad teacher? Is it the teacher who achieves outstanding test scores but makes a regular habit of calling kids dumb, and instilling fear? Or is it the teacher who is a shining star in the affluent upper middle class school district, but would be a shamefully hopeless failure in the urban school where 90% of the children are on free and reduced lunch? Or is it the teacher who has come and given her all, who has built good relationships with parents, who has extended herself beyond reason to her struggling students, who has high expectations for her students, but has not been able to get the majority of her six graders (many of whom who have been passed along in previous grades) to pass the tests? Or is it the teacher who came in with untold energy and inspiration, but with each passing year the bureaucratic bottom line has stolen more and more of her spirit, her drive, her effectiveness?  Such questions ought to draw our attention to the fact that when we talk about teacher quality in political/public conversation we are almost always tying that to test scores. While no sane person would argue against the importance of teacher accountability, an astute one should surely want to know how accountability is being measured and to what extent that measure reflects teacher quality. When teacher quality and effectiveness are determined solely by test scores, then we are sure to lose just as many good teachers as we are to retain truly bad ones.

Secondly, another way that this bad teacher narrative operates is to create an either/or situation: Either you are against the union which protects bad teachers or you are for the union and  support  retaining bad teachers. While we should certainly invest no energy in pretending that union practices that protect truly bad, ineffective teachers are acceptable under any circumstances, we should also realize the potential consequences of having no union at all, especially given that our society has the Hollywood inspired impression  that a good teacher should be willing to lay down her life, cut off her right arm and sell a kidney to ensure that all 36 six of her very different students learn the same thing, in the same way, all at the very same time, despite whatever else might be going on in their lives.  And thanks to movies like Dangerous Minds, Freedom Writers, and The Ron Clark Story that celebrate the untold sacrifices of middle class White teachers for the wellbeing of the poor Black and Brown kids, this reality is far more problematic for teachers of color, who get no such recognition for the tireless work they do in their own communities. It might be wise to consider fighting for reform of union practices rather than obliterating teacher unions all together. Such a maneuver might encourage the system to further exploit teachers unchecked.

Third, the bad teacher narrative gives the public the perception that bad teachers are  the major problem with public schooling. However, it is just one more narrative in the line of many that tries to convince the public that it is one thing or another that is causing the decline in public schooling. The significant improvement that we say we are committed to will not be the result of fixing a problem or two, here or there. We have to imagine a much more holistic approach, confronting the core idea of public schooling and then asking of every aspect whether it lines up with our goals, with our hopes for public schooling or whether it just maintains a system without serious quality checks?  The bad teacher narrative, or the bad parents narrative, or the unteachable, poor kid narrative is a scapegoat, one that obscures the extent to which the public school system and its massive bureaucracy concerned first and foremost with the bottom line and not necessarily or unwaveringly with the education of our children is not in need of reform, but in need of revolutionary rebuilding. Just think about it, if we were truly committed to public schooling for the common good, then our first order of business would be to equalize funding across the entire system, where all buildings were safe, vibrant and conducive to inspiring learning. We would not be satisfied until all schools had the same basic up to date resources, until all schools offered the same base line salary, or until those teachers working in much more difficult environments were compensated accordingly. Of course, we all know that money can’t solve all problems, but please let’s not pretend that it is of no importance at all. It just might be a good place to start.

One final point that often does not get teased out in this conversation is the one regarding the effectiveness of teacher education programs. Now I certainly would agree that I think there are some serious issues with teacher education programs, whole programs that don’t prepare teachers in the way that they need to be prepared to take on, especially, diverse urban school environments. As someone who has worked inside such programs, it is important to note that what is being done in these programs is often not what teacher-educators choose to do; it is what the state mandates them to do.  The focus is largely on methods mastery, with very little attention to other imperative skills that are just as, if not more, important than content mastery. These might include the ability to build effective relationships with students, parents and colleagues. It might include knowing something about the cultural and historical circumstances of the population of children you are likely to be teaching. Given that we are indeed, whether we recognize it or not, a multilingual nation, it might include learning a language other than standard American English. It might include opportunities to build solidarity with various stakeholders in the community where one might be teaching.  It might include understanding youth culture and the ways their lives outside of school and home might impact the learning process. Given that we are a media saturated society, it might also include some focus on understanding how media engagement impacts learning and how we might start valuing and teaching critical reading skills that extend beyond books and take on television, movies, internet, and other media texts.  All of these get nixed or simply never see the light of day, not even in our wildest dreams, unless teacher educators manage to shove them in between the 20 methods or methods like courses required by accrediting bodies empowered by state legislators, many of whom make decisions and then demands based on the results they want to see, not based on any significant understanding of the circumstances at hand.

So in closing, fellow teachers, new teachers especially, don’t settle for being talked about or talked to as if you don’t know the problems, possibilities, and the contradictions between the work we are required to do and that which we are in the depths of our souls called to do.  Your voice, our voices, must be heard in this  conversation whose impact will surely come back– not only on us but all stakeholders–with a vengeance, if it simply goes unchecked or if we leave it up to the union rep.  to fight our battles for us.

What structures found in highly successful classrooms are often ignored by most teachers?  Perhaps you might think a time saving planning tool, an innovative teaching strategy that helps struggling learners, or effective techniques that address inappropriate behavior in the classroom.  One of the most underused and most often ignored elements commonly found in successfully run classrooms is the creation and sustentation of true classroom communities.

What are true classroom communities?

Classroom communities consist of warm, caring, and positive climates in which each member plays a substantive role.  Students feel supported, valued, and committed to each other.  They understand that they have  important positions in helping the community move forward.  Though individual victories are recognized, collective achievement is relished.  Community members (students) feel a sense of emotional security and intellectual safety when expressing both thoughts and ideas.

The role of  teachers in these communities is best described as that of compassionate facilitator.    Compassionate facilitators don’t teach while under the influence of control. That is, they don’t feel a need to micromanage every element of learning which takes place.  They empower students to develop meaning from content, establish effective learning units where students learn from each other (i.e. peer-learning strategies), and provide several choices for students to demonstrate what they learned according to their particular interests and the ways they learn best.  Compassionate facilitators see their role as one of student of students in that they continuously look for the optimal techniques, strategies and methods that help students learn best.

Along with academic achievement, compassionate facilitators in true classroom communities place an almost equal emphasis on the social well-being and personal growth of students. They are emotion sensors.  That is, compassionate facilitators are in-tune with the pulse of community members at all times.   If an issue affecting a number of students needs to be addressed, they hold emergency community meetings to address and bring quick resolution to the issue.

Learners greatly appreciate the fact that they each have a voice in the day-to-day operations.  They regularly give the teacher both formal and informal feedback about their classroom experiences such as the pace of learning, what they liked/disliked about instruction, difficult to understand content, or the extent to which the presentation of the content was relevant or made sense.

I recently worked with a fifth grade teacher who began to regularly elicit student response through a student survey I designed.  This survey provided students an opportunity to give feedback about the teacher’s instructional practice and their overall classroom experience.  After explicitly incorporating a few of the suggestions gleaned from the survey, she was overwhelmed to see how the perspectives of her students  changed and the dramatic improvement in the way they responded to her.

Why establish a classroom community?

Typically, when you find classrooms in which disorder and disruption are par for the course, you have students who are fending for themselves on isolated islands of instruction.  They feel like the unhappy and unwelcome stranger who often wants to bring others into their miserable existence. At best, they feel out of place, at worst, that they don’t belong.  They have no sense of being vested in the community.

Succinctly, reasons for establishing communities are as follows:

• A sense of family or kinship is a cultural attribute of African Americans (Hale, 1986).
• Students in middle school classrooms experience a greater sense of anonymity (Davis, 2006).
• Disengaged students tend to frequently display poorer behavior and often drop out (Finn, 1989).
• Non-white students often experience classroom disengagement (Steele, 1992).
• Students are more motivated to learn in classrooms where they believe the teacher cares.
• African American students learn best in communalistic or interpersonal ways
• Both student and teacher have a vested interest in the growth and development of the community.

You may ask, “How do you transform the classroom from a place with participants who are barely visible to productively vested members of the community?”

Establishing the Community

One of the principal emphases in establishing the community is initially made by  teachers making connections.  Strong connections are characterized by teachers who work not only  to build but also to sustain strong student-teacher relationships.  For them those relationships are priorities that they continuously work to maintain and improve. In my own experience and in partnering with teachers, one of the most powerful techniques in relationship-building begins with  teachers giving  students something first.  The things given are not necessarily  material items; they  could  be  granting of  privileges, giving  time, or acts of compassion.  Other strategies for developing classroom communities are as follows:

• Collaboratively develop classroom expectations (rules) with students along with a timely discussion of the rationale for those expectations.
• Celebrate their personal important dates (i.e. birthdays).
• Frequently chart, monitor, and celebrate student growth and progress.
• Monitor the I/we ratio:  Use more “we” and “our” and fewer “I” and “me” when conversing.
• Provide time for learners to anonymously/safely give feedback regarding important classroom elements.
• Relentlessly make content relevant by situating it in the lives of the students.
• Incorporate the students’ lives in the context of the overall classroom.
• Facilitate instructional opportunities that call for social interaction.
• Include various grouping patterns including small groups (i.e. peer-tutoring, cooperative grouping.
• Encourage student voice in creating the community pathway.
• Afford students choice in the selection of ways to show what they have learned.

The heart of the classroom is the climate.  The climate is only as healthy as the community in which it exists.  Building true classroom communities creates the desperately needed supportive structure in all classrooms, particularly those with students of color. Building true classroom communities minimizes the challenges of student disengagement and disorder.  These communities provide an educational extension of home as they   connect teachers and learners.   They give rise to student voice enhanced by student choice.  Community members are transformed from the unknown to the undaunted.

The Obama Administration released a report, Education and the American Jobs Act: Creating Jobs through Investments in Our Nation’s Schools, and interactive maps that highlight estimated benefits that states and local school districts would receive if Congress acts to pass the American Jobs Act.

The White House report provides an analysis of the condition of America’s schools, which have fallen into disrepair, as well as the difficult budget environment facing school districts and teachers nationwide.  In order to address these critical needs, President Obama proposed $25 billion to renovate and modernize more than 35,000 public schools and $5 billion to upgrade infrastructure at America’s community colleges through the American Jobs Act, as well as $30 billion to keep hundreds of thousands of educators in the classroom.

“Upgrading America’s schools is a smart investment,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. “There’s a short-term return in the form of jobs to do the work, and in the long term our students—and our country—will benefit from modern facilities and technology.”

“Congress should act now and pass the American Jobs Act, to improve our schools, create jobs, and prepare our students for 21st century careers,” said Melody Barnes, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.

The President’s education investment through the American Jobs Act proposes $30 billion for enhancing the condition of our nation’s public schools – with $25 billion allocated to K-12 schools, including a priority for rural schools and dedicated funding for Bureau of Indian Education funded schools, and $5 billion to upgrade infrastructure at community colleges across the country.

The range of critical repairs and needed construction projects would put hundreds of thousands of Americans, including construction workers, engineers, maintenance staff,  and electrical workers, back to work. Modernization and repair needs are mounting in America’s schools, as school districts nationwide estimate $271 billion in deferred building maintenance, or more than $5,000 per student.

The President’s education investment in the American Jobs Act also included $30 billion in funding – which Congress voted against in October – to support nearly 400,000 education jobs, preventing layoffs and allowing educators to be hired or rehired. It also would have supported state and local efforts to retain, rehire, and hire early childhood, elementary, and secondary educators.  Over the 12 months ending October 2011, nearly 60 percent of all local government job losses were teachers and education personnel.

In addition to the release of the report, the Department of Education released two interactive maps that display the American Jobs Act’s estimated impact on every state and school district in the nation. These maps and the downloadable dataset behind them can be found at http://data.ed.gov/american-jobs-act.

To view the full report, which includes a state-by-state appendix that integrates state- and school district-level data detailing the education investments of the American Jobs Act, please visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/aja_ed_state_by_state_report_final.pdf.

Certified Speaking Professional, education consultant, speaker and author of the books Believing The HYPE- Seven Keys To Motivating Students of Color and The Purpose Living Teen, A Teen’s Guide To Living Your Dreams. To learn more about Coach D’s services, visit  www.coachdspeaks.com/Programs.html.

Many of us have read research findings that describe today’s education system as a vicious and ugly cycle that can most accurately be described as educational apartheid.  Children who begin their first day in pre-kindergarten or kindergarten with cognitive delays of 2-3 years are in overwhelmingly disproportionate numbers poor, black and Latino. Further studies show that such children essentially will be all but certain to be retained in their elementary, and, or, middle school years, based upon their performance on standardized reading and mathematics examinations. Further, according to virtually all research on this issue, retained just once, these students’ chances of obtaining a high school diploma become five times less likely than their equally cognitive deficient (often non-poor and non-minority) counterparts who have never been held back, and retained twice or more, these same students have virtually no chance of obtaining a high school diploma. Tragically, both the retention rate and the ominously corresponding high school drop out rate, a staggering 50% a decade ago for the same poor urban minority students for whom the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT (NCLB)- a bi- partisan law former President Bush and the late Senator Ted Kennedy crafted in 2002 with the goal to significantly reduce the achievement gap on standardized examinations and high school graduation rates between minority and non-minority students – rather than decreasing under NCLB, had apparently risen as a result of the emphasis that the law has placed on high stakes testing in the elementary and middle school.  According to the Obama White House, which is currently working to amend NCLB, as it stands today, approximately 1.2 million students drop out of school every year, roughly half of whom are black or Latino.

Nor does the tragedy of this vicious cycle end at the high school’s exit door for these million plus yearly victims. It continues into their adulthood. Every sociological study on the subject shows that adults who have not obtained a high school diploma possess virtually no chance of achieving middle class status ever in their lifetime. In addition, such adults, studies confirm, suffer in overwhelming disproportionate numbers such social ills as drug and alcohol addiction, chronic unemployment, welfare dependency, divorce, out of wedlock parenthood and incarceration. These are the same victims whose fate President Obama was lamenting when he stated, “ In this kind of knowledge economy, giving up on your education and dropping out of school means not only giving up on your future, but also giving up on your family’s future…It’s giving up on your country.” What steps can the President take to end this vicious cycle and provide a productive future for these young Americans who currently face a dismal future.  Here are four for the Obama White House to consider:

The expansion of early intervention programs (EIP) was one of the few positive features of NCLB. Since this program in its expanded form is relatively new, the research on its success is inconclusive and incomplete. But one key feature of the program, having Special Education Itinerant Teacher (SEIT) visiting homes to prime on a one to one basis the cognitively deficient pre school aged children on the basic pre-reading skills that are the prerequisites of obtaining early literacy might prove to be at least a partial roadmap to the child’s later ability to succeed in elementary and middle school and subsequently earn a high school diploma.  As the program is in effect today, however, the onus has been placed on the parent to prove her child requires early intervention services. Since many parents lack the knowledge of how the system works, the government must take proactive steps to teach parents how to know when their child requires early intervention services and inform them and guide them on how these vital services can be obtained.

Currently, just as before and during NCLB, performance on the high stakes standardized reading and mathematics examinations that are used to determine promotion or retention for students in the elementary and middle schools are norm referenced. Establishing an inherent structure of winners and losers, this system places advantaged students in competition with the disadvantaged students in a vile type of surreptitious competition. The usual outcome is that the winner, the advantaged student, is promoted, and the loser, the disadvantaged student, will be retained at least once through his eighth year in school. Changing to a criterion referenced system in which students are assessed on specific curricula they have learned, rather on what they have learned   compared to other students, and in which the criterion itself is aligned with their interests and needs, would reduce the number of holdovers, thus decreasing the number of high school drop outs and increasing the number of high school graduates.

While Differentiation of instruction (DI), understanding that children learn differently and planning instruction accordingly, still remains a buzz term for educators today, strongly scripted, high stake standardized test oriented lessons mandated by many of the school districts that live in fear of NCLB sanctions have reduced DI more to an abstract theory than to an every day practice. This is unfortunate, if not tragic, given research that demonstrates the validity of DI, and, more importantly, given the mountains of anecdotal evidence coming from students and teachers and administrators alike that attests to the success of DI driven instruction. Thus it is vital that DI be put back into everyday practice in classrooms throughout America. For this to occur it is essential that school administrators and teachers understand the premise and practice of DI.

The premise of DI is actually quite simple. The one size fits all method of teaching, workable, perhaps, in the far less diverse American society of two generation ago seldom prove to be effective today. The premise of DI then is that every child can learn, but that they learn differently. This seems to be only common sense. For how, any teacher or parent would reasonably ask himself, can a student achieve her maximum level of learning when, for example, the level of instruction is either too challenging or when it is not challenging enough? Or what if visual instructional approaches are used for a primarily tactile learner? Or, what if the opposite is the case?  Doctor Howard Gardner, the iconic educational theoretician best known for his theory of multiple intelligences, encapsulates the fundamental tenet of DI when he writes, “ It is not how smart you are, it’s how you are smart.”

Once the premise of DI is understood putting the theory into practice commonly develops naturally, creating as an end result a series of sound connective instructional practices that would be discernible to any parent or educator entering a DI driven classroom. A visitor to such a classroom would observe students working on leveled concept and skill based curriculum in small, flexible and cooperatively functioning small groups. A visitor to such a classroom would also, according to Bertie Kingore Ph.d., a highly respected writer on the subject, see a learning environment where, “Students are recognized for current levels of achievement and then challenged to strive toward their personal best.”

For students of all grade levels but for high school students in particular, another form of DI should be coined and put into practice as well – Differentiation of Interest. This new form of DI possesses particular relevance for those students who fit into today’s second category of the high school drop: Students who have successfully completed every grade in elementary and middle school, only to later leave high school within their freshmen to senior years without obtaining their diplomas.  When asked by their parents, teachers and guidance counselors why they stopped going to school, these students, reportedly, seem almost inevitably to reply that they found the courses they were taking to be overly theoretical, uninteresting and irrelevant. While research on the aptitudes and interests of students who fit into this category is scarce, there are mountains of anecdotal evidence that suggest a sizable number of them are minority students who possess the interest and ability that would enable them to successfully learn a trade.  But, sadly, just as the current job market for carpenters, electricians, plumbers, automotive mechanics, health care providers and a vast number of additional secure and other high paying blue collar jobs is increasing, the quantity and, frequently, due the lack of adequate funding, the quality of vocational high schools across America is decreasing.

Reversing this trend requires the adequate planning, funding and encouragement that trade schools, which had been thriving in America for many years until their steady decline beginning in the 1960’s, need to be reinvigorated. Designing and adequately funding state of the art trade schools that offer a strong academic as well as a vigorous trade skill curriculum, identifying the hands-on, concrete task oriented students by their final year in middle school or in the beginning of their freshmen year in high school, and enrolling them in the vocational program that best meets their interests and abilities will save countless young men and women from the dead end life of a high school drop-out and transform them into productive participants of the culture and economy of our great land.

Robert Golomb is currently an adjunct professor of graduate writing, education and school administration. Before his retirement, he had served ten years as an English teacher and twenty years as an assistant principal in N.Y.C. intermediate schools. His previously published articles have covered a range of educational, political and cultural topics. He can be contacted via e-mail: MrBob347@aol.com.