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There are many things that this blog has done for me.  First and foremost, it has expanded my knowledge about something I love.  I’ve learned so many things about urban reform and gotten numerous ideas I want to put into practice when I start teaching.  It’s really made me excited to get out there in the real world and make a difference in these schools.  Blogging has also opened my eyes to new and different ways of writing, ways that I could easy incorporate into my lesson plans to get my students inspired to write on their own.  Also, blogging has made me more comfortable with people reading what I write.  True, nothing has been very profound or emotional but still, my thoughts were getting out there and I actually found myself eager to see how others would respond.

Overall, I’m very pleased with this experience.  Now my big question is what to blog about next…

Panel offers plan to improve urban school districts
By Linda Borg
The Providence Journal, December 1, 2008

Rhode Island educators have been debating how to rescue the urban school districts for decades, so what makes this report different? Warren Simmons, executive director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University and the task force chairman, said that in the past, similar groups focused on the strengths of individual schools and programs, which have led to “isolated lighthouses of success.”

This report, he said, proposes broad-based partnerships and programs that are designed to lift urban schools as a whole out of the low-performance doldrums.

One of the biggest things the article says is important to make sure students in urban schools are getting a good education seems to be a pretty simple solution: make sure they can read.  Yes, you heard it, the solution to the problem of urban education is literacy!  Okay, maybe it’s not THE solution, but it certainly is a great place to start. 

According to current research, only one in three students in urban schools can read at their grade level.  One third.  I think one of the first steps we need to take in getting urban students caught up with their peers is to teach the other two thirds how to read.  When you think about it, reading is kind of the basic building block you need to learn anything else.  It’s like when you make a pyramid.  If someone on the bottom level decides to step out, everyone else is going to fall.  It’s the same with reading and education.  If a child can’t read, how can they learn history?  Science?  Even math would be difficult. 

Boosting childhood literacy is critical to continued academic success, the task force said.  By age four, the average child in a family receiving welfare tends to have a considerably lower vocabulary than the average child of a working class family, according to a recent study.

The report recommends that urban elementary schools offer 20 minutes of daily phonics instruction, set aside time every day for children to read individually and in small groups, and test students frequently to catch those who are struggling.  Schools should teach vocabulary early and often.  And when a child falls behind, that student should be pulled out of class for additional small group reading instruction.

As the Urban Education Task Force (how intense of a name is that?) seems to notice, too many of our students who struggle with reading are slipping past educators under the radar without ever getting help.  It’s good to know that the reforms they are looking to put into action plan on addressing that issue.

So students, get out there and read read read!  Read with your families, read with your friends.  Curl up in a cozy corner of your local library and dive into a world of fantasy, science fiction, or history!  Because a little thing like reading could make a big difference in the lives of everyone, especially students in urban schools.

Possible Free College Education a Perk at City School
By Jodie Mozdzer
The Hartford Courant, December 1, 2008

The school is applying to become an International Baccalaureate program.  IB schools teach students from a global perspective, with two languages taught, starting in kindergarten, and a third offered for ninth through 12th graders.  Other international themes are sprinkled throughout the course work. 

For example, a kindergarten lesson on the weather might look at the differences between weather in Hartford and weather in Jamaica, said Principal Darlene Pugnali, who was the principal at an IB school in Mexico City before transferring to Hartford.  Details — down to the carpets, which are large maps of the continents — reflect the global perspective Pugnali says the school tries to create. 

Instead of having a typical curriculum, the school wraps its lessons around six themes: where we are in place and time; how we express ourselves; how the world works; how we organize ourselves; and sharing the planet.

Looking back on the education I’ve got over the years, I would have loved to have been introduced to international topics.  Personally, I feel like I don’t know as much as I should about the rest of the world.  Plus, I love foreign languages, so I’m sure I would have loved growing up learning them in school. 

The second part of the article, the part about the Say Yes program, is also important for students in urban schools.  Say Yes has teamed up with the Global Communications Academy to provide urban students a free college education at the college of their choice as long as they make the grades to get there.  I think this is a wonderful idea.  I feel like there are many students who feel like school is a waste of time if they can’t afford to go to college to continue their education.  But, tell a student that you’ll pay for them as long as they make the grades should certainly be inspiration. 

The end of the article included a quote from Connie Coles, the director for Say Yes in Hartford at the Global Communications Academy.  She said, “If you keep saying students can’t do stuff, they never will.”  I think this quote pretty much sums up how I feel about education, especially urban education.  When students grow up with an atmosphere that makes them feel like they can’t accomplish things, why would they try?  Give them the resources they need and I believe they can do anything they want.

Math Teachers Barely Ahead of Students
Associated Press, Tuesday, November 25, 2008
MSNBC.com

WASHINGTON – Math can be hard enough, but imagine the difficulty when a teacher is just one chapter ahead of the students.
It happens, and it happens more often to poor and minority students. Those children are about twice as likely to have math teachers who don’t know their subject, according to a report by the Education Trust, a children’s advocacy group…It can be tougher to find qualified teachers for middle schools, especially in low-income areas, said (Ruth) Neild, who studied the problem in Philadelphia public schools.

Once again, we find urban schools lacking an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to getting a good education: certified teachers. The article went on to give two important facts. The first is that in high-poverty schools, two in five math classes have teachers without a college major or certification in math. The second was that in schools with a greater share of African-American and Latinos, nearly one in three math classes is taught by such a teacher.

I find this to be pretty shocking. I understand that when you’re at a school with a teacher shortage you can’t always get the most qualified teachers, but a teacher who isn’t even certified in the subject they’re trying to teach? That can’t be much help to the students. Granted, an under qualified teacher is better than no teacher at all, but it’s not going to help the kids live up to their full potential in regard to the subject. The article goes on to say,

Teachers should not be blamed for out-of-field teaching, the report said. It can happen anywhere there is a teaching shortage in a particular discipline. It can also happen where there is no shortage but where school administrators have planned poorly.

So kudos to all of the teachers who have stepped in in an attempt to make sure these students are at least learning something, but I really wish that didn’t have to be the case. Wouldn’t it be great if we lived in a world where we had highly qualified teachers all over the place who were just dying to go teach at schools in urban communities? That would just be ideal.

Maybe a step in the right direction is something like Teach for America, a program that sends college graduates to schools in low-income communities to teach for two years. Their goal is to eliminate the educational inequality that occurs in the U.S. For more information, check out their website at www.teachforamerica.org.

The Urban Debate League is a program that puts debate clubs in urban schools, especially those that are made up of mosty poor minorities.  They then offer a debate for all the urban schools to come together and compete.  Creating debate teams in these schools not only gives the students a program to take pride in but it creates new learning opportunities.  The article states that at first, to get the students interested in debating, they asked questions such as “should uniforms or dress codes be required?” or “should high school students have more privledges that middle school students?”  These questions were things that the students could relate to.  Once they drew people into the debate team, they created debate topics such as the topic for this year’s debate, renewable energies. 

The best part about the Urban Debate is that the debate topics encourage students to educate themselves on certain social issues.  The article talked about how much intense research, planning and responsibility is involved in preparing for a debate.

High School Debaters in Training for Verbal Fisticuffs
By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News
October 18, 2008

The debaters will continue to hone their research and debate skills on the same topic, renewable energies.  Their case file will grow to 24 files totaling more than 540 pages, with headings including “Nuclear Power negative” and “Social Ecology Critique affirmative.”

“The words might be big and I don’t understand them but I’ve got my trusty dictionary next to me,” Jessica said Thurday at Manuel, “and I’m looking up words and writing them down on a piece of paper like, that’s what that word means and that’s how you pronounce it.”

If research from other city debate leagues holds true, more than 75 percent of the Denver participants will go on to a four year college.

It’s amazing to me how debating has turned into something these students are passionate about.  Now they are taking their education into their own hands.  They are learning about social and environmental issues, learning how to work as a team, building their English skills and public speaking skills, and learning how to do proper research.  All of this is going to come in handy once they graduate.  Some may even have a better chance of going to college on debate scholarships. 

Hearing news like this is very inspirational.  I think the Urban Debate League has become very influental in the lives of these urban high schoolers.  It has given them something to work hard for and I can’t even imagine the pride and satisfaction they’ll experience when the debate comes and they can display all of their knowledge and debate skills.

I was reminded of this ninth grade lesson during Stephen Greenblatt’s lecture, “Cultural Mobility: The Strange Case of Shakespeare’s Cardenio“.  First, let’s take a minute to talk about Greenblatt.  Currently a professor at Harvard University, Greenblatt is the founder of “new historicism”, a specialist in Shakespeare, sixteenth and seventeenth century English literature, the literature of travel and exploration and literary theory as well as the author of many books including one of his most famous, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare.  His whole lecture was about how different parts of the world can adapt the same Shakespeare play to their cultures and while there can be many differences between the versions, they all have the same underlying story.  In other words, Shakespeare can move across cultures and still be Shakespeare. 

Since the lecture was focused on Shakespeares lost play, Cardenio, Greenblatt first gave us a quick summary of the plot using some very humorous powerpoint slides.  The crowd chuckled and the evening began on a good note.  He then went on to talk about how he and a fellow writer conspired to create a play based on Cardenio that was set in modern day.  After the play traveled to other countries, those countries then began writing their own versions of the play and Greenblatt was able to observe how differences in culture affected how different versions of Cardenio were created.  One of the examples I found to be the most interesting (and also one of the strangest) was a version that I believe was created somewhere in Asia.  I could be wrong, I forgot to write down the exact country, let me know if you remember.  Anyway, this particular country’s version of Cardenio took place in America and portrayed the American characters as members of some kind of motercycle gang.  Interesting.  I guess that’s what America is to some people.  We do love our motercycles. 

Even when we look just in America we can see many different adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays.  Whether it’s Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, the version of Hamlet starring Ethan Hawke or even 10 Things I Hate About You, an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew, we’re seeing how Shakespeare is moving through culture letting millions of different people connect with him. 

I think I’m seeing a lesson plan that can be created from this…

Maybe my students could create their own plays, adaptations of any one of Shakespeare’s that could take place in any country or time period they choose.  They could even get into groups and act out their creations.

All in all, Greenblatt’s lecture was a pleasure to go to.  He kept me interested the whole time and even inspired me to pull out one of my favorite books, The Complete Shakespeare, and start reading again.

Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. 

You see, the article I just read was very cute and inspiring for the most part.  It was about how Hartford Connecticut Superintendent Steven J. Adamowski is creating reform among urban schools by shutting down some schools, creating new ones, and making beneficial changes to the ones that just need a little boost to get them headed back in the right direction.  One change that’s being made is the creation of Achievement First Public Charter Academies, where urban students who have met state testing goals are being enrolled.  For the most part it sounds great and they have some pretty amazing plans.

It’s Cool To Learn
Jodie Mozdzer
The Hartford Courant, October 20 2008

Achievent First’s goals in Hartford are lofty: By the end of the year, school officials want to have 95 percent of the students reading at grade level and mastering 80 percent of the math standards, and have 97 percent attendance rates.  Students typically arrive at Achievement First schools reading about two years below grade level.

(CLOE POISSON / HARTFORD COURANT / October 8, 2008)

Excellent goals, Achievement First.  And it gets even better.  Not only do the schools have longer school days but they offer “intensive tutoring” after school.  In doing this they’re not only creating huge opportunites for these kids to learn but they’re keeping them occupied and off the streets.  Combine this with the small student to teacher ratio aimed to give students more one on one time with their educators, the constant mentioning of college to encourage the students to continue their education after they graduate high school, and refering to the students as “scholars” to…well, make them feel smart, I guess, and you’ve got one top notch school. 

However, even though these schools are doing hundreds of things right to make sure the students are getting the absolute best education while preparing them for a future at a university, I have to admit, Achievement First freaks me out a little bit.  Maybe it’s not as bad as it seems in my head, maybe I’m imagining it different than it actually is, but after reading the article I can’t help but feel like the students are going to graduate with a bit of the zombie effect.  These students are constantly in learning mode.  The article states, as I mentioned briefly earlier, that even while waiting in line for the bathroom the kids are going through math flashcards or being drilled on vocabulary or counting to ten in foreign languages.  All of these, of course, contribute the the excellent education they are recieving, but what about recess?  Do they have that?  Do the kids ever get to do their own thing?  Then I read this:

But first, the students learn behavior.  During the first few weeks, students learn to sit still and walk with their arms down by their sides…”It’s cool to learn, cool to be smart,” (teacher) Unifred said.  “Your brain grows and you get the knowledge to go to college.”

Um…anyone else envisioning the girls from the Madeline stories who do everything in two straight lines?  And yes, learning IS really cool, but that last little rhyming phrase sounds like something you would hear on one of those tapes you listen to while you sleep.

I’m sorry if this is sounding overly critical of the Achievement First schools, I really do think they have a great idea and that tons of students who need help are going to benefit from them.  I guess I just think it sounds a little serious for me.  But who knows, maybe for those students who are thirsting for the education and structure they couldn’t get at their old schools, it’s just what they need.

Did that make sense?  I hope it doesn’t sound like incoherent babble.  I’m really trying here, guys.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to get to is that it’s not JUST the schools that need reforming, it’s the home lives of those schools’ communities.  This theory was brought to my attention in a recent New York Times article.

24/7 School Reform
September 2, 2008 by Paul Tough
The American social contract has always identified public schools as the one place where the state can and should play a role in the process of child-rearing.  Outside the school’s walls (except in the cases of serious abuse or neglect), society is seen to have neither a right nor a responsibility to intervene.  But a new and growing movement of researchers and advocates has begun to argue that the longstanding and sharp conceptual divide between school and not-school is out of date.  It ignores, they say, overwhelming evidence of the impact of family and community environments on children’s achievment.  At the most basic level, it ignores the fact that poor children, on average, arrive in kindergarten far behind their middle class peers.  There is evidence that schools can do a lot to erase that divide, but the reality is that most schools do not.  If we truly want to counter the effects of poverty on the achievement of children, these advocates argue, we need to start a whole lot earlier and do a whole lot more.

Basically, why put all the pressure on teachers to change the lives of their students?  Even if the kids are having a ball at school their home life has to support their school life or no progress will be made.  Two of the people mentioned in the article who have created amazing programs to help this cause are Susan Neuman and Geoffrey Canada.  Between the two of them they have programs that cover almost every issue a family in poverty could encounter starting with counseling for poor pregnant mothers and ending with ways to get students to graduate high school and head off to college.  The programs cover health and nutrition issues, language barriers, family counseling, after school tutoring and so much more.  I find Canada’s ideas to be especially impressive.  I really can’t even begin to go into details about these so I HIGHLY suggest you read the full article, it’s really great. 

A lot of the article is actually about how Obama plans to use these programs if he is elected president.  Here’s another clip,

The real challenge Obama faces is to convince voters that the underperformance of poor children is truly a national issue — that it should matter to anyone who isn’t poor.  Heckman, especially, argues that we should address the problem not out of any mushy sense of moral obligation, but for hardheaded reasons of global competitiveness.  In a moment when nations compete mostly through the skill level of their work force, he argues, we can not afford to let that level decline. 

I agree that in order for these programs to succeed, Americans DO need to realize that it IS a national issue.  We need to pull together and help those in poverty, especially the children, experience the same benefits and opportunities as we do.  It’s just not fair that they have to grow up this way, that’s the only way I can put it.  I know a huge issue is the amount of funding it would take to create programs like these all over the country.  We’re talking massive amounts of money.  Hopefully we can find a way to do it because these programs are things that we desperately need if we ever want to break the cycle of poverty.

In my first post I made a reference to the cycle of poverty and sub-par education citizens of poor communities become trapped in.  Today I’d to continue a little on that subject with a story about students in the Chicago Public Schools who boycotted attending their first days of class and instead, made a bus trip to wealthy, suburban private schools where they tried to enroll.  All of this was done in an attempt to protest the lack of funding provided to the Chicago Public School District, which is home to more than 400,000 students.

The protest was scheduled to last all week but some parents are saying they will protest for however long it takes to get the state to increase the district’s funding.

Chicago Students Skip School in Funding Protest
September 2, 2008 MSNBC
Peggy Richmond, who accompanied her 12-year-old granddaughter Skyler Williams on the boycott, said she was forced to enroll Skyler in a private school because of the poor quality of the public schools in her Chicago neighborhood.  “I’m still angry,” she said of having to pay $650 a month in tuition to ensure her granddaughter gets a good education.

State senator James Meeks, who organized the boycott, is trying to get legislation to pass a $120 million program that would distribute the money between four clusters of Chicago Public Schools.  So far, there have been no guarantees from legislation that this program will go into effect.

So where do I stand on this issue?  Well, I really hope it works.  All that money for the Chicago Public School System would be great, and used wisely, there’s no doubt that it would improve the education and overall lives of the students.  Imagine the technology they could buy that would improve their learning experiences, the new textbooks and school supplies and after school activities they could create.  Even things like school repairs would have an amazing impact on the students.  They would feel like they were attending a school that was willing to invest money in them.  Hopefully, the feeling of the school board having faith in them would give them the incentive to do better. 

There was one thing I came across in a related article that upset me,

School Boycott: How Many Will Participate?
September 2, 2008 WMAQ-TV
Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan is “staunchly opposed” to the boycott, saying it would “disrespect our teachers and the hard work they’re doing.”

First of all, let me say that I have no doubt that there are teachers at these schools who are working hard to help their students learn despite the conditions they have been thrown into.  However, isn’t it possible that because of the poor conditions the teachers are working in, they don’t have as much motivation?  Couldn’t there be a general feeling of not being able to make a difference?  And isn’t it also possible that the teachers will greatly benefit from this boycott as well?  If its purpose is accomplished and the schools receive better funding, won’t the teachers be working in a much better environment than they were before?  I don’t believe that this protest is, in any way, disrespectful to the teachers.  What IS disrespectful to the teachers is the poor funding they got to begin with.  Turning the protesting students into the bad guys here is completely ridiculous. 

Like I said, what an accomplishment this would be if a raise in funding was provided to these schools.  My only fear is that it will take too long and minds with great potential will be left to rot.