The number of minority students enrolled in U.S. schools is growing at a rapid rate, yet student enrollment is not matched by minority teacher representation. The National Center for Education Statistics tells us that nearly 82 percent of public school teachers are white — and Black and Hispanic students are two to three times more common than teachers of the same ethnicity. The gap is typically the widest in areas of the country with high percentages of students of color.
Many feel that minority teachers are in a position to put a stop to negative stereotypes and act as role models and mentors for students of color. Teachers who can relate to their students’ backgrounds usually are better able to look past biases of their abilities.
A study in Economics of Education Reviews tell us minority students perform better with minority teachers.
In addition to the challenge of having too few minority teachers, we also see the highest percentage of Black teachers leaving the profession. This is likely because minority teachers tend to work in schools with high rates of poverty.
The education gap is a serious obstacle our country faces – and I think that the “diversity gap” is a major part of our struggle. The education gap is staggering and it is hindering our country socially and economically. We have to find ways to get more teachers of color in the classroom. Students perform better when they can relate to their teachers, and teachers who can relate to their students are less likely to have a preconceived idea of how each student will perform. We need more teachers of color in our schools acting as strong role models for our minority students.
Many investigators have requested new methods to determine spending to gain a better understanding of priorities, organizational investments, proposed strategies, and to measure the distribution of resources . Completely new expenditure models have been pioneered by manufacturing theorists, including activity and program-based costs, which help form fiscal data to make it easier to compare to strategic decision-making. In education, several reports have demanded new methods of expense record-keeping as a way to modify district strategy; mostly to verify the real expenses involved in individual schools, programs, or services.
Though the models demonstrate some differences regarding the terms of the categories used, all of them propose assigning a larger percentage of costs to specific types of students and schools. For those interested in resource data in relation to the context of educating students, it makes sense to review central and indirect costs associated with joint district resources, as well as resources that are typically school-based. Less important costs are associated with district leadership, other operations, and non-educational services like transportation, food services, school facilities, and maintenance systems.
Reforms related to accountability have placed a focus on performance inequalities between white students and students from minority group backgrounds, and also between students having needs that result from disability, poverty, or limitation in English proficiency. Many policymakers stress that the first stage in tackling these achievement gaps is to align fiscal policy with student needs. But as policymakers change their established funding formulas to fulfill the needs of different students, they do so without evidence. In the first instance, there is little explanation of the way resources are currently allotted to different subgroups.
Basically, for a state policymaker attempting to allocate funds to particular student types, no baseline data exists on current expenditure to each type of student within their own districts, or schools within other districts. School districts in most states do not fully track costs by student type or to the school level. Even where these data are tracked, they are not published for policymakers trying to pin answers down.
There is also difficulty in accessing comparisons from other states regarding spending. Accurate ways of defining or reporting expenses influenced by student needs are not available, which makes it impossible to compare data between states. Furthermore, policymakers have not determined how to flow funds from one level of government to the next. For example, funds may be designated by the federal government for students living in poverty, with the goal of enhancing resources at schools having high concentrations of poverty.
However, by the time funds are dispersed through state and local streams, they may not reach their intended target. Finally, only limited documentation exists on different decisions for assigning funds, and the way those decisions relate to policy goals. Allocations meant for students with limited English proficiency (LEP) might be realized as a fixed dollar amount per LEP student, reimbursements for spending on bilingual education services, distribution of staff full-time equivalents (FTEs) to high-needs schools, or as funds for other areas. Research has not yet described the ways these different decisions influence either what is finally spent per pupil, or how efficiently that funding reaches the intended students. It is obvious that a more efficient system is needed for tracking funds after they reach their intended destination. With thorough record keeping and well-defined guidelines for how money should be spent, this murky territory will become much clearer.
In 2013 President Obama outlined a plan to introduce a college ratings system to provide prospective students and their parents with the tools to make informed decisions. The proposed system was consistent with the President’s view that students from under-served communities encountered obstacles that hindered their effort to attend college. Based on comments from the President, colleges throughout the country would be judged based on criteria including loan debt, graduation rates and after college income. Supporters believed the ratings system would hold post-secondary institutions accountable by creating transparency. However, some policymakers, college administrators and stakeholders raised concerns including: (1) the government exceeding their right to evaluate schools and (2) the impact the system would have on institutions that serve predominantly students from under-served communities including historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Concerns from the HBCU community regarding the proposed system would continue throughout the development process.
Members of the HBCU community were apprehensive because of complications relating to 2011 changes to the PLUS loan program, which impacted school attrition rates. Several HBCUs experienced a drop in enrollment because of new loan guidelines that disqualified low income and middle class families. Subsequently, some HBCUs implemented cost cutting measures including eliminating staff and curtailing programs. Traditionally HBCUs enroll low income and first generation college students. Consequently, regulatory or statutory changes can have a long-term impact on their ability to increase graduation rates.
The administration asserted that the new system would ensure all students had access to important information relating to cost, retention rates and student debt. Throughout his tenure President Obama has sought to level the playing field for first generation, minority and low-income students. For instance, the President outlined a free community college proposal that would likely increase college completion rates. However, despite the President’s record of supporting pathways to success for under-served students’ members of Congress opposed the college ratings system.
The controversy surrounding the system caused the U.S. Department of Education to announce that they will abandon the use of certain metrics. Post-secondary institutions will not be compared to other colleges based on graduation rates, student debt along with other measurables. As a result, HBCUs won’t have to worry about fighting comparisons to large post-secondary institutions with significant endowments. Holding HBCUs to the same standard as predominantly White institutions (PWIs) that educate students from middle class and affluent backgrounds would be difficult. Throughout their history HBCUs have encountered several obstacles including inequitable funding, which hinders their ability to fund scholarships and offer certain programs.
HBCUs continue to educate students from under-served communities. Their mission to enroll Black students with limited resources is consistent with President Obama’s call to open opportunities for all students. Without HBCUs students with limited social capital would not have the opportunity to attend college. HBCUs continue to play a critical role in preparing Black students to compete in the global marketplace. Thus, expanding opportunities for students from under-served backgrounds should include implementing policies that ensure HBCUs remain viable.
Dr. Larry J. Walker is an educational consultant focused on supporting historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). His research examines the impact environmental factors have on the academic performance and social emotional functioning of students from HBCUs.
The North Dakota Center for Distance Education on-line learning opportunities provide the perfect venue for inquisitive students who want to explore the world through their fingertips, without ever stepping foot into a classroom. They have made it one of their priorities to expand the minds of students in rural areas by offering unique online classes and a high school diploma program to students who never thought it was possible to learn in this unique manner.
In largely populated areas students are typically able to choose from a wide variety of core and elective level classes with a hands-on learning experience in a classroom setting. In districts with only a handful of students, combined with a tight budget, the variety of options outside the core curriculum isn’t always possible for a district. Because of this situation the North Dakota Center for Distance Education (NDCDE) chose to expand their curriculum offerings with courses provided bythe #1 publisher of online career and elective courses, eDynamic Learning.
“It is our responsibility to ensure ALL students receive the best education possible, no matter what the circumstances,” said Barb Meidinger, NDCDE’s secondary principal. “With the addition of eDynamic Learning elective courses, schools and students can select from over 50 engaging, relevant courses to round out their education.”
Today’s tech savvy students enjoy the user-friendly format and the freedom to access classes anytime from anywhere. At the North Dakota Center for Distance Education students have the option to take as little as one class per semester, or they can enroll in the high school diploma program and graduate from NDCDE ready for college. These unique opportunities would not be possible without the ala Carte list of classes and the flexibility and vision of eDynamic Learning founder and CEO, Kevin Viau.
“I met Kevin back in 2007 when he was just starting eDynamic Learning. At that time he only offered two Social Studies classes! The eDynamic portfolio might have been limited, but I knew our students would benefit from the high-quality, relevant content the courses had to offer,” said Meidinger. “It was easy to make the decision to work with Kevin in 2007 and here we are 8 years later still engaged with him and the company! His vision and his ability to understand the type of content that engages students keeps eDynamic Learning at the forefront of online learning.”
Over the years NDCDE has adopted dozens of core and elective courses offered from a select group of vendors, including eDynamic Learning. However, students gravitate toward eDynamic Learning courses to study unique subjects as: culinary arts, forensic science, public speaking, law and order, criminology, and so on, because they are so different from a traditional course.
“We receive a lot of positive comments about eDynamic Learning courses from students on the evaluation survey we send to them after every course they take,” explained learning management systems manager, Mike Miller. “They are learning new information with every course and it is refreshing to hear them say they are being challenged in a good way.”
NDCDE staff believes they are filling the educational gap between electives and core curriculum by providing the courses that smaller districts can’t offer. They couldn’t do it without the courses offered and created by eDynamic.
“We asked Kevin if he could create a new mythology and folklore course because ours was tired and uninteresting and he granted our request! eDynamic Learning created the course just for us, and now it’s part of their course catalogue and one of our most popular classes,” stated Meidinger.
In the early 1930’s, North Dakota led the way in recognizing the learning limitations that were forced on rural students. The state championed NDCDE as one of the first schools focused on correspondence courses. The school, once dependent on snail mail, is now ahead of its time with 24-hour accessibility to a quality education with course variety and career exploration thrown into the mix.
“The mission of the school is to introduce students to things they may have never seen or thought of, and self discovery is one the best parts of being in education,” said Meidinger. “Teachers like teaching the eDynamic Learning courses and students like taking them! You can’t get any better than that.”
NDCDE hopes to expand student opportunities even more by opening their first ‘Learning Lab’ where students K-12 are able to go for additional hands-on learning experiences. The lab, located in the offices of NDCDE, will open in late summer 2015. The Center for Distance Education will work with schools throughout North Dakota to make similar labs available for their students.
Edpolicy, edreform, school reform, put kids first,
When considering school reform, it may be advantageous for administrators to think of their schools as businesses. If the structure of the school were to reflect the business model, we would work from the assumption that students in the school system are customers, schools are the businesses, teachers are the employees/supervisors, and the administrators are the CEO’s.
In any business, the customers needs always come first. The reputation for customer service is the best advertising a business can receive. Keeping this savvy business strategy in mind, the business of the school should be to create learning opportunities that lead to greater academic achievement. If educators make lessons fun while adhering to the curriculum, the graduation rate will increase dramatically. If children feel safe and entertained, they will want to come to school. It is the educator’s task to make sure students learn to love to learn, while it is the administration’s task to support their efforts.
The most critical question administrators must confront is: where do we begin? Beginning reform by tackling several goals at once is noble, but not recommended. When trying to start reform in a complex environment such as a school, administrators need to focus on one task at a time. When making decisions, the administration needs to be sure to complete all steps of the reform in sequential order, using a strategic way of thinking.
In some cases goals can be independently accomplished. Departments will be able to achieve short-term goals while accomplishing the larger goals. In education, the improvements that matter the most are those that directly concern children. In order to create the necessary improvements, school districts must be reformed in ways that will sustain change. The ability of a school district to sustain reform should be of the utmost importance to the superintendent and the board of education.
Three conditions must be present in order to sustain reform. First, administrators must come to an agreement concerning the issues that have made it necessary for school reform to take place. They must be open and honest and refrain from blaming others for the issues that exist. All individuals directly and indirectly involved in the school reform must share a common vision.
Administrators should try to come to a consensus regarding the purpose of education and the roles of the faculty and staff. They also need to agree on the rules and guidelines that will support the implementation of the reform, while respecting cultural beliefs of the faculty, staff, and students. Finally, administrators must communicate the current issues of the school and the vision for the future to stakeholders. Those who support and participate in reform need a clear vision of the common goal. Administrators must paint a reform picture that alleviates fears, and entice all to buy into the vision.
Communication is the key to running and sustaining a successful school when creating concrete reform. All participants and key administrators must agree to communicate with each other their understanding of the school reform, including their concerns. The administrators and participants must have a shared understanding of the issues the district faces, as they must learn to articulate, analyze, and explain the issues in a similar way.
There needs to be a common vision concerning students, schools, and the allocation of resources. Administrators must also anticipate new trends and issues preventing reform. Once the obstacles have been identified, it is the duty of the administrator to articulate these trends and issues to the powers that be, i.e., superintendents and school board members. Finally, the most important communication between administrators and staff is how to create reform that provides a quality education for all students.
Communication must also take place among the school district, superintendents, and the board of education in an intentional and ongoing manner. They must continuously reflect in an open and honest way on the effectiveness of the reform, and successfully communicate between departments in the case of promotions, retirements, or sudden resignation.
When creating school reform, administrators should consider communicating with community members. Community members and parents have a lot to contribute when it comes to school reform and they should be encouraged and allowed to do so. Parents and educators undoubtedly have a genuine concern for the needs of students. Why not place the important decisions concerning our students in the hands of the people that have the children’s best interests at heart?
Administrators should also consider teachers as a major part of school reform. Reform is considered a success or a failure based on the students’ performance, but teacher performance is inextricably linked to student performance. Through positive teacher-student relationships, genuine learning can take place in the classroom. Teachers know their students and the educational practices that work best in their classroom.
In schools across the nation, the people in the best positions to create positive outcomes have little to no control over the changes that are made and how they are implemented. Too often, the most critical decisions concerning the educational system are made by people without the capacity to understand the inner workings of the individual school and what it takes to ensure no child is left behind.
According to a new study produced by Melissa Kearney of the University of Maryland and Phillip Levine of Wellesley College, Sesame Street teaches children just as well as preschool.
Well, kind of.
The Washington Post reports that “kids can learn as much from ‘Sesame Street’ as from preschool” because of the show’s focus on “academic curriculum.”
Levine and Kearney’s study found that kids received the same benefits from Sesame Street as they did with Head Start. While other studieshave explored the notion of if preschool was needed at all, this one adds another layer to that argument by maybe proving that educational television may be just as vital to a child’s development.
Kearney told the Postthat due to the benefits of the study that it may open more doors to alternative forms of education down the road. With the cost of college rising, student loan debt exploding, and educators searching for new and innovative ways to educate students, having something similar to Sesame Street on TV or via the internet may serve a new population of students.
Free and sustainable forms of education are readily available via Massive Open Online Courses and this study further proves the viability of alternative forms of free education. It seems to me that the focus should be more on open access to high standards of education, and less on what price tag we can put on these items. There is a reason that Sesame Street has such a lasting appeal — and I think it can teach all educators some lessons in the best way to reach students.
While most current literature is directed toward the use of social constructivism in educational organizations, it can be used by leaders of organizations both inside and outside of the educational sphere to bring about growth and communication. One example of this is in the use of metaphors to further the understanding of followers, which allows them to build their own knowledge base as individual learners, and adapt to new and expanding concepts.
Metaphors are a force through which people create meaning. This is done by using one element of experience to understand another. Metaphors in this sense include anything symbolic to a person, which can be used to better their understanding and enable them acquire new ideas or concepts.
The active use of metaphors can also help the leader move the organization toward social constructivism. Through the constructive use of language, the leader can explore the communication practices of followers and their individual roles in the building of meaning, through the process of social interaction.
Individuals in the organization make sense of things when they communicate; that communication is viewed in retrospect, sense is made out of it, and the meaning is kept as knowledge and used to achieve organizational effectiveness. The brain normally forms thoughts as outlines, prototypes, conceptual metaphors, conceptual frames, and conceptual blends. As a result, the thinking process is not just the systematic use of symbols; it is the brain’s process.
People find it hard to identify examples of rational practices within the organization, find rational practices that have worked out as well as predicted, or feel that the existing rational practices explain what goes on in the organization. Making the connection between organizational structure and its processes is done through process leadership, which is defined as that earned by any member of an organization to lead the organization or its parts forward.
Metaphors can facilitate change by providing a bridge from what followers are familiar with to the vision of the leader. They are particularly useful because they represent the existing organizational view as seen by individuals within the organization. Discovering the views of followers will help leaders learn which policies and facets of the organization are seen in a negative way. Armed with this information, all stakeholders can compromise and work together toward building an organization that meets their shared expectations.
**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**
A guest post by Kristi Meeuwse, ADE
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education. -Martin Luther King
Thinking critically and intensively is not reserved for older students. We work diligently to create learning experiences in kindergarten that allow our young students to think deeply about various topics. Having iPads allows us to enrich learning experiences in a way that wasn’t possible before. One of the iPad tools that is often overlooked is iTunes U. Why iTunes U?
It is a free repository of classes and educational content
Students have access to content anytime and anywhere
Content is easily updated and changed
Discussion feature allows rich conversation between students
While there are a large number of free classes available on iTunes U, perhaps you should consider creating your own. With the end of the school year only a few weeks away, it seems odd to be thinking of adding new things to your teaching bag of tricks, but this is the perfect time to do so. You can use some of your summer to create your own courses. It is easy to do. Simply log into the iTunes U course managerusing your Apple ID and add your content. What are the benefits to creating your own course?
Content is more meaningful to students
Content can be customized
Easy to create, easy to update
All resources are in one place: books, documents, videos, images, web links and apps
Here is the link to a Spiders course I created for my kindergarten students as well as one for teachers on Personalized Learningand another coursecreated by a 4th grade colleague about my school and how we innovate instruction using iPads.
iTunes U allows you to customize the learning experience for your students, even the youngest ones. It is also a great way to create a learning portfolio for students. Up to 5 people can collaborate on a course so you and your colleagues can work together and share the wealth. If you aren’t comfortable creating a full course initially, create a chapter and keep adding. It is easy to update any time.
If you aren’t already using iTunes U, consider giving it a try. It will open a whole new world to your students for learning and engaging in content.
Today we will do exciting new things. Let’s get to it.
This post originally appeared on iteachwithipads.net and has been republished with permission.
Kristi Meeuwse teaches kindergarten in Charleston, South Carolina. In January, 2011, her kindergarten class started a 1:1 iPad pilot for the school district and the results so far have been very successful. You can read more about it on her blog iteachwithipads.net.
**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**
A guest post by Jack McCarthy
There is a growing consensus in the United States that early childhood education is important. The newest Education Commission of the States reporthighlighted that “total state funding for preschool programs increased by $767 million in the 2014-15 fiscal year to a total of nearly $7 billion.”
It’s the rare issue in U.S. politics with bipartisan support– 22 states with Republican governors and 10 states with Democratic governors (plus the District of Columbia) increasing funding for pre-k programs in 2015-16.
And it’s not hard to figure out why. When you listen to early childhood advocates, it sounds like investing in early childhood education is like investing in a super policy. It can close the achievement gapby getting all students on the same level from the start. It can close the gender pay gap by allowing mothers of all races and classes to continue working after having kids.
If we just invest in early childhood, then we can quickly, simply and easily, kill two birds with one stone.
Turns out, like everything else, it’s not quite that simple.
Early childhood education does have the potential to do two things at once. But only if we keep in mind that our policy has two goals.
First, there is the achievement gap. The first five years that you are alive are the most influential of your life. These are the years where your building blocks are set up, the years your brain’s architecture is shaped. In the first five years, your experiences have a direct impact on how well you develop learning skills as well as social and emotional abilities.
The achievement gap is largely a result of just how different experiences are for low-income students in the first five years.
Tracking families from every socio-economic group, research has shown that children born into low-income families heard, by age three, roughly 30 million fewer wordsthan those from more affluent backgrounds. Stanford University analysis found an intellectual processing gap that appears as early as 18 months as a consequence.
Underserved students also begin school with much less well-developed background knowledge, numeracy, comprehension and behavioral skills than those acquired by classmates with parents of greater means. Because disadvantaged students arrive at kindergarten millions of words behind their peers and lack early learning skills, they perform much less well at school. Those negative effects last a lifetime.
The achievement gap is the result of socioeconomic circumstances setting students’ building blocks up very differently.
Debates about early childhood education often concentrate on the best way to increase access, which is important. But the conversation needs to distinguish between effective early learning and childcare. Effective early learning drives school readiness by developing cognitive and social-emotional skills.
Parents need a safe, affordable place for their children while they work. Society needs many of these children to be more prepared to succeed in school, careers and life.
Effective early learning should be defined in terms of important measurable outcomes that lead to success in school. Programs need to constantly focus on assessing children’s cognitive and social-emotional skills and adjusting classroom interventions to address any shortcomings.
People in New Jersey saw the effect of focusing on quality first hand. In 1999-2000 the state began implementing NJ Supreme Court mandated high-quality preschool education in 31 of the highest poverty districts in the state. At the time, less than 15% of pre-K classrooms had a “good” or “excellent” quality rating. Nearly 25% had a “poor” rating.
The state focused on improving that quality through high standards, professional development, and a continuous improvement system. By 2007-08, the vast majority of classrooms had a “good” or “excellent” rating and very few had a “poor” quality rating.
A longitudinal study concluded that high-quality pre-K in New Jersey helped to close the achievement gap by about half over the next few years, with the gap closing more and more each year. In addition, the high-quality pre-K is estimated to have reduced grade repetition from 19% to 12% and special education from 17% to 12% through the fifth grade.
There’s a reason it’s referred to as effective early learning. And effective early learning is found all over the country—schools that focus on high standards, professional development, and continuous improvement systems are pretty apt at achieving high quality. It’s just that when people demand early childhood education, they tend not to demand those key aspects along with it.
But here is where the second goal comes in—closing the gender pay gap. According to the National Women’s Law Center, on average, childcare costs more than rent. As a result, women, especially women making the minimum wage, tend to drop out of the workforce when they have children. And, after caring for those children for years, it’s that much harder to move back into the workforce at the same rate of pay as when you left.
We need to remember that while there is a difference between school that is focused on learning and school that is a place for children to go, there is a paramount need for a place for children to go in this country.
If we ignore quality in favor of access, we risk early childhood education being unable to close the achievement gap. If we ignore access in favor of quality, we risk early childhood education being unable to close the gender pay gap.
The solution is to use the bipartisan support and the money states are investing in pursuit of both access and quality. To provide childcare while not ignoring any and all opportunities for effective early learning within it. Doing so can maximize the return on our investment and solve both problems at once.
The first five years are the most critical of a child’s life. And, the first five years are critical for their mother’s lives as well. Let’s keep both people in mind when investing in early childhood and we’ll all benefit from the result.
Jack McCarthy is President and CEO of AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation and AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School. Jack advocates passionately to influence early education policy and practice to help close the achievement gap before kindergarten.
With the Supreme Court’s decision this year to recognize same-sex marriage and promote marriage equality, it is clear that attitudes toward individuals who are LGBT are changing. However, anti-gay bullying is still an issue today, and is a major concern especially with cyber-bullying on the rise.
Furthermore, biased and homophobic comments are rampant in many schools, with a staggering 90 percent of LGBT students experiencing verbal harassment related to their sexual orientation.
Regardless of a teacher’s personal ideology, as educators we are bound to uphold a code of tolerance and acceptance. Here are three ways to ensure that LGBT students feel safer and more accepted at school:
Disallow discrimination based on sexual orientation. The National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development have all passed resolutions asking their members and all school districts to step forward to improve the educational experiences of LGBT students. These resolutions call for providing a safe environment, support groups, and counseling options for LGBT students and by employing anti-harassment rules and practices. In nine states, the state government has instituted legislation prohibiting the harassment and discrimination of LGBT students. We need to continue this trend until every state has these rules in place, in every district and school – no exceptions.
Expand “inclusion” policies. There are some schools in which LGBT students are accepted and accommodated. Same-sex couples are invited to school dances and there are unisex washrooms for transgender students. School districts in some states include LGBT students in non-discrimination policies with the goal of making schools safe places for all students, parents, faculty and staff. However, there are also states where it is illegal to even utter the word homosexual and in which the word homosexual (or lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) can only be portrayed in a negative light within the classroom. This makes it difficult for teachers to teach about sexual orientation diversity or to make their classrooms and school environment safe and accepting of LGBT students. Regardless of location, teachers can explain to students that they don’t have to agree it is okay to be gay or lesbian, but they do have to agree that it is not okay to discriminate against them.
Promote LGBT student groups. It is important that all students, regardless of who they are or their sexual orientation, have a safe environment in which to learn and grow as an individual. Gay and lesbian organizations have been at the forefront of trying to create safe and accepting environments for LGBT students. Students have also taken up the cause and student groups have begun springing up in schools all over the country. There are currently approximately 4,000 Gay-Straight Alliance Groups registered with the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN). These groups are alliances between straight and LGBT. They work together to support each other and promote education as a means for ending homophobia.
By schools taking the reins on this issue, real change will eventually be realized.
What are you suggestions on how we can improve the school environment for LGBT students?
Should homeschool parents have complete control over the content and outcomes of their children’s education, with no external assessment or evaluation from the state?
The Texas Supreme Court is exploring this very question as they consider the case of the McIntyre family versus the El Paso school district, which involves allegations that the homeschooled McIntyre children did little or no academic work and that their parents refused to provide any evidence of such work.
After having studied homeschooling practices and policies for more than a decade, I contend that states need to find a middle ground – a modest set of expectations for homeschoolers that protects children’s basic educational interests while still leaving plenty of room for curricular flexibility.
What does the law say?
The fact is that homeschooling regulations vary widely from state to state.
In a 1994 decision in Texas Education Agency v Leeper, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that “homes in which children are taught in a bona fide manner from a curriculum designed to meet basic education goals” would qualify as private or parochial schools under the Texas compulsory education law.
However, there is no regulatory mechanism that exists in the state to assess whether basic education goals are being met by homeschoolers. In fact, Texas is one of 11 states that do not require families even to notify educational authorities that they homeschool their children.
A few states, such as North Dakota, require homeschool parents to meet certain educational requirements. Other states, such as California, stipulate that homeschoolers must study subjects similar to public schools. And some states, such as New York, require parents to submit curricular plans each year.
In my view, most of these requirements are neither appropriate nor effective. Authorities can approve curricular plans, but such documents may have little to do with what actually occurs during the year.
Indeed, much of the value of the homeschooling approach rests in its inherent flexibility to customize learning experiences in ways that work best for individual children. While portfolios of student work at the end of the year might be revealing, they are also difficult to evaluate consistently and efficiently.
With this in mind, standardized basic skills tests hold the most potential for protecting children’s basic educational interests while leaving room for curricular flexibility.
Few of us would deny that children need basic skills of literacy and numeracy in order to function independently as adults. Certainly all the homeschool parents I’ve spoken with over the years would share this view.
I suspect that the vast majority of homeschoolers would have no trouble passing basic skills tests. And even for students who struggle with basic skills assessment, the next step would be a closer look by the state to understand the context, rather than an automatic assumption of educational neglect.
It’s also worth pointing out that basic skills requirements need not dictate the shape or method of homeschool curricula; there are countless ways to cultivate such basic skills in children – from highly structured curricula to student-directed projects to experiential learning.
But is a good education only about the development of basic skills?
While the answer to this question should be obvious, there is plenty of reasonable disagreement about what other skills, knowledge and dispositions children should develop – and whether such expectations should be standardized for each child.
The plain truth is that no such evidence exists. Wide-scale studies of homeschooler test performance have been based on volunteer samples, often with testing conditions far different from those of public school students.
And even if we knew that the “average homeschooler” compared favorably with public school students, that would say nothing about the experience of children whose parents use homeschooling as a cover for educational neglect or worse.
Homeschool advocates will also point to data showing no correlation between the amount of regulation in a particular state and the test scores reported by homeschoolers in those states.
But here again we run into the problem with volunteer samples – it seems highly unlikely that homeschool parents who neglect their responsibilities would even have their children take such tests, much less report the results.
Finding middle ground
Plenty of reasonable disagreement exists about what constitutes a great education. But we should all be able to agree that all children have a vital interest in gaining basic skills of literacy and numeracy.
Protecting those interests, while also honoring the role of parents in shaping their child’s educational experience, means finding a middle ground between intrusive regulations and having no oversight at all.
I agree that homeschool parents should be given wide latitude in the shape of their curricula and the experiences they provide for their children. But a complete lack of external accountability leaves too much room for neglect and abuse to go undetected.
A modest set of expectations such as annual reporting of enrollment and basic skills testing would go a long way toward protecting children’s interests while preserving homeschool freedoms.
But giving kids cash for grades and scores hasn’t proved straightforward either. So maybe the answer isn’t monetary.
Could students be better motivated by something as simple as a little formal recognition?
While I was serving as director of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, my colleagues and I sought answers in the decisions of various actors in American public schools.
The results may surprise you.
Which incentives encourage positive behavior?
Much of public policy can be characterized as attempts to influence individual behavior and decision-making in organizations.
Those who design and evaluate incentives typically operate under the crude assumption that the “target” is a rational actor (processing all available information and quickly identifying the behavior most likely to be the best one for his or her well-being).
So, policymakers end up offering seemingly beneficial public services at little or no cost. But they still meet with disappointment.
Our recent study attempted to better understand the response to a different kind of incentive – for one of the arguably more imperfectly rationale segment of our population: early adolescents.
We explored how incentives – monetary and nonmonetary – might encourage behaviors that lead to increased student learning, such as daily attendance and afterschool tutoring services (free but chronically underutilized).
We found that adolescents do not respond to incentives in ways that can be easily predicted by economic theory. But the right kinds of incentives could well lead adolescents to engage in behaviors likely to enhance their learning.
Money makes no difference
Here’s how we did our study.
We selected 300 fifth to eighth grade students in a large southern urban school district who were eligible for free, afterschool tutoring services.
Prior research had shown that these particular tutoring services were relatively high quality and had, in fact, increased student’s test score performance. We then randomly assigned these students to one of three groups:
a reward of US$100 (distributed via an online platform) for consistent attendance
certificates of recognition, signed by the school’s district superintendent, mailed to the student’s home, again for consistent attendance
a control group, which received no experimental incentives.
We found that the students who were offered up to $100 for regular attendance were no more likely to attend sessions than if they were offered nothing at all.
In other words, money made no difference.
Alternatively, when students received a certificate of recognition for attending tutoring sessions regularly, the differences were dramatic. The students in the certificate group attended 42.5% more of their allotted tutoring hours than those assigned to the control group.
Gender, parents and peers
Gender also played a role. Girls were significantly more responsive to the certificate of recognition than their male counterparts.
On average, girls in the control group attended only 11% of the tutoring hours assigned to them. However, girls receiving the certificate attended 67% of their allocated hours, representing a six-fold increase.
What’s more, the boys that received certificates attended more than two times as many of their allocated tutoring sessions in comparison to the male control-group students. But the girls in the group that received the certificates attended nearly twice as many of their allocated tutoring sessions than the boys who were eligible for certificates of recognition.
Overall, sending certificates directly to the parents seemed to have been effective. One reason for this could be that parents were more likely to reinforce the child’s extra effort when the certificate was received at home.
Often in school settings, parents are not hearing positive news when they are contacted by their child’s school – and this might be especially true of these students who qualified for tutoring services.
This is one time where the parent heard: “way to go, keep it up.” And they heard it directly from the district superintendent.
In addition, a student’s effort was not necessarily observable to peers, which could have helped facilitate the positive response.
Prior research suggests that the promise of certificates and trophies presented in a class or at a school assembly in front of peers might not necessarily act as a positive incentive. Academic achievement can often result in diminished social status among peers, especially for minority students.
Human behavior and education policy
Indeed, a recent study of a performance leaderboard system that publicly ranked students in a computer-based high school course in Los Angeles Unified School District was associated with a 24% performance decline.
The authors attributed this to students trying to avoid social penalties by conforming to prevailing norms.
For these reasons, working with the family to encourage and reward academic behaviors may hold more promise, compared to working directly through school settings where peer pressures and norms play an important role.
Policymakers and philanthropists in New York and Memphis are currently trying to interrupt a cycle of generational poverty through the Family Rewards Program. It is providing cash rewards to families who improve their short-term health care, education, and labor market participation and outcomes.
The impact results of this program are still awaited. This program doesn’t test other forms of incentives such as certificates.
But there are important implications for education policy discussions and whether cash should be the primary driver of human behavior, particularly for adolescents.
The results of our study show that children’s learning behaviors to incentives change in unpredictable ways. And these behaviors aren’t easily accounted for by models of individuals as rational decision-makers.
Our study provides evidence that for policies to influence adolescent behavior, they may need to draw from research and theory beyond classical economics or behavioral psychology, including what we are learning about the teenage brain and it’s sociocultural environment.
In short, we need to look at policies that are less Adam Smith and little more Friday Night Lights.
