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Matthew Lynch published in Equity, HBCU's, Matthew Lynch

3 Easy Ways New Teachers Can Organize for Maximum Success Before School Starts

As the new school year begins, most students look forward to joining their new class, and as a new teacher, you hope to make this academic school year as effective for your students as possible. Being a superstar teacher brings to mind engaging your students and upholding your standards, but the truth is that much of your success will actually come from the efforts you make before your students even set foot in the classroom. Staying organized is actually very important and will save you from a lot of headache later on. Here are three organization-related tips to use that will set you and your students up for success before they even set foot into your classroom.

  1. Arrange your classroom in a way that works best for you and your students.

The set up and layout of the classroom will determine the ease with which the children can move around the classroom. When setting up a classroom, you also want to consider your teaching style. Here are just a few things you should consider when deciding the layout of the classroom.

Teacher’s desk. In the traditional setting, this is one item that is generally kept in the far corner of the room or toward one wall in order to avoid the teacher’s desk being in the middle of high traffic. On the other hand, if your approach to instruction is likely to be more flexible and interactive, you might want to have the teacher’s desk closer to the students’ tables and chairs.

Students’ desks. The layout of students’ desks depends on the kind of interaction that you want with students. For example, for sessions that involve direct instructions, it is best for students to face the front of the room. On the other hand, when you want students to work in groups, it may be better to group students in clusters.
Overhead projector or multimedia projector screen. Remember to keep the screen at a height and angle that allows everyone to see the screen easily. You can make sure of this by sitting in each seat to determine if you can view the screen comfortably from all positions.

Classroom supplies. Keep frequently used items closer to the students. Items used less often can be stored in a cabinet. The pencil sharpener and trash should be kept slightly away from the students to avoid distraction.

Announcement board. Decorate the board to liven up the classroom, as well as to communicate with students about important events during the academic year. Consider these suggestions:

  1. Make the board colorful with project work that has been completed by students.
    b. Put up a “quote of the day” that is relevant, inspirational, and motivating. You may also make this a revolving duty of the students.
    c. Allow students to put up pictures of places they visited on a holiday.
  2. Make sure you have all your supplies handy.

Okay, so now you have decided on the layout of your classroom and feel that you are ready for the new a new batch of students. Not really! There are many other things that you need to prepare before you can feel comfortable about welcoming your new students.

Being an organized teacher will make your life a whole lot easier; trust me. If you have your materials and supplies in one place, you will not have to frantically look for folders or paper clips at the last minute. It will also help your classroom management efforts and decrease the frequency of classroom disruptions and misbehavior. Ensure you have the following supplies:

  • Textbooks
    • Plan books
    • Classroom reading books
    • Attendance register
    • Paper clips
    • Grade book
    • Rubber bands
    • Stapler and staple pins
    • Tissue
    • Pencil, pens, erasers and pencil sharpeners
    • Tapes of different kinds
    • Folders and folder tags

Take home packets are also a must for students at the start of the New Year. This packet helps you communicate important information to students and their parents. If you keep parents informed from the beginning, you have made the first step in building strong parent-teacher relationships. Make sure that you include the following in the take home packet.

  • Welcome message to parents
    • School rules
    • Supply list
    • Emergency and approval forms to be signed by parents
    • Transport rules and bus route
  1. Organize your cabinets.

From the very beginning of the school year, there is so much paperwork that a teacher needs to keep track of. As a result, your cabinets can quickly look as if though they have been hit by a tornado—overflowing with folders, teaching materials, handmade cards from students, and other supplies. Use these tips to keep your cabinet organized and in order:

  • Create a designated place for your material. All folders should be marked and kept in one place. There should also be a separate place for personal belongings.
  • Highlight all original copies of master sheets with a yellow colored highlighter, to tell you that this is the master, preventing you from giving it away or losing it.
    Label all your files and folders, and mark the worksheets based on the folder that they need to go into. Once you have identified the specific folders that each worksheet goes into, you can ask a student or volunteer to help you with the filing.
  • Many times there are some sessions in a year that require more material than others. If you feel that material from one session is crowding your cabinet, try putting all the relevant teaching material into one box. Remember to label it and store it in a cabinet in the classroom. You can then find all the required material ready for use when the time comes.

Then, every three months go through everything in your cabinet and throw away any unnecessary items. When you discard items, put them in a carton labeled as ‘free’ and let everyone know that they can dig around to see if they can use anything. Something that you discard may be useful to someone else.

Bonus tip: Do these during the first week of school to stay in control.

Completion of items on the following checklist will surely help you feel more comfortable, organized, and in control when the horde of excited students appear at your door on the first day of school!

  • Prepare class rolls and records
    • Create nametags for each child
    • Get to know the schedule for each student, including gym, art, library and lunch
    schedules
    • Create a folder that can be used by a substitute teacher in case you are unable to
    make it to the school; this should include the daily schedule and seating chart
    • Create a file for each student that contains information about the child and
    • correspondence from parents
    • Develop tentative lesson plans for the next week and place them in a folder

By starting the year off with a bang, you are setting the tone for the rest of the school year. Instead of dealing with classroom management issues, organizational issues, and disgruntled parents, you will be able to enjoy a relatively stress free year. Good luck to you and I hope you have an outstanding year.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, Matthew Lynch

Will the Coalition for College Success be good for low-income students?

A guest column by Carol Barash, PhD

Just about everyone agrees that the Common Application, whose founding mission in 1975 was to simplify and streamline college admissions and level the playing field, has made US college admissions more centralized, but not simpler. The massive tech failure of the new version of the online Common App in 2013 pushed various groups to explore other options.

When the Coalition for College Success presented its new plan to transform the college admissions gateway at NACAC, there were naysayers in many camps. The Common App’s virtual monopoly, however flawed, patched over a quagmire of inconsistencies that admissions stakeholders are reluctant to give up or to thoroughly think through: one size fits all vs. holistic admissions criteria; admissions favoring the few who can afford to pay for college vs. a level playing field; where students get in vs. what they can afford among them.

These vital discussions around our admissions gateway are part of a much larger rethinking of the role of and pathways through higher education in the 21st century. In that larger context, there are three big ideas in the Coalition’s model that offer fundamental improvements for low-income students:

The portfolio model

This shift in admissions criteria from one standard (transcripts, test scores, diploma) to a “portfolio” model that includes all aspects of coursework, career exploration and community engagement is the most significant change. The Coalition shifted, almost immediately, from calling this a “portfolio” to a “locker,” but the shift is nonetheless substantial and helpful for all students, and especially low-income students from under-resourced schools:

  • Using the International Baccalaureate model, students reflect on their work each year.

  • They develop summative work around their core learning as is common in many European high schools.

  • Students will be able to document real learning outside of school, including summer programs, online courses, work, internships and community service.

  • They will be able to build a collection of materials–coursework, self-assessments, videos, their own blogs and articles–that more broadly reflect what they have learned and where they are going.

Many schools encourage student reflection and self-assessment throughout high school, as a valid and positive aspect of students’ overall academic record. And as there are more and more opportunities for learning separate from traditional schools, this new model provides a framework to capture pre-college learning in all its forms.

Financial transparency and college completion

To be in the Coalition, private colleges must meet a student’s “demonstrated financial need” and commit to 70% graduation rate for all students in  six years or less; public universities must commit to low in-state tuition and offer need-based financial aid.

In a critical article in the Washington Post, Jon Boeckenstedt, associate vice president of enrollment management and marketing at DePaul University, argued that some private college members of the Coalition are among the worst in admitting low-income students, and several of the public university members have very poor graduation rates: “It is one of the dirty secrets of higher education that the most selective and prestigious private universities carry far less share of the load when it comes to enrolling low-income students, especially in light of the enormous wealth they collectively hold.”

But if students are admitted to college without the financial aid or courses and support services to graduate, it doesn’t help them much in the long run. So, yes, the Coalition’s bar is high–aspirational even for many Coalition members–but the basic promise that college must be both affordable and completable for all students is the most significant of the Coalition’s foundational assumptions and one we should all embrace, hard as it may be to implement.

Admissions officers serving as college advisors

The Coalition’s third big idea–that college and university admission officers will step into the breach left by too few college counselors in most public high schools–is another bold step in a good direction. Most people in admissions love high school students; many of them were first-generation students themselves. The more time they spend in local high schools–as teachers, counselors and mentors–the better, so long as they remember that the point of education is not just getting into college, but learning how to learn, innovate and solve problems.

I would argue that the Coalition’s shifts are a solid start in the right direction, but it will take much bolder collective action to change the game of college–to make it both affordable and completable. This is especially true for low-income students. Until there is one fair and shared system for all–one that serves students and families rather than colleges and consultants–let’s extend the Coalition’s bold promises and figure out ways to get more colleges on board.

cb blog.jpg

Dr. Carol Barash, founder and CEO of Story2 and author of Write Out Loud, has been building digital communications tools for over 20 years, and through Story2 teaches the art and science of storytelling to expand college access and career readiness. Have questions about storytelling, college admissions, and life choices? Ask her anything on Twitter @carolbarash.

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Matthew Lynch published in Diversity, HBCU's, Higher Education

Are Colleges Doing Enough to close the Achievement Gap?

There’s a lot of talk in P-12 learning about how exactly to best close the achievement gap, or the space that separates traditionally advantaged students with those who have historically been at-risk where academics are concerned. By the time students get to college, the emphasis shifts slightly to focus more on the diversity of who is on a university campus and less on outcomes. Without the stringent assessments that are now synonymous with the P-12 process, colleges have an easier time simply making appearances when it comes to the true success of all students on their campuses.

This isn’t to say that there is no accountability – several independent associations and often the colleges themselves release data on graduation rates, post-grad employment rates, and even the amount of debt incurred by students. Yet when it comes to truly closing the achievement gap between students from all life backgrounds, ethnicities and races, P-12 institutions seem to be held to a higher standard than their 13 – 20 counterparts. This is not only a disservice to the students, but to the American population as a whole that then misses out on enjoying the innovation, advancement and prosperity that comes with a more highly educated public.

So how can colleges step up their game when it comes to closing the achievement gap?

What’s working

It’s only been in the last decade or so that colleges have begun to recognize that different students need different guidance to reach that graduation podium. It’s why a crop of programs designed for first-generation and minority college students are flourishing across the country. These initiatives run the gamut – from recruiting these students, to providing intense mentorship programs, to partnering with community businesses for job placement. Targeting the guidance of students based on their backgrounds is vital to getting them their degrees and all of this conscientious hard work by universities is certainly making a dent when it comes to higher achievement from traditionally at-risk college students.

Overall colleges are doing a better job in recent years of providing a full career arc before students set foot on campus. This gives them an idea of what to expect when it comes to the courses they will take, the mentorship programs available, the potential for internships, and the job placement initiatives. For students who are putting their working lives on hold to obtain a college degree, a greater understanding of what that means in long-term financial terms is necessary to convince them the leap to college life is a good one.

What needs work

For all of the strides college recruiting programs have made, there is still an overarching theme that recruiting new students is an isolated process. Get the kids on campus, then move on to the next batch. In reality, recruiting should be a very small part of a larger strategy that not only brings students of varied backgrounds to campus, but sustains them until graduation. Some schools are improving in this regard, but there’s still a lot of work needed to flip this mentality from one of solitude to solidarity with other student help groups.

The need for an affordable college education is mentioned so often that it seems that we are all becoming desensitized to it. The reality is that having affordable college, not just providing loans to students, will go a long way towards helping close the achievement gap. Initiatives like providing the first two years of community college for free to qualifying students, and even student loan forgiveness programs for high-demand jobs, are a few ways that the dream of a college degree can become more accessible to minority, first-generation and other at-risk students.

 

There’s a reason so much attention is paid to closing the achievement gap in P-12 classrooms: a better educated public means a stronger economy, greater industry competition on a global scale, and an overall better quality of life for all citizens. It is high time colleges stepped back from their diversity plans long enough to question whether those efforts are truly doing enough to close the country’s achievement gap for life. Continued targeted guidance throughout the college process, improved recruiting, and a bigger push for affordable college are a few ways that the U.S. college and university landscape can step up its efforts for equality in higher education achievement.

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Matthew Lynch published in Equity, HBCU's, list, Matthew Lynch, Mississippi

4 Interesting Facts about Education in Mississippi

Mississippi is my home state, and an interesting state at that. Some time ago I wrote an article about what MLK would say about education in Mississippi, and I wrote it because of some startling realities about education in this state. I brought up that 24% of people in the state are estimated to live below the poverty line, and that many of Mississippi’s poorest residents are children of color — many of them are black children. For this reason, among others, Mississippi may need special attention when it comes to addressing P-12 education.

Here are a few sobering facts about education in Mississippi.

  1. Public education in Mississippi is ranked last in the nation year after year. Public education in Mississippi ranked last, yet again, on Education Week’s Quality Counts report . The state received an “F” grade for academic achievement, and a “D” for the chance of success for students.

There is no easy fix for this. Even academic programs targeted for at-risk students can only go so far. With a poverty rate of 24 percent in the state, the problems that impact student success in classrooms extend far beyond it. To really see a difference in student outcomes, the state needs economic initiatives that boost the life quality of residents and give more opportunities to students once they are done with school. Recognizing that these outside factors go hand-in-hand with student outcomes in classrooms is the first step toward moving Mississippi out of last place and putting it on course to be a P-12 leader in the country…

  1. Mississippi is short on education funding—by $1.5 billion. Durant Public School teachers in Mississippi spend their evenings on the Internet, browsing for math and other problems to give their students because the school doesn’t have up-to-date textbooks.

School leaders say that new books aren’t in the budget, nor are reading coaches to help improve the districts academic rating of “D.” To save money, teachers and their assistants have already been reduced and administrators took pay cuts.

The troubles in Durant, located about 60 miles north of Jackson, illustrate a picture of the state as a whole. Mississippi legislators have ignored a state law and spend $1.5 billion less on education than what is required; the cuts in the state are the deepest in the country.

State funding was originally cut as tax revenues plunged during the recession. According to early estimates, the state could fall $280 million short again in 2016.

Durant has 588 students in grades K-12. The teacher turnover rate is high, and when new teachers are hired they tend to be recent graduates who are inexpensive to bring on board.

Sanders-Tate, the superintendent in Durant, dreams of raising the schools rating from a “D” to “A,” but knows it’s a challenge.

“When you don’t have what you need, you’ve got to make do,” Sanders-Tate said. “I’m tired of making do for the kids when they deserve the best like everyone else.”

  1. Mississippi has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation, with 50 births for every 1,000 young women between 15 and 19 years old. Despite this, attempts to educate young people in the state about safe sex practices have been met with hostility.

Alarmed by the high rates of teen pregnancy, and high number (76 percent) of high school students who report being sexually active by age 17 in the state, members of the business community lobbied the state to make sexual education courses mandatory in public schools. Those lobbying won a partial victory — but actual implementation of the rule has been slowed down in the religious and conservative state.

The Los Angeles Times reports that mother Marie Barnard was pleased when Mississippi made sex education mandatory after many decades of disallowing it. She was less than pleased, however, when she found out one of the “lessons” involved students passing around an unwrapped piece of chocolate candy and observing how “dirty” it became with more contact. The message does not provide an educated view on sex, or show respect to young people who have been sexually active, she said.

The candy example is just one way the noble goal to educate Mississippi’s youth about responsible sexual activity has gone awry. Part of the enacted law requires parents to sign a permission slip allowing their children to take sex ed courses in the first place. There are also issues of enforcement and the exact curriculum being taught. Individual districts, for example, can choose to implement abstinence-only sex education classes.

So it seems the battle for a sexually-informed generation in Mississippi wages on, even in public school classrooms.

  1. Mississippi received a grade of “B” for its early childhood programs, compared to a national average of “D+.” There is a silver lining to every cloud. Despite being one of the worst-performing states in many categories of education, Mississippi ranks second nationally when it comes to Head Start enrollment (third nationally when it comes to Kindergarten enrollment and access to full-day Kindergarten programs). Getting kids signed up for early childhood programs is just the start of course. These children need to learn enough while in those classrooms, but getting them started as early as possible is definitely a step in the right direction when it comes to the future academic success of students in the state.

It is also one of the relatively few states in America that is pushing for mandatory Kindergarten. Representative Sonya Williams-Barnes, a Democrat from Gulfport, authored of “KIDS Act” that would change the mandatory school age for children in the state from 6 to 5 years old, in essence making Kindergarten mandatory for children in the state.

So how does Mississippi stack up against other states when it comes to the Kindergarten issue? There are only 15 states and the District of Columbia that require Kindergarten by law, and there are actually six states that do not even require public schools to offer Kindergarten. Despite the bad rap Mississippi often gets when it comes to student achievement numbers, the state does pretty well on Kindergarten access and has nationally high numbers for attendance. So adding in a Kindergarten requirement would not make a huge difference in the amount of kids who attended, but will just be more of a formality.

All this said, where Mississippi could really use the legislative boost is when it comes to pre-K education — an area where strides are being made. The Mississippi Department of Education reports that two-thirds of all the kids who entered Mississippi public Kindergarten in the fall of 2014 did not have the base-level skills required for adequate learning. In my opinion, the age of 5 is too old for mandatory education in the state, but it will probably be a few more decades before Mississippi, or any other state, requires it any younger. Hopefully this latest proposal will pass with no problems to show that state leaders are unified when it comes to early childhood education initiatives in Mississippi.

My home state of Mississippi needs to make some big changes as soon as possible. I want nothing more for the state to have sufficient money to put towards improving education, and to see the ratings improve drastically.

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, Matthew Lynch

Standardized Testing for Colleges: A Necessary Evil?

Standardized testing in K-12 education is a perennial hot button issue. Proponents feel that measuring knowledge in these rigid ways helps lift the entire educational system. Critics say the measurements do nothing but encourage “teach to the test” methods and narrow the scope of what instructors are able to teach if they want to have acceptable test results. These arguments are nothing new, but they are now seeing a new audience.

What if the same principles of K-12 standardized testing were applied to colleges and universities? Americans spend over $460 billion on higher educational pursuits every year, yet there is no official worldwide system in place to determine whether students are learning what they should, compared to other schools. In June, the

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development unveiled research on whether a global testing system for college students is possible. The group will continue to review its findings and decide later this year if it wants to push for implementation of the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes test, abbreviated as AHELO.

Right now the comparison system for colleges and universities lies in the many rankings that are released each year by sources like U.S. News & World Report and hundreds of bloggers who weigh in on the topic. The AHELO would be a “direct evaluation of student performance at the global level…across diverse cultures, languages and different types of institutions.” It would provide institutions feedback meant to help them “foster improvement in student learning outcomes.” In a nutshell, the test would not actually measure student achievements as much as shine the light on instructors that need some improvement.

To K-12 students, this sounds familiar. To college faculty, the idea is fraught with landmines. How can one test take into account so many variables in higher education across the globe? Would instructors be punished by the institution, or even worse held to some misguided accountability scale by peers, if students did not rank highly enough on an AHELO, or some other test? If college is a time for fostering critical thinking skills, would a standardized test take away some of that freedom?

College instructors and administrators are right to have doubts, and particularly before any testing mandates go into effect. Take the classic college entrance exams – the SAT and the ACT. Though research has found little correlation between results on these tests and actual knowledge or intelligence, they are a standard part of college admissions. It is more difficult to reverse a testing mandate than to fight it off at the outset.

It is easy to see why colleges and universities are leery of standardized testing, but K-12 instructors should be too. Presently, K-12 instructors guide students through the formative education years, dealing with standardized tests and other demands of contemporary teaching. Success with those students is ultimately determined by two other numbers: graduation rate and college placement. At that point, a K-12 teacher’s job is done, at least in theory. Adding another layer of teacher testing (cleverly disguised as core knowledge testing) at the college level could have an impact on K-12 instructors too.

If the AHELO is designed to “foster improvement” in the higher education schools that are tested, who is to say that those ideals of improvement will not then be extended to the K-12 schools that came beforehand? A student who demonstrates below-college-level proficiency in language or math would in theory not be the product of college that failed him or her – that student’s incompetency would be a result of a previous school, or schools. Could a global test for college actually negatively impact the K-12 schools that preceded it?

As with any measurement of teaching and learning, the AHELO and other similar initiatives need close scrutiny before becoming global law. I am not sure of the necessity of such a system and it will take some hard arguing by the other side to convince me otherwise.

Are you in favor of standardized testing in colleges and universities?

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Matthew Lynch published in Diversity, Higher Education, Matthew Lynch

Campus diversity: Are Ivy Leagues getting closer?

America has a love-hate relationship with its eight Ivy League universities. For the majority, these elite schools are seen as unattainable places, reserved for those with superhuman high school transcripts and the deep pockets to afford to attend. Graduating from one is generally viewed as writing the ticket to a comfortable life, though, and you’d be hard pressed to find someone who wouldn’t be impressed with your framed Princeton or Columbia degree.

Ivy Leagues are the butt of jokes where snobs are the punchline and often considered out of the league, in both price and performance, for the average American high schooler. Ivy Leagues are viewed as places for already-rich, white Americans to pat each other on the back on their way to acquiring even more wealth. As with most things that are generalized and over-simplified, Ivy Leagues have more complexity in student, faculty and alumni diversity than is often portrayed.

Look at our own President – a minority Harvard graduate who married another minority Harvard grad, made a name for his down-to-earth approach to politics, and went on to become the leader of the free world. Is President Obama an extreme exception, or are we missing the story of true diversity at these stereotypically elite schools?

The truth is somewhere between the extremes. With the right direction, however, Ivy Leagues could really make some headway in improving diversity on their campuses in the next half-decade and could set the example for the rest of America’s university landscape.

Smart recruitment

Ivy League schools aren’t just waiting for minority, first-generation and other disadvantaged future applicants to come to them – they are reaching out, and early. Every Ivy League school is a member of the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success which offers a portfolio-type program for college admittance. This portfolio is intended to start in 9th grade and is often accompanied by guidance from university officials on high school academics and additional items that will boost their final file for consideration.

These portfolios are about more than test scores and report card grades. A “locker” portion allows room for creative work, like visual art and essays. By allowing this application system, Ivy Leagues are setting the stage for students early in their careers, giving them a better chance at earning admittance when the time comes.

It will be a few years before this portfolio system is proven to work, at Ivy Leagues and the other 70+ schools that implemented its use in 2015. The fact that these schools have pinpointed the need to approach and guide students so early in their high school careers is important though. It shows that the schools in the coalition are serious about being proactive in diverse recruitment and are willing to put in the work to make get more disadvantaged students on their campuses.

The reality stands

For all their apparent strides to be more diverse, Ivy Leagues can’t deny the facts of where they stand today. First, there is the issue of money that simply can’t be ignored. Admitting students without concern for whether they can afford the school or not is a luxury of Ivy Leagues, whose alumni giving dwarfs that of typical universities. They can afford to pay the tuition of students who could otherwise not find the money to attend, giving them an advantage when it comes to diverse recruitment.

Even with all that additional money, though, Ivy Leagues are still mainly made up of affluent students. Nationally, 38 percent of undergraduate students earn Pell grants, earmarked for students from low-income families. Only 12 percent at Yale and 13 percent at the University of Virginia received Pell grants in the 2013-2014 academic year.

It’s not all bad news though. Brown University has some promising stats when it comes to its ability to recruit and graduate more diverse students. In its class of 2019, 59 percent of Brown’s accepted students went to public schools. All 50 states are represented, along with 85 nations. Sixty-one percent will need some form of financial aid to afford Brown attendance, and 45 percent identified as African American, Latino, Asian American or Native American (which still means it is a Predominantly White Institution, but not by much).

Cornell’s class of 2019 includes 700 first-generation students, 45 percent female and 48 percent who identify themselves as students of color.

So what will the class of 2025, 2030 and beyond look like at Ivy Leagues? Will new recruitment methods finally bridge the gap between the ideal of diversity and the reality on campuses?

What do you predict will be the future of diversity at Ivy Leagues?

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Matthew Lynch published in Diversity, Equity

Black students suspended, expelled more than peers

According to a new study published by the University of Pennsylvania, black students make up nearly 40 percent of students suspended in Florida.

“The study details how black students in 13 Southern states receive school punishments disproportionate to their enrollments. In Florida, for example, black youngsters make up 23 percent of the public school population but 39 percent of those suspended.”

That number, unfortunately, matches with the trend of how many black men and women are sent to prison. Making up just 13 percent of the population, people of color make-up about 60 percent of the nation’s prison population. The school-to-prison pipeline is real, even if it is uncomfortable to admit. There IS a correlation between the way behavior issues are treated in our P-12 schools and the people in our prisons.

The Sentencing Project projects that 1 in 3 black men will likely see the inside of a prison cell at some point in their lives.

If that trend continues, suspending more black students will nudge them towards a path of incarceration.

But the study notes that black students are suspended and expelled more due to “unfair discipline practices” and appearing as “disrespectful or threatening.”

While the numbers for the state are bad, it gets worse in Orange County. Making up just 27 percent of the county’s public school population, black students represents 51 percent of the students suspended.

It’s much easier to learn while at school than away from it, and if schools are placing an unfair and undue burden of punishment on black students, our future workforce will suffer because of it.

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Matthew Lynch published in HBCU's

HBCUs face peril under proposed education plans

From President Obama to Hillary Clinton, both Democrats have or will face backlash for their plans to make education more affordable.

Sounds crazy on the surface but the criticism has merit.

According to The Huffington Post, Clinton’s education plan would undermine the funding of some HBCUs and would likely force a few to close.

“Free tuition to any community college and reduced tuition to public institutions, will expedite the extinction of several HBCUs. Without federal and state investment in public historically black campuses which lack unique programs, modernized facilities and marketing resources, students of all races will flock to larger, more developed predominantly white colleges.”

In essence, plans presented by Clinton and other candidates who lean left would take federal and state money used to aid HBCUs and refocus the dollars towards a general fund that will help schools that traditionally serve the general population.

Hypothetically, schools that aren’t necessarily in need of more federal assistance would receive extra dollars and some HBCUs would be left in the cold.

This is likely an unintended consequence of ensuring that more low-income students have proper access to higher education. In doing so, Clinton and other candidates may end up isolating a voting bloc that they desperately need.

Read all of our posts about HBCUs by clicking here.

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Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform, Teachers

Highly Qualified Teachers: Should Federal Requirements be Removed?

The federal provisions that define “highly qualified teachers” in the No Child Left Behind Act could soon be a thing of the past if U.S. House legislation is signed into law. The Student Success Act, drafted by Minnesota Republican John Kline, calls for removal of teacher hiring requirements at the federal level. Kline and other proponents of the Student Success Act, say the current outdated policies in place are actually hurting K-12 schools because things like credentials get in the way of hiring the best teachers. Individual states could still enforce stringent credentialing for teachers but the federal government would have no input. The term “highly qualified teachers” (HQT) would be removed from federal law.

Predictably, Democrats on the Education and the Workforce Committee that drafted the legislation hate it. Representative Pete Gallego, a Democrat from Texas, says the bill is a recipe for disaster when it comes to federal oversight and protection for disadvantaged students. He says:

“This legislation guts the core goal that all students should receive a quality education. It leaves children behind by taking resources from kids who need it most.”

Also at issue is the removal of funding for professional development for teachers and lack of protection for collective bargaining action.

A different K-12 bill supported by mostly Democrats has already passed the Senate that maintains the HQT policy but hands over a little more control of hiring teachers to states. The Strengthening America’s Schools Act would keep in place federal requirements that insist teacher evaluations, including student achievement, be used in personnel decisions.

Both bills allow states to use Title II funding to further develop teachers and administrators and for reduction in class size (though the House bill limits that to 10 percent of funds). Both bills also call for teacher evaluations to be used to determine equity in distribution. The biggest difference between the Senate and House bills is the inclusion and exclusion, respectively, of the HQT federal requirement.

At least on paper, the federal HQT provision looks good. HQTs must have state certification, at least a bachelor’s degree from a four-year institution and demonstrate competency in the core academic subject area. That seems pretty standard to me. If a state license, college degree and expertise on a subject being taught are somehow keeping qualified teachers from the classroom, what requirements should there be instead?

Critics of the HQT federal mandate say that the requirement focuses too much on the upfront status of the teacher. While those three conditions are a starting point, the real measure of a teacher should lie in student outcomes. To help K-12 teachers reach their full potential in the classroom, provisions that allow for continued training and development need to be emphasized, not taken away. Further, since the strength of college-level education programs vary and the licensing exams are different between states, how can the federal government really mandate what constitutes a HQT?

Proponents of the HQT provision concede that states must do more than the basic requirements when it comes to hiring and cultivating teachers, but that without that federal mandate, students will suffer – particularly minority and low-income children. The concern is that without the three HQT provisions, inexperienced and unqualified teachers will find their way into Title I schools. The promotion of equitable distribution of teachers in all classrooms – particularly ones with at-risk students – would be detrimentally impacted if federal HQT mandates are eliminated.

So what control should the federal government truly have over teacher qualifications? Should it be up to states to decide what their student bodies really need from teachers? To what end will disadvantaged students be harmed if either legislation is signed into law?

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Matthew Lynch published in Diversity, Equity

How many "Karen Fitzgibbons" are still teaching our kids?

**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.**

By Lisa Mims

Karen Fitzgibbons, a teacher at Bennett Elementary in Wolforth, Texas, wrote that she was, in all-caps, “ANGRY” over the officer’s resignation, blaming “the blacks” for causing “racial tension,” according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. 

“I guess that’s what happens when you flunk out of school and have no education,” she continued. “I’m sure their parents are just as guilty for not knowing what their kids were doing; or knew it and didn’t care. 

“I’m almost to the point of wanting them all segregated on one side of town so they can hurt each other and leave the innocent people alone. Maybe the 50s and 60s were really on to something. Now, let the bashing of my true and honest opinion begin….GO! #imnotracist #imsickofthemcausingtrouble #itwasatagedcommunity” 

As an educator, when I read Ms.Fitzgibbon’s quotes, all I could think, well after my initial thought of, “What an idiot!”, was about the children of color who had the misfortune to be in her class.

Didn’t anyone know how she was? How could she have hidden it so well? Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she didn’t have to. The teacher’s Wall of Silence is just as pervasive as the police. You usually have to do, or say, something horrible, for another teacher to expose you. (If you see something, say something!)

After I did some research,  I realized she probably posted it because she thought she could. After all, Wolfforth, Texas is a red state, less than 2% of the school is African-American, and the population of the town is 2.5% black. Worrying about how others would respond probably wasn’t a priority.

If Ms.Fitzgibbons had chosen to speak to her friends privately about her #imnoracist viewpoint, she would have been fine. She would have continued to go to work, views packed away on a “need to know” basis. But, I guess she was so ANGRY, she was going to let the world know how she felt,(By the way, if you #imnoracist, you probably are), damn the consequences.

I don’t believe she really thought there would be consequences.She could say what she felt about “the blacks”, and everyone would cheer her on. Kudos to those who called her out, and kudos to her district for firing her!

Ms.Fitzgibbons, maybe you should have read your district policy before you posted your vitriol.

Here’s the thing, Ms.Fitzgibbons is not alone. In a world where the majority of public school students are children of color, and their teachers are white, there are one or more in many schools around the country. The only difference is, most have enough sense not to post it on Facebook. They save it for the Teacher’s Lounge, or vent in the privacy of their homes.

These “Karen FitzGibbons”, destroy children of color, one day at a time. Put-downs, insults, and sarcasm are their weapons of choice.They label them Special Education at the drop of a hat, dole out multiple suspensions, advise parents, (although they have no medical degrees), to medicate their children,  keep them out of gifted programs and AP classes, and/or tell them they cannot go to college.

It’s not difficult to get away with these attacks, because, for many reasons, parents of children of color, do not, or have no idea how to, advocate for their children.
So, it continues.

Reread Ms.Fitzgibbons’ views, they are so full of hate. What type of influence did she have on her students’ views toward people of another race? What chance would a student of color stand in her classroom? Do you think a teacher like Karen Fitzgibbons is a fluke?

GO!

This post originally appeared on Diary of a Public School Teacher, and was republished with permission.

_______________

Diary of a Public School Teacher is a blog where Lisa Mims shares her  thoughts about any aspect of the teaching profession. She is a DEN (Discovery Education Network) STAR Educator! She loves writing and has contributed posts to Free Technology for Teachers, Edudemic, TeachHub, GoAnimate, Edutopia, etc.
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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

Four Forms of Forgetting That Affect Sustainable Leadership

The main challenge to educational reform is not to retreat to the past. Instead, we should build an intelligent relationship that acknowledges its existence, understands its meaning, and learns from it. An organization may choose to forget elements of the past. De Holan and Phillips introduced four kinds of “organizational forgetting.” They categorized them based on whether they were intentional or unintentional, or whether they applied to established or recently acquired knowledge.

Dissipation

Dissipation occurs when new knowledge is brought into the organization, but without goodwill or ability to make it stick in people’s memory toward the goal of organizational effectiveness. Dissipation is easily prevented by passing on the new knowledge to others. Most charismatic leaders find this difficult, refusing to face that they will be replaced, or the ultimate end to their position .

De Holan and Phillips suggest that new knowledge is passed not only through mentoring or succession; it can also be transmitted when leaders explicitly connect it to what people already know.

Degradation

Degradation occurs when well-established knowledge is lost accidentally. It commonly occurs when there is high turnover of critical personnel, who are unable or unwilling to create collective knowledge that would enable a successful joint action without their presence.
High turnover in teaching staff causes noticeable difficulties, mostly in innovative schools, where distinctive goals, practices, and structures are renewed as teachers come and go. The sudden downsizing in middle-level management can also cause degradation, since management losses and budget cuts reduce middle-level managers ability to support the principals in their running of schools.

Suspension

While organizational forgetting is usually accidental, some of it is deliberate, as part of a strategy for change and improvement. Collins and Porras found that one of the factors that leads to long-standing success in business is companies’ abilities to engage in diverse research, knowing when to keep successful innovations, and when to “forget” the rest.

Suspension is needed in educational policy in the U.S. This can be achieved by cutting back on the curriculum, exempting schools that succeed using other designs, reducing external accountability, putting less emphasis external testing, giving other personnel the administrative tasks that burden teachers, and improving school infrastructure in poor communities, making them better suited for student learning (Teachernet, 2005). While it is easy to abandon tasks and practices that one never wanted in the first place, it is harder to let go of those practices that they found comfortable. Hargreaves (2007) suggests that, to achieve this, a much more organized, and focused process is required to make suspension practical, deliberate, and desirable.

Purging

Purging is forgetting some of our poor practices, bad habits, and outdated ways of doing things that do not meet the needs of changing cultures and times. However, unlearning practices we feel are effective and exchanging them for new, unfamiliar ones can be uncomfortable. The temptation to cling to the past is normal and understandable.

According to Hargreaves, when purging involves teaching literacy, testing processes and attitudes, communication with parents, or school administration, there are two core issues that must be considered. First, we have to ask if the areas for unlearning have been diagnosed correctly, and whether this unlearning is for educational or political reasons. Second, we need to find out whether the knowledge transition is being managed in a supportive or a traumatic manner.

The emphasis of reform should be for the experienced teachers to improve their practices. Purging and other acts of forced forgetting lead to the wasting of the teachers’ wisdom as professional elders, and makes them discouraged and upset.

Renewing the Past

In the words of the great English romantic poet William Wordsworth, “let us learn from the past, to profit the present, and from the present to live better in the future.” Sustainable leadership therefore needs both a rear-view mirror and a windshield.

Leaders must sustain themselves and those around them to promote and support learning, persist with their vision. The must lead the charge in avoiding burnout, and ensure that the improvements they bring continue after their departure. Leaders should also consider the impact their leadership has on neighboring schools, how they encourage diverse teaching and learning in their schools, and their how the interact with their community.

Most school leaders want to do things that matter, inspire others to join them in their vision, and leave a lasting legacy. Often, leaders don’t let their schools down, but the systems through which they lead do. Sustainable leadership requires a collective effort from all stakeholders in the school. If change is to matter, spread, or last, sustainable leadership must be a central priority of education systems.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Equity, Policy & Reform

How to Improve Equity in K-12 Learning

Since amendment XIV of the U.S. Constitution mandated that “no state shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” no child can legally be denied the right to a public education in the United States.  As such, equity in education has long been an ideal and ensuring equity among all students, regardless of their personal circumstances, has been a primary goal of educators.

Unfortunately, the practice of equity in education has been less than effective.  Government steps that have been recommended to remedy the problem include having states specifically identify and report on the teaching staff, programs, and services they deem necessary for a quality education; and adopting and implementing a school finance system to provide “equitable and sufficient funding” for all students essentially to meet learning standards.  These recommendations follow a 2013 report called, “For Each and Every Child”, in which it was reported that “some young Americans – most of them white and affluent – are getting a world-class education” while those who “attend schools in high poverty neighborhoods are getting an education that more closely approximates schools in developing nations.” The problem of ensuring that every child in the United States receives a quality education is quite a substantial one.

Better resource allocation

Perhaps then, the first step to addressing this issue should be for some determination to be made about how, under general circumstances, education can be made equitable to all students.  This assessment should not directly involve teachers or administrators, whose assessment may be skewed, but rather the assessment should be through observation.  After all, the assumption seems to be that money – preferably money poured into schools – is enough to solve educational issues. That is, reassignment of resources to support schools in poorer areas will be sufficient, along with some reporting on considered needs, to balance the public education system.  This is problematic because the issue of equity, and perhaps equality, is far more complex than an influx of money can solve – but it is certainly a good starting point.

Better feedback on what’s working.

States should provide feedback on those programs and strategies that are most effective for equity building.  Part of the problem with the government’s solutions is that they assume states and ultimately schools can figure out what it is they need or what it is they need to do to provide a quality education.  There are many elements at play, not just the immediate financial ones. Students in certain affluent areas have the benefit of the best teachers, given that it is highly desirable to have a placement in this area. It is also decidedly competitive to even try.  Therefore, a compilation of feedback from the states should be gathered in order to rank the most effective programs so that they can be shared with all.

Analyze findings for better results.

School systems need to have an approach for analyzing findings about recommended shifts in learning approaches and objectives. These approaches should be designed to help teachers and administrators understand not just what they have to avoid but also what it is that they can do to achieve optimal equity moving forward. This will take massive amounts of data that will need to be centrally collected, understood, and used to improve equity in all K-12 public schools.

The goal of achieving equity in schools has long been a goal of the education system.  However, most attempts to date have fallen far short of the mark.

What do you think needs to be done to improve the balance of education for kids in this country?

 

 

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