In a responsive model of instruction, teachers seek out and include examples of achievements from both genders. While women have come a long way since the days of Dr. Edward Clarke, it is still difficult to find a curriculum that reflects an equitable picture of female accomplishments. Progress has been slow to incorporate gender-fair terminology into textbooks. Girls need to read about role models in science and mathematics — not just see pictures of women in lab coats with occasional references to females in the text.
The accomplishments of minority women, women with disabilities, local women from the community, and working class women all are important to help present a complete, realistic and equitable picture of female role models in society. It is valuable for young women to see the variety of ways in which females can impact their communities and their society, regardless of race, ethnic background or financial status. Teachers help overcome gender inequities and change present perceptions by presenting accomplishments, and experiences, of both men and women.
A balance of the particularistic and the inclusive is required. It is not healthy or productive to promote the historical female experience as completely negative — or to emphasize the struggles and minimize the triumphs — such an approach presents an unrealistic picture and may produce bitterness. Nor is it positive to emphasize men as the “oppressors” — this fosters resentment. Balance promotes equitable, respectful, and cooperative relationships with men in society.
There are many important reasons to emphasize women’s achievements. One of the most important is to build girls’ self-esteem. Blame the magazines, the movies, the models — blame Barbie — pin it on the pin-up girls, but the fact remains: girls struggle with the mixed messages about body image. Particularly impressionable adolescent girls struggle with bulimia, anorexia and the obsession with weight, and sometimes self-inflict injuries and other damage to their bodies.
Many girls who are bulimics and/or cutters have indicated that these actions are the only aspects of their lives over which they have control. Teachers lack the ubiquitous influence of the media to manipulate girls’ self-image. Advertising often pitches to the fundamental needs of the subconscious mind. Sex sells, to be frank — and while we cannot deny it, we do have some means to counter it.
Girls must be guided to see their potential in areas other than the physical. One helpful strategy is to acquaint young girls with the accomplishments of great women, including: Phyllis Wheatley, Marian Wright Edelman, Rosa Parks, Clara Barton, Mary Shelley, Jane Addams, Shirley Chisholm, Elizabeth Blackwell, Sacagawea, Wilma Mankiller, Isabel Allende, Deborah Sampson Gannett, Dolores Huerta, Frida Kahlo, Maya Angelou, Sonia Sotomayor, Margaret Sanger, Unity Dow, Sally Ride and other women who overcame great odds to be strong and successful.
Each of these women are a standout figure in history or in society because of her hard work, her inner strength and her determination. In a society where supermodels and sex appeal are overvalued, adolescent girls must be reminded of their important inner qualities.
Historically, universities were privileged institutions for the “intelligent elite”, almost exclusively male communities, where great thinkers lived and worked and passed on their wisdom to fellow scholars and their students. Imagine Oxford, Harvard and the University of Melbourne before 1960.
Today, universities remain institutions in which groups of scholars contribute to the world’s knowledge and pass it on through teaching and exchanging ideas with the wider community. The difference is they try much harder to serve as many people as they can.
Institutions of distinction
The power of the university community is that it has never been bound to an institution or a country. Many academics and their students are more closely tied to their colleagues across the world in their own discipline than to an academic across the corridor in another field.
Traditionally, groups of scholars have banded together to compete in the race for new knowledge. They have not based their work on their institutional affiliation.
Universities, on the other hand, bundle their best groups together and claim a reputation. This has been the major driver of distinction and competition for universities and is reflected in the different world rankings.
Reinforcing this approach to competition is that student demand continues to follow elite status in the different rankings. This means that countries building their university systems are increasingly entering the “brain race”. Elite scholars are attracting lucrative incentives and contracts, similar to elite sport.
New competition
In Australia, competition will continue to transform universities. Australia has followed the world in democratising university education. The last 50 years has also seen a significant increase in the scope of degrees offered, particularly as universities have incorporated training for the growing number of professions.
Uncapping of places following the Bradley Review of higher education led to a significant growth in demand and university revenue. As the rate of growth has slowed, universities have sought to maintain revenue by trying to attract different types of students using a range of delivery methods.
While different university groupings exist, it is difficult to see much difference other than in positions on the research rankings. Many universities have regional presence. All universities are trying to “innovate” and this includes different levels of online delivery. All universities are working internationally.
Many universities were, until relatively recently, polytechnics or technical colleges and the pecking order among universities and therefore the demand from students largely reflects the research rankings, which favour the established elite.
Newer universities are therefore trying to re-invent the student experience and to develop links with industry and specialised degrees to generate the revenue they need to maintain their relative positions. Revenue pressure has increased as international student demand remains inconsistent and government funding for domestic places does not maintain pace with university ambitions.
New competition is also entering the field. TAFEs and private providers don’t need to research and they get more money for degrees than they can get from vocational qualifications. Degrees are also normally longer, which provides a more secure revenue stream from each student recruited. New entrants make more money too, as they generally have a lower cost structure than universities.
Add to this the fact that some 87% of the workforce in Australia is employed in the services sector, where a bachelor degree is increasingly becoming a base requirement for a job. It is an attractive market in which to operate.
Universities have responded by partnering with TAFEs and private providers to access markets or improve their productivity in ways they cannot achieve on their own. It makes sense to provide curriculum, quality assurance and a degree for a fee, and let the TAFE or private provider focus on teaching students who might not otherwise have gone to university. The results are often as good or better for the student. It provides a new revenue stream for both parties.
Specialise to succeed
As growth in demand for universities slows, particularly outside Queensland and Western Australia, competition for students will heat up. The lowest tier of universities will have to focus on only highly specialist areas of research, simply for lack of funding.
All universities are likely to look to improve their productivity so that they have sufficient funds to maintain their world-leading research. Those who succeed will be those that get rid of unnecessary costs and drive new opportunities to increase their revenue.
How will competition develop? Increasingly, universities and higher education providers will follow the example of the scholars in a global market. They will specialise in what they do well and partner with anyone who is like-minded and can help them compete effectively in their race for achievement. For most universities their goal will remain excellence in teaching and learning and research for the betterment of humanity.
Competition will continue to transform universities. Some may lose the battle and fail, while others may partner to achieve higher rankings. The real winners are likely to be the students – and the elite scholars and teachers.
The Conversation is running a series on “What are universities for?” looking at the place of universities in Australia, why they exist, who they serve, and how this is changing over time. Read other articles in the series here.
The debate on the best way to educate ELL students continues, with little promise of a clear-cut way to proceed emerging anytime soon. Meanwhile, the diversity of languages spoken in U.S. schools continues to expand. Languages include Spanish, Hmong, Urdu, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Polish, Korean, Tagalog, and Swahili…and that doesn’t cover everything! Achieving the goal for all students to obtain a satisfactory level of learning is often compromised by the cultural, social, and language differences among various groups. The inability to provide the best approach for the learning needs of ELL students places them at greater risk of falling behind.
The original enthusiasm for bilingual programs has diminished, and these programs are now criticized as ineffective. Support for the immersion model has also declined, and initial supporters now believe ELL students simply aren’t learning English quickly and thoroughly enough. They now suggest that the immersion program does not facilitate ELL students’ ability to cope with American culture, not only in school but also beyond school boundaries. The slower learning curve experienced by ELL students in immersion programs may plague them for the rest of their lives.
This belief is based on research suggesting that Hispanics who were enrolled in bilingual programs from the 1970s through the 1990s have earned less money on average than Hispanic students educated during the same period in an English-only setting. Hispanic high school dropouts who were in English-only classrooms are also fewer in number and more likely to return to school later. Immersion makes it difficult for the teacher to provide support for all students’ needs. In the case of a complex assignment such as a research paper, language and usage are challenging even for fluent students. The further complication of using a second language puts ELL students at a serious disadvantage if they don’t have special support. The immersion method of teaching has yet to establish itself as an effective program for minority students.
Supporters of the transitional and developmental models insist that students taught at least some of their core academics in their native language can better keep pace with their English-speaking peers. According to research studies, transitional instruction in both the native language and English helps students learn English more quickly and effectively. Transitional instruction helps students become more literate in their native language, which in turn improves their ability to learn English.
An issue that complicates the education of the ELL learners is the lack of training among teachers and the apparent lack of urgency on the part of states to ensure highly qualified ELL teachers. Most states have no requirements for new teachers to demonstrate competency in ELL instruction. And most states do not have incentives for teachers to pursue a license or endorsement in ELL instruction. Regardless of the model chosen, qualified teachers are necessary for quality programs.
Bilingual programs—are they helpful or harmful? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
**The Edvocate is pleased to publish this guest post on stealth assessment as a 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 Anica Oaks
Students sometimes need a little extra help, encouragement or advice to succeed at college. Not all students have the same levels of skills and motivation when they come to class and complete their assignments. University professionals, including professors, teaching assistants and staff, can do a number of things to help boost students’ success. The following are some of the best strategies for improving the performance of students who may need a little extra help.
Provide Clear Guidelines for Success
In order to succeed, students must have a clear idea of what’s expected of them. They should be aware exactly what counts towards their grade in each class. In some classes, exams and term papers are the main criteria. Other classes require a certain amount of class participation. Students should be told precisely what percentage of their grades depend on which factors.
Encourage Students to Communicate With Professors
Some students who need extra help may be reluctant to ask for it. When students are having a problem, they should be encouraged to communicate with their professors. If students don’t initiate this communication, it’s up to the professor or faculty adviser to do so. If someone is performing poorly in a particular class, he or she should make an appointment to speak to the professor during office hours.
Help Students Find the Right Schedule and Curriculum
Many students have busy schedules, often balancing work, school and family commitments. Not all students can realistically attend classes full-time. Students who take more classes than they can handle often burn out or don’t do as well as they should in any of their classes. In some cases, part time study is more appropriate. Another solution for students facing time restrictions is an online degree program. Helping students identify the most practical and convenient way to study can help them succeed.
Make Student Services Easy to Access
Many students can benefit from counseling, career guidance and other college services. They may need to talk to someone about personal or academic issues that they can’t discuss with their professor, parents or friends. Colleges usually offer a wide variety of services through professionals with a master’s in higher education program, but students are not always aware of how to access them. Some students may feel reluctant to seek help. That’s why it’s important to assure students that there’s no shame in seeking help and that their sessions will be completely confidential.
Success in college requires a healthy partnership between students, professors and others, including deans, faculty advisers and counselors. Students may need some special encouragement to access the resources that are available to them on campus. It’s important for university professionals to closely monitor students and identify what kind of help they may need.
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Anica is a professional content and copywriter who graduated from the University of San Francisco. She loves dogs, the ocean, and anything outdoor-related. She was raised in a big family, so she’s used to putting things to a vote. Also, cartwheels are her specialty. You can connect with Anica here. If you are interested in becoming an educator, Anica suggests that you check out a master’s degree in higher education from Abilene Christian University.
Decades of data show girls outscoring boys on a range of language skills. Four ELA teachers share their best practices for closing the gap.
A guest post by Dr. Jackie Arnold
“Girls are better readers than boys” is an educational generalization that happens to be backed up by decades of data. According to the 2015 “Brown Center Report on American Education” from The Brookings Institution:
Girls outscore boys on practically every reading test given to a large population. And they have for a long time. A 1942 Iowa study found girls performing better than boys on tests of reading comprehension, vocabulary, and basic language skills. Girls have outscored boys on every reading test ever given by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—the first long-term trend test was administered in 1971—at ages nine, 13, and 17.
Given this reality, our task as educators is to do our best to spark boys’ interest in reading and keep them at it. For some advice on how to make this idea a reality in the classroom, I asked teachers from Salem Community Schools in Indiana to share their best practices.
Find Out What They’re Interested In
According to fifth-grade teacher Bev Sweeney, “The boys especially like the sports and vehicle stories and the gross and silly, plus mysteries.” Fourth-grade teacher Melissa Nicholson said that, when her boys are allowed to choose what they read, “the ‘gross and scary’ books are some of their favorites.”
Boys are also engaged by stories that they are familiar with, said Amy Collins. “As a fourth-grade teacher, I find it easy to find reading lessons that interest boys in my classroom, due to the fact that we study Indiana history and we focus on Native Americans, the Civil War, and the American Revolution. My students love to tie our Social Studies and reading together.”
Fifth-grade Language Arts teacher Susan L. Shields relies on the power of great characters. “It is important to ‘hook’ young readers by offering them interesting characters to which they can relate,” she said. “The students in my classroom love the characters developed by Gertrude Chandler Warner in The Boxcar Children series, as well as the characters brought to life by Beverly Cleary in the Henry and Beezus books. The students come to view these characters as their ‘book friends’ and are truly sorry when the book ends because they have to tell their ‘friends’ goodbye.” And, she added, “Offering boys characters of similar age and gender will usually increase the amount of independent reading boys are willing to do.”
All ELA teachers at Salem use the personalized learning environment myON,which helps students find books they’ll like by having them complete an “interest inventory.” The system then delivers a selection of books geared to the individual student. Of course, finding an engaging book is one thing, but getting boys to read the whole thing is another.
Keep Them Motivated
Sweeney said that her secret to making boys want to keep reading is to “read a portion of a book to them and stop when they want to hear more.”
Once a boy starts reading a book, Shields monitors whether it too hard for him by giving benchmark assessments from time to time. And, she said, “Because myON offers a quiz at the end of each book along with quick results, students earn tickets from our classroom economy for each correct answer. This also serves as motivation.”
During reading groups, Nicholson motivates students by having them listen to or read books with a friend. “The boys especially like this,” she said, “due to getting to work with a buddy. Also, the different voices used in the stories really pull in my readers to engage them in the plot.”
Shields also gives the students in her Language Arts class 10 to 15 minutes a day for silent, sustained reading. She uses the website Book Adventuredaily to assess boys’ comprehension of the chapter books they choose.
Giving boys a choice of reading material and the support they need to get through it has paid off for Shields. In her class, she said, “boys are reading as much as or more than the girls. The average number of tests passed on Book Adventure for the boys in my class is 5.9 for the year. The average number of books for the girls is 5.0.”
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Dr. Jackie Arnold is the Director of Assessment and Program Improvement at Salem Community Schools (IN).
**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 column by Edgar Wilson
Mobile learning is still missing the “mobile” component.
Educational technology, while still developing, is already sufficient to enable travel study to become a core component of almost any distance-education model. While many of theproponents for online learning have focused on accommodating working professionals (whose time demands make traditional, campus-based programs impractical), the opportunities in online learning for traditional students have been slower to incorporate travel study.
If the toolbox of online learning is designed to free students, it is natural they should be able to take their education on the road. Whether spending a week participating in a regional conference, or going abroad for an intensive period of immersion, there are many valuable experiences that simply don’t translate to course work.
A key criticism of distance learning models is the absence of a campus with all the community, socialization, and collaborative activities that happen only on campus. Dispatching online students to foreign or remote locations could more than make up for this supposed deficit.
Personal development, networking, accountability, independence—travel study demands all of these, in ways traditional or online programs may not. Travel study provides much more than the “missing” classroom. Both students and administrators are beginning to recognize thatjoining online learning with travel study provides enrichment beyond what any single educator or piece of technology can do.
But travel study not only fits well within (and supplements) the distance education model, it may even help balance theory and application by putting unique demands on students and their nascent skillsets.
Travel study (both domestic and abroad) necessitates a profound adjustment to different social and cultural norms. In a global economy replete with virtual teams, connectivity through time zones, and international cross-cultural coordination, soft and hard skills play an equal role. STEM education especially could use a rich liberal arts supplement to better strike a practical balance between scientific and social training.
Thechallenges of accommodating local custom and bridging cultural divides are instructive. Taking advantage of travel programs while maintaining engagement with a targeted STEM program could lend context and emphasize the soft skills that make technical knowledge valuable.
The chorus of demand for greater academic focus on STEM subjects has missed the fact that STEM-centric skills are all but uselesswithout additional soft skills. Employers are already decrying the gap between learned workers and those capable of communication, creative thinking, and problem-solving; STEM students need more liberal arts sensibilities in their journey to the field. Travel study is a powerful way to provide it. There is also practicality to placing study in a less isolated environment, considering the subjects exist in an international playing field. STEM students must be globally competitive, and need to learn in a more integrated environment.
The mobilization of learning technology lifts traditional barriers to travel study. Virtual classrooms, digital textbooks, and especially responsive assessments and learning applications have a natural fit in the online learning environment. The pedagogical instruments of the past are anachronistic in this new learning environment; so, too, should the tethers that bind students to classrooms and campuses be cut.
The biggest problem in empowering online students to study abroad is overcoming their sense that “a year abroad” still means “a year away.” The physical demands of the traditional classroom make travel study a complex process. Even though virtual learning models often dispense with such elements, the mindset of students (and, perhaps teachers) has yet to fully adapt.
Currently,university degrees are expensive whether delivered online or in person. Realizing the money-saving potential of digital programs could, over time, translate to lower prices, making travel study programs even more practical.
When all that is necessary to attend class and submit work is an internet connection, travel study’s key requirement is the same as online study: time management. Balancing work with school and family sets an excellent precedent for students who will need to balance the unique academic, professional, and personal experiences travel study opens up to them with their commitment to online learning.
The best online learning candidates tend to be students who are organized and self-motivated. Ensuring travel study does not devolve into an extended vacation requires some of the same traits. Bringing the two together may be the natural extension of changing educational models in the 21st century.
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Edgar Wilson is an Oregon native with a passion for cooking, trivia, and politics. He studied conflict resolution and international relations and has worked in industries ranging from international marketing to broadcast journalism. He is currently working as an independent analytical consultant. He can be reached via email here or on Twitter @EdgarTwilson.
Note: The following guest post comes to us courtesy of Dr. Darla Shaw, Professor of Education, Western Connecticut State University.
Nothing is older in the culture of any society than drum circles. They were used for communication, for entertainment and as a centerpiece of all activities for the community.
Today drum circles are being revitalized and being used with students with special needs, with people who are ill, with senior citizens, and in classrooms where music is not the major subject.
Drums circles can cross any barrier. They all speak a language others can understand. They do not have to be costly as drums can be made out of “found materials” or objects found in a room. They can be played at any time and for any purpose and they are all inclusive. Drum circles are not for spectators. Drum circles are for performers. Drum circles build community.
Because of so many positive factors linked to drum circles, this innovative practice is now being brought into regular classrooms at every level. Each teacher has a different type of circle, made up of different materials, but they all seem to bring many positive factors to the classroom environment.
Classroom Climate and Management
Many classroom teachers are using drumming to get students’ attention and ready to focus. These teachers also like to use drumming as a motivational tool. When students have been working for a long period of time on a tough task, bringing out the drums and following patterns is a good way to relax and reenergize. When a teacher says we are going to next go to drumming, the class will begin to perk up and eagerly await the activity. It is extremely rare to find a student that does not like drumming as it is inherit skill that everyone can perform at some level.
Just before an important test, it also helps to bring out the drums and let the students get rid of their tensions. Teachers are finding that three minutes of drumming just prior to an exam, can help to focus the brain and keep the student on track.
Reading Skills and Patterning
In the early grades, drumming is used to help with the auditory segmentation of words. When students say cat, c – a – t , they say the letter and beat it out on a drum. This helps to internalize the number of sounds in a word. This helps students to build their auditory skills along with their perceptual skills. Phonological awareness to the beat of a drum is highly regarded in the world of phonics.
This same segmentation technique is also used with number of syllables. or long and short vowel sounds. When students hear a short vowel sound, they make a certain beat on the drum. When the students hears a long vowel sound, they make another sound. When teaching children to read fluently with phrasing, drumming is a very useful tool.
Students can also learn the alphabet through beats on the drum. The drum beat with certain letters “sticks to the brain” and can then be retrieved when the student is reading or writing. We have all heard people saying, “I can’t get that song out of my head,” that is what happens when drum circle sounds are applied to any particular skill.
Reading is all about seeing and hearing patterns. When students are in a drum circles, they need to be able to duplicate patterns through careful listening and trial and error. They must also be able to create a new pattern of their own. These two drumming skills involve critical thinking and are important to a student’s developmental level.
Today we talk a great deal about engagement of students. There is no better way to engage students then through the use of a drum linked to a particular skill.
Content Area Classes
Students love to read their poetry, stories, or reader’s theater presentations to the beat of a drum. Working in teams to put the words and beats together through various drumming techniques, can help not only the students with special needs, but all students.
Drumming helps students to become creative, to become critical thinkers, and to integrate their learning senses. Students begin to take risks that they never took before when you give them a drum.
If students are trying to memorize a phrase, a definition, an equation or something difficult, they can pattern the message to a drum beat and the information will be there when they need it. This technique is more effective than just rereading the information a second time.
As a final project, students can also take their research and use a drum circle to help them share the information. For example, if students were talking about a plant going through different life stages, they might not only use power points, but along with the power point have a particular style of drum beats portraying a particular action. Drum beats and how they are performed are a form of speaking and communication, the same way words and pictures give us insight into a situation.
In math and science, students are looking to discover information on number of beats, tone, fluency, vibrations, modulation, strength and length of vibrations, and patterns that can be transferred to technological devices. These STEM type projects and music are becoming more common place and even showing up in many science fairs. Music motivates students and helps them get into areas that before have never been of any interest to them.
As a teacher of teachers, I tell my students at the beginning of each new year. “ Don’t be afraid to try something new this year. By taking risks and tracking the results, you uncover what it takes to be a good teacher. However, if you are only going to do one new activity this year, make it drum circles in some form. You will thank me for this suggestion as I have never seen a situation where drum circles have not helped with relieving stress, helping classroom management, building integration skills, and bringing fun and enjoyment to the rigors of the Common Core classroom of today.”
When it comes to US public education, few topics engender such heated debate as a new set of maths and English standards for school children known as the Common Core.
Since the final standards were released in 2010, they have been adopted by 44 states and the District of Columbia. This marks a departure from the long history in the US of leaving most educational standards up to the whims of states and local school districts, resulting in different standards in every state for kindergarten to grade 12.
The Common Core counts supporters and critics in both of the two major US political parties. This makes the conversation about the standards quite messy and interesting – especially given the upcoming congressional elections in November.
Fighting ‘ObamaCore’
Although moderate conservatives generally favour the Common Core, those further to the right, like the Tea Party, portray the new standards as inappropriate meddling by the federal government. Some engage in wild conspiracy theories, and attack the standards as part of a broader anti-public school agenda.
The fight over the US’s recent changes to healthcare policy, Affordable Care Act (sometimes referred to as “ObamaCare”), provides a way for some conservative activists to jump into the Common Core fray by claiming the new standards are the educational equivalent (“ObamaCore”). It’s a poor comparison, but permits easy entry into the debate for those with little substantive knowledge.
Left-leaning critics cite concerns about the potential for private companies (such as publishing group Pearson) to profit from the Common Core as a reason for rejecting the new standards.
Criticism of the standards is coming in all shapes and sizes. amerigus/WWYD , CC BY
There are also concerns as to whether the standards for early elementary students are developmentally inappropriate. Others dismiss the new standards as a solution to a problem that does not exist, or a band-aid for much bigger problems, like the high child poverty rate in the US.
Some critics of the Common Core view it as further cementing the use (and misuse) of standardised testing in American schools.
These new and ostensibly better assessments created by the two consortia may provide some real advantages compared to previous tests. However, early trials of assessments tied to the Common Core indicate up to 70% of students in New York may not receive a passing mark given the more challenging nature of the standards. While that may well paint a reasonably accurate picture of how many students can truly meet the new standards, it is a politically tenuous position to maintain.
Supporters, on the other hand, claim the standards are more challenging than previous state standards (and they are, at least for most states). They also say that the standards will better prepare students for college-level work, and create a more level playing field for children across the country.
The shift to the Common Core comes as states pursue several other policy changes, including teacher evaluations based in part on student progress on standardised tests. These new evaluations attempt to use statistical models to calculate a measure of teacher quality based on how much a teacher’s students improve their performance on standardised tests, usually controlling for a host of other variables.
What teachers think
Pursuing both the new Common Core standards and teacher evaluations at the same time is worrying, especially if teachers and schools are not adequately prepared to help students reach the goals of the new standards.
While teachers generally support the common core, they also express reservations about implementation. A poll conducted in July 2013 by the largest teachers union, the National Education Association (NEA), indicated that teachers wanted more time to collaborate with colleagues about the new standards, updated resources, and enhanced technology for the classroom.
With each state and school district responsible for implementation, the degree to which teachers feel supported (or not) varies greatly. Heads of both the NEA and the second largest teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers, have expressed concerns about Common Core implementation in recent months.
Personally, I do not consider myself a strong supporter of the common core. Nor am I an opponent. Although some critics make wild charges and engage in conspiracy theories, there are certainly legitimate concerns about the changes.
Implementation seems rushed in far too many places, leaving teachers and students inadequately prepared for the shift. If equity across the country were truly a concern, we would talk about how states do an exceedingly poor job of financing schools equitably, giving fewer resources to districts populated with low-income students and racial minorities. We would also tackle the inequitable distribution of teachers and various out-of-school factors – poverty, residential segregation, inequality and racism.
With more states shifting to the new standards and assessments in the coming year, the Common Core will likely remain an important issue in US public education and political debate. The standards themselves are rarely discussed – in large part because the biggest concerns are about related (and perhaps intertwined) issues like testing, teacher evaluations, and implementation.
When Alan joined my class in September, I knew he needed help.
So did I.
Alan had lived in an orphanage ever since he was an infant and faced many challenges: he was older than the other kids and did not want to play with them. He didn’t use words – although he could make sounds. He was very different from his classmates and stayed to himself.
But then, every afternoon he was a bundle of energy, imitating the barking of a dog and crawling on the floor around his classmates at circle time. He also had a passion for shredding my teaching materials.
I didn’t know what to do.
That was 1978. I was teaching half-day kindergarten classes in a New York school that year to 33 five-year-olds in the morning and to another 30 youngsters in the afternoon.
I had no assistant, and safety was my first priority. I referred Alan for an evaluation to see if he was eligible for special education services.
From my perspective as a teacher, school administrator and professor of special education – who has followed this nation’s journey toward equal educational opportunities – I believe this law enabled many young kids with disabilities, like Alan, to lead more productive lives.
What it was like in the 1970s
Back in the seventies, educating kids with special needs in regular schools was a new concept.
Before the law came in, 1.75 million children with disabilities were completely excluded from public schools. And of the three million children with disabilities who went to school, many did not receive an education that was appropriate to their needs. Most often they were taught in special classes or state-supported schools.
Children with mild visual or hearing problems, speech impairments or mild intellectual disabilities could spend at least some time in regular classes. But those who were totally deaf or had moderate intellectual difficulties were not allowed in regular classrooms.
They were sent to separate schools or institutions – even if they did not need to be in those settings.
Some states even had strict laws excluding children who were considered “crippled,” “feebleminded” or “emotionally disturbed” from public education, based only on their “handicaps.” It was not unusual for them to be institutionalized.
The general belief was that children with a disability could not learn. Parents who could afford to pay sent their kids to private schools that provided special services through nonprofit organizations such as the Easter Seals Association or The Arc that were set up by parents early on to advocate for their kids.
The education of these children became an issue of public concern in their home communities only if there was enough money. At the time, education for children with special needs was seen to be more of a matter of privilege and not a right.
What changed with a new law
Once the EAHCA came in, however, it made the right to education a reality for students with disabilities across the United States.
It helped kids receive an Individualized Education Program so they could be taught the skills they needed in class or on the playground.
In Alan’s case, his special education teacher assessed his strengths and weaknesses – he needed to learn to recognize letters and numbers and learn to play with others. She also experimented with different teaching approaches and kept data on what he could and couldn’t do so she could target his learning problems. In addition, he received services from the speech-language therapist.
I remember, thanks to these services, Alan made good progress that year.
As this was 1978 and kids with special needs were rarely taught in regular classrooms, Alan never returned to my kindergarten class. He was taught in a separate special education classroom.
A great deal of activism on behalf of people with disabilities led to this change. The term “handicapped” implied dependence. Its origins went back to medieval times, when the only source of income for many people with disabilities was begging with a cap in hand.
Putting the word “individuals” before the word “disabilities” in the title was also preferred as an example of “person-first” language. This implied that people were not to be defined by others only by their disability.
Several other changes were made as the law evolved: In 1986, it came to include services for children under six years old. In 1990, it incorporated services for older students to get help planning their transition to college, work and life in their communities. And in 1997, Congress reauthorized the law to increase accountability.
As a result, IDEA 1997 came to incorporate new goals – such as getting kids ready for school, improving academic achievement in reading and other subjects, increasing graduation rates, bringing in highly skilled teachers, making schools safer and building stronger partnerships with parents.
These changes meant that more kids could be taught in the regular classroom – they could access school activities and the same general curriculum as other students without disabilities.
Consequently, for the past 40 years, public schools in the US have been required to make a free, appropriate, public education available to all children with disabilities.
Way forward
I imagine if Alan were in school today, he would be one of 6.4 million students in the US who receive IDEA services from birth to age 21. He would also likely be among the 95% of special education students taught in public schools who spend some part of their school day in regular classes.
I would also like to think that if Alan were born today, he would not be given up for adoption. His parents would learn to care for him with support from early intervention services for infants and toddlers.
He would be included in a local preschool program where he could learn to be with other kids and feel safe. That would help him get ready for his first day of kindergarten.
But he would also be facing some challenges.
In my experience, educating students with disabilities is complex. Too often, effective techniques and materials are not used in schools. And even when students are included in regular classes, they are not taught appropriately.
In 2004, changes were made in the law to overcome low expectations for these students. Today, the good news is that dropout rates for students with disabilities have decreased – 64% of special education students now graduate with a regular high school diploma.
But the sobering news is the reading and math performance of many students is well below proficiency.
The challenge is for teachers and school administrators to make sure students with disabilities in their schools are taught in ways that are proven by research to improve their learning.
Special education students need the extra services provided by IDEA to develop, learn and succeed. Without the extra interventions and personalized support, the performance of many is unlikely to improve. Unfortunately, this isn’t happening in enough schools.
The issue is, special and general education teachers need to work together for these students to make appropriate progress. They need to be sure they respond not only to their students’ academic needs but also to their social and personal needs. To do that, school administrators need to help their teachers build the will and the skills to work together.
I’ve been through this journey for 40 years. And I am celebrating the birth of IDEA today. For when I think about Alan, I recall the impact it made – on him and many others.
Jean Crockett, Professor and Director of the School of Special Education, School Psychology, & Early Childhood Studies, University of Florida
In view of the large influx of refugees from Syria and the growing concern about their integration in European societies, the launch of a new report on immigrant children in education systems could not be more timely.
The report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), noted reassuringly that there was no relation between the amount of immigrants in a country’s education system and a decline in education standards. It’s as if the OECD were pre-empting criticism from populist anti-immigrant politicians that the influx of Syrian refugees will be a disruption to western societies, and in particular a drain on schools.
The main focus of the report is actually on the performance gap between children of immigrant background and their non-immigrant peers and what schools can do to close it. Although the achievement gap has closed across the OECD – by a semester between 2003 and 2012 – on average, immigrant students still perform worse than their peers. The OECD gives some quite explicit advice to politicians if they are serious about enhancing the performance of these children: provide additional language instruction, arrange early childhood education, prevent segregation, don’t force them to repeat grades and eliminate the early streaming (also known as tracking) of children into different ability groups.
While the first two recommendations are uncontroversial, the last suggestion is politically sensitive as there are quite a few states who practice and cherish the tracking or streaming of children. In Germany, the Netherlands and Austria, different tracks coincide with different kinds of schools, while in England, ability grouping is organised within schools in what is called setting.
Provocatively the report said: “While ability grouping, grade repetition and tracking are harmful for all students, immigrant students are more likely to be affected by these practices.“ This is likely to raise some eyebrows, particularly among political parties advocating early tracking such as the Christian Democrats in Germany and the Conservatives in the UK.
Many education researchershave stressed that early tracking only reinforces achievement gaps, not only between immigrant and non-immigrant children but also between children of different social backgrounds. As early as 1974, the French sociologist Raymond Boudon notedthat the more tracks a system has and the earlier these tracks start to branch out, the greater the inequality in educational performance and the more difficult it will be for children of modest backgrounds, including many immigrants, to do well in school. In this sense the OECD can be said to be a late convert to the cause of late selection – or comprehensive education as it is more widely known.
The report also noted that early tracking on the basis of ability amounts to social and ethnic sorting and so only adds to school social and ethnic segregation, which is an observation widely sharedin academia.
Segregation and achievement
Segregation is also mentioned by the OECD as another factor contributing to the performance gap. This is based on the idea that large concentrations of immigrant children give rise to peer influences that reduce performance, irrespective of the individual social and ethnic background of children. In other words, when immigrant children are surrounded by peers of the same background in school, they are doubly disadvantaged, both in terms of their own background and in terms of the backgrounds of their classmates.
Language lessons for refugee children in Germany. Ole Spata/EPA
In mixed settings, by contrast, they should be able to learn from their more privileged peers. Desegregated schools can thus help to compensate for the effect of family disadvantage. Again this theory is not new. In 1966 a famous report by American sociologist James Coleman noted that it makes a great difference who you go to school with. This report greatly reinforced the desegregation campaign that was set in motion by the 1954Brown vs Board of Education US Supreme Court ruling declaring that de jure segregation was “inherently unequal” and therefore unconstitutional.
What’s best for immigrant children
There is more controversy among researchers, however, about whether segregation enhances achievement gaps. In 2005, American researchers Russell Rumberger and Gregory Palardy notedthat when it comes to student achievement, the social composition of schools matters much more than the racial composition. Taking a closer look at social composition they found that several school characteristics, including teacher expectations of children, the amount of homework that students do, and the number of rigorous courses that students take, explain all of the effect of social composition.
This would imply that in theory immigrant children can perform just as well in segregated schools, provided they are exposed to the very same curriculum and teaching input as their peers in mixed schools. The question, however, is whether equalising these resources across schools can be achieved in practice – as they are so inextricably bound up with the social and ethnic mix of schools.
The OECD report deserves praise for letting the data speak and ignoring possible political pressures to revise the policy messages emanating from its findings on what works to close the achievement gap. It does not deal, however, with two relevant questions of quite a different nature: namely whether the policies it recommends can be adopted in the same way in countries with different educational cultures and whether they will produce the same results across the board. This debate – a hot topic among researchers – so far remains unresolved.
In January 2014, Reid Sagehorn, a student at Rogers High Schoolin Minnesota, jokingly tweeted “actually yeah” in response to a question about whether he had made out with one of his high school teachers.
The public school, acting on the tweet, suspended himfor seven weeks. Sagehorn, a member of the National Honor Society, fought the suspension in a federal court, claiming the actions of school officials violated his First Amendmentright to free speech.
Did the school have the right to punish him for his off-campus expression? It turns out – no.
In August 2015, a federal judgerejected the school officials’ motion to have the case dismissed. After all, the court found that Sagehorn made the post while away from campus, during nonschool hours, without using the school’s computers. And last month Sagehorn collected a settlement of more than US$400,000.
Sadly, Reid Sagehorn’s case is not unique. For at least the past 15 years, schools across the nation have engaged in Orwellian overreaches into the homes and bedrooms of students to punish them for their off-campus, online expression regarding classmates, teachers and administrators.
Despite the bevy of cases, the issue of whether schools can punish students for off-campus, online speech remains unresolved.
Cases where school kids were suspended
For instance, in April 2015, a federal court in Oregon considered a case called Burge v Colton School District 53 in which an eighth grader was suspended from his public middle school based upon out-of-school comments he posted on his personal Facebook page.
And in September 2014, a federal court in New York considered a case called Bradford v Norwich City School District in which a public high school student was suspended “based on a text-message conversation he had with another student regarding a third student while outside of school.”
Judge Glenn Suddaby observed in Bradford that “the Supreme Court has yet to speak on the scope of a school’s authority to discipline a student for speech that does not occur on school grounds or at a school-sponsored event.”
Silence from the Supreme Court
Indeed, a key problem here is that the US Supreme Court has never ruled in a case involving the off-campus speech rights of students in the digital era.
Public school students do possess First Amendment speech rights, although those rights are not the same as those of adults in nonschool settings.
A case in point is the Supreme Court’s famous 1969 proclamation in Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School District that students do not
“shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
A key problem has been the silence of the Supreme Court on free speech rights of students. Jeff Kubina, CC BY-SA
In this case, a divided court upheld the right of students to wear to school black armbands emblazoned with peace signs as a form of political protest against the war in Vietnam. The majority reasoned that such speech could be stopped only if school officials had actual facts to believe it would lead to a substantial and material disruption of the educational atmosphere.
But Tinker was an on-campus speech case. And although the Supreme Court has considered three more student speech cases since Tinker, none involved either off-campus or digital expression.
A chance to resolve the issue
Schools today are trying to exert their authority far beyond the schoolhouse gate. Some courts have allowed these efforts and others have rejected them, but now the Supreme Court has a prime opportunity to resolve the matter in a case called Bell v Itawamba County School Board.
In January 2011, a Mississippi high school student, Taylor Bell, was suspended from Itawamba Agricultural High School after he posted, while away from campus during nonschool hours, a homemade rap video to Facebook and YouTube.
In the video, Bell criticizes in no uncertain terms two male teachers for their alleged sexual harassment of minor female students. A version of rap that describes the resulting controversy is available online.
In August 2015, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuitnarrowly ruled that high school officials in Mississippi did not violate the First Amendment speech rights of Bell when they punished him for posting the video because it allegedly threatened two teachers.
In a ruling against Taylor Bell, the Fifth Circuit majority concluded that the rule from the Tinker case applies to off-campus speech:
when a student intentionally directs at the school community speech reasonably understood by school officials to threaten, harass, and intimidate a teacher, even when such speech originated, and was disseminated, off-campus without the use of school resources.
One of the judges in the case, James Dennis, writing in dissent, ripped into the majority for broadly proclaiming “that a public school board is constitutionally empowered to punish a student whistleblower for his purely off-campus Internet speech publicizing a matter of public concern.”
Judge Dennis stressed that the rule from Tinker, which requires school officials to reasonably predict a substantial and material disruption will be caused by speech before it can be stopped, does not apply to off-campus speech cases.
Why the Supreme Court should hear the Taylor Bell case
Some minors inevitably will post and upload – while away from campus and using their own digital communication devices – allegedly disparaging, offensive or threatening messages and images about fellow students, teachers and school officials on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat.
The key question, then, is whether and to what extent public schools, consistent with the First Amendment, may discipline students for their off-campus speech.
In November 2015, Bell filed a petition with the US Supreme Court asking it to hear his case.
As Bell’s attorneys argue, the court should take the case because whether or not Tinker applies to off-campus speech cases has “vexed school officials and courts across the country.”
Briefs from the attorneys for the school aredue January 20, and the court will decide whether to hear Bell later this spring.
The bottom line is this: public school students deserve the right to know, pre-posting and pre-texting, what their First Amendment rights are when they are away from campus.
They must, in other words, be given fair notice. The court should hear Bell to let them know precisely what their rights are. It is an issue not likely to go away soon.
Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “Why We Can’t Wait” to dispel the notion that African Americans should be content to proceed on an incremental course toward full equality under the law and in the wider society. King observed,
Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse, and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.
Yet waiting and whispering, rather than raising their voices for genuine inclusion, is what many seem to expect of the children and grandchildren of King’s generation even today.
At stake is the perceived legitimacy of American institutions, not just educational but those that we educate for: the police, the courts, government, the media, cultural institutions, banks and so on. These institutions are under scrutiny over their failure to evoke trust and to show that they are visibly open to the public – especially those groups, who too often and for too long have been left out.
Arguably, we are not the “land of opportunity” for most first-generation, poor, black, brown, Native American, or immigrant children. Gaps in educational achievement persist, and at every level: from kindergarten through to the years after high school.
The label applied to so many immigrant youth, Dreamers, might well be adopted more broadly, capturing as it does both the aspiration and perhaps the unreality of educational opportunity for so many.
And the students are right to worry.
The question is: what role can our universities play so the dividing lines can be crossed?
47.54 percent of black third graders attend schools that perform at the bottom 10 percent of schools in the state compared to 0.04 percent of white third graders.
About 4,000 high school students in the Newark Public Schools are “missing” during the school day, not in their seats; often labeled as “disconnected youth,” it would be better to consider them as youth connected to a pathway to prison.
Only 36 percent of Newark residents have finished high school and only 17 percent hold any kind of post-secondary degree.
This story is not unique to Newark.
Economists such as Raj Chetty and his colleagues note that nationally “the consequences of the ‘birth lottery’ – the parents to whom a child is born – are larger today than in the past.”
We – the universities – are the ones sitting in the midst of these realities, facing the choice between being walled citadels that separate the privileged from the uninvited other or being welcoming hubs connecting young individuals with opportunity.
Universities’ responsibility
The uncomfortable truth is, that we, in some very real sense, have contributed to this winnowing of opportunity.
Chancellor Nancy Cantor speaking at the “Rally in Solidarity” organized by Rutgers Newark students in support of students at University of Missouri in November 2015. Rutgers University Newark, Author provided
For too long, the traditional measures of student potential have relied on standardized – and therefore narrowly framed – merit selection processes, such as SAT and ACT scores.
These tests have been grossly inadequate, measuring only a narrow band of potential, while missing wide swaths of our talent pool whose excellence is not readily detected through the use of such “blunt” instruments.
Intergenerational privilege is rooted in place – in the home values and tax base, the schools and transportation networks available to people because of where they are fortunate to live. Decades of white flight, suburbanization, the abandonment of urban centers and regressive housing policies have contributed to a pervasive disconnection across racial, ethnic and class lines.
This segregation has reinforced the corrosive effects of historical prejudice and biases that already divide society and make Americans, in effect, strangers to each other.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the social landscapes of university communities are just as divided.
Yet lines of class, gender, ethnicity and race continue to redraw themselves in dorm life, lunch tables and indeed the classroom.
Indeed, it is hard to erase them.
How do you cultivate connection to another person’s future and commitment to their success when you don’t live together in the same neighborhood, reside near each other in the same city or at least share some similar daily experiences such as rush hour on a crowded subway?
As higher educational institutions, we should be the place where dividing lines can be crossed. And that includes crossing the boundaries of our communities.
Our work in the city of Newark is just one illustration of crossing these boundaries.
Newark’s story
In this postindustrial city of 280,000 people, 29 percent of residents have incomes below the poverty line.
Newark’s social and economic challenges are common among cities that have lost their tax base and whose residents have fled to the suburbs since the 1960s. The resulting economic and racial segregation has produced structural inequalities in health, education and other public services.
Today, Newark, a proud, resilient city, is coming back from years of disinvestment. As an engaged “anchor institution”, we are partnering with the community on many fronts.
The future home of Express Newark – the historic Hahne Building Rutgers University Newark, Author provided
Organizations – public and private – have banded together in the Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC) to raise the post-secondary attainment rate of residents of Newark to 25 percent by 2025.
At Rutgers University – Newark, for example, we are providing tuition support to low-income residents of Newark and to any New Jersey community college transfer with an associate degree as of fall 2016.
We are recruiting these students based on assessments of leadership, grit and entrepreneurial skills – not just grades – into a residential Honors Living Learning Community (HLLC). In addition to gleaning information about applicants from the standard application form, the HLLC team engages with applicants in person and in groups to see how they collaborate with one another to solve problems. Their on-the-ground knowledge of urban life has much to contribute, as we see it, to the HLLC’s curriculum focus of “local citizenship in a global world.”
The first cohort of HLLC students Rutgers University Newark, Author provided
Ashlee is one of the inaugural class. Born and raised in Newark, she speaks openly of “being a product of my environment…exposed to so much just by walking outside of
my house…[including] murder at the age of 12.” Her options, she says, were two: “conform to what’s going on in society or try to make a difference.” She is now a criminal justice major keenly interested in issues of social equality and inequality.
Academic ‘farm teams’
Rutgers-Newark is not alone in looking to build on the assets of this fresh talent pool for America.
There is an increasing number of so-called collective impact initiatives across the higher education landscape, including STRIVE, a nonprofit started in Cincinnati, and three large city-wide initiatives in Syracuse, Buffalo and Guilford County, North Carolina mounted by Say Yes to Education.
Collective impact projects like these can be taxing and messy, but by bringing so many different partners together – from education institutions to businesses and faith-based centers – to focus on enabling the talented next generation to thrive from school to college and beyond, we put a stake in the ground together for social justice. It’s admittedly still one step at a time, but one step in many places.
When higher education bands together to support and recruit talent from these regional hubs, it gives a new meaning to the notion of “farm teams.”. After all, if major league baseball can do it, why can’t higher education?
The impatient students protesting a sense of exclusion today have undeniable facts to support their argument. Our institutions, we believe, can help them overcome the barriers they, and others, face in their search for economic opportunity and a sense that they are valued.
How could anyone continue to “wait and whisper” while witnessing the enormous and cumulative effect of disparity unfold for another generation, with so many children never even getting to first base and some starting out on third?
