Pedagogue Blog

Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, HBCU's, Higher Education

Can schools punish students for off-campus, online speech?

Clay Calvert, University of Florida

In January 2014, Reid Sagehorn, a student at Rogers High School in 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 him for 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 Amendment right 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 judge rejected 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 Circuit narrowly 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.”

In December, the organization I direct, the Marion B Brechner First Amendment Project, filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the court to take the case.

Briefs from the attorneys for the school are due 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.

The Conversation

Clay Calvert, Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication, University of Florida

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in HBCU's, Higher Education

Fulfilling Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream: the role for higher education

Roland V. Anglin, Rutgers University Newark ; David D. Troutt, Rutgers University Newark ; Elise Boddie, Rutgers University Newark ; Nancy Cantor, Rutgers University Newark , and Peter Englot, Rutgers University Newark

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?

‘Baked-in’ privilege

Consider some statistics from Essex County, New Jersey, where our city, Newark, a college town with over 50,000 students, is located:

  • 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.
  • Another 3,000 are off-course from graduating.
  • 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.

They neglect whole communities whose students don’t have access to the test preparation industry, prompting legal theorist Lani Guinier to implore us to redefine the merit in meritocracy.

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.

Crossing boundaries

Diversity is growing explosively and redefining American society before our eyes.

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

We are investing in spaces for local artists and the community to collaborate, as we develop nearly 50,000 square feet in the iconic former Hahne & Company department story as an arts “collaboratory” – dubbed “Express Newark.”

We are working with small and midsized entrepreneurs and firms and taking an active role in helping Newark’s police address crime hotspots through data collection and analysis.

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.

For the higher education partners in NCLC like us, this means working with Newark Public Schools to help their students continue their education past high school, beginning in community colleges, the institutions where the vast majority of first generation students will have their first taste of higher education.

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?

The Conversation

Roland V. Anglin, Director, The Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies, Rutgers University Newark ; David D. Troutt, Professor of Law and Justice John J Francis Scholar, Rutgers University Newark ; Elise Boddie, Associate Professor of Law, Rutgers University Newark ; Nancy Cantor, Chancellor, Rutgers University Newark , and Peter Englot, Senior Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs, Rutgers University Newark

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in International Education

4 considerations before applying to schools abroad

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Brooke Chaplan

Attending school overseas is an exciting idea for any prospective student. But when push comes to shove, there are numerous practical decisions you have to think about before applying abroad. From the travel, cost, and even just the application itself, going overseas can mean a lot of time and work put in from you. Considering every detail is important to getting the best deal and finding the perfect program for you. Of these numerous considerations, the four most important are listed below.

Consider the Cost
Analyze the marketability of the degree you’re thinking about, the chosen school’s prestige, the availability of student loans for foreign students, and the exchange rate between the local currency and the currency used in the country where the school is located. If you fail to factor in the financial burdens associated with going to school abroad, you may be financially crippled for life. Keep in mind that many foreign locales have excellent programs for a fraction of what a degree would cost elsewhere, you just have to be sure. If your degree program isn’t going to guarantee you a job or internship back home, the cost of going to school may not be worth the reward. Look at students who have succeeded in the past and talk to faculty who can help you find out where you can use the degree to your advantage.

 

Consider the Housing
Specifically, does the university provide housing for foreign students, what is the cost of living on campus vs. off campus, is it safe to live off campus, and what type of public transit is available to ride to the school? If you find an economical apartment in a nice neighborhood but with no access to public transportation, then living there may be impractical. If they do provide student housing is it included in tuition costs? Are there any ways you can save money or get financial aid here as a foreign student. Look at all your options and find out what you can live with.

Consider the Travel
A U.S. citizen will need a passport to leave the U.S. and vaccinations for local diseases may be needed before you can safely enter a foreign locale. Certain students may need a student visa in order to enter a foreign country as well. For example, if you wanted to attend medical school in an exotic location like the Caribbean, a visa would be required for those staying in the country more than 90 days. Schools like St. Martinus University often offer a lot of student financial aid for travel and visas as well. If you are going to a more exotic country you might need to think about language barriers. If you will have a lot of fellow foreign students to help you around and if you are familiar with the culture it may not be such a shock.

Consider the Local Government
Utilize websites such as the CIA World Fact Book to evaluate the governmental stability of the country in which the school is located and research how locals are reputed to treat students of your own nationality. It would not be ideal to attend a school in an area where you don’t feel safe or welcomed. Look at reviews of the school from alumni and past foreign students. They can help you navigate your way in how life is after graduation and during the school semesters.

Wherever your educational goals take you, the most important thing to remember is to work hard and enjoy the country you’ve chosen to visit. Immersion into a foreign culture exponentially broadens your horizons and will provide you with a completely different perspective on life.

_______________________________

Brooke Chaplan is a freelance writer and blogger. She lives and works out of her home in Los Lunas, New Mexico. She loves the outdoors and spends most her time hiking, biking and gardening. For more information contact Brooke via Twitter @BrookeChaplan.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

The Ultimate Demise of Common Core – Part II: The Parents

It’s been said that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but in the case of Common Core implementation, I’d say the word “parent” could easily be inserted. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, message boards – you do not have to look very far to find a post, thread or entire account dedicated to a common hatred for Common Core. Facebook pages titled “Common Sense against Common Core” and “Against Common Core” have fans who are passionate about dismantling the initiatives that are ruining the educational journey of their kids and dumbing them down for testing. A viral meme reads “Wow! This Common Core homework makes so much sense… said no parent, ever.” Parents appear to be both confused and angered by Common Core benchmarks that, at least in theory, are designed to improve national learning standards.

On Monday, I wrote about the ways in which I believe politics will contribute to the downfall of Common Core initiatives. Today I want to look at the ways parents will eventually succeed in the same way.

It’s just too darn hard.

The heightened concepts of learning and retaining Common Core materials means that some students will get left behind. The aggressiveness of the learning campaigns, however, make it difficult for teachers to spend extra time on subjects or circle back to them once most of the class has retained them. In a perfect world, this is where the parents would step in and fill the gap, or at least hire a tutor to do it. Ever since No Child Left Behind legislation, however, the assumption is that public schools are responsible for the total learning process of all their students. Parents who find that Common Core is leaving their own children behind find it easier to point the finger at the standards instead of initiating a way to make them work for their kids.

The “I don’t understand it” mentality.

Particularly when it comes to math, some of the new-fangled methods that Common Core implements are foreign to parents. Moms and dads who remember excelling in elementary school math are suddenly befuddled by the homework questions their second-graders must figure out. Parents, even the very young ones, did not use many of the tactics now in place in K-12 classrooms and certainly were not required to learn as many complicated subjects at such a young age. This lack of comprehension translates to lack of confidence – and causes parents to become defensive about the materials their children are expected to learn.

Stop teaching my kid to the test.

Parents are a finicky bunch when it comes to education. They want the best career opportunities for their kids but resent the idea of teaching too specifically for the simple sake of scoring higher on an assessment test. The items on state assessment tests, more than ever, are designed to test the knowledge set deemed appropriate for the future economy (in part, at least). Though parents want the best job opportunities for their kids, they don’t want knowledge to be so narrowly dispersed. The truth is that no teacher has enough time to teach everything to his or her students. Some of that learning must happen at home and in other real-world applications.

Standards are a calculated guess as to what learning materials should be prioritized among U.S. students – not an end-all-be-all list. Parents see items that they deem “important” missing from Common Core standards and believe it signals a complete dysfunction of the benchmarks. The growing movement to protest or even eliminate standardized tests is being driven mostly by parents. Though it’s unlikely that they will ever truly succeed on this front, their outspoken concerns about Common Core will eventually aid in dismantling the standards – particularly if their political representatives are listening.

In the last part of this series I’ll write about the ways the logistics of Common Core standards will lead to their downfall.

Do you think parents are right in their Common Core complaints, or off-base?

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, Matthew Lynch

Grading Obama on Higher Education: Part I

By Matthew Lynch

Several weeks ago, I discussed President Obama’s education record in my introduction to education class. In particular, we talked about P-20 education, which begins in preschool and ends with graduate school. Predictably, the debate became quite contentious. Most of us had to agree to disagree on the most central points of educational politics. Partly in response to this debate, though, I decided to write an assessment of Obama’s education record in several areas of P-20 education issuing a letter grade (A-F) to make my position on his record abundantly clear.

To start things off, let’s take a look at the president’s major postsecondary education initiatives.

Expansion of Community Colleges. In July, 2012, President Obama proposed the American Graduation Initiative, intended to put more money and planning into community colleges, helping to promote more affordable options and high levels of training for all prospective college students. As part of this initiative, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act will pour $2 billion over the course of four years into an expansion of career training at community colleges, focusing on the high-demand health care field.

According to the White House website, the goals of the Obama community college program include:

• Teaching basic skills through remedial and adult education.
• Further developing online courses for more student flexibility and accelerated programs.
• Creating educational partnerships to give students more course options.
• Building partnerships with businesses that would allow worksite education that has current labor market emphasis.

Enforcement of the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM, Act will an estimated 2.1 million young people in the U.S. with access to an education and amnesty from deportation. While Obama’s administration has stressed the ethical points of this act, rightfully so, it offers may economic benefits for America as well.

The Center for American Progress estimates that the DREAM Act will create 1.4 million new jobs by the year 2030 and that it will infuse some $329 billion into the U.S. economy.

Pell Grant Increases. The President has also pledged to double the amount of funding available in the form of Pell Grants over the next three years. Unlike student loans, Pell Grants do not need to be repaid. For the 2011–2012 school year, the maximum award amount was $5,550.
While a Pell Grant cannot cover all of the college costs, it goes a long way towards covering in-state tuition or community college courses. All students can apply for the program, too, and students receive aid awards based on financial need andcost of attendance.

By 2017, the maximum amount awarded to students is expected to rise to $5,975. By 2021, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 820,000 more Pell Grant awards will also be available. The money will come, in part, from restructuring to the distribution of federal student loans. By implementing a direct student loan program, instead of a bank-subsidized one, $68 billion will also be saved by the year 2020.

Higher College Tax Credits. The Obama-Biden administration plans to triple the current tax credits available to students and parents of students paying college expenses, too. The American Opportunity Tax Credit gives a $2,500 tax credit maximum per student and students can claim it for four years.

According to the IRS, up to 40 percent of the credit is refundable, up to $1,000, to people that file even if no taxes are owed. In addition to courses and fees, the new tax credit also covers related costs like books, supplies and required class materials.

Income-Based Loan Repayment. President Obama has often said that he believes that paying for college should not overwhelm graduates. As a reflection of this, he has pledged to expand income-based repayment options to keep the bills from college from becoming unmanageable. Around two-thirds of college students have debt of over $23,000 upon graduation. This can be especially difficult for students that want to enter public service jobs and those who face unexpected financial hardships like unemployment or serious illness.

Beginning in 2014, students can limit payments to 10 percent of income – a reduction from 15 percent in the previous law – which means a reduction of $110 per month for unmarried borrowers that owe $20,000 and make $30,000 per year. An estimated 1 million borrowers will be positively impacted by this change in repayment options. In addition, borrowers that make monthly payments will be allowed debt forgiveness after 20 years. Public service workers like nurses, teachers, and military employees will receive debt forgiveness after just 10 years.

This concludes Part I of “Grading Obama on Higher Education.” In Part II, I will continue to assesses President Obama’s performance in the area of higher education..

 

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform

Why You Need Both Data and Common Sense for School Reform

By Matthew Lynch

The first step to positive K-12 reform within a school and a district is to find a starting point. Often, data sets are used to determine this – but really, so much more should go into it.

Districts that demonstrate continuous positive results often base their decisions on data alone, as opposed to relying on observations and data together. Schools should regularly evaluate the pros and cons of instructional programs and realize that standardized tests should constitute only a piece of the assessment puzzle rather than the entirety. Continuously monitoring the progress the school’s student body makes will allow the task force to amend the reform plan as needed.

Balancing Reform

Successful schools also take measures to institute checks and balances, to ensure the decision-making process is distributed among a variety of reform participants. Superintendents are charged with the duty of ensuring that the implementation and sustaining of improvement efforts are done in a positive manner and meet the needs of the students. The team leader’s job is to ensure teachers have all of the tools needed to foster the academic performance of students.

Accountability, Too

Districts all over the country recognize accountability as the key to the school’s improvement process. Everyone is expected to perform at optimal levels, or must face the consequences. To ensure that staff and faculty members are able to perform at optimal levels, the school district must provide them with high-quality professional development.

Modify, Modify, Modify

In order to complete the process of school reform, restructuring efforts must be monitored and evaluated. The process of evaluation can be completed in-house, or the leader can hire outside consultants to perform the task. If the task force is willing to evaluate the success of the school’s reform, they must first develop a plan for evaluation.

The team’s evaluation plan should have been developed before the reform was implemented. Performance goals that were created at the beginning of the restructuring process should be used to guide the evaluation process.  The team will need to decide who will collect, analyze, and interpret the data. In order to avoid biased results, it may be in the best interest of the school to hire an outside consultant who may provide a more objective assessment of the reform efforts. The team will also use the results to determine whether or not the reform efforts were effective.

The results may indicate that the reform was not a success. In this case, the best solution is to build upon the small successes and learn from mistakes. Another reform could then be implemented or the unsuccessful reform amended to better suit the needs of the school. School restructuring is a long-term process. Reform occurs on a continuous cycle that must be sustained in order for improvements to be maintained and furthered. Keep in mind that not every restructuring effort bears fruit. Even the best schools have to continue to work in the restructuring process.

Successfully implementing and sustaining school reform is possible. It may not be easy, but with a tremendous effort, the utilization of all resources, and the expertise of professionals, school reform can be successful. The level of success the school is able to achieve will be based on the school’s predicament. Whatever the obstacles, the leaders’ decisions need to be resolute to foster academic achievement. While data is certainly a starting point, there is a lot more that goes into the bigger picture of smart school reform – and districts should recognize that and work towards solutions that not only make sense on paper, but also in real life.

 

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Matthew Lynch, Teachers

Getting the Most Out of Student Teaching Mentorship

Whether an official part of a student teaching internship or a more informal relationship garnered in your work place, mentorship is a great opportunity to learn from someone with experience in the field and to receive advice without worrying about how it will affect your marks or measured performance.

You can get the most out of a relationship with your mentoring teacher when you take responsibility and are proactive in the process. You’ll take responsibility when you do the following:

  • Take the initiative when it comes to having your needs met as a protégé. Soon after being assigned a collaborating/mentoring teacher, find an opportunity to talk about what you’d both like to get out of the mentoring experience. Agree on roles and a schedule for meetings.
  • Take responsibility for your personal well-being. To establish a healthy, safe, and nurturing relationship with your collaborating/mentoring teacher as well as with your students, it helps greatly if you yourself are well centered. As a teacher, it’s helpful to spend time with family and colleagues to talk about mutual ideas and problems

A mentor’s goals for the mentees usually include guiding the intern in:

– developing theoretical knowledge

– practical skills

– adopting positive and professional dispositions

– evaluating the intern’s teaching practice

The collaborating/mentoring teacher is responsible for providing guidance and feedback as necessary, and communicating with your college advisor about your progress and participation. You should try to develop a good working relationship with your collaborating/mentoring teacher. As well as having an influence over your academic performance, he or she is also a valuable source of learning and guidance and can be considered as one of the resources during your teaching education. Your degree of involvement in the classroom activities will be based largely on your relationship with your mentoring teacher.

 

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Policy & Reform, Teachers

Why children who sleep more get better grades

Dagmara Dimitriou, UCL Institute of Education

Sleep plays a fundamental role in the way we learn. Emerging evidence makes a compelling case for the importance of sleep for language learning, memory, executive function, problem solving and behaviour during childhood.

A new study that my colleagues and I have worked on illustrated how an optimal quantity of sleep leads to more effective learning in terms of knowledge acquisition and memory consolidation. Poor quality of sleep – caused by lots of waking up during the night – has also been reported to be a strong predictor of lower academic performance, reduced capacity for attention, poor executive function and challenging behaviours during the day.

Many adolescents are sleep-deprived as they gain less sleep than the average recommended level – around nine hours for this group. But due to school commitments, teenagers are required to wake up early at a set time even if they have not achieved the optimal number of hours sleep.

Along with these early start times, teenagers also experience pubertal phase delay – meaning pubertal teenagers will sleep even less due to biological factors. Combined with late night activities, this can have a significant negative effect on the quality of sleep and therefore their behaviour during the day.

Insufficient and poor quality of sleep appear to be pervasive during adolescence. These can have various consequences such as an excessive daytime sleepiness, poor diet and in turn impairments in cognitive control, risk-taking behaviour, diminished control of attention and behaviour, as well as poor emotional control.

More sleep versus better sleep

In a recent study involving 48 students between 16 and 19-years-old recruited through an independent sixth form college in central London, my colleagues and I at the Lifespan Learning and Sleep Laboratory at UCL examined the link between sleep, academic performance and environmental factors.

Our results showed that the majority of the teenagers achieved just over seven hours of sleep, with an average bedtime at 11.37pm. Our study showed that a longer amount of sleep and earlier bedtimes – measures of sleep quantity – were most strongly correlated with better academic results obtained by the students on a number of tests taken at school. In contrast, measures that were indicative of sleep quality were mostly linked with students’ performances on verbal reasoning tests and on grade point averages on tests at school.

So it appears from our results that “longer sleep” is more closely related to academic performance, while “good night sleep” is more closely related to overall cognitive processing.

Why teens are getting less and less sleep

Our study also confirms findings from previous research showing that teenagers are getting at least two to three hours less sleep than is needed for their optimal brain development and a healthy lifestyle.

There are several modern lifestyle factors that have shown to impact on sleep. We found that consumption of energy drinks and coffee, and social media use half an hour before habitual bedtime were strongly associated with poorer sleep.

Too much late night snapchat.
CandyBox Images/www.shutterstock.com

Our study has also shown that the negative impact of poor sleep on academic functioning is not always matched by a realisation of this fact by students themselves, therefore they may have little motivation to alter bad sleep habits. Unlike for adults, adolescence is a crucial time because of continual changes in the brain – so sleep is particularly important for a teenager’s health.

Conditions that can impact sleep

There is an added complexity to the sleep patterns of children with developmental disorders, despite the fact that they are more likely to suffer from sleep problems. So far, we have examined sleep, and cognitive and behavioural functioning in children with Down Syndrome, Williams Syndrome and ADHD. All our studies show that sleep has a very important impact on cognitive and daytime functioning of children with these conditions.

When we examined levels of sleep biomarkers – melatonin and cortisol – in children with Williams syndrome, a rare genetic disorder, it revealed that they had elevated levels of cortisol and dampened levels of melatonin. High cortisol and low melatonin levels before bedtime were strongly linked with delayed sleep onset – taking around 50 minutes in comparison to the typical 20 minutes to fall asleep.

Since cortisol is often described as a stress hormone, high levels of this hormone before bedtime may potentially cause sleep problems including difficulty in relaxing and falling asleep. This is an important result to consider before a child is prescribed a melatonin supplement – which might not be necessary to help solve their actual sleep problem.

The effects of the sleep disturbances extend beyond the individual. Parents of children with developmental disorders often experience heightened levels of stress and sleep problems because they are kept awake by their children.

All this shows how crucial it is for teenagers to get the right amount of sleep – otherwise it could have long-term impacts on their health and on their grades.

The Conversation

Dagmara Dimitriou, Director, Lifespan Learning & Sleep Lab, Department of Psychology and Human Development, UCL Institute of Education

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

6 Saddening Facts about Childhood Obesity and Unhealthy Body Image

The rate of obesity among children is skyrocketing—and this is something to worry about. After all, as you might expect, obese children are at a higher risk for diseases such as diabetes, arthritis and heart disease.

But there are some other things that you might not know about childhood obesity and its implications.

1. For example, did you know that…by the age of four, one out of every five children is obese? Yes, a full twenty percent of children are obese by the time they are four years old.

2. Obese children also tend to have low self-esteem, poor grades, and are less likely to attend college (particularly girls).

3. Children from low-income families and those of Hispanic, African American and Native American heritage are at a higher risk of falling prey to obesity.

4. Poor diet and lack of exercise are the two main culprits. Simply put, sedentary behaviors are on the rise. The average American youth watches 1,500 hours of television per year and they go to school an average of 900 hours per year – the math right there should tell you something about where our kids are learning the most, and how it is being absorbed.

During the 1500 hours of television watching, experts tell us that children are mostly eating high calorie snacks. Additionally, American society is riddled with fast food, refined foods and processed foods that calorie laden. Is it any surprise that so many children in this country struggle with their weight?

5. Television and other activities at home are not the only factors to blame, though. Our K-12 schools are also playing a role in the rise in obesity and unhealthy lifestyles among kids. To start with, many schools lack physical education programs, with a mere 4 percent of elementary schools, 8 percent of middle schools, and 2 percent of high schools offering daily physical education.

6. Perhaps the oddest point when it comes to the rising rate of obesity is this: American culture teaches children that thin is better, and that you simply cannot be too thin. Rising rates of anorexia and bulimia among young women and men are the result of poor messages about body image that children frequently hear. These eating disorders generally begin between the ages of 11 and 13, particularly for girls. In fact, nearly half of all girls from grade 1 to grade 3 want to be thinner. The top wish for girls ages 11 to 17 is to lose weight.

Obviously, messages American children receive from the media and society in general need to change. Young girls learn that to be attractive and to be a success, you must be thin. Boys receive similar messages and learn that thin and muscular is the preferred body type. As a result, boys as young as 10 years old are bulking up at the gym and many young men are taking steroids to build muscle, at great detriment to their overall health.

So on one hand, children learn that they need to remain thin to be attractive and successful. But on the other hand, they do not have the resources to establish healthy eating habits on any level – and schools are really no help.

For schools to really get behind a healthy approach to body image, diet and exercise, an atmosphere that promotes acceptance of self and the importance of overall health should be established. Classroom and learning materials should portray different body types and images. Ensuring students know a thin body isn’t necessarily a healthy body and that healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes is also important. It is not enough to simply tell them though; students need to be equipped with healthy lifestyle tools to make the right choices when they are on their own.

What do you think we as Americans do to better address both the obesity and unhealthy body image issues that run rampant among K-12 students? Please leave a comment in the comment section below—I would appreciate hearing your thoughts.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Matthew Lynch

Libraries of the Future: Where Trends Are Taking K-12 Public School Libraries

Modern K-12 public libraries will offer intensely engaging learning environments to all students. How they will go about doing this is less certain but the principle trends are readily identified in various research efforts.

The goal of this post is not absolutely to regurgitate the details of high-brow research, but rather to summarize the key points, to paint a picture of what the libraries of the future will look like and how they will support students, teachers, administrators, and even parents.

The first thing to note is that students are going to have, at their disposal, a greater range of resources than ever before (and that is saying something). A principle goal of school libraries is inevitably to engage students and to provide them with skills necessary to effectively function in academic life. With the help of qualified libraries, students learn to independently research and expand their reading and writing via library resources.
Modern library resources, though, include a whole range of elements, from ebooks, to academic databases, to innovative programs that allow students to explore their creative inclinations, learn new skills, and apply their learning in innovative ways.

A key component of future libraries will be increased effectiveness as well as greater access to these types of elements. More K-12 public school libraries will learn to automate their resource management strategies and develop rewarding collaborative partnerships.

Teachers will likely see an increase in direct library supports for the classroom too. Research consistently shows evidence for the general finding that student with access to full-time, qualified librarians and to large library collections perform better in standardized tests for reading and writing.

Administrators are likely to see more return on their investment in library resources. Inevitably, the cost-efficiency of libraries is very likely to increase. This is a general trend in technology, anyway, with new technologies and features such as remote access to resources helping to reduce the general costs associated with library management. Librarians can readily expand their library resources without having to take up additional space.

Parents and students may very well enjoy better access to their public school libraries from home, too, since remote access is set to be a definite future trend. Perhaps most interesting, though, as I touched on before, is the expansion of partnerships. For instance, some public schools have taken to partnering with their local libraries and with online organizations such as Limitless Libraries and MyLibrary NYC. The latter is a major innovation launched in 2011 to essentially combine public library and school library resources for students in New York City, allowing students to request materials from any of the three public library systems that serve the area.

Anyone particularly following library trends and looking to remain up to date must also allow that there will be some further changes and shifts to come. Technology is an inevitably dynamic thing and it is having an impact on most things, education perhaps higher on the list than most.

The test for public school libraries will be the maintaining of a balance between access to resources – innovative access where possible – and managing associated costs. The good news, long-term, is that the future trends look set to help this balance, not hinder it. In the end, though, only time will really tell which trends stick among those that we are already noticing, and what new technologies will do for school libraries in the longer-term.

Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform

Girls are kept out of science jobs by unhelpful stereotypes

Anna Zecharia, Imperial College London

The number of girls taking A-level physics has remained stagnant for the past 20 years or more, and the UK has the lowest proportion of female engineers in the EU. Progress on gender equality in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) is frustratingly slow.

And what’s even more worrying is that when questioned, Brits can’t think of current women scientists as role models. A recent YouGov poll of 3,000 people done for ScienceGrrl, a not-for-profit of which I am a director that advocates for more women in science careers, found one in ten named Isambard Kingdom Brunel – a male engineer – when asked to think of a famous women scientist. Only about half could actually name a female scientist and of those that did, 68% named Marie Curie, who died in 1934.

In a new report called Through Both Eyes also by ScienceGrrl, we set out the case for looking at the issue in light of the society we live in, and the legacy of inequalities between men and women.

Anyone more recent than Marie Curie?
Wikimedia Commons

Lack of progress isn’t due to a lack of attention or awareness. The Institute of Physics has compiled a series of comprehensive reports since 2004 and government frequently makes the economic case for diversity in science, technology, maths and engineering (STEM).

Deeply embedded cultural messages about women, attitudes, structures and norms manifest themselves as invisible hurdles that undermine girls’ participation and women’s progression in the workplace. These hurdles are invisible precisely because none of us knows what it looks like to live in an equal world.

Science capital in the family

We’ve explored what is known to propel somebody to choose a career in science. The literature is clear that there are three key factors. Liking STEM isn’t enough, it has to be relevant to a person’s interests and goals. They also need to feel confident they can succeed, and have access to “science capital” – the opportunity to gain knowledge and experience of STEM through personal networks.

People receive messages about themselves and the opportunities available to them from wider society, family and friends, the classroom and the workplace. We are all exposed to these messages and their balance is crucial to informing the choices we make.

Professor Louise Archer says her research shows it is: “harder for girls to balance or reconcile their interest in science with femininity” because STEM is seen to be for those who are “white, middle class, brainy and male”. A 2011 Ofsted report showed that by around 7-8 years old, girls and boys spoke about jobs as being “for men” or “for women”. Cordelia Fine, in her book Delusions of Gender suggests that children act as “gender detectives” from a much earlier age.

The “girls’ toys” that value physical perfection over adventure or intelligence, and the objectification of women in the media are just two examples of how the roles and capabilities of women are diminished in wider society.

Casual reliance on stereotypes leads to unconscious bias undermining all areas of girls’ lives. In STEM subjects, this is particularly true for confidence: girls perform worse in maths tests when their gender is made salient. This is known as “stereotype threat” – the phenomenon that performance can be impaired by awareness of lower expectations for your particular social group.

Stereotypes also affect expectations of those with influence in girls’ lives. Students get most of their careers advice from family members. But polling data from Engineers Week in 2013 showed that parents are steering their daughters away from careers in engineering, with 3% encouraging it as a career, compared to 12% for their sons.

Inspiring teachers

Progress will require a whole community approach. Schools also play an important role. Evidence from the Institute of Physics suggests that gender stereotypes undermine girls in the classroom.

But as Dr Vanessa Odgen, headteacher at Mulberry School for Girls, summarises: “girls’ uptake of science, technology and maths increases significantly when these subjects are taught by women who care passionately about STEM and when curriculum content promotes the achievements of women”. In short, when a whole school ethos means it is normal and expected for girls to succeed.

It is missing the point to say that girls aren’t “choosing” to study STEM. Many girls do not have real choice because of the low expectations placed on them and the lack of genuine opportunity. Girls are being kept out of rewarding careers.

We don’t need to change girls, we must place the responsibility on those with influence in our society. Showing the variety of directions STEM can lead, that it is creative and has social relevance it will appeal to a broader based talent pool, not just to more girls.

The Conversation

Anna Zecharia, Postdoctoral neuroscientist, Imperial College London

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Diversity, Equity, list, Matthew Lynch

3 Things Every Educator Should Know about Supporting LGBT Students

With a staggering 90 percent of LGBT students experiencing verbal harassment related to their sexual orientation, it is obvious that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, or LGBT, students have additional barriers to overcome. Dealing with discrimination toward LGBT students is a very real concern for teachers and though students have come a long way, they can still be cruel to those that they perceive as different. Peers of LGBT students frequently single them out for bullying and physical and verbal abuse.

Bullying has real implications for LGBT students, leading to high rates of absenteeism. Thus, as an educator, it is important to consider these three things as we strive to make our educational environments safer for LGBT students.

  1. Mental health is a serious issue. As Dr. Victor Schwartz, medical director of a non-profit organization that promotes emotional health among college students has discussed previously, LGBT students in particular often struggle with mental health problems. Suicide is the leading cause of death among LGBT teens. Transgendered teens are 20 times more likely to contemplate, attempt, and complete suicide.

To help someone who is struggling with their sexuality—or with others’ attitudes regarding their sexuality—Schwartz recommends that you “make sure they know you are supportive and willing to talk about anything. Let them make decisions about their sexual orientation on their own terms and when they are ready. If someone reveals their sexual orientation to you, it is important to be supportive and allow them to talk through their feelings and fears. Coming out can be a difficult process and it helps to have a strong support network.”

  1. Anti-gay bullying contributes to an achievement gap. The levels of harassment targeting LGBT students sometimes lead to absenteeism, and even to dropping out of school completely and never obtaining that very important high school diploma.

LGBT students of color are three times more likely to skip school because they do not view schools as safe places, adding to the achievement gap between the races that educational policymakers are so desperately trying to narrow.

  1. Teachers have a legal responsibility to address anti-gay abuse in schools. Legislation indicates that failure to intervene in these circumstances may jeopardize teaching certificates and licenses.  Lambda Legal Defense cautions that if teachers and counselors are not actively helpful (or worse, hurtful) they may be guilty of legal violation in their failure to address the abusive anti-gay behavior.  In many states, this could jeopardize a teacher’s certificate, as some state laws expressly forbid discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

In recent years, many high schools have formed Gay-Straight Alliance clubs.  Like other after-school special interest clubs, supportive teachers sponsor these groups, and meet periodically to plan social events, public and community service projects, and promote understanding among all students.  Sometimes these organizations meet with resistance from the community, administrators, and school officials on the grounds of conservatism, avoidance of controversy, and the fear of promoting an agenda counter to the majority values of the local demographic.  Make no mistake, however, GSA clubs are protected under the Equal Access Act [20 U.S.C. § 4071], which states that if a school receives federal funding and has non-curricular clubs, a Gay/Straight Alliance student group is entitled to recognition just like any other student group.

It does not matter what a teacher’s personal ideology is. As educators, we have a professional commitment to make the classroom and the school a safe environment for all students.  Educators must provide positive role models and supportive, responsive intervention.  We must actively deliver the message that bullying, prejudice and hate are wrong in all circumstances.  All school personnel are responsible for keeping abusive language and behavior out of the classroom and the school culture.

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

  • no reactions
0
Share
Latest Posts