The Presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will go down as one of the most unpredictable, and contentious, of American history. The candidates’ personalities, paired with the 24-7 news cycle and social media, made an already inundated time for political messaging completely saturated. It pushed people to their breaking points, revealing the worst in some and the true colors in many.
The end result is a country that will truly never be the same. Whether it’s neighbors with opposing yard signs who can no longer see eye to eye, or family members disinvited to Thanksgiving celebrations, the very real impact of this election season will linger for long after the votes were cast.
Things have changed for colleges and universities too. It’s too soon to know exactly what to expect in the way of legislation, funding and federal support for the higher education landscape over the next four years, but there are some intangible effects that are already evident. The most basic of these lessons is this: We aren’t as far along as a diverse nation as we thought.
And it isn’t just set-in-their-ways adults either. The night of Trump’s victory, a black baby doll with a noose around its neck was found in an elevator at predominantly white Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. This is just one example that proves that the nation’s youngest adults are not all enlightened when it comes to diversity and equality; there is still a lot of work to be done and much of it should happen on college campuses. Yet, on the higher education scene students are still being marginalized – whether that discrimination is direct or a result of policy.
So where do we go from here? As a collective college and university system, how do we piece together our latest revelations about our nation and apply it to building a more diverse ecosystem?
Colleges must recognize the new normal.
It starts by colleges acknowledging that we truly aren’t as progressive (as a nation) as we thought. Of course, those of us who have made diversity our life’s work have long been aware of the holes in the equality spectrum. But now we have an entire nation who is seeing it, some for the first time, too. Whether they choose to acknowledge it or not, a deeper awareness of the plight of many marginalized Americans was revealed during election season. It will impact the way we treat each other and it will impact the atmosphere of college campuses. People just know more. That knowledge ups the responsibility of what colleges teach and how they interact with student bodies.
Colleges must acknowledge everyday injustices.
Discrimination isn’t always outright. It doesn’t always manifest in hate crimes or racial slurs. Many times it is subtly ingrained in our societal fabric – penetrating our psyche to the point that we don’t even notice it anymore. This is especially true for the traditionally privileged of society – the white, middle-class males (if we are going for a stereotype). The unfair things these Americans have faced pale in comparison to minority groups, and even women. When you’ve never been exposed to the type of establishment racism and division that are common to disadvantaged populations, it feels like that type of existence is far-fetched – maybe even made up. It takes movements like Black Lives Matter, or …., or even the obvious xenophobia and racism that arose during the election season to really wake a person up.
Colleges must step up when it comes to eliminating inequality across the board with a more proactive approach. Instead of having a crisis team on call, universities must work consistently to give all students the opportunities they deserve. They must also call on the workforce beyond the college years to do the same. Where there is a student at a disadvantage, questions must be asked as to what led to that point – and how it can be fixed.
There is no easy fix for where we are as a nation when it comes to diversity. Colleges and universities have the responsibility to spearhead positive change, though. The next generation of adults deserves better opportunity and higher education is the starting place.
In the U.S. public school system, there is a lot of talk of “accountability.” Teachers are held accountable for what their students do, or do not, know. Administrators are taken to task if standardized test scores are too low, or drop from one year to the next. State lawmakers are asked to correct any “crisis” of underperforming students through legislation. When it comes to the progress and success of our K-12 students, the ball is constantly being passed, and passed back again, until some course of action is put in place that will presumably fix whatever academic woe is perceived in a particular school, district or state.
One major way that this accountability is enforced is through standardized testing. By applying the same requirements to each teacher, and each student within a state, the general theory is that accountability for student success will be upheld. Truly understanding what our students are learning is more complicated than that, though. The state of today’s K-12 assessments is a sad one, and is one of the biggest reasons our public schools are failing their students.
There are other ways that we measure the success of K-12 systems in the U.S., both public and private. One way is through graduation rates, and another is through college acceptance and graduation numbers. These only tell part of the story though. Presumably, handing someone a diploma means that person has mastered the required material and “knows” what is needed to earn the graduation distinction. Research has shown us, however, that this conclusion is an oversimplification.
We know that American students lag behind other developed countries when it comes to math and science achievement. Students in countries like South Korea and Singapore consistently outrank U.S. students when it comes to basic and advanced math and science course achievements. Survey after survey of business leaders bemoan the lack of basic writing and communication skills their employees possess and on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 27 percent of 12th graders were proficient in writing.
Waiting until students are done with K-12 learning is simply too long to figure out if they are learning what they need to know. A student who falls behind on subject matter in a particular grade, for example, will struggle in the next grade to succeed. So it becomes impossible to base the success and improvement rates of students on the end results alone. Assessments throughout the K-12 journey are necessary — but how those assessments are administered is one of the most hotly contested issues surrounding the K-12 system today.
The bane of every K-12 educators’ existence is the “teaching to the test” mentality. Even teachers who are strongly opposed to such a narrow way of educating students find that staying within a narrow realm of material becomes a necessity of contemporary classroom assessment culture. Increasingly, the worth of teachers is placed solely on student performance results, specifically when it comes to standardized testing. The entire value of what a teacher does in a classroom during a given year, and how the teachers performed in the prior years, often boils down to what a statewide blanket test spits out in the way of student results. While benchmarks for grade levels have merit, the way that assessments are administered and weighted in today’s K-12 public schools are ineffective and unfair to the teachers who must adhere to them.
Some of the biggest arguments surrounding the use of standardized assessments to determine student success and teacher capability include:
Inadequate sampling of material being tested.
Indirect, rather than direct, observation of what a student is truly learning.
Too narrow a scope of knowledge.
Not enough exceptions made for regionalisms or cultural differences within a state.
Too many lasting inferences made about the students taking the tests that are based on very little merit.
Too much emphasis on a punishment mentality, and not enough on what can actually be improved.
No accounting for socioeconomic or disadvantaged barriers that hinder a teacher’s potential.
Despite the qualms with the basics of standardized testing, many educators view them as necessary evils of the improvement process. More cynical educators view it as a completely useless process that is never a true indicator of what students actually know. Proponents of K-12 assessments say that without them, there is no adequate way to enforce educator accountability and to truly know if students are learning what they should know at each level. Critics say that assessments put too much focus on a narrow span of information and force teachers to teach “to the test,” thus leading to rampant anti-intellectualism. Is rote memorization a true test of the knowledge of students? If teachers are given too much freedom, will students learn the basic things they need to know? These are just two of the many questions swirling around the K-12 assessment system in the U.S. and ones that need to be addressed and answered in order to build a stronger student body.
Think back on your earliest recollection of American history as it was taught to you in school. The Founding Fathers didn’t earn that moniker by following alongside all the other young men in their schools, colleges and career paths. On the contrary, these men had dreams that lived outside the Colonial box and they aimed to make them reality, no matter what the personal cost. This story form repeats itself throughout American history, too. Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., women’s suffrage leader Lucy Burns – they all took the road less traveled and broke out of the mold of their times to make a positive impact on the future and move the country forward.
Every country has its folk heroes, of course, and these figure heads serve as reminders that you should always, always stick by your belief systems even if they run contrary to everyone else’s. In America, though, everyone is entitled to follow in the footsteps of these leaders – these heroes that paved the way. In large and small ways, everyday Americans shape the future of the country just by tapping into their natural talents and personal stances. It’s why we have bifocals, and fire hydrants, and swivel chairs. Without American innovators, the world would have never been able to enjoy cupcakes, or graham crackers, or baseball. Had inventors like Henry Ford, Robert Fulton and Wilbur Wright walked the line and focused on the career paths and learning options their government deemed a priority, they may have never had the mind to attach an engine here, or a motor there, or a wing up there.
Innovation is what has always driven Americans, and continues to drive us all today. It’s what has simultaneously given us the labels of crazy and genius. Frankly, it’s what makes Americans a global force to be reckoned with. Without the many Americans who have stepped outside the lines to better their own ways of life and those of their fellow citizens, this nation would not be considered the greatest on the globe.
That innovation, that creative spirit, is born in our public schools. The students who will dream up the next generation’s major inventions, and come up with plans to improve the American way of life, and fill every job in between are in our K-12 classrooms today. Despite more choices than ever when it comes to the childhood learning years, public schools remain a steadfast reminder of all that is great, and inspirational, and smart about the American way.
As America has grown in its nearly 250 years of existence, its public school system has also adjusted with the times. Different theories on properly educating our next generations have been introduced, tested, established and thrown out. Each new evolution of the public school systems in the U.S. have built upon the lessons of the ones before – both good and bad – and have culminated to bring us to the current state of U.S. education today.
So what do our school systems look like, really? If you base your knowledge of the nation’s public schools on news headlines alone, you likely have a bleak perception of what exactly is happening in the K-12 classrooms funded by our tax dollars. A report issued from the U.S. Department of Education in April of 2014 showed that high school seniors did not show any signs of improvement in math and science scores from 2009 to 2013. When compared with other developed countries, U.S. students lag seriously behind in areas like math and science, too. The students who are bringing down the national averages are not just from underprivileged areas, either. Among students from households where at least one parent has a college degree, or the family is considered “affluent,” the U.S. ranks as number 27 on a list of 34 countries in math capabilities. A Washington Examiner report also finds that more than half of 15 year olds from homes with well-educated parents are not proficient in at least one of three areas: reading, math or science.
Despite these and numerous other reports that are similar, U.S. seniors are graduating at a record rate of 80 percent. It is a happy statistic, no doubt, and one that should be celebrated but it does leave some room for speculation: how are so many U.S. students lagging behind in so many vital academic areas, yet graduating from our schools at record rates?
The truth is complicated. Standards for exactly what students should be learning at every step of their educational journey have never been more stringent. The No Child Left Behind legislation enacted in 2001 heightened educator accountability systems and put more stringent assessment processes in place to measure the true learning outcomes of students. These requirements were not suggestions, but were (and are) tied to federal funding. So a school district doing exceptionally well based on the set-forth standards receives its federal funding while another that is struggling, and is arguably in greater need for the money, is left to flounder in its failures.
Teacher accountability was in place before NCLB, and so were state assessment tests, but the legislation thrust both on a pedestal that schools are still reeling to accommodate. By setting blanket benchmarks for the entire nation, based on limited tested materials, teachers were essentially stripped of their free will when it came to educating and were forced to begin “teaching to the test.” For many educators, NCLB was a marked end to learning for learning’s sake in classrooms, and even meant dumbing down materials to be sure all students scored well on those vital assessments.
Fast forward 12 years to the recent enactment of Common Core Standards in 44 states and the District of Columbia, and accountability and assessments have even more to contend with. Tied to President Obama’s federal funding program Race to the Top, Common Core benchmarks were determined by the National Governors Association. States could choose to opt in or out, with pressure to conform enhanced by the promise of good old fashioned American money. Like NCLB legislation (which still exists alongside Common Core requirements), the new set of initiatives seeks stronger student outcomes in areas like math, science and technology.
Which is a good thing, right? If our students are lagging in these areas then it makes sense to raise our standards when it comes to learning them, doesn’t it? In theory, Common Core Standards work. Place more focus on the subjects where American students need extra help, attach some money as an incentive and then watch the test scores rise. The true effectiveness of these standards remains to be seen, but it is hard to imagine that placing greater concentration on a narrow range of subjects, at the expense of others, will end up boding well for this generation of K-12 students.
Assessments and teacher accountability tied to funding are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the issues holding back the actual process of learning in our public schools. Issues of overcrowding, and inequality of resources, and a cultural shift towards anti-intellectualism weigh heavy on the schools within our borders.
By identifying the major problems that hinder the effectiveness of the public schools of our nation, we can start a journey that will lead us toward better outcomes for future generations. It is not a task that is reserved for educators alone. To really experience the changes needed to raise the quality of what we offer our children when it comes to their educations, it will take every parent, business owner and community member. Change won’t happen overnight but with concentrated efforts and societal support, it can be enacted. It’s important first though to understand the exact history of our public schools and what has taken place over the past two centuries to bring us to where we are today. The role that our public schools have played in shaping our modern society is a large one and the importance of its influence on our future should not be underestimated. To really create the type of society we desire as Americans, we must start with our public schools and understand how they are, and always have been, an integral piece of our future patchwork.
Collaboration is, without a doubt, a positive and important part of academic life. Scholars benefit enormously when they’re able to develop teamwork skills for conducting research jointly or in partnerships.
Scholarly alliances can lighten the heavy burden of publishing in high-class international journals. It makes investigative ground work and funding procedures far less intense. It enables more scholars to share in successes. It is also crucial to identifying and grasping seemingly intractable social problems. All of this can benefit entire regions and even nations.
But there are also pitfalls and problems. Scholars from the global north still tend to dominate such “partnerships”. With more capital in hand, they often call the shots. Over the past decade or so, there have beensome attempts to change these power dynamics.
The South-South Educational Scholarly Collaboration and Knowledge Interchange Initiative – or S-S Initiative – fits into this mould.
I am among those who initiated this endeavour. Over the past 18 months or so, its work has yielded some valuable lessons, insights and results. We’re a small group of academics with a shared focus on rural education. We all come from areas in the global South: Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. Together, we’ve set up good, effective working engagements.
A history of oppression
In 2014 I started developing a national data base of rural education researchers. My goal was to boost general awareness of, and possibly create linkages between, local scholars dedicated to producing new and improved knowledge of a globally neglected yet crucial area of public schooling.
This culminated in the S-S Initiative. Current participants and collaborators are from Cuba, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Argentina, Mozambique, Rwanda, and South Africa. Scholars from Colombia, Mexico, Kenya, Malawi and the Ivory Coast have also expressed interest in getting involved. It’s clear, then, that participants have something in common beyond their interest in rural education: they all come from countries that have historically been the victims of acute colonial oppression, marginalisation and underdevelopment.
This history continues to negatively impact on the provision of good, quality education, particularly in the realm of rural schooling.
There are many potential approaches to the global problem of rural education. There currently exists a range of secluded, often insulated remedial measures and strategies concerning this sector. These must be shared to develop and increase knowledge that ultimately is mutually beneficial. It is important to create suitable spaces where such prospects can be presented, engaged, and eventually applied where feasible.
Broad goals
The initiative has several key aims. With appropriate interest and support, these will be expanded and developed over time.
First, we’re reaching out to rural education scholars from the global South to join the membership data base. This provides opportunities for the exchange of ideas and experiences, as well as the possibility of launching partnerships in future.
It also sets the groundwork for conference presentations as well as the constitution of review boards. The selection of postgraduate supervisors and external examiners are further opportunities under consideration. In this way, experts can come together and apply their insights and work in a collective manner. Such a course, we hope, will offer suitable prospects to initiate and advance meaningful change in the broader S-S educational field.
We have launched a call for book chapters on the topic of rural education. It is hoped this will eventually lead to the formal establishment of a South-South Educational Journal, with a duly-appointed international review board. There is a dearth of academic journals collectively or especially devoted to learning and teaching practices in the global South as a whole.
It is not a question of expertise: scholars in this initiative have deep knowledge and experience of academic publishing. While some occupy leading positions on editorial boards, others have played key roles in actually establishing and administering academic and scientific journals.
We also hope to merge DVD documentary production with educational field research. This has the potential to reach a wider audience, thereby bringing parents and communities more decisively into the research fold. Schools and children thrive more when parents are more engaged in education.
Together with a dedicated, supportive team, I have already produced one DVD of this nature. A second is close to completion. And, with a colleague in the S-S Initiative, plans are underway for a documentary about rural schooling in the Republic of Cuba.
Small, steady steps
Funding will always be an issue for academics, particularly those from less developed territories. Fortunately, the S-S Initiative was enriched and boosted with funding I received from South Africa’s National Research Foundation. This allowed us to organise a symposium hosted at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology’s Education Faculty.
This gathering brought together a range of educational research scholars from the global South. Established, emerging and postgraduate scholars presented their work with special attention devoted to rural education. It was, as such spaces can be, fertile ground for the exchange of ideas and knowledge. It also allowed us to discuss possible future collaborations.
At their best, these kinds of initiatives don’t just benefit individual academics. Our hope is that by drawing together experts from the neglected global South, rurally-based school children’s educational development can take centre stage.
After eight years, the Abigail Fisher case finally has been put to rest. In a landmark judgment on June 23, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of race-conscious affirmative action in university admissions.
Abigail Fisher, a white woman, had sued the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) for its race-conscious admissions policy after she was denied admission. She had argued that the university violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Supporters of race-conscious admissions programs are understandably gratified. But has the case resolved the larger moral and political disagreements over affirmative action?
Indeed, over the last 40 years, affirmative action opponents have repeatedly strategized anew after important Supreme Court decisions in favor of affirmative action. They did so after the 1978 decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, when the Supreme Court, while allowing race to be one of the factors in choosing a diverse student body, held the use of quotas to be “impermissible.“
And they did so after the 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, when the high court again ruled that race-conscious affirmative action was constitutional.
We are scholars who study affirmative action, race, and diversity in higher education. We believe that the disagreement about affirmative action will not
end anytime soon. And it may well center on lawsuits on behalf of Asian-American college applicants.
Here is what is coming next
Through his organization, the Project on Fair Representation, Abigail Fisher’s advisor, Edward Blum, is currently engaged in a lawsuit challenging Harvard University’s race-conscious admissions policy.
What is different about the Harvard lawsuit is that the lead plaintiff in the case is not a white student. The plaintiff is an Asian-American student.
“Students for Fair Admissions,” an arm of the Project on Fair Representation, filed a suit against Harvard College on November 17, 2014, on behalf of a Chinese-American applicant who had been rejected from Harvard. The lawsuit charges that Harvard’s admissions policy violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars federally funded entities from discriminating based on race or ethnicity.
The “Harvard University Not Fair” website greets readers with a photo of an Asian-American student accompanied by the following text:
“Were you denied admission to Harvard? It may be because you’re the wrong race.”
How it started
This controversy over how Asian-Americans are being treated in selective college admission was jump-started in 2005, when sociologists Thomas Espenshade and Chang Chung published findings from their study on the effects of affirmative action bans on the racial and ethnic composition of student bodies at selective colleges and universities.
Espenshade and Chung found that if affirmative action were to be eliminated, the acceptance rates for black and Latino applicants would likely decrease substantially, while the acceptance rate for white applicants would increase slightly. But more than that, what they noted was that the acceptance rate for Asian-American applicants would increase the most by far.
As the researchers explained, Asian-American students “would occupy four out of every five seats created by accepting fewer African-American and Hispanic students.”
Such research has been cited to support claims of admissions discrimination against Asian-Americans.
In the complaint against Harvard, Espenshade’s research was cited as evidence of discrimination against Asian-Americans. Specifically, the lawsuit cited research from 2009 in which Espenshade, this time with coauthor Alexandria Radford,found that Asian-American applicants accepted at selective colleges had higher standardized test scores, on average, than other accepted students.
Are elite institutions discriminating against Asian-Americans in their admissions process? Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
These findings, especially that Asian-American applicants seem to need a higher SAT score than white applicants or other applicants of color in order to be admitted to a selective college are being used as proof that elite institutions like Harvard are discriminating against Asian-Americans in their admissions processes.
The picture is more complicated
As we know, selective admissions processes are much more complicated than SAT score data can show. There are many factors that are taken into consideration for college admission.
For example, in the “holistic” admissions processes endorsed by the Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger, standardized text scores are not the only, or even the main, criterion for admission. “Holistic” review takes many relevant factors into account, including academic achievement, of course, but also factors such as a commitment to public service, overcoming difficult life circumstances, achievements in the arts or athletics, or leadership qualities.
So, why would the plaintiff in the Harvard case conclude that the disparities in SAT scores shown by Espenshade and Radford necessarily indicate that Asian-American applicants are being harmed by race-conscious affirmative action?
Legal scholar William Kidderhas shown that the way Espenshade and Radford’s findings have been interpreted by affirmative action opponents is not accurate. The interpretation of this research itself rests on the faulty assumption that affirmative action is to blame if an academically accomplished Asian-American applicant gets rejected from an elite institution.
Based on his analysis, Kidder concluded,
“Exaggerated claims about the benefits for APAs [Asian Pacific Americans] of ending affirmative action foster a divisive public discourse in which APAs are falsely portrayed as natural adversaries of affirmative action and the interests of African American and Latinos in particular.”
In our opinion as well, focusing on simplistic ideas about standardized tests as the primary evidence for who “deserves” to be admitted to elite institutions like Harvard may serve to stir up resentment among accomplished applicants who get rejected.
As the “Harvard Not Fair” website and accompanying lawsuit demonstrate, these findings have been used to fuel a politics of resentment among rejected Asian-American applicants.
When speaking with reporters, Espenshade himself has acknowledged that his data are incomplete – given that colleges take myriad factors into account in admissions decisions – and his findings have been overinterpreted and actually do not prove that colleges discriminate against Asian-American applicants.
Moreover, in using images of Asian-American students to recruit complainants against Harvard and other highly selective institutions of higher education, the Project on Fair Representation relies on the idea that Asian-Americans comprise a monolithic group. In fact, the term “Asian-American” refers to a diversity of Asian ethnicities in the United States, whose educational opportunities and achievements vary widely.
The 2010 census question on race included check boxes for six Asian groups – Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese – along with a box for “Other Asian,” with a prompt for detailed responses such as “Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian, and so on.”
At this time, Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, is pending.
Now that Fisher has been decided, this case is the next front in the divisive politics surrounding race-conscious affirmative action in higher education admissions.
Relevant to the Harvard case is that a civil rights complaint alleging that Princeton University discriminates against Asian-American applicants was dismissed in 2015 after a long federal Office of Civil Rights investigation.
Although public disagreement about the policy continues, affirmative action is an imperfect, but as yet necessary tool that universities can leverage to cultivate robust and diverse spaces where students learn. June 23’s Fisher ruling underscores that important idea.
Related to the coming public discussions about the Harvard lawsuit, we are of the opinion that race-conscious policies like affirmative action need to be supported. The fact is that “Asian-Americans” have diverse social and educational experiences. And many Asian-Americans benefit from affirmative action policies.
As students get set to embark on their coveted winter break plans, parents should be prepping on how to combat the dreaded “winter slide” that can impact their very own kids. Days and even weeks out, students can begin to “coast” and quickly lose momentum in school.
Despite the fact that it’s not as long as the three-month break that kids typically refer to as the “summer slide,” the two to four weeks that students go without any educational activity can truly be detrimental to their long-term academic success, including core subjects such as math and science.
Parents have several opportunities to keep their children’s minds engaged and active, ready for the next semester or quarter. Here are some simple tips and best practices:
Have Them Help Plan a Long Drive or Vacation. Many families will embark on a vacation over the break, or drive far distances to visit relatives. If this is the case, make sure to include your child in the planning process. For example, have them figure out mileage between points A and B and the stops in between. Also prior to the trip, have them read up on your destination and put together a report of what to expect. It should include what the destination is best known for, wildlife that can be found there and a brief history of the area. Getting your child immersed in the culture and geography of your destination will help develop and strengthen their research skills and make them more aware of the world around them.
Involve Them in Meal Planning and Cooking. The kitchen is a great way for parents to reinforce the importance of following directions and managing time. For those opting to stay at home during the break, make it a point to involve your children in meal planning and cooking. These are crucial developmental skills and key elements to help improve your child’s organizational skills.
Work On a Project Together. The holidays are a great time to sit down with your child and work on a project together. Have them read aloud the instructions for assembling new equipment while you put it together. Or, if you are wanting to build something that requires cutting, have your child do the measuring before you start sawing or drilling. The skills your child will take away from this exercise is the importance of following steps and directions. It will also give them a good example of how you should work with others to achieve things that may be difficult for one person to perform.
Encourage Them to Be the Family’s News Reporter. Visit local zoos, botanical gardens or any place in your community where kids can see and learn about new things. If traveling, encourage them to bring a journal and record observations with drawings or brief written descriptions. Having your children share with you the highlights of their day will help with memory recollection and store noteworthy events.
It is perfectly alright to let your children enjoy holiday festivities. But, it is equally important to make sure they also spend time improving their brain function and keeping the information they spent months learning fresh in their heads as they head into the second half of the year. Relaxing is always a good thing, but too much can be detrimental and cause your kids and students to succumb to the dreaded “winter slide.”
Frank Milner is the president of Tutor Doctor, the top in-home tutoring franchise that offers students a personalized, one-to-one, in-home tutoring service to all ages. Milner has been at the helm of Tutor Doctor since 2007, after recognizing the company’s ability to help children across the world with its unique alternatives to the “one-to-many” teaching model that most extra-curricular learning centers offer. Milner’s daughter once struggled with what he calls “math meltdowns,” and understands that privacy and one-to-one learning allow for unlimited growth potential in a student. Milner is a firm believer that academic success can be achieve through two components – academic foundation buildings and academic discipline – and he carries that mindset into new cities and countries around the globe.
Leaked cabinet papers seen by the BBC suggest that back when she was home secretary, Theresa May wanted schools to carry out immigration checks and withdraw school places offered to children of parents unlawfully in the UK.
The leaked documents show that the proposals were vehemently opposed by the then-education secretary Nicky Morgan, who wrote to then prime minister, David Cameron, to warn on the “practical and presentational” risks of such measures. Using rather anodyne jargon, Morgan’s letter questioned the “deprioritisation of illegal migrants” proposed by May.
May’s suggestion to “deprioritise” places for these children also implies that they had been in some way prioritised in the school admission system in the first place – which is simply not the case. The law guarantees the right to education for all children of “compulsory school age” irrespective of their lack of immigration status and of the circumstances that led to it. But our research shows that even though these legal provisions exist, access to them has become increasingly difficult for these children.
This is fuelled by contradictory and frequently changing rules and regulations, political announcements and cuts to public spending. Along with broader reforms in the provision of public and children’s services. And research also shows that children’s well-being is bearing the brunt of these aggressive enforcement measures, which are targeted at parents.
May’s department wanted schools to withdraw places for some children. Shutterstock
In the context of the Conservative Party’s overall immigration goal – to reduce net migration in the UK – excluding children’s access to schooling would actually have little impact on numbers. And our research shows this type of legislation could also end up targeting UK-born children.
Our study estimated that of the 120,000 undocumented migrant children living in the UK, a large majority are either born in the UK or migrated at an early age. UK-born children make up around half of the undocumented child population, and according to existing legislation are entitled to British citizenship after ten years of residence in the country. So legislation such as this would produce a generation of disenfranchised youth – who are non-deportable as they don’t have any connection with other countries and yet excluded from society.
Outposts of border control
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about the leaked proposals, the head of Ofsted, Michael Wilshaw, said: “I’m amazed and shocked by it. Schools should not be used for border control.” Yet schools are increasingly being turned into outposts for immigration control and enforcement.
Social workers have a duty to report suspected violations of immigration rules to the Home Office. But fears of being reported to the Home Office makes children and parents wary of interacting with teachers and support workers in the school settings.
A social worker based in a school in West London described the situation as “dehumanising” as it put frontline workers who advise irregular migrants at risk of losing their jobs:
Because of the dehumanising system of the Home Office, people like us, social workers and teachers, are forced to, there is no other word, to treat people like animals really, like we can’t support them. I could lose my job if they find out that I’m supporting a young person.
Immigration watch
But the ideas in this leaked proposal are not particularly new. The recently discussed and then withdrawn proposal for ID checks on school pupils fell into the same category. It is was a model of intervention that has already been piloted in universities where – despite some occasional resistance – checks on visa attendance sheets and immigration inspections have become commonplace.
There is however another aspect of this story that deserves attention: the timing. The leak coincided with the publication of the latest Office of National Statics figures on net migration which showed that, under the watch of May, immigration to the UK hit record levels prior to the Brexit vote in June 2016.
The influx meant net migration remained at a near-record high of 335,000: more than three times the government’s target to reduce annual net migration to below 100,000 a year. The ONS figures are very bad news for May’s government as they question the PM’s ability to deliver on one of the main promises she has made since taking office – curbing immigration.
And not surprisingly, the newly appointed UKIP leader, Paul Nuttal, jumped on the opportunity to say that the figures “just go to show that you can’t trust the Tories to bring down immigration”, blaming the “abject failure” on the prime minister in particular.
UKIP’s newly elected leader Paul Nuttall. Reuters
The timing of a leak is rarely coincidental. Outrage by the liberal media at the idea of schools turning away undocumented children could actually serve as a badge of honour to the prime minister. It confirms her anti-immigration credentials to her core supporters.
So perhaps for them, another way of reading the BBC story is this: May was a lone voice in the discredited Cameron cabinet who was serious about cutting immigration. But she failed in getting net migration down because of people like Morgan, who, as the readers of the Daily Mail and The Sun would know well, is also a fervent Remainer.
Controlling immigration is a key pillar of May’s government, on which she is under huge pressure to deliver. Targeting children in school, or students at university offers an easy symbolic (and yet ultimately ineffective) point-scoring solutions. So it is likely we will see more of this in the weeks to come.
There are many benefits to knowing more than one language. For example, it has been shown that aging adults who speak more than one language have less likelihood of developing dementia.
Additionally, the bilingual brain becomes better at filtering out distractions, and learning multiple languages improves creativity. Evidence also shows that learning subsequent languages is easier than learning the first foreign language.
Unfortunately, not all American universities consider learning foreign languages a worthwhile investment.
Why is foreign language study important at the university level?
As an applied linguist, I study how learning multiple languages can have cognitive and emotional benefits. One of these benefits that’s not obvious is that language learning improves tolerance.
This happens in two important ways.
The first is that it opens people’s eyes to a way of doing things in a way that’s different from their own, which is called “cultural competence.”
The second is related to the comfort level of a person when dealing with unfamiliar situations, or “tolerance of ambiguity.”
Gaining cross-cultural understanding
Cultural competence is key to thriving in our increasingly globalized world. How specifically does language learning improve cultural competence? The answer can be illuminated by examining different types of intelligence.
Psychologist Robert Sternberg’sresearch on intelligence describes different types of intelligence and how they are related to adult language learning. What he refers to as “practical intelligence” is similar to social intelligence in that it helps individuals learn nonexplicit information from their environments, including meaningful gestures or other social cues.
Learning a foreign language reduces social anxiety. COD Newsroom, CC BY
Language learning inevitably involves learning about different cultures. Students pick up clues about the culture both in language classes and through meaningful immersion experiences.
Researchers Hanh Thi Nguyen and Guy Kellogg have shown that when students learn another language, they develop new ways of understanding culture through analyzing cultural stereotypes. They explain that “learning a second language involves the acquisition not only of linguistic forms but also ways of thinking and behaving.”
With the help of an instructor, students can critically think about stereotypes of different cultures related to food, appearance and conversation styles.
Dealing with the unknown
The second way that adult language learning increases tolerance is related to the comfort level of a person when dealing with “tolerance of ambiguity.”
Someone with a high tolerance of ambiguity finds unfamiliar situations exciting, rather than frightening. My research on motivation, anxiety and beliefs indicates that language learning improves people’s tolerance of ambiguity, especially when more than one foreign language is involved.
It’s not difficult to see why this may be so. Conversations in a foreign language will inevitably involve unknown words. It wouldn’t be a successful conversation if one of the speakers constantly stopped to say, “Hang on – I don’t know that word. Let me look it up in the dictionary.” Those with a high tolerance of ambiguity would feel comfortable maintaining the conversation despite the unfamiliar words involved.
Applied linguists Jean-Marc Dewaele and Li Wei also study tolerance of ambiguity and have indicated that those with experience learning more than one foreign language in an instructed setting have more tolerance of ambiguity.
What changes with this understanding
A high tolerance of ambiguity brings many advantages. It helps students become less anxious in social interactions and in subsequent language learning experiences. Not surprisingly, the more experience a person has with language learning, the more comfortable the person gets with this ambiguity.
And that’s not all.
Individuals with higher levels of tolerance of ambiguity have also been found to be more entrepreneurial (i.e., are more optimistic, innovative and don’t mind taking risks).
In the current climate, universities are frequently being judged by the salaries of their graduates. Taking it one step further, based on the relationship of tolerance of ambiguity and entrepreneurial intention, increased tolerance of ambiguity could lead to higher salaries for graduates, which in turn, I believe, could help increase funding for those universities that require foreign language study.
Those who have devoted their lives to theorizing about and the teaching of languages would say, “It’s not about the money.” But perhaps it is.
Language learning in higher ed
Most American universities have a minimal language requirement that often varies depending on the student’s major. However, students can typically opt out of the requirement by taking a placement test or providing some other proof of competency.
Why more universities should teach a foreign language. sarspri, CC BY-NC
In contrast to this trend, Princeton recently announced that all students, regardless of their competency when entering the university, would be required to study an additional language.
I’d argue that more universities should follow Princeton’s lead, as language study at the university level could lead to an increased tolerance of the different cultural norms represented in American society, which is desperately needed in the current political climate with the wave of hate crimes sweeping university campuses nationwide.
Knowledge of different languages is crucial to becoming global citizens. As former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan noted,
“Our country needs to create a future in which all Americans understand that by speaking more than one language, they are enabling our country to compete successfully and work collaboratively with partners across the globe.”
Considering the evidence that studying languages as adults increases tolerance in two important ways, the question shouldn’t be “Why should universities require foreign language study?” but rather “Why in the world wouldn’t they?”
Many South Africans were outraged by the recent announcement that for 2016, pupils in Grades 7 to 9 could progress to the next grade with only 20% in Mathematics.
The usual minimum has been 40%, provided that all other requirements for promotion are met. Pupils with less than 30% in Mathematics in grade 9 must take Mathematical Literacy (this involves what the Department of Basic Education calls “the use of elementary mathematical content” and is not the same as Mathematics) as a matric subject.
Public concern is understandable. South Africans should be deeply worried about the state of mathematics teaching and learning. The country was placed second from last for mathematics achievement in the latest Trends in International Maths and Science Study.
Research closer to home has shown that pupils, particularly from poorer and less well resourced schools, are under performing in mathematics relative to the curriculum outcomes. These learning deficits compound over time, which makes it increasingly difficult to address learning difficulties in mathematics in the higher grades.
All of this means that children and young people may be in Mathematics classes but are not learning. But the answer to this problem does not lie with making pupils repeat an entire grade because of poor mathematical performance. There’s extensive research evidence to suggest that grade repetition does more harm than good.
Repetition is not effective
Grade repetition is practised worldwide – despite there being very little evidence for its effectiveness. In fact, it can be argued that its consequences are mainly negative for repeating pupils. Grade repetition is a predictor of early school leaving, sometimes called “drop out”.
Pupils who repeat grades and move out of their age cohort become disaffected with school. They disengage from learning.
South Africa’s rates of grade repetition are high. Research by the Department of Basic Education shows that on average, 12% of all pupils from grades one to 12 repeat a year. The grades with the highest repetition rates are grade 9 (16.3%), grade 10 (24.2%) and grade 11 (21.0%).
And grade repetition is an equity issue. The Social Survey-CALS (2010) report found that black children are more likely to repeat grades than their white or Indian peers. This reflects the fracture lines that signal socioeconomic disadvantage in South Africa.
Repetition rates decrease as the education level of the household head increases. Poor access to infrastructural resources, like piped water and flush toilets, are associated with higher rates of grade repetition. Boys are more likely to repeat than girls. There’s also an uncertain link between pupil achievement and grade repetition, particularly for black learners in high schools.
So why does grade repetition persist?
Beliefs about the benefits of repetition
Schools and societies still believe in the value of making children repeat grades, despite evidence to the contrary.
A recent survey of 95 teachers in Johannesburg – which is currently under review for publication in a journal – showed how teachers believe the additional time spent in a repeated year allows pupils to “catch up” and be better prepared for the subsequent grade. This view is reflected in recent reportsthat teachers are against the new 20% concession which has stirred so much controversy. Their opposition is echoed by countless callers to talk shows, who all seem to assume that repeating subject content results in improved understanding.
But unless the reasons for a pupil’s misunderstanding of concepts are identified and addressed, any improvement is unlikely. Given that the deficits in mathematical understanding may stretch back to the foundation phase (Grades 1 – 3), it’s doubtful that merely repeating a grade in the senior phase is going to be sufficient for remediation.
And teachers may struggle to provide support to pupils repeating a grade. Research conducted in South Africa reveals that teachers lack confidence in their ability to teach pupils who experience learning difficulties. They would prefer to refer such pupils to learning support specialists and psychologists who are seen to have more expertise.
Many of the teachers we surveyed believe that grade repetition solves problems intrinsic to pupils. Immaturity is seen as one reason for learning difficulties and teachers expect that the repeated year compensates for this. Other teachers regard the threat of retention as a means to motivate pupils who are not sufficiently diligent or who are “slow” or “weak”. When learning difficulties are seen as being intrinsic to pupils, it is less likely that factors within the education system will be considered as the cause of barriers to learning.
Failing pupils is not the solution
Poor achievement in mathematics is not going to be solved by making pupils repeat their grade. Repetition effectively makes pupils and their families pay an additional – financial and emotional – cost for the system’s failure.
Repetition because of poor mathematics achievement during the senior phase compounds the bleak outlook for these pupils. They already have a minimal grasp of mathematics, which denies them access to Science, Technology, Engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects and careers. Then they’re also at risk of leaving school early and joining the ranks of the unemployed.
The Department of Basic Education’s 20% concession indicates that it knows grade repetition won’t achieve much. The public outcry should not be that these learners are being given a “free pass” and don’t deserve to be promoted. Instead, civil society needs to hold the government accountable for addressing the crisis in mathematics teaching and learning across all grades – and particularly in the crucial primary school years.
And the list of what teachers “should” or “could” be trained in is now very long. But while each call for training has a justified and reasonable argument behind it, we cannot escape the fact that initial teacher training cannot deliver fully trained, for every eventuality, teachers.
The general postgraduate route into teaching in the UK is 36 weeks long. Of those weeks, 24 are spent “on the job” in school – which leaves 12 weeks for all the rest. This isn’t a great deal of time when you consider those 12 weeks are when students will largely learn the skills required to actually be a teacher. This includes classroom management and lesson planning, along with how to deliver practical demonstrations and organise activities for pupils as well as subject knowledge for teaching.
Of course, there are also the fast track teacher training programmes like Teach First. Under these types of training programmes, high-flying graduates are placed in difficult schools with minimal initial training and ongoing support.
But the danger is that such an approach promotes a view that subject knowledge combined with altruism and social justice is all that is needed. And it is probably with this in mind, that Teach First has recently extended its training to a two-year postgraduate diploma model. Previously, their model included a one year Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) followed by a year studying educational leadership.
The 21st century teacher
The length of initial teacher training varies from country to country. In Finland and Portugal, for example, it is a master’s level programme taking about five years in total. While in Japan, teaching qualifications are graded, with the highest grades needed to teach in higher secondary schools – this also takes around five year’s of training.
As a teacher trainer, I also regularly get fresh demands that teachers must be trained far better in classroom management and behaviour management. Related issues are also highlighted as special cases requiring training for teachers. This includes dealing with time-wasting in classrooms – such as children using mobile phones. Or the more serious issues of how to deal with bullying, as well as knowing how to deal with racism.
Then there have been calls to train teachers in how to exploit computer technology and games. And to cap it all off, apparently teachers should also be trained how to teach left-handed children. All this, on top of the day job of actually teaching their subject, marking papers and setting homework.
Time for a rethink?
So although many of the above calls and demands may have good reason to be implemented, exactly how and when they are introduced needs a lot of further thought – because trying to cram it all into 36 weeks just won’t work.
Teachers can’t be all things to all people. Pexels.
Of course, teachers should be trained – it is just a case of figuring out what else “should” and “could” be included in this initial training. Although that said, for Michael Gove it wasn’t that obvious – he changed the law to allow untrained teachers to be hired in academies and free schools. Still, it could be worse. In the US, there were genuine calls for all teachers to carry guns, and to be trained to shoot in order to protect the children – some states already legally allow this to happen.
Perhaps in the UK, then, it is time we looked again at the demands of teacher training, and rethink how long it should take, along with what exactly initial training should cover. Because things can’t carry on as they are.
And by working out how we want future training to look, we can decide what “core initial teacher training” must involve – and at the same time work to ensure there is an entitlement for, and ongoing provision of, training for all qualified teachers.
