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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation

Why science and engineering need to remind students of forgotten lessons from history

Muhammad H. Zaman, Boston University

Lately, there has been a lot of discussion highlighting the need for incorporating social sciences in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines in order to foster creativity, increase empathy and create a better understanding of the human condition among scientists.

Unfortunately, however, all this talk hasn’t changed the reality on the ground.

As a researcher and teacher in biomedical engineering, looking at the fundamental functions of the human body, I feel that we in engineering (as well as other sciences) have done a disservice to our students. We have failed to connect them to the history of science through stories of scientists.

Our students, these days, have little knowledge about the giants on whose shoulders we all stand.

And yet there is strong evidence that students are more likely to develop an interest in science and pursue science education when engaged through narratives that tell a story.

Research also shows that such stories enable students in STEM disciplines to better understand and apply their classroom knowledge in real-world settings.

Missing piece in science learning

In one of my engineering classes, I discuss how fluids, such as air and blood, flow in the human body. These processes are critical to our health and well-being.

As I do that, I also discuss the associated discoveries made by many leading scientists. The seminal work of scientists such as Joseph Fourier, Daniel Bernoulli and Isaac Newton has transformed our world and tremendously improved our quality of life.

What do students know about Newton? cea +, CC BY

However, beyond the most famous anecdote about the falling apple leading to the discovery of gravity, I find that students in my class know little about Newton’s contributions. While students in my class may have a rich understanding of the Fourier transform (a fundamental mathematical relationship that forms the basis of modern electrical engineering), they literally know nothing about who Fourier was.

Research suggests that context and history play a strong role in connecting science and engineering theory with practice.

But despite studies highlighting the importance of storytelling and historical case study approaches, impersonal PowerPoint presentations dominate classrooms. Historical perspectives and rich stories are missing in such presentations.

Why it matters

As educators, we face tremendous pressures to pack technical materials into our courses. So why should we include history in our lesson plans?

First, history provides a compelling perspective on the process of scientific discovery. We have known through research that historical references can help students clear up common misconceptions about scientific topics, ranging from planetary motion to evolution.

Looking at the story of science over centuries enables students to understand that research and discovery are continuous processes. They can then see that the laws and the equations that they use to solve problems were discovered through long and sometimes painful processes.

The findings they arrive at today, in other words, are the fruits of the hard work of real people who lived in real societies and had complex lives, just like the rest of us.

Second, a sense of history teaches students the all-important value of failure in science. It also highlights the persistence of the scientists who continued to push against the odds.

Recent research suggests that by discussing the struggles and failures of scientists, teachers are able to motivate students. Indeed, the discussion of struggles, obstacles, failures and persistence can lead to significant academic improvement of students, particularly for those who may be facing personal or financial difficulties or feeling discouraged by previous instructors and mentors.

Learning from history

This dose of inspiration is particularly valuable for STEM students who face barriers in their academic work, either due to lack of financial resources or due to their gender or race.

The stories of past scientists are a reminder to them that history is an opportunity. Not all great discoveries were made by people who were at the very top of the socioeconomic pyramid.

Connected to the process of discovery and innovation is the fundamental notion of the multidisciplinary approach.

Students need to understand that this approach is not a creation of the 21st century. People have used the multidisciplinary tools of their time for hundreds of years. Johannes Gutenberg, for example, combined the flexibility of a coin punch with the mechanical strength of the wine press to invent the printing press, which created a profound global impact in disseminating knowledge.

The Gutenberg Press replica.Casey Picker, CC BY-NC-ND

Finally, a fundamental goal of modern engineering education is to create socially conscious engineering practitioners who have a strong sense of ethics.

Following an engineering education, individuals could go on to develop medical technology for resource-constrained settings, or work on stem cells or genetic engineering. The importance of ethics in any of these areas cannot be underestimated.

Case studies and history could be immensely valuable in teaching ethics. History provides strong evidence of how the environment around scientists was equally important in shaping their lives and discoveries. Lessons from history could provide insights into how to make ethical choices related to technology or engineering principles.

History, heritage and a holistic view of learning

The goal, in the end, is not to compromise on the rigor, or to focus exclusively on history and personalities, but to make the material more accessible through story-telling and connection with our common heritage.

By making students realize that they are part of a grand tradition of learning, success and failure, we might find that the goals of retention, inspiration, access and rich engagement with the material are closer than we realize.

The Conversation

Muhammad H. Zaman, HHMI Professor of Biomedical Engineering and International Health, Boston University

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

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership

Want great teachers? There’s no one-size-fits-all solution

Gerald K. LeTendre, Pennsylvania State University

Most of us know the difference a good teacher makes in the life of a child. Many global institutions working to improve access to education, such as the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Education International agree that “teacher quality” is the critical element in whether or not an educational system succeeds.

The United Nations has even called for

“allocating the best teachers to the most challenging parts of a country; and providing teachers with the right mix of government incentives to remain in the profession and ensure all children are learning, regardless of their circumstances.”

It is clear we need good teachers, but just what makes for “teacher quality”? And can quality be systematically improved by public policy?

For 30 years I have been studying cultural expectations for what makes a good teacher, beginning with field work in a Tibetan refugee school and an ethnographic study of Japanese and American public schools conducted some years later. More recently, my colleague Alex Wiseman and I have been working on what researchers from around the world consider to be “teacher quality.”

The consensus is that teacher quality entails much more than just the way teachers deliver lessons in the classroom. Teacher quality is strongly affected by a teacher’s working conditions. Teachers working long hours, with low pay, in crowded schools cannot give each individual student the attention they need.

Simply raising the requirements for teacher certification, based on what has worked in some high-performing countries, is not effective. An effective policy requires changes at the level of teacher recruitment, teacher education and long-term support for professional development.

Quality is more than certification

Around the world, more than a dozen nations have recently engaged in efforts to rapidly reform their teacher education and certification systems. The United States, along with nations as diverse as France, India, Japan and Mexico, has sought to improve its educational system by reforming teacher certification or teacher education.

Borrowing from other models is not effective. World Bank Photo Collection, CC BY-NC-ND

Usually, governments try to do this by passing laws that list more requirements for teachers to get their teaching certificate or license. Often they look for models in countries that score well on international achievement tests like Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) or Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) such as Finland, Singapore or South Korea.

It is true that a teacher’s qualifications, experience, personality and instructional skills all play a role in contributing to “quality.” Teacher quality covers what teachers do outside the classroom: how responsive they are to parents and how much time they put into planning lessons or grading papers. Teaching certificates can make a difference toward ensuring teacher quality.

But that does not make for an effective policy. And here’s the problem: One, merely focusing on standards like certification is not enough. Two, the effect can vary by grade level or because of student background – so borrowing models from other countries is not the best strategy.

In the U.S., for example, a key part of the important legislation No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was to put a “qualified teacher” in every classroom. The law emphasized certification, a college degree and content specialization, but failed to identify teachers who knew how to implement reforms and who promoted critical thinking skills in their classrooms.

The most recent law addressing teacher quality, the Every Student Succeeds Act, had to roll back these requirements allowing each state in the U.S. to experiment with different ways to identify quality teaching.

The law allows states to experiment with different types of teacher training academies and with measures of student progress other than just standardized tests.

Goal of American teachers different from Japanese

Moreover, teacher quality is context-dependent: What works in one country may not work in another, or even for another group of students.

Let’s take preschool or early elementary teachers as an example. At this age, many parents would look for teachers who are warm, caring and understand child development. But this, as we know, would change for high school students.

In high school, especially in college preparation courses, students and parents would expect teachers to focus on the lesson. The quality of their teaching would be judged by how well their students score on tests, not how well they are developing socially or emotionally.

Classroom goals vary: First grade English class in session in Japan. Colin Ryder, CC BY-NC-ND

Other than the age of the student, goals of the educational system would matter too. For example, American, Chinese and Japanese teachers take very different approaches to caring for small children and helping them learn basic academic skills. In their book, “Preschool in Three Cultures,” educational anthropologist Joe Tobin and others showed that Japanese preschool teachers are comfortable with classes of 20 students, and tend to tolerate noise and disorder that most American teachers would find uncomfortable.

By contrast, American teachers place great emphasis on one-on-one interactions between children and adults, especially in helping children learn to express their feelings. It is possible that a competent, “high-quality” teacher from Japan would likely feel incompetent and confused in a U.S. school, even if she was fluent in English.

Countries have their own challenges

That’s not all. National conditions impact teacher quality. In some nations, it is a struggle to retain good teachers and distribute them evenly.

For example, many low-income countries face challenges related to poverty, illness and labor shortages that create teacher shortages. Peter Wallet, a researcher at UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics, shows that in many countries, national governments struggle to find enough teachers to staff their schools. He writes:

“The impact of HIV and AIDS in Tanzania for example meant that in 2006 an estimated 45,000 additional teachers were needed to make up for those who had died or left work because of illness.”

The loss of so many teachers places many children at risk of having no access to quality teachers. This basic lack of qualified teachers has been identified by UNESCO as the major barrier to providing access to quality education for all the world’s children.

Even in wealthy nations, sometimes the most qualified teachers are concentrated at certain schools. For example, in the U.S. there is a very unequal distribution of teachers between high- and low-income school districts. Scholar Linda Darling-Hammond sees this unequal access to teachers as one of the greatest challenges facing the U.S.

The point is not to borrow

The fact is that teaching is complex work. Teachers must build trust, increase motivation, research new methods of teaching, engage parents or caregivers and be adept at the social engineering of the classroom so that learning is not disrupted.

Effective teacher policy has to have at least three levels: It must provide clear goals for teacher education and skill development, it must provide “support to local institutions for the education of teachers” and it must address national demands for high quality education.

And in order to develop teacher quality, nations need to do far more that “borrow” policies from high-scoring nations. Nations can learn from one another, but this requires a systematic exchange of information about sets of policies, not just identifying one promising approach.

The International Summit on the Teaching Profession, an annual event that began in New York in 2011, is one example of this kind of global exchange that brings together governments and teacher unions for a dialogue.

To be effective, reforms need to have the support and input of teachers themselves. And, national and global leaders need to create more ways for teachers to provide suggestions, or criticism, of proposed reforms.

The Conversation

Gerald K. LeTendre, Professor of Education, Pennsylvania State University

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

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education

Want college to be affordable? Start with Pell Grants

Donald E. Heller, University of San Francisco

In her speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton talked about free college and student debt relief.

Convention speeches are not normally known for providing details of policy proposals, and keeping with tradition, Clinton offered few details of her own. Now that we are past the conventions and into the campaign, presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are likely to speak in more detail about their specific policies.

What is missing in the debate about free college, however, is a discussion of the role of Pell Grants, the centerpiece of the federal government’s student aid programs. These grants, which used to cover almost the entire cost of a college education for poor students, today cover less than a third. The current Republican budget proposal would erode it even further, threatening the ability of students from poor and moderate-income families to attend and graduate from college.

From my perspective as a researcher who has studied questions of college access for two decades, any discussion of free college has to include the role of Pell Grants in college affordability.

What are Pell Grants and why are they important?

Pell Grants were created in the 1972 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. This coming academic year they will provide grant aid of up to US$5,815 to students from low- and moderate-income families.

Last year, over eight million undergraduates across the nation received a total of about US$30 billion in Pell Grants.

In 2011-12, 41 percent of undergraduates received a Pell Grant. Dollar image via www.shutterstock.co

Data from the U.S. Department of Education show that in the 2011-12 school year (the most recent data available), 41 percent of all undergraduate students received a Pell Grant, almost double the 22 percent of students who received them in 1999.

For most students, the funding they receive from the Pell program outstrips what they receive in aid from either their state or the institution they attend.

Using data from the U.S. Department of Education, I calculated that the average Pell Grant recipient received an amount from that program that was five times greater than what they received in state grant aid and 2.6 times greater than the amount of scholarship assistance received from the institution attended.

Without Pell Grants, in other words, many low-income students would not be able to attend college, or would not be able to attend full time and make good progress toward earning their degree.

Pell Grant value dips, tuition increases

In a book I edited a few years ago, I demonstrated that back in the 1970s, a student attending a public, four-year university and receiving the maximum Pell Grant would have approximately 80 percent of the price of her college education – tuition, housing, food, books and miscellaneous costs – covered by the grant.

If the student had no resources of her own to contribute, the remaining 20 percent of the cost was often made up through state grants, scholarships from the university, work study and perhaps a small amount of student loans.

Today the maximum that a Pell Grant covers is only about 30 percent of the price of attending college for that same student. The erosion in the value of the grant is due to two reasons: 1) the rising price of college attendance and 2) a drop in the real value of Pell Grants.

Since 1985, average tuition prices at public, four-year colleges and universities have increased 222 percent after adjusting for inflation. The situation at private four-year colleges and community colleges is only slightly better – average prices in the two sectors have increased more than 130 percent in real terms during the same three decade period.

Pell Grants, in contrast, have grown much less rapidly. The average grant increased only 30 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars during this same period.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush after he signed a bill on Pell Grants. Larry Downing/Reuters

In the latter half of the 1980s and through most of the 1990s, Congress and a series of presidents – Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton – allowed the purchasing value of Pell Grants to decline even further.

The maximum Pell Grant actually dropped 19 percent in real dollars between 1985 and 1996. While federal funding over the last two decades has allowed it to regain some of its value, the maximum Pell Grant today is still below the 1975 level in inflation-adjusted dollars.

Impact of GOP proposal

As bad as this situation is, it could get much worse. The current Republican spending plan in the House of Representatives proposes to place a cap on the maximum Pell Grant. What this means is that it would stay at its 2015-16 level for the next 10 years.

While it is hard to predict for sure what will happen to tuition prices over the next decade, it is fairly certain that prices will continue to rise. This will cause the value of the Pell Grant to erode even further during this period.

Students protesting against rising college costs. Max Whittaker?Reuters

For example, again, based on my calculations, if college prices increase 3 percent per year over the next decade, and Pell Grants are held at their current level, its purchasing power at public four-year institutions would drop from 30 percent of total college costs today to only 21 percent in 2026.

At private four-year institutions, the Pell value would drop from 17 percent of costs today to only 12 percent 10 years from now.

The Republican proposal, if enacted, would undoubtedly have an impact on the college access and success of students from low- and moderate-income families. Constraining the grant aid available to them from the federal financial aid programs could force more students to drop out of college. Or, students could take longer to earn their degrees, or could afford to attend only a community college rather than a four-year institution.

The impact on college access for these students would be detrimental to the nation as a whole. As President Obama noted in his first address to Congress in 2009, the future growth of our economy will depend on having more workers with post-secondary credentials. Without a Pell Grant program that keeps pace with college costs, we will be unable to attain this goal.

Clinton and Trump should be talking about the issue of college affordability on the campaign trail. But they need to address all of the policies that help make college affordable for students and their families.

Funding for the Pell Grant program is a critical component of that.

The Conversation

Donald E. Heller, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs, University of San Francisco

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

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Education News, Teachers

Helping Students to Develop Presentation Skills

Show and Tell

As a young mom I was not familiar with the concept of “show and tell”. My eldest son was 4 years old at the time and he had to take a toy to school and show it to the class, tell them a little bit about it and answer the eager audience’s questions. I thought this is such a great idea to introduce children to the world of public speaking and presentations! After all, public speaking is not necessarily a talent, but a skill, and the younger a child is when they begin to learn this skill, the better.

Apart from being mom, I am also a sixth form teacher and am too well-aware that some students genuinely struggle when asked to present information to a group. I can see that this may be a problem when students go on to tertiary education and also later in life. For personal and professional success, effective presentation skills delivered in a confident manner are vital.

That is why presentation skills need to be nurtured from a young age, before the student really has an awareness of being in the spotlight and possibly being faced with stage fright. Public speaking and presentation skills could be fostered, to such an extent that it becomes a natural skill. “Show and tell” helps a child to prepare a talk about an abstract object rather than a familiar one, it helps to create an awareness of vocal projection and most importantly, it helps to build confidence.

Spotlight 

By the time my second son had to do “show and tell”, we had perfected the practice! We progressed from showing (and telling about) favorite toys, to eventually using PowerPoint. By now, my sons were 8 and 10 and their confidence surprised their teachers. “Show and tell” helped to build their public speaking skills and helped them to feel comfortable with talking in front of a group of peers! However, they were also confident because every time that they were expected to present information to the class, they were well prepared. Confidence and preparation are crucial aspects for effective presentation!

My 7 year old daughter has to talk about her summer holidays in class soon. I know that if she is well prepared, she will feel confident and be able to do a good presentation. She was super excited when I suggested that she make a mysimpleshow video to introduce her holiday experience. Afterwards she will also show holiday photographs and talk about each of them. I know that if the presentation goes well, she will be more confident and keen to do a presentation when she gets her next spotlight topic.

Presentations

When asked about the basics of speech making, my advice to students and parents is simple:

  1. Prepare the speech/presentation very well – plan carefully what you’ll say and use speech cards with highlighted keywords
  2. Practice the presentation a few times – if possible, do it in front of a test audience, like your family
  3. Pay attention to proper posture – be mindful of weird mannerisms that may distract the audience
  4. Make eye contact
  5. Speak loudly and clearly
  6. Be confident! If the audience senses that you are nervous, they will also be nervous

My advice to teachers?

If you are teaching little ones:

  • Keep the “show and tell” and spotlight going from a young age. It does wonders to build confidence!

If you are teaching older students:

  • Regularly include short student presentations in your classes to emphasize the basics of speech making
  • Suggest various ways to make presentations more interesting to an audience, like the use of objects or the showing of short video clips as part of the presentation.

Educators play a vital role in helping students to learn and experience public speaking. Leadership in the community, business world or any organization demands effective presentation skills. Leaders are expected to be able to make presentations without any qualms. So, let’s foster great presentation skills from a young age and right through our students’ school careers, to ensure that they acquire a skill that will be very useful to them throughout their lives.    

LGW Irvine is a secondary school teacher specializing in history, performing arts and languages. With a keen interest in writing, she has published Teacher Planners and an AFL Teacher Handbook. Among her presentations include in-depth courses in study methods and essay writing, as she has a particular interest in helping others to reach their full potential in those areas. Her current projects include History Revision Guides as well as Study Methods workbooks.

Contact Information

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Matthew Lynch published in Equity, Policy & Reform

Zero tolerance laws increase suspension rates for black students

F. Chris Curran, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

The State Senate of Michigan is currently considering legislation that would scale back “zero tolerance” discipline policies in the state’s public schools.

Zero tolerance discipline laws require automatic and generally severe punishment for specified offenses that could range from possessing weapons to physical assault. They leave little leeway for consideration of the circumstances of the offense.

The bill, already approved by the State House, proposes to add provisions that would consider the contextual factors around an incident, such as the student’s disciplinary history, and would ask whether lesser forms of punishment would suffice.

In other words, suspension and expulsion would no longer be as “mandatory” and there would be a little more “tolerance” in these state discipline laws.

As a researcher of education policy and school discipline, I would highlight that these revisions, some of which have been passed in other states, represent a significant change of course for state school discipline law.

In fact, my recent work and that of others suggests that the shift away from zero tolerance approaches is for the better.

Why zero tolerance policies were introduced

Throughout the 1990s, the number of states with zero tolerance laws, those requiring suspension or expulsion for specified offenses, increased significantly.

The rapid adoption of such laws was spurred in part by the passage of the 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act, federal legislation that required states to adopt mandatory expulsion laws for possessing a firearm in school.

These safety concerns were further heightened by the shooting that took place at Columbine High School, a public high school in Littleton, Colorado.

Following Columbine, by the early 2000s, nearly every state had a zero tolerance law in place. Many of these laws expanded beyond firearms to include other weapons, physical assaults and drug offenses.

Push back against zero tolerance

Clearly, such zero tolerance laws were meant to improve the safety and order of the school environment. However, in recent years, they have been seen as being overly prescriptive and as contributing to racial disparities in school discipline.

For instance, there are cases of students being suspended for accidentally bringing a pocketknife to school. In one high-profile case, a student was suspended for chewing a pastry into the shape of a gun.

Black kids are suspended at a higher rate. Children image via www.shutterstock.com

Additionally, federal data show that black students are suspended at rates two to three times higher than their white peers.

As a result, in 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Education issued a joint “Dear Colleague” letter directed to public school districts. The letter was a call for reductions in the use of suspensions and expulsions and, instead, for a focus on ensuring the fair use of school discipline for students of all backgrounds.

Here’s what new research shows

In a newly published study, I explored the implications of state zero tolerance laws – laws that require school districts to adopt zero tolerance policies.

In particular, I sought to find out if they contributed to increased use of suspensions and if they led to racial disparities. Given claims by proponents of such laws that they increase the safety and order of the school overall, I also wanted to see if these laws contributed to decreases in perceptions of problem behaviors in the school as a whole.

I used national data collected by the U.S. Department of Education as part of the Civil Rights Data Collection and the Schools and Staffing Survey. The sample included thousands of school districts and principals spanning the late 1980s to the mid-2000s.

The study revealed three important findings.

First, the study showed that state laws requiring schools to have zero tolerance policies increased suspension rates for all students. Second, suspension rates increased at a higher rate for African-American students, potentially contributing to racial disparities in discipline. Finally, principals reported few decreases in problem behaviors in schools, suggesting that the laws did not improve the safety and order of schools.

The findings, in context

The findings show that the adoption of state zero tolerance laws result in increases in district suspension rates. For the average-sized district, such laws resulted in approximately 35 more suspensions per year.

Though this number may seem small, the potential impact is quite large.

A recent study by researchers at UCLA, for example, suggests that a one percentage point reduction in the suspension rate nationally would result in societal gains of over US$2 billion through reduced dropout and increased economic productivity. In short, state zero tolerance laws may be imposing significant financial costs on society.

Burden of zero tolerance laws is not shared equally. Boy image via www.shutterstock.com

Furthermore, the burden of these costs are not equally shared across all groups.

The results of my study suggest that the increase in suspension rates for black students as a result of these laws is approximately three times the size of that for white students.

Coupled with other research that finds links between zero tolerance policies and racial disparities, this finding demonstrates that these laws, though supposedly neutral with regard to race, are disproportionately impacting students of color.

Recent data released by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights also point to persistent disparities by race in the use of school discipline.

No reduction in misbehavior

Proponents of zero tolerance discipline have argued that the use of suspensions and expulsions increases the safety and order of the learning environment as a whole. My study found evidence to refute the claim.

In my data set, principals rated the degree to which various behavior problems (i.e., fighting, disrespect, use of drugs, weapons) were problems in their schools.

I found that, in the view of principals, the presence of a state zero tolerance law did not decrease their rating of the degree to which these various behaviors are problems. In other words, state zero tolerance laws did not appear to be contributing to improved levels of safety and order overall.

What the results mean for policy and practice

Students, parents and other stakeholders have an expectation that schools should be safe and orderly environments that treat all students equitably. While it is imperative that schools take active steps to achieve these goals, the findings of my work call into question whether state zero tolerance discipline laws are the most effective way to do so.

While suspension and expulsion may still be appropriate tools in some circumstances, it is important for schools to consider context, and states to allow such discretion, in the administration of school discipline. Furthermore, it is important to have safeguards in place to ensure that such discretion is utilized equitably for students of color, who too often experience disproportionate disciplinary exclusion.

The revised disciplinary laws under consideration in Michigan and similar revisions to school disciplinary policies in other states represent more promising steps to ensuring effective and fair school discipline.

The Conversation

F. Chris Curran, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

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

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Matthew Lynch published in Diversity

The Diversity Responsibility Colleges Face Following the 2016 Election

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.

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, Policy & Reform

Scholarly collaboration: it’s time for the global South to call the shots

This article was written by Clive Kronenberg

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 been some 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.

The Conversation

Clive Kronenberg, NRF Accredited & Senior Researcher; Lead Coordinator of the South-South Educational Collaboration & Knowlede Interchange Initiative, Cape Peninsula University of Technology

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

After Fisher: affirmative action and Asian-American students

Michele S. Moses, University of Colorado; Christina Paguyo, Colorado State University, and Daryl Maeda, University of Colorado

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?

Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, which supports colorblind policies, has already called the decision just “a temporary setback.”

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.

Asian-Americans participate in an Advancing Justice conference. Advancing Justice Conference, CC BY-NC-SA

“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 Kidder has 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.

Are Asian-American students a monolithic group? Charlie Nguyen, CC BY

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.”

In addition, by casting plaintiffs as meritorious and deserving of a spot at an elite university, it also conveys the stereotypical received wisdom about Asian-American “model” students who are wronged by race-conscious affirmative action programs.

The Harvard lawsuit comes next

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.

The Conversation

Michele S. Moses, Professor of Educational Foundations, Policy, and Practice, University of Colorado; Christina Paguyo, Post Doctoral Fellow, Colorado State University, and Daryl Maeda, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of Colorado

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Matthew Lynch published in Parental Involvement

How to Prevent the Winter Slide

By Frank Milner

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.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in International Education

Why pushing undocumented children out of schools won’t help bring down net migration

This article was written by Nando Sigona

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.

The Conversation

Nando Sigona, Senior Lecturer and Deputy Director of the Institute for Research into Superdiversity, University of Birmingham

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

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