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Beware Urgency

2/11/2014

Courtesy of flickr user kenteegardin.

I have to admit a heresy: I cringe whenever I hear someone profess their sense of urgency about the need to reform education. It’s not that I don’t want to see our education system fixed as quickly as possible; it’s that I fear the detrimental effects of urgency, which can be a poison to education policy thinking. Urgency pulls its rhetorical power from a picture of an education system in crisis. This is a picture of (at least parts of) our system that I find persuasive, but that leads to suboptimal policy choices. Put another way, urgency comes from a good place, but leads to a bad one.

There are a few ways that urgency corrupts our thinking in education. First, if you see a crisis, your first impulse is to address the most obvious and pressing issues. However, the most obvious and pressing issues aren’t necessarily the most fundamental ones. So we choose fast solutions over enduring ones -- like rushing out new teacher evaluation systems so their effect is felt right away, instead of rolling them out a bit more slowly to ensure effectiveness and engender buy-in from teachers. This bias away from root causes can, ironically, end up making progress take even longer, but the more harmful result is that it blinds us to the paradigm shifts in our understanding of education that could be most helpful in producing meaningful change.

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Presenting D.C.’s 2014 Teacher of the Year!

1/28/2014

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Credit: Bill Day

It’s probably safe to say that most people know someone with a math phobia. In our increasingly math- and science-driven world, many students (and even teachers and parents!) still struggle to overcome anxieties around basic math skills. With the Common Core State Standards shifting instructional targets and practices, it will be interesting to see how a new approach will affect this all-too-common angst about math. William (Bill) Day, the 2014 D.C. Teacher of the Year, is not only a math teacher, but also a proponent for the Common Core State Standards and a more practical attitude about math education.

The Minnesota native started his teaching career in Maine before coming to D.C., where he has been at Two Rivers Public Charter School for the past three years. With wisdom from nine years of teaching, Bill shares his views on the Common Core and the future of math education and also gives us a sense of what’s to come during his Teacher of the Year tenure.

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Strategizing on Critical Thinking and the Common Core

1/21/2014

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Credit: Scott Goldstein

Albert Einstein said that the value of a liberal arts education was “not the learning of facts but the training of the mind to think.” If that’s what we want for our students, a good place to start is training the mind to accept this crucial truth: There isn’t always one right answer.

And that lesson is more important than ever, as states roll out assessments tied to the Common Core State Standards that will ask students to choose not just the right answer — questions can have more than one correct response — but the best answer. Earlier this month, teachers from across D.C. gathered to strategize how their instruction can facilitate this change in thinking. (They were meeting for the final “Cutting to the Core” professional development session of the fall semester, an event sponsored by Teach Plus D.C.) How do we shift the mindset of our students from seeking the one easy, right answer to searching to unearth several right answers? To tackle this difficult task, I co-facilitated a session that explored best practices in four key areas: “teacher talk,” student feedback, assessment formation, and “student talk.”

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Inequality and the Education Reform Debate

1/14/2014

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Inequality is all the rage these days. From the president to the new mayor of New York City and even your local movie theater, we have heard about the challenges of income inequality. But it seems that what many people really mean when they talk about inequality is poverty. (And no doubt, as we look back at the launch of the War on Poverty and compare it to the relatively sparse concern for the poor today, such attention is sorely needed.) While inequality often implies a fair amount of poverty, the societal challenges of the two are not the same; and to confuse them can obscure some of the thornier difficulties of inequality.

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Can High Standards Hurt Students?

1/7/2014

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Courtesy of New Readers Press

The standards are rising, and so are the stakes.

As a teacher in a GED school, the new year brings a new exam, aligned to the Common Core State Standards, that will ask students to go far beyond what the previous test ever asked of them. There is no doubt the transition will be a rocky one as students learn to develop college-level, critical thinking skills. I’m up for the challenge of getting them there, but I’m also aware of the realities: In a school like mine, where we receive students at just about every grade level, we have to consider the effect of telling a 20-year-old student, with a third-grade reading level and a five-year gap in his education, that his next stop is a GED that demands 12th-grade proficiency. I’ve seen it too many times: The student comes in expecting that, just like his more advanced schoolmates, he will study for several months — maybe a year — pass the test, and be on his way to college. A year later, aware of how high a climb he faces, he packs it in and heads for a job market where he faces little chance of upward mobility in the years to come.

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One Advocate’s Dreams of Civil Rights for Undocumented Immigrants

11/20/2013

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Laura Bohorquez

I have had little personal exposure to the plight of undocumented immigrants. The schools where I have worked do not have students who are English-language learners, and most of the families I’ve worked with grew up in the same neighborhoods where they currently live. As a result, I have admittedly missed a very real civil rights issue plaguing our country. My perspective changed when I met Laura Bohorquez and heard her story at The Education Trust’s national conference last month.

Laura was born and raised in Mexico City until age four, when her family migrated to rural Washington state. As a result of her undocumented status, she has faced several legal and financial barriers in her pursuit of an education. In spite of these hurdles, Laura was able to complete college in her home state before moving to Chicago for a master’s degree in higher education administration. But many undocumented students don’t end up like Laura. For that reason, and many others, she has become a passionate advocate for undocumented students. Laura has turned her challenges and successes into a platform from which she hopes to motivate others to create change for the undocumented population. Now in D.C., Laura is a coordinator of the DREAM Educational Empowerment Program (DEEP) at United We Dream, where she helps to create networks of educators who are prepared to help their undocumented students succeed.

What has your family's experience been as undocumented immigrants? What inspired you to become involved as an advocate for yourself and so many other young people?

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Teachers, Prepare to ‘Cut to the Core’

11/12/2013

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Educators talk Common Core at a Teach Plus event.

The new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) represent a federal takeover of school’s curricula constructed without the input of key stakeholders, and they ask teachers to meet impossibly high benchmarks or face immediate dismissal from their jobs.

Or that’s what opponents might like you to believe.

As a teacher, I understand the resistance to the seemingly never-ending push to adopt new standards, new curricula, and new initiatives before we feel like we’ve even had a shot at the last ones. I understand the worry that we’ll be evaluated on our student’s performance on a new set of dramatically more challenging standards without the time or resources to prepare our students in earnest. But when it comes to the Common Core, it’s time for us to step up. These are the standards we’ve been waiting for.

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B-More Committed: 'Finding the Gift' in Your Work

11/4/2013

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Courtesy of DeRay McKesson

In the last six months, I’ve had the opportunity to interview some insightful people within the District of Columbia’s diverse educational circles. We’ve learned about the inner workings of the policy sector from Zakiya Smith and Chad Aldeman, seen how non-profit organization DC SCORES keeps kids healthy and engaged, and experienced the sights and sounds of practitioners at Jefferson Academy and Eastern Senior High School.

As a Baltimorean, I know that this same spirit and commitment to education reform runs deep in Charm City. DeRay McKesson, who works for Baltimore City Public Schools, encompasses some of the best qualities of reformers in our area. He’s known for his intense work ethic and positive outlook, and he’s deliberately built a career that allows him to give back to his hometown in a big way.

After teaching sixth-grade math in New York City and working for the Harlem Children’s Zone, DeRay returned to his native Baltimore to found a new site for Higher Achievement and serve as a manager for the Baltimore City Teaching Residency (BCTR). From there, DeRay has moved up the district ladder to become the special assistant to the chief human capital officer, helping to oversee all personnel issues for the school system, from labor to licensure, placements to payroll. Here, DeRay shares his career evolution and how his work impacts students and staff districtwide.

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Specialized Education and Testing: Exceptions Allowed?

10/30/2013

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Many consider special education a social service, and exercise ample caution when gauging the academic potential of learning-disabled students. However, many states have adopted formative and summative testing of special education students, arguing that a predominant focus around functional skills deprive learning-disabled students of wider life opportunities. Many of these specialized tests have been aligned to the Common Core in order to map learning towards ambitious goals. YEP-DC approached a range of stakeholders to ask the question:

Should students with an Individualized Education Program (IEP) — learning disabled as well as those with more severe disabilities — be included in testing, why or why not, and to what extent would testing be a benefit or obstacle to the child's learning and development?

Below are the responses from a parent, advocate, teacher, and a school administrator, in that order.

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Does the United States Need a Malala?

10/23/2013

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Courtesy of Charlotte Grant

The Obamas had tea with her, and Jon Stewart asked to adopt her. Malala Yousafzai, the charismatic 16-year-old shot by the Taliban on a school bus, was in Washington, D.C., this month continuing her campaign for girls’ education. When Malala was 12, girls in her region, the Swat Valley in Pakistan, were threatened with violence by the Taliban if they went to class. Children in the United States are privileged to have free access to a public education. However, evidence is coming to light that for some young Americans, access to school is under threat.

For minority students, the punishments they receive from their teachers are consistently more severe than those used against their white peers. Astonishingly, African-American students are three times as likely to be suspended from school as their white peers for minor infractions including tardiness and talking. The result of this discipline gap is that black and Latino boys spend more time out of school through multiple suspensions, something that is also known as the “school pushout.” Since school suspension is closely linked to dropout rates, it is no surprise that only 52 percent of black teenage boys and 58 percent of Latinos graduate from high school, compared to 78 percent of their white peers. These boys desperately need a Malala-style advocate of their own. And if they get one, it’s not only these boys who will benefit, but everyone else too.

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about

YEP-DC is a nonpartisan group of education professionals who work in research, policy, and practice – and even outside of education. The views expressed here are only those of the attributed author, not YEP-DC. This blog aims to provide a forum for our group’s varied opinions. It also serves as an opportunity for many more professionals in DC and beyond to participate in the ongoing education conversation. We hope you chime in, but we ask that you do so in a considerate, respectful manner. We reserve the right to modify or delete any content or comments. For any more information or for an opportunity to blog, contact us via one of the methods below.

Bloggers

MONICA GRAY is co-founder & president of DreamWakers, an edtech nonprofit. She writes on education innovation and poverty.

LYDIA HALL is a legislative aide in the U.S. House of Representatives, where she works on education, civil rights, and other issues. Lydia is interested in helping to bridge the gap between Capitol Hill and the classroom.

MOSES PALACIOS is an advocate for student rights and works as a Research Manager for the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS) - a coalition of urban school districts across the nation. He writes on issues regarding the children of immigrants and students learning English as a second language. His views are his own and not representative of CGCS.

PATRICIA RUANE is a
research associate at an education nonprofit. She is an editor of Recess.

LESLIE WELSH is a high school social studies teacher in DC. She is an editor of Recess.

Beware Urgency

Presenting D.C.’s 2014 Teacher of the Year!

Strategizing on Critical Thinking and the Common Core

Inequality and the Education Reform Debate

Can High Standards Hurt Students?

One Advocate’s Dreams of Civil Rights for Undocumented Immigrants

Teachers, Prepare to ‘Cut to the Core’

B-More Committed: 'Finding the Gift' in Your Work

Specialized Education and Testing: Exceptions Allowed?

Does the United States Need a Malala?

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