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Is Reform Really an Enemy of Creativity?

10/21/2013

Once, while teaching in Spain, I asked my students if their behavior was the same in every class. In the haphazard unison of middle-schoolers, they shouted back a definitive “no.” They didn’t talk about the freedom teachers gave them, how much they liked the teacher, or the difficulty of their classes. Instead, they explained, they behaved well for the teachers they respected the most -- not the “fun” teachers or the “nice” ones, but the teachers who controlled the classroom.

And they aren’t the only ones.

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The 'Write' Way to Get Ahead

10/14/2013

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Photo courtesy of Chad Aldeman

These days, internships and mentors are as ubiquitous among college and graduate students as research papers and final exams. Such experiences are expected and collected, but many students are unaware of how to take full advantage of them to advance their careers. Not Chad Aldeman. This “proud Iowan” leveraged his mentors’ knowledge and networks, as well as his internship experiences, to create a launching pad for his career in education policy analysis and writing that led him to the U.S. Department of Education. Now an associate partner at Bellwether Education Partners and popular blogger for Education Sector, Aldeman shares his best advice for young professionals looking to do the same.

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What We Can Learn from U.S. Students in 'Smarter' Classrooms Overseas

10/7/2013

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Photo courtesy of Jeremy Meredith

Every year, 30,000 high school students around the world leave home to study abroad.

Amanda Ripley, a journalist, followed three – to Finland, South Korea, and Poland – for a year in an attempt to determine why other countries consistently outperform the United States in reading, math, and science. What she found informed her first book on education and included much of what we already know: Teacher quality and preparation standards are higher in foreign countries, student assessments more rigorous. But some of what she learned surprised her, too. And that’s what she shared during a talk with YEP-DC’ers Sept. 24.

During her talk, Ripley said the idea for her book, The Smartest Kids in the World — And How They Got That Way, stemmed from frustration over the constant lamenting of the sad state of education in the United States and the pedestal-like nature afforded to top PISA-scorers like Finland. “How do these countries get so smart? And what can we learn from them?” she asked. While Ripley studied data and interviewed experts, she really wanted to hear from students. “You have to talk to kids. They can fill in the holes,” she told the packed room of educators, academics, and advocates at the Hill Center. “They can unravel an entire story in three minutes.”

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A Critical Choice for the Charter School Movement

9/24/2013

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Courtesy of New York Daily News

Twenty-five years ago, Albert Shanker, then-president of the American Federation of Teachers — the nation’s second-largest teachers union — delivered a stinging rebuke of the reform movement of the 1980s and the majority of students it was leaving behind with its one-size-fits-all approach. He analogized our education system to a doctor who blames a patient when the pill he prescribed doesn’t work — rather than trying a new remedy. His speech, five years after A Nation At Risk, laid out a vision for teacher-inspired and teacher-created schools and later became the ideological foundation for the first charter school initiatives.

Now, more than 5,600 charter schools in the United States serve more than two million students. Every one of those schools has a stated mission that serves as a creed to distinguish their approach. But divided, they’ve lost sight of the broader picture: the mission of the charter school movement first envisioned by Shanker.

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The Limits of Parent Voice

9/16/2013

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In 2010, early in my Teach For America days, I had the opportunity to hear Jason Kamras talk about the changes taking place in D.C. Public Schools. One of the more memorable things he said that day was that if all families in the District of Columbia were forced to send their children to a randomly selected public school without moving out of the city, the city’s education woes would be fixed in a year. His thinking was that if you gave parents of means some skin in the game, they could put more pressure on policymakers to fix the system.

I was reminded of this provocative argument when I read Allison Benedikt’s polemic in Slate, asserting the moral bankruptcy of parents who send their kids to private schools. Though the two arguments differ slightly (Benedikt doesn’t think the positive effect would come as quickly as Kamras did), the fundamental issue is the same: The problem with schools is that parents do not put enough pressure on teachers, administrators, and policymakers to make the necessary changes to fix public education; and the lack of pressure is attributable, in large part, to the fact that the parents with the most political capital either send their kids to private school or to high-performing public schools that are de facto segregated by income level because of property values.

Although Benedikt concedes that change might take a long time, the power she seems to see in parent pressure would work over the short term. She explains:

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Greenhouses, Gardens, and Baby Grand Pianos: A New State of Affairs in DCPS

9/9/2013

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With over 100 years of history, Eastern Senior High School has long been known as “The Pride of Capitol Hill.” However, between 1998 and 2008, Eastern Senior High went through eleven principals and a period of tumult. The school graduated its last class of seniors in 2011 before launching a massive turnaround plan. After a $77 million renovation to modernize the aging building and the enrollment of one grade per year to facilitate a smoother culture, Eastern Senior High is once again living up to its nickname. That’s thanks to Rachel Skerritt, who came to the District of Columbia in 2010 to lead the re-launch effort. The decision wasn’t an easy one; she had spent her entire professional career as a teacher, principal, and district administrator in Boston Public Schools, historically a high-performing urban district. The opportunity to “build” a school is what drew her, she says, and the results that the Eastern Senior High community has seen so far has been enough to keep her.

Rachel Skerritt, center, sits with students at Eastern Senior High School. (Photo courtesy of Skerritt.)

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WHY DO TEACHERS NEED To Have EXPERIENCE?

9/5/2013

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Photo courtesy of National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education.

Research about teacher turnover and teacher experience produces the following unsurprising conclusions: Teacher turnover has negative consequences on student achievement, and more experienced teachers are more effective (at least during the first five years of teaching, after which effectiveness plateaus). These facts led to an anti-climatic conversation at the New York Times’ “Room for Debate” about whether teachers need to have experience. But that question is off-base; a more productive question to consider is “Why do teachers need experience?”

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Sex and Gender In Schools: What Lessons Are Your Students Really Learning From You?

9/3/2013

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For every 100 students you teach, three will identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) at some point in their life. Yet despite progress towards civil rights legislation designed to create equal opportunity, discrimination and victimization of LGBT people remains high, as reaction to the Pvt. Chelsea Manning case illustrates. Discrimination for LGBT students can be a matter of life or death as was seen with Alexander “AJ” Betts Jr. and Carlos Vigil, who took their lives as a result of bullying. Furthermore, there have been suggestions that homophobic- and gender-based bullying has been tolerated by teachers. As the new school year begins, make a commitment to civil rights by ending sexual- and gender-based bullying in your classroom.

Gender describes the characteristics and activities we associate with men and women, like “boys hate reading and have short hair” and “girls love pink and have long hair.” A survey of elementary school students showed that one in three children heard classmates being bullied for wearing or doing something usually associated with the other gender. Forty-three percent of elementary teachers also reported hearing sexist comments from their students. Of the surveyed students, one in 10 said they didn’t conform to gender norms; they were twice as likely to be bullied at school.

While the problem begins in elementary school, it continues and worsens in middle and high school when issues of gender begin to encompass sexual orientation. Another survey of LGBT students in sixth through 12th grade showed that 30 percent felt unsafe in school and 29 percent felt unsafe on their way to and from school. One-quarter had experienced cyber-bullying as a result of their gender expression or sexual orientation, and one-third had been sexually harassed online.

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Listen to the 'Irreplaceables' on Professional Development

8/26/2013

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Photo courtesy of National Council on Teacher Quality

This month, the education reform nonprofit TNTP released Perspectives of Irreplaceable Teachers, a follow-up report to 2012’s groundbreaking The Irreplaceables, which highlighted the crisis school districts face in retaining highly-effective teachers. In Perspectives, TNTP researchers spoke with 117 of the most elite, skilled American educators about their thoughts on the teaching profession. I’d like to zero in on one of the main findings: These highly-effective teachers attribute little of their success to formal preparation or professional development programs.

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Cursive and the Common Core

8/20/2013

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Photo courtesy of MEGA Brands America.

Though I know you may be positively shocked by this revelation, it seems that thanks to the rise of word processing, cursive writing is largely dying out. As the New York Times has reported, where schools used to teach script writing from third grade to as late as eighth grade, districts have reduced the number of grades in which the writing style is taught, sometimes limiting it just to the third grade. Perhaps the clearest sign of the potential death of cursive is this infographic from MEGA Brands America, a pencil-making company, whose haste to remind the American public of it’s own support for script betrays an industry running scared. It’s a sad state of affairs for handwriting enthusiasts everywhere, to be sure. I’ll give you a moment to compose yourself.

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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.

Is Reform Really an Enemy of Creativity?

The 'Write' Way to Get Ahead

What We Can Learn from U.S. Students in 'Smarter' Classrooms Overseas

A Critical Choice for the Charter School Movement

The Limits of Parent Voice

Greenhouses, Gardens, and Baby Grand Pianos: A New State of Affairs in DCPS

WHY DO TEACHERS NEED To Have EXPERIENCE?

Sex and Gender In Schools: What Lessons Are Your Students Really Learning From You?

Listen to the 'Irreplaceables' on Professional Development

Cursive and the Common Core

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