The Education Buzz

If the Congressional Super Committee Fails

2011-11-19T08:53:00.000-05:00

After months of negotiation, it seems the super committee created to reduce the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next ten years is not any closer to success. The consequences of failure for public education could be dire. A process that automatically cuts the budget, called sequestration, will begin in January 2013 if the committee cannot reach a consensus. Sequestration involves an estimated 7.8% reduction in spending on education. A letter from the National Education Association to the supercommittee dated October 25 estimates the cuts that will be made if the committee fails to reach a compromise:

. A cut of $1.1 billion to Title I that would impact almost 1.5 million students
. A cut of $896 million to IDEA that would affect more than half a million students, and
. A cut of $590 million to Head Start that would harm more than 75,000 young children.

These cuts would hit poor and disadvantaged students the hardest. Title 1 funding provides support for schools with large populations of students living at or near the poverty level who have a high risk of failure. Title 1 funding largely benefits at risk students, such as migrant students, ELL students, homeless students, and students with disabilities. The schools funded by Title 1 are generally in poor areas and so do not have the same tax paying bases as schools in affluent areas. They need this money.

IDEA,the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, is a program designed to help students with disabilities who require special services. The US government guarantees free appropriate education for all children, regardless of ability. This means that students with different ability levels need specialized instruction. This may include small group instruction, curriculum and teaching modifications, specialized technology, and physical, occupational, or speech therapy. The funding is for students who suffer from such disabilities as deafness and blindness, mental retardation, serious emotional disturbances, traumatic brain injuries, speech and language impairment, and orthopedic impairment. According to the NEA, many of these students do not have access to 'free appropriate education' under the current budget.

For too long, Congress has failed to live up to its commitment to fund special education. This continued underfunding – in combination with current state fiscal crises – forces school districts to either raise taxes or dip into general education budgets to make up for the shortfall, thereby cutting other critical services.

How will these spending cuts affect an already chronically underfunded program?

Head Start is also designed to assist children unlucky enough to be born into poverty. The importance of early education cannot be understated. As I have written about in a previous post, ensuring children are receiving the proper support during the crucial developmental time before they even begin school is essential. They not only deserve every chance to succeed, but they are much more likely to go on to benefit society if they receive the proper support as young children. Spending cuts in early ed are a terrible idea.

The failure of the budget committee to come to an agreement will lead to budget cuts that are obviously not well thought out. The inability of today's politicians to work together to reach compromises does nothing to provide school children with a working example of the democratic process.

In-State Tuition for Undocumented Immigrants in Texas

2011-11-18T21:14:00.000-05:00

One of the stories that I missed while traveling is the attack on Rick Perry, Texas governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate. He is under fire for a law he signed in 2001 (10 years ago!) which allows undocumented immigrants to receive in-state tuition at Texas public schools. There are strings atached--students without citizenship need to prove they have lived in Texas at least three years, have graduated from a Texas high school, and are in the process of obtaining US citizenship. Perry claims the law was precipitated by economic concerns and that it is a "state's rights" issue. Local economies are better off with educated immigrants than uneducated ones. Immigrants with college degrees go on to make more money and pay more taxes than immigrants without degrees. Texans agree; the bill did receive bipartisan support when it was passed.

Republicans are attacking Perry for passing such an un-Republican law now that he is under the microscope as a presidential candidate. Of course anti-immigrant Republicans jumped all over this one. While I'm no fan of Republicans generally or Perry in particular, I have to defend him here. The people benefiting from this law are overwhelmingly the children of undocumented immigrants, who have been raised mostly or entirely in the US. Their parents have paid property and sales taxes for at least three years and likely more. They have attended public schools with American peers and have every right to continue to attend college with those same peers at the same tuition rate. The in-state tuition in Texas and the US generally is already absurdly high. While this bill does not lower tuition, it at least gives illegal immigrants the same chance to attend college as other Texas residents.

Let me just rant about college tuition in the US a bit. I'll limit myself to one paragraph. According to the 2005 Global Education Rankings released by the Eduction Policy Institute, the US ranks 13 out of 16 developed countries countries evaluated for affordability. As I have written before, if we truly value education and hope to have a highly educated population in our country, one that is capable of competing in a global economy, and one that is capable of addressing the problems we are creating with our current policies, we must do something about the prohibitive cost of higher education.

My closing message: College is already too expensive, even for those who pay in-state tuition. There is no sound reason to deny in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants, and there are solid, rational reasons to offer it to them.

Back on American soil

2011-11-16T21:03:00.000-05:00

I am happy to say that I have finally returned home after over one year teaching and traveling abroad. I'll now be posting on this blog more regularly and with more of a focus on American education rather than international and ELL education.

I just can't stay away!

2011-10-17T11:27:00.000-04:00

We're taking a little vacation from our vacation on a Thai island, so I've taken the opportunity to do some education related beach reading. I might as well take a break from my blogging break to post some thoughts. I came across The Making of Curriculum, by Ivor Goodson, a UK professor who seems to be very anti-standards. The first chapter has to do with the standardization of curricula in England that occurred in the late 1800s. The reaction to these standards was mixed. Here is a quote, written in 1912 by E.G.A. Holmes, that Goodson uses to characterize one response to the implementation of the standards.

The State, in prescribing a syllabus, which was to be followed, in all the subjects of instruction, by all the schools in the country, without regard to local or personal considerations, was guilty of one capital offence. It did all the thinking for the teacher. It told him in precise detail what he was to do each year in each ‘Standard’, how he was to handle each subject, and how far he was to go in it; what width of ground he was to cover; what amount of knowledge, what degree of accuracy was required for a ‘pass’. In other words, it provided him with his ideals, his general conceptions, his more immediate aims, his schemes of work; and if it did not control his methods in all their details, it gave him (by implication) hints and suggestions with regard to these on which he was not slow to act; for it told him that the work done in each class and each subject would be tested at the end of each year by a careful examination of each individual child; and it was inevitable that in his endeavor to adapt his teaching to the type of question by which his experience of the yearly examination led him to expect, he should gradually deliver himself, mind and soul, into the hands of the officials of the Department - the officials at Whitehall who framed the yearly syllabus, and the officials in the various districts who examined on it.

What the Department did to the teacher, it compelled him to do to the child. The teacher who is the slave of another’s will, cannot carry out his instructions except by making his pupils the slaves of his own will. The teacher, who has been deprived by his superiors of freedom, initiative, and responsibility, cannot carry out his instructions except by depriving his pupils of the same vital qualities. The teacher, who in response to the deadly pressure of a cast-iron system, has become a creature of habit and routine, cannot carry out his instructions except by making his pupils as helpless and puppet-like as himself. But it is not only because mechanical obedience is fatal, in the long run, to mental and spiritual growth that the regulation of elementary or any other grade of education by a uniform syllabus is to be deprecated. It is also because a uniform syllabus is, in the nature of things, a bad syllabus.

I think anyone with any idea at all of the recent happenings in American public education will find this quote amusingly appropriate. Teachers are robots who simply implement standards and teach to the test. Students are test taking machines (puppets) who don't really learn anything. I guess this story is older than I had realized.

Blogging Break

2011-09-23T22:35:00.003-04:00

I haven't posted in quite a while because I'm currently traveling. I'll be gone until Christmas and won't be posting before then. Here are some Chinese signs for you to enjoy until then.

How many ways can you use a paperclip?

2011-07-19T10:51:00.002-04:00

Cool!

Culturally Respectful Teaching

2011-07-18T22:39:00.006-04:00

Each week there is a twitter chat for ELL (English Language Learners) teachers. There is an assigned topic and whoever shows up discusses it for an hour. Search the hashtag #ellchat if you are interested.

The topic today was "Culturally Respectful Teaching"- CRT. And it turns out I have a different view on what this entails than other ELL teachers do. Hence this post.

I studied 'cultural relativism' in college. This theory states that each culture has its own beliefs and standards of behavior. These are right for the people within that culture. The context for a belief determines its 'rightness'. So, whatever your culture believes is right for you.

This is a very popular theory these days (amongst non philosophers) with those attempting to be culturally sensitive. We don't want to insult anyone by questioning their cultural beliefs. This trend shows a sharp reversal from the past. Previously, most cultures assumed other cultures were inferior/barbaric/wrong. People feel so guilty about this that we now assume everyone is 'right for them'.

But this view is ridiculous. Think of cultures from the past that have supported genocides, slavery, and oppression. Just because a culture embraces a particular attitude or belief does not make that attitude or belief a good or right one. Say my culture believes the sun is made of melted butter. Would you hesitate to tell me that this belief was wrong? No, it is factually wrong and no teacher would hesitate to correct this kind of mistake. Moral questions are obviously much trickier than this. No one authoritatively has the 'right' answers and many people altogether deny there are 'right' answers.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't encourage students to think through their beliefs. Say a student comes from a culture in which women are expected to be subservient to men. I personally don't think this is a good attitude. If I had a student who came from such a culture, I would not shout "YOU'RE WRONG!" at them. But I would ask them questions to help them better understand exactly what it is they believe and why. If they are going to hold this belief, they should have a clear understanding of the reasoning behind it and the implications of it. I mean, would you encourage a student to question a cultural belief that supported this?

People are so on edge about 'culturally sensitive' issues and I think it sometimes prevents important discussions from taking place. I know I don't have all the answers. I also know my students don't. Having an open mind and thinking critically helps create people with more informed, well thought through beliefs. How can that be a bad thing? Of course, I do this with older students with whom I am comfortable and I never personally attack students or their beliefs.

I think Culturally Respectful Teaching means approaching sensitive topics with respect and tact, not avoiding them or accepting everything a student says at face value. If CRT actually means that I can't ask my students hard questions about their beliefs, I don't want to be a culturally respectful teacher.

'Incentives' or Bribery?

2011-07-14T10:38:00.010-04:00

Recently, one of my former coworkers told me that he disapproves of giving kids food as a reward for doing something well. He thinks it builds bad habits and sends children the wrong message, especially if it is the unhealthy fare teachers usually turn to for rewards (candy, cookies, pizza, donuts, etc.) If you teach a child that they get a cookie when they do well, they will start to reward themselves in this way also. Hello, obesity.

I have thought about what messages I send with my 'incentives'. And I've always come to the conclusion that it's worth it.

During my teaching initiation in TFA, I was always told to incentivize. We were taught to develop 'incentive systems' where students received rewards of various kinds for doing whatever it is we were trying to get them to do. These systems could be elaborate, like keeping track of points or 'dollars' for each individual students and then setting up a school store. They could be simple; get an A on the test, get a piece of candy. I have used both of these approached liberally.

When I began teaching in Philadelphia, I had 20+ classes a week. It was a discipline nightmare. I went crazy with incentives. I kept track of points for each class and baked brownies for the winning class at the end of the week. I threw raffle tickets by the handful at any student who was doing anything right during every class. At the end of each class, I'd pull three tickets and the students would receive a prize from the prize closet (mostly my childhood toys/books/stuffed animals/whatever anyone would donate to me). I stickered, I stamped, I starred.

I even 'incentivized' a very badly behaved and unmotivated pregnant eighth grader with donuts, when I had them. Yes, I am a terrible person.

Was this a good teaching strategy? No. I fully admit that I went overboard. I was struggling to keep my head above water and the only thing I had any mild success with was bribery. I may have even taught students not to do anything unless they received a reward in my class. Why bother? What's the point? I hadn't built any intrinsic motivation to learn, just an extrinsic motivation to get stuff. And I probably contributed to the obesity epidemic. I console myself with the fact that most of those children were headed down that road already. Soda and chips for breakfast every day.

In South Korea, I still use incentives. It's much less a part of my teaching though. I still keep track of class points and reward my top three classes, but only once a month. At the end of every class, students get stickers. That's it. It's still an incentive system, and I do wield it mightily when necessary, but the students simply don't need as much motivation.

Do I think incentives teach the wrong lessons? Maybe. It might teach children that the reason they are doing something is not because it is a good thing to do and worthwhile in its own right, but because it will get them something they want. But isn't this a lesson everyone learns eventually anyways? Most of the things we do in our life, we do because there is some reward for doing them. Why do people go to work? To get paid. Why do people exercise? To look good and feel good. We might not do these things if we didn't get any reward.

Sure 'learning for the love of learning' is great. And sometimes it happens. Sometimes a kid is really interested in something. But for all the rest of the time, when you are slogging through a lesson on writing good introductions, the points help. After all, they are studying English for a reason, and it ain't for the pure joy of learning.

Playing to Learn

2011-07-13T00:28:00.007-04:00

I watched a TED talk recently by Steve Keil- A Manifesto for Play. The video focuses on the role of play in development and the effects of a playful mindset on individuals, economies, and places. Bulgaria is apparently a place that wrinkles its brow at play, and Keil is hoping to change that in order to improve the country. Watch the video. What he says makes intuitive sense, and makes you think that you knew it all along already.

Maybe we do value play more in the US. We certainly give children more free time than they do in Bulgaria or here in Korea. But do we allow children to play while they learn? Learning is separated from playing in school. You learn here in the classroom, where playing is forbidden, and you play out there on the playground for 20 minutes after lunch. This seems to be the wrong approach. It separates learning from fun. It discourages 'play' which is oftentimes curiosity in disguise.

How, as educators, can we take advantage of the limitless imagination and playfulness of children? How can we develop their natural instincts to play to help them become good students and people? How can we better set up schools so they seem less like places where play is stamped out to places where play is embraced?

I know most teachers, including myself, use games in the classroom. I don't think this is enough. We need a new attitude in the classroom, a new atmosphere. My main problems as a teacher in the US were discipline related, but I wonder how many of them would have evaporated if I had made my classroom a truly fun, playful place to be.

Bullying in Korea

2011-07-04T09:56:00.003-04:00

I just taught a class to two of my favorite students, a couple of girls who are just starting their trying middle school years. The rest of the class was absent due to finals, so it was just us three. I was scheduled to teach a CNN class, which normally is not that much fun for me or the kids. It typically consists of a 'news' article taken from CNN followed by some vocabulary, listening, reading, and discussion questions. The news dates from years ago and the articles tend to be subjects kids know nothing about. Most of the time, the discussion falls flat. But today, the article was about bullying. They had a lot to say.

I had assumed that Korean bullying was mild by American standards. The kids here are so into their studies, and for some reason I associated that with good behavior and kindness. But they spun a tale of cliques and violence that took me by surprise.

In their schools, the cliques are the 'bad' kids who "wear makeup and play with boys" (they go to all girls schools). Apparently they demand money from the lesser kids and ostracize anyone who crosses their path. This sounds a lot like Mean Girls. Except they go to the library to secretly do their makeup and then study together. They are lucky to not go to really violent schools, where being a victim of a bully might mean a serious injury or even death. Just do a quick google search to read about more cases like this.

This picture has been coming together for me over the past week or so. I have long know there are serious behavior issues in Korean schools. See my last post about corporal punishment to read more about this. Then last night I googled one of these two student's favorite K-Pop artists and stumbled across this music video. Of course, this is incredibly dramatic and crazy (and pretty funny), but it seems it may be more accurate than I had realized.

The CNN article we read was about about a relatively new program in Texas called "Let's Talk About It" that allows kids to send anonymous emails or texts to adults in the building about bullying. It seems it has been successful in reducing bullying. I asked the girls what they thought about it and they were pessimistic. They seem to think bullying and cliques are an unavoidable part of life. Maybe they are right. Maybe this crazy pubescent behavior is cross cultural and is some biological mechanism that kicks in when you turn 11. If the program has worked though, why not give it a shot elsewhere? It can't hurt.

I remember how miserable middle school was and I grew up in a safe place. At least I was able to tell the girls that there is a light at the end of this tunnel (though I'm pretty sure they are both way cooler than I was).

The Economics of Early Childhood Education

2011-06-29T11:36:00.006-04:00

I recently listened to Planet Money Podcast about the Perry Preschool Project. It's an interesting listen. Go find it if you read this and find yourself wanting a little more.

The Perry Preschool Project began in 1962. It took a group of preschool aged children from a disadvantaged area and randomly split them into two groups. One group received early education (read:preschool) and the other group did not. The study has followed these individuals since pre-school and the finding have been stunning. Check it out (click to enlarge it):

The preschool group has higher numbers for all the good stuff and lower numbers for all the bad stuff. This should come as no surprise to someone who teaches very young children. It's an incredibly impressionable age. The podcast noted that there are 'soft skills' children learn during this time through their interactions with those around them. These skills, like learning to communicate appropriately, pay attention, control your temper, etc. are developed easily during a small window of time, age 3-5. It becomes increasingly difficult for people to learn these skills as they grow older. This means it's a much better idea to throw money at preschools than at job training programs.

I realize this graph is a little blurry, but suffice it to say that the x axis is age and the y axis is return on investment. Shelling out the money for preschool is a much better economic decision than waiting until things go wrong and spending it on job training. James Heckman, a University of Chicago economist who was interviewed on the podcast, estimates that there is a 7% return on investment for money put into early childhood ed every year. "That means that for every dollar we put in today, we get back between $30 and $300."

I realize children that are not to dollar signs and everyone deserves opportunities. But even if everyone doesn't think this make preschool a worthy investment, I'm pretty sure everyone can agree that it's better to have more employed tax-payers and fewer unemployed (possibly imprisoned) tax-users. So why are only 50% of 3-5 year old US children living below the poverty line enrolled in preschool?

In Korea, they hit the books and the kids.

2011-06-28T21:09:00.004-04:00

I just spent 5 minutes on Wikipedia to tell you that the title of this post is in fact a zeugma, a figure of speech in which a verb or noun is used in two ways. Can't wait to teach that (mostly pointless piece of information that I myself had to research) this week.

Anyhow, up until recently it has been true. I've already written about how hard they study here. I've also mentioned the recent ban on corporal punishment. But last week I had a debate with one of my upper level classes about corporal punishment in schools. There were six students in the class, and four of them want corporal punishment back in schools. It's worth noting that the two dissenters were girls, who may as a whole have a different attitude towards being beaten.

The hitting team's arguments:

1. It's too loud if students are not hit and it disrupts the students who want to learn.
2. Other discipline strategies don't work as well or at all.
3. Parents hit their children to make sure they grow up correctly, so teachers should too.

They had a few points about the negative behavior they see in class that they attribute to a lack of hitting. Their basic point is this- individual kids who are prone to misbehavior will not learn if they are not hit and they will prevent others from learning. If parents can hit to correct them, why not teachers?

It is very common for parents to hit their children here, as it is in many cultures around the world. Most middle class Americans find this shocking and appalling. Kids here take it to be a part of life. One of my students just wrote an essay about a person he admired. He chose his father who "beats me when I do something bad" (This was one of his supporting details for why his father was a person worthy of admiration.)

The problem here is a lack of other disciplinary means to keep kids in line. Now that schools can't hit students, they have gone wild as teachers fumble around trying to figure out what to do. All of my kids complained that their classes at school were very loud and difficult environments in which to learn. Changing such a pervasive policy overnight without putting another disciplinary structure in place and training educators in it left Korean teachers ill-equipped to deal with the problems that arise in any classroom.

There is a lesson to be learned here: don't change something huge overnight and expect teachers to know what to do with it. People are creatures of habit and teachers have their routines already set. If you throw new reforms at them left and right, they will not only resent it, but will probably fail to implement them correctly- especially without proper training.

Is Ravitch Reasonable?

2011-06-16T22:12:00.003-04:00

A good friend of mine directed my attention to this article in the NYT nearly two weeks ago and suggested I comment on it. I've finally managed to get around to it.

In the article, Ravitch takes her usual line of attack. She claims that there are no quick fixes; any schools that seem to have dramatically improved are likely using some kind of statistical manipulation to create the illusion of improvement. These schools are held up by politicians and school reformers as laudable examples of how such changes are possible in schools and are beginning to happen. It can be done and we are doing it!

Ravitch has been systematically discrediting what seem to be successful school models for years. She is quite good at it. And most of the time, I agree that many 'miraculously improved' schools are given too much credit. Some have been put on a pedestal for hiring a good statistician who can manipulate data in a positive way. But perhaps others have had some modest success. Ravitch does not seem willing to grant any success to the 'opposition'.

Ten years ago, she was all about the charter movement as an NCLB advocate. I was searching for some Ravitch quotes to include from this time period and stumbled across this animated video. It was created by a person who also made a twitter account: OldDianeRavitch. The account isn't very active, and the video is a bit choppy. It's a debate created by using old and new Diane Ravitch quotes to simulate a debate between the past and present Ravitch. It at least shows how much she has changed her views.

I'm not saying I have a problem with people changing their minds. It's admirable that a prominent figure like Ravitch admitted that she was wrong. But she swung from one pole to the other. It's important to be willing to be swayed by evidence from both sides of the argument. Ravitch is not. Ten years ago she had a hammer and every problem she saw was a nail. Now she has a screwdriver and every problem she sees is a screw. Yes, I am aware that is corny. What I'm saying is this: I respect Ravitch, and I think she has an important voice in the debate. She often says things that need to be said. But her way of saying things has the effect of encouraging further extremism from both main camps of the school debate. Shouldn't we be talking about this instead of accusing each other of falsifying data?

The Uninspired Student

2011-05-31T09:02:00.003-04:00

I'm tired. It's too hot. I don't feel like it. It's too hard. I have just been flatly rejected by a group of 12 year olds. It's boring. It's not fun. I want to go home.

Many of my students in Korea enjoy coming to private English Academy and it doesn't take a whole lot of motivation to get them working. This is the polar opposite of my experience in Philadelphia, where every motivational (i.e. manipulative) strategy I could come up with still left them cold. But one of my classes here has turned on me. They've been coming to the same Academy for years, and the culture of the group has gone sharply downhill since I started teaching them four months ago.

I bring games, I bring energy, I bring it all. And they look at me with bored, tired eyes and say no. They don't actually refuse to do any work. They're far too Korean for that. But they let me know they are not enjoying a single minute of it by complaining every step of the way and dragging their feet.

This attitude has turned me into the enemy. I've been struggling with how to handle the situation, and I find myself in a much more mild version of teaching in Philadelphia. The truth is, you can't make a kid want to learn from you. You can do your best to make your class interesting and fun, you can have a positive attitude. Here they already know how important it is to learn English. They still don't want to be there. Honestly, I don't blame them. Though it's a huge pain for me, I respect their subtle rebellion. Their days are filled to the brim with studying, and it just isn't fair. They'll go to the English lessons, but they certainly won't enjoy them. And they'll make sure I don't either.

Education and Unemployment

2011-05-24T20:12:00.005-04:00

I just listened to a recent This American Life podcast entitled "How to Create a Job". Last week I listened to a Planet Money podcast on the same thing. The basic theme for both shows is this: politicians have relatively little control over job creation. They promise more jobs and take credit for jobs created, but the forces that lead to a company to decide to hire- or not hire- are complex. Current government policies play only a very small part. The politician who is lucky enough to make it into the white house in 2012 will likely be able to take credit for a bunch of job creation because we are in a recovery at the moment and lots of jobs are going to be created- regardless of what the government does.

The podcasts went on to note that when questioned, many politicians do not claim to be actually responsible for creating jobs, but for creating an environment in which more jobs are likely to be added to the economy. This tends to mean low taxes and tax breaks. They figure companies are more likely to hire someone new if it becomes cheaper for them to do it.

Tax breaks mean less money to spend elsewhere. That means less money to invest in things like education. There actually aren't many short term benefits for a politician to invest in education, other than the rhetoric it enables him to throw around. Spending money in education is a long term investment; it creates a better educated, creative workforce that will help to improve the economy, and reduce unemployment, down the road. The idea is that well educated people, even a person who has only a good high school education, are more employable than people who drop out or graduate with a relatively meaningless degree due to social promotion.

I did a quick google search for 'education' and 'unemployment' and the first page of hits consisted mostly of articles entitled "Education Spending Won't Create Jobs". Well, maybe not immediately. But maybe in twenty years, when employers realize they'd no longer have to do remedial training to prepare potential employees, it would. Of course, that might mean there will be a slightly slowly hiring rate right now than there would be with massive tax cuts. As humans, we are notoriously bad at making decisions that consider long term consequences rather than short term. It seems to me the government has the potential to positively impact the country and the economy much more by investing in education than by some quick fix tax cuts.

Would you vouch for your child?

2011-04-13T22:04:00.000-04:00

School vouchers. Not a new idea, but there still seems to be a hung jury. Are voucher systems worth a try?

I was reminded of the debate today when I started slogging through the education articles google has deemed worthy of my attention. I was surprised to read here that "some advocates think vouchers are the future of Pennsylvania's troubled schools." Wait, have we suddenly been transported back to the Reagan era? Vouchers are not a new idea; they have been implemented in 18 school districts across the country (starting with Milwaukee in 1990). This is one slow trend.

So how have these voucher districts been performing? Well, I don't have 18 sets of data in front of me, but it seems to me that people would certainly be bragging about any huge successes. There is certainly not as much clamor about private vouchers as there is about charters. If the voucher systems at work today were producing amazing results, wouldn't we hear politicians bragging about it more?

I do know there has been considerable legal trouble with the systems. Many consider voucher programs unconstitutional because they allow public money to follow students to private, often religious, schools. There have also been complaints because some distracts actually pay more per student for those using vouchers than those attending public schools. I personally don't have a huge problem with funding religious schools, as long as any religious school is allowed to be funded. And the simple solution to the funding snafu is to give kids in public schools more money.

I think the major problem with private vouchers is the same problem charters face. They skim the best, most motivated students out of the public system and leave public schools worse off. But maybe that is all for the best after all, if privates and vouchers can be shown to increase student success. Maybe it's better for some kids to have access to a good education than for all kids to be stuck in a failing public school.

But wouldn't it be better to not give up on the public school system? The voucher and charter idea both work on the idea of competition in a market. Private and charter schools are allowed more leeway and if they produce good results, students will choose them. Why can't we give this same leeway to public schools? Public schools are effectively cut out of the competition because of the confusing mess of rules, regulations, and red tape that plagues them. Let's sort out our public schools before we allow private ventures to "compete" with them.

Who Speaks English?

2011-04-05T23:37:00.003-04:00

The Economist just published a piece about English speakers around the world. The article is about a test that was given on the internet. Participants were not given compensation. So all participants have access to computers and an interest in testing their English ability (no country in Africa had enough participants to make the cut). While not the most rigorous experiment, it still produced some interesting results.

Their major findings:

1. The lower the number of speakers of a countries main language, the better people speak English. People from Sweden can't use Swedish outside of their country. People from Spain often can.

2. Countries with the highest rates of export generally have better English abilities. This makes sense. International business is generally conducted in English and you are more likely to learn English if you need it to do business. Money talks. Or makes you talk, in English.

3. Countries that start language learning a bit later (between the ages of 8 and 12) have better results. This is the surprising one for me. I've always assumed the younger you start, the better the results. I have a secret plan to open English baby care in Korea. I think it'd be a goldmine. But older kids can learn languages better? Hmmm. This seems to fly in the face of most other research on language acquisition. Perhaps older children have more discipline and are able to grasp grammatical rules more easily, but their brains are not wired in the same way as very young children. Babies are language sponges.

I do wonder how Korea fared, but I can't seem to access the results of the study in English (hilarious). I am pretty shocked to see that Malaysia did the best of all the Asian countries. Though teaching practically fluent kids all day is bound to warp my perspective on Korea's English ability as a whole I suppose.

Finnish Education

2011-03-16T22:03:00.004-04:00

You may or may not have heard: when it comes to education, Finland is leaving the US (and most other countries) in the dust. Their educational system has been rated the top in the world. They have high achieving students and excellent teachers. This is why I'm considering going to Finland to study their system at some point in the future. I think we have a lot to learn from them.

An interview with Finland's Minister of Education, Henna Virkkunen, reveals some of the major differences in their approach to education. There are a myriad of differences she highlights, but I'd like to focus on only a couple of things Verkkunen mentioned that struck me:

We don’t have really good, top schools and very poor, bad schools.

and again, with more explanation:

...the learning differences among Finnish schools and pupils are the smallest in OECD countries, so it seems that we have a very equal system of good quality.

There isn't much of an achievement gap in Finland. Why is this? Well, for one thing, schools receive funding only from the national government. There are no 'tax zones' that dictate how much a school receives in funding. There is also no 'voting for the school budget' that we hear about in America. The Finns seem to understand that even when a particular area of their country might find it financially tempting to cut the budget for their local schools, this is not a good idea. So the option is never presented. They allocate resources where they are needed. Per pupil expenditure is likely very similar in richer areas as in poorer areas. In fact, Finland probably pays more per pupil in poor areas to provide special services, like two hours tutoring sessions, that immigrant children (a likely bunch to be on the poor side) need. The point is: it doesn't matter if you pay higher taxes or lower taxes, your kid can go to a good school.

South Korea has a similar approach to Finland when it comes to the allocation of financial resources. I've seen photos of rural schools that look state of the art and have a teacher to student ratio approaching 1:1. I'm not saying that this is the wisest choice, but it is certainly a different choice. Koreans and Finns are committed to providing excellent education to students no matter where those students come from.

The Over 80% Failure Rate

2011-03-10T20:50:00.003-05:00

The numbers aren't in yet, but on Wednesday Arne Duncan revealed to Congress that we can expect an over 80% failure rate this year in our schools. Failure is determined by "standardized" tests given in each state (the quotes are there because every state has a different standard, and some are much more rigorous than others). Each school is expected to meet a certain percentage of growth from year to year, or they are declared to have failed to make Annual Yearly Progress, the dreaded AYP. The targets for each school continue to rise until 100% of students attending are able to pass the state tests in 2014. Otherwise the school is 'failing'.

Arne Duncan blames Bush and his 'one size fits all' approach to fixing failing schools and says the law is fundamentally broken. I agree.

Imagine you are teacher. You inherit a class of kids that is poorly prepared and badly behaved- let's say over 80% of them are below grade level in math and English- would you label the students as a 'failures'? Would you threaten to kick them out of school if they were trying their best, working hard, and still couldn't make the cut when it came to grade level assessments?

You have to work hard and celebrate the small successes. You have to support your students and build a culture where they feel safe. They have to feel that success is within their reach. Otherwise the kids will just give up and hate you for holding them to what they would probably consider unreasonable standards.

Teachers at schools labelled as failing and those schools themselves are not so different from failing students. They need support and a positive culture in order to improve. NCLB dishes out punitive measures when a school's students fail to grow 'enough' in a given year, without offering concrete solutions for how to improve. After years of failing to make AYP, teachers give up in desperation. Reaching the 100% in 2014 is a laughable goal, why even bother trying? The law simply leads to bitterness amongst teachers and schools labeled as failing- many of them are doing their best. If their best continually meets with 'failure' they are much more likely to give up, just as students are.

I'm not saying we need to lower the bar (well, we do a little- 100% passing rate seems a bit utopian), but we do need to change the approach. Continually telling failing schools that they haven't managed to make AYP, again, just lowers morale and spread negative feelings. Why are we doing it?

Blaming Teachers

2011-02-25T04:06:00.001-05:00

The crazy stuff happening in Wisconsin right now has set off yet another attack on school teachers. Here is an excerpt from the Glenn Beck show I found in a great Media Matters post about the latest barrage.

BECK: By the way, let's ask the teachers this. There's research out that shows that two-thirds of all eighth-graders -- two-thirds of all eighth-graders cannot read.

PAT GRAY (co-host): Proficiently. Two-thirds.

[...]

BECK: Only 32 percent of Wisconsin public school eighth-graders earned proficient rating while another 2 percent earned advanced. Another 66 percent of Wisconsin eighth-graders earned ratings below proficient, 44 who earned a rating of basic and 22 who rated below basic. Well, you guys are sure doing your job, aren't you now?

GRAY: Give 'em a raise.
[Premiere Radio Networks, The Glenn Beck Program, 2/23/11]"Media Matters"

That same Media Matters post linked above goes on to use actual statistics to point out that Wisconsin kids are above average. Check your facts, Mr. Beck.

But the bigger problem here is the trend that has developed laying blame on teachers. Though Wisconsin schools might not be the worst in the country, they still need to be improved- especially the ones in Milwaukee. And due to the nature of mathematics, there are schools across the nation that are below average- when our average or above average schools still aren't good enough. It's true that we need to improve education. But making teachers the enemy is not going to help the situation. They make an easy scapegoat, but claiming all individual teachers are failing to educate kids well is absurd; it's the education system itself that is. I'd like to see Beck flailing in a classroom of misbehaving kids, trying to figure out how to fit in time to actually teach in between the mandatory 'corrective' classes lots of underachieving schools are forcing all kids to do (read: waste of time). Teachers certainly have a role to play in improving education, but they are not superheros either. And there are bad teachers who should lose their jobs. But this assault on all "Wisconsin teachers" is enough to make my blood boil.

It reminds me of how my grandfather used to insist that teachers had it too good, and that they were merely 'babysitters'. I worked 6 months in a US classroom and it was the most challenging job I expect I'll ever have. Every penny was earned, grandpa.

Digital Education

2011-02-13T21:40:00.000-05:00

I just read an article praising the merits of the Khan Academy. If you haven't heard of it, it is a free online educational tool with thousands of videos explaining math concepts. It's available world-wide and the website claims they have delivered nearly 40,000,000 lessons since their Youtube beginnings in 2000.

The articles ends by expressing the hope that by the time the author's children are in school, they will be "among the first generation raised in the new paradigm of digital education." While the author conceded that the Khan Academy has a long way to go before they reach a statistically significant portion of school children across the world, it's an interesting possible future to consider. What would it look like if tools like the Khan Academy became central to the education of future generations of children? Would it be a good thing?

I myself am not so sure. It seems to me that embracing the Khan Academy too much would push teachers out of their roles as instructors and mentors. Part of being a teacher is developing a relationship with students, and that relationship cannot be developed through a video on a computer screen. The author says teachers will become tutors who address problems only when they arise (presumably this would be indicated by an online check for understanding), but is this really the role teachers should fill? How many people would be willing to join the profession if their primary role was to fill in the holes a video leaves behind? It takes the creativity out of the job. I can see tools like the Khan Academy being useful as parts of an integrated whole, but unlike the author, I do not hope the education of future children will occur primarily online with a teacher millions of miles away whom they have never met.

However, the Khan Academy does open some interesting doors globally. If the service was available to poor children, it would undoubtedly level the playing field for them. These children often lack access to resources and good teachers- if they could learn difficult math concepts and languages online, many more doors would be open to them. And the possibilities of online education could be used even in wealthy schools. Wouldn't it be interesting if students learned about history, politics, and culture by actually interacting with teachers in different parts of the world? There is no reason why school districts could not hire remote teachers for this purpose.

The promise of online education is not lost to me, but I think we should be wary of how we implement it and continue to think critically about the role it should play in education.

College for all?

2011-02-04T05:41:00.001-05:00

“...We’ve been very single-minded about kids going to college. It’s good, but it’s too narrow.”

Agreed. A Harvard study just came out suggesting that we alter this approach by providing 'clearly articulated pathways' towards different careers to students as early as middle school. If you want to be a plumber, here's how you do it. If you want to be a college professor, here's how you do it.

I understand the motivation behind this approach. It's true that an overeducated society won't work at all. Here in Korea, nearly 90% of students attend college after graduating high school. It's a problem. Graduates are having trouble finding employment- and who fixes the cars and pipes and builds houses if everyone has a degree in sociology or statistics? It's important to have a well-rounded work force.

It's also important to adequately prepare students to do what they want to do- be it electrical work or physics. If students truly do want to learn to be electricians- more power to them. We should provide them with the knowledge and skills they need to pursue this. What worries me is this: how many kids from rich communities will be studying to be plumbers? How many from poor communities? I imagine that this approach would allow funneling students into 'appropriate' careers very easy. If you go to school in a poor neighborhood, you need to pursue an alternative 'pathway to prosperity'. The rich kids in the 'burbs will go to college and you learn to fix cars. As things stand now, at least we are trying to prepare, or pretending to try to prepare, all kids to go to college. If we change our approach, we'll have to give up that charade.

A Journalist Goes to School in South Korea

2011-01-30T22:31:00.001-05:00

Last Friday, I went to a public lecture sponsored by the Fulbright program at the US Embassy. The guest speaker was Michael Allison Chandler, a journalist for the Washington Post. She has been in Korea for five months and has been exploring the education system here. The talk was interesting and informative- it made me wish that I was devoting more time to learning about Korean education and I plan to do so. Here is a link to her blog to read more.

The major takeaway for me was something I've been thinking about myself for a while, but she had more data to make her case. People keep praising South Korean education, including President Obama in his State of the Union address, but oftentimes they fail to realize that most of the learning that happens here is not going on in public schools. Chandler had several quotes from students claiming that public school is where you go to hang out and private school is where you go to get serious. I asked my own students whether they thought public or private school was more important. Some said public, but most said they felt they learned more in private. So can the Korean government really take credit for the high test scores that Korean students are famous for? How can Obama hope to emulate this crazy education system, where nearly as much money is spent for private schooling as public schooling?

And should we even want to? In fact, the Korean government has been trying to work against private schools. They realize that the Korean obsession with education has lots of negative societal consequences (i.e. the lack of balance in kids' lives and the high suicide rate in young adults). Yes, teachers are respected. Yes, students study hard. But I don't think there is some miraculous answer to the woes of American education lurking in the public school system here.

Liberal arts degrees: not as worthless as you thought.

2011-01-18T22:02:00.001-05:00

A new book called 'Academically Adrift' has brought the value of a college education into question. Here are the two major findings from the book:

45 percent of students "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning" during the first two years of college.

36 percent of students "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning" over four years of college.

This is a bit unsettling. The tests used to measure this growth are supposed to measure critical thinking and problem solving skills, so it could be that there is a lot of growth in content knowledge (i.e. history students cram their heads full of dates and names) and not as much development in the critical thinking realm. But isn't critical thinking a much more valuable skill than a head full of facts?

But there is some good news! The happiest finding for me is this:

Students majoring in liberal arts fields see "significantly higher gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills over time than students in other fields of study." Students majoring in business, education, social work and communications showed the smallest gains.

I knew that philosophy degree was worthwhile.

Education and Health

2011-01-15T21:01:00.001-05:00

A recent study has found that early childhood education boosts health for adults. Here is the abstract for the study.

Objectives. We explored whether a successful randomized controlled trial of early education, the Carolina Abecedarian Project (ABC), which enrolled infants from 1972 to 1977 at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, improved health outcomes and behaviors by 21 years of age.

Methods. ABC randomized 111 infants to receive an intensive early education program or nutritional supplements and parental counseling alone; participants have been followed to the present day. We examined the effect of ABC on health outcomes and behavioral risk factors when participants were aged 21 years, and then explored the mediators of this relationship.

Results. Relative to the control group, the ABC treatment group was previously found to have improved cognition and educational attainment. We found that the intervention also improved heath (P=.05) and health behaviors (P=.03) when participants were aged 21 years. These improvements in behaviors were not mediated by IQ, math and reading scores at 15 years of age, educational attainment, or health insurance.

Conclusions. Effective early education programs may improve health and reduce risky health behaviors in adulthood.

This is cool. The results can be used to argue for yet another reason to ensure early education to all children. One of the authors, Peter Meunnig, was quoted in an article about the study:in the Times of India

"While much remains to be learned about both the pathways linking education to health and the overall effect sizes of education on health, our study provides causal evidence in support of the hypothesis that early education enhancements may improve income, reduce crime, and even enhance the global competitiveness of the American workforce," suggested Muennig.

"These interventions may be more cost effective than many traditional medical and public health approaches to improving population health

I couldn't find any articles about this study in American newspapers, but I think it's an important step towards acknowledging the foundational role education plays- if we improve it, we help solve other problems too.

What I think of TFA after a year

2010-12-26T11:09:00.004-05:00

I was googling Teach for America randomly today, I can't remember why, and I found a blog post called 'Why Teach For American Sucks'.

I read through all of the comments and felt moved to add my own two cents. After spending a while composing my comment, I was unable to post it to the blog for some technical reason I don't understand. But I already wrote it, so I'm going to post it here. If it's a little repetitive, since I've posted about my TFA experience a bit before, I apologize. This is how I feel about TFA after a year- my last day of teaching in Philly was December 18.

I just started to google "Teach for America" and one of the Google's suggestions to complete my search was "horror stories". Being an ex-corps member myself, I naturally had to click on it.

I've read through all of the comments and feel that people need to take a more balanced perspective towards TFA. I certainly don't love the organization, but I don't hate it either. I admit that I had an absolutely terrible experience, but I know that TFA has done some great things and recruited some excellent teachers.

I was placed into a teaching position two days before the school year started. I was the Science "prep" teacher- I taught over 500 K-8 students l and saw each class once a week. I was basically responsible for a year's worth of science curriculum for my kids when I saw them only 45 minutes a week. This is a feat even the most experienced teacher could not pull off. I have never worked harder in my life or felt failure as intensely. However, unlike some people have said, I don't think I failed because I'm just not made from the right stuff. I was simply put into an impossible situation. Some corps members are placed into workable positions, others are not. There are all sorts of gray areas in between. Yes, some corps members are better at dealing and simply learn to teach faster (or have a higher natural aptitude for teaching), but there are simply some situations in which failure is inevitable.

I don't really blame TFA for this though. They have to work within the confines of the system, and they doubtless know that some corps members will end up in terrible positions where "success" as they define it is not possible. When I asked to be switched to a normal middle school science position, I was told that this was not possible, but that I should modify my goals for the year and just work on 'classroom management'. That is certainly not what I signed up to do, but at least they acknowledged that I couldn't possibly give my kids what they needed in terms of a science education. Unfortunately, in order to keep their relationship with school districts, TFA has to give up a lot of autonomy when it comes to placement.

I know 5 weeks isn't long enough to learn to teach. But I also know that TFA corps members, on the whole, work pretty darn hard to learn as fast as possible. And for every TFA teacher that is trying really hard, there are plenty of non-TFA teachers who aren't. There were half a dozen teachers at my school with years of experience who had given up and burnt out. There were also long term subs who didn't have any experience OR give a darn about the job. I'd rather put my own child in the hands of an inexperienced, but smart and passionate teacher. Who knows, that inexperienced teacher might work some magic! The one who isn't trying certainly won't.

Ideally, there would be no place to TFA in our country. but there are still vacancies that good, experienced teachers don't want to fill in our worst schools. This is where TFA corps members are put, to sink or float as determined by a combination of the circumstances and their own constitutions. I think TFA has good intentions, or at least started out with them. I'm a little concerned when I read about where their funding is coming from and their political allegiances. I also think they are a bit too Machievellian. They believe in the end result of closing the achievement gap so strongly that they are willing to do whatever it takes to get there. If that means breaking some spirits or treating some corps members unfairly, so be it.

TFA is attempting to address a massive problem, and it has brought a lot of attention to that problem. It has made teaching an attractive option for talented young people, some of whom stay in education. It has also produced some people who have done terrible things to education, such as Michelle Rhee, and thrown some hopeful young people to the sharks. It's a complex organization, and, like most complex things, it isn't all good or bad. Whether there is enough good to outweigh the bad is a different question, and after a year, still not one I feel I can answer.

When teachers don't design curricula

2010-12-16T21:42:00.004-05:00

I spent an agonizing few weeks in the beginning of September 2009 designing several drafts of science "long term plans" for 9 grades of students in a Philadelphia public school. I used the state provided guides that explained what students should be learning in each grade. These guides lined up vaguely with the tests some of the students would be given at the end of the year.

My point is this: I had little control over what I was teaching my students. I wasn't able to teach what my students really needed because I was expected to follow the timelines. Seventh graders were to learn natural selection in week 5 and Punnett squares in week 6, even if they hadn't gotten the natural selection stuff yet. I only saw my classes once a week, so anyone will admit that expecting students to learn this much in such little classroom time is poor planning. This was a bit of a unique situation though, surely other teachers can align their syllabi with state timelines when they see students every day?

Maybe not. Every class of students is in a different place and needs different things. I knew my classes in Philadelphia would not be able to keep up with my state-inspired curricula, but I also assumed that if I saw classes every day, I would be able to keep up with these curricula. I didn't think it'd be easy, but I thought I could do it. Expecting students to meet the same standards as other students in the state is a big part of Teach for America's approach- high expectations. We can't expect less from poor students. I still believe this, but it doesn't necessarily follow that curricula designed directly from state standards (which is was Teach for America has corps members do) will work for students. Any students, poor or rich.

Teaching in South Korea has really brought home this realization. I inherited 8 classes, each of which I see twice a week. My classes are small-- ranging from 4 to 10 students.-- and the kids are pretty respectful and hard working. Even in these close to ideal circumstances, I have a very hard time following the syllabi. This is especially true for the older classes. Their books are simply more difficult and many students have a hard time understanding what is going on in them. If I truly wanted students to understand the materials, I would have to go much slower than the syllabi call for. In truth, some of the materials are way too hard for my students. Providing materials closer to their level would be more conducive to learning and less conducive to frustration. It would also help bring students to the point where the harder material are within reach.

This is true in America too. Some groups of students are simply further behind. You can't expect students to learn step 5 without learning steps 1-4. This isn't to say we should consider step 5 to be out of reach, but we should still start with steps 1-4. Teachers know their kids best. They know where their students stand and what they need to progress. Following curricula basically designed by others, who are completely out of touch with the actual flesh and blood students in their classrooms, doesn't make sense. I still support having standards, even national standards, but teachers need more freedom in how they chose to approach reaching standards and the if timelines are provided they need to allow for flexibility.

Luckily, my school here is letting me decide on pacing and giving me a lot more control over the next syllabi. ^^

You think we overtest in the US?

2010-12-02T10:37:00.000-05:00

There's been a lot of talk about the drive towards standardized testing in the US. The emphasis placed on those fill-in-the-bubble nightmares has increased since NCLB came into effect nearly ten years ago and it doesn't look that that will change any time soon with the Race to the Top reforms. Testing is seen a source of accountability to policy makers and a source of annoyance to teachers. I've posted about it before so I won't rant too much now about the negative consequences it has for students.

This post is about an obsession with testing that makes American testing look mild. I've been hearing about the testing my South Korean students have to take for months, but today I had a talk with my highest level class to see what was really up. The attendance for this class (and my other classes full of older students) has been pretty abysmal recently due to the frenzied studying these tests evoke, so I only had three kids to grill. Here is what I found out.

Korean elementary school children typically take four tests four or five times a year. They are tested in:

1. Korean
2. Math
3. Science
4. Social Studies

OK, that doesn't look so bad. But keep in mind that we are talking about seven year olds. I'm not sure about the policies in all states, but I do know that students aren't given statewide standardized tests in science and social studies in PA until 8th grade. Anyhow, the youngest student in this high level class is a precocious twelve year old girl, who is in the last year of Korean elementary school. She is not looking forward to the transition to middle school. And she has good reason; middle school students can expect to be tested in an additional 8-11 subjects on top of the four listed above:

5. Korean history
6. Traditional Korean words (the symbols used are different than the modern alphabet)
7. Science 1
8. Science 2
9. Morality (What!? I must get more information on this as a philosophy major with a concentration in ethics.)
10. English
11. Chinese/Japanese (depending on the school)
12. Art
13. Music
14. P. E.
15. Computers

Yes, they have written tests on art, music, and physical education. In middle school. I shudder to think what high school is like. And I no longer wonder why my students continually look drained. This just strengthens my resolve to make my classroom a fun, welcoming place. Unfortunately, I am required to test vocabulary on a daily basis and comprehension every third lesson. Poor kids. I sincerely hope are not forced to become test-taking machines as these children are.

I love these kids. It pains me to know how much pressure is on them to do well on tests.

And don't be fooled. Yes, a lot of my kids are brilliant. Korean education is often cited as a success by Americans. Even Diane Ravitch gave Korea a nod in her recent article noting that:

Countries like Finland, Japan and South Korea have improved their schools by offering a rich and broad curriculum in the arts and sciences, not by focusing only on testing basic skills, as we do.

Well, Koreans are certainly testing more subjects and more than basic skills. They are testing everything they can possibly think of and doing it rigorously. Is this what we want American education to look like?

And remember, correlation should not be confused with causation. Yes, many of my students (and many students in Korea) are very well educated, but I don't think it's because they are tested until they can't see straight. Education is seen as crucial in Korean culture and a lot of emphasis is put on it. This may have led to both an obsession with testing and brilliant children. I'd like the brilliant children, hold the obsession with testing, please.

Brain Drain

2010-11-28T11:17:00.004-05:00

I've been reading Superfreakonomics, the second book by economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner. I loved the first book and the second is well on its way to proving itself worthy. Both books are a bunch of rather random glimpses into the interesting information that can be revealed by a clever person gathering and analyzing the right data in the right way.

Most of it is just interesting to me, but a particular section struck close to home when I was reading yesterday. The chapter had to do with emergency rooms and how to analyze doctor effectiveness. As it turns out, women tend to be slightly more effective emergency room doctors than men. Go us. (It turns out that this is likely the case because better male doctors are more likely to go into higher paying specialties). But the caliber of female doctors also speaks to changes in our society that have occurred over the past 50 years. Now, women can be doctors. This was simply not an option for women graduating college in 1955. What were the options for women at this time? Well, there were three basic professions open to educated women: secretarial work, nursing, or education. As a result, a large percentage of educated women became educators themselves. Women began venturing into other, frequently more lucrative and prestigious, professions soon after.

As a consequence, the schoolteacher corps began to experience a brain drain. In 1960, about 40 percent of female teachers scored in the top quintile of IQ and other aptitude tests, with only 8 percent in the bottom. Twenty years later, fewer than half as many were in the top quintile, more than twice as many in the bottom. It hardly helped that teachers' wages were falling significantly in relation to those of other jobs. "The quality of teachers has been declining for decades," the chancellor of New York City's public schools declared in 2000, "and no one wants to talk about it.

In no way am I suggesting that there are not brilliant educators in our schools. I am certain there are, and many of them. I am also not suggesting that we were better off when the doors to most professions were closed to women, funneling a higher percentage of bright women into education. Both of those thoughts are absurd. What I am suggesting is that this 'brain drain' trend is unsettling. We need to find a way to make teaching an attractive option for bright people, men and women alike. Programs like Teach for America have started to bring a new sexiness into teaching, but it's not enough. Part of the problem is the lack of prestige associated with the profession and part of the problem is the comparatively low salary teachers can expect to make. I'm not sure how to address either of these, undoubtedly related, issues. But acknowledging their existence as a society is an important step in the right direction.

Longer School Days

2010-11-28T07:57:00.003-05:00

I was reading through the ed-news for the day and found this article written by a KIPP principal. The article is a directed towards the first ever female governor-elect of Oklahoma and is a set of suggestions on how education can be best improved in the state. Her recommendations include implementing common core standards. Good idea, I like it. She also suggests we create pathways to recruit and train better teachers. Also good, though I'm a little uncomfortable with the Teach for America plug. I agree that we need to get and keep good teachers in public schools. But I don't think Teach for America, or programs like it, are the answer.

Her third suggestion is to expand the school day and year. I know KIPP has longer school days, teaches some Saturday classes, and has a shorter summer recess. I've known that since I learned about KIPP a few years ago. But I'm really starting to get the 'more time in school' thing. In South Korea, kids study 24/7. They go to school on some Saturdays, they attend private after school academies, and they have less time off throughout the year. And they are pretty darn smart. I'm not advocating this approach, since I actually think South Korean kids study too much (or too much in the wrong way) and are probably developing less in some ways because of all their time studying, but I do think American kids need to be in school more.

The agrarian calendar we follow no longer makes sense. It was developed to allow kids to help their families on the farm during the busiest time of year, the summer. I'm pretty sure the kids I taught in Philly weren't out weeding the fields last June and I'm also pretty sure that if good summer programs were developed, those kids would benefit from them.

Check out this blog post that talks about the effects of summer vacation on poor kids. In short, more affluent students continue to learn during the summer- even when they aren't in school. Poor kids don't. They fall back. We need to have programs that keep the kids who would otherwise be wasting time watching TV engaged and learning. KIPP can do it, why can't the rest of the schools in the US? Yes, we'll have to pay our teachers more and they might complain. But the amount it would cost to do this is probably minuscule in comparison to our annual defense budget. And teachers who care about their kids should see reason and agree to an increase in workload.

Arne Duncan and Blog for Reform Day

2010-11-22T20:02:00.005-05:00

I just woke up in South Korea and was checking out twitter when I stumbled upon the hashtag #blog4reform. Monday, November 22 was declared "National Blogging for Real Education Reform Day" and it seems to have taken off. I can't believe I missed this yesterday, but it's been fun to have the whole day of blogging to sort through.

Lots of of people are got involved in this- including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Duncan says he's been 'listening in' and goes on to say:

Today’s conversation has focused on many issues that I think we can all agree on:

1. We need to raise expectations for America’s students and challenge them with standards that will prepare them for success in colleges and careers.
2. We need to elevate the teaching profession so teachers get the respect they deserve and the tools and time to do their jobs well and continually improve.
3. For education reform to be “real,” we need to focus on what works. We need consensus on the right way to measure students’ progress. And then we all need to hold ourselves accountable—and recognize those educators who are especially effective.
4. We need to involve parents as active partners in their children’s education so they can support the hard work that teachers do in the classroom.

So let's break this down. I think he is right that we can all agree on #1 and number #4. But he snuck some loaded words and ideas in there with #2 and #3. So we need to "elevate the teaching profession"? Anyone who thinks the teaching profession is being 'elevated' is deluded. Many teachers across the nation spoke out on this day in part to complain about how disrespected they feel. William Ferriter talks about his transformation into a teaching automaton here. I found several posts with similar complaints.

So how is the direction education reform is currently taking empowering educators? Educators are being stripped of their autonomy by ever tightening, sometimes scripted, curriculums that fill every minute of the day and are all too often focused on a standardized test at the end of the tunnel. This direction does not suggest Duncan really believes teachers deserve respect in our society.

As far as consensus goes, I don't see much of that happening either. Duncan says we need education reform to be "real" (whatever that means) and to focus on "what works". Catch phrase alert. Even as a US public school teacher for 6 months I started to realize that any new idea pushed on us, from scripted curriculum to board agendas, would be introduced as "what works". I'm all about things that actually work. Let's find some of those and maybe we can establish the consensus Duncan claims to feel is important.

Education Spending in Korea

2010-11-17T09:25:00.001-05:00

Today I gave my South Korean middle school students a writing prompt about their schools. I asked them to tell me one awesome thing about their school and three things they didn't like and would change if they could. The 'awesome thing' responses were no surprise: playground, lunchtime, gym class, etc. I expected the kids to savor every bit of leisure time they managed to squeeze into their days. And I also expected them to complain about how much they had to study, at least a little bit. But not a single student wrote anything that came close to 'too much studying' as something they didn't like and would change.

I first looked over one student's paper and thought he was joking around. He is not known for his work ethic in my class. He had written "doors, walls, floors" on his paper, with a few seemingly random words in between. But when I opened up this topic for discussion, one student after another started to complain about the physical condition of their schools. One girl told me about leaking ceilings, broken windows, and the general decrepitness of her school. Other students soon chimed in to a similar tune. This was, in fact, the only thing the kids complained about. This is a bit shocking for two reasons.

First, my kids complain about how hard they have to work a lot. I don't blame them, considering the amount of pressure on them and the sheer quantity of time they put into it every day. But not one of them mentioned disliking the work their school has them do. I can basically guarantee a healthy portion of American students would complain about this, given the opportunity, even though they typically work a lot less on academics than South Korean students.

Second, what is South Korea doing!? Koreans are obsessed with education. They respect it and those who make it possible. They frequently devote 28 or so years of their lives to it. They pay obscene amounts of money to make sure their kids get as much of it as possible. And yet, they are letting their schools fall apart? I had heard about public schools in less wealthy areas that are in substandard physical condition, but that's another issue. A lopsided distribution of spending in public education is sad, but not too surprising. However, my kids are upper middle class at least. They are not poor kids. They are not going to poor schools. So why are their schools falling apart? Granted, I haven't seen these schools, but their descriptions sounded pretty bleak.

I wasn't too surprised when I found that South Korea tops the list on public education spending (according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). In 2002, SK spent 6.8% of their GDP on public education. That's more than the US (6.5%) and Canada (6.6%). So what are they doing with this money? Apparently not fixing leaking roofs. Even my school in (a very poor area of) Philadelphia had the money to keep the building watertight.

I know a beautiful building does not guarantee a good education, but really South Korea? I'm going to have to do some investigations in these schools to check things out.

A Korean Perspective

2010-11-08T12:03:00.001-05:00

After teaching here in South Korea for a few months, I've gotten a feel for some differences in the approach this country takes to education (or at least the differences in the approach of the Korean people who send their kids to expensive private English academies and the people living in poverty in Philadelphia). I think it's worth considering some of these major differences and the effects they have on how children are educated. I'll also go through a few apparent differences that turn out to be similarities.

1. Korean kids work really hard. At least my kids do. I teach at a private English Academy, where families that can afford the tuition send their kids after public school is over to practice English. So I've got a pretty limited segment of the population here, but it's worth noting that the pressure put on these kids is pretty unbelievable. They do almost nothing but study. Several of them go to other academies during the week for math, science, and music as well. And when they do go home, they do homework. The kids all seem to accept this fate, though some do so reluctantly. There aren't sports in high school, though sometimes there are for teachers. Kids don't have social lives or extra-curricular activities. I'm not saying this is ideal, and I'll probably devote an entire post to the need for balance in Korea, but it works better than the laziness I encountered in my American students. Korean kids are all able to express why studying is so important. It's been drilled into their heads since they were toddlers. And they really seem to get it. They understand that they are doing all of this for a reason, which leads to number 2.

2. Koreans really believe education is the key to success. The children I taught in Philadelphia either did not believe this, did not have the self-discipline to act as if they believed it, had no faith in their own abilities to make good on the opportunities open to them, or had no faith that the system in place could actually provide a good education to them. Maybe this isn't such a big difference after all. My boyfriend teaches public school in a poorer area of Seoul, and his experience in many ways mirrors my own in Philadelphia (the poor man). His children seem to have accepted their fate as noodle delivery men and women, and aren't very invested in getting much out of school. Maybe if I taught in a wealthy private school in the US, I would encounter similar attitudes as my students have towards education. But overall, Korean children seem less rebellious in nature than American, so I still think I'd meet more slackers in the American private school than I do in my Korean private school (though I do have my chosen few slackers).

3. Teachers are respected in Korea. And this isn't just because my experience is limited to private school. In fact, private school English teachers are less respected than public school teachers. I'm talking about respect on a societal level. While teachers still aren't doctors here, they are several giant steps above teachers in the US in terms of social status. This relates to point #1- Koreans value education and they value those who devote their lives to making it possible. Teaching is actually considered a valid career option. Teachers back home are constantly being assaulted and undervalued, especially in the current political atmosphere.

4. Children are educated from a global perspective in Korea. Korea is a small enough country, and a humble enough one, to realize that it's important to have a good understanding of the outside world. This includes languages. Many children learn English and Chinese in addition to Korean. And I find my kids generally much better informed about the world at large than American kids (or adults, gasp). Many of us Americans are too full of ourselves as a nation to admit that we need to (and would benefit from) a better understanding of the world. I'm loving this opportunity to talk to kids about their world views. I'm molding responsible global citizens here.

5. English is the language of power here, as it is in the US, but it is a much more limited commodity here. If you are going to learn English, you generally have to pay a lot of money to do it. In some ways this makes it even more difficult for poor children to do well. Many good jobs require proficiency in English and unless you go to a public school with a good English program (read: school in a rich neighborhood) you are going to hav e to pay for private lessons. Even if you do go to a good public school you are probably going to have to pay for privates to really do well. In the US, a well spoken person without a negatively perceived way of speaking (i.e. how you would likely speak if you grew up poor) also has an advantage. But it's much easier to become well spoken in your native tongue than in a foreign one. Score one for the US.

I think I'll end it here for now. I'm going to make a list of similarities sometimes soon, so tune in for that.

Bill Gates in Education

2010-09-28T00:37:00.003-04:00

This is my first post from South Korea. I know I said I had intended to keep this blog going from over here, but truth be told things have been a bit busy with adjusting to the newness of it all. But I got something in my email today that prompted me to write:

Hey Kari,

I hope this finds you well. My name is Gabriel and I’m reaching out from Banyan Branch – a social media partner of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Given your interests in Education, I wanted to make sure you were aware of the $3 million contribution being donated to the city of New York in support of the Communities Learning in Partnership program. The grant, which will be paid out over the next 3 years, is part of a cooperative effort by the Gates Foundation and the National League of Cities to increase college completion rates among low-income students.

...

This story seems fairly relevant to your audience – if interested in covering it, additional content can be found at the Gates Foundation. Needless to say, you can feel free to contact me anytime with any questions you may have.

Thank you for your concern. We are huge supporters of your blog and wish you all the best.

Best,

Gabe Jacobs

How Gabe Jacobs has my email and knows about my blog is beyond me. It could be flattering, but mostly it's just strange. My blog is relatively new and my readership is not substantial. I guess it's your job, Gabe, but I don't know why someone is paying you to do this.

I'm also confused as to what Mr. Jacobs thought I'd write. I've never professed any support for big business in education. In fact, I think education is something that already too powerful corporations like IBM should stay away from. Their ideas about what will and will not work all too frequently go awry. Yes, it's nice to have money. Actually, it's essential. But we must be wary of the strings.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has thrown over 4 billion at education reform so far, primarily focusing on high school reform. And while Gates would claim he has done his research and is not flying blind, critics such as Diane Ravitch disagree. Lawrence Harmon sums it up in "Bill Gates' Risky Adventure"

In “The Death and Life of the Great American School System" Ravitch writes that Gates and other so-called venture philanthropists, including Eli Broad, are experimenting thoughtlessly. There is no proof, she writes, that Gates is on the right track now any more than he was from 2000-2008, when he pumped about $2 billion into a campaign to restructure large American high schools into smaller schools. That effort, writes Ravitch, was marginal at best.

I am actually sympathetic to the small school movement, but Gates had little success implementing his reform in this area. This is just one example of an expensive reform that did little to improve education. The Foundation is perfectly ready to provide ample evidence for their successes, but we all know how statistics can be manipulated to highlight positives. We shouldn't trust the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's assessment of their own performance.

The grant I was emailed about has to do with college graduation rates in low income communities. I'm not familiar enough with this issue to confidently say whether or not the grant is going in the right direction, but I doubt Bill Gates is either.

The bottom line: education is not a business. We are going down the wrong path if we allow people who run businesses for a living to decide how education should function in our society.

Race to the Top

2010-08-11T12:17:00.008-04:00

This is really just a place for me to rant a bit; anyone who has been following education will just think I'm stating the obvious. But I need to state it anyways.

Race to the Top is a 4 billion dollar federal education program. In order to get a chunk of that federal money states must go through a rigorous application process. According to the RTTT website:

Section 14006(c) of the ARRA requires at least 50 percent of Race to the Top funding to States to be sub-granted to participating LEAs according to their relative shares of funding under the ESEA Title I, Part A program for the most recent year.

States have considerable flexibility in awarding or allocating the remaining 50 percent of their Race to the Top awards, which are available for State-level activities, disbursements to LEAs, and other purposes as the State may propose in its plan.

This basically means that half the money needs to go to LEAs, "Local Education Agencies" as they is defined by each state. In some states, this means that the money must go to traditional public schools. In other states, public charters are technically part of Local Education Agencies, and therefore funds distributed to these schools count towards the 50%. I've already ranted enough about charter schools for a while. Who knows when I'll be overcome with the urge to do it again, but it's not now.

So this RTTT program sounds pretty lenient, right? States have flexibility! Or do they? Elsewhere on the RTTT site we get this:

Through Race to the Top, we are asking States to advance reforms around four specific areas:
Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and to compete in the global economy;
Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction;
Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and
Turning around our lowest-achieving schools.

This is a little more specific. Though the last one is too vague to mean anything. Who doesn't want to turn around our lowest-achieving schools? But the first three reveal the not so hidden agenda. Standards and assessments. Yes, we know you politicians are obsessed with those already. No Child Left Behind already showed us that. I'm all for high standards, but putting such an emphasis on assessing inevitably leads to lots of unintended and undesirable consequences. I know I've talked about this before (specifically about tying teacher pay to test scores) and you can also quickly read about it on one teacher's, Joe Bower's, blog.

The third one about getting, rewarding, and keeping the best teachers and principals is a thinly veiled push towards merit pay (presumably based at least partly on test scores), and also probably an attack on Teachers Unions. If they want to get and keep the effective teachers, this probably means they want to avoid and get rid of the ineffective ones. And I agree that there needs to be accountability, but I'm afraid of the methods that would be used to weed out "ineffective" teachers. Again, I'm not saying that teachers should had indefinite job security, no matter how terrible they are, but we need to come up with reliable ways for assessing teachers.

We should also make sure teachers get the support and development they need to keep from giving up or burning out. It might take a few years for teachers to really get it; new teachers need adequate time to develop before they're handed pink slips. And I've come across many a teacher who has burnt out or given up. While that's not the right thing to do, sometimes when you are in an out of control school and every day feels like a battle giving up is a tempting option. Teachers who cannot work miracles should not be blamed for a system that is failing.

And data is another hot thing in education. I'm more open to this idea, but still resent the top down approach for getting teachers and schools to buy it. This is why I take issue with RTTT. They are clearly looking for something very specific in each application. In the first round, only two states were selected to receive grants. Duncan says they "set a very a high bar in the first phase". What he means is they set the bar just where they wanted it and any state that does not think the government's reform ideas are the right ones will simply have to suck it up. States desperately need the money this grant offers. Duncan is saying- my way or the highway.

I do think it was a good move to pick states in the first round that had bipartisan support in the state and the support of the Teacher's Unions. Shoving reforms down an unwilling teacher's throat is not going to do the trick, no matter how wonderful you make all of the reforms sound. But I seriously doubt Duncan can get the majority of teachers in the US to buy into their reform agenda. Which is just one more reason it isn't likely to help schools or children at all.

Camden to Close Libraries

2010-08-07T17:57:00.007-04:00

I was shocked when my mother shared this news with me yesterday. Quick recap of the article- Camden is making plans to close each of the three public libraries currently open in the city. Officials claims there just isn't enough money to keep the libraries open:

The library received $935,000 from the city and $88,000 from the state last year.

This year, the library asked the city for $823,000 and considered the 12 percent reduction a way to share in the sacrifice, interim library director Jerome Szpila said.

But the mayor offered only $281,666 - nearly a 70 percent cut.

According to the library system, this is not enough money to qualify for any additional state aid, or to keep any of the three libraries open next year.

This is preposterous. Who would dare propose closing all of the public libraries in a city that so desperately needs and depends on this public service? Sure, the budget in the state is in crisis, but no one is proposing closing libraries in wealthier parts of the state, are they? And those places certainly have less of a need for public libraries than Camden.

Google 'poverty and public libraries' and you'll stumble upon a multitude of sites that highlight the need for public libraries in impoverished areas. Libraries have historically served as a safe haven for underrepresented groups, both educating and empowering them. Check out "Poverty, Democracy, and Public Libraries" to read more about how libraries historically have provided many important services for poor people and underrepresented groups.

The article on the library closings in Camden notes that many of the public schools in Camden do not have their own libraries. The plight of school libraries will provide enough material for a future post, but suffice it to say that children who do not have books available at school should have access to the services of a library in the community. I'm yelling in my head right now.

Some may argue that libraries are no longer relevant: who needs piles of books when we have the internet? But libraries are evolving too. While books will hopefully never go out of style (self-confessed bibliophile), libraries are keeping up with the times. Digital librarianship, media studies, and other high-tech sounding specialties are on the rise. While I gravitate towards books, most libraries are aware of the changing demands of the public and ready to meet these demands with new tools. Many public library users primarily utilize computer services to which they would otherwise not have access. Imagine your life without the internet.

I nearly attended Rutgers School of Communication Sciences this fall to pursue a career in librarianship, though I decided to defer until next year in order to teach abroad. I've also worked in a library at the University of Vermont. So I've got a bit of experience in this area. And though I'm not expert, I whole-heartedly believe that libraries are now more than ever one cornerstone of a free society. I sincerely hope people come to their senses.

A Job in South Korea!

2010-07-28T17:00:00.016-04:00

Just wanted to announce that I've decided to spend a year teaching English in South Korea. I will be living and working in Seoul (in Hongdae to be specific). I start at the end of August and I'm excited to be abroad for a year!

I'm also very excited to have my own classroom again. It will certainly be a different experience than teaching in Philadelphia... My school is a private language academy that students can enroll in for afternoon classes after they are finished with public school in the morning. There is one difference right there- the students who will be in my classes will have parents who paid for them to be there. Those parents, and presumably also the students, are likely to be very invested in getting as much out of my class as possible. That's huge. I'm also told there will be as few as 10 students in each of my classes. Another huge difference. I'm really looking forward to developing my skills as a teacher in this much more supportive environment. Though I have never taught English, I did study it in college and I'm much more comfortable with it than I am with science (which I have taught). I really can't wait to get started. Here are a few pictures of my future school:

Presumably the front of the school

"Science Cooking Room" - Cute, google translation, cute.

Play room. Excellent, I love playing.

I'll be creating another blog to post about my adventures in Korea. That blog will be of a more personal nature than this one, though I will probably also write a lot about my experiences in education over there. I intend to continue following trends in American education and posting on this blog as well.

Stay tuned for the adventures.

(I couldn't resist adding this one taken at my future school. I won't be teaching the little little ones, but they are pretty darn cute.)

US Students Lack Focus

2010-07-25T13:45:00.017-04:00

A friend of mine shared this NPR story with me. There are a lot of issues addressed in this short story and it definitely got me thinking.

According to the College Completion Agenda, the US now ranks 12th in college completion rates out of 36 developed countries. That's the fact. It gets complicated when you start trying to figure out the reasons it is the case and the consequences of it.

So let's look at the first question. Why are we falling behind? The article suggests two major reasons:

1. Students are not properly prepared in K-12.
2. College costs a lot.

I agree that we probably are not doing a great job of preparing students for college. The fact that 25% of freshman need remedial courses paints a pretty poor picture of college readiness. But I'm not going to talk about that right now because the question of why students are poorly prepared for college is too big for one post.

I'd like to briefly talk about the cost of college these days- which is absurd. In no other developed country are students saddled with tens of thousands in debt simply to graduate college. If we want kids to graduate college, we should not create such a disincentive for them to enroll.

Granted, other countries have their own problems with selecting who is eligible to attend college since it is largely subsidized by the government. And if you think about it, both our country (in which there are a theoretically unlimited number of seats in colleges), and in other countries (where the government decides who is good enough to go and there are a limited number of seats), students don't have much say in whether or not they end up enrolling in college. Here it is 'decided' for them based on academic performance and ability/willingness to pay for school. How does that work out in reality? If you went to a decent school and your parents have some money, you are much more likely to be ready for college, academically and financially. So the kids who lived in underserved neighborhoods with substandard schools, whose parents likely don't have anything to contribute financially, have a tough time being admitted and paying for school. The cards are stacked against them. At least in most European countries, even if students are not equally prepared, ability to pay is not taken into consideration. The cards are still stacked against students who weren't lucky enough to attend the best schools, but not as much as they are here.

I ranted longer than I intended to about the cost of college. As a recent college graduate, with students loans to boot, it's a bit of a sore spot for me. What I really wanted to write about was this:

Caperton says, the main reason the U.S. now ranks 12th in college completion among 36 developed nations is because from kindergarten to high school, students are not getting a quality education and even if they do make it to college, they lack focus.

That last part, about lacking focus, is what I set out to consider in this post. It's just taken me a while to get there.

Like I just said, I recently graduated college. And I noticed something while I was there. I noticed that many of my peers had few good reasons to be spending a boat-load of money and four years of time attending college. I went to a state school, so I'm sure this experience isn't the same across the board, but I'm also sure it still applies to a large number of college students. Why do students go to college when they graduate? They think they have to in order to get any decent job. And they figure they can spend fours year without any real responsibilities, partying away. This second reason is definitely not a good one. The first one could be, but then again I'm not sure.

As I apply for jobs, I've noticed that there are many positions available that are only open to college grads, but few seem to require any high level skills that one might need to go to college to learn. A college degree seems to have turned into the new high school degree. Just a much more expensive version, with a few more years to slack off. I realize I'm painting a pretty bleak picture of the average college student, but I don't think I'm entirely off base. There are definitely students who are in college because they love learning and hope to do something with their lives that actually requires further education. I say 'actually requires' here meaning the jobs they will have will utilize their college educations, as opposed to simply requiring it to apply or be hired. Why does a receptionist need a college education? If someone wants to be a receptionist that's perfectly fine, but why does that person need to spend four years in college?

My high school guidance counselor used to say, "college isn't for everyone!" And I think he's right. It would be fantastic if there were more students in college for the right reasons, spending four years developing the knowledge and skills they will use in their future careers. Lots of kids doing that is what we need to make sure the US doesn't fall behind other developed countries, not simply a greater number of students in college. We need more students with the right mindset. And that seems to harken back to the original problem of students not being adequately prepared for college. They aren't prepared academically or mentally. They don't have the skills or mindsets to thrive in a college environment. And there is no easy fix for that. We're back to the question that is too big for one post.

Dabbling in Teaching

2010-07-12T16:47:00.022-04:00

My friend and co-author of D. C. Skeptics brought my attention to this article that was in the NYT yesterday. I realized I haven't written at all about TFA since my original TFA post, in which I remember promising to write much more. The truth is, I think TFA is such a complex organization and there are so many issues to address that I find it intimidating to write about. I'm also not sure how impartial I can be as an ex-corps member. In some ways I'm more likely to trash them because I had a negative experience and in other ways I'm more likely to defend them because I decided to do TFA in the first place and went through their training (which could have brainwashed me). I'll try to be unbiased.

It's good that a lot of articles are being written that are more critical (or at least dubious) of TFA. They've gotten so much good press and they must have the best PR team in the world, so it's nice to start hearing more people in the mainstream media question TFA's mission and methods. Lots of people in education have been against TFA for years, but people in education tend to be ignored (anyone noticed how little support RTTT has in the education community?). I guess they figure professional teaching schools (and those trained in them) aren't doing such a hot job solving problems in urban schools as it is, so why listen to their complaints about an innovative approach to get smart people into classrooms? It's assumed that people who speak out:

1. think their teaching jobs are threatened by alternatively certified teachers.
2. feel schools of education will suffer (lose money) if teacher training is radically changed.
3. resent the fact that they just paid to go to school for four years to get trained while some Ivy League business grad can do it in six weeks.

It's natural for there to be some tension between people who have received traditional teacher training for these reasons. They're not good reasons, but that doesn't mean professional educators don't have good reasons for anti-TFA positions. Like this:

Dr. Heilig and Su Jin Jez of California State University, Sacramento, recently published a critical assessment after reviewing two dozen studies. One study cited indicated that “by the fourth year, 85 percent of T.F.A. teachers had left” New York City schools.

and this:

Teach for America press releases cite a 2008 Harvard doctoral thesis indicating that 61 percent of their recruits stay beyond the two-year commitment. However, that same thesis also says “few people are estimated to remain in their initial placement school or the profession beyond five or six years” — a finding not highlighted in the releases.

I think this might be the biggest problem I have with TFA. Forget the fact that they throw people into situations they have no idea how to handle. Forget the fact that corps members are probably below average first year teachers (as compared to traditionally certified first year teachers. Forget the fact that TFA spends a hell of a lot of money to do all this. I might be willing to swallow all of it and support TFA if they could show that placing a corps member in a school will have a lasting, positive impact on education- and that means staying longer than 2, 3, or 4 years. Teaching should not be a stepping stone to an Ivy League law school. It shouldn't be a rite of passage or a resume booster. I admit I found these reasons appealing when I applied, but they aren't good reasons for an organization to exist. And I don't really buy the whole 'our alumni have a lasting impact' thing. What percentage of alumni go on to have a significant impact on urban education? And what percentage would have done so if TFA didn't exist?

This is why I'm more in favor of programs like the Teaching Fellows (Biology and Blueberry teacher went through this program)- they explicitly state that they hope and expect to place teachers in classrooms long term. It seems like an awful lot of money for TFA to invest in a teacher that will likely be gone in a couple of years. I've heard from my friend that Teaching Fellows gives a lot less support than TFA does throughout the first year. Why is it that people who are more likely to commit to long term careers as teachers are receiving less support and training than TFA corps members? TFA encourages dabbling in teaching and teaching should not be viewed as something in which to dabble.

Thirteen Days with an Educator

2010-07-06T22:28:00.009-04:00

I'm back from my trip to the south with two great girls, one of whom is a HS Bio teacher in Philadelphia. Check out her blog here. We debated about education several times throughout the trip and a held a few informal info sessions for our other road tripper who was less familiar with issues in education than she is today (hopefully).

Bio Teacher and I share a passion for education and a desire to see it improved. That being said, it seemed we didn't always agree on the best ways to go about improving it. She seemed more supportive of charters for one thing, which could be a product of her having spent more time teaching in a not-so-hot public school. But as we talked I realized she too has a healthy skepticism about charters. She remains hopeful that charters can work- but isn't ready to place all her eggs in that basket. I think this is how most people who are skeptical of charters also feel, but we tend to take a more negative position on charters in order to counteract the sunshine and rainbows view that most reformers take.

If you look back in my posts you'll notice a distinctly negative take on the charter movement, save one post in which I admit my sympathies. It's hard not to have sympathies. There are some stellar charter schools and as a teacher in a pretty bad public school I often wished my better students had the opportunity to learn in a better environment. Do those who speak out against charters want to see all charters closed? I don't think so. I think most of us are just wary of the unbridled growth of charters. Studies have shown mixed results in charters- there are likely as many bad ones as there are good ones. And when charters are put in the spotlight, less focus is given to public schools that truly need help. I don't think a wholesale approach (all charter or all public) is viable at this point, and we need to focus on improving the caliber of both charter and public schools. I personally think this means slowing the growth of charters, providing more oversight to ensure they are not doing anything fishy financially, providing an accurate rating of charters so everyone can see how they compare other charters and public schools, and also focusing on improving public schools.

This post is my first step towards becoming a moderate supporter of charters. When I first joined TFA I was all for them. I loved the logic of the charter movement and the exciting results many charters were attaining. Post-TFA, I read Diane Ravitch's book and a host of other material on the negative impacts of charters. And now I'm finding some middle ground. I wish that other educators and education reformers would do the same. Check out this Washington Post article "What Ghandi would think about The Lottery" for an educator calling for a similar stance.

What do you think? I'm especially interested to see what Bio and Blueberries teacher thinks of this post. And I'm fully expecting a response from her, no matter how daunting that may seem to her.

(Side note: I know charters are technically "public" schools, but for the sake of convenience I'm going to refer to traditional public schools as 'public schools'.)

Road trip with a teacher

2010-06-29T03:26:00.002-04:00

I haven't posted in quite a while and that's largely due to the fact that I have been traveling. I'm on a road trip- so far we have hit Nashville, Tennessee; Jackson and Natchez, Mississippi; and New Orleans, Louisiana. We're going to Atlanta before we head home to the Boswash (this is an exciting new term I learned that refers to the area between Boston and DC). I'm traveling with two great people, one of whom is a teacher who just completed her first year in Philadelphia (Dani). When I get home I'll post more about some of the great discussions we've had during our treks.

43.6%- The New Passing Grade

2010-06-04T11:10:00.008-04:00

This article had me hoping to read an inspiring story about real progress- the title 'Dallas schools see widespread gains in TAKS results' certainly sounds promising. The article begins:

Most of Dallas ISD's chronically failing high schools made dramatic gains on state tests this spring, possibly catapulting them off the state's list of low performers.

and then later:

The district saw overall gains in all test subjects and nearly all grade levels and student groups, including students challenged by poverty and language barriers that can influence school work.

Great! So what are Dallas' secrets? Smaller classrooms, more professional development for teachers and administrators, new instructional techniques? No, Texas simply lowered the score required to pass the exam.

...in 2009, students needed to answer 27 of 55 questions correctly (49.1 percent) to pass the social studies test. This year's test required 24 correct answers (43.6 percent) to pass.

State education officials and testing experts say that changing the number of questions required to be answered correctly is a routine effort to ensure that the difficulty of a test remains stable from one year to the next.

That last paragraph sounds like a lot of bologna to me. As if the 2009 49.1% bar wasn't low enough! How many people thinking of 43.6% when they think of a passing score? According to the article, 89-98% of juniors statewide "passed" the exams for the four tested subjects.

This is just another example of the perverse consequences of NCLB. Texas didn't want all of it's schools to fail to make AYP- they'd lose money and look bad. So they lowered the scores required to pass. Texas is certainly not the first or last state to pull a move like this- and the trends are likely to continue under the test-centric Race to the Top grants.

I find it interesting that Texas happens to be absent from the list of states who have agreed to implement the Common Core Standards recently released. There may be drawbacks to such national standards, but if there were national exams with national passing grades based on national standards- things like this wouldn't happen.

NY Raises Charter Cap

2010-05-28T22:19:00.000-04:00

NY passed legislation today that increased the charter cap from 200 to 460. Here are three of the important provisos of the law:

1. No for-profit charters
2. Charters will be audited by the state controller
3. Charters are to enroll comparable numbers of high need (English language learners and special education) students as public schools

These seem like good moves. I'm cautiously supportive of the first because my gut tells me that there should not be a margin of profit when it comes to educating children. Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, puts it well: "I don't like people who are in this business to make money off the backs of kids." Some argue that for-profit charters have several advantages over non-profits and this could be true. But my instinct is to side with the legislators here.

I'm especially supportive of #2- check out my last post to read about some seriously fishy financial moves several NY charter schools have made.

I'm an even bigger fan of the third. The NYT notes:

One major criticism of charter schools is that they have not enrolled the students who struggle the most. The bill passed Friday will require them to enroll, and to retain, students who are still learning English, have disabilities or receive free or reduced-price lunches, in “comparable” numbers to their local school districts. It was unclear how such rules would be enforced.

What I'm worried about is that last sentence. Ideally, charters would be able to specialize and serve ELL and special ed students better than public schools rather than avoiding them. But no one wants low test scores. How will the charters be forced to enroll at least their fair share of high need students?

Passing this bill will certainly increase New York's chances in Race to the Top. The charter cap hurt NY in the last round. The Wall Street Journal says:

The Legislature also passed a bill that would tie teacher evaluations to student test scores, an area where New York lost points in the first round of the Race to the Top competition.

Merit pay is another big component of RTTT, for better or worse- I'm thinking worse.

Financial Embarrassments in Charters

2010-05-26T08:29:00.001-04:00

The privately managed charter school has been touted as something of a miracle fix in public education. A large part of the Race to the Top scoring system is based on the number of new charters allowed to open their doors in a state. But it's not clear whether charters are, across the board, up to snuff.

There are certainly some charters that have achieved stellar results. These schools tend to hire non-unionized teachers who work long hours and have been known to spend much more per pupil than public schools. The sustainability of this is not a given. But there are other charters that have been less successful. This NYT article points out some of the financial discrepancies charters have been embarrassed by. But the state controllers office, which is authorized to audit the spending of public schools, has been given a court order prohibiting it from looking into the financial affairs of charters.

Before that court ruling was issued last year, the comptroller’s office completed audits of 18 charter schools around the state. Fourteen had significant financial irregularities, including one school that spent $67,951 on staff trips to the Caribbean, according to officials.

Staff trips to the Caribbean!?

Teach for America

2010-05-25T08:21:00.001-04:00

My friend and current TFA corps member just shared this article with me. Really great read if you've got the time- I can't wait for the book.

The article got me thinking about TFA and their mission again. For those of you who don't know, TFA recruits top college grads to teach in underserved urban and rural schools. The corps commit to two years in the classroom in their assigned region. According to the TFA website:

Our mission is to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting our nation's most promising future leaders in the effort.

Notice the lack of specifics about how the nation's most promising future leaders will be enlisted. TFA is purposely vague about this because the impact of alumni is thought to be an important component of the overall impact.

And TFA has produced some notable alumni, including Michelle Rhee (chancellor of the DC schools), and Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg (founders of KIPP). TFA claims that 93% of alum report they address TFA's mission through career, philanthropy, volunteer, and/or graduate study. TFA doesn't mention the percentage of alum who responded to the survey, but I do think most TFA alum stay involved in some way. It's hard to imagine them not staying involved after the intense, eye-opening experience that is teaching in an underserved school- though you can read about a study that found TFA drop-outs or those who were accepted and did not join had higher levels of civic engagement than alums here. (This is heartening for me.)

But what about the two years corps members spend in a classroom. TFA gives all sorts of statistics about how successful TFA teachers (first year, and more so second year) are in the classroom. I did not see this played out in my own experience as a first year teacher. There were a few corps members who seemed to be doing well, but most everyone was miserable- mostly because we felt we were not doing well. It's worth noting that the teachers who felt they were doing alright tended to be in better schools. Granted, I only interacted with a small number of CMs and I left halfway through the year- mostly because I felt I wasn't doing a good enough job with my students, which caused me a unreal amount of stress.

My own experience aside, I'm really not sure what I think of TFA as an organization. I know that most every CM and TFA staff I came into contact with is passionate about and committed to TFA's mission. They are there for the right reasons. But it takes more than good intentions. TFA would be the first to admit that its the results that matter.

So how many of the over 7,000 2010 incoming coprs members will really make "significant gains" in their first year? How many in their second? How many children will be affected in a life-changing sort of way? How many corps memebrs will continue to teach after their two year commitment is up? How many will even make it through their entire two year commitment? And how many will go on to do something about the achievement gap after they have stopped teaching? What will their impact be? All of these questions need to be considered in order to gauge how successful TFA is in accomplishing its mission. This is my first post of many about TFA. I'll need a lot more space to thoroughly address the data and my views on all of these questions. And that's without touching on the monetary/political entanglements the first article I linked brings up. Come back for more soon.

For comic relief before the next post see this Onion article.

Really Texas?

2010-05-21T23:13:00.000-04:00

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is inappropriate. Do we really want this room full of people deciding what is going to be taught in Texas, let alone the rest of the US?

Arne Duncan claims that the state's decision will not have a ripple affect here, but experts disagree. Texas and California hold a lot of sway with the biggest textbook publishers due to their size. The standards Texas passes will surely affect the textbooks students in other states read.

Some educators and policy experts have pushed for national standards and the public has been by and large supportive of this (in 1997, a poll showed that 70% supported national standards- 41% even said the government should set the standards). We still have a disjointed mishmash of state standards, many of which have been criticized for being too broad and lacking depth. This affects the implementation of NCLB because different states test different material and use different cut offs for proficiency. There is an initiative to create national standards for English and math that 48 state governors have agreed to implement, but that leaves social studies wide open.

One state that is notably absent from the Common Core State Standards Initiative? Texas. Why bother agreeing to national standards when they already have so much influence over other the standards of other states. They have nothing to gain. Alaska is also missing. Who knows what they're planning!

School Choice- Private Vouchers

2010-05-21T08:27:00.000-04:00

At first glance, this idea seems like a more extreme version of public charters. Supporters of private vouchers hope to create a system where each student can chose any school and her public funds will follow her there. This includes all kinds of schools- public, charter, or private. The idea seems like it will create a brain drain in public schools just as the charter movement does. More motivated students leave the public schools, which in this case lose not only better students but funding. It seems like a bad situation to me.

But, though my last post might not show it, I do have sympathy for both the charter movement and private vouchers. If I were a parent, I would want the option of enrolling my child in a charter or private school if the public school in our neighborhood was not up to snuff. It's a matter of cost-benefit analysis. If you allow students to leave public schools and take their funding with them, they stand a good chance of getting a better education (assuming they choose a reputable school). But the public school they leave behind, and the children who still attend that school, are left worse off- especially if the child leaving takes public money with her to her new school. Here is a bit of an interview from Education Sector, an independent education think tank, that I think sums up the situations pretty well.

ES: If you give kids public money to attend private schools some students will be able to go to private schools. But won't most be excluded because there are only a small number of private-school seats?

LP: We use the Harriet Tubman model. Tubman was a great American hero who brought many enslaved Africans to freedom in Canada, most of the way on foot. Her approach was this: I understand there's an abolitionist movement, and I obviously support the abolishment of slavery. Slavery's bad; it should go away. We should be out there speaking out for an emancipation proclamation to free everybody. But in the meantime, these 12 people here, I'm gonna take personal responsibility for getting them to Canada to freedom. Then I'm gonna come back and get 12 more, and I'm going to keep making those trips until I can't make those trips anymore.

So rather than view [vouchers for private school tuition] as a triage situation, we view it as more of a by-any-means-necessary kind of approach to obtaining freedom [from bad public schools]. While you fight on the one hand for large scale policy change, in the meantime you work on what you might call interim policies, you try to help as many kids as possible.

This interview is with Lawrence Patrick III, who heads the lobbying campaign Black Alliance for Educational Options. And I do understand his basic point. Allowing vouchers for private schools will doubtless allow some students to get out of bad public schools and improve their own education and life options. If the public school that student is leaving is bad to begin with, does it matter too much if it is made a little worse off by some students leaving?

This seems like another recipe for a two-tiered school system. Though I understand why that might seem like a better option than a bad one-tiered school system. To me it seems that we should either go one way or the other- we should really concentrate on improving the public schools and get rid of the idea of school choice, or go all for school choice. If we go all for school choice we'd have to tweak some things to make sure it would work. We'd have to have a reliable third party grading system that allows parents and students to easily see the strengths and weaknesses of each school and we'd have to make sure all students choose a school- not just allow them to opt out of choosing (and thereby end up at one of the worse schools). It does seem like we are closer to going in this direction than we are in the direction of really concentrating on traditional public schools.

The Charter Epidemic

2010-05-19T17:59:00.000-04:00

I'm going to tackle the big one here- charters, the current craze in education. The idea of charters seemed promising at first, just as the idea of teacher pay tied to test scores did. But after reconsidering the ramifications of a swift rise in the number of charter schools and analyzing the data we have from current charters schools, the promise has begun to fade. I've actually become quite nervous about the unbridled growth of the charter industry. I'll tell you why.

Charters were originally proposed as a means for educating children the public schools were failing for one reason or another. Students who were very behind academically or had severe behavior problems would be put into a small charter, within the building of their original school, and a team of teachers would try new ways to reach these students. This sounded all well and good. The students would be getting the special attention they needed without holding back their peers and teachers would experiment with new ways to teach them. But this is not the kind of charter that took off. Instead charters have become an alternative to public schools for all children. In fact, they enroll proportionately less students with behavioral and academic problems. They also tend to enroll fewer foster children and children whose first language is not English.

It turns out that charters have a number of advantages going for them- for one, they can skim the best students. It's true that public charters are required to chose their students by lottery, but they have other means of securing the better students. They can kick out, or push out, students who fail to meet their discipline codes or academic standards. Public schools have a much harder time doing this. I know this from personal experience- we were only allowed to expel one student from the public school where I taught. She had brought a knife to school (and had a hefty discipline record to boot). But weapons seemed to be the only way to get a kid out. Fights broke out on a daily basis, kids were incredibly disrespectful towards teachers, and the majority of the students were far, far behind academically. I know several charter school teachers who were shocked that this sort of behavior occurred at my school (not the academic part, we all struggled with some form of that). One teacher told me one of her favorite students had been expelled for getting in a fight. One fight! Charters can get rid of the problem students, and where do you think those students go? Right back to the public schools, where they stay.

And are the charters successful? Let's take KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) as an and illustrative example. KIPP was founded by TFA alum Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg in 1994 and is the largest charter chain in America. The schools appear to have a pretty impressive track record. What is KIPP doing differently than public schools? First of all, to go to KIPP, you have to apply to go to KIPP. Given the fact that most fourth graders will not take the initiative to apply on their own to a charter school, this automatically disqualifies students whose families are not already invested in the education of their children. This is universally true for charters- you have to apply to get in.

Once you're in it's no easy go. KIPP requires students and their families to commit to an increased level of involvement. This frequently includes longer school days, school on Saturday, school during the parts of the summer, etc. It's true that the children who are able to stay with it through KIPP benefit from the program. But a study by SRI International in 2008 found that

... 60 percent of students who entered fifth grade at four Bay Area KIPP schools in 2003-04 left before completing eighth grade.

So 40% of the students made it through. And this is after KIPP had already skimmed off the students who came from the more motivated families. KIPP is not designed to serve every student, it is designed to serve the students who are willing and able to get through the program- the best students.

As an ex-TFA teacher myself, I can anticipate the flinches I would get if I voiced that last sentence to the founders of KIPP. TFA is completely committed to the idea that every student can learn and that intelligence is not something you are born with, but something you work towards. Work hard, get smart. I'm not saying all students can't learn. I truly believe they can. But the charter model is not working towards the goal of helping all students learn.

What about the 60% who didn't make it? Or the huge percent that probably didn't even apply in the first place? They were back in the public schools. Which doubtless suffered for having lost their best students to charters, most of which are not nearly as good as KIPP. But, thanks in part to a relatively arbitrary grading system by the federal government (more on this later) most any charter is able to drain the public schools of the more committed (and therefore talented) students.

I doubt this is the goal charter supporters have in mind. Anyone familiar with business will know that competition drives quality up and prices down. If anyone can open a school and schools are allowed to compete for students, the students and their parents will be able to pick and choose the best schools. Schools that are not good will not enroll students and will close. Schools that are good will replicate and this will gradually drive up quality. This makes sense to the business people who are currently pouring money into education. It makes sense to the Corporate CEOs with no backround in education who have become superintendents. I think it even almost made sense to educators. But there has been a push back against charters recently, largely due to the reasons I've mentioned.

Diane Ravitch, noted education historian and scholar, points out that the proliferation of charters will create a two-tiered public system. Many of the motivated children from families that value education, who do not have disciplinary issues, learning disabilities, or speak English as a second language will end up in charter schools. Most of these charter schools will be better than the public schools the previously mentioned children were skimmed from (more later about the idea of letting anyone who feels like it open a charter school, for profit). The rest of the students will be left to fail in the failing public schools. Is this the education system of a democracy? Shouldn't every child have the right to an equal chance at a good education? If we give up on our public schools, we give up on this ideal.

Teacher Pay Tied to Test Scores? Bad Idea.

2010-05-18T20:48:00.000-04:00

At one time I found this idea very appealing. You hear it all the time- those terrible teacher's unions, they protect bad teachers... get the bad teachers out and reward the good ones. Teachers who speak out against tying their pay to test scores are assumed to be attempting to shirk their responsibilities and continue on cheating students out of a good education. But there are overwhelming reasons to not implement this idea, especially not with the standardized tests we currently use.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) cemented the test score craze in our schools. Suddenly struggling schools were punished for failing to improve their scores enough in a given year by a decrease in funding. Someone actually thought it would be a good idea to take away money from struggling schools.

This had a number of negative affects on education. Schools began to narrow their curricula in order to focus on whatever happened to be on their state standard (each state has a different standard). But the only things that really counted were math and reading. So many successful science, social studies, art, and music programs, which have time and again proven to be valuable in education, were gradually eliminated from schools. I myself just came from a K-8 science teaching position in a school where I was all too often the only person teaching science to the children- 45 minute a week.

And the curriculum wasn't only narrowed, it was also dumbed down. Filling in bubbles became the key to success. Kids needed to know how to answer a multiple choice question- not how to think critically, analyze arguments, come up with creative solutions to problems, etc. There is no way a multiple choice test can accurately gauge higher level thinking skills. Since these skills were deemed to be unimportant by their absence on tests, they became unimportant in the classroom. Teachers had to focus on the tests, and the tests were not rigorous.

At the school I just left, the teachers were unbelievably strapped for time. We had two periods a day where students went to "corrective" math and reading classes in order to bring their scores up. These classes were entirely scripted. Yes, we had to read out of a book for an hour and a half a day. These were "proven" methods that were going to "move our kids" up levels like we wouldn't believe. This was a district mandated program for every school that was deemed to be failing. Every adult in the building taught the classes- not just the teachers. The gym teacher and counselors taught reading and math. This is simply insulting to teachers who are trained to teach literacy and mathematics. It takes all creativity out of the process and implies that teachers are not able to come up with effective lessons on their own. And as for myself- the lessons from the book always went terribly for me. The students were bored out of their minds, even though I tried to spice things up as much as I could while staying within the script.

It turned out that a narrowed and dumbed down curriculum wasn't enough to raise test scores. So states began to dumb down the tests. NCLB set the (unrealistic) goal of 100% of proficiency in reading and mathematics by 2014 and states began to panic when schools failed to make annual yearly progress (AYP). So in order to make more students reach proficiency, states made tests easier and lowered the minimum score required to be proficient. Suddenly proficiency statistics shot up. Supporters of the law hailed it as a success.

I ask you, if the emphasis placed on tests scores in NCLB has narrowed and dumbed down the curricula, taken away from teacher creativity, and still failed to produce a gain in test scores (which aren't an accurate measurement of true learning to begin with), why in the world should we tie teacher pay to test scores? That will only intensify the negative impact of NCLB. I'm all about teacher accountability, but obsessing over test scores is not the way to go here.

Thanks to Diane Ravitch for writing her latest book 'The Life and Death of an American School System' and clarifying all this in my mind.

Who are you and what are you doing here?

2010-05-18T18:00:00.000-04:00

My first post! How invigorating. Well, let's start off.

My name is Kari Dalane. I'm starting this blog in order to share my thoughts about and (my few) experiences in the American Education System. Come to think of it, as a publicly educated student myself (Kindergarten through Bachelor of Arts!), I have substantially more than a few experiences. But I've only recently begun to think of the system as, well, systemic.

I'm fascinated, and frankly troubled, by this perspective. I'm an ex-Teach for America corps member. My glimpse of the public schools some of our children attend has been brief, but it has left quite an impression. I want to spend my life working to improve the education available to American children. I don't pretend to know at all how to go about doing this- I'm the first to admit that, but you have to start somewhere.

I'm planning to post on my experiences in the classroom and my take on what is happening nationwide in American schools. I'd be thrilled if my posts developed dialogue about what's going on in the schools. Dialogue is certainly a vitally important step towards change, hopefully for the better. Four months in a classroom showed me how much there is to improve.

But I'm still optimistic. And I think that's an important thing to be.