(10) Labels

One of the most widely used terms to identify urban children is "at-risk". There are 28,000,000 Google entries that describe risk in the context of students, but most of us know the general idea. Labeling a child at-risk is to say that they will potentially have learning delays, drop out of school, do drugs, have poor self-esteem, become violent, become pregnant. If you are a poor, minority child, research tells us that the chances of these things happening to you are even greater, and so you are at greater "risk".

The origin of assessing risk is a medical model. In researching the the term, I was not able to able to find when it became widely used, but I did remember a lecture that I attended many years ago where the speaker identified the term used during immigration through Ellis Island, NY, as early as the late 1800's. As immigrants to the US disembarked from ships from Europe, they were corralled through a series of checkpoints. The medical checkpoint was the most important and here they were examined to determine their risk of carrying communicable diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis, trachoma, and measles among others. Once a diagnosis was made, their clothes were marked with chalk symbols (such as an X for medical defect). Many immigrants would wear their marked clothes inside out from fear and embarrassment. Interestingly enough, those who had traveled with first or second class tickets did not have to endure such humiliations.

Even during my first years as a teacher, it became clear to me that my students were acutely aware of the label that they were given by society. While "AR" wasn't drawn on their clothes with chalk, it might has well been as I could tell that my incredibly bright students would spend the rest of their childhoods turning their clothes inside out. There are a lot of fingers to point for this, but the bottom line to me is that we get past the blame and deconstruct our labels for what they really are.

Two editors who turned the at-risk model on its ear are Beth Blue Swadener and Sally Lubeck. Their Children and Families "at Promise": Deconstructing the Discourse of Risk is a good read and adds a much needed counterpoint to the discussion. We'll also talk more about the "at-promise" model in posts to come.

(17) The Big Easy's Big Secret

This post gives readers a brief, historic context for understanding Calliope School beginning with the US Supreme Court ruling on the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954.

While the historic decision ended segregation, the Supreme Court never specified a timeline for implementation, only that the law should take effect, "with all deliberate speed." When we fast forward forty-two years (to 1996) and take a look at demographic make-up of New Orleans public schools by ethnicity, we find that desegregation never really happened, at least not in the spirit of the law.

After the Brown decision, white parents in New Orleans who had the financial means, steadily abandoned the public school system and enrolled their children in private or parochial schools. It's also important to note that black parents who could afford private tuition (while fewer in numbers), also sent their children to non-public schools. In a city whose total population was a black majority (60%), the student population in public schools in 1996 was disproportionately African American (94%).

Essentially, New Orleans schools operated under a system of de facto segregation, said another way, segregation still occurred in a different form despite the law.

A report by Tulane University's Cowan Center, linked the challenges that urban districts faced to "white and middle-class flight, a predominantly high-needs population of students, and decreasing public investment in education." We'll look at why these contributing factors struck such a blow to the school system by talking about social capital in the next post.

(18) Social Capital

There were a few public schools in New Orleans that functioned well. They were usually located in middle to upper middle class neighborhoods, and some were magnet schools that had more rigorous academic requirements for entrance. Student populations of these "good" schools were more diverse and academic achievement was significantly higher. What students had in common wasn't necessarily parents who had more money or higher education levels. It was that parents who sent their children to these public schools were more in the know. They banded together and played a greater role in how the schools and district were run. Their ability to know and work the education system for their children's benefit made all the difference, regardless of their ethnicity. This social currency is called "social capital".

My students and their families also had wealth of social capital, but in a different form. In order to maneuver the complicated life-and-death landscape of the Calliope, residents needed to be able to develop complex networks and establish credibility in the community (a.k.a. "street cred."). My students and their families were able to breeze through social interactions and synthesize complex information in order to be safe and lead fulfilling lives. As an outsider, I was at a disadvantage. Social capital like currency isn't always transferable outside of your community. To use money as an example, you can't use American dollars in Australia.

Even though my students' families desperately wanted their children to succeed in school and had earnest intentions, many of them expressed to me that they either did not understand the system or were intimidated by teachers and administrators (some of the teachers had been their own teachers growing up). There was also an underlying parent sentiment that teachers were the professionals and it was disrespectful to argue with them. As a result of the important parent advocacy piece missing, more often than not, school staff and district officials would take advantage of parents and make decisions that were self-serving rather than student-centered.

*Would anyone be willing to share situations where you have had to advocate for your child's educational needs and the outcome?

(19) The Age of Accountability

This is another post to give you a bit more context for the times. I'll be back to writing about my class and school next time.

When I began my teaching career in 1996, the US was entering into a new era of educational reform. While No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was still a few more years in the making, the development of a "standards based education" was beginning to become established. To me, this was good thing and it helped begin to set academic expectations for teachers to consider at Calliope School.

Five years later, NCLB not only mandated that each state establish academic standards for each grade level, but required that students in underrepresented subgroups (limited English proficiency students, students with disabilities, students eligible for free and reduced price meals, and white, black, Asian Pacific Islander, American Indian, and Hispanic students) make sufficient growth to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). If growth wasn't made on annual assessments, schools and school districts faced punitive sanctions including being taken over by the state. The implementation of NCLB, its general approach,and lack of funding, have been the center of controversy since its inception and for valid reasons. However, it was (and is) important legislation for urban schools because it forced districts to focus attention on the most overlooked students.

Even though there has been a great deal of discussion over the many internal and external factors that cause a school to fail, I was curious to learn why, even in a low performing school, instruction varied so drastically from classroom to classroom. Why was it that students could be on grade level in one class, then move on to the next grade only to lose a lot of ground? One possible answer lied in the space between Mrs. Prentiss and Mrs. Williams.

More about Mrs. Williams next.

(20) Children "At-Promise"

Mrs. Williams was a kindergarten teacher at Calliope School. She was tall and thin, African American, and wore her hair short in large curls. She was not a snappy dresser. Her work wardrobe was very plain, almost nun-like, a collection of dark A-line skirts and light-colored button-down shirts. This simple fashion sense coupled with a raspy voice made her seem older than her actual age which was forty-seven years old when we met. But once you got to know Mrs. Williams, you realized that there was something very special about her that transcended her age, her clothes and the times. She was a master teacher and good teaching is timeless.

On the first day of school, kindergarten students came to class ready to learn. There was not a lot of fussing or crying at the door. The Calliope School community had a strong Head Start program, and the incoming kindergarten students had already become familiar with classroom routines through their preschool experiences. The majority of students were on grade level or were on developmentally appropriate paths to learning. The children were too young to know this, but their teacher would be the main factor that would determine the trajectory of their learning. Mrs. Williams met her students at the door on the first day of school and these kids had lucked out.

The general quality of instruction at Calliope School was hit or miss. While Mrs. Prentiss was an extreme example of bad teaching, there were other teachers who were perfectly kind and well meaning, but whose classroom instruction lacked academic rigor. If you were a student in one of these classrooms, you would not likely make much academic growth in a year. You might even lose the skills that you had once mastered. If you had the bad luck of being assigned to a series of poorly trained teachers over a period of a few years, it would be extremely difficult to make up lost ground. If on the other hand, you were able to work with a series of highly skilled teachers, the achievement gap became small or ceased to exist.

Mrs. Williams was one of those highly skilled teachers and her students often exceeded the academic benchmarks that were set for them. Her lessons were well planned, exciting and challenging. I would duck into her classroom during my periods off so I could learn how she taught.

Mrs. Williams "wore her students out" by engaging them in collaborative activities where they would work with their classmates as learning partners or in small groups. They learned by doing. She led them to form opinions about stories that were read to them and taught them how to ask good questions. She stretched their vocabulary and had them write and illustrate their work every single day. She made them love math by making it meaningful. It wasn't unusual to see her walk her class through the school grounds as they collected data for a question that they were wondering about.

What made Mrs. Williams a truly extraordinary teacher was that she brainwashed her students with her high expectations of them. She cultivated their imaginations, their confidence in themselves, and taught them how to be resilient when they got stuck on a problem. These traits not only made her students strong learners, but strong people. That said, elementary students spend most of the school day with one teacher, so children who are already overcoming challenges in their everyday lives need a Mrs. Williams in their classroom every school year. Unfortunately, this doesn't usually happen.

On a personal note, I would only know Mrs. Williams for a short while. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of forty-nine and passed away a year later. I clearly remember her funeral service where I sat next to Mrs. Prentiss and in the company of hundreds of family, friends, colleagues and students who had packed into the small Baptist church to say good-bye.

(21) 2010

I wanted to go back to the future for a moment and tell you about a conversation that I had last week with an urban school district superintendent. His district is located in California. I was meeting with him to talk about a plan for reaching academic growth targets set by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and to support the district's overall reform efforts.

First, a few NCLB reference terms. Program Improvement (PI) is used to describe schools that have not met one or more academic targets for two consecutive years. Targets are set for overall student achievement and for children who belong to specific subgroups. The PI designation forces districts to make targeted efforts to turnaround failing schools or face consequences that may include school reconstitution or in extreme cases, state takeover of the entire district. A school's individual Academic Performance Index (API) is a score (ranging from 200-1000) used to rank and compare schools across districts and the country. A score of 800 or more means you are generally safe. A Similar Schools Ranking compares schools with similar demographic characteristics.

This is how our conversation went:

The Super (waving his arms in front of himself in a slow Tai Chi, swirling motion): Now Sabine, I want you to picture our district. (pause) Now, picture it as if all our schools are in Program Improvement - because that's how I see it.

Me (What was I thinking, but didn't say aloud): Huh? Not all your schools are in PI, actually only four out of the thirty schools in the district are designated PI. But I replied only with an, "OK...."

The Super: Look, I don't worry about API scores. We can't keep up with the national standards. I look at our Similar Schools Ranking. That's where I want to see progress.

Me (Again, what was I thinking, but didn't say aloud): Are you actually serious? You, the superintendent, the leader of this entire HUGE school district is telling me not to worry about students making any real academic growth. You just want to look a little better than all of the other crappy schools and districts that you are grouped with! You cannot be serious! I continued not to say anything. There's really no point arguing with a superintendent, so I said, "OK."

Here's my take on the current implementation of NCLB in the U.S.:

NCLB was created with good intentions. It does focus attention on students who have historically been underserved. It created a framework for defining basic minimum academic standards in each grade level. I don't have a problem with the annual testing. I'm not a fan of using standardized tests as the sole measure of skill or ability, but they do provide a snapshot of students at a point in time.

What concerns me about NCLB, is that it requires the leaders of failing districts to fix things, to fix themselves, usually without outside assistance. This is like asking a dysfunctional family to just snap out of it. The lack of funding for NCLB is an obstacle, but frankly, if you are a district in trouble, it's safe to say that you are probably also having issues managing your resources. I'm just not sure pouring more money into the mix is a wise idea.

The bottom line here is that we are left with district administrators - like the Superintendent here - who are under a tremendous amount of pressure to get out of the hole. They're stressed out, their jobs (and mortgages) are on the line and they're looking for a quick fix. In order to get Language Arts and Math scores up (two subjects more heavily weighted), some elementary schools have had to forsake Science, Art, Music and Social Studies. The instruction of state standards are broken down into unrelated "capsules" of information. Teachers are sometimes even forced to teach directly from 'scripts' so that instruction is uniform across the district. One teacher colleague describes her elementary school as a former Soviet state where the principal comes on the loudspeaker and gives inspirational speeches at times during the course of day on how her students WILL meet the standards and how they WILL NOT continue to be a FAILING school.

As we think about the latest federal legislation designed to support low performing schools such as Race to the Top, let's just ask ourselves, whose standards are we racing toward? When we consider the School Improvement Grants (SIG) that are currently being offered to persistently low performing schools throughout the country (up to $2 million per year per school), you have to evaluate the wisdom of handing large sums of money to districts with "persistently low performing" systems of management.

A penny for your thoughts?

Image credit: from the motion picture, Back to the Future, 1985 & 1989

(22) Things

After the time spent establishing a behavior contract for our fifth grade classroom, I was left with the more daunting task of instructing my students. We didn't have many supplies or books. I did have a pile of teaching manuals for each textbook my students were supposed to have, but there weren't enough of any subject to go around. The school did eventually place an order, but I remember that it took a while for the books to come in. Even if everyone had a text, most of my students' reading levels ranged from first to third grade. I did have two students who were close to grade level.

While the community was poor, the school was not in bad shape financially. We received Title One money (supplemental federal funds given to schools with a certain concentration of students who live below the poverty line) and had a business partnership with the local office of a major oil company (They sent their staff to tutor kids once a week and supported the school financially as well). Our school even had an on site "business manager" (The new principal's idea) who handled all of our different sources of funding.

The trouble with the Title One money was that the school's stakeholders (parents and staff) didn't actually have a say in how the money was spent. The feds require that each school receiving these funds form a School Site Council (SSC) committee and that all the stakeholders are represented, give input and vote on budget items. In reality, parents were either too intimidated, too respectful or too uncertain about what was being presented to them to ever speak their mind.

Title One did pay for a teacher on special assignment (TSA). Her job was to work with the staff and to run small academic student intervention groups. She was given the nicest classroom at school and the room was filled with Title One materials (books, manipulatives, charts) that were supposed to be shared by all the classrooms. It was a beautiful sight. In reality, we were rarely able to use this stuff because the Title One teacher guarded the bounty as if she purchased everything with her own money. She seldom ran student groups and was more of a confidant than coach to teachers. I've seen this setup at several Title One schools over the years. Same privileged teacher, same museum of instructional materials and not a whole lot of support. While it goes without saying that not all Title One teachers fit this description (I've also worked with a few excellent Title One teachers), I bet there are quite a few folks reading this who have crossed paths with this school archetype.

In order to procure materials for my classroom, I wrote a series of library mini-grants (funded by our oil company partners). I also put the word out to students that we were in need of book donations for our classroom library and my students came through. They were excited about giving away their old books and I placed placards in each donated book that read "This book was generously donated to our classroom library by **insert student's name**". They liked that a lot. Just as an aside, I learned over the years that my students were incredibly resourceful. Whenever I put the word out for paper, art supplies, materials for a Science experiment, whatever, there were always a couple of students or parents (different ones at different times) who would magically bring us what we needed.

More about what we actually did with the stuff we acquired in the next post.

(23) School Finance

What follows is another "back to the future - 2010" post and is written in response to a timely question asked by fellow blogger Bartacus:

Q: One comment I hear a lot is that poorly performing schools are simply the result of poor funding, with the amount of money spent per student (out of the local tax base) correlating directly to student performance. Has that been your experience?

Last week, a historic lawsuit was filed against the state of California. This lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of California's education funding system. You can read more about the suit by clicking on ACSA, the website for the Association of California School Administrators.

Before I proceed any further, a disclaimer: My background is not in school finance, but I can share with you some of my observations on how money is allocated and spent at the school site and district level.

How are public schools funded in the U.S.? While specific methods of funding public education vary from state to state, the baseline budget for schools is generally determined by revenue from real estate taxes. Some states allow for a community's taxes to go directly to school districts within its boundaries. Other states pool all of the money collected statewide and distribute it equally (more or less) across the state. California uses this second option.

When you hear of 'state funding' for education, this usually means the baseline amount funded per student, aka the per pupil allocation that makes up the general fund.

The short answer is that school finance is complicated. The long answer is that it can be so complicated that schools and districts have to be in the know and proactive about procuring additional funding for students. Not all schools and school-districts are knowledgeable or effective at applying for and securing these supplemental funds. This can lead to big differences in the resources available to individual schools and school districts even in a state like California that seeks to distribute its funds equitably across school districts.

Here's a menu of options for schools and school-districts seeking more funds for their schools:

Baseline funding from the state, or the "general fund" is unrestricted and usually pays for teachers, staff, instructional materials, building maintenance and anything else that a district needs to operate. This budget is calculated using the average daily attendance (ADA) for each student and the district receives x number of dollars per student. When we hear of teacher layoffs because of funding issues, it's because the general fund is low or is operating in the red.

In addition to unrestricted general funds, school and districts can receive certain restricted or "categorical" funding.

Since the "categorical" funds need to be spent for specific purposes, schools and districts usually can't use the money for full time teacher and staff salaries. Categorical funding can come in the form of additional state or federal money. Some examples of supplemental sources of funding are federal Title One funds for schools where a certain percent of students live below the poverty line; funding for English Learners; Migrant Education; After-School education; and Economic Impact Aid (EIA). Other sources may include state block grants from lottery tax revenue, local bond measures, federal stimulus funding (ARRA), School Improvement Grants (SIG) and a multitude of other program grants. There are still other sources of funding like federal Race to the Top grants that only individual states can apply for.

In order to be considered for any or all of these sources of funding, a school or district usually has a person, an office or department that takes care of applying for these programs. If a school does not apply, they do not receive the funds. Not all schools and school districts apply. When you compare schools and districts across the country, some are more "in the know", "on the ball" and politically connected than others, resulting in a hit or miss desegregation of available resources for children.

Put another way, some schools and school districts have less 'social capital' and are less effective at drawing in these supplemental sources of funds.

To further complicate matters, some public schools form business partnerships with local companies and other community organizations. They are able to solicit and secure additional funding and in some cases, recruit volunteers who work at the school site. Other schools directly raise funds from the parent population. From first hand experience, I know one affluent school district in my area where each school has a non-profit education organization run by parents and devoted to raising funds for the schools. One elementary school receives $400,000 per school year from the fund and pays for teacher assistants, Science Lab and Technology teachers and other priorities on the school's wishlist. In effect this is a local, elective tax.

So to answer Bartucus' question - it's complicated. While state per pupil allocations may be inequitable, I also have concerns about how additional funding is secured and spent. What the general public is presented with in the media doesn't always tell the entire story.