Only Connect: The Way to Save Our Schools Rudolph Crew

I'm always looking for books like this one...
In this book, Dr.Crew describes all the facets he feels are necessary to improve the public school systems, and he emphasizes that they all must be implemented at once in order to be effective. He explains the positive economic impact fixing our education system will have on our country, and why we must improve education in order to be able to compete globally.

He gets us moving in the right direction by explaining how the assessments currently in place are helpful but not enough. He sends the message that we must arm our students and children with social skill and civic awareness as well as academic skills. The ideas are great. Now we just need someone to draw up a plan and put these ideas into action.

One theme that prevails in his book is that "good enough is not enough." Here is a quote from his book:

“Good enough is not enough. You got a roof over your head, food on the table, love and forgiveness from your family. No, you don’t have money. No, you don’t have Nike swooshes on everything you wear. No, you don’t have the latest car or anything, but you got everything it takes to get an A.”

And don't forget the words of President Obama, meant for students across the country:

“No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands.”

The Boys of Baraka

I stumbled across this documentary at the Baltimore County Public Library. The filmmakers follow a group of 20 twelve-year-old boys from Baltimore City Schools to a school in Kenya, where they stay for one year. It's really amazing to see the transformation that takes place with the boys, and also sad that only select small groups are invited to participate in programs like these, while the majority of the population is left to deal with the chaos of their regular schools and impoverished neighborhoods.

While the Baraka School is a great idea and a great portrayal of the capabilities of impoverished African American youth, I think we should be focusing on ways to take the chaos out of all public schools, rather than creating order in a few experimental schools. While the film is great, it's just not feasible to send our kids to rural areas throughout the world in order to provide a spacious, peaceful environment for them to learn and grow in. What happened to all the kids that applied to the Baraka School but didn't get in? Did they fall through the cracks?

Student Success Equals Teacher Bonus

Many students’ state and national test scores are below-average, and teachers’ paychecks should suffer until educators are able to pull those scores up. Test scores alone should accurately represent the progress that has gone on in the classroom. Do educators and policy makers agree that assessment scores should determine how much teachers are paid? The resounding answer is no.

In 2007, at an NEA Representative Assembly, President Obama said, “if you excel at helping your students achieve success, your success will be valued and rewarded.” He also stated that success is “not based on some arbitrary test score.”

Success does not always come in the form of increased test scores. For example, many students are immersed in gang-related or drug-related lifestyles and are allured by the instant gratification of earning money without putting forth much effort or the comforting feeling of belonging to something. These students may have little to no interest in school and may perform at below-average levels because they have not been focused or inspired to learn. Passionate teachers may be able to connect with these students by creating engaging lessons and building the students’ confidence.

Dedicated teachers work diligently to prevent students from losing hope and dropping out. This perseverance may not be reflected in state or national assessments. School officials need to consider more than test scores alone. I have a proposition to make that I believe will allow for a more balanced assessment of student and teacher performance.

My idea is to have students complete weekly or bi-weekly open-ended written questionnaires. Students will provide information about how motivated they are to learn, whether or not they are completing all work to the best of their ability, and whether or not they find specific learning activities engaging and helpful or boring and a waste of time. Students and teachers can then collaborate and discuss possible adjustments that can be made to current instruction. These questions can be repeated throughout the school year and educators can store the results and refer to them periodically to track student progress.

These questionnaires allow educators to hear students’ voices, thus transforming students from passive listeners into active participants. Students will feel a sense of belonging as they are encouraged to critique and reflect on their learning experiences, and schools will have a new way to track student performance. If a teacher is able to cling onto his or her drug-dealers, gangsters, and teen mothers, these successes will be just as tangible as state and national assessment scores.

I am hopeful that these questionnaires will also encourage teachers to adjust instruction to meet students’ needs, rather than teachers simply preparing students for the state and national assessments. I believe that the combination of assessment and questionnaire results will more accurately depict successes or failures of educators than summative assessments alone.

Some Baltimore City Schools Now Passing All Students Who Attend Regularly

Yup, some Baltimore City Schools are passing all students with regular attendance, regardless of their academic achievement. I found this out today from a Baltimore City School teacher, so I know it's not a rumor. I'm going to find Dr.Alonso's address and send him a letter, letting him know of my passionate disapproval.

For those who don't know, I teach developmental (remedial) writing to community college students. Basically, I teach middle school level English to people with high school diplomas who somehow made it through high school without learning how to write. Here is a sample from an essay a student recently submitted. This student is not going to pass my class and came to me crying, hoping I would have sympathy. Students are conditioned that they can pass if they just present their sad story to the teacher, but that just doesn't cut it in college. Here's the writing I received:

"To receive information on how the prison system operate. Many teens have seen prison stories on TV however they have not lived them. Another way to try and rehabilitate the young teens is to allow them weekends inside of the prisons to see the daily life of a convict. Begin able to witness how their life can change for begins a ward of the state."

This is what happens when students do not receive a proper education. How can students possibly receive a proper education when grades do not matter and everyone passes? How does this benefit the student? Adults have the responsibility to be straight with kids, to tell it like it is. Kids need to be told that their skills are below-level and they need to know what to do to improve. Teachers do a great disservice by passing students along.

I have students come to me with letters they have written to the police department to complain of unnecessary verbal abuse and letters they have written to the court system. They want me to see if I can understand what they are trying to say so that their letters will be read rather than laughed at and thrown away. People can't write letters and they can't read contracts. How are we giving our students a chance at life by just passing them through? I think that's the most terrible thing we can do to youth. If they do decide to one day go to college, they'll have to suffer through the shock of realizing that they are way behind where they actually need to be in order to be admitted into credit bearing classes. I know because I teach these students that the system has failed.

City Kids Facing Forever Expulsion for Setting Fires

I just read an article written by the Baltimore Sun:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-md.expulsions19may19,0,2683888.story

Students who have been expelled for setting fires in Baltimore City Schools "may appeal to the city school board and after that the state board of education, but if the expulsions are upheld, they are never to return to a Baltimore public school."

"The school system will cut off home tutoring and alternative school placements for those students in June, and then parents' options will be limited to home-schooling their children or sending them to private schools."

These stricter rules seem to be making a difference, and the article states that "the number of arsons in city schools has dropped sharply, from 80 last academic year to 47 so far in the school year about to end."

"Before this year in Baltimore and typically in surrounding school systems, students who engage in violent behavior such as arson are expelled, but they can attend an alternative school or complete work at home, and eventually they are permitted to return."

I think permanently expelling students for setting fires in schools is an excellent idea. By enforcing severe consequences, students will get the message. Otherwise, they won't. Shifting a student from one school to another doesn't get the message across. Students (and parents) need to be dealt serious, permanent consequences when seriously dangerous acts are committed. If a student sets a fire at school, he or she has no business being in school. Maybe the punishment will be a wake-up call for the student; maybe it will be a wake-up call for the parents.

If staff sends a clear, concrete message that violent acts will not be tolerated, the students and parents will get the message. If a student doesn't have to go to school anymore and is assigned a private tutor to come to the house, and then is able to get his or her HS diploma, then what have they learned? Who cares if I make brazenly stupid mistakes...the school system will cater to me anyway.

If the school system has to permanently black list certain students, then so be it. Baltimore City Schools are in dire need of change; and I'm all for drastic change.

I guess those kids that have set fires in school will have to take their own initiative if they wish to be educated. I think that is fair. We can't always feel sorry for the people who are jeopardizing the safety of others. Kids know the difference between right and wrong, and they definitely know that setting a fire in school is a terrible thing to do. Education should be seen as a privilege; not as a joke.

Obama's Education Agenda

If anyone's interested in Obama's agenda for education, check out this site:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/education/

Sense of community: Let the students decorate

I know my ideas have many kinks that need to be worked out, but I feel I am taking a step in the right direction by brainstorming. My last post was about students eating lunch in classrooms rather than a cafeteria, which probably can't possibly happen for a long time for a vast variety of reasons. I am still going to work on making the idea more realistic and I still firmly believe that all hallway traffic needs to be synchronized, meaning that there is never a time during the day when some students are changing locations while others are sitting in a classroom, involved in an academic period.

Another idea I came up with, which is much easier to integrate into the school system as we know it today, has to do with the decoration of the actual classroom. In my experience, I have always observed that each classroom is decorated according to the lead teacher's preferences. This sets the stage right away that the room belongs to the teacher and it allows the students to separate themselves and be alienated from their surroundings.

Here is what I propose:

Each classroom should have a homeroom. At the beginning of the year, that homeroom should be given the task to come up with a plan on how to aesthetically decorate the room. The teacher will have to mediate to make sure that all students are allowed to be involved in decisions and that the decisions made are school-appropriate. This will allow the students to practice teamwork, which is a job-skill/life-skill that they definitely will need to utilize in their future. This will also make them feel more connected to the classroom.

I think one of the main problems with school is that there is a disconnect. If the students are made more a part of things, they will come to take more pride in the school and will come to think that their contributions are valuable. I know the teachers are there to help students grow and intervene when necessary, but I don't think they need to 100% run the show. I know teachers find it refreshing to paste up those finely-crated posters, but give it a break and let the student's come up with something that reflects their own originality.