Ed Week, November 17, 2010

In this edition of Ed Week I was really excited to see an article on the front page talking about integrating dance and movement into a lesson on photosynthesis. Here is the article, entitled "Schools Integrate Dance Into Lessons".  I had a crazy, wonderful Chemistry teacher in high school who taught us the "Dance of the Electrons" in an extremely memorable and enjoyable Chem class.  I also know from reading Eric Jensen's book "Teaching With The Brain in Mind" that movement can be a very effective tool for putting information into our long term memory banks.  I thought that the teacher described was especially clever to have the students brainstorm and come up with their own dance movements to convey the elements of photosynthesis:  water, sunlight, carbon dioxide, and chlorophyll.  I bet that the act of creating their own movements will help them to retain this information even more! This reminded me of something I witnessed in my daughter's third grade classroom while doing some of my classroom observation hours.   The students created their very own hand and body motions to go along with the song "You're a Grand Old Flag" which they learned as part of a unit on Citizenship.  They actually performed the song for me while I was there and were so proud of the movements they had come up with.  I also find the idea of integrating the arts (dance, music, film-making, etc.) to be very interesting.  Perhaps this is a way to make our curriculum in and of itself is rewarding in the way that Alfie Kohn was talking about?  I as a teacher would definitely need some dance training in order to be able to teach this way, but I would love the opportunity to learn how to do something like this.

Ed Week, November 3, 2010

The article that grabbed my attention in this issue of Ed Week is right on the front page.  It is titled "City's Black Males Stay in School", by Dakarai Aarons reporting from Baltimore.  This article was mentioned several times in discussions in our Equity class and I also spent a month in Baltimore visiting my husband who was working for one semester at Johns Hopkins.  The poverty, tenement/slum living conditions, the decaying grandeur of the city of Baltimore, the many poor African Americans in the area surrounding the university made a lasting impression on me.  The article describes an amazing principal at DuBois High School who, together, with other school leaders has started a campaign to keep students in school and on track towards graduation.  The best part of all:  It is working!  Black male students in Baltimore are showing an increase in graduation rates and a decrease in dropout rates.  This, despite the fact that black males are one of the hardest groups to reach.   According to the article the Baltimore Public School System has 82,000 students, 87.8% of whom are African American.  They have been able to increase the district's on-time graduation rate from 51% in 2006-2007 to 57.3% in the 2009-10 school year.  This is a 12.4% increase.  The overall graduation rate in the same time period increased by 10%.  So, how are the Baltimore City Schools doing it?  Michael Casserly, the executive director of the Washington-based Council of the Great City Schools, says that the district has worked hard to build support systems for black males and that they are more concentrated and targeted than in other communities.  Andres A. Alonso, the chief executive officer of the Baltimore schools identifies the following factors in their success.  The district is working hard to reduce chronic absenteeism and out-of-school suspensions.  They are giving students a bigger variety of public school options and working with people in the community.  They seem to be approaching the problems in a systematic way, but are also working individually with each student.  Perhaps the most impressive thing I read in the article was what Jonathan Brice, the executive director for student-support services said: "Someone in the building has to know that student's story".  The district is even sending volunteers door-to-door to coax kids who have dropped out back to school.  They are also employing Facebook and other social media to find students.  With all of these initiatives, the entire culture of the Baltimore City Schools has changed.  It seems to me that the schools are just refusing to give up on these students and that the changing expectations of the adults are resulting in the students changing what they see as possible for themselves.  This Baltimore Approach will hopefully be studied and implemented around the country.

Ed Week October 13, 2010

The article in this edition of Ed Week that caught my eye is entitled "Developmental Science Seen Lacking in Education Schools" by Stephen Sawchuck.  I guess I have been thinking a lot about developmental stages and Piaget ever since we did our podcasts on development in our Educational Psychology class.  According to the article new research from the last 10 to 14 years is giving us new insights into development.  The developmental sciences are truly interdisciplinary.  They encompass the biological, emotional, ethical, linguistic, psychological, and social development of children and adolescents.  A report released by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education argues that we need greater emphasis on developmental science in teacher preparation courses.  Research indicates that teaching methodologies based on developmental science actually increase student achievement.  According to the article, however, many teacher training programs are neglecting the developmental sciences.  The report recommends that teacher prep programs focus on the developmental sciences and that developmental science be woven into existing education courses.  It also suggests that teachers already working in the classroom be encouraged to apply developmental science.  After discussing Piaget's developmental stages and researching play and development myself, I have been thinking quite a bit about how this might even apply in my current college-level teaching.  It seems to me that many of the freshman I am teaching are also in a developmental stage that has to do with gaining independence, learning to take care of themselves and live on their own.  They seem to be trying to establish their identities, find partners, build a circle of friends.  Sometimes this comes into conflict with memorizing their German irregular verbs.  I am not quite sure what to make of this, except that I do not take it personally that they would rather go to the movies than study German.  I have not really read anything scholarly on this and would like to do so.  As I may be teaching at the elementary level, I will try and make it a priority to inform myself about current research on development in the K-5 set.

Ed Week October 27, 2010: Brain Research and Bilingualism

The article "Pathways Seen For Acquiring Languages" reports on the latest brain research and what it can tell us about the cognitive benefits of learning other languages.  Apparently there has been an explosion in research having to do with second language acquisition.  Some studies have been funded by the NSF and several new institutes have been established at universities.  The Bilingualism, Mind, and Brain project was recently launched at Penn State.  It is a five year project with a budget of $ 2.8 million.  This project is a collaboration of neuroscientists, linguists, and cognitive scientists.  They are using technology to compare the brains and mental processes of different types of bilingual speakers, such as a Mandarin- English speaker and a deaf English speaker who uses sign language.  The University of Washington also recently opened the world's first brain-imaging center created to study language and cognition in infants and children.  I find it absolutely thrilling and exciting to learn about this cutting edge research into language and the brain.  In all of the scholarly articles I looked at as part of my training as a German teacher, many of the linguists hypothesized about how language and the brain worked.  Now we have the technology to see, evaluate and measure what is going on neurologically.  This will hopefully translate into effective teaching strategies and research supported curriculum decisions.  In a time of economic crisis the foreign language programs are the first things to be thrown overboard.  This is even happening at the university level in the United States.  Although I have been around long enough to know this is cyclical, as a language teacher I find this disturbing.

One of the academic benefits of bilingualism mentioned in the article:
 Bilingual children have greater cognitive flexibility and can adapt better to changes in rules than monolingual children. Bilingual children demonstrate flexibility in problem-solving.

One interesting and surprising fact I did not know is that the window of opportunity for learning a second language is open longer than we previously thought !  Linguists used to think that after age 7 a child's ability to learn another language shrinks.  By the end of puberty it was thought to be too late. New interdisciplinary research has shown that  this time frame may be more flexible.   This gives me hope that I can improve my Spanish, even though I am 45!  Marty Abbott who is the Director of Education for the American Council on Teaching of Foreign Languages, articulated another hope that I fervently share.  She said she hopes this type of research will convince education officials to make second language instruction for all students at the elementary level part of the curriculum.  The research shows that it is not a good idea to wait until high school to start learning a foreign language.  I am also deeply disappointed that it is possible to graduate from high school in Oregon without taking a foreign language.  It is my hope that as new research comes out, we may see a turning of the tides.  Rather than closing college-level foreign language programs we will see the establishment of more dual-language elementary programs.

Education Week, October 20, 2010

This week I would like to focus on the article "Early-Years Absenteeism Seen as Critical."  If you are not in school, you cannot learn. This sounds simple.  It seems like common sense.  And yet many students, according to the article,  are even chronically absent.  This is true both at the elementary and the secondary level.  On average, one in ten K-12 students nationwide misses 10 percent or more of school each year.  If the school year is 180 days, that is approximately 18 days of school!
     There seems to be a link between chronic absenteeism and poverty.  According to a study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, more than one in five Kindergartners living below the federal poverty line was chronically absent whereas only 8 % of students living above the poverty line were chronically absent.  The article alluded to many reasons that affect whether children come to school.  Some risk factors associated with living in poverty such as lack of mobility or transportation or an unstable home life seem to play a role.  Apparently high kindergarten absences are the norm nationwide, perhaps due to the fact that kindergarten attendance is not mandatory in many states.  Many parents also do not realize that Kindergarten today is much more academic.  Many children are learning to read in Kindergarten, for instance.
     Why does absenteeism in Kindergarten matter so much?  Research has shown that children who miss more than 10% of Kindergarten score much lower on reading, math, and general knowledge tests in first grade.  Chronic Kindergarten absences also predict continuing absences in later grades.
     New York City schools seem to be taking on this problem and trying to get to the bottom of it.  They are conducting assessments and interventions school by school.  One of the things that they have learned is that if a younger child is ill, often an older sibling will need to miss school and stay home to take care of him or her.  This is especially typical in families where both parents work.  In a school in Rhode Island, school officials researched what was going on with their chronically absent students and realized that many parents who worked the night shift could not stay awake until 9 a.m. to bring their children to school.  They started a morning program that allowed parents to bring their children at 7 a.m. and saw a dramatic decrease in absenteeism.  I am impressed by the creative solutions that school administrators have come up with to combat the problem of chronic absenteeism.  It seems smart to first assess what is going on in each school and then tailor the solutions to fit each local community.

Ed Week, October 6, 2010

On the front page of Ed Week I found an article that immediately demanded my attention:
 "China Flexes Linguistic Muscles.  Millions of Dollars Aim to Encourage Mandarin-Language Instruction in U.S."  As a college-level foreign language instructor I am always interested in issues related to funding and foreign languages in the United States.  Compared to many other countries, I feel we in the U.S. show an appalling lack of interest in encouraging the study of other languages.  A disheartening side-effect of the current recession/depression is that many college-level foreign language programs in diverse languages such as German, Russian, Italian, and French are currently fighting for their lives.  This Chronicle of Higher Education article documents what is going on in the state of Missouri, for example.  The MLA or Modern Language Association will be holding a special one-day session at its annual conference in January 2011 on strategies for defending and maintaining existing Language Programs at the college level.  In the state of Oregon we have gone from 50 viable German High School programs down to 15 in recent years.  From the sound of this article, however, students in Oregon may soon be learning Mandarin.
     According to the article, the Chinese government has provided millions of dollars in aid to establish Mandarin classes in K-12 schools and colleges all over the country. Martha Abbott from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages said what China is doing is not anything new.  She cited past efforts by other countries such as Japan, France, and Germany through their embassies and other organizations like Germany's Goethe Institute.  The key difference seems to be in the vast amount of money China is investing.  Ms. Abbott also indicated that a critical motive of the Chinese government  is to promote Mandarin Chinese as a global language.  I was also surprised to learn that the Chinese government had provided financial support to develop a high school AP course in Chinese language and culture.  In addition, the Chinese government has worked to establish Confucius Institutes at universities throughout the world.  They have also created or enlarged Mandarin Chinese programs at the elementary and secondary levels.  School districts around the country are struggling financially, and the extra funding from the Chinese government is welcome.  Our own government is also encouraging the study of under-taught languages that it views as crucial for national defense purposes.  I learned that the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland College Park administers the federal "Star Talk Program" started by George W. Bush in 2006.  This year this program provided approximately $ 20 Million dollars for K-16 summer programs for teachers and students in desired languages, including Chinese.
     One question I have long pondered is why the United States does not seem to view our many immigrants and their cultural and linguistic knowledge and expertise as the valuable resource I see them as.  I think we should be capitalizing on the many heritage speakers of all languages we have in this country.  I would also like to understand why, although all the research supports it, we do not have our children learning foreign languages at an early age.  There are cognitive and neurological benefits for our individual students, and it seems like in our global economy it would be in our nation's best interest to have proficient speakers of all languages.

Education Week, September 22, 2010

This week the article "Scholars Suggest Adding 'Gap Year' May Encourage College Completion" caught my attention.  I am currently teaching two beginning, college German classes and I have many Freshmen in my sections.  One of the students told me that he had taken a year off and worked with a non-profit organization in Central America.  He not only improved his Spanish, he also seems to be extremely motivated and ready to get the most out of his college years.  I also found this article interesting because I, myself, took a PELP or Planned Educational Leave before starting U.C. Davis.  During this year I was an A.F.S. exchange student in Austria.  I lived with an Austrian family and attended another year of high school there.  This gap year was an unforgettable experience that changed the trajectory of my life.  My college experience was better and more enriching because I took this year off.
     According to research cited in the article, former "gappers" did demonstrate higher motivation in college than students who did not take a gap year.  This took the form of "adaptive behavior" which included planning, task management, and persistence.  It was suggested that a gap year might be key in dealing with motivational difficulties in college students.  The most recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center on Education Statistics indicate that only 7.6 % of 2003-2004 graduates delayed college entry for a year.  29% of these students traveled or pursued other interests.  84% worked.  Karl Haigler and Rae Nelson, in their book called "The Gap Year Advantage" interviewed 280 students who had taken a gap year.  They cited burnout and a desire to discover more about themselves as their top two reasons for taking a gap year.  It seems to me that we as a society and perhaps schools have come to view whether high school students go on to college as a yard stick that measures our success.  There are young people who are able but perhaps not quite ready to go to college.  My own personal experience backs this up.

Education Week, September 29, 2010

The article titled "Educators Advised to Be Cautious on Facebook Profiles" caught my eye this week because I have such mixed feelings about all of the technology tools we are learning about in our Ed Tech class.  According to the article, teachers and administrators around the country have been placed on administrative leave and even lost their jobs because of inappropriate material posted on the internet.  The Ohio Education Association recommended not posting anything that you would not want on the front page of the newspaper.  With online profiles, blogs, facebook, twitter, etc., teachers' personal lives are much more visible and accessible to students.  Teachers need to be aware and on "high alert" because teachers are held to higher standards.
    I can see the value in many of the technology tools we are learning about in our Educational Technology course.  Today I was able to work on the debate on Direct Instruction vs. Constructivism by adding my ideas to a Google document.  I could then email both of my partners and let them know that they might want to take a look at what I had contributed.  Although we are all working and do not have time to meet outside of class, we are still able to collaborate on this project.  And yet, this particular assignment also causes me some concern!  I know that we will be videotaped and that this will be posted to the internet.  I am somewhat uncomfortable with this because I am not sure I want a video "out there" showing me defending direct instruction.  What if I am applying for a job and a principal googles my name and stumbles across this video? Taken out of context, namely that I was assigned the role of defending direct instruction in my educational psychology class, the principal might think I am a zealous believer in direct instruction.  In reality, I am very aware of the problems associated with this teaching methodology.

Education Week, September 15, 2010

The headline that caught my eye this week was "U.S. Finds Programs For ELLs in Arizona Violate Civil Rights" by Mary Ann Zehr.   According to the article there is a legal battle which started in 1992 when parents from the Nogales, Arizona, school district filed a lawsuit arguing that programs for ELL students were deficient. What is going on in Arizona is interesting to me because it could have implications for how English Language Learners are educated nation-wide.  I find it shocking that this court case has been going on for eighteen years!

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights identified two practices in Arizona that they say violate federal law:  1. Arizona has simplified the Home Language Survey schools give to parents to help identify students that need to be tested for ELL services.  (It was reduced from three questions down to one.)  2.  The English Language Proficiency test does not accurately evaluate whether ELL students are proficient "in each language domain" before they are moved from ELL services and whether these students are "able to participate meaningfully in Arizona's .... educational programs."

Another issue that was mentioned is that for the past two school years, Arizona has required that ELL students be separated from other students for four hours each day to learn English skills.  Questions have been raised about whether these four-hour English Language Development classes violate the federal Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974.  There are concerns that a four hour a day pull-out model is a form of segregation and that ELL students are being denied access to academic content and curriculum.  The article I discussed in my second blog post identified a lack of access to the regular curriculum as one common feature of schools that were not effective with ELL students.

One interesting aspect about what is going in in Arizona, if I have correctly understood this article, is that critics seem to feel that school districts in Arizona are violating ELL students' civil rights in two ways.  First of all, they are under-identifying ELL students with an oversimplified Home Language Survey and then graduating them from English classes before they are actually proficient.  It was suggested that these two practices were being done to save money.  Secondly, school districts in Arizona are in hot water for "over-serving" (my terminology) ELL students by requiring that they spend four hours a day in English Language classes.  I am again left wondering what ELL specialists recommend and what the research tells us about effective methods for teaching English Language Learners.

Both of my children are native speakers of English, and they are attending a Spanish immersion, dual-language program at a public school.  We have been extremely pleased with the education they are receiving.  Approximately fifty percent of their classmates are native speakers of Spanish.  It has been my understanding that dual language programs benefit ELL students by allowing them to learn and cover academic content in their native language, while also developing their English skills.  The model for the dual language program starts out with  90% of instructional time in Spanish in Kindergarten.  By the third grade, 50% of the instructional time is in English and 50% is in Spanish.  I am wondering why we do not have more dual language programs around the country.  These types of programs can help us provide ELL students with a meaningful, valuable education and enrich the educational experience of native English speakers as well.  I hope to observe in several different local schools that work with ELL students as part of my 90 observational hours.

Successful ELL Policies

After reading about the issues school districts are facing around the country trying to meet the needs of English Language Learners or ELL students, I searched the Education Week archives looking for articles talking about school districts that have had some success.  I found this article published online on October 22, 2009:  Four Cities Cited For Successful ELL Policies.  Four urban school districts in Dallas, San Francisco, New York City, and St. Paul, Minnesota, demonstrated an improvement in state reading test scores of 3rd and 4th grade ELL students between 2002 and 2006.

According to the article, which was based on a report by the Council of the Great City Schools, school districts that are successful with ELL students employ three common best practices:  1.  They provide strong oversight from a central office responsible for ELLs.  2.  These districts ensure that teachers receive training and professional development on how to work with ELLs.  3.  Successful districts use student data to improve instruction.

The report also stated that districts that are not successful with ELL students have the following in common:  1.  They do not have a vision for educating ELL students.  2.  They limit access to the general curriculum.  3.  They have not given authority and resources to the district office responsible for ELLs.
4.  They do not use disaggregated student data in a systematic way.

This article leads me to yet more questions.  What are the policies in the Salem-Keizer School District regarding English Language Learners?  What are the current state laws regarding ELL education in Oregon?

Reflection on "Reviews Find ELL Programs Lacking in Four Districts"

"Reviews Find ELL Programs Lacking in Four Districts", written by Mary Ann Zehr, was published online July 30, 2010.  This article caught my attention because I am particularly interested in working with English Language Learners or ELL students.  I have already worked with some ELL elementary students on a volunteer basis, providing extra support in reading.

According to the article, reviews of four urban school districts (Boston, Buffalo, NY, Seattle, and Portland) found that these school districts did not provide services and assistance to learn English to all the students entitled to it under federal law.  The Obama Administration, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Department of Education, state governments, and private, independent groups are now investigating ELL programs all around the country.  There is concern that the civil rights of ELL students are being violated because schools are not providing English language support, and ELL students, thus, do not have equal access to education.  This violates the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974.  School District Officials  have identified the following problems they are having:

1.  They are confused about how to apply federal civil rights laws to the education of ELL students. 

2.  Districts are not sure when it is appropriate to move students out of ELL programs.

3.  In some states, parents can choose to have their child "opt out" of ELL programs.

4.  There is a lack of clarity on how best to identify ELL students.  Some districts use a "Home Language Survey" completed by parents and others are screening or interviewing students.  Some districts have bilingual staff conducting the interviews and some do not.  One district only evaluated speaking and listening, but not reading and writing.

5.  Districts are also sometimes unprepared to handle unexpected, large numbers of immigrants.

This is clearly a complicated issue and many state and federal agencies are involved.  One could even argue that "too many cooks spoil the soup."  Perhaps a task force or a board with representatives from all the government agencies, private institutions, and universities could be established to look into these issues.  This article brought up several questions for me.  If we are not meeting the needs of ELL students in Portland, Boston, Buffalo, and Seattle, are there any districts around the country that are doing a better job?  If so, what are these districts doing?  What does the research tell us about how to help ELL students be successful?