December 2008 Archives

Just in time for the new year comes a report from the Children's
Defense Fund, detailing the actual conditions of the children of our
nation. For many, the conditions are dismal. One in six live in
poverty -- that's more than 13 million children across the United
States. Almost half that number live in extreme poverty, and nine
million lack health insurance. We can be certain these numbers are
escalating as the recession intensifies -- stealing away jobs and
straining philanthropy.

Our nation leads the world in a number of unenviable categories. We are first in the number incarcerated, first in weapons production and exports, and last in investing in child poverty. The United States and Somalia (which has no legally constituted government) are the only two United Nations members that have failed to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Children’s Defense Fund’s president, Marion Wright Edelman writes,

A cradle to prison pipeline crisis is fueling a massive and costly prison system that is becoming the new American apartheid. It is draining tens of billions of dollars from crucial health and education investments all children need to get into a pipeline to college and productive work. Poverty and continuing racial disparities in all child serving systems are sentencing countless children to dead-end lives. That a Black boy born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison in his lifetime and a Latino boy has a 1 in 6 chance is a personal tragedy and national catastrophe. We can and must change these horrifying outcomes. If we can bail out Wall Street bankers who have brought our economy to its knees, we can rescue our children from hopelessness, despair, sickness, illiteracy and preventable poverty.

In my visit to the CDF website, I found an awareness campaign that struck a powerful chord with me, focused on the “Cradle to Prison pipeline.” Julia Cass and Connie Curry carried out an in-depth investigation of this phenomenon in Ohio and Mississippi in 2003 and 2004, and drew these conclusions, all highly relevant to educators:

• Many of the young men and women in the juvenile justice system never were in the pipeline to college. They were not derailed from the right track; they never got on it.
• Intervention is important in early childhood while the brain is still growing and behavioral patterns are being formed. A lot of a child’s future life story is written by the third or fourth grade.
• Many Black and Latino children are behind when they enter kindergarten.
• Mental health and emotional problems are a major gateway to the Prison
Pipeline. When school, family or community resources aren’t there to help, these children are dumped into the juvenile justice system.
• Children who have not learned self-control by the age of eight are at high risk
of delinquency and incarceration. Teachers know who they are, but there is no
structure for getting help. These children are more likely to be suspended.
• Children know by about the third grade whether they are part of the mainstream
or of another, more marginal world. Those who are routinely disciplined or
struggle with schoolwork mentally drop out at this point. They actually leave
school in the ninth grade, the major exit ramp from the path to college. The
ninth grade is also the school year when many youth commit their first criminal
offenses.
• The behavior teachers see as disruptive and disrespectful may be difficult to
manage but knowing the children makes their behavior understandable and
reveals other ways to work with them.
• Truancy—being out of school—is the number one predictor of delinquency.
When teenagers drop out of school, they put themselves at the bottom of the
economic ladder, probably for life, and are much more likely to be detained and
incarcerated, especially if they hang out on risk saturated street corners.
• Zero tolerance school discipline policies don’t improve school achievement or
teach a lesson to the offender; they contribute to the Pipeline to Prison by pushing
students out of school.
• School systems are criminalizing school misbehavior, with police officers stationed
at schools arresting students for behavior that used to be handled in the principal’s
office.
• America’s deeply ingrained philosophy that just getting tough is the way to stop
misbehavior rarely works, especially with children. The political pendulum
swings from more to less punishment but the paradigm itself is worn out and a
new one has not taken its place.
• Despite the image of super predators and dangerous hallways, most students
suspended from school and most juveniles in detention did not commit violent
offenses or put the safety of others at risk.
• Anger runs like a river through the stories of virtually all the children profiled and
of many of their parents.
• Teenagers will seek respect wherever they can find it.
• Young people may be serviced and diagnosed but they also need real relationships,
not just required ones. Thousands of children grow up without a single
adult, apart from a mother or grandmother, taking a sustained interest in guiding
them and sharing their joys and sorrows.

In Oakland, where I work with teachers, far too many youth are caught up in the cycle of violence described so well here. Far too many are incarcerated rather than enrolled in college. I read this articletoday in the New York Times that describes a town in Rhode Island dominated by a large prison. Once the prisons reach a critical mass, they become an economic engine of their own. The prison guards and private prison owners lobby for expansion of the prisons, and precious resources go in that direction instead of towards the social and educational programs that might prevent incarceration in the first place. If we are to change priorities, we need to articulate a clear alternative to these policies, and catalyze popular sentiment to provide support for alternatives.

Do you see the cradle to prison pipeline in your community? Are there fresh ideas out there for diverting energy in a more positive direction?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 5:18 PM | Permalink | 4 Comments | Recommend

This week a friend said I was a bit of a pessimist, and though I didn't like the sound of that, I have to admit he might have a point. Here I am week after week finding things to bemoan; throwing cold water on the idea of college for all, forecasting disaster for school finances, and declaring No Child Left Behind a failure. In my defense, I would say we have hit a pretty rough time, and there is a need for somebody to call out the troubles we are experiencing. But perhaps now that I am over fifty years old, I need to be careful I do not turn into a crusty old curmudgeon.

So I have been turning things over in my mind, and I am doing my best to come up with some positives – a look on the brighter side.

Here, in no particular order, are some things I am thankful for, or look forward to in the year to come:

1. Obama won the election. I don’t think I need say more on that one.

2. A California court has issued an injunction blocking implementation of a mandate that all 8th graders be placed in Algebra classes, ready or not. Reality has, at long last, been recognized. "We cannot just tell our students and teachers the end goal and expect them to get there on their own," State Superintendent Jack O’Connell said. "Without additional funding, we're simply setting our students up for failure."

3. The worm finally turned on No Child Left Behind, and a consensus began to emerge that the law has failed to serve its noble aspirations. Furthermore, clarity began to emerge around an alternative approach that would recognize that schools alone cannot fix the problems associated with the achievement gap. Dozens of influential leaders, including incoming Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and professor Linda Darling Hammond signed a powerful statement calling for a “Broader, Bolder Approach” to education reform.

4. One of the primary reasons we cannot keep young teachers in my district past a few years is that they cannot afford to buy homes here. In some neighborhoods in Oakland home prices have fallen by as much as 50%. Perhaps this will allow young teachers to sink roots in our community and stay for the long haul.

5. The National Research Council affirmed that National Board certified teachers are more effective than their non-certified counterparts, but pointed out there is a big opportunity being missed as leadership roles for accomplished teachers remain limited. A panel of ten NBCTs issued a report noting the same issue, and called for NBCTs to step up to the challenge before us to provide greater leadership.

6. The number of California high school graduates ready for admission to college has increased by 11%. Now if only we could find room for them to attend!

8. Fifty-seven year-old high school physics teacher and past union local president Robert Crowley emerged victorious in the latest iteration of Survivor. Bob proved himself capable of adapting scientific knowhow to the challenging environment, repeatedly impressing his fellow survivors with his skills. But it was his honesty and integrity that led to his ultimate victory. Even after winning the million dollars, however, he returned to the classroom, where he said he had papers to grade.

Reflecting back on 2008, looking forward to 2009, what can you find to be happy about?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 12:03 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

My late father, Fred Cody, (pictured at right, milking the family cow) was born more than 90 years ago in Scott’s Run, West Virginia, a coal hollow in Monongalia County. His mother, a high school graduate, taught school there in a one room schoolhouse. Following his service in World War II, he was able to complete his PhD at the University of London thanks to the GI Bill. He would never have had that chance were it not for the generosity and foresight of the taxpayers.

As a result, I have a great affection for the GI Bill. This law is credited with expanding the middle class in the US, and it certainly helped my family – so the idea of expanding the ranks of those able to attend college is very important to me.

That said, I have been struggling recently to sort out the rhetoric from the reality in the education “reform” movement. According to many of our leaders, all students must be prepared to enroll in a four-year college because all students should attend and graduate college. That will in turn result in the highly educated workforce the US needs for the 21st century.

Many public school reform efforts today are guided by this big idea. In California the Governor has led us to enact a mandate that all 8th graders take Algebra, and many districts across the state are working to match high school graduation requirements to the University of California’s “A to G requirements.”

There is certainly a civil rights issue involved in access to higher education. Students of color, and those raised in poverty have numerous unfair disadvantages, including the quality of their schools. We should do everything we can to strengthen their schools and build the effectiveness of their teachers. We should work to close the achievement gap, and provide opportunities for as many students as possible to attend college.

But is it reasonable to propose that everyone will or should go to college? The reality of our economic straits has begun to cast the shadow of doubt on this vision. I have some basic questions for those who are pushing the system to prepare all students for college.

Currently about 25% of the adults in the US are college graduates. Statistics regarding the economic advantage conferred by a college degree are based on that proportion. What would be the effect on wages of college graduates if that number were to increase substantially? The middle class in the US is shrinking in the current economy, and a college degree in the future may not be as precious as it has been in the past. There do not seem to be enough jobs for the graduates currently emerging from college -- will those jobs expand if the number of college graduates expands? Or will wages simply drop?

We ARE increasing the number of students eligible for college. This week an article in the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the number of students eligible for public universities has expanded by 11 percent – with Latinos showing the largest increase. Now 33% of California's high school graduates are eligible. But have we addressed the other systemic barriers to them actually successfully completing their studies? The state’s budget mess means the universities will be DECREASING the number of slots available for new students by ten thousand.

As the slots diminish in proportion to applicants, the colleges simply raise the bar for admission – so our schools and students are pursuing a moving – and shrinking – target. And the overall economic picture means that fewer families will have the resources to send their children to college. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal describes the tough choices facing families (including my own) as college tuitions increase, and state subsidies and college endowments shrink. The New York Times reported just ten days ago that:

Among the poorest families — those with incomes in the lowest 20 percent — the net cost of a year at a public university was 55 percent of median income, up from 39 percent in 1999-2000. At community colleges, long seen as a safety net, that cost was 49 percent of the poorest families’ median income last year, up from 40 percent in 1999-2000.

This seems like a fraud.

We have a very tricky dilemma. We want our schools to prepare as many students as possible for the most advantageous opportunities, but we also want to prepare them for the actual future they will be facing. It seems to me that our exclusive emphasis on college preparation does a disservice to the many students who will not be on that path. It also points to the trouble with treating K-12 schools as if they are a stand-alone fix for society’s ills. Unless we connect a solid K-12 education to genuine opportunities in our students' futures, we are not going to accomplish much, and we may actually harm those we are trying to help.

I do not have all the answers here. One of the scary things about the discussion around these issues is that sometimes people behave as if they DO have all the answers, and dismiss the very real qualms being raised. So I end this post with a request for real dialogue.

Should a K-12 education be designed around preparing everyone for college? Should we raise our high school graduation requirements to match the university admission requirements? How will this serve the two thirds of our students who do not go on to college?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 12:29 PM | Permalink | 12 Comments | Recommend

Barack Obama was elected with a powerful mandate for change. Teachers are excited because we will soon have an administration that has pledged to reform No Child Left Behind, allowing for a broader range of assessments and less emphasis on standardized test scores. He has promised a high priority for early childhood education, and called for greater investment in high needs schools.

But as I have described in earlier posts, he has not clung to any particular brand of ideologically driven thinking. He has spoken in favor of merit pay for teachers, and advocates expanded support for charter schools.

Now Obama must select a Secretary of Education, and that selection will embody his new direction. In his policies, Obama is pragmatic and reasonable, seeking solutions that will work. In this way, he bridges the divide that separates rival camps of educational reformers.

I think it is important to recognize that there are different visions for school reform. Recent editorials in the Washington Post and New York Times have revealed a campaign to portray these two camps in a way that places one on the high ground of “genuine reformers,” and the other camp as “defenders of orthodoxy.” Articles in Time magazine and Newsweek have sounded similar notes.

The goal of this campaign is apparently to discourage Obama from selecting Linda Darling-Hammond for Secretary of Education, in favor of someone from the other camp, which includes big city chancellors Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein.

The key to this issue is defining the status quo that needs changing. Once that is defined, then we can get to work. I have worked for twenty-one years in the Oakland public schools, eighteen of them teaching in a high-needs middle school. I served as a Peer Assistance and Review coach for two years, working with teachers who had received poor evaluations. I have experienced the status quo first-hand for my entire career – and I have sought to change it.

So here are the parts of the status quo I would like to see changed.

The status quo is that we now have a Secretary of Education whose only prior experience in public schools was as a substitute teacher in the state of Texas. Wouldn’t it be a great change to have an outstanding teacher chosen for the position of the nation’s top educator? Someone who has actually experienced the realities of working with children in a classroom – wouldn’t that give them a valuable perspective? The Attorney General is someone who has practiced as a lawyer, the Surgeon General will be a doctor. Why not a teacher (or former teacher, like Darling-Hammond) for Secretary of Education?

The status quo is that tests have been used to judge and condemn schools. How about someone who understands that a single set of tests is not a valid means of judging teachers and schools, and that over-reliance on tests leads to poor educational practices and the demoralization of teachers and their students? How about someone who understands that external tests are just one part of a robust accountability system, and that teachers have an important role to play in the assessment of student learning?

The status quo is that schools have been left on their own to single-handedly raise student performance. How about someone who understands that the schools are one part of a complex social system, and that they need to be embraced and supported within their communities in order to succeed. That means broader solutions that include early childhood education, measures to fight poverty, improve nutrition and healthcare for children and their parents as well.

The status quo is that teacher turnover has been rising for the past seven years in my district – and in many urban and rural districts across the nation. We cannot get very many teachers to invest in teaching as a career, and as a result, we have a revolving door of uncredentialed novices who receive a six-week boot camp training before they are given full responsibility for the education of some very needy students. Many of these newcomers are unprepared for the realities they encounter, and ill-equipped to respond. How about someone who understands the value of thorough teacher preparation, including relating to the cultures and circumstances of the families they will be working with? How about someone who understands that until we can create a sustainable, rewarding profession, capable of building expertise from within, reform is going to be flimsy and fragile?

The status quo is that teachers are mostly paid through a static salary schedule that rewards longevity and units of college credit and nothing else. How about someone willing to work with teachers to develop models of performance pay that reward and promote teacher leadership and collaboration? Someone who understands that the goal of performance pay is to motivate and inspire, and that requires the active participation and cooperation of the teachers and our unions?

Teachers have great hopes for the new direction the Obama team will be leading us in. We are ready for some serious changes to the status quo, and they will not all be comfortable. But let’s work to be clear about what the status quo is, because “change we can believe in” -- and a wise selection for Secretary of Education -- will start there. Far from being a defender of orthodoxy, Linda Darling-Hammond’s career has been spent promoting the idea that teaching needs to become a fully realized profession, with all the personal and professional accountability that entails. Nothing status quo about that.
UPDATE:
A new petition has been launched to support the appointment of Linda Darling-Hammond to the post of Secretary of Education. If you would like to sign it, go here.

What do you think? What parts of the status quo would you call out? What do you want in a new Secretary of Education?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 2:10 PM | Permalink | 6 Comments | Recommend