You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Education’ category.
I woke up this morning stiff as a board! Last evenings workout at the Dojo let me know just how much I have aged and how much more I must train just to keep up with my 24 year old Chief Assistant Instructor Sempai Justin V. Rivera. Sempai Rivera is on the cusp of earning a milestone promotion in his martial arts career. Within the next couple of months he will be promoted to Sho Dan (1st Degree) Black Belt. He is currently San Kyu Brown Belt.
The fact of my bodily suffering brings to the forefront of my mind the 45 years I have trained in the martial arts, and how meaningful each morning in my life has become; although each morning uncovers newer pains and deeper strains. I embrace the sunrises with increased gratitude to my Creator. It is because of the pains I am able to gauge a multitude of gains; not just physical gains but mental and spiritual gains. My mind has always been one of tumultuous thoughts of what could have been, what would have been and of course what should have been, yet still I rise to the occasion.
My spirit has thrived in spite of my shortcomings. Isn’t it interesting how many people will never allow you to ever forget your mistakes or what they may define as failures; as if they were the pinnacle of perfection.? We all know better than that!
The mornings in my life appear on more occasion than just the rising of the physical sun in the east, oh yes, my mornings arrive at varied times and reveal diverse opportunities. I am thankful. I must admit I have witnessed some marvelous sunrises, and then I have missed so many of them because I was too busy caught up in the cares of my life and the worries of the moment. The cares of life can work as thieves who steal the fleeting moments of beauty that are offered to us as a gift from the God of all creation to invigorate us into our daily activities all the day long. And still we allow “stuff” to rob us of the joy we could experience from our mornings.
Don’t allow the “mornings” in your days to be robbed as a result of you paying to much attention or too much homage to the troubles of the world and the worries of your life; remember if you cannot change it then offer it up to the one who can and leave it with HIM! Yes I am determined this day to embrace my MEANINGFUL MORNING and not let it go until it blesses me. How about you? Peace and Love!
MONDAY, March 8 @ 7 PM
Featured presenters: Gerard Wenzke and Van White, Esq
Mr. White and Mr. Wenzke will lead an in-depth dialogue on the pedagogic, economic and political purpose of mayoral control of the RCSD. The speakers will present points and counter points over 15 mins each with a focus on kids and teacher performance, transactional efficiency, and the cost-benefit. The audience will be invited to share perspectives during the 60 min Q&A segment with the speakers. Come prepared to talk on all things hot and salient to urban education.
Location – 728 University Ave.
Time: 7 PM – 9 PM – Free and open to the public, suggested donation of $5 requested. No one turned away.
About Van White
Van is an attorney and maintains a civil law practice focused on medical malpractice, personal injury, and civil and human rights violations. Van was elected to the Rochester City School Board in January 2007 where he serves as Vice President and on numerous committees. White’s children have graduated or are enrolled in a District school.
About Gerard Wenzke
Gerry retired as CEO of First Niagara Risk Management in 2008. Gerry serves on the boards of the Lakeside Healthcare System, the Epilepsy Foundation, the Finger Lakes Healthcare 2020 Performance Commission and the Rochester Education and Literacy Commission. Gerry and his wife Caryl reside in Mendon and have three children and one grandchild.
This event is sponsored by the New York State Council for the Humanities.
Rochester City School District teachers get professional develpment credit – 2 hrs
February 24, 2010
Howard J. Eagle
It’s been a long time since I read a newspaper article and became really pissed off, but that definitely occurred on the evening of February 23rd — in the process of reading (several times) an article titled ‘College leaders back mayoral control of Rochester schools‘ — published on the Democrat and Chronicle‘s website.
My initial thought was, and still is, that even if 119 or 1,019 college presidents from around the world declared their support for mayoral control — that wouldn’t change my mind one little bit (if for no other reason) because I’ll never support (under any circumstances or conditions) the idea of diminishing predominantly poor African American and Hispanic peoples suffrage rights — never!
I asked myself (out loud) how could college presidents (of all people) be so ignorant? However, once I got over the initial shock of what I had read — it dawned on me that they aren’t really ignorant at all. People don’t become presidents of colleges and universities, especially internationally known, top-rated universities, by being ignorant — or do they?
With regard to this particular situation — I concluded that the gang of 19 was fully aware of what they were doing. That is, they had made a collective, conscious, choice (at his request) to back the smooth-talking, fair-haired, hometown all American Mayor — even if it was at the expense of the lives and futures of our children. Like Duffy (politically speaking), they had chosen “the hill that they are willing to die on.” That is, the national hill of Arnold Duncan school-of -thought and direction (privatization today — privatization tomorrow — privatization forever).
What really dawned on me though was that this is no longer a normal, run-of-the-mill debate. People, especially Robert Duffy is really playing hard-ball politics. I also thought about how correct Rochester City Councilman Adam McFadden had been several weeks earlier (1/14/10) when, as a guest on Bob Smith’s WXXI radio talk show — he had mentioned the possibility of the mayoral control issue tearing the community apart in a manner that we haven’t seen for many years. This possibility and probability certainly is evidenced by the fact that we now have top leaders of local colleges and universities taking a public position that is diametrically opposed to the position taken by some of the most notable professors and researchers working at those same colleges and universities. Several outstanding examples that immediately come to mind include the position of Joel Seligman vis-a-vis that of Dr. David Hursh; Dr. William Destler vis-a-vis distinguished professor of public policy and former Rochester mayor William Johnson, and Daan Braveman vis-a-vis professor and former Fairport, NY and Rochester City School District Superintendent, Dr. William Cala. Perhaps this is all part of healthy dialogue, but one thing for sure is — it is not part of the norm.
The actual letter of support, which was endorsed by “the presidents of every major higher learning institution in the area,” and sent to the president and Publisher of the Democrat and Chronicle — is really quite amazing. The first amazing thing about it is that, according to the above referenced article, the presidents had made a decision to support Duffy as early as 2/3/10. A full twenty days after the decision was made, the original version of the 2/23/10 letter from 19 top-level “academians” contained at least two typos. I don’t mean to nit-pick, but is it not reasonable to expect excellence from this group?
In their soon to be infamous letter, these “academians” claim that they “realize that all involved in this discussion want the best for our students…” Our students? By their own admission (no pun intended) most RCSD students never even come close to gaining entrance into their colleges and universities. Another very amazing thing about their letter and position is that they magically connect the latter fact to the issue of “governance” within the RCSD — amazing!
With regard to the issue of RCSD governance (as a guest on Bob Smith’s WXXI radio talk show on 2/11/10) former Rochester mayor and distinguished RIT professor of public policy, William Johnson is quoted as having said the following: “My view is that we need to look at the more basic issues here. I think we need to look at how to reform the delivery of urban education, not the governance structure. I think, to be fair — to say that you’re going to disrupt a whole $700 million structure — subsume it into your organization, and if it doesn’t work after 4 years, you will take it and send it back — you can’t put humpty-dumpty back together again, after you have made all those changes, and I think that we (as a community) need to understand that it is easier said than done. It has been tried by people much smarter than Bob Duffy and Bill Johnson, and they haven’t been able to make it work. It has been tried by communities all over the country. With all due respect to Mayor Duffy (a man who I admire; a man who I supported for election; a man who I worked with for 12 years; a man whose sincerity I do not question in the least bit) — I think he is biting off a lot more than he can chew (as we say down South), particularly given some of the other challenges which this City
faces at this particular point and time.”
Also, in their letter — in the process of pointing out extremely poor performance on English Exams by 8th graders at two RCSD schools — the intellectual “dream-team” made the blatantly obvious point that “students who cannot understand what they are reading, cannot succeed in high school,” (no kidding). What’s most interesting about this observation is that if anyone should know, these super-intellectuals certainly should know that mounds of research exists, which supports the vital need for successful students to be reading at or above grade level by or about 3rd grade. Thus, the critical task is not to just point out that schools have huge numbers of students who are light-years away from where they should be relative to basic skills-development. In so doing, they are only describing a symptom, which almost anyone can do, but the real fundamental issue and problem that must be solved is figuring out and eliminating that which allows for “84%” or “85%” of a school’s student body to reach 8th grade without having acquired basic reading, writing and math skills. This is absolutely one of the most critical issues that must be thoroughly addressed in any legitimate, authentic, urban education reform model. Since we know that Board of Education members are not directly responsible for teaching reading, writing and arithmetic — I can’t wait to hear the academic leaders explain how this and other such fundamentally critical issues are related to RCSD governance. Clearly as professor Johnson pointed out — this is an educational delivery issue, as opposed to one of governance.
Furthermore, when intellectuals begin hypocritically spewing rhetoric about poor academic “results [being] especially tragic in Rochester, a city with a proud history of quality educational institutions that has fueled entrepreneurialism, innovation and creativity for almost two centuries” — then we can be absolutely certain that they don’t have the best interests of the majority of our students in mind or at heart. Remember the history. “Two centuries” ago the ancestors of the overwhelming majority of our students couldn’t get near the “quality educational institutions,” which the intellectuals referenced in their letter.
They also make the bogus claim that “there is considerable evidence that mayoral control improves outcomes from cities as diverse at [their typo] New York City, Boston, New Haven, Hartford, Cleveland, Washington D.C. and Chicago.” I say if “considerable evidence” exists — they should produce it now.
The president of Finger Lakes Community College was quoted as having the audacity to say that “overwhelming research shows [mayoral control] has delivered good results.” Wow! Again I say, if “overwhelming” evidence exists — they should produce it now.
It’s difficult to determine whose statements (the intellectual’s or Duffy’s) are most ludicrous and absurd. With regard to the gang of 19, the Mayor is quoted as having said “I think they are as connected as anybody could be…” Incredible! Imagine that. I mean really imagine that this guy is serious. He really means this — I think.
We (RCSD parents and concerned community members in general) absolutely cannot allow the likes of Duffy and/or totally disconnected intellectuals , or anyone else for that matter — to preside over the destruction of another generation of our children without being at every major decision-making table.
We must continue to organize!!!
By Karin Chenoweth
I know I am not the first to notice that education as a field tends to get whipsawed between what seem like incompatible alternatives: We can teach phonics or surround children with literature; we can teach skills or content; we can prepare students for the workforce or for college; we can provide schools that are equitable or schools that are excellent. The examples are endless.
For the past five years, I have been examining schools that have, for the most part, sidestepped these battles. They are schools I have visited as part of my work for the Education Trust, a Washington-based nonprofit organization. The job involves identifying and writing about schools with significant populations of low-income children and children of color that are also high-achieving or rapidly improving. In many of these, just about all of the students meet or exceed state standards, and achievement gaps are narrow, or sometimes nonexistent.
Ultimately, there’s no magic to how these schools achieve success. As one teacher told me, “It’s not rocket science. You figure out what you need to teach, and then you teach it.” She makes teaching sound easy; the way Tiger Woods makes golf look easy.
My point, however, is that in visiting these schools, I’ve been struck by how free they are from the frustrating controversies other schools get mired in. Take, for example, the phonics-vs.-whole-language debate.
I know, I know, whole-language programs are gone, most of them replaced by “balanced literacy” programs. But, as one education professor once told me in a conspiratorial half-whisper, “We call it ‘balanced literacy’ because we’re not allowed to use the term ‘whole language.’ ” Some balanced-literacy programs really do strike a balance between teaching phonics and surrounding children with the printed word. But some are simply phonics-averse whole-language programs in disguise, and it is difficult to tell which is which without delving into questions of what materials and training is provided.
What I have found interesting about these places is that they tend to avoid questions about the philosophy of reading instruction. Rather, they approach the issue with what I consider a cheerful empiricism. “We have a good balanced-literacy program,” said Molly Bensinger-Lacy, the principal of Graham Road Elementary School in Fairfax County, Va., where 80 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals. “But we were finding that that wasn’t sufficient.”
Teachers at Graham Road who faithfully taught Fairfax County’s prescribed reading curriculum found that many of their students, most of whom speak a language other than English at home, were stumped when asked to decode a word they had not seen before, even if the word was in their vocabulary. The students were having a hard time hearing the sounds of English and identifying them in words. Now teachers in kindergarten and 1st and 2nd grade carefully supplement their regular reading instruction with phonemic-awareness instruction, including rhyming games, songs, and an occasional round of the old game “I’m packing a suitcase and in it I put …,” in which every item named must begin with a particular letter.
In other words, when their students didn’t learn, the Graham Road teachers changed their practice. They based their teaching not on a preset philosophy, or a set of program prescriptions, but on what would best help their students learn.
This appears to work. In 2008, every Graham Road 6th grader met Virginia’s state reading standards; 70 percent exceeded them. That is laudable for any school, but for a school that mostly serves the children of very recent, low-income immigrants, it is remarkable.
Here’s another example of a school that has bypassed a familiar stumbling block: Public School/Middle School 124 in the Queens section of New York City. As part of the city school system, it is expected to teach its students a district curriculum that emphasizes skills rather than a set body of content. Many years ago, Valarie Lewis, who was then the assistant principal and is now the principal, saw that, as she put it, “teachers were teaching 150 percent, but they weren’t getting the results.” She explained: “Teachers would teach skills, but if [the children] didn’t have background knowledge, it didn’t stick.”
She and the school’s then-principal, Elain Thompson, brought the Core Knowledge program to the school. Its curriculum, developed in part by E.D. Hirsch Jr., focuses on providing students with a great deal of background knowledge, from nursery rhymes to Newton’s Laws. “Teachers still need to teach the skills,” said Judy Lefante, the school’s Core Knowledge coordinator, “but we’ve worked hard through professional development to make sure they teach skills through content.” Skills such as making inferences, drawing conclusions, and separating facts from opinion, for example, are all worked on within the science and social studies content areas.
The results are remarkable: Student achievement at PS/MS 124 is almost indistinguishable from that of wealthy, white schools, despite the fact that more than 80 percent of its mostly African-American, Latino, and South Asian students qualify for free lunches.
The point is this: Arguments that for too long have fostered false dichotomies, pitting one practice against another, can be resolved—but only if educators have as their clear goal ensuring that all their students become educated citizens, and then focus closely on what it takes to help them reach that goal.
Here’s a final example of what I am talking about. For decades, high schools have steered students into either college-preparatory classes or technical and workforce training. This was done on the theory that people either work with their hands or with their brains. But at Imperial High School, in the Imperial Valley of California, Principal Lisa Tabarez said that helping students become productive citizens means helping them work “with their hands and their brains.”
The high school uses college-preparatory classes as its default curriculum, but it also requires each student to take at least one semester of a vocational class. Computer-graphics classes, marketing and business, woodworking, and agriculture are popular. Unlike vocational teachers at many schools, those at Imperial consider themselves just as much a part of the academic program as any other teacher, and they align their curricula to California standards. Students learn mathematical concepts, formulate coherent arguments, read instruction manuals, and apply the scientific method to real-world problems to help them meet the standards—all as part of their vocational classes.
What are the results? Just about every one of Imperial’s students passes the California high school exit exam and goes on to graduate, most of them enrolling in a postsecondary institution. Other schools with similar working-class Hispanic enrollments are lucky to graduate 70 percent of their students.
Tabarez summed up what Imperial does this way: “Every single student who comes before us has the ability to learn. As educators, we must accept our daily responsibility of taking students, at whatever level and place in their lives they may be, and helping them to learn—to learn how to become productive, contributing members of our society through the opportunity of education.”
And that means avoiding false choices. The nation’s children don’t need phonics or literature; they don’t need skills or content; they don’t need to work with their heads or their hands. They need it all.
Karin Chenoweth, a senior writer at the Education Trust, in Washington, is the author of How It’s Being Done: Urgent Lessons From Unexpected Schools (Harvard Education Press, 2009), as well as It’s Being Done: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools (Harvard Education Press, 2007).
Classroom teachers are generally last in line when it comes to spending decisions and the first blamed when those dollars don’t result in student achievement. Given this history, it’s not likely that I’ll be asked to serve on a committee writing a grant for the “Race to the Top” money to be distributed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan this fall. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion on the matter.
Duncan says these grant dollars will flow only to states promising innovation. For most policymakers that means grand schemes—charter schools, fancy hardware, giant reading programs with discrete benchmarks, alternative paths to teaching, textbook adoptions, mountains of data and tests, tests, tests.
My idea of innovation calls for a quieter revolution, one with fewer bells and whistles. It begins by envisioning a quiet but humming classroom, where busy heads bend over pads of paper and hands scribble rapidly with pens or pencils.
If I were running the education world, I’d ensure that every building contain, at a minimum, one teacher trained through the National Writing Project in the teaching of writing and the use of writing to learn. Planting that single seed could revolutionize the way we look at students and student work.
The NWP has been transforming teachers from all disciplines and grade levels for over 30 years, and the track record of success is well documented. One study revealed that 98% of teachers in the NWP remained in education their entire careers, while 70% of those stayed in the classroom working with students. More to the point, perhaps, a recent meta-study of NWP research found that teachers who participate in Writing Project professional development outperform non-Project teachers on every measure of student achievement in writing performance.
But why pour dollars into effective writing-instruction? Well, I’ve come to believe—in part through my experiences with NWP—that writing is at the core of learning.
Writing as Making Meaning
From a teaching-and-learning perspective, reading is input – other ideas implanted from a variety of voices – and writing is output – a record of a student’s understanding of what those voices are saying. But though we spend barrels of money ensuring that students can read, we neglect to help our students make sense of what they’ve read, heard or seen by asking them to use the writing process for deeper thinking.
Teachers are quick to note that superiors seldom seek our advice, yet we rarely ask our students what is on their minds. We spend most of our time filling their heads, and carve out very little to discover how they are responding to and integrating what we’ve told them.
What is it they think they have learned? How does that learning fit into their lives? What connections can they make between the new knowledge and the old? Can they imagine a future where their new knowledge expands to resolve problems and issues? Opening a window into students’ thoughts is the only way to know for sure how well they “get” what we’re giving them. Notepads and pencils make excellent window-openers.
Why writing and not some other tool? Writing is thinking—one student sorting through his knowledge and understandings to produce thought. When a student learns something, she must first articulate it in her own language before she owns it. Writing gives every student in the room the time and space to do this important reflecting in a very personal—dare I say differentiated–way.
In a matter of minutes, writing can reveal a student harboring a huge misconception, a student imagining possibilities the teacher has not considered, or a student struggling to learn an important concept.
By not asking students to write, we are also ignoring their potential role in designing education as makers of meaning. Teachers dismissing student knowledge is akin to education policy makers dismissing teacher insights. In my classroom, my students’ written responses help me know them better and tailor my instruction to their interests and needs.
Still not convinced that true innovation in education lies in the paper and pen?
Try transforming your own classroom into a community of learners tomorrow. Ask your students to write about this: What is one thing we have done this quarter that you have enjoyed? What did you like about it? What is something you would like to see as a part of our classroom work? Why?
I guarantee they will respond with the same eagerness and insight you would, if I were to ask: What is one thing you would like to change about education in this country if you could?
You’ve already heard my answer. So go ahead – write away. What’s yours?
Mary Tedrow teaches high school English and journalism and co-directs the Northern Virginia Writing Project. She is a National Board Certified Teacher and a former Fellow of the Teacher Leaders Network.
We are approaching another election cycle for the RCSD Board of Ed and again we face some of the same problems we faced 20 years ago. One of the most pressing issues I think we need to address once and for all is the lack of user friendly services at the District Headquarters (Central Office 131 West Broad St.) pertaining to parent engagement and advocacy. Another is the policies and procedures that govern who is or is not qualified in regards to geographical and residential requirements to represent the students and parents as a Board Member. It intrigues me to see how often certain current Board Members do not have a legitimate grasp on what their real job is as board members. My understanding of a board member whether it is one sitting on the Board of Education or any other major organization or corporation is to creatively and with an informed background craft effective policy, not to have overwhelming hands on intervention in the daily operation of that entity. In regards to the School District the Superintendent of School’s responsibility is to intervene and the Board Members are to craft the policies that the Superintendent implements within that strategy of intervention. Does anyone have a clue? So, here we go…I would like to get your input and your take on this issue as we delve ahead into “another” election. I will gladly publish your opinions with the disclaimer that it is your opinion and may not necessarily represent the views of Tillman & Associates or Vision Ministries of Rochester, NY or Vision Ministries Intern ational, all of the aforementioned being entities that I am heavily involved in on the administrative level. Are you out there? Lets here form you today!
“Birth to age 5 is one of our earliest opportunities to close the achievement gap. Early childhood education must be a priority.”
v Richard Riley, former Secretary of Education
Parents and home environment are more important in determining academic success than the schools. That was the essence of a recent George Will column which cited the conclusion of the Coleman Report (1966), a government-sponsored study of factors that have the greatest impact on learning.
This is not what educators wanted to hear, so they essentially ignored the Coleman report and have continued to do so ever since.
Numerous scientific studies have reached similar conclusions — that the more fortunate children have been educated since birth. Their caring parents have talked to them,. Listened to them, read to them, and answered their questions. They’ve experienced language in all forms — the key to success in the classroom. Kindergarten for them is a continuation of their education, not a beginning.
The less fortunate children, those who have been intellectually neglected, will too often find kindergarten a bewildering place, or worse. They’ll start school behind. Catching up happens, but it’s difficult. Failure for many occurs before they ever enter a classroom.
Schools inherit reading problems, which are actually language problems. Preparation begins at home. It begins at birth — and so does test preparation. It begins with loving care, cultivating curiosity, and exposure to spoken and written language.
Through parents, grandparents, siblings, playmates and the media, the child has five years of emotional, social and intellectual baggage. They acquire this in the home, on the playground, at the supermarket, at the house of worship — wherever a child happens to be. It also takes place in the classroom. The quality of that baggage will go a long way in determining attitudes, values and academic potential.
“No Child Left Behind” became the law in 2002, and it dictates the government’s policy for our public schools. It’s designed to improve academic skills, particularly in reading. The schools are solely responsible — parents, home environment, five years of pre-school experiences are virtually non-factors.
The government continues its grand tradition of ignoring scientific studies — not to mention common sense.
Ignored are the desperate conditions of far too many of our struggling students: hunger, homelessness, abuse in all its ugly forms, drug-infested and violent neighborhoods, overwhelmed single parents. The majority of these students are trapped in inner cities.
According to a 2006 article in U.S. News & World Report, a third of our schools are dysfunctional. The majority are in urban areas and the students are overwhelmingly blacks or Hispanics.
There is a disconnect between government educational policy and the findings of scientific studies. Schools are getting children too late. Improving conditions are home would be difficult at best. But universal pre-school programs would be the logical course to follow.
These programs are in place in several European countries. Newsweek once reported, “The French educate kids beginning at two years.”
Sullivan, of Binghamton, is author of “Keys to Kindergarten.”
A breakdown of how different states approached No Child Left Behind goals. The program aims to have all children reading and doing math on grade level by 2013-14.
About half of states set steady yearly goals for increasing the percentage of students that pass the tests. Other states set the bar very low early on and now face steep yearly achievement gains.
___
States that set incremental progress goals:
_Arkansas
_Colorado
_Connecticut
_District of Columbia
_Idaho
_Illinois
_Maryland
_Massachusetts
_Minnesota
_Mississippi
_Missouri
_Montana
_Nebraska
_New Hampshire
_New Jersey
_New Mexico
_New York
_North Carolina
_North Dakota
_South Carolina
_Tennessee
_Texas
_Utah
_Vermont
_Virginia
_Washington
___
States now facing steep achievement gains:
_Alabama
_Alaska
_Arizona
_California
_Delaware
_Georgia
_Hawaii
_Indiana
_Iowa
_Kentucky
_Louisiana
_Maine
_Michigan
_Nevada
_Ohio
_Oklahoma
_Oregon
_Pennsylvania
_Rhode Island
_South Dakota
_West Virginia
_Wisconsin
_Wyoming
___
States with blended approaches:
_Florida
_Kansas
Source: Center on Education Policy.
Tillmanandassociates's Weblog 
