Equalize Thishttp://www.good.is/Education is the social justice issue of our generation, but it extends beyond the four walls of the classroom. Liz Dwyer examines the innovative ideas and change-makers revolutionizing the field and transforming lives.Sun, 27 May 2012 12:42:07 -0700CakePHPhourly1en-us <![CDATA[Q&A: Why Public Schools Need a Bailout]]> http://www.good.is/post/q-a-why-public-schools-need-a-bailout/ http://www.good.is/post/q-a-why-public-schools-need-a-bailout/ null


Veteran teacher, counselor, advocate, and community activist Steve Zimmer (PDF) has called Los Angeles home since he arrived in 1992 as a neophyte Teach For America teacher. Eighteen years later, 40 year-old Zimmer is completing his first year as an elected school board member for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest district in the United States. Serving LAUSD’s 680,000 racially, ethnically, and economically diverse students at a time when the Obama administration is raising performance expectations—while more than $1.5 billion’s been cut from the district budget and more than 6,000 positions eliminated—is no easy task. We talked with him about why he still believes in public education despite all the challenges.

GOOD: What kind of grade would you give the Obama Administration and Secretary Duncan on education?

STEVE ZIMMER: I’d give them an A on focusing on the lowest performing schools, but I’d give them a C on approach. I think some inflexibility and overreliance on competition has really hampered their efforts. They’re propelled by the notion that there needs to be a school-based drastic turnaround rather than a community-based turnaround. With the schools that need the most support and collaboration, there seems to be a focus on being punitive and I think that’s flawed.

G: Is the solution to run public education like a corporation?

SZ: The reforms I think will actually work aren’t private sector reforms. When we talk about social capital and community capital and harnessing what could be very effective solutions that are right in the communities where children live—I don’t think those are business models. Those are expanding the scope of what a school does and transforming the definition of what a school is, and from that, you transform who has power in schools.

I’m not opposed to private sector influence, but whether it’s private sector or what I call community sector, human sector or labor sector, whatever it is, here’s my problem with what’s happening right now—all of those things can be tried once we have a base level of funding that stabilizes our schools.

G: Some say there’s enough money but districts waste it.

SZ: I’m not talking about throwing money at a problem. I’m talking about stabilizing situations so that you can address the problems. There’s no debate about funding the war, no debate about funding the Wall Street and housing bailouts, but a tiny fraction of either of those funds would provide a baseline stabilization of our schools.

G: Thirty schools in Detroit closed this year and 275,000 education jobs are projected to be lost. How do we fix these cuts?

SZ: The assumption is that one of the things that your taxes fully fund is public schools. When you have a recession, that’s when you need more resources in schools, not less.

G: What do you say to people who want more police at schools and zero tolerance policies where we expel kids?

SZ: I actually think school police, and I’m being very specific, school police have a potentially powerful role to play. School police are like an intersection between social work and law enforcement, and I’ve had phenomenally positive experiences with that when it works. We’re not going to arrest and expel our way out of the social problems that are a) caused by poverty and b) accentuated by concentrations of poverty.

Until we own the fact that the achievement gap is not some accident—that those who are in power and those who have had access to privilege and all the things that go along with it directly benefit from there being an achievement gap—until we own it, it’s never going to go away. Since the achievement gap is intentional, the efforts to eradicate it need to be just as intentional.

G: With all the problems facing public education, and the challenge of being a board member in such a large district, how do you stay positive?

SZ: Last Sunday I spent my afternoon at school fairs and my first family fair was at Selma Elementary, right in the heart of Hollywood. It serves homeless families and has a high concentration of poverty. It’s one of the most urban-feeling schools in the city. There’s no grass. It’s surrounded by buildings, but their fair was really great—tons of families and they’d made their own food and their own games, and it was clear that everything had been made by the teachers and parents.

Then I went from Selma to Roscomere, a school in Bel Air. They had huge trailers with 64-inch screens. They brought in one of those rock-climbing things. They spent $250,000 just on the games for their fair.

One of the blessings and challenges of having the district I have is you really see the disparity. The leaders of this school district have to balance the needs of a Roscomere and a Selma. The teachers in both places still are paid, and they work on the same contract and there’s still the same classroom ratio. But there are inequities because of the money Roscomere is able to raise.

It’s the same school system. It’s public education. Somehow, someway, it connects people who wouldn’t be connected otherwise. We just have to figure the rest of it out.

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.

 

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Veteran teacher, counselor, advocate, and community activist Steve Zimmer (PDF) has called Los Angeles home since he arrived in 1992 as a neophyte Teach For America teacher. Eighteen years later, 40 year-old Zimmer is completing his first year as an elected school board member for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest district in the United States. Serving LAUSD’s 680,000 racially, ethnically, and economically diverse students at a time when the Obama administration is raising performance expectations—while more than $1.5 billion’s been cut from the district budget and more than 6,000 positions eliminated—is no easy task. We talked with him about why he still believes in public education despite all the challenges.

GOOD: What kind of grade would you give the Obama Administration and Secretary Duncan on education?

STEVE ZIMMER: I’d give them an A on focusing on the lowest performing schools, but I’d give them a C on approach. I think some inflexibility and overreliance on competition has really hampered their efforts. They’re propelled by the notion that there needs to be a school-based drastic turnaround rather than a community-based turnaround. With the schools that need the most support and collaboration, there seems to be a focus on being punitive and I think that’s flawed.

G: Is the solution to run public education like a corporation?

SZ: The reforms I think will actually work aren’t private sector reforms. When we talk about social capital and community capital and harnessing what could be very effective solutions that are right in the communities where children live—I don’t think those are business models. Those are expanding the scope of what a school does and transforming the definition of what a school is, and from that, you transform who has power in schools.

I’m not opposed to private sector influence, but whether it’s private sector or what I call community sector, human sector or labor sector, whatever it is, here’s my problem with what’s happening right now—all of those things can be tried once we have a base level of funding that stabilizes our schools.

G: Some say there’s enough money but districts waste it.

SZ: I’m not talking about throwing money at a problem. I’m talking about stabilizing situations so that you can address the problems. There’s no debate about funding the war, no debate about funding the Wall Street and housing bailouts, but a tiny fraction of either of those funds would provide a baseline stabilization of our schools.

G: Thirty schools in Detroit closed this year and 275,000 education jobs are projected to be lost. How do we fix these cuts?

SZ: The assumption is that one of the things that your taxes fully fund is public schools. When you have a recession, that’s when you need more resources in schools, not less.

G: What do you say to people who want more police at schools and zero tolerance policies where we expel kids?

SZ: I actually think school police, and I’m being very specific, school police have a potentially powerful role to play. School police are like an intersection between social work and law enforcement, and I’ve had phenomenally positive experiences with that when it works. We’re not going to arrest and expel our way out of the social problems that are a) caused by poverty and b) accentuated by concentrations of poverty.

Until we own the fact that the achievement gap is not some accident—that those who are in power and those who have had access to privilege and all the things that go along with it directly benefit from there being an achievement gap—until we own it, it’s never going to go away. Since the achievement gap is intentional, the efforts to eradicate it need to be just as intentional.

G: With all the problems facing public education, and the challenge of being a board member in such a large district, how do you stay positive?

SZ: Last Sunday I spent my afternoon at school fairs and my first family fair was at Selma Elementary, right in the heart of Hollywood. It serves homeless families and has a high concentration of poverty. It’s one of the most urban-feeling schools in the city. There’s no grass. It’s surrounded by buildings, but their fair was really great—tons of families and they’d made their own food and their own games, and it was clear that everything had been made by the teachers and parents.

Then I went from Selma to Roscomere, a school in Bel Air. They had huge trailers with 64-inch screens. They brought in one of those rock-climbing things. They spent $250,000 just on the games for their fair.

One of the blessings and challenges of having the district I have is you really see the disparity. The leaders of this school district have to balance the needs of a Roscomere and a Selma. The teachers in both places still are paid, and they work on the same contract and there’s still the same classroom ratio. But there are inequities because of the money Roscomere is able to raise.

It’s the same school system. It’s public education. Somehow, someway, it connects people who wouldn’t be connected otherwise. We just have to figure the rest of it out.

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.

 

]]> Liz Dwyer Tue, 20 Jul 2010 06:30:00 PDT <![CDATA[How To: 5 Ways to Help Functionally Illiterate Adults ]]> http://www.good.is/post/how-to-5-ways-to-help-functionally-illiterate-adults/ http://www.good.is/post/how-to-5-ways-to-help-functionally-illiterate-adults/ null
American Idol superstar Fantasia Barrino shocked the nation back in 2005 when she revealed that despite winning the popular singing competition, she was functionally illiterate. Unfortunately, Fantasia's illiteracy isn't an anomaly. America is home to more than 30 million adults without the basic literacy skills to read a newspaper, understand medical documents, or fill out a job application. With numbers like those, chances are you know someone who's functionally illiterate. If you're looking for ways to help, Becky O'Dell, the Executive Director of Community Literacy Centers, an Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, nonprofit that helps over 1,000 functionally illiterate adults every year, shared her top tips for helping your neighbors gain the literacy skills they need to be successful, productive members of society.

1) Research the nonprofit sector. O'Dell says a good first step is searching out the existing service agencies or nonprofits in your community. Even at a time when nonprofits face diminishing budgets, they're still out there willing to help community members. If you're having a tough time finding a local organization, make a phone call to a national organization like the National Coalition for Literacy. "They're sure to know of a resource in your community," she says.

2) Visit your local library. Libraries might seem like the place to be after you already know how to read, but many of them offer free literacy classes, and if they don't, "Your local librarian's going to have connections to the organizations that do."

3) Volunteer. Volunteering at a literacy organization might not be the massive time commitment you think it is. O'Dell says that at CLC, volunteers attend eight hours of training and then work out their commitment from there. Also, the kind of volunteering you do can vary. Some organizations have volunteers who work one-on-one with a student, while others, like CLC, might have you serve as a tutor in a class.

4) Head to YouTube. If you want to work with someone you already have a relationship with one-on-one, O'Dell says do a search on YouTube for 'teaching adults to read.' "There are tons of ideas on there including lessons, techniques, and best practices that can get you started working with someone," she says.

5) Cheerlead. O'Dell says the average adult in her program comes in the door reading at around a second-grade level. "They're embarrassed about it and they think they're the only one that can't read." They already have low morale and talking about not being able to read might make them feel even more inadequate. Instead, O'Dell says to talk about skill-building opportunities instead of reading classes. "They respond better to that kind of language, and really, that's what they're doing."

Photo (cc) by Flickr user Patrick Gage

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.

]]> null
American Idol superstar Fantasia Barrino shocked the nation back in 2005 when she revealed that despite winning the popular singing competition, she was functionally illiterate. Unfortunately, Fantasia's illiteracy isn't an anomaly. America is home to more than 30 million adults without the basic literacy skills to read a newspaper, understand medical documents, or fill out a job application. With numbers like those, chances are you know someone who's functionally illiterate. If you're looking for ways to help, Becky O'Dell, the Executive Director of Community Literacy Centers, an Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, nonprofit that helps over 1,000 functionally illiterate adults every year, shared her top tips for helping your neighbors gain the literacy skills they need to be successful, productive members of society.

1) Research the nonprofit sector. O'Dell says a good first step is searching out the existing service agencies or nonprofits in your community. Even at a time when nonprofits face diminishing budgets, they're still out there willing to help community members. If you're having a tough time finding a local organization, make a phone call to a national organization like the National Coalition for Literacy. "They're sure to know of a resource in your community," she says.

2) Visit your local library. Libraries might seem like the place to be after you already know how to read, but many of them offer free literacy classes, and if they don't, "Your local librarian's going to have connections to the organizations that do."

3) Volunteer. Volunteering at a literacy organization might not be the massive time commitment you think it is. O'Dell says that at CLC, volunteers attend eight hours of training and then work out their commitment from there. Also, the kind of volunteering you do can vary. Some organizations have volunteers who work one-on-one with a student, while others, like CLC, might have you serve as a tutor in a class.

4) Head to YouTube. If you want to work with someone you already have a relationship with one-on-one, O'Dell says do a search on YouTube for 'teaching adults to read.' "There are tons of ideas on there including lessons, techniques, and best practices that can get you started working with someone," she says.

5) Cheerlead. O'Dell says the average adult in her program comes in the door reading at around a second-grade level. "They're embarrassed about it and they think they're the only one that can't read." They already have low morale and talking about not being able to read might make them feel even more inadequate. Instead, O'Dell says to talk about skill-building opportunities instead of reading classes. "They respond better to that kind of language, and really, that's what they're doing."

Photo (cc) by Flickr user Patrick Gage

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.

]]> Liz Dwyer Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:30:00 PDT <![CDATA[Scantron Nation]]> http://www.good.is/post/scantron-nation/ http://www.good.is/post/scantron-nation/

At schools across the country, kids are taking standardized tests. These days, it seems like that's about all students do.

Scantron forms, number two pencils, tense teachers, and my third-grader somberly asking, “Will you still love me if I don’t do well?” Yup, it’s standardized testing time—the sun of the educational universe. Even President Obama’s much-hyped Race to the Top reform initiative is rooted in standardized tests. Well, I’m not buying the hype anymore. I’m sick of standardized testing.

I’m not completely against tests. They provide a useful snapshot of a student’s academic performance. Even given their inherent cultural bias, I firmly believe most kids who are taught rigorous academic content can perform well on these tests. Instead of being used as a moment-in-time indicator of performance, though, these tests have become the end-all be-all of academic life.

When I was a kid, I took a standardized test called the Iowa Basics maybe three times in my K-12 educational career. In comparison, in just his K-3 experience, my nine-year-old has racked up an insane tally of 18 district and state standardized tests. He is on track to have approximately 72 district and state standardized tests under his belt by the time he graduates high school—and I’m not even including the California High School Exit Exam, the PSAT, the SAT, or the ACT.

If that doesn’t make you pause, how about this insanity: An elementary campus I sometimes drive by has a marquee in front that declared on the first day of school, “152 DAYS TILL STATE TESTING!” Sure enough, I drove by the next day and the number 151 was there. I bet on test day, the marquee read, “State Testing Day: You kids better do well, OR ELSE!”

That “or else” factor is real for schools. No campus wants to be on the receiving end of federal and state sanctions because students don’t score well. Since teachers are labeled incompetent and face losing their jobs because of test scores, they teach to the test. In fact, many teachers research exactly how many problems per academic standard are going to be on the test, and they then emphasize those standards in their instruction.

For example, if a teacher knows the math section will have 10 questions on multiplication, but only one or two division problems, in the minds of today’s teachers, it’d be stupid to spend equal time on division. You can also forget about elementary kids learning about science and social studies. If a subject doesn’t directly boost reading and math scores, teachers skip it.

The pressure on kids is equally intense. The worry and anxiety that leads to my son asking if I’ll still love him if he doesn’t do well on a standardized test is increasingly common. Kimberly Blaine, a national child development expert, parenting author, and founder of The Go To Mom, says she sees growing numbers of students getting depressed and physically sick over the high-stakes testing pressure at schools.

To counter this, Blaine advises parents to normalize the home and not make everything revolve around testing. “Our school sent a notice home last week that testing’s coming up, and we read it and threw it in the trash,” Blaine says. “We don’t talk about the test at home, or ask our son how he did on each section.” It’s hard to heed such advice when the schools pound into the kids' heads that they need to study hard, go to bed early, eat a good breakfast, and get to school on time—all so they can do their best on The Test.

What happens when testing’s over? My son’s class will go on their first field trip of the school year, a trip to a planetarium where they will interact with an astronomer who’s probably taken fewer standardized tests than the average elementary student. I’m sure the trip will be a fantastic, hands-on learning opportunity. Unfortunately, most schools discourage taking field trips until after testing's over for the year. After all, maximizing every minute of test prep, I mean, instructional time, is necessary.

One of my fantasies is that kids across the country will start a grass-roots rebellion against standardized testing. They’ll form Facebook groups where they’ll agree to purposely bubble in the wrong answer on every single test question. What would administrators, teachers, and parents do if every child “failed” the standardized tests? Would such a rebellion force educators to find some other less lazy way to measure student learning?

Comprehensive assessments of student progress aren’t easy, so I’m not holding out hope that our test-obsessed school culture will change anytime soon. With the path our nation is on, number two pencils won’t be used for sketching or writing essays; they’ll only be for bubbling in Scantron forms.

]]>

At schools across the country, kids are taking standardized tests. These days, it seems like that's about all students do.

Scantron forms, number two pencils, tense teachers, and my third-grader somberly asking, “Will you still love me if I don’t do well?” Yup, it’s standardized testing time—the sun of the educational universe. Even President Obama’s much-hyped Race to the Top reform initiative is rooted in standardized tests. Well, I’m not buying the hype anymore. I’m sick of standardized testing.

I’m not completely against tests. They provide a useful snapshot of a student’s academic performance. Even given their inherent cultural bias, I firmly believe most kids who are taught rigorous academic content can perform well on these tests. Instead of being used as a moment-in-time indicator of performance, though, these tests have become the end-all be-all of academic life.

When I was a kid, I took a standardized test called the Iowa Basics maybe three times in my K-12 educational career. In comparison, in just his K-3 experience, my nine-year-old has racked up an insane tally of 18 district and state standardized tests. He is on track to have approximately 72 district and state standardized tests under his belt by the time he graduates high school—and I’m not even including the California High School Exit Exam, the PSAT, the SAT, or the ACT.

If that doesn’t make you pause, how about this insanity: An elementary campus I sometimes drive by has a marquee in front that declared on the first day of school, “152 DAYS TILL STATE TESTING!” Sure enough, I drove by the next day and the number 151 was there. I bet on test day, the marquee read, “State Testing Day: You kids better do well, OR ELSE!”

That “or else” factor is real for schools. No campus wants to be on the receiving end of federal and state sanctions because students don’t score well. Since teachers are labeled incompetent and face losing their jobs because of test scores, they teach to the test. In fact, many teachers research exactly how many problems per academic standard are going to be on the test, and they then emphasize those standards in their instruction.

For example, if a teacher knows the math section will have 10 questions on multiplication, but only one or two division problems, in the minds of today’s teachers, it’d be stupid to spend equal time on division. You can also forget about elementary kids learning about science and social studies. If a subject doesn’t directly boost reading and math scores, teachers skip it.

The pressure on kids is equally intense. The worry and anxiety that leads to my son asking if I’ll still love him if he doesn’t do well on a standardized test is increasingly common. Kimberly Blaine, a national child development expert, parenting author, and founder of The Go To Mom, says she sees growing numbers of students getting depressed and physically sick over the high-stakes testing pressure at schools.

To counter this, Blaine advises parents to normalize the home and not make everything revolve around testing. “Our school sent a notice home last week that testing’s coming up, and we read it and threw it in the trash,” Blaine says. “We don’t talk about the test at home, or ask our son how he did on each section.” It’s hard to heed such advice when the schools pound into the kids' heads that they need to study hard, go to bed early, eat a good breakfast, and get to school on time—all so they can do their best on The Test.

What happens when testing’s over? My son’s class will go on their first field trip of the school year, a trip to a planetarium where they will interact with an astronomer who’s probably taken fewer standardized tests than the average elementary student. I’m sure the trip will be a fantastic, hands-on learning opportunity. Unfortunately, most schools discourage taking field trips until after testing's over for the year. After all, maximizing every minute of test prep, I mean, instructional time, is necessary.

One of my fantasies is that kids across the country will start a grass-roots rebellion against standardized testing. They’ll form Facebook groups where they’ll agree to purposely bubble in the wrong answer on every single test question. What would administrators, teachers, and parents do if every child “failed” the standardized tests? Would such a rebellion force educators to find some other less lazy way to measure student learning?

Comprehensive assessments of student progress aren’t easy, so I’m not holding out hope that our test-obsessed school culture will change anytime soon. With the path our nation is on, number two pencils won’t be used for sketching or writing essays; they’ll only be for bubbling in Scantron forms.

]]> Liz Dwyer Sat, 12 Jun 2010 05:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[Six Steps to Squash Bullying]]> http://www.good.is/post/six-steps-to-squash-bullying/ http://www.good.is/post/six-steps-to-squash-bullying/ Public outrage over the tragic suicide of 15-year-old Massachusetts bullying-victim Phoebe Price means educators and parents are looking for real solutions to the bullying epidemic happening in our nation’s schools. According to psychologist and family counselor Dr. Kenneth Shore, bullying, taunting, and name calling keep 160,000 children at home from school every day because they’re afraid.

 
To help parents and educators combat the crisis, Shore authored The ABC's of Bullying Prevention. Here are his top tips for squashing the problem.
 
1. Take it seriously. Shore says bullying often goes unrecognized by educators, or is recognized but isn’t taken seriously. “It’s easy for us as adults to dismiss kids’ concerns, but so often, issues or problems we perceive as small loom large for them.” The common thread in stories of bullied kids who attempt or successfully commit suicide is that schools dismissed complaints about bullying or didn’t treat them with the seriousness they deserved, says Shore.
 
2. Prevent it. Your local board of education probably has an anti-bullying policy, but words on a piece of paper won’t change things. Instead, a committee of students, parents, and school-site staff should work together to plan and implement a prevention program. Shore says studies show a 50-percent reduction in bullying in schools that adopt comprehensive bullying prevention programs.
 
3. Don’t treat bullying as exceptional. Shore says one of the mistakes schools make is they treat bullying prevention as a one-time activity. “You don’t solve bullying with one big assembly,” he says. Instead, hold several ongoing activities throughout the year to address the problem. “Make sure the issue is very much alive in kids’ minds.”
 
4. Meet in each classroom. It’s crucial that teachers make time for special classroom meetings held a minimum of four times a year conveying that bullying is unacceptable, and the school takes it seriously. “Seat kids in a circle and engage them in discussions where they can talk about times they’ve been bullied and discuss what that felt like,” he says. During the meeting, teachers should also talk about things they’ll do if they see bullying happening.
 
5. Zero tolerance. Parents of kids suspected of bullying need to find out what their children are doing and address it seriously. “Make sure to let him know it’s unacceptable and that you’re going to be monitoring behavior and if it continues, there’s going to be serious consequences. Let your child know you mean business and then try to understand why it is that he’s engaging in these behaviors.”
 
6. Don’t blame the victim. If your child comes to you and says he’s being bullied, “Don’t dismiss the concerns with a 'sorry that happened, hope things go better tomorrow,' response, or suggest it’s your child’s fault,” says Shore. Listen to your child, recognize that he’s a victim, and follow-up with the school in-person. “You want to be a pit-bull taking whatever steps you need to ensure the bullying stops.”

Photo (cc) by Flickr user Litandmore

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.
 
]]> Public outrage over the tragic suicide of 15-year-old Massachusetts bullying-victim Phoebe Price means educators and parents are looking for real solutions to the bullying epidemic happening in our nation’s schools. According to psychologist and family counselor Dr. Kenneth Shore, bullying, taunting, and name calling keep 160,000 children at home from school every day because they’re afraid.

 
To help parents and educators combat the crisis, Shore authored The ABC's of Bullying Prevention. Here are his top tips for squashing the problem.
 
1. Take it seriously. Shore says bullying often goes unrecognized by educators, or is recognized but isn’t taken seriously. “It’s easy for us as adults to dismiss kids’ concerns, but so often, issues or problems we perceive as small loom large for them.” The common thread in stories of bullied kids who attempt or successfully commit suicide is that schools dismissed complaints about bullying or didn’t treat them with the seriousness they deserved, says Shore.
 
2. Prevent it. Your local board of education probably has an anti-bullying policy, but words on a piece of paper won’t change things. Instead, a committee of students, parents, and school-site staff should work together to plan and implement a prevention program. Shore says studies show a 50-percent reduction in bullying in schools that adopt comprehensive bullying prevention programs.
 
3. Don’t treat bullying as exceptional. Shore says one of the mistakes schools make is they treat bullying prevention as a one-time activity. “You don’t solve bullying with one big assembly,” he says. Instead, hold several ongoing activities throughout the year to address the problem. “Make sure the issue is very much alive in kids’ minds.”
 
4. Meet in each classroom. It’s crucial that teachers make time for special classroom meetings held a minimum of four times a year conveying that bullying is unacceptable, and the school takes it seriously. “Seat kids in a circle and engage them in discussions where they can talk about times they’ve been bullied and discuss what that felt like,” he says. During the meeting, teachers should also talk about things they’ll do if they see bullying happening.
 
5. Zero tolerance. Parents of kids suspected of bullying need to find out what their children are doing and address it seriously. “Make sure to let him know it’s unacceptable and that you’re going to be monitoring behavior and if it continues, there’s going to be serious consequences. Let your child know you mean business and then try to understand why it is that he’s engaging in these behaviors.”
 
6. Don’t blame the victim. If your child comes to you and says he’s being bullied, “Don’t dismiss the concerns with a 'sorry that happened, hope things go better tomorrow,' response, or suggest it’s your child’s fault,” says Shore. Listen to your child, recognize that he’s a victim, and follow-up with the school in-person. “You want to be a pit-bull taking whatever steps you need to ensure the bullying stops.”

Photo (cc) by Flickr user Litandmore

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.
 
]]> Liz Dwyer Fri, 21 May 2010 05:30:00 PDT <![CDATA[Can Service Learning Fix the Dropout Rate?]]> http://www.good.is/post/can-service-learning-to-fix-the-dropout-rate/ http://www.good.is/post/can-service-learning-to-fix-the-dropout-rate/ Creating connections among young people, educators, and communities is the life’s work of National Youth Leadership Council founder, president and CEO, Dr. Jim Kielsmeier. He’s spent the past 25 years advocating a progressive education approach called service-learning—a way of engaging young people in hands-on, curriculum-based experiential learning. The method is transforming today’s students from passive recipients of disconnected knowledge into problem solving, critical-thinking members of a democracy. We connected with Dr. Kielsmeier to learn more about how service-learning is revolutionizing education.
 
GOOD: What’s the difference between kids doing community service or volunteer work and service-learning?
 
JIM KIELSMEIER: The difference is the intentional link of the service experience to the curriculum. For example, if there’s a way of involving students in reforestation, planting or monitoring air or water quality, what they’re doing is not only having a significant impact on the community by making a contribution, but in the case of environmental experiences, it’s tied back to the science curriculum.
 
The other thing is that service-learning isn’t episodic. It’s not a one-time park clean-up effort. It’s an ongoing activity that has greater impact because of the duration. It calls on young people to have important decision-making roles in determining what service they’re invested in.
 
G: What are some examples of service-learning projects?
 
JK: Along the Mississippi River Watershed there are students doing regular water sampling that’s sent to the Fish and Wildlife Service in Carbondale, Illinois. They look for indicators of pollutants. While these young people are monitoring and doing the analysis, they become stewards of the environment, not just observers of the environment.
 
There’s an intentional level of investment on the part of young people because they’re actually changing their role and they take on a new relationship with the community. That brings an incredible motivational dimension. I change from becoming a student to becoming a scientist. I change into someone who’s actually doing something about the environment.
 
Another example—as young people interview their elders as a service and record their life story, the activity becomes service-learning as that life story is built into a living history document. You can see examples of this from single interviews to whole classes interviewing whole communities and publishing books. As students record interviews, edit transcripts, and move content to some form of written documentation, they are moving through the language arts curriculum.
 
G: Service-learning seems to really engage kids and make lessons tangible and real. Why doesn’t it happen in more schools?
 
JK: Many teachers aren’t able to make the leap into a new way of teaching. The other thing is it’s hard. Sure, there can be a way of standardizing things so that it becomes less demanding on the teacher, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. It does require a lot of creativity on the part of educators.
 
G: How can service-learning change the dropout rate?
 
JK: Research shows that young people are trending toward dropping out of school because they’re under-engaged and don’t see meaning and purpose in what they’re studying. Too much of education is around getting young people to think their way into new ways of practice. Service-learning asks young people to practice their way into new ways thinking. It asks them, “You’ve made a contribution, what does that mean about you?” They stay in school because they’re engaged on a deeper level.
 
G: Why does service-learning seem to have such a profound impact on students from low-income areas?
 
JK: There’s a particular resonance because of how young people absorb low-expectations. They easily become self-fulfilling prophecies. Service-learning is not remediation. It’s a leadership model. It says every child has something to contribute and every child is of worth and value. Also, service-learning broadens a student’s base of adult reference points and adults who know them in a different light. It brings them into contact with additional adults in the community who care about them and how they’re doing.
 
G: You started the Generator School Network to create a service-learning education commons. What kinds of resources do participating educators receive and how can new ones get involved?
 
JK: The GSN is a way for teachers to do both continuous improvement around service-learning best practices and be a part of a professional community that’s about presenting, sharing, and reinforcing good ideas about teaching and learning. To join, educators can sign up on the GSN website. We would like to see an entire school commitment to service-learning, but that doesn’t preclude the individual teacher’s involvement. Our vision is that this way of teaching will become as universal in its range as what the International Baccalaureate has become, so the more educators learn about the method, the better our students educational and life experiences will be.

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.
 
]]> Creating connections among young people, educators, and communities is the life’s work of National Youth Leadership Council founder, president and CEO, Dr. Jim Kielsmeier. He’s spent the past 25 years advocating a progressive education approach called service-learning—a way of engaging young people in hands-on, curriculum-based experiential learning. The method is transforming today’s students from passive recipients of disconnected knowledge into problem solving, critical-thinking members of a democracy. We connected with Dr. Kielsmeier to learn more about how service-learning is revolutionizing education.
 
GOOD: What’s the difference between kids doing community service or volunteer work and service-learning?
 
JIM KIELSMEIER: The difference is the intentional link of the service experience to the curriculum. For example, if there’s a way of involving students in reforestation, planting or monitoring air or water quality, what they’re doing is not only having a significant impact on the community by making a contribution, but in the case of environmental experiences, it’s tied back to the science curriculum.
 
The other thing is that service-learning isn’t episodic. It’s not a one-time park clean-up effort. It’s an ongoing activity that has greater impact because of the duration. It calls on young people to have important decision-making roles in determining what service they’re invested in.
 
G: What are some examples of service-learning projects?
 
JK: Along the Mississippi River Watershed there are students doing regular water sampling that’s sent to the Fish and Wildlife Service in Carbondale, Illinois. They look for indicators of pollutants. While these young people are monitoring and doing the analysis, they become stewards of the environment, not just observers of the environment.
 
There’s an intentional level of investment on the part of young people because they’re actually changing their role and they take on a new relationship with the community. That brings an incredible motivational dimension. I change from becoming a student to becoming a scientist. I change into someone who’s actually doing something about the environment.
 
Another example—as young people interview their elders as a service and record their life story, the activity becomes service-learning as that life story is built into a living history document. You can see examples of this from single interviews to whole classes interviewing whole communities and publishing books. As students record interviews, edit transcripts, and move content to some form of written documentation, they are moving through the language arts curriculum.
 
G: Service-learning seems to really engage kids and make lessons tangible and real. Why doesn’t it happen in more schools?
 
JK: Many teachers aren’t able to make the leap into a new way of teaching. The other thing is it’s hard. Sure, there can be a way of standardizing things so that it becomes less demanding on the teacher, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. It does require a lot of creativity on the part of educators.
 
G: How can service-learning change the dropout rate?
 
JK: Research shows that young people are trending toward dropping out of school because they’re under-engaged and don’t see meaning and purpose in what they’re studying. Too much of education is around getting young people to think their way into new ways of practice. Service-learning asks young people to practice their way into new ways thinking. It asks them, “You’ve made a contribution, what does that mean about you?” They stay in school because they’re engaged on a deeper level.
 
G: Why does service-learning seem to have such a profound impact on students from low-income areas?
 
JK: There’s a particular resonance because of how young people absorb low-expectations. They easily become self-fulfilling prophecies. Service-learning is not remediation. It’s a leadership model. It says every child has something to contribute and every child is of worth and value. Also, service-learning broadens a student’s base of adult reference points and adults who know them in a different light. It brings them into contact with additional adults in the community who care about them and how they’re doing.
 
G: You started the Generator School Network to create a service-learning education commons. What kinds of resources do participating educators receive and how can new ones get involved?
 
JK: The GSN is a way for teachers to do both continuous improvement around service-learning best practices and be a part of a professional community that’s about presenting, sharing, and reinforcing good ideas about teaching and learning. To join, educators can sign up on the GSN website. We would like to see an entire school commitment to service-learning, but that doesn’t preclude the individual teacher’s involvement. Our vision is that this way of teaching will become as universal in its range as what the International Baccalaureate has become, so the more educators learn about the method, the better our students educational and life experiences will be.

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.
 
]]> Liz Dwyer Thu, 13 May 2010 15:30:00 PDT <![CDATA[Six Steps to Scoring a Great Summer Internship]]> http://www.good.is/post/six-steps-to-scoring-a-great-summer-internship/ http://www.good.is/post/six-steps-to-scoring-a-great-summer-internship/

With employers scaling back hiring due to the tight economy, getting the real-world work experience summer internships provide is more crucial than ever. Think it’s too late for you to land a great opportunity for this summer? Rachel Garson, assistant director of internships from Northwestern University’s Career Services, says no way.
 
Garson supports a wide range of students from all academic disciplines, and whether they start their internship hunt in January or June, she guides them through the process. Here are her top tips to help you bring your A-game to your summer internship search.
 
1. Focus. Garson says this is the step most students dislike, but figuring out your career interests should be your first move. Talk to people doing jobs that interest you. Ask them what their jobs are really like—and don’t just contact them using e-mail or Facebook. "Students rely on email and online resources, and while those are helpful, old-school sounding face-to-face interactions really help you identify whether a particular career is a good fit for you," says Garson. Skip this step, and you might end up with an internship miserably mismatched with your values, skills and interests.
 
2. Scour that rolodex. Activate your networks and use multiple search strategies. That’s what your competition is up to. "They’re using online resources, they’re using their networks and they’re speaking with employers and working towards creating opportunities," says Garson. Don’t be shy about cold calling a company to ask about internships. Convince them you’d be an addition to their team.
 
3. Think smaller. Too often students think great internships are only with the big industry names. Garson says students can have an equally positive experience at a smaller, niche employer. Smaller businesses may also have spots available later in the Spring. Most larger companies have already hired their interns for the year simply because students target them first.
 
4. Do your homework. Thoroughly research any organization you're interviewing with so that you know how to market your skills effectively. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking, "It’s just an internship." Never take it for granted that an employer will bring you on board if you know nothing about them.
 
5. Work during business hours. Too often, Garson says, students search for an internship on a student schedule instead of on an employer schedule. "Instead of building their search into every day, they make a block of time late at night. No employer is reading e-mails you send out at midnight," she says.
 
6. Pinch pennies. If you’re offered an unpaid internship and it really aligns with your long-term career goals, Garson recommends that you go for it. But don’t starve. "Negotiate your hours so that you’re more flexible and can work something out, possibly even getting a second job that pays." Check with your university to see if they offer support for unpaid summer internships. Garson says Northwestern offers a Summer Internship Grant, for instance.
 
Above all, Garson says to remember that landing an internship’s a competitive, time consuming process: "But, thousands of students do it every year. You just need to be proactive and engage in the process."
 
Photo (cc) by Flickr user Thewmatt

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.Read more




]]>

With employers scaling back hiring due to the tight economy, getting the real-world work experience summer internships provide is more crucial than ever. Think it’s too late for you to land a great opportunity for this summer? Rachel Garson, assistant director of internships from Northwestern University’s Career Services, says no way.
 
Garson supports a wide range of students from all academic disciplines, and whether they start their internship hunt in January or June, she guides them through the process. Here are her top tips to help you bring your A-game to your summer internship search.
 
1. Focus. Garson says this is the step most students dislike, but figuring out your career interests should be your first move. Talk to people doing jobs that interest you. Ask them what their jobs are really like—and don’t just contact them using e-mail or Facebook. "Students rely on email and online resources, and while those are helpful, old-school sounding face-to-face interactions really help you identify whether a particular career is a good fit for you," says Garson. Skip this step, and you might end up with an internship miserably mismatched with your values, skills and interests.
 
2. Scour that rolodex. Activate your networks and use multiple search strategies. That’s what your competition is up to. "They’re using online resources, they’re using their networks and they’re speaking with employers and working towards creating opportunities," says Garson. Don’t be shy about cold calling a company to ask about internships. Convince them you’d be an addition to their team.
 
3. Think smaller. Too often students think great internships are only with the big industry names. Garson says students can have an equally positive experience at a smaller, niche employer. Smaller businesses may also have spots available later in the Spring. Most larger companies have already hired their interns for the year simply because students target them first.
 
4. Do your homework. Thoroughly research any organization you're interviewing with so that you know how to market your skills effectively. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking, "It’s just an internship." Never take it for granted that an employer will bring you on board if you know nothing about them.
 
5. Work during business hours. Too often, Garson says, students search for an internship on a student schedule instead of on an employer schedule. "Instead of building their search into every day, they make a block of time late at night. No employer is reading e-mails you send out at midnight," she says.
 
6. Pinch pennies. If you’re offered an unpaid internship and it really aligns with your long-term career goals, Garson recommends that you go for it. But don’t starve. "Negotiate your hours so that you’re more flexible and can work something out, possibly even getting a second job that pays." Check with your university to see if they offer support for unpaid summer internships. Garson says Northwestern offers a Summer Internship Grant, for instance.
 
Above all, Garson says to remember that landing an internship’s a competitive, time consuming process: "But, thousands of students do it every year. You just need to be proactive and engage in the process."
 
Photo (cc) by Flickr user Thewmatt

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.Read more




]]> Liz Dwyer Tue, 11 May 2010 12:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[How to Storm the School Board in Five Steps]]> http://www.good.is/post/how-to-storm-the-school-board-in-five-steps/ http://www.good.is/post/how-to-storm-the-school-board-in-five-steps/
Not so psyched about the management of the K-12 schools in your town? Looking for a surefire way to improve education in your community? Get a seat on the school board. In 2008, 33 year-old Phoenix, Arizona restaurateur, Army veteran, and former 8th grade Teach For America teacher Carl Zaragoza ran and won a close race for a seat on the Creighton Governing Board, one of the city’s local district boards. We caught up with him for his top tips for prepping for a school board run.
 
1. Know the issues. Do you know the difference between a highly qualified teacher and a highly effective teacher? You better before you decide to run for school board. Make sure you’re well-informed about the educational issues impacting the local, state, and national level, as well as issues in other key areas—like health and public safety—that directly impact schools. “The last thing our schools need is another candidate who doesn’t really know education,” says Zaragoza. “If you don’t know what you’re talking about as far as teacher effectiveness, evaluation, and hiring, how can you propose informed solutions?”
 
2. Develop a clear, concrete vision. It’s not enough to articulate all the things going wrong in your local schools and talk about change. Voters need to know your action-based vision for how you’ll solve the challenges facing public education in your community. For example, since Zaragoza’s district was one of the lowest-performing in the state with a lack of community investment in schools, he ran on a platform of creating neighborhood-based small schools and ensuring that all students achieved at grade level. “I had to be able to tell the voter specifically why they should vote for me and what changes I was going to fight for,” he says.
 
3. Chat it up. Even though Zaragoza grew up in Phoenix, he didn’t assume people knew him or his views on education, and he didn’t wait till he ran for office to start talking to people. “The school board is an extension of the community,” he says. “The important thing is to get out there, introduce yourself to people, and talk with them about their education concerns.” Zaragoza visited every single school in his district, talked to parents and teachers, and went door to door in the neighborhoods. As a result, the number of his supporters grew and, he says, “Those people were willing to donate money to my campaign, get out and knock on doors and make phone calls for me. They got me elected.”
 
4. Look before you leap. It’s important to really understand what the board does. “Depending on where you live, being a board member takes a lot of time, there’s no pay, and you do unglamorous stuff like analyze data,” he says. You have to be ready to deal with bureaucracy, and Zaragoza warns, you also have to be prepared to be unpopular. A few teachers displeased with some of his opinions and votes have even come to his restaurants and heckled him, but he says that’s “a great opportunity to engage them in dialogue about the issues.”
 
5. Have the right reason. Your job will be to improve the educational futures of students. “Don’t plan to get elected just to use it as a stepping stone to another political office,” Zaragoza says. “Be a board member for the kids. Put your heart into it. That’s what you’re elected for.”

Photo (cc) by Flickr user dave.cournoyer

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.
 
]]>
Not so psyched about the management of the K-12 schools in your town? Looking for a surefire way to improve education in your community? Get a seat on the school board. In 2008, 33 year-old Phoenix, Arizona restaurateur, Army veteran, and former 8th grade Teach For America teacher Carl Zaragoza ran and won a close race for a seat on the Creighton Governing Board, one of the city’s local district boards. We caught up with him for his top tips for prepping for a school board run.
 
1. Know the issues. Do you know the difference between a highly qualified teacher and a highly effective teacher? You better before you decide to run for school board. Make sure you’re well-informed about the educational issues impacting the local, state, and national level, as well as issues in other key areas—like health and public safety—that directly impact schools. “The last thing our schools need is another candidate who doesn’t really know education,” says Zaragoza. “If you don’t know what you’re talking about as far as teacher effectiveness, evaluation, and hiring, how can you propose informed solutions?”
 
2. Develop a clear, concrete vision. It’s not enough to articulate all the things going wrong in your local schools and talk about change. Voters need to know your action-based vision for how you’ll solve the challenges facing public education in your community. For example, since Zaragoza’s district was one of the lowest-performing in the state with a lack of community investment in schools, he ran on a platform of creating neighborhood-based small schools and ensuring that all students achieved at grade level. “I had to be able to tell the voter specifically why they should vote for me and what changes I was going to fight for,” he says.
 
3. Chat it up. Even though Zaragoza grew up in Phoenix, he didn’t assume people knew him or his views on education, and he didn’t wait till he ran for office to start talking to people. “The school board is an extension of the community,” he says. “The important thing is to get out there, introduce yourself to people, and talk with them about their education concerns.” Zaragoza visited every single school in his district, talked to parents and teachers, and went door to door in the neighborhoods. As a result, the number of his supporters grew and, he says, “Those people were willing to donate money to my campaign, get out and knock on doors and make phone calls for me. They got me elected.”
 
4. Look before you leap. It’s important to really understand what the board does. “Depending on where you live, being a board member takes a lot of time, there’s no pay, and you do unglamorous stuff like analyze data,” he says. You have to be ready to deal with bureaucracy, and Zaragoza warns, you also have to be prepared to be unpopular. A few teachers displeased with some of his opinions and votes have even come to his restaurants and heckled him, but he says that’s “a great opportunity to engage them in dialogue about the issues.”
 
5. Have the right reason. Your job will be to improve the educational futures of students. “Don’t plan to get elected just to use it as a stepping stone to another political office,” Zaragoza says. “Be a board member for the kids. Put your heart into it. That’s what you’re elected for.”

Photo (cc) by Flickr user dave.cournoyer

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.
 
]]> Liz Dwyer Thu, 6 May 2010 14:30:00 PDT <![CDATA[Neighborhood School Sellout]]> http://www.good.is/post/neighborhood-school-sellout/ http://www.good.is/post/neighborhood-school-sellout/


Hello, my name is Liz, and I’m a neighborhood school sellout.

I used to be a hardcore preacher of the “Support your neighborhood schools” gospel. I argued that middle-class parents who ditched neighborhood schools in favor of private, magnet, or charter schools, no matter how low performing the neighborhood school might be, were part of the problem. In my mind, neighborhood schools needed educated “activist” parents, people willing to work with administrators and teachers to ensure that an excellent public education was available to all children. Well, just like a rapper who insists they’re keeping it real even though they’ve moved out of the hood, I’m selling out my neighborhood school and accepting an offer to enroll my first and third grade sons in a magnet school.

This is no easy decision. Yes, the magnet is a better educational choice. The problem is it’s only better for my kids, not the entire community. It feels like I’m giving my neighborhood the finger and saying, “Good luck with that!” I sat in a school council meeting recently, voting on next year’s budget, and I didn’t even have the heart to tell anybody that my sons won’t be enrolled after June. I feel selfish, like I’m bailing on the heart of our neighborhood.

My conversion to the dark side happened after the Los Angeles Unified School District transferred a lousy principal to our neighborhood school. LAUSD frequently dumps bad principals on schools with our demographics—our student body is 99 percent minority, 49 percent of kids are English Language Learners, and 94 percent receive free breakfast and lunch. Effective teachers left our school, test scores plummeted, and when the principal tried to disband the PTA, parent involvement disappeared.

Ensuring my neighborhood’s kids got an excellent education despite all this became a crusade for me. I spoke up against what was happening because, unlike other parents, I don’t live in fear of ICE agents banging on my door if I complain. I became the school council president, which meant I had sign-off authority on the school budget, and because I worked in education, I knew what questions to ask and when shadiness was going down. I even organized with a few other parents and we went to district headquarters to share a 42-page PowerPoint presentation about what was going on.

After three years of misery, the district transferred the principal, but the neighborhood school was still in bad shape and my love affair with it had long been over. I was just about willing to sell my soul to get my sons into a magnet school. Magnets have their roots back in the mid 1970s when the California Supreme Court ruled that public school segregation was so bad in Los Angeles that children were experiencing the “five harms of racial isolation”: low academic achievement, interracial hostility and intolerance, lack of access to post-secondary options, low self-esteem, and overcrowding. Magnets were the courts' integration solution—legally, they can’t be more than 40 percent white.

These days they’ve morphed into a quasi-private school system within LAUSD. The district pours resources into them and outstanding teachers clamor to be on their staff rosters. They’re the academic jewels of the city and competition to get in is fierce. About 65,000 students a year enter the magnet lottery for approximately 16,000 spots at 173 schools. Parents freak out over the process because you can only apply to one magnet per year, and if you don’t get in, you’re out of luck and stuck at your neighborhood school.

Last month two letters from the LAUSD Student Integration Services office arrived. I expected them to say, “Sorry, you sucker LAUSD parent. Your kids are stuck in educational purgatory.” I ripped them open and promptly burst into tears as I read, “Your child has been selected to attend the Magnet Program listed above for the 2010-2011school year.”

At their new magnet school, my sons will each get a school-issued laptop and have access to a robotics program, a full science lab, and an innovative math curriculum. They’ll get a comprehensive visual and performing arts program, and, most important, they’ll get on-the-ball staff members in every classroom. When the school became a magnet last year, the district brought in a new principal and gave her the power to hire the staff members she wanted. She seriously cleaned house, transferring out any “I’m just here for my check” teachers.

Who’s not getting all that? The kids at my neighborhood school. I wish I had faith that those kids will get the education my sons will at the magnet, but I’m a realist. I fear the day when one of the neighborhood kids—the recipient of the education at our neighborhood school—joins a gang and rolls up on one of my sons, asking, “What’s your set?” I doubt they’ll wait to hear my boy say, “Don’t shoot! We were in third grade together!” Still, I can’t make my sons pay for my own personal political and social convictions. I’m selling out and sending my boys to a magnet.



]]>


Hello, my name is Liz, and I’m a neighborhood school sellout.

I used to be a hardcore preacher of the “Support your neighborhood schools” gospel. I argued that middle-class parents who ditched neighborhood schools in favor of private, magnet, or charter schools, no matter how low performing the neighborhood school might be, were part of the problem. In my mind, neighborhood schools needed educated “activist” parents, people willing to work with administrators and teachers to ensure that an excellent public education was available to all children. Well, just like a rapper who insists they’re keeping it real even though they’ve moved out of the hood, I’m selling out my neighborhood school and accepting an offer to enroll my first and third grade sons in a magnet school.

This is no easy decision. Yes, the magnet is a better educational choice. The problem is it’s only better for my kids, not the entire community. It feels like I’m giving my neighborhood the finger and saying, “Good luck with that!” I sat in a school council meeting recently, voting on next year’s budget, and I didn’t even have the heart to tell anybody that my sons won’t be enrolled after June. I feel selfish, like I’m bailing on the heart of our neighborhood.

My conversion to the dark side happened after the Los Angeles Unified School District transferred a lousy principal to our neighborhood school. LAUSD frequently dumps bad principals on schools with our demographics—our student body is 99 percent minority, 49 percent of kids are English Language Learners, and 94 percent receive free breakfast and lunch. Effective teachers left our school, test scores plummeted, and when the principal tried to disband the PTA, parent involvement disappeared.

Ensuring my neighborhood’s kids got an excellent education despite all this became a crusade for me. I spoke up against what was happening because, unlike other parents, I don’t live in fear of ICE agents banging on my door if I complain. I became the school council president, which meant I had sign-off authority on the school budget, and because I worked in education, I knew what questions to ask and when shadiness was going down. I even organized with a few other parents and we went to district headquarters to share a 42-page PowerPoint presentation about what was going on.

After three years of misery, the district transferred the principal, but the neighborhood school was still in bad shape and my love affair with it had long been over. I was just about willing to sell my soul to get my sons into a magnet school. Magnets have their roots back in the mid 1970s when the California Supreme Court ruled that public school segregation was so bad in Los Angeles that children were experiencing the “five harms of racial isolation”: low academic achievement, interracial hostility and intolerance, lack of access to post-secondary options, low self-esteem, and overcrowding. Magnets were the courts' integration solution—legally, they can’t be more than 40 percent white.

These days they’ve morphed into a quasi-private school system within LAUSD. The district pours resources into them and outstanding teachers clamor to be on their staff rosters. They’re the academic jewels of the city and competition to get in is fierce. About 65,000 students a year enter the magnet lottery for approximately 16,000 spots at 173 schools. Parents freak out over the process because you can only apply to one magnet per year, and if you don’t get in, you’re out of luck and stuck at your neighborhood school.

Last month two letters from the LAUSD Student Integration Services office arrived. I expected them to say, “Sorry, you sucker LAUSD parent. Your kids are stuck in educational purgatory.” I ripped them open and promptly burst into tears as I read, “Your child has been selected to attend the Magnet Program listed above for the 2010-2011school year.”

At their new magnet school, my sons will each get a school-issued laptop and have access to a robotics program, a full science lab, and an innovative math curriculum. They’ll get a comprehensive visual and performing arts program, and, most important, they’ll get on-the-ball staff members in every classroom. When the school became a magnet last year, the district brought in a new principal and gave her the power to hire the staff members she wanted. She seriously cleaned house, transferring out any “I’m just here for my check” teachers.

Who’s not getting all that? The kids at my neighborhood school. I wish I had faith that those kids will get the education my sons will at the magnet, but I’m a realist. I fear the day when one of the neighborhood kids—the recipient of the education at our neighborhood school—joins a gang and rolls up on one of my sons, asking, “What’s your set?” I doubt they’ll wait to hear my boy say, “Don’t shoot! We were in third grade together!” Still, I can’t make my sons pay for my own personal political and social convictions. I’m selling out and sending my boys to a magnet.



]]> Liz Dwyer Thu, 6 May 2010 06:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[Seven Tips to Launch an After School Tutoring Program]]> http://www.good.is/post/how-to-seven-tips-to-launch-an-after-school-tutoring-program/ http://www.good.is/post/how-to-seven-tips-to-launch-an-after-school-tutoring-program/
Want to help close the achievement gap in your community? Starting an after school tutoring program is a surefire way to ensure your local kids get the academic help they need. We spoke with Carla Sanger, the President and CEO of LA’s Best, the nation’s oldest (and quite possibly largest) after-school program, serving 180 elementary schools and offering recreation and academic assistance to 28,000 kids every day. Here are her tips for getting your tutoring program off the ground.

1. Connect with established programs. Check with local programs like LA’s Best, your local school district, YMCA or other educational non-profits for support and ideas. They know your community, have expertise and can help you think through all the nuts and bolts.

2. Partner with a school. Chances are, schools with low test scores located in neighborhoods with high crime rates have kids that can use your help. Plus, administrators and teachers can steer students in need of tutoring your way, and help you with logistics like permission slips and student contact information. Added bonus: If you can use a classroom at the school site you don’t have to hunt for tutoring space.

3. Recruit the locals. Effective tutors build relationships. Sanger advocates, “intentional and vigorous recruiting from the communities where you’re going to work, because those are the people who can most understand the kids.” If your tutors come from outside the students' community, make sure they have culturally aware attitudes. “They need to understand that these kids are very smart and have a lot of assets, resources and knowledge.”

4. Train your tutors. “You don’t just pick up a book and start tutoring,” says Sanger. Tutors need to learn how to build students’ trust and respect. “Maya Angelou said you may not remember what somebody said but you’ll always remember how they made you feel,” she says. Otherwise, just as a kid ditches school, they’ll ditch the tutor. Also, train your tutors how to break concepts down for kids without using abstract, class-based metaphors. If the kids can’t relate, they’ll tune out.

5. Critical thinking. Helping kids complete homework reinforces standards-based classroom instruction, but while doing so, tutors should teach kids critical thinking skills. “Tutoring isn’t just a knowledge transfer,” says Sanger. “Help kids identify where they’re stuck and teach them how to think through solutions because that’s a lifelong skill.”

6. Hook the parents. Send home information about your tutoring program before it starts and hold a parent orientation to explain your program’s structure and goals. Make sure to hold the orientation at times convenient to a working parent’s schedule. You may also need to provide second language translation. Once your program gets going, plan to give parents regular updates on their children’s progress.

7. Keep it manageable. If this is your first time tutoring, you don’t have to start out with huge numbers of tutors and students. Even if it’s just you and a couple of community members each tutoring a few students, your efforts will make a difference. “You’re teeing these kids up to be successful so make a meaningful connection with them.” says Sanger.

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.

Photo (cc) by Flickr user cityyear


]]>
Want to help close the achievement gap in your community? Starting an after school tutoring program is a surefire way to ensure your local kids get the academic help they need. We spoke with Carla Sanger, the President and CEO of LA’s Best, the nation’s oldest (and quite possibly largest) after-school program, serving 180 elementary schools and offering recreation and academic assistance to 28,000 kids every day. Here are her tips for getting your tutoring program off the ground.

1. Connect with established programs. Check with local programs like LA’s Best, your local school district, YMCA or other educational non-profits for support and ideas. They know your community, have expertise and can help you think through all the nuts and bolts.

2. Partner with a school. Chances are, schools with low test scores located in neighborhoods with high crime rates have kids that can use your help. Plus, administrators and teachers can steer students in need of tutoring your way, and help you with logistics like permission slips and student contact information. Added bonus: If you can use a classroom at the school site you don’t have to hunt for tutoring space.

3. Recruit the locals. Effective tutors build relationships. Sanger advocates, “intentional and vigorous recruiting from the communities where you’re going to work, because those are the people who can most understand the kids.” If your tutors come from outside the students' community, make sure they have culturally aware attitudes. “They need to understand that these kids are very smart and have a lot of assets, resources and knowledge.”

4. Train your tutors. “You don’t just pick up a book and start tutoring,” says Sanger. Tutors need to learn how to build students’ trust and respect. “Maya Angelou said you may not remember what somebody said but you’ll always remember how they made you feel,” she says. Otherwise, just as a kid ditches school, they’ll ditch the tutor. Also, train your tutors how to break concepts down for kids without using abstract, class-based metaphors. If the kids can’t relate, they’ll tune out.

5. Critical thinking. Helping kids complete homework reinforces standards-based classroom instruction, but while doing so, tutors should teach kids critical thinking skills. “Tutoring isn’t just a knowledge transfer,” says Sanger. “Help kids identify where they’re stuck and teach them how to think through solutions because that’s a lifelong skill.”

6. Hook the parents. Send home information about your tutoring program before it starts and hold a parent orientation to explain your program’s structure and goals. Make sure to hold the orientation at times convenient to a working parent’s schedule. You may also need to provide second language translation. Once your program gets going, plan to give parents regular updates on their children’s progress.

7. Keep it manageable. If this is your first time tutoring, you don’t have to start out with huge numbers of tutors and students. Even if it’s just you and a couple of community members each tutoring a few students, your efforts will make a difference. “You’re teeing these kids up to be successful so make a meaningful connection with them.” says Sanger.

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.

Photo (cc) by Flickr user cityyear


]]> Liz Dwyer Thu, 29 Apr 2010 06:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[Studs in the Schoolhouse ]]> http://www.good.is/post/studs-in-the-schoolhouse-1/ http://www.good.is/post/studs-in-the-schoolhouse-1/
Attention single men: Want to up your dating game? Actually, want to get a date, period?  Three words: Become a teacher.

Hotties will have your number on speed dial once word gets out that you’re taking action against educational inequality. You’ll get so much play, before you know it, those investment-banking friends who mocked you for going into education will be out at the club saying they’re teachers, too. You'll catch them lying about teaching first graders to read just to get the digits.

OK, although a man with a grade book is sexy for sure, becoming an overnight Casanova may not be the noblest reason for a guy to get into teaching. Here’s a better reason: As of the 2000 Census, women are nearly three fourths of all K-12 educators, and according to the National Education Association, 90 percent of elementary school teachers are female. If education is truly the social justice issue of our generation—if it’s so important—where are the men? Not that women haven’t done a decent job educating America, but without more gender-balance in the classroom, we risk yet another generation with the same sexist beliefs about teaching that have plagued education for the past 150 years.

Men who enter education are more likely to end up as administrators and superintendents than classroom teachers, reinforcing the sexist attitude that women nurture and men manage. The truth is it probably takes more skill and intellect to teach a bunch of kindergarteners than it does to sit in meetings.

In case you think the gender gap is a generational thing, it even exists in Gen-X and Millennial-heavy organizations like Teach For America. In 2010, TFA received 46,000 applications for 4,350 spots. Twelve percent of seniors from Ivy League schools applied, and the average TFA teacher’s GPA is a 3.6. Sounds impressive enough, but given that roughly 68 percent of TFA teachers are women, even a well-qualified crowd like TFA, which has helped bring prestige back to the profession, is still impacted by sexism.

Some men shy away from the comparatively low pay of teaching.  “I can’t support a family on that salary,” they scoff. Our culture sees teaching as a domestic career for moms, rather than as a socially acceptable, “masculine” career. “No real man would want to be a teacher,” we tell our sons implicitly.  “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” You've heard that one, right? Nonsense.
 
Al Cadena, a Los Angeles ad executive, taught Spanish at a suburban high school for two years right after undergrad. Every day he'd hear from his students, “What are you doing here? You’re too smart for this. Get out of here.” Friends and family were equally skeptical. “Can’t you do better than being a teacher?” they'd ask. Ultimately, Cadena left the classroom for higher pay—another casualty of the “too smart to be a teacher” attitude men face.

Consider this: Most school districts won't hire anyone with an undergraduate GPA below a 2.5. George W. Bush’s undergraduate GPA at Yale was a 2.35, so the 43rd President of the United States wouldn’t have qualified to teach in either of the nation’s largest (and most troubled) school districts, New York and Los Angeles. I don’t expect the 2010 census to reflect a huge influx of male teachers, but let's try for 2020. That way, my two sons, ages six and nine, won’t feel like career losers if they decide to become lifelong teachers.  And, since no mom wants to think of her sons getting tons of play, with an even gender split, male teachers will become the norm—meaning my boys won’t seem like such hot prospects, will get no digits, and will remain celibate forever.  So guys, c’mon, become teachers. Take advantage of this opportunity to get dates, do a mom a favor, and make a difference in the lives of children.

]]>
Attention single men: Want to up your dating game? Actually, want to get a date, period?  Three words: Become a teacher.

Hotties will have your number on speed dial once word gets out that you’re taking action against educational inequality. You’ll get so much play, before you know it, those investment-banking friends who mocked you for going into education will be out at the club saying they’re teachers, too. You'll catch them lying about teaching first graders to read just to get the digits.

OK, although a man with a grade book is sexy for sure, becoming an overnight Casanova may not be the noblest reason for a guy to get into teaching. Here’s a better reason: As of the 2000 Census, women are nearly three fourths of all K-12 educators, and according to the National Education Association, 90 percent of elementary school teachers are female. If education is truly the social justice issue of our generation—if it’s so important—where are the men? Not that women haven’t done a decent job educating America, but without more gender-balance in the classroom, we risk yet another generation with the same sexist beliefs about teaching that have plagued education for the past 150 years.

Men who enter education are more likely to end up as administrators and superintendents than classroom teachers, reinforcing the sexist attitude that women nurture and men manage. The truth is it probably takes more skill and intellect to teach a bunch of kindergarteners than it does to sit in meetings.

In case you think the gender gap is a generational thing, it even exists in Gen-X and Millennial-heavy organizations like Teach For America. In 2010, TFA received 46,000 applications for 4,350 spots. Twelve percent of seniors from Ivy League schools applied, and the average TFA teacher’s GPA is a 3.6. Sounds impressive enough, but given that roughly 68 percent of TFA teachers are women, even a well-qualified crowd like TFA, which has helped bring prestige back to the profession, is still impacted by sexism.

Some men shy away from the comparatively low pay of teaching.  “I can’t support a family on that salary,” they scoff. Our culture sees teaching as a domestic career for moms, rather than as a socially acceptable, “masculine” career. “No real man would want to be a teacher,” we tell our sons implicitly.  “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” You've heard that one, right? Nonsense.
 
Al Cadena, a Los Angeles ad executive, taught Spanish at a suburban high school for two years right after undergrad. Every day he'd hear from his students, “What are you doing here? You’re too smart for this. Get out of here.” Friends and family were equally skeptical. “Can’t you do better than being a teacher?” they'd ask. Ultimately, Cadena left the classroom for higher pay—another casualty of the “too smart to be a teacher” attitude men face.

Consider this: Most school districts won't hire anyone with an undergraduate GPA below a 2.5. George W. Bush’s undergraduate GPA at Yale was a 2.35, so the 43rd President of the United States wouldn’t have qualified to teach in either of the nation’s largest (and most troubled) school districts, New York and Los Angeles. I don’t expect the 2010 census to reflect a huge influx of male teachers, but let's try for 2020. That way, my two sons, ages six and nine, won’t feel like career losers if they decide to become lifelong teachers.  And, since no mom wants to think of her sons getting tons of play, with an even gender split, male teachers will become the norm—meaning my boys won’t seem like such hot prospects, will get no digits, and will remain celibate forever.  So guys, c’mon, become teachers. Take advantage of this opportunity to get dates, do a mom a favor, and make a difference in the lives of children.

]]> Liz Dwyer Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:36:00 PDT <![CDATA[Solving the Black Male School Achievement Puzzle]]> http://www.good.is/post/q-a-solving-the-black-male-school-achievement-puzzle/ http://www.good.is/post/q-a-solving-the-black-male-school-achievement-puzzle/
Closing the African American achievement gap is the life’s work of Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu. Founder of a company focused on helping parents and educators address the educational crisis facing black children, he’s written 32 books including Black Students/ Middle Class Teachers, Keeping Black Boys Out of Special Education and Reducing the Black Male Drop Out Rate. I caught up with Dr. Kunjufu to discuss why he believes the KIPP model (an innovative national network of charter schools), Afrocentric schools, and single gender schools are the keys to a high quality educational experience for African American children.

Chicago’s Urban Prep Charter School made national news with its announcement that 100% of its black male seniors have been accepted to college. Are they proof that the single gender model works?

Compare and contrast Urban Prep and other schools. There are other single gender classrooms at those other schools too. Their single gender classrooms are called special education, remedial reading, the principal’s office, getting ready for suspension, and students dropping out.

My major concern is with males and reading. It’s the precursor for special education and prison. 80% of the children in special ed are there because of a reading deficiency. 82% of inmates are illiterate, so if we simply teach black boys how to read we have a chance to keep them out of special education and jail.

Is focusing on African American males a priority for school districts?

Since 1954 there’s been a 66% decline in African American teachers. Fifty years ago, we had African American educators leading the charge for the education of African American children. Presently, 83% of America’s teachers are white and female. Only 6% are African American and only 1% are African American male.

What about organizations like Teach For America? Their teachers are predominately white, middle class, and women – some don’t get results with African American children, but many do.

The thing with them is that there’s a 40% turnover of their teachers within five years.

They say they’re achieving great results.

For one to two years.

Still, many believe that organizations like Teach For America and KIPP are the answer.

I’m an advocate of KIPP because of their longer school day. But, there are many teachers who have been unable to maintain the rigor of KIPP. What’s unfortunate is when you have children who are black, poor, and from single-parent homes where the parents lack a college degree, it does require a greater effort. There are individual principals and individual teachers doing a great job. For the majority of teachers, especially white females who have their own families and live in a different neighborhood, this is simply a career or job.

You can’t hire black teachers if you have such a small number of African Americans going to and graduating from college in the first place, right?

There’s the program Call Me Mister in about seven Southern states. It’s designed to give African American males desirous of majoring in education grants and scholarships, bring people like me in to mentor and encourage them. Can you imagine if we had a Call Me Mister program in every state so that principals had a pool of African American males to draw upon?

People might say that’s reverse racism. A teacher’s color shouldn’t matter.

That’s a very sensitive issue and I’m spending three days a week nationwide primarily working with white female teachers because the future of black children lies in their hands. There are a large number of sincere white females that realize it’s not the race of the teacher or the gender of the teacher– it’s their expectations and time on task. That doesn’t negate the fact that even a white teacher who’s a master teacher needs to invite in black role models to motivate the students.

Here’s the real concern– large numbers of teachers believe the reason for the low performance of large numbers of African American children is their race, their income, the number of parents in the home. The KIPP model says that because the kids are black, low-income, from a single parent home where the parent lacks the college degree, these children need more time on task, not less. Greater expectations, not less.

What schools are exemplary for educating African American children?

As far as Afrocentric schools, if you look at Betty Shabazz school in Chicago, the African Centered Campus in Kansas City– at some of these schools the children were at the 30th percentile on the state exam. The curriculum was infused with Afrocentricity, and these same children then scored at the 70-80th percentile. Remember, the state exam is still Eurocentric. Columbus is still discovering America, Lincoln is still freeing the slaves, and Egypt is still in the Middle East, but because the children are now more confident in their history and their culture, you see an increase in their scores.

With single gender schools– Urban Prep in Chicago or the Eagle Academy in New York– there’s a dropout rate in New York City for black males of almost 65%.  At Eagle Academy, the dropout rate is less than 10%. The only variable to change is the single gender school.

Chicago’s Fenger High School was in the national news nonstop last fall after the murder of Derrion Albert– have they approached you and asked you for help?

No, they haven’t, but to change things at Fenger all they’d have to do is implement one of these three models: the KIPP model, the Afrocentric model or the single gender model, and then Fenger would turn around.

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.


]]>
Closing the African American achievement gap is the life’s work of Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu. Founder of a company focused on helping parents and educators address the educational crisis facing black children, he’s written 32 books including Black Students/ Middle Class Teachers, Keeping Black Boys Out of Special Education and Reducing the Black Male Drop Out Rate. I caught up with Dr. Kunjufu to discuss why he believes the KIPP model (an innovative national network of charter schools), Afrocentric schools, and single gender schools are the keys to a high quality educational experience for African American children.

Chicago’s Urban Prep Charter School made national news with its announcement that 100% of its black male seniors have been accepted to college. Are they proof that the single gender model works?

Compare and contrast Urban Prep and other schools. There are other single gender classrooms at those other schools too. Their single gender classrooms are called special education, remedial reading, the principal’s office, getting ready for suspension, and students dropping out.

My major concern is with males and reading. It’s the precursor for special education and prison. 80% of the children in special ed are there because of a reading deficiency. 82% of inmates are illiterate, so if we simply teach black boys how to read we have a chance to keep them out of special education and jail.

Is focusing on African American males a priority for school districts?

Since 1954 there’s been a 66% decline in African American teachers. Fifty years ago, we had African American educators leading the charge for the education of African American children. Presently, 83% of America’s teachers are white and female. Only 6% are African American and only 1% are African American male.

What about organizations like Teach For America? Their teachers are predominately white, middle class, and women – some don’t get results with African American children, but many do.

The thing with them is that there’s a 40% turnover of their teachers within five years.

They say they’re achieving great results.

For one to two years.

Still, many believe that organizations like Teach For America and KIPP are the answer.

I’m an advocate of KIPP because of their longer school day. But, there are many teachers who have been unable to maintain the rigor of KIPP. What’s unfortunate is when you have children who are black, poor, and from single-parent homes where the parents lack a college degree, it does require a greater effort. There are individual principals and individual teachers doing a great job. For the majority of teachers, especially white females who have their own families and live in a different neighborhood, this is simply a career or job.

You can’t hire black teachers if you have such a small number of African Americans going to and graduating from college in the first place, right?

There’s the program Call Me Mister in about seven Southern states. It’s designed to give African American males desirous of majoring in education grants and scholarships, bring people like me in to mentor and encourage them. Can you imagine if we had a Call Me Mister program in every state so that principals had a pool of African American males to draw upon?

People might say that’s reverse racism. A teacher’s color shouldn’t matter.

That’s a very sensitive issue and I’m spending three days a week nationwide primarily working with white female teachers because the future of black children lies in their hands. There are a large number of sincere white females that realize it’s not the race of the teacher or the gender of the teacher– it’s their expectations and time on task. That doesn’t negate the fact that even a white teacher who’s a master teacher needs to invite in black role models to motivate the students.

Here’s the real concern– large numbers of teachers believe the reason for the low performance of large numbers of African American children is their race, their income, the number of parents in the home. The KIPP model says that because the kids are black, low-income, from a single parent home where the parent lacks the college degree, these children need more time on task, not less. Greater expectations, not less.

What schools are exemplary for educating African American children?

As far as Afrocentric schools, if you look at Betty Shabazz school in Chicago, the African Centered Campus in Kansas City– at some of these schools the children were at the 30th percentile on the state exam. The curriculum was infused with Afrocentricity, and these same children then scored at the 70-80th percentile. Remember, the state exam is still Eurocentric. Columbus is still discovering America, Lincoln is still freeing the slaves, and Egypt is still in the Middle East, but because the children are now more confident in their history and their culture, you see an increase in their scores.

With single gender schools– Urban Prep in Chicago or the Eagle Academy in New York– there’s a dropout rate in New York City for black males of almost 65%.  At Eagle Academy, the dropout rate is less than 10%. The only variable to change is the single gender school.

Chicago’s Fenger High School was in the national news nonstop last fall after the murder of Derrion Albert– have they approached you and asked you for help?

No, they haven’t, but to change things at Fenger all they’d have to do is implement one of these three models: the KIPP model, the Afrocentric model or the single gender model, and then Fenger would turn around.

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.


]]> Liz Dwyer Fri, 9 Apr 2010 05:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[Connecting the Schoolhouse to Your House ]]> http://www.good.is/post/connecting-the-schoolhouse-to-your-house/ http://www.good.is/post/connecting-the-schoolhouse-to-your-house/ homeschoolThe parent teacher conference needs to evolve for the 21st Century-for the sake of our kids.
Spend any amount of time in education circles and you'll soon hear the phrase "home-school connection." It's simple really: Parents and teachers should collaborate to support the child. Sounds good, but as someone who's been a teacher and is now a parent, I've seen both sides. The home school connection is definitely broken.

In my time on the teacher side of the fence, I've seen too many educators who don't want parents involved. Parents ask questions and make demands. Thanks to my two sons, I also get to hop to the parent side where I see too many moms and dads who don't want to hear negative feedback about their children, or worse yet, just want the teachers to fix everything.

When my own son came home with a progress report full of previously uncommunicated information-both positive and negative-the report made me think about how a true connection can't happen with only two or three conversations a year. No one's communicating effectively in this model. Why do you think so many teachers and parents dread parent teacher-conferences?

Parents and teachers need to meet each other at the 21st century fence and change the frequency and quality of their interaction. We live in a tech savvy age with constant communication via text and email. But, other than a formal, written progress report halfway through the grading period, and the report card and conference-at which attendance is often optional for parents-months can go by without parents and teachers talking about a child's academic progress.

Too many teachers keep to the minimal contact mandated by their principals, either because they don't want more, they lack the time, or they simply don't know how to reach out. Not wanting more contact is a sign a teacher may be struggling, and parents should definitely reach out to an administrator for support. Time is an issue for everyone these days, so although frequent in-person meetings would be great, teachers can't stay at school until 7 p.m. to meet working parents. Fortunately, technology can help provide alternate solutions to time and skill issues.

Growing numbers of teachers create classroom websites or blogs and post what their class will be learning that week and what assignments are due. One of my son's teachers, a nearly 30-year veteran, regularly emails or texts me about how my kid is doing in class. Because of the frequency of contact, I get to see the whole picture of my child's educational experience, not just the high points, like a great test score, or the low points, like when he's a bit too talkative.

An increasing number of K-12 schools use third party sites where parents log in and view their children's grades and homework. In districts that use such services, up to 70 percent of parents say they check their children's progress at least once a week and feel more connected to the school. If parents like these sites and teachers like them, why aren't they in every school? Sure there's a digital divide that limits tech access in lower income areas, but the overall foot-dragging by schools around using such services is a sign that connecting parents and teachers is not a huge priority.

Communicating quality information isn't just enabling parents to look up a test score on a web site, and technology can't be the answer to everything. So my son got a 95 percent on his test. Great. But what concepts did he master, what's he still missing, and what's the plan to help him learn?

Parents don't need to just hear a teacher say: "Your child is behind in writing," and show a test result. They should hear: "On five different writing assignments, your child had a hard time focusing on a main idea. Here's why I think that's happening, and here's what we can do together to help him."

Though parents share the responsibility to build the home-school connection, teachers are the paid professionals, so they need to take the lead. Added bonus: If teachers step up, they will never have to hear another parent complain about not knowing his or her child needs extra help.

We have a broken status quo where teachers grumble that parents can't handle criticism of their children, and parents leave conferences feeling like they've sat through a performance review with a bad manager; they head home feeling completely blindsided with negative information. When this has happened to me, I've found it difficult to trust the teacher's expertise. The bottom line though is the child misses out most. If schools are serious about fixing student achievement, they'll fix the home-school connection.


Read more
]]> homeschoolThe parent teacher conference needs to evolve for the 21st Century-for the sake of our kids.
Spend any amount of time in education circles and you'll soon hear the phrase "home-school connection." It's simple really: Parents and teachers should collaborate to support the child. Sounds good, but as someone who's been a teacher and is now a parent, I've seen both sides. The home school connection is definitely broken.

In my time on the teacher side of the fence, I've seen too many educators who don't want parents involved. Parents ask questions and make demands. Thanks to my two sons, I also get to hop to the parent side where I see too many moms and dads who don't want to hear negative feedback about their children, or worse yet, just want the teachers to fix everything.

When my own son came home with a progress report full of previously uncommunicated information-both positive and negative-the report made me think about how a true connection can't happen with only two or three conversations a year. No one's communicating effectively in this model. Why do you think so many teachers and parents dread parent teacher-conferences?

Parents and teachers need to meet each other at the 21st century fence and change the frequency and quality of their interaction. We live in a tech savvy age with constant communication via text and email. But, other than a formal, written progress report halfway through the grading period, and the report card and conference-at which attendance is often optional for parents-months can go by without parents and teachers talking about a child's academic progress.

Too many teachers keep to the minimal contact mandated by their principals, either because they don't want more, they lack the time, or they simply don't know how to reach out. Not wanting more contact is a sign a teacher may be struggling, and parents should definitely reach out to an administrator for support. Time is an issue for everyone these days, so although frequent in-person meetings would be great, teachers can't stay at school until 7 p.m. to meet working parents. Fortunately, technology can help provide alternate solutions to time and skill issues.

Growing numbers of teachers create classroom websites or blogs and post what their class will be learning that week and what assignments are due. One of my son's teachers, a nearly 30-year veteran, regularly emails or texts me about how my kid is doing in class. Because of the frequency of contact, I get to see the whole picture of my child's educational experience, not just the high points, like a great test score, or the low points, like when he's a bit too talkative.

An increasing number of K-12 schools use third party sites where parents log in and view their children's grades and homework. In districts that use such services, up to 70 percent of parents say they check their children's progress at least once a week and feel more connected to the school. If parents like these sites and teachers like them, why aren't they in every school? Sure there's a digital divide that limits tech access in lower income areas, but the overall foot-dragging by schools around using such services is a sign that connecting parents and teachers is not a huge priority.

Communicating quality information isn't just enabling parents to look up a test score on a web site, and technology can't be the answer to everything. So my son got a 95 percent on his test. Great. But what concepts did he master, what's he still missing, and what's the plan to help him learn?

Parents don't need to just hear a teacher say: "Your child is behind in writing," and show a test result. They should hear: "On five different writing assignments, your child had a hard time focusing on a main idea. Here's why I think that's happening, and here's what we can do together to help him."

Though parents share the responsibility to build the home-school connection, teachers are the paid professionals, so they need to take the lead. Added bonus: If teachers step up, they will never have to hear another parent complain about not knowing his or her child needs extra help.

We have a broken status quo where teachers grumble that parents can't handle criticism of their children, and parents leave conferences feeling like they've sat through a performance review with a bad manager; they head home feeling completely blindsided with negative information. When this has happened to me, I've found it difficult to trust the teacher's expertise. The bottom line though is the child misses out most. If schools are serious about fixing student achievement, they'll fix the home-school connection.


Read more
]]> Liz Dwyer Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:00:22 PDT <![CDATA[Five Tips for Drama-free Homework]]> http://www.good.is/post/how-to-5-tips-for-drama-free-homework/ http://www.good.is/post/how-to-5-tips-for-drama-free-homework/ learning.31010.howtoHomework’s been around as long as schools -after all, kids need to practice the concepts they learn during the day. But, homework time can be stressful, and when it goes wrong, the result can be tears, anger, and hurt feelings for the child (and sometimes the parent). I asked my former Compton Unified principal, Cynthia Woods, for her top K-5 homework tips. Cynthia’s currently the Director of Elementary Instruction for Alvord Unified School District and the 2010 Riverside County California Administrator of the Year.  Plus, she’s a mom to two school-age girls, so I knew she’d have great tips for keeping homework time drama-free.

1. Designate a study area. Choose an area in the house and designate it as the homework area. This area should have a table, chair, and good lighting. I highly suggest turning off all televisions and radios during homework time. This will require some sacrifice on the part of the adults in the house. You will find, however, the sacrifice is well worth it. Children will have better concentration and the homework will get done quicker.

2. Create a homework box. Fill a shoebox or small plastic container with items needed for homework. Keep the box near the designated homework area. The best time to get items for the homework box is during the back-to-school sales. You can get everything you need for under $10. Some items you may want to put in the box are: paper, pencils and pens, crayons and/or markers, glue sticks, scissors, ruler, pencil, sharpener, and a stapler. Items such as dictionaries, individual whiteboards, and index cards are also good materials to have on hand.

3. Clear out backpacks daily. Check your child’s backpack each day for homework assignments and notes from the teacher. Also, stay in communication with your child’s teacher. Most teachers will provide you with a phone number and/or email address that can be used to contact them.

4. Stick to a routine. Try to have your child do homework at the same time each day. Also, have your child eat a snack before getting started. It is best to do homework early in the afternoon or shortly after your child arrives home from school. This will prevent the crankiness that occurs later in the evening when your child is exhausted from the events of the day.

5. Have Fun. Make a game out of studying spelling words or learning multiplication tables. Search the internet for games that reinforce the concepts your child is learning. Be creative. Show your child that learning can be fun.

Photo (cc) by Flickr user los.angelista

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.

]]> learning.31010.howtoHomework’s been around as long as schools -after all, kids need to practice the concepts they learn during the day. But, homework time can be stressful, and when it goes wrong, the result can be tears, anger, and hurt feelings for the child (and sometimes the parent). I asked my former Compton Unified principal, Cynthia Woods, for her top K-5 homework tips. Cynthia’s currently the Director of Elementary Instruction for Alvord Unified School District and the 2010 Riverside County California Administrator of the Year.  Plus, she’s a mom to two school-age girls, so I knew she’d have great tips for keeping homework time drama-free.

1. Designate a study area. Choose an area in the house and designate it as the homework area. This area should have a table, chair, and good lighting. I highly suggest turning off all televisions and radios during homework time. This will require some sacrifice on the part of the adults in the house. You will find, however, the sacrifice is well worth it. Children will have better concentration and the homework will get done quicker.

2. Create a homework box. Fill a shoebox or small plastic container with items needed for homework. Keep the box near the designated homework area. The best time to get items for the homework box is during the back-to-school sales. You can get everything you need for under $10. Some items you may want to put in the box are: paper, pencils and pens, crayons and/or markers, glue sticks, scissors, ruler, pencil, sharpener, and a stapler. Items such as dictionaries, individual whiteboards, and index cards are also good materials to have on hand.

3. Clear out backpacks daily. Check your child’s backpack each day for homework assignments and notes from the teacher. Also, stay in communication with your child’s teacher. Most teachers will provide you with a phone number and/or email address that can be used to contact them.

4. Stick to a routine. Try to have your child do homework at the same time each day. Also, have your child eat a snack before getting started. It is best to do homework early in the afternoon or shortly after your child arrives home from school. This will prevent the crankiness that occurs later in the evening when your child is exhausted from the events of the day.

5. Have Fun. Make a game out of studying spelling words or learning multiplication tables. Search the internet for games that reinforce the concepts your child is learning. Be creative. Show your child that learning can be fun.

Photo (cc) by Flickr user los.angelista

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.

]]> Liz Dwyer Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:30:00 PDT <![CDATA[SAT Prep Gone Wild]]> http://www.good.is/post/sat-prep-gone-wild/ http://www.good.is/post/sat-prep-gone-wild/ Only wealthy kids are lucky enough to get primed for their SATs with a formal prep course, right? Not anymore. The online social enterprise I Need A Pencil (INAP) is leveling the playing field for students from all economic backgrounds. Founded by Harvard junior Jason Shah, INAP targets low-income students who wouldn't otherwise have access to college advice, online lessons, mentors, or 24/7 email support– and unlike Kaplan and Princeton Review, it's all free. "Families shouldn't have to spend the equivalent of a college classes' tuition just to get ready to take the SAT," says Shah…

Since launching in 2007, over 30,000 high school students from families with an average income of $40-80,000 have prepared for the SAT using INAP's program. Like Princeton Review and Kaplan, INAP users begin by taking an SAT practice test. The site then creates an estimated SAT score as a baseline starting point and provides users with areas of content strength and weakness.

INAP users get 60 custom lessons tailored to academic weaknesses, and an unlimited number of custom SAT questions and practice tests. In comparison, Shah says Kaplan's SAT Online program offers 30 lessons for $399 with only four practice tests. The Princeton Review's SAT Live Online costs $699 for 20-30 hours of tutoring with four practice tests. Shah is critical of the prices. "Charging so much puts SAT prep out of most families' reach. What are we saying?" he asks, "That only rich kids deserve to be prepared for the SAT?"

The site's beginnings stem from Shah's 2005 visit to his sister's sixth-grade Teach For America classroom in West Philadelphia. "One student asked me three times in a half hour how to spell the word ball," he says. When the kids talked about going to college, Shah, who was only a high school sophomore at the time, couldn't imagine how they'd be able to score high enough on the SAT to be accepted anywhere.

Back home in Daytona Beach Florida, while his peers worked on their tans, Shah decided to chip away at education-based social inequality. He launched in-person tutoring initiatives that met with mixed results. A few months later, Shah heard a classmate calling out for a pencil. "I couldn't believe this kid was so unprepared he didn't even have a pencil," he says. When a friend convinced him to move his tutoring efforts online, the memory of that unprepared student inspired the domain name.

Shah's parents invested $10,000 after reviewing his 40-page business plan. Shah spent the money on a team of curriculum designers and web developers from his parent's hometown in India. "They had no idea I was just a high school student," he says.

On Saturdays, Shah drove around low-income areas tucking flyers on car windshields, and hosted sessions about getting into college at area high schools. But INAP really took off the summer of 2008 after his first year at Harvard when he scoured the web, tracked down over 1,000 after-school programs, and sent out a stock email about INAP. "I didn't have a plan for what to do if anybody responded," Shah says. Soon he had fifty programs implementing INAP.

These days, INAP works with 120 after-school programs and the network is swiftly expanding through community-based organizations. Leandrew Robinson, the founder of Berkeley Scholars to Cal, an organization focused on mentoring Bay Area African American youth, praises INAP's efforts.  "Many of our students are low income," he says. "I Need a Pencil is literally the only way for them to get quality SAT preparation."  INAP's also been a finalist in the Dell Social Innovation competition, has received a SparkFeed grant, and won the Harvard I3 Innovation Challenge.

The SAT score gap between the lowest and highest income brackets is 232 points, but Shah says INAP's closing it- his users are showing a 202-point increase in scores. With over 1.2 million low-income students nationwide, he's set a goal of reaching half a million low-income students a year. "I'm only reaching a fraction of possible users right now," says Shah. "I want to read about the achievement gap in history books, not newspapers. College can't just be for kids with money."

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or to submit your own idea today.

Photo courtesy of INAP]]> Only wealthy kids are lucky enough to get primed for their SATs with a formal prep course, right? Not anymore. The online social enterprise I Need A Pencil (INAP) is leveling the playing field for students from all economic backgrounds. Founded by Harvard junior Jason Shah, INAP targets low-income students who wouldn't otherwise have access to college advice, online lessons, mentors, or 24/7 email support– and unlike Kaplan and Princeton Review, it's all free. "Families shouldn't have to spend the equivalent of a college classes' tuition just to get ready to take the SAT," says Shah…

Since launching in 2007, over 30,000 high school students from families with an average income of $40-80,000 have prepared for the SAT using INAP's program. Like Princeton Review and Kaplan, INAP users begin by taking an SAT practice test. The site then creates an estimated SAT score as a baseline starting point and provides users with areas of content strength and weakness.

INAP users get 60 custom lessons tailored to academic weaknesses, and an unlimited number of custom SAT questions and practice tests. In comparison, Shah says Kaplan's SAT Online program offers 30 lessons for $399 with only four practice tests. The Princeton Review's SAT Live Online costs $699 for 20-30 hours of tutoring with four practice tests. Shah is critical of the prices. "Charging so much puts SAT prep out of most families' reach. What are we saying?" he asks, "That only rich kids deserve to be prepared for the SAT?"

The site's beginnings stem from Shah's 2005 visit to his sister's sixth-grade Teach For America classroom in West Philadelphia. "One student asked me three times in a half hour how to spell the word ball," he says. When the kids talked about going to college, Shah, who was only a high school sophomore at the time, couldn't imagine how they'd be able to score high enough on the SAT to be accepted anywhere.

Back home in Daytona Beach Florida, while his peers worked on their tans, Shah decided to chip away at education-based social inequality. He launched in-person tutoring initiatives that met with mixed results. A few months later, Shah heard a classmate calling out for a pencil. "I couldn't believe this kid was so unprepared he didn't even have a pencil," he says. When a friend convinced him to move his tutoring efforts online, the memory of that unprepared student inspired the domain name.

Shah's parents invested $10,000 after reviewing his 40-page business plan. Shah spent the money on a team of curriculum designers and web developers from his parent's hometown in India. "They had no idea I was just a high school student," he says.

On Saturdays, Shah drove around low-income areas tucking flyers on car windshields, and hosted sessions about getting into college at area high schools. But INAP really took off the summer of 2008 after his first year at Harvard when he scoured the web, tracked down over 1,000 after-school programs, and sent out a stock email about INAP. "I didn't have a plan for what to do if anybody responded," Shah says. Soon he had fifty programs implementing INAP.

These days, INAP works with 120 after-school programs and the network is swiftly expanding through community-based organizations. Leandrew Robinson, the founder of Berkeley Scholars to Cal, an organization focused on mentoring Bay Area African American youth, praises INAP's efforts.  "Many of our students are low income," he says. "I Need a Pencil is literally the only way for them to get quality SAT preparation."  INAP's also been a finalist in the Dell Social Innovation competition, has received a SparkFeed grant, and won the Harvard I3 Innovation Challenge.

The SAT score gap between the lowest and highest income brackets is 232 points, but Shah says INAP's closing it- his users are showing a 202-point increase in scores. With over 1.2 million low-income students nationwide, he's set a goal of reaching half a million low-income students a year. "I'm only reaching a fraction of possible users right now," says Shah. "I want to read about the achievement gap in history books, not newspapers. College can't just be for kids with money."

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or to submit your own idea today.

Photo courtesy of INAP]]> Liz Dwyer Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:30:28 PST <![CDATA[Four Tips for Volunteering at Your Local School]]> http://www.good.is/post/4-tips-for-volunteering-at-your-local-school/ http://www.good.is/post/4-tips-for-volunteering-at-your-local-school/ One thing almost every school has in common these days is figuring out how to provide a quality education despite budget cuts. The days of volunteering meaning manning a bake sale table are over. Schools need people to work directly with kids, and they welcome volunteers who don’t have children at the school site.

Most districts have formalized processes in place to assess your volunteer skills and ensure student safety… Since I live in Los Angeles, I contacted LA Unified’s School, Family and Parent/Community Services Branch to see what tips they’d give to would-be volunteers.  They referred me to their website – which has a slew of great suggestions, no matter where you live. You’ll want to consult your local district for their specific guidelines, but here are four additional tips to consider as you dive into school volunteering:

Meet the School’s Need: If you’re an EMT, you may have grand plans for helping out in health or science classes, but keep an open mind and focus your service on what the school tells you it needs. Teachers may need someone to practice math facts with a couple students or help run the computer lab. As you build the relationship through your service, you’ll find ways to introduce your ideas.

TB Test: Before you can volunteer you need to get a tuberculosis test – and the results need to be negative. If you’ve had a test recently, depending on the school district, your TB clearance can be up to six months old. You can get a TB test done at your private physician’s office or at the health clinic of your choice.

Background Check: For students’ protection, most districts require both FBI and Department of Justice background checks. You’ll have to foot the bill, which could run you over $100.  However, some districts only require the check if you’re going to be volunteering more than a couple hours a week or if you’re going to be working with kids in an unsupervised capacity.

Dress For Success: No principal wants a volunteer who looks scruffy and trust me, you don’t want kids looking down your low-cut blouse or laughing at your boxer shorts showing because your pants are sagging. Dress like the role model you are!

Once you’ve felt the pride of knowing you helped students improve academically, you’ll probably wonder why you didn’t volunteer before!  Let’s hope the volunteering spirit continues even if school budgets improve.

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.

]]> One thing almost every school has in common these days is figuring out how to provide a quality education despite budget cuts. The days of volunteering meaning manning a bake sale table are over. Schools need people to work directly with kids, and they welcome volunteers who don’t have children at the school site.

Most districts have formalized processes in place to assess your volunteer skills and ensure student safety… Since I live in Los Angeles, I contacted LA Unified’s School, Family and Parent/Community Services Branch to see what tips they’d give to would-be volunteers.  They referred me to their website – which has a slew of great suggestions, no matter where you live. You’ll want to consult your local district for their specific guidelines, but here are four additional tips to consider as you dive into school volunteering:

Meet the School’s Need: If you’re an EMT, you may have grand plans for helping out in health or science classes, but keep an open mind and focus your service on what the school tells you it needs. Teachers may need someone to practice math facts with a couple students or help run the computer lab. As you build the relationship through your service, you’ll find ways to introduce your ideas.

TB Test: Before you can volunteer you need to get a tuberculosis test – and the results need to be negative. If you’ve had a test recently, depending on the school district, your TB clearance can be up to six months old. You can get a TB test done at your private physician’s office or at the health clinic of your choice.

Background Check: For students’ protection, most districts require both FBI and Department of Justice background checks. You’ll have to foot the bill, which could run you over $100.  However, some districts only require the check if you’re going to be volunteering more than a couple hours a week or if you’re going to be working with kids in an unsupervised capacity.

Dress For Success: No principal wants a volunteer who looks scruffy and trust me, you don’t want kids looking down your low-cut blouse or laughing at your boxer shorts showing because your pants are sagging. Dress like the role model you are!

Once you’ve felt the pride of knowing you helped students improve academically, you’ll probably wonder why you didn’t volunteer before!  Let’s hope the volunteering spirit continues even if school budgets improve.

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or submit your own idea today.

]]> Liz Dwyer Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:30:00 PST <![CDATA[Senior Ditch Year in Utah?]]> http://www.good.is/post/senior-ditch-year-in-utah/ http://www.good.is/post/senior-ditch-year-in-utah/ A high school tradition, "Senior Ditch Day", may soon turn into "Senior Ditch Year" if a proposal from Utah State Senator Chris Buttars gains support.  Due to a $700 million budget shortfall, Buttars is suggesting 12th grade become optional.  Through an accelerated program, students would receive a diploma after three years…saving Utah almost $70 million dollars annually.

Known for making controversial statements, Buttars initially suggested axing 12th grade completely as well as eliminating busing.  He's since eased away from that stance, instead saying an option to finish high school early would appeal to some students and parents, and thus be more likely to get approved.

So, what do current Utah seniors say?  J.D. Williams, the 18 year-old student body president of suburban Salt Lake City's West Jordan High told the Los Angeles Times, "My parents are against it.  All the teachers at the school are against it. I'm against it."

Buttar's proposal may ultimately go nowhere but his colleagues are commending his out-the-box approach to solving state budget woes.

Photo (cc) by Flickr user kris247

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or to submit your own idea today.]]> A high school tradition, "Senior Ditch Day", may soon turn into "Senior Ditch Year" if a proposal from Utah State Senator Chris Buttars gains support.  Due to a $700 million budget shortfall, Buttars is suggesting 12th grade become optional.  Through an accelerated program, students would receive a diploma after three years…saving Utah almost $70 million dollars annually.

Known for making controversial statements, Buttars initially suggested axing 12th grade completely as well as eliminating busing.  He's since eased away from that stance, instead saying an option to finish high school early would appeal to some students and parents, and thus be more likely to get approved.

So, what do current Utah seniors say?  J.D. Williams, the 18 year-old student body president of suburban Salt Lake City's West Jordan High told the Los Angeles Times, "My parents are against it.  All the teachers at the school are against it. I'm against it."

Buttar's proposal may ultimately go nowhere but his colleagues are commending his out-the-box approach to solving state budget woes.

Photo (cc) by Flickr user kris247

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or to submit your own idea today.]]> Liz Dwyer Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:30:35 PST <![CDATA[Detroit High Schools Teach How To Work at Walmart]]> http://www.good.is/post/detroit-high-schools-teach-how-to-work-at-walmart/ http://www.good.is/post/detroit-high-schools-teach-how-to-work-at-walmart/ Four Detroit public high schools have decided classroom time should be used to train 60 students to work at Walmart. A new partnership gives participants 11 weeks of job-readiness training during the day and a Walmart job after school. Students earn 10 credits toward graduation…

Advocates say with Detroit's unofficial unemployment rate nearing 50%, jobs at Walmart are a golden opportunity. Sean Vann, principal of the Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men, has 30 students in the program. He told the Detroit Free Press he's enthusiastic because along with earning money, since the schools are in the suburbs, the students will be around people from different cultures.

Donna Stern, a representative of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) is outraged. "They're going to train students to be subservient workers. This is not why parents send them to school."

Unclear is whether Walmart will pay the minimum wage of $7.25 or the $4.25 per hour the Department of Labor allows for the first 90 days of employment of a minor. Paying the latter wage could be perceived as a money saver for Walmart, already viewed by many as the epitome of capitalism-gone-wild and dead-end employment.

Photo (cc) by Flickr user iknownowforsure

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or to submit your own idea today.

]]> Four Detroit public high schools have decided classroom time should be used to train 60 students to work at Walmart. A new partnership gives participants 11 weeks of job-readiness training during the day and a Walmart job after school. Students earn 10 credits toward graduation…

Advocates say with Detroit's unofficial unemployment rate nearing 50%, jobs at Walmart are a golden opportunity. Sean Vann, principal of the Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men, has 30 students in the program. He told the Detroit Free Press he's enthusiastic because along with earning money, since the schools are in the suburbs, the students will be around people from different cultures.

Donna Stern, a representative of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) is outraged. "They're going to train students to be subservient workers. This is not why parents send them to school."

Unclear is whether Walmart will pay the minimum wage of $7.25 or the $4.25 per hour the Department of Labor allows for the first 90 days of employment of a minor. Paying the latter wage could be perceived as a money saver for Walmart, already viewed by many as the epitome of capitalism-gone-wild and dead-end employment.

Photo (cc) by Flickr user iknownowforsure

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or to submit your own idea today.

]]> Liz Dwyer Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:30:11 PST <![CDATA[Obama Makes Environmental Education History]]> http://www.good.is/post/obama-makes-environmental-education-history/ http://www.good.is/post/obama-makes-environmental-education-history/ President Obama continues to make history with his proposed 2011 Education Budget, and environmental allies, like the 50 million member strong No Child Left Inside coalition, are cheering.  For the first time ever, a federal education budget includes funding for environmental education.

The environmental focus can be found in the budget sub-section called "A Well-Rounded Education".  It proposes $265 million dollars (a 17% increase) to support five subjects listed as vital to a complete curriculum.  Environmental literacy is one of them, so schools may finally receive funding to educate kids on the impact of greenhouse gases, what happens to trash thrown on the ground after it rains, and how to recycle.

Although the amount budgeted isn't the end-all be-all of funding, legislators committed to environmental education like Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, are giving President Obama credit for putting the issue on the table.  "This budget takes an important step toward boosting environmental education in the classroom and giving more kids the opportunity to get out and learn about the natural world around them," says Reed.

Of course, the 2011 Budget still needs to be approved by Congress, meaning the historic funding environmentalists are so excited about may end up getting the axe.

Photo (cc) by Flickr user cngodles

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or to submit your own idea today.

]]> President Obama continues to make history with his proposed 2011 Education Budget, and environmental allies, like the 50 million member strong No Child Left Inside coalition, are cheering.  For the first time ever, a federal education budget includes funding for environmental education.

The environmental focus can be found in the budget sub-section called "A Well-Rounded Education".  It proposes $265 million dollars (a 17% increase) to support five subjects listed as vital to a complete curriculum.  Environmental literacy is one of them, so schools may finally receive funding to educate kids on the impact of greenhouse gases, what happens to trash thrown on the ground after it rains, and how to recycle.

Although the amount budgeted isn't the end-all be-all of funding, legislators committed to environmental education like Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, are giving President Obama credit for putting the issue on the table.  "This budget takes an important step toward boosting environmental education in the classroom and giving more kids the opportunity to get out and learn about the natural world around them," says Reed.

Of course, the 2011 Budget still needs to be approved by Congress, meaning the historic funding environmentalists are so excited about may end up getting the axe.

Photo (cc) by Flickr user cngodles

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas. Find out more about the Refresh campaign, or to submit your own idea today.

]]> Liz Dwyer Fri, 5 Feb 2010 05:30:40 PST