Chalkbeat

Amid Chicago’s migrant influx, one school is trying to help newcomer students navigate trauma

2023-10-27T19:24:21+00:00

An hour before dismissal on a recent Friday afternoon, eight Brighton Park Elementary School students huddled in a classroom with Jennifer Moorhouse, a teacher who works with English language learners.

They were there for a voluntary, biweekly support group run by Moorhouse and Stephanie Carrillo, a school counselor, for students grappling with the upheaval of immigration and the adjustment to a new country, new city, and new school.

She asked the children — a mix of sixth through eighth graders who had recently arrived in Chicago as part of an influx of migrant families — to share the best and worst part of their week.

One boy said the best thing was that his family had moved to a new house. Another child looked up, her hair slightly covering her face. She shrugged her shoulders and struggled to come up with a worst moment.

That’s OK, Moorhouse said in Spanish, she doesn’t have to have a low point.

The girl then added, “No mejor,” meaning there was no high point either. After a moment of silence, the whole group burst into laughter.

These students, who arrived in Chicago between last year and this year, are among the more than 20,000 newly arrived migrants in Chicago since last August, with many fleeing from Central, South American and African countries experiencing political and economic turmoil, according to city officials.

Chicago Public Schools does not track immigration status and has not shared how many migrant students have enrolled in schools. But the district has pointed to clues of an increase, including 7,800 more English learners enrolled this school year, compared to an annual average increase of 3,000 such students.

As of mid-September, 2,250 migrant children were housed in the city’s shelters, according to records from the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications that were obtained by Chalkbeat.

Educators have raised concerns that many Chicago schools don’t have the resources, such as staff, to provide new migrants with the right language instruction, recently pleading with the state to send more help.

But there are also questions about whether newcomers have the social-emotional support they need at school. These students have potentially endured dangerous journeys to the United States, on top of the stress of leaving their homes behind for shelters or other temporary living arrangements in a foreign place.

That latter concern led Moorhouse to launch the support group at Brighton Park last year after she met a migrant student who was showing signs of trauma. The student, whom Moorhouse met in January, didn’t want to be in school and sometimes, the student’s body would shake uncontrollably, she said.

At one of the sessions Moorhouse held, the student shared a personal story about his journey to the United States. Afterward, Moorhouse recalled, the student said: “My chest isn’t hurting. I can breathe.” Moorhouse felt it was a sign of healing.

In some ways, Brighton Park is well-positioned to host this support group. As a community school, it partners with a nonprofit organization to provide wraparound services for its students. Carrillo, the school counselor who helps Moorhouse with the support group, works with the school on behalf of its partner nonprofit, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council. Brighton Park Elementary’s community schools funding also helped to pay for the training on the model that the support group is based on, according to Cecilia Mendoza, the school’s assistant principal.

The model is known as STRONG, or Supporting Transition Resilience of Newcomer Groups, which focuses on teaching children how to understand and cope with their stress before they’re invited to share more personal details about their journey to the United States, if they choose.

It’s unclear how many schools have specific support groups for migrant students like the one at Brighton Park. About $35 million of the district’s budget this year was allocated for social-emotional curriculum, behavioral health supports for students, and additional social workers and counselors, according to a district spokesperson.

This year, Moorhouse and Carrillo are starting with the basics.

On that recent Friday afternoon, in the classroom where Moorhouse gathered with eight of her students, bright orange and blue strips of paper on the dry erase board described concepts of melting and freezing in English and Spanish: “Que le pasa al chocolate que se deja al sol?” (What happens to chocolate left in the sun?).

A plastic cupboard sat against the wall, filled with shoes, socks, and clothing donations Moorhouse had collected through her Amazon Wishlist. Sheets of paper taped to the wall have words of affirmation in both languages: “Tus emociones son validas.” (Your feelings are valid.)

A classroom for English learners at Brighton Park Elementary School has brightly colored phrases translated in English and Spanish on the dry erase board.

After their icebreaker, Moorhouse passed around crayons and a worksheet with the outline of a human body. She explained that stress can cause physical pain and asked her students to color in the part of their bodies that hurt when they are stressed.

“Entonces para mi, cuando yo estoy estresado, mi estómago me duele,” she told the students, explaining that her stomach hurts when she’s stressed.

One girl, wearing a pair of sneakers donated through the Amazon wishlist, used a green crayon to fill in the top of the head. She colored the shoulders with a green-yellow.

When Moorhouse asked students to share, one boy said stress gives him a headache, and then he feels like throwing up. A low “hmm” spread through the group, as if others recognized the boy’s feeling.

At 2:35 p.m., about halfway through the session, the students received a new worksheet. This one had a large triangle on it, and each point represented something different: pensamientos, sentimientos, y acciones. Thoughts, emotions, and actions. Moorhouse wanted the students to reflect on how a thought may lead to a feeling, which ultimately leads to an action.

After a couple minutes jotting down their thoughts, the students shared their responses. One boy smiled as he described an example: When he’s talking to other students and they suddenly begin speaking in English, he feels as if he’s been removed from the conversation.

“How does that make you feel?” Moorhouse asked him in Spanish.

“Bad,” he replied.

“What’s your action?” Moorhouse responded.

“I walk away,” he said.

That day, Mendoza, the assistant principal, was peeking in.

“I don’t think students or people in general sometimes realize the effect that has on others who only speak one language,” Mendoza said later. “So that really stuck with me, and I thought about how we could have that conversation, perhaps, with the students … because they might not be aware that they’re doing that.”

Moorhouse then presented a challenge for the students: How can they change their thinking about a situation, in order to elicit better action? One boy gave the example of taking a hard math test that he doesn’t know the answers to, so instead, he asks to go to the bathroom.

He was stumped when Moorhouse asked him to think of a better action. She opened the floor to the group, but no one came up with an answer good enough for Moorhouse. When she pressed them to think harder, they hit on a solution: He could ask the teacher for help — for understanding the exam, or perhaps even asking to take it another day.

With about 15 minutes left, Moorhouse and Carillo passed around stress balls shaped like bee hives. They asked the students to squeeze hard and pretend that they were squeezing out the juice.

A couple of kids laughed as they squeezed their fists and then released pressure.

Around 2:55 p.m. Moorhouse handed out a blank calendar worksheet. For the following week, students would be expected to log how they’ve practiced relaxation strategies, such as grabbing an ice pack from the nurse or using a stress ball, when feeling stressed. One student shared that drawing helps.

It was time for dismissal. The students didn’t run out the door. They stayed back to chat with each other. A few grabbed extra bags of Skinny Pop.

As the weeks go on, Moorhouse and Carrillo will meet individually with each student to assess whether they want to talk more about their personal experiences of coming to the U.S. and what would be appropriate to share with the other students.

In those conversations, students may show signs of needing more individual counseling provided by the school, such as bursting into tears while recounting a story, Carrillo said.

Some students take a while to open up, so it’s unclear how much they’ll participate going forward, Moorhouse said. One of those quieter students is the child who had shared that there was no highlight or lowlight of her week. During the hourlong session, this student gradually opened up a little more.

And when most of the other children left at the end of the day, that student stayed behind. She wanted to talk some more one-on-one with Moorhouse.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

LISTEN: Migrant students navigate a new reality

2024-03-27T10:00:00+00:00

The first episode of P.S. Weekly focuses on one of the biggest education stories in New York City this year: the arrival of thousands of migrant students.

Officials estimate that more than 36,000 migrant students have enrolled in city schools over the past two years.

What challenges are these new students facing? And what are schools doing to support them? This student-reported episode explores these questions through conversations with students, educators, and a journalist who’s been covering the issue.

The first segment features an interview with Chalkbeat reporter Michael Elsen-Rooney, as he explains how schools have been supporting recently arrived students — and what the media has gotten wrong. With the city’s recent policy limiting migrant families to 60 days in shelters, it’s been hard on schools to figure out how to help. Elsen-Rooney said school officials are grappling with questions like: “Can we figure out transportation for them, or do they leave? And then they have to start over at a new school?”

Next, Marisol Martin, a senior at Claremont International High School in the Bronx, talks about her hurdles and triumphs since coming here from Mexico a few years ago. As she’s gotten more involved with her school’s Dream Squad — a program the Education Department started in 2020 to help immigrant students and undocumented youth and is now in more than 60 schools — Martin has felt more a part of the community.

A poster for the Dream Squad at Claremont International High School.

She’s paying it forward, now as a Dream Squad leader herself, and she shares her view on how schools should better help students feel connected to one another.

“What I would tell them is to socialize with other people,” Martin said in Spanish. “When you’re alone, you’re shy, and you don’t want to talk to anyone, you close yourself in your own world, and you don’t know more about what’s happening outside.”

Finally, Sunisa Nuonsy, a former high school teacher of 10 years at International High School at Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, talks about why she became a teacher specifically focused on immigrant students, the challenges she faced, and her advice to other teachers, especially those who are working with migrant students who may have experienced trauma. (Nuonsy is currently a doctoral student in urban education at the CUNY Graduate Center and a project researcher for the CUNY Initiative on Immigration and Education.)

Sunisa Nuonsy

“They can easily shut down and they can easily drop out,” Nuonsy said of migrant students. “So you have a very unique opportunity to be an adult in their life that is welcoming them and affirming them and showing them that they have value and that they should be here.”

P.S. Weekly is available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Be sure to drop a review in your app or shoot an email to PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org. Tell us what you learned today or what you’re still wondering. We just might read your comment on a future episode.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell. Listen for new episodes Wednesdays this spring.

Read the full episode transcript below

Dorothy: Welcome to P.S. Weekly… the sound of the New York City school system. I’m Dorothy Ha, a senior at Stuyvesant High School– and I’m super excited to be hosting the very first episode of P.S. Weekly. This show is a collaboration between Chalkbeat New York, a leading education news site– and The Bell, a leading provider of audio journalism training to high school students. It’s a pairing as natural as a bacon, egg, and cheese!

Dorothy: Each week this Spring, our team will dig into one issue affecting New York City schools, bringing you a mix of voices and perspectives that you won’t find anywhere else. Along the way, we want to hear from YOU, our lovely listeners– more on that later in the show. Right now… let’s get to it.

Dorothy: For our first episode, we chose what’s been arguably the biggest story in New York City this year.

News Clip: Parents and educators say several Manhattan public schools are overwhelmed with an influx of migrant students. CBS News’ Natalie Duddridge spoke with the Chancellor on his efforts to find solutions.

Dorothy: What challenges are these new migrant students facing? And what are schools doing to support them? We’ll hear experiences directly from students and teachers. But first! We have Mike Elsen-Rooney with us. Mike is a Chalkbeat reporter who’s been covering how schools are responding to thousands of newly arrived migrant students.

Dorothy: Hi Mike! Thanks for joining us.

Mike: Hey, Dorothy. It’s great to be here.

Dorothy: All right. So, Mike, when did the issue that some have called the “migrant crisis” hit your radar?

Mike: So I remember back in Summer 2022, when this was first hitting the headlines. I was watching a meeting, and a superintendent said, “We’re expecting a couple hundred new students to come in.” And I was like, “Whoa, that seems like a lot of kids.” And then here we are about two years later, and it’s a whole lot more than that.

Dorothy: Right, so now it’s 2024. And how many people are we talking about in total now?

Mike: So our best estimate is that about 36,000 new kids have enrolled over the past couple of years.

Dorothy: Wow. That’s a lot of students. So what can you tell us about where these new migrants are living and where they’re going to school?

Mike: Yeah. So where they’re living really depends on where the city has been able to set up shelters. We’ve seen shelters pop up in Long Island City in Queens, and Clinton Hill in Brooklyn, and lots of different parts of the city. And so where kids go to school really depends on two things. Number one is how close it is to their shelters. The second thing is what schools are really good and well-equipped to serve English language learners.

Dorothy: I can imagine that there are a lot of challenges in handling this big increase in migrant students.

Mike: Yeah, it can be really hard just getting tons and tons of new kids with a lot of challenges. And then the thing that’s been really hard recently is that there’s this new policy: families can only stay in shelters for 60 days. After that, they have to reapply, and they may end up in a shelter in a different part of the city. And so schools have to figure out, “Can we keep this kid? Can we figure out transportation for them, or do they leave? And then they have to start over at a new school?”

Dorothy: Recently, you wrote a really interesting story about how this immigration issue is impacting students and how they’re feeling at this moment. And you spoke to folks at Newcomers High School. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Mike: Yeah. So Newcomers High School is this really interesting place in Long Island City, Queens. It’s been around for 30 years, and they’re really good at accepting newcomer kids from around the world and teaching them English and helping them get acclimated to life in the U.S. And so that school is also near a bunch of shelters in Long Island City. And so when I saw a couple of kids from Newcomers High School speaking at a meeting for the Panel for Educational Policy recently, I was really surprised by what they said.

Meeting Clip: Our name stigmatizes us and condemns us to always be patronized and not having a choice because we are “new.” We are marked with the idea that we are here occupying a space that is not ours.

Mike: They said that the name Newcomers High School was, quote, putting a target on their backs.

Dorothy: And so what happened after the testimony?

Mike: After that testimony, they went through the whole process of getting their name changed, and we just actually found out that they got approved to have a new name. And the school is going to be called Atlas.

Dorothy: The situation with their name change kind of makes me think about the portrayal of migrants in the media. You know, not every journalist is as thorough as you are, Mike. So what’s been the broader media narrative?

Mike: So we’ve seen some examples where the media actually has really not captured what’s happening on the ground. And one really good example is, there was an incident recently where the city had set up basically an emergency tent shelter on Floyd Bennett Field at the Southern tip of Brooklyn. And there was a storm coming, and the city decided to evacuate them.

News Anchor 1: Mounting frustrations this afternoon in Brooklyn after the city temporarily placed asylum seekers into the gym of James Madison High School in Midwood.

News Anchor 2: While the move was to provide shelter for them from last night’s storm, but it was meant– it meant that no classes happened at the school today. And parents are really frustrated by all of it.

Mike: The city had them stay there overnight and then got them out early in the morning. But the school’s principal decided, they weren’t going to be able to get it cleaned up in time; let’s switch to remote learning for the day. When this hit the news. It turned into this huge story, especially in a lot of right-wing media. And the narrative was that New York City kids are getting pushed out by migrant families. But when a colleague of mine actually talked to students and parents there, you know, kids were saying, “Look, we sympathize with these families. We didn’t want them to be exposed to any danger of being out in the storm. And it was just a very different set of reactions than what came through if you only read the kind of media firestorm over this. And so, you know, it kind of drove home this point that what the media says doesn’t always reflect the reality on the ground.

Dorothy: Wow, fascinating. And on top of that, immigration has been a big issue in the presidential election so far. I can think of one presidential candidate who has been speaking about it a lot in particular. So how has that impacted New York City?

Mike: So Donald Trump just weighed in on this. He made some claims in a recent interview that New York City kids were getting pushed out by migrant students. And it just is incorrect. And the biggest reason for that is that there are actually a lot of empty seats in New York City schools. We lost enrollment during the pandemic, and so there’s plenty of space and no one’s getting pushed out.

Dorothy: So my last question for you is, for educators, and policymakers, and community members who want to better support these migrant students, what are some of the success stories that you’ve seen?

Mike: So many schools have been finding really creative and empathetic ways to support their new kids. You know, one big example we’ve seen is that a lot of schools have done coat drives because a lot of these newcomer kids have lived in the Southern Hemisphere their whole lives and have never really been through a New York winter. So it’s just those kinds of things at the community level, listening to what these families need and making it happen.

Dorothy: Mike, thank you so much for sitting down and having this conversation with us.

Mike: Thanks so much, Dorothy.

Dorothy: And now, we’re going to take a closer look at what the experience is really like after students arrive here. And how one program is helping them adjust. Our P.S. Weekly reporter Jose Santana has the story.

Marisol: Hola, mi nombre es Marisol Martin. Soy del grado 12, soy senior, mi país es México.

Jose: This is Marisol Martin, an 18-year-old high school senior.

Marisol: The biggest challenge I have is the language. I only knew how to say “thank you.” The teacher back in my country told us “thank you” in English, but beyond that I didn’t know anything.

Jose: She arrived in New York City from Mexico when NYC schools were still remote because of the pandemic.

Marisol: It was very difficult for me to learn; ninth grade was very difficult. The classes were online, and that made it more difficult for me to learn, and I didn’t understand anything. I just used a translator or something like that to see what to do.

Jose: And she’s not the only one who faces these kinds of hurdles. New York City is a city of immigrants, and its schools reflect that. Young people from all over the world come here for a multitude of reasons. Last school year, nearly one in five city students was learning English as a new language. Here’s Governor Kathy Hochul during a press conference last September.

Kathy (News Clip): We have real challenges. They’re coming in from West Africa, South and Central America. So it’s not just assuming that Spanish is going to cover everybody. It doesn’t come close. City officials…

Jose: When high school students like Marisol first arrive in New York City, the school system typically enrolls them in one of about 20 international high schools. These are schools like Newcomers– now called Atlas –that specialize in supporting recent immigrants. Marisol attends Claremont International High School in the Bronx. Nearly all of its students are low-income and English language learners. When Marisol first got there, language wasn’t the only barrier.

Marisol: Another challenge for me was to use technology that was very complicated for me because they gave me an iPad to work with my things. But it was in English, and I didn’t know where to enter, what to do, or where to paste.

Jose: Being in a new country also takes some cultural adjustment.

Marisol: When I arrived here in the United States, I entered Claremont and I kind of didn’t have much connection with the people. Different countries, different cultures.

Jose: But lucky for Marisol– and so many other immigrant students –there was help.

Marisol: Something that has helped me are some groups, like the Dream Squad. When I entered tenth grade, I was on the Dream Team. That also helped me a lot to communicate.

Jose: What is a Dream Squad? To answer that question, come with me to one of their meetings. It’s 12 p.m. on a Tuesday and I’m here at the Dream Squad’s weekly lunchtime meeting in the school’s library. The Dream Squad’s staff director Evelyn Reyes is leading the meeting with about 10 students, who are all seniors. They were discussing plans and ideas to recruit more Dream Squad members by sending emails out, flyers and directly inviting students to their meetings. Evelyn said the program started in 2019 to help immigrant students and undocumented youth.

Evelyn: Our then social worker was working around creating a space where students, regardless of immigration status, could find, you know, that empowerment where their stories were shared.

Jose: Claremont is one of more than two dozen schools around the city with a Dream Squad program. Dream Squads receive support from the non-profit ImmSchools and the DOE’s Division of Multilingual Learners. They provide notebooks, laptops, lanyards, and events for students and staff. But the most important aspect of the program is the community itself– and the knowledge that gets shared. Meeting topics vary from week to week.

Evelyn: So, mental health, we want to talk about also “know your rights.” So that our students are aware of what their rights are as immigrants. We want our students to also know that they have different options when it comes to post-secondary planning, whether that is college, whether that is trade school, whether that is a certificate program. We do try to do our best to share the information that we share with the students inside those meetings, across the school.

Jose: Dream Squad is tackling some big challenges, and it’s not without its difficulties. Language continues to be an issue.

Evelyn: Claremont is a very multilingual school, so we are a very diverse school community. And sometimes, just being able to produce or communicate a lot of the resources on students’ native language, that could be something that can be a little bit challenging.

Jose: But, despite these challenges, Evelyn makes sure to let the students know that–

Evelyn: Your background, your values, your culture, all of that is an asset. Like you have that, value that. So I do want them to feel like their story matters. Like I want them to, to feel like they’re at a community. That they’re welcome not only inside our school community, but also, you know, in this country.

Jose: And how does Dream Squad measure success?

Evelyn: Knowledge is success for me. Like, as long as we’re about to reach our students and we’re able to provide the resources, that they know how to use the resources, that they know how to access those resources. That’s how we measure success.

Jose: After benefiting from the program, Marisol became a Dream Squad leader– for 2 years now –to help other students like her. I ask Marisol how she’s adjusted since arriving in New York 3 years ago.

Jose (in Spanish): After 3 years of being here, how have you adjusted?

Marisol: I think that through time and things around me, I was able to connect more with the things in the United States. And also how the people that I met helped me too, like… like my classmates who are also migrants. So, we talk to each other and tell each other about this and this. I think that was something that helped me a lot to adapt here.

Jose: I ask her what advice she’d give to other students who have just arrived and gone through a similar experience.

Marisol: What I would tell them is to socialize with other people. That’s very good, because having a connection to more people, you can know more things versus when you’re alone, you’re shy and you don’t talk to anyone. You close yourself in your own world, and you don’t know more about what’s happening outside.

Jose: And what can the schools do to make the experience better?

Marisol: I think that giving them guidance, telling them, like, “here you can learn, here you can communicate.” The schools need to have more– like a connection with students, because many of the children don’t know what to do when they arrive the first day. They are very shy, and I think that they should have more priority with them when they immediately arrive.

Jose: There’s no doubt that the increase in new students to the city creates a difficult situation for both the city and the students. But as Marisol suggests, there are things that can be done to make the immigrant student experience better. And it all starts with a supportive community– grassroots efforts like the Dream Squad program that are making schools a safe and welcoming space for all.

Dorothy: Once again, that was Jose Santana, reporting from Claremont International High School. We’re going to take a short break, but when we return… a teacher’s perspective.

Sunisa: Sometimes, students are hopeless. Which I think to a teacher, to see a hopeless student is sad; it’s heartbreaking.

Dorothy: So stay tuned…

Salma: Hey, listeners! We hope you’re enjoying the first episode of P.S. Weekly. We’ve got an assignment for you—follow us on Instagram @bell.voices. And we want to hear from you! Reach out to P.S. Weekly at psweekly@chalkbeat.org with comments, questions, and suggestions. And… if you want more student-created content, listen up!

Student 1: On Our Minds is a podcast about the teenage experience. Made by teens, for teens.

Student 2: There’s a lot on our minds, and talking about it helps.

Student 1: On Our Minds: Season 4 is produced by PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs, in collaboration with KUOW’s RadioActive Youth Media.

Student 2: Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Dorothy: In the last segment, we heard about the immigrant student experience. When it comes to helping these students overcome language barriers and navigate a new environment, that job often falls to… you guessed it… teachers. Our producer Bernie Carmona spoke to one of them.

Bernie: As a child of immigrants, I’ve thought about the experiences of migrant students navigating through school life. But who takes on the responsibility for making sure students are fully prepared for their future? What do teachers go through while navigating classrooms with migrant students? I remember speaking to my older sister, Mariana, who moved from Mexico to South Carolina in 2002 when she was about 5 years old. She didn’t know English when she arrived and struggled to adjust to the new environment. She didn’t feel supported until she came to New York City, where she experienced the diverse culture and language in schools, things she couldn’t access in South Carolina.

Bernie: Her experience made me wonder: how does all of this look from a teacher’s perspective? I spoke to Sunisa Nuonsy, a former high school teacher of 10 years at International High School at Prospect Heights in Brooklyn.

Bernie: Thank you so much for being here, Sunisa.

Sunisa: Thank you so much for having me.

Bernie: Sunisa, why did you choose to become a teacher?

Sunisa: I became a teacher, particularly for immigrant students, because of my own experience. My family came to the U.S. as refugees from Laos. And sadly to say, some of my aunts and uncles, who were adolescents at the time of resettlement here, they were not equitably served in schools, and they dropped out of school. And so I always carried that with me. And when I became an adult, and I was thinking about my career path, I was very much drawn to language and to working with immigrants just because I felt like I could connect with them.

Bernie: Can you tell me a little more about how that experience was like for you?

Sunisa: The first time that I entered the school, I was interviewing as a student teacher, and I saw the students, and the different kinds of clothes they were wearing. Some kids were like, you know, dressed very Western, some kids were wearing more cultured clothes, hearing different languages. I thought it was the coolest place ever because I was like, “Look at these beautiful kids.” They come from everywhere. But we’re in Brooklyn. They’re so fly, they’re so fresh. It’s like where roots are– are like bursting through the ground, you know, because everything is just alive. Like the ways that language comes together, right?

Sunisa: I worked at a school, I would say was mostly Dominican. So every student learned Dominican Spanish, right? Whether you were from Yemen or Guinea, everybody was like, “Que lo que.” And just the way that our students were so open with their cultures and playing with one another’s cultures and really learning with it was just this beautiful hybrid space. And I don’t want to romanticize it, but I just imagine that that’s what our world could really be like is, you know, a place where people feel affirmed in who they are, but also aren’t scared to get to know other people. But we’re trying to make the world better, right? We’re trying to make people freer, more liberated. So I love that space. I love that liminal space.

Bernie: What would you say has been the biggest challenge you face with working with migrant students?

Sunisa: Well, I can say that although I identify as an immigrant myself, it’s such a tough situation to be in, and the larger administration is not aware of that. And they’re expecting you to be this robot that just has to do their job and perform their functions. But a lot of times I’ve seen it impossible to get a student to respond to classwork because they have so many other pressing and urgent issues that are just surrounding their brain and their souls. And that can be challenging to do when you have students who don’t see a pathway to college, they don’t even see a pathway to graduation. So to work with students, try to instill in them some sense of agency and empowerment, you know, even in the smallest ways, I think is really important because sometimes students are hopeless, which I think to a teacher, to see a student hopeless is sad. It’s heartbreaking, right, because you think that you’re there to really guide them to all of these opportunities when those opportunities are inequitably distributed. Like I think about college tuition, right, and financial aid and who can access financial aid and who can’t.

Bernie: What was a difficult moment you encountered?

Sunisa: I had two amazing students who were sisters, and they wanted to go to college. And their dad, culturally, didn’t think that college was for them. And so I had just so many conversations not only with them but with their guardians, with administrators at the schools, with other teachers. And oftentimes, I would just go back to my classroom and cry out of frustration because you could feel like you’re doing all of the hard things that you need to do to support these immigrant students. And there are still things that are just out of your control. So to see these students who had come all this way, had come from this village in Yemen to Brooklyn. And really learn how to believe in themselves and have some empowerment and still not be able to make that one crucial decision about whether they can continue their educations. It’s just, you know, I don’t know, even know how to troubleshoot that.

Bernie: Do you have any advice for teachers that are currently working with migrant students?

Sunisa: My recommendation for all teachers really is to know who your students are. Get to understand their context and their experiences before you label them as anything. Because, especially immigrant students, the ones who have experienced trauma along the way, they can easily shut down and they can easily drop out. So you have a very unique opportunity to be an adult in their life that is welcoming them and affirming them and showing them that they have value and that they should be here.

Bernie: Thank you so much for being a part of this interview, Sunisa.

Sunisa: Thank you so much for having me.

Bernie: I’m Bernie Carmona, reporting for P.S. Weekly.

Dorothy: That’s it for our first episode, but before you go, we have an extra credit assignment for you! Go to chalkbeat.org/newsletters, or click the link in our show notes, to sign up for the Chalkbeat New York morning newsletter. It’s the best way to stay informed on local schools coverage Monday through Friday. And if you really want to impress the teacher, drop a review in your podcast app or shoot an email to psweekly@chalkbeat.org. Tell us what you learned today or what you’re still wondering. We just might read your comment on a future episode.

Dorothy: P.S.: We’re back next Wednesday with an episode on how the national wave of Book Bans is impacting local schools.

Preview Clip: These groups are trying to erode the trust of educators in general by placing doubt in people’s minds about what a teacher is exposing kids to, is really just trying to attack the public school system.

Dorothy: Until then… [with entire cast] class dismissed!

CREDITS

Dorothy: P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation, The Summerfield Foundation, FJC, and Hindenburg Systems. This episode was hosted by me, Dorothy Ha. Producers for this episode were Sanaa Stokes, Jose Santana, and Bernie Carmona. With reporting help from Chalkbeat reporters Alex Zimmerman and Mike Elsen-Rooney. Engineering support was provided by Ava Stryker-Robbins. Our marketing lead this week was Santana Roach. Our executive producer for the show is Joann DeLuna. Executive editors are Amy Zimmer and Taylor McGraw.

Additional production and reporting support was provided by Sabrina DuQuesnay, Mira Gordon, and our friends at Chalkbeat. Special thanks to our interns Miriam Galicia and Makenna Turner. Music from Blue Dot Sessions and the jingle you heard at the beginning of this episode was created by the one and only: Erica Huang.

Thanks for tuning in! See you next time!

Correction: The Dream Squad, which started in 2020 is now in 60 schools, up from 25.

In need of more bilingual teachers, Denver looks to recruit and support international candidates

2024-05-06T17:06:32+00:00

Leer en español.

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When Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero was invited to a panel by the government of the Dominican Republic last year to showcase the school district’s approach to bilingual education, he said dozens of teachers there asked him how they could work for him.

Marrero said he came back to Denver excited that he may have helped recruit 30 new teachers to fill bilingual teaching vacancies. But despite their enthusiasm, only a handful of those teachers are now working in Denver Public Schools, he said.

Marrero asked the district’s human resources team to look into why. Many teachers said they felt making the switch was a big risk and they didn’t have enough support, Marrero said.

So this school year, Denver Public Schools launched the International Educators Institute to provide not only professional, but also personal support to new international teachers. The institute will help teachers from other countries figure out where to live, understand finances and credit, and provide other social or emotional support. It will also train teachers to help them earn more credentials and to understand how Denver’s school system works.

Denver Public Schools has enrolled thousands of new students who have recently immigrated from South America. Although the International Educators Institute wasn’t created because of that influx of students, it makes the work more important, Marrero said. In addition, the district is under a court order guiding how it teaches students who aren’t yet fluent in English. Meeting that order requires a large number of bilingual teachers, but there are always vacancies.

Marrero said the work of the institute is to help fill teacher vacancies without replacing existing efforts to fill those jobs.

Denver Public Schools serves 88,200 students, 75% of whom are students of color. But among the more than 6,000 teachers, just about a third are teachers of color. If the institute is successful, he envisions a system where students have more teachers of color, and teachers can expand their careers and better their lives.

If they have to go back to their home countries, they can better help more children around the world too, he said.

“That’s what hasn’t existed ever,” Marrero said of the institute. “Just like we say we have to educate the whole student, it’s the same approach. The parallel is that we have to support the whole educator.”

To get the institute started, Marrero said DPS used $500,000 from federal COVID relief money. But the district will also invest at least $1 million from its general fund.

“We would waste way more in guest teachers, substitute coverage throughout the year, so the way I see it, that’s an investment,” Marrero said.

International teachers struggle without support

Maria Moncada Rodriguez, an international teacher from Honduras, has been in Colorado for four years, but is working in Denver schools for the first time this school year.

She said she has loved the support from her colleagues and from the institute and wished she had more of it when she initially arrived in the U.S. to work in a different school district.

Moncada Rodriguez and her husband were teachers in Honduras who ran a Montessori school for more than 20 years. But as violence in the country increased, she sought a way out. Then she won a contest that allowed her the opportunity to come teach in Colorado.

She and her husband were both supposed to get jobs, and her two children would be able to come along. But at the last minute, a new principal took over the Colorado school where she was supposed to teach and rescinded her husband’s job offer.

Maria Moncada Rodriguez, a teacher from Honduras now teaching in Denver Public Schools, in her classroom.

While her family still joined her in Colorado, it took her husband more than a year and a half to get a work permit. And during that time, Moncada Rodriguez said the family struggled financially with just her income.

“We cried almost every day,” she recalled. But she said she and her husband still gave thanks that their children were in a safe home.

But now that she’s working in Denver Public Schools, she’s been able to connect to other international teachers from various countries, through the institute, and also through the teachers union.

Recently, she said she and the other international teachers she’s met decided to start a guide for newly arrived teachers. Ideally, she said it would include information on clothing drives, financial literacy classes, help with buying a home, immigration lawyers, and more.

“We need all types of information,” she said.

It’s the same kind of help the district’s institute wants to provide.

Denver’s goal: 120 new international teachers next year

As the district has rolled out the supports and launched the institute this year, it’s also hired 64 new visa sponsored teachers for the current school year. That’s brought the total of international teachers with work visas in DPS to 234. For next school year, the district’s goal is to hire 120 new international teachers.

The district plans to use some of the institute’s $1.5 million budget on visits to other countries to help recruit and connect with teachers, but also to help staff to spend time finding resources and helping new teachers.

Finding affordable housing for teachers is a particularly important issue, but Marrero said he’s not interested in being a landlord or managing property.

“There is a healthy way to engage, but there’s also a lot to be said when you have a little bit of separation,” Marrero said. Teachers, he said, “don’t want to be under the DPS thumb.”

Still, the district is exploring relationships with developers, landlords, and city officials. This year, for example, the district was able to negotiate a lower price on a long-term lease for some teachers from the Dominican Republic.

“That’s going to be us leveraging our existing relationships and leveraging also our position,” Marrero said. “Even if it’s just a building. Saying: ‘Can we have X amount of units that we have first dibs on?’ That’s what I’m looking to explore.”

Moncada Rodriguez continues to look for resources on her own. One issue she hasn’t figured out is how to help her oldest child, who’s graduating this year, pay for college. Since her children are her dependents and she is on a sponsored visa, they can’t get work permits, and they don’t qualify for any of the financial assistance for higher education she’s learned about so far.

“Of course we aren’t asking for everything to come easy or handed to us,” Moncada Rodriguez said. “We love to work and study. But coming here and knowing our kids can’t go to university because of a lack of resources is overwhelming.”

Still, she wants other teachers considering coming to the United States to know that things can get better if they can persist. And she hopes local leaders can learn to be more supportive too.

At her school, Academia Ana Marie Sandoval, she loves that she gets to use her experience as a Montessori teacher working with students from low-income families, and that she’s valued for her Spanish language skills.

She said her fellow teachers have been helpful and supportive, and her connection to the institute means there’s always someone to answer her questions.

Moncada Rodriguez said she’s taken many Denver Public Schools training courses, including one that’s taught her how to do home visits with families of newly arriving migrant students.

“Now the only thing missing is how to get a masters degree,” she said. “I’m working on that next.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

How this Colorado science teacher helps students become environmental changemakers

2024-04-26T15:08:45+00:00

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Yajaira Fuentes-Tauber majored in biology at college and planned to go to medical school. But a stop-gap job teaching science in Texas changed the course of her career.

“I realized that while I liked medicine, I loved teaching,” she said.

Today, Fuentes-Tauber teaches biology at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins, Colorado, and is passionate about increasing access to STEM education and empowering students to become change agents.

Yajaira Fuentes-Tauber is a science teacher at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins.

Her students have published books about river otters and created “bee hotels” out of reclaimed wood.

Fuentes-Tauber was named 2023 Earth Science Teacher of the Year by the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists Foundation and was also one of three Colorado science teachers named state finalists in the 2022-23 Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.

Fuentes-Tauber talked to Chalkbeat about her initial misconceptions about teaching, how her students are improving watershed health, and what she does to make ocean health relevant to students in a land-locked state.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Was there a moment when you decided to become a teacher?

I graduated from college early and needed something to do while my husband, who had served in the Coast Guard, finished his bachelor’s degree.

My first job was at Rivera High School in Brownsville, Texas, an area with high levels of poverty and teacher shortages. With a week before students were back in the classroom, the principal had to take a leap of faith in offering me a full-time science teaching position, which included a concurrent alternative teaching certification program.

I planned to pursue a medical degree, but after teaching for one semester, I decided to change careers and pursue a master’s degree in science education and then a doctorate of education.

How did your own experience in school influence your approach to teaching?

As a Hispanic, Latina, English learner, and first in my family to graduate from high school, I didn’t truly experience representation in the classroom. Many teachers didn’t look like me or have the same socioeconomic status or immigration background as I did. A number of teachers in our district were part of Teach for America and they were not representative of our school ethnic groups, nor did they speak Spanish.

The factors that shape my identity have been key in bringing a different perspective to my own teaching practices. I am passionate about advancing access to STEM education because I believe that through equity, diversity, and inclusion, students can pursue their interests regardless of their identity. Much like our school motto I believe that the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

Tell us about a favorite lesson to teach. Where did the idea come from?

One of my favorite lessons is where students explore the impact of environmental changes through the lens of ocean acidification.

Students use different color beads to represent chemicals involved in the process that causes oceans to become acidic. The activity incorporates the chemistry behind ocean acidification to help students see how this process reduces the chemical compound needed to form shells and skeletons.

Ocean acidification and sea levels is something that I had background on, having taught for eight out of 17 years in South Texas, but to my current students exploring these topics when they live in a landlocked state felt irrelevant. I wanted to raise awareness about the interconnectedness of our ecosystems. As future leaders, they need to understand how our actions impact others miles away and how changes occurring miles away have the potential to impact our community.

With the loss of coral reefs, which provide coastal protection during storms, ecotourism, and habitat for diverse species, people may migrate to inland communities. This can impact the housing market, jobs, greenhouse emissions, and the transmission rates of communicable diseases. As future voters, they are most struck by considering how a shift in population could impact the electoral college, as the number of votes is dependent on a state’s population.

What is the Caring for Our Watershed contest?

Caring for Our Watershed is an international program that empowers students to take action to improve the health of their local watershed. One of the regional contests takes place in Northern Colorado, where a panel of judges selects proposals for funding by organization’s sponsors

Our students focus on The Big Thompson and the Cache la Poudre River Watershed in developing their proposals. Most recently, we had a team that wrote and illustrated a book about river otters that was printed and read at local elementary schools.

Another project selected for funding included a student making “bee hotels” using reclaimed wood to increase habitats for bees as they are crucial in maintaining a healthy watershed.

I love that this program allows students to become agents of change while still in high school. Over seven years, students have received over $13,000 in awards and we’ve received matching funds.

Tell us about a memorable time — good or bad — when contact with a student’s family changed your perspective or approach.

It has been bittersweet to learn about issues impacting students and their families in ways that are not visible or even recorded by schools. On the one hand, it is amazing that they see me as a trusted adult, and on the other hand, I’m struck by the weight of their burdens.

Learning about issues such as immigration status and languages spoken at home has prompted me to take a more inclusive approach to teaching. I integrate opportunities for “windows and mirrors” to ensure that I create a supportive environment where all students feel valued.

For example, when students explore the expansion of businesses in undeveloped areas with native species, they take into consideration the many perspectives that stakeholders bring to the table. Some may see themselves in the “mirror” if they have family members who work in construction, while providing a “window” for students who do not share the same perspective.

What was the biggest misconception that you initially brought to teaching?

When I intended to go to medical school, teaching was initially seen as a brief detour to fill a time gap in my plans. In our community, becoming a teacher was often perceived as an easy career path, in which you have an 8-hour-a-day job with paid holidays and paid summers off.

Once in the classroom, I quickly realized that teaching is far from an easy task and our commitment goes beyond contract times, not to mention summers are not really paid time off. Yet despite this initial misconception, I loved the challenge. I loved being part of the students’ journey to self-discovery and educational empowerment. My immediate family has always valued education and they were supportive.

What are you reading for enjoyment?

The last book I read for a parent book club was “The Bright Side of Going Dark” by Kelly Harms, and I’m waiting to get the next book for our club: “The Survivor’s Guide to Family Happiness” by Maddie Dawson. I’m also waiting for “Understanding Imperiled Earth” by Todd J. Braje.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

To engage students in math, educators try connecting it to their culture

2024-05-13T10:04:00+00:00

This story about ethnomathematics was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

Before she got to the math in her lesson on linear equations last fall, Sydney Kealanahela asked her class of eighth graders on Oahu why kalo, or taro root, is so important in Hawaii. What do you know about kalo, she asked them. Have you ever picked it?

A boy who had never spoken in class, and never seemed even slightly interested in math, raised his hand.

“He said, ‘I pick kalo with my grandma. She has a farm,’” Kealanahela recalled. “He was excited to tell us about that.”

Class discussion got animated. Everybody knew about poi, the creamy staple Hawaiian food made from mashed taro. Others had even noticed that there were fewer taro farms on Oahu.

That’s when Kealanahela guided the conversation to the whiteboard, plotting data on pounds of taro produced over time on a graph, which created a perfect descending line. The class talked about why there is less taro production, which led to a discussion about the shortage of farm labor.

Kealanahela had taught eighth-grade math for six years at a campus of the Kamehameha Schools, but this was the first time she had started a lesson with a conversation about farming. The idea came from professional development she’d just completed, in ethnomathematics, an approach that connects math to culture by embedding math in a story about something relevant to students’ lives.

Ethnomathematics isn’t new, but until recently it was limited to a niche area of educational and anthropological research on how different cultures use math. Over the past couple of decades, it has evolved into one of several efforts to create more engaging and inclusive math classrooms, particularly for Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous students, who tend to score lower on federal tests than their Asian American and white peers. Ethnomathematics advocates say that persistent achievement gaps are in part a result of overly abstract math instruction that’s disconnected from student experience, and that there’s an urgent need for new approaches that recognize mathematical knowledge as it’s practiced outside of textbooks.

Many Black and brown students don’t feel comfortable in math classes, said Shelly Jones, professor of math education at Central Connecticut State University. She said those classes tend to be “competitive” and that teachers “hone in on what Black and brown students don’t know as opposed to honoring what they do know.” She added: “We are trying to pull in students who have not traditionally felt they belonged in math spaces.”

That said, research on the impact of ethnomathematics is limited, and its practice is largely confined to individual classrooms — like Kealanehela’s — where the teacher has sought out the approach. And teachers who incorporate ethnomathematics without the right support and instructional tools risk stumbling into a cultural minefield, experts say. Most teachers in U.S. classrooms are white. If one of those white teachers decides their Hispanic students should learn base-20 Mayan numbers, and their students ask why, the teacher will have to come up with an answer, said Ron Eglash, a professor in the University of Michigan’s School of Information.

“Telling kids, ‘Because it’s your heritage,’ sounds really awkward from a white teacher,” Eglash said.

But experts say that high-quality ethnomathematics lessons boost student confidence and engagement when used by teachers (of any race) who have been trained and who allow students the time to explore the material on their own and through discussion.

Math isn’t just ‘something the Greeks created’

Ethnomathematics falls under the same umbrella as culturally responsive math instruction. Experts say that teaching math this way requires teachers to get to know their students and create a learning environment where students can connect to math concepts. It involves developing lessons that reveal the math in everyday activities, like skateboarding, braiding, and weaving. It can also include exploring the math involved in cultural practices, like beading.

“A lot of this work is about removing barriers or perceptions from a marginalized population that math is something the Greeks created and is imposed on me,” said Mark Ellis, a professor of education at California State University, Fullerton. He said that culturally responsive instruction takes other measures into account, besides academic outcomes, when determining impact. These include students’ attitude about math, sense of belonging in math classes, and engagement in math discourses.

Traditional math instruction, Ellis said, is treated as if math were acultural, even though, as we know it in the U.S., math descended from the computational traditions of many places, including Mesopotamia (360-degree circles), ancient Greece (geometry and trigonometry), India (decimal notation, the concept of zero) and China (negative numbers). If these mathematical traditions are taught, Ellis and others ask, then why not Hawaiian calculations for slope, sub-Saharan fractal geometry, and Mayan counting systems?

Related: Eliminating advanced math ‘tracks’ often prompts outrage. Some districts buck the trend

Eglash argues that ethnomathematics lessons aren’t just for students from the culture that the lessons draw from. It’s important that students explore math concepts from all cultures, including their own, he said.

Ethnomathematics, a term coined in the 1970s by Brazilian mathematician Ubiratan D’Ambrosio, first appeared in the U.S. about 25 years ago. That’s when Eglash and his wife, University of Michigan design professor Audrey Bennett, developed a suite of teaching modules by which students learn the history or context of a practice — braiding hair into cornrows, for example — and then use algebra, geometry, and trigonometry to create their own cornrow designs with software.

Eglash and Bennett designed the teaching tools with the idea that students can use a module to create their work, which can mean mixing cultures. A Puerto Rican student used Eglash’s module about Native American beading to create a Puerto Rican flag simulation.

In 2009, Richmond City Public Schools asked Eglash and Bennett to teach a module called Cornrow Curves to a class of Black 10th graders. Eglash asked the class where cornrows came from. Their answer: “Brooklyn!” That led to discussion about the African origins of cornrows — where they indicated marriage status, religious affiliation, and other social markers — and on through cornrows’ history during the Middle Passage, Civil Rights, hip-hop, and Afrofuturism.

Only then did the students begin doing math, designing their own cornrows, noticing how the plaits get closer together or further apart depending on the values students enter in a simulation. One student created a design for straight-line cornrows by visually estimating how far to space them apart. In her presentation to class, Eglash recalled, she said that “there are 12 spaces between the braids on one side, which covers 90 degrees, so the braids are positioned every 7.5 degrees because 90/12 = 7.5.”

The Cornrow Curves module and other lessons like it have now been adopted by districts in 25 states. The Los Angeles Unified School District, for example, began offering a culturally responsive computer science curriculum in 2008 that incorporates ethnomathematics lessons that Eglash and Bennett developed. Some evidence indicates that this course helped boost student participation in computer science: An external evaluation found that enrollment in the classes rose by nearly 800 percent from 2009 to 2014.

This screen capture of a Cornrow Curves programming module shows how mathematical concepts can be used to describe plaits of hair.

In 2012, Chicago Public Schools adopted the same curriculum for an introduction to computer science course and invested in significant professional development for teachers. In 2016, the intro to computer science course became a graduation requirement for all Chicago high school students, and 250 teachers are trained each year on the curriculum.

An outside analysis of the Chicago program showed that students who took the course before taking AP computer science were 3.5 times more likely to pass the AP computer science exam than those who only took the AP course. A separate study in Chicago and Wisconsin showed that where the course was offered racial and gender achievement divides disappeared and that students were more likely to take another computer science class.

Culturally responsive lessons help students feel like they belong

Keily Hernandez, 15, a first-year student at Chicago’s George Westinghouse College Prep High School, was happy to see the computer science course on her schedule this year, because she plans to major in computer science in college. At first, she found the cornrows module challenging — getting the designs to look the way she wanted them to look was difficult — but it was also fun, she said.

The class is collaborative, she said, and students often turn to each other or to the internet for ideas and help. Hernandez said that taking the class has relieved her doubts that she can be a computer scientist.

“The class made me reassured,” she said. “Math isn’t something that you just know, the same way that computer science isn’t something that you just know. You get better at it the more you do it.”

It’s students like Hernandez that Linda Furuto wanted to attract when she took the job as head of the math and science subdivision at the University of Hawaii West Oahu in 2007. At the time, student enrollment was so low that the school offered just two math courses. Furuto, who had grown up on Oahu and received her doctorate. in math education from the University of California, Los Angeles, recalled thinking, “This isn’t working. We need to implement ethnomathematics here.”

Related: Data science under fire: What math do high schoolers really need?

Over the next six years, she began to integrate ethnomathematics into coursework, and student interest grew. By 2013, the university offered more than 20 math classes.

“Students would say things like, ‘I hated math. I felt no connection to it. But now I see that math is my culture and because of that I want to be a secondary math teacher,’” Furuto said. “Just knowing that the life of a student has in some way, shape or form been transformed speaks volumes.”

In 2018, Furuto established the world’s first ethnomathematics graduate certificate and master’s degree program. So far, about 300 teachers have participated in the online program; about half are from Hawaii.

While teachers in Chicago get ongoing professional development in cohorts both before and while they teach the district’s ethnomathematics-based computer science course, educators who complete the University of Hawaii program are highly likely to be the only teacher at their school with this niche training.

Janel Marr teaches in the University of Hawaii’s ethnomathematics graduate program.

Kealanahela, the teacher on Oahu, said that as inspired as she was by the ethnomathematics program, she doesn’t have time to teach using the method more than twice every three months.

“To create a really good lesson that feels authentic to me, and not just thrown together,” she said, “it takes time to do the research.”

For a teacher who doesn’t have colleagues in their school using the same approach, it can be hard to fit in something new like ethnomathematics, said Janel Marr, a math resource teacher in Oahu’s Windward School District.

Marr was one of the first teachers to participate in the ethnomathematics graduate program, as an eighth-grade math teacher. Today she teaches in the graduate program.“When you go back to the classroom, there are so many other things from all sides, from administration and curriculum to state tests,” she said. “It starts to get overwhelming. It’s not being implemented as much as we in the program would want it to be.”

Math content should relate to the real world

Ideally, said Eglash, ethnomathematics content should be related to real-world situations, even if that involves exploring painful periods of history. Where possible, content should connect with art, history, sports, and math to provide multiple ways for students to interact. This is critical, he said, to address power dynamics and “identity barriers” in the classroom, like the race of the teacher. When teachers let students explore content individually and through group discussion, students gain control over their own learning.

“The teacher finds a way to use the tool that is authentic — which is something the kids pick up on and respect, even for white folks,” he said. “It’s when you are trying to be something you are not that teaching becomes awkward.”

Doing ethnomathematics right can also engage teachers, Marr said. She had been teaching eighth-grade math at Kailua Intermediate School for 13 years when she hit a wall. Her students would ask why they had to learn math, she said, and she didn’t have an answer. She was looking for inspiration when she heard about the University of Hawaii’s ethnomathematics program.

“My students would learn to work with the numbers and everything, but it wasn’t like they were making a connection of why there is slope,” Marr said.

Related: How one district diversified its advanced math classes — without the controversy

After earning her master’s, Marr had the idea to approach linear equations in a new way. She showed her students a photo of a mountain with a long, bare line down its lush, forested side and asked if anyone knew what they were looking at. Most students didn’t.

She wrote a word on the whiteboard: holua. The path, students learned from research they did in class, was made of gravel pounded into lava rocks, and it ran down the side of the Hualālai Volcano on the east side of Hawaii. Elite members of ancient Hawaiian communities sledded down mountainside paths like this one as part of the extreme sport known as holua.

“We talked about those pictures and talked about, well what would the slope be? How fast might they be going? Because slope is really related to the rate of speed,” she said. “Math isn’t just theoretical. It’s having an experience of being part of the place.”

Teachers can challenge Tennessee law limiting instruction on race, gender, and bias, judge rules

2024-05-09T21:45:13+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Tennessee teachers can move forward with their lawsuit challenging a 3-year-old state law restricting what they can teach about race, gender, and bias.

U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger denied the state’s motion to dismiss the case.

The Nashville judge also sided with educators over questions of whether they have legal grounds to sue the state, plus whether the federal court is the appropriate jurisdiction to take up complaints about the 2021 state law.

And in a 50-page memorandum to explain her single-page order, Trauger was frequently critical of the statute, which restricts teachers from discussing 14 concepts that the Republican-controlled legislature deemed cynical or divisive. She also cited shortcomings of related rules, developed by the state education department, to outline the processes for filing and investigating complaints, appealing decisions, and levying punishment that could strip teachers of their licenses and school districts of state funding.

“The Act simply invites a vast array of potentially dissatisfied individuals to lodge complaints based on their understanding of those concepts and then calls on the Commissioner [of Education], as a sort of state philosopher, to think deeply about what equality, impartiality, and other abstract concepts really mean and enforce the Act accordingly,” Trauger wrote in her May 2 memorandum.

Meanwhile, educators are at the mercy of the personal biases of authorities, which is “exactly what the doctrine of unconstitutional vagueness is intended to guard against,” she said.

The so-called prohibited concepts law was among the first of its kind in the nation that passed amid a conservative backlash to the racial-justice movement and protests prompted by the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

Among its prohibitions are classroom discussions about whether “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.”

The law’s defenders note that it permits an “impartial discussion of controversial aspects of history,” or as Rep. John Ragan, the House sponsor, described it: “facts-based” instruction.

But teachers say they don’t know how to be impartial when teaching about the theories of racial superiority that led to slavery and Jim Crow laws. The resulting confusion has influenced the small but pivotal decisions they make every day about how to prepare for a lesson, what materials to use, and how to answer a student’s question, ultimately stifling classroom discussion, many critics of the law assert.

Last July, lawyers for five public school educators and the Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teacher organization, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Nashville.

The suit says the language of the law is unconstitutionally vague and that the state’s enforcement plan is subjective. The complaint also says the statute interferes with instruction on difficult but important topics included in state-approved academic standards, which dictate other decisions around curriculum and testing.

Trauger, who taught school for three years before entering law school, suggested that the ambiguity could lead to a lack of due process for educators under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

“That does not mean that a law has to be wise or perfect or crystal clear, but it must mean something concrete and specific that a well-informed person can understand by reading its text,” she wrote in her memorandum.

Kathryn Vaughn, a Tipton County teacher who is among the plaintiffs, called the judge’s decision an important early step in the legal challenge.

“I’m thrilled that the judge listened to our concerns as educators and seemed to understand that this law puts teachers in an impossible position,” she told Chalkbeat on Thursday.

A spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office, which filed a motion for dismissal last September, declined to comment on the new development.

The judge set a June 17 scheduling meeting with attorneys in the case to discuss how to manage the litigation going forward.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to show the state attorney general’s office declined to comment.

Want to show teachers you appreciate them? Become a guest educator.

2024-05-09T09:00:00+00:00

I heard an odd sound walking into the school building one day: coo-coo, coo-coo.

Unmistakably, it was a pigeon, but it didn’t sound like it was outside. I walked down the hall to see our dean and a math teacher corralling not one, but two pigeons flying around the hallway. We cooed and cawed ourselves, flapping our arms wildly like predators, and swinging brooms at the light fixtures they perched on for 20 minutes. Finally, both birds made their way out of the open window.

Ronak Shah

Why were there pigeons in the building, you ask? Well, a window had been left open, and the window had no screen. The window was open because our school HVAC system — like many in the district — are too old to keep us cool in our ever-warming summers. Our old buildings have so much deferred maintenance because the property tax revenue that funded it was capped long ago. And even as schools are maintained like castles in some Indianapolis suburbs, the revenue in the city stretches ever thinner across increased transportation costs, inflation, and school safety needs that eclipse the routine maintenance costs anticipated decades ago.

Complexities like this govern our experience as public educators, and the pigeon story is not the wildest tale I could tell. The stakes could never be higher.

How do we help others understand what the day-to-day is like?

For most of us, Teacher Appreciation Week is a bittersweet time. Families, administrators, businesses, and organizations earnestly want to shower love and support on the educators in their community. But few people know what the modern teacher’s experience is really like or even hear stories like the one I just shared. So, every year, this becomes the week where teachers end up swimming in more discounts and donuts than we can stomach.

That’s why a note from someone who notices my impact resonates most. It’s not that I’m fishing for compliments. I love what I do each day as a middle school teacher, and I know that I make a difference, whether or not someone tells me. What’s validating is to hear that someone outside of my classroom has a sense of what’s going on inside of it.

So this year, I’d ask you to go one step further: Be a guest teacher in your local school.

Part of the problem is that what happens in our schools is either invisible or misconstrued to most of the public.

Education is one of the most important pillars of our democracy, and one of the biggest expenses we pay for with our public funds. Yet teachers across the country are constantly subjected to poorly conceived policy decisions that make our jobs harder. These decisions tend to be made by people who haven’t spent more than a few minutes in a classroom since they were a student themselves. I run out of fingers and toes when I count the times an outsider thought that attending high school made them an expert on what’s wrong in education.

Part of the problem is that what happens in our schools is either invisible or misconstrued to most of the public. That then extends to the people that they elect, who typically see schools outside of highly manicured walkthroughs. Understanding the experience of teaching and learning today is a civic responsibility on the same level as voting, jury duty, and filling out a census form.

So this year, I’d love to see people reach out to their local school to see how they can share what they know, or at least to observe what it’s like. This could be as simple as shadowing a teacher or being a guest speaker for a class. But the best way to get the full picture is to spend the full day as a substitute teacher, start to finish, to see what the day holds. (Of course, you’ll need to get a substitute teaching permit, but the requirements are simple.) Even better, try this out in different schools in your area of different types — high schools and elementaries, public and private schools.

I’d love to see local businesses incentivize their employees to teach in a local school for a day. Schools already pay substitute teachers a fixed rate. If the employer fills the gap between the substitute teacher wage and the employee’s salary, the employee can make the same amount that day while taking in a critically important experience. I recognize that it takes courage from the employee and commitment from both the school and the employer. But I can’t think of a better way to show appreciation than to see all sides of a teacher’s daily experience.

And finally, I’d love to see the state think big about how to reconfigure its Teacher Appreciation Grant. This fund currently sends a stipend to teachers around the state rated effective or highly-effective, but only 1% of educators were rated below this, so the amount teachers receive tends to be small and split among so many educators. Moreover, many teachers do not find the evaluation process to be fair. Instead of being tied to effectiveness ratings, why not allocate these funds for teachers who choose to work in schools that are hard to staff? We have so many shortages across the state in specific cities and neighborhoods. The vast majority of states offer this incentive, but Indiana does not.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to my fellow teachers. And to those that aren’t, I now think of you as future guest teachers. I can’t wait to see you down the hall, supporting students, sharing what you know, and learning about what’s going on in our schools. So happy Teacher Appreciation Week to you, too.

Ronak Shah is a seventh grade science teacher in Indianapolis and a member of Chalkbeat’s Reader Advisory Board.

LISTEN: The teachers who shaped us

2024-05-08T10:00:00+00:00

It’s Teacher Appreciation Week, and in this special episode, P.S. Weekly and Chalkbeat reporters — plus their parents — share stories about the teachers who have inspired, encouraged, and shaped them.

This episode goes out to the “dedicated adults — sometimes strict, sometimes goofy — who make us feel safe, make us feel seen, who push us to excel,” said host and Beacon High School junior Bernie Carmona.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell. Listen for new episodes Wednesdays this spring.

What to know about the upcoming state tests for grades 3-8

2023-03-23T21:50:12+00:00

It’s testing season in New York once again.

Schools across the state will administer standardized reading and math exams for grades 3-8 in April and May, as well as science exams for eighth graders in June.

With the intense attention on the pandemic’s effect on students, some schools might be ramping up their focus on the state tests. Some districts have signed up their schools for computer-based programs for math and reading, according to Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the city education department. It’s part of a learning “acceleration” initiative launched earlier this year by the education department, Gothamist reported.

There might be more attention on this year’s state tests, following the spotlight on last year’s dip in national test scores, which also showed drops in fourth grade math scores in New York City.

But there’s a big caveat with the state tests: This year, the exams are based on new learning standards and can’t be compared to results from the last school year, when nearly half of students passed reading exams and 38% passed math.

Many educators and families argue that testing takes away classroom time and doesn’t tell the full story of how a student is doing — a viewpoint schools Chancellor David Banks has previously echoed. Others believe it is a useful tool.

State officials said the tests are just “one tool” that helps teachers understand their students’ academic needs.

Here are some things you should know about the upcoming exams:

When are the tests and how will they be administered at schools?

Schools will give the state English test over a consecutive, two-day period between April 19-21. If students are absent those days, they can make up the tests between April 24-28.

Two weeks later, students will take math tests from May 2-4 with make-up dates scheduled for May 5-11.

Eighth graders will take a science laboratory exam between May 23 and June 2 and a written exam on June 3. Make-up tests for the lab exam must happen sometime within that testing window, while make-up dates for the written exam take place between June 6-9. There will be no fourth grade science test as the state prepares to transition to a science test for fifth graders, beginning next spring.

Most New York City schools will give the exams on paper. So far, 130 schools plan to use computer-based testing, Styer said — which has sometimes come with technical issues across the state. For computer-based tests, the window for English exams will be April 19-26 and for math will be May 2-9.

While computer-based testing is currently optional, mandated computer-based state testing will begin next spring for grades 5 and 8. All schools will be required to give the exam on computers in the spring of 2026 for all grades.

How will the tests be different this year?

For the first time, this year’s state tests will be based on the “Next Generation Learning Standards,” a set of grade-level learning standards established in 2017 that were revised from the controversial Common Core standards.

The Next Gen standards, as they’re often called, were meant to clarify previously vague language from the Common Core. For example, whereas Common Core geometry standards simply stated that students must be able to “prove theorems about triangles,” Next Gen’s revisions detailed the specific theorems.

When the state’s Board of Regents adopted the new standards, some groups lauded them for not straying too far from Common Core, while other education organizations said the standards were too rigorous for early grades.

What do the new tests mean for scoring them?

New tests also mean that the state will determine new benchmarks of what makes a student proficient in reading, math, and science. This summer, teachers will participate in a process where they will decide what students need to know in order to demonstrate that they’re meeting grade-level standards – otherwise known as being proficient – on state exams. That process will impact scoring for this spring’s tests.

“It’s a matter of judgment to decide, ‘OK, we think a student who’s proficient should be able to answer this question correctly, say, two-thirds of the time,’” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, giving an example.

Can we compare scores to last year?

No. Because the tests are new, the results can’t be compared to last year’s scores. Studying scores from year to year is helpful for understanding progress students have made — especially amid the pandemic.

But because state officials have warned against comparing results to previous years whenever the test changes, it’s been impossible to consider trends over the better part of a decade.

In 2016, New York allowed students to have unlimited testing time and cut the number of questions. In 2018 the state went from three testing days to two. The exams were canceled due to the pandemic in 2020, and the following school year, a fraction of students took shortened exams with just a quarter in New York City — far less than 2019.

They advised against comparisons with last year’s scores because looking at a student’s performance in 2022 versus 2019 would “ignore the enormous and, in many cases, grievous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students, families, teachers, and entire school communities,” a spokesperson for the state education department said in a statement.

That may be frustrating to some educators, families, and researchers because it makes it impossible to see long-term trends of student performance and growth. These exams, however, are just one indicator of how well students are doing in New York, said Pallas, and should be viewed along with other metrics, such as graduation rates and college acceptance rates.

“The state testing system is just one piece of evidence that has to be put into relation to all the other things that are available,” Pallas said.

How are my child’s scores used?

Schools are federally required to administer these exams, and districts are required to assess 95% of their students.

In New York City, the exams are used to see where students are meeting grade-level expectations “as well as students that need academic intervention in literacy and math,” Styer said.

State officials have said that these scores are just one measure of how a student is doing in school. However, the scores don’t come back until the fall – meaning teachers can’t see them the year that children take the exams.

In New York City, high schools and middle schools that screen students for admission can no longer take state test scores into account.

Can I opt my child out?

Yes. While federal officials require schools to administer these tests, parents can pull their children out. New York City’s education department has previously advised parents to speak with their child’s principal if they’re interested in opting out.

Last year, 10% of students opted out of exams compared with 4% in 2019.

Federal law requires states to give assessments to at least 95% of students. If fewer students participate at a school, it could contribute to the school being labeled as struggling – which state officials define as needing “targeted” or “comprehensive” support. But generally, low test participation may only affect a school’s accountability status if it’s combined with bad results on other measures, such as chronic absenteeism, according to state education officials.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NAEP test results show big declines in math, wide gaps among Colorado students

2022-10-24T04:01:00+00:00

Colorado students posted the lowest scores in more than a decade on the test known as “the nation’s report card,” with the steepest declines in middle school math and with Hispanic students losing the most ground. And while Colorado students posted better reading scores than did students in 27 other states, that was largely because other states lost even more ground.

The learning loss from 2019 to 2022 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as NAEP, points to the devastating impact the pandemic has had on the education of children in almost every pocket of Colorado and the nation.

While research has already shown that academic progress reversed, NAEP results released Monday provide the most detailed and authoritative accounting yet, with data coming from a representative set of students nationwide and allowing for comparisons across states and some cities.

“The results are appalling and unacceptable,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said. “This is a moment of truth. How we respond will determine our standing in the world.”

This year’s results reaffirm what Colorado education leaders and teachers already knew thanks to statewide assessments: Students fell behind.

But parents, teachers, and students are working hard to rebound, said Joyce Zurkowski, Colorado Department of Education chief assessment officer.

“There are some indications that things are on the way back up,” she said. “But there’s work to do.”

What is NAEP?

Mandated by Congress, the national assessment tests math and reading skills in fourth and eighth grades roughly every two years among a random sampling of students — about 450,000 students in 10,000 schools in 2022. The administrators break down scores by state and for select cities that vary with each test.

Denver was one of 26 urban districts that NAEP sampled last winter. Outside of those cities, NAEP does not issue district scores.

Unlike state exams, the NAEP tests are low stakes for students, teachers, and schools. But the NAEP test offers a valuable look at the progress of the nation.

“We knew results would reflect historic disruptions to schools,” said Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which organizes the test. “NAEP results should give us all pause. They also remind us how essential schools are for our children and families.”

Colorado dip in math skills

The Colorado Measure of Academic Success, or CMAS, standardized tests show students recovering ground from 2021 but still below pre-pandemic levels in most cases. Similar to NAEP, the state’s test scores show particularly concerning drops in middle school math scores and draw attention to the impacts on students who transitioned to more complex material in a highly disrupted environment.

NAEP shows fourth grade Colorado math scores declined steeply. Proficiency dropped by one-quarter, from about 44% of students in 2019 to 36% of students this year. Eighth grade math proficiency fell by about the same proportion, from 37% of students in 2019 to 28% this year.

Colorado reading skills did not decline as much. On the fourth-grade test, 38% of students tested proficient, down from 40% in 2019. In eighth grade, 34% of students tested proficient, compared with 38% in 2019.

In Denver, reading scores declined similarly. Fourth-grade proficiency scores fell from 32% to 29%, and eighth-grade scores fell from 29% to 28% — which may not be statistically significant — from 2019.

Denver fourth-grade math proficiency dipped from 35% of students in 2019 to 28% this year. Eighth grade proficiency also fell, from 29% in 2019 to 22% of students this year.

In both Colorado and Denver, Hispanic students experienced greater declines in most grades and subjects than did other student groups. The pandemic pummeled Colorado’s Hispanic families, who have suffered higher death rates and more job losses. An estimated two-thirds of Colorado children without internet access are Hispanic, and many of them had parents working essential jobs and who could not stay home with them.

Zurkowski said learning gaps among Hispanics remain an area of “significant concern.” The state has some of the largest gaps in the nation between Hispanic and white students.

Students faced many challenges during COVID

The pandemic imposed hardships and barriers to student learning: switches between remote and hybrid classes, quarantines and other disruptions, spotty internet access, and general instability. Students also experienced major stressors, like parents losing jobs and caregivers falling ill and dying.

Melissa Snyder, a Cherry Creek School District fourth grade teacher, said student absenteeism has soared since the start of the pandemic.

“There’s a lot of pieces to the puzzle,” said Snyder, who teaches at Pine Ridge Elementary. “Everything with COVID is so much more complex.”

Lorelei Jackson, a Denver Language School eighth grade math teacher, said teachers had to choose which lessons to teach and students are missing skills they would normally have learned.

“We wanted to make sure that we were focusing on what was going to be the most impactful for students,” she said. And now, “we’re seeing those gaps.”

A Chalkbeat analysis found mixed evidence on the link between remote learning and changes in state test scores, with some correlation in math and fourth-grade reading but none in eighth-grade reading. More granular research has shown that students who experienced more virtual learning tended to fall further behind.

The Colorado education department didn’t require districts to report changes in learning mode, which sometimes varied weekly, but its staff did try to track who was in-person, remote, or hybrid using district websites and Facebook pages. Using state data, the COVID-19 School Data Hub estimates that Colorado students on average spent 28% of their time learning in person during the 2020-21 school year.

Many rural districts ran a near-normal school year while larger urban and suburban districts spent more time in remote learning. Even during in-person learning, frequent quarantines and absences due to illness created major disruptions.

Mary Hulac, a language arts teacher at Greeley’s Prairie Heights Middle School, said the disruption still resonates among students and saps them of motivation for school and even outside activities.

“They’re afraid of risk and maybe being wrong or being rejected,” she said.

How can Colorado rebound?

Last year, Colorado leaders mapped out how to spend $180 million of $1.5 billion in federal relief money for schools. The rest went directly to school districts. The state focused its funds on grants for instructional materials, tutors, after-school programs, and training, according to Scott Jones, Colorado Department of Education chief strategic recovery officer.

The money helps get students one-on-one help to address areas where they are falling behind, Jones said. He called for patience in letting those investments work for students.

“This is not going to be a swift return,” He said. “We’re definitely looking at how we look at the work over a length of time and supporting districts even as the extra funds are spent and expire in 2024.”

Denver Public Schools has invested some of its federal COVID funding in tutoring and expanding summer school. The district distributed some money to schools directly to use as they saw fit. Many used it to hire extra staff.

The district also set aside $12 million for services such as speech therapy or small-group reading for students with disabilities to make up for what they may have missed during remote learning. But at the end of last school year, much of that money remained unspent.

Denver is focused on acceleration, which means teaching students at their grade level with support, rather than on remedial lessons. Whether that will work is a subject of nationwide debate.

Nicholas Martinez, of the advocacy organization Transform Education Now, said Denver hasn’t approached the issue with enough urgency.

“These are not new problems,” Martinez said. “Your ZIP code defining your opportunity is not new. Looking at the data and having an honest conversation means we have to do better.”

Melanie Asmar, Matt Barnum, and Erica Meltzer contributed to this report.

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Teacher Appreciation Week: Chalkbeat readers salute educators who went above and beyond

2021-05-03T20:58:23+00:00

Teacher Appreciation Week is a celebration of educators. But after more than a year of disrupted learning due to the coronavirus, a week of festivities feels both needed and insufficient in 2021.

If the pandemic made one thing clear, it’s that educators are more than just teachers at the front of classrooms. They are counselors and helpers. They are healers and advocates. They are artists and leaders. And for some students and families, they are the glue that holds their lives together.

So how do you say, “thank you” to the people who filled these roles and so many more during a school year filled with chaos and challenges? We asked our readers.

This is what you had to say about the teachers who helped so many students and families navigate a pandemic, remote learning, and more this past school year.

Teachers who helped outside of the classroom

Jessica Walters

Provided photo

Jessica Walters

Fourth grade

PS 243 - The Weeksville School | New York City

“Ms. Walters has been a teacher mentor, a teacher leader for District 16, a school model for classroom intervisitation, and more. Her effervescent personality, passion, tenacity, and innovation are recognized by our students, staff, and visitors to the building. Ms. Walters’ accomplishments and contributions to the Weeksville School reflect all the qualities of a true educator. She is a member of our literacy culture team and worked alongside her peers to revamp our school library. She redesigned the Weeksville School logo to better reflect our school community. When COVID-19 hit, she, along with her co-teacher, developed a comprehensive informational presentation to help parents and students transition to remote learning. The rapport she has built with students, parents, and staff reverberates through the Weeksville community.”
-Karen Hambright-Glover, principal

Teachers who couldn’t be stopped by the pandemic

Teachers who went the extra mile for students and parents

Don’t forget to follow Chalkbeat on social media. We’ll be celebrating even more teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week 2021 on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

‘Ruthless in our pursuit of equity:’ How Denver is approaching its Black Student Success work

2024-04-29T15:57:39+00:00

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Giant easel-sized sticky notes hung on the walls of Nicole Saab’s classroom. On each, Saab had written a student’s name and a simple prompt: Ask me about banning books! Ask me about cyberbullying! Ask me about children and video games!

The topics had been chosen by her eighth grade literacy students at Denver Green School Southeast. The activity was a group brainstorming session to help guide students’ research. As Bob Marley played through the classroom speakers, Saab directed her students, pencils in hand, to move from poster to poster, writing questions about their classmates’ research topics.

“Write something you would want to know,” Saab told her students. “Be curious. Challenge that person. Like, really challenge them.”

The activity was typical of Saab’s approach to teaching: Students were up out of their seats, moving around, making noise, and engaging with each other. “No opt outs” is one of Saab’s classroom rules, although she makes exceptions for students who are tired or hungry, giving them short breaks or one of the snacks she keeps stashed in a corner.

Saab is one of 10 Denver Public Schools teachers who’ve helped their Black students achieve stellar academic progress and whose teaching methods are being studied by university researchers as part of the district’s Black Student Success work.

Saab’s syllabus includes literature ranging from George Orwell’s classic novel “Animal Farm” to rapper Tupac Shakur’s poem “The Rose That Grew From Concrete.” Saab also opens up to her students, sharing her heritage — she’s Lebanese — and her own experiences as a Denver Public Schools student whose father was a longtime principal.

“I am the warm demander,” Saab said in an interview. “I will love up on you, but I have super high expectations and this will be a rigorous class.”

Once the researchers have finished their study of Saab and the other teachers, the idea is to spread whatever effective teaching methods they find throughout the district, starting next year with six elementary schools.

“We want to be strategic,” said Michael Atkins, the district’s new director of Black Student Success. “These six schools are a learning lab so our babies can inform us of what we’re doing well or what we’re not before we full-scale do things we think will work.”

DPS has for the past five years put an emphasis on improving education for Black students, ever since the school board passed a Black Excellence Resolution in 2019. The Black Student Success team, led by Atkins, was created this school year and is the latest phase of that work. The district has budgeted $750,000 for the team’s work next year, a district spokesperson said.

About 14% of Denver’s 88,000 students are Black, and data shows the district is not serving them well. Black students are more likely to be harshly disciplined than white students, and they are less likely to score at grade level on state literacy and math tests.

The mandate of the 2019 resolution, and the idea behind the new Black Student Success work, is to change that. It’s a mission that’s personal to Atkins, who attended DPS during the era of busing to integrate Denver schools and faced discrimination and low expectations. Before he took this position, Atkins was principal of Stedman Elementary, one of Denver’s most integrated schools.

“My whole goal in education is to make sure that babies that look like me don’t have the same experience I did walking the halls of DPS,” he said.

Eighth graders Rishon Harvey, left, and Shahed Eissa work together in Nicole Saab's literacy class at Denver Green School Southeast.

Some principals see chance to ‘break the system’

Chris Fleming is principal of Joe Shoemaker School, an elementary school about five miles southeast of Denver Green School. Shoemaker is one the six schools in the inaugural Black Student Success cohort, all of which serve a significant population of Black students — and all of which have principals who want to do better by those students.

About a quarter of students at Shoemaker are Black, higher than the district average. Just 9% of Black students at Shoemaker met expectations on the state literacy test last spring, according to state data. That’s compared to 35% of white students who did.

The test score gap between Black students and white students — a persistent and pervasive problem at schools across the country — is the biggest issue Fleming hopes Denver’s new Black Student Success team can address districtwide.

“We want to be a place that has a lab site that’s like, ‘We’ve figured this out. We have a cadre of schools that, in my most aspirational dream, have eliminated the achievement gap,’” Fleming said. “That’s a big goal. But why not shoot for it?”

Shoemaker has had a taste of success already. For the past two years, the school has experimented with what it calls “equity cohorts.”

Each teacher picks four to seven students of color, with an emphasis on Black students, who are reading significantly below grade level, Fleming said. The teachers focus on building relationships with those students, nurturing them socially and academically. Out of about 450 students last school year, Fleming counted 187 who were getting extra attention.

When Fleming and other school leaders would go into teachers’ classrooms to observe, they zeroed in on the students in the equity cohorts. Whereas a teacher’s unconscious bias may have caused them to not call on those students as much or discipline them more, Fleming said, “when teachers knew we were watching those students, that changed.”

Test scores also improved. Although most Shoemaker students were still reading below grade level, students of color made higher-than-average gains, resulting in a splash of green on the school’s color-coded report card in a sea of yellow and red.

“That was the validation,” Fleming said. “We knew it was the right thing.”

But the equity cohorts have been harder to maintain this year, Fleming said. There are multiple reasons, including teacher turnover and a host of new district and school initiatives. That’s the reason Fleming wanted to participate in the Black Student Success work.

“Like with anything else, when you take on too many initiatives, it’s too much,” Fleming said. “Anytime you can narrow a focus, you have more success.”

Principals at other participating schools echoed Fleming.

“There are so many different competing priorities in a school district,” said Corey Jenks, principal at Columbine Elementary, located in a historically Black northeast Denver neighborhood where gentrification has caused Columbine’s Black student population to dwindle to about 21%. “I’m most excited to have a very clear, very specific and really relevant focus that I know will stay true.”

Gabriela Quiroga-Beck, principal at far northeast Denver’s Oakland Elementary, where about 20% of the student population is Black, said she was hesitant to join the cohort of six schools. She worried the initiative would be like others that gained steam but then petered out.

“But in this case, the six of us, we wanted to do something, we wanted to change the system,” Quiroga-Beck said of herself and the other principals. “So I said yes.”

“This is a great opportunity,” she added, “to kind of break the system in favor of our Black students.”

Nicole Saab is one of 10 Denver Public Schools teachers whose Black students have made stellar academic progress. University researchers have spent time in her classroom studying her teaching methods.

‘We have to be ruthless in our pursuit of equity’

The work is still in the beginning stages. The researchers, including Erin Anderson, an associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Denver, are finishing their study of Saab and the other highly effective teachers.

Anderson said her hope is to pull out “actionable change ideas” that teachers at the six schools in the cohort could try in their own classrooms next school year.

“We are really trying to take research and put it back into practice,” Anderson said. “From practice to research to practice is sort of the model here.”

Meanwhile, the principals of the six schools will attend leadership training this summer through the University of Virginia, a program widely used by DPS and other districts around the country.

But first, on a Friday afternoon in March, the principals gathered in a conference room at DPS headquarters to strategize. Atkins opened the session with a metaphor.

Students, he said, are like plants. Educators are like rain. And you know those little stickers, Atkins said, that come with plants? The ones that tell you, based on the number of raindrop icons, exactly how much rain the plants need? Every student has one of those stickers.

“What is that raindrop icon for our Black students?” Atkins said.

On sticky notes, the principals wrote problems they’re trying to solve. Students being bored and unengaged in class. Too many absences. Generational trauma from bad experiences in school. The principals asked big, brainstorming-type questions about possible solutions.

“How are you getting every single kid to soak up everything you say and collaborate in small groups without you having to monitor them because they are so excited about their own success?” said Jenks, the principal at Columbine Elementary.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero stopped by the session. He thanked the principals for agreeing to take part in something innovative — “Is it a bit of an exploration? Yes, it is.” — and pointed to where the word “equity,” one of the district’s core values, was written on the wall.

“We have to be ruthless in our pursuit of equity beyond just the fancy words we have plastered,” he said. “I’m excited for this work — we’re putting a lot into it — and I’m excited that it’s you all.”

It’s work that, if successful, could impact how the district serves other student groups. Marrero has talked about starting a Latinx Student Success team.

Improving classroom instruction by studying teachers like Saab will likely be just one prong of the district’s plan. Saab, who spends half her time teaching and half her time coaching other teachers at her school, said she felt proud to be chosen for the study.

She conceded it’s not possible to coach personality; some teachers are naturals at connecting with students, she said, while others are not. But she said it is possible to coach best practices: “How does a classroom look more collaborative? How do you engage with a student who looks like they’re opting out? Is it punitive or do you get to know them?

“You can do the work,” Saab said of teachers. “I think that’s what’s important.”

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

This Brooklyn high school psychology teacher wants her students to channel pessimism into action

2024-04-30T22:47:37+00:00

It might seem odd that a high school psychology teacher would be selected for a National Geographic teacher fellowship in the Arctic, but for Caitlyn Homol, last summer’s “paradigm-shifting experience” inspired her to develop a new interdisciplinary unit.

As the International Baccalaureate, or IB, Teaching and Learning Coordinator and IB Psychology teacher at Brooklyn Prospect High School, Homol is teaming up with her school’s Environmental Systems and Societies course to explore “the relationship between motivation, action, and climate attitudes that culminates in a beach cleanup and reflection.”

While on the 17-day expedition, Homol saw polar bears on land since there wasn’t enough sheet ice for their traditional hunting patterns. She saw marine debris on the shores of islands hundreds of miles north of inhabited towns. She and others started to feel pessimistic “about our collective chances of being able to preserve the sights we were seeing for future generations.”

That led Homol to get involved with visiting scientists from the Rozalia Project as they collected data on microplastics in the waters. She ended up filling in at the last minute for one of Rozalia’s Maine expeditions right as school was starting, helping them meet their 20,000-pound cleanup goal for summer 2023. That experience, she said, “brought me so much hope and energy for what we can do when we work together to do hard things.”

Homol, who has spent four of her nine-year teaching career at Brooklyn Prospect, recently won a national teaching award from the American Psychological Association.

Teaching psychology, Homol believes, gives students a strong background in social science research, and she encourages her students to seek out research opportunities when they go to college.

“I also think this course has so many natural connections with students’ own experiences,” she said. “There’s a unique chance for them to develop new self-knowledge while also expanding their perspectives of other people’s experiences.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How and when did you decide to become a teacher?

I attended Ohio State University as a first-generation student who had also been very transient in middle and high school, bouncing between schools up and down the East Coast and the South. I’d been a successful student but missed more than a couple of foundational courses I needed to be successful in my initial declared major, which was biomedical engineering. I was confused and humiliated by the struggles I faced in my chemistry and calculus classes, and after ending up on academic probation my first quarter, I lied to most people about how school was going because I was terrified of letting them down.

As a condition of exiting probation, I chose to take an education psychology course about study strategies at the Dennis Learning Center. It was transformative and helped reduce the fear I felt that I did not belong in college. I ended up working there for three years of undergrad as a learning specialist, where I facilitated workshops and met 1:1 with other students at OSU to interpret research to find meaningful study strategies.

That’s what led me to consider teaching, and Teach for America was an alternative certification program I was familiar with.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why?

I deeply appreciate my colleague, Khanh Le, who adapted an exercise she came across in her developmental psych program for our students. It asks students to take a fictional family of seven of different genders and ages and arrange them into hypothetical homes with room counts ranging from 1-7, in arrangements that are both ideal and least ideal.

Our students, who have a variety of cultural backgrounds, are often surprised to find that they have nearly unanimous agreement with each other in their room arrangements. We discuss the findings of the original study, which suggest that some values driving those arrangements are unique to the West and others are universal — and the consensus we have in our own answers is a proof of acculturation, or assimilation to U.S./New York culture. I love this lesson because it ties together research, relatability, and strikes a balance between appreciating difference and finding commonality with others around the world.

Are there particular things that students are seeing or experiencing in their lives related to the course that come up in the classroom?

The first thing that has positively shifted the tone of conversations we have in class is the decreasing stigma of mental health concerns.

At our school, we teach the “Abnormal Psychology” option offered in the IB Psychology course, and students are tremendously open and excited to share their experiences with each other. I would have been so embarrassed to talk about my mental health at that age, but kids are supportive and continue the conversation with questions or their own contributions.

The second development I’ve seen is less positive: I’ve noticed that students carry more pessimism these days. More students feel that nothing matters, and that there is nothing that can be done to improve the circumstances of themselves or their communities. This is a comprehensible reaction to climate developments, the inertia of systems and institutions to change, and an eroding pretense that a college education is a ticket to financial stability. I also think social media algorithms proliferate a lot of cynical (if not outright incorrect) interpretations of psychological and sociological knowledge.

I think as educators of young people, part of our role is to inspire students and to teach pathways to change. Of course, we have a duty to portray the world realistically in our classrooms. Many things are actually dire. But I think we also must take care to invite students to construct generative interpretations and applications of knowledge and research. Otherwise, we are left with the status quo and that pessimistic vision does become our fate.

We also have to let them feel the impact of taking action with others, *doing* things rather than just talking about them. This is tricky for adults too, but my summer experiences underscored how meaningful optimism comes from collective work and creation.

Tell us about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

I was incredibly blessed to have consistently caring, effective, and diverse teachers for all 13 years of my public schooling. I especially credit the many Black women who taught me at Arlington Elementary School in Jacksonville, Fla., who saw my potential and imparted to me a sense of duty to make the most of my education.

It has been easy to draw from the example they and my other amazing educators set as I show up for students today. But the thing that has most shaped my overall career trajectory has been the challenges I faced as a student who wanted access to specialized programming.

I happened to find out about the International Baccalaureate program in my district through idle conversation with my school librarian, rather than through my school counselor or district-wide advertisement. I had to submit an application, attend an interview or take a test, and take a bus an hour each way to get to school. Years later, I found myself in rural Alabama: I navigated several hurdles to take online AP classes that were made available upon request through Alabama’s ACCESS plan for distance learning. There were so many hurdles to being able to participate in both programs, and because of it, I have chosen to work at schools that give a broader range of students access to the IB program by default.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and how have you put it into practice?

A mentor once told me, “Let someone else tell you no,” when I was debating sending in an application for a job opportunity years ago. For scholarships, school program ideas, jobs, or awards, spending less time being my own gatekeeper has opened up fantastic experiences.

Most recently, I pitched an ambitious idea to the Rozalia Project, which included setting aside spots on a July expedition on their sailboat for a teacher and a recent high school graduate — she said yes! Making this initial ask has also let us start envisioning a recurring beach cleanup program and a full Prospect Schools expedition a couple years out from now. We have other details to work out, but if I had let my own ‘no’ get in the way, I would have never fathomed how excited they would be to develop this partnership.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

This Tennessee teacher brings lessons from the ocean to her landlocked students

2024-04-18T16:56:08+00:00

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As a child in Panama City, Florida, the call of the ocean was always within earshot of Devon Jones.

“I spent the first seven years of my life living on a boat or around the water,” Jones said. “I always said, ‘I don’t have friends, I have fish.’

“I spent weekends and summers with my grandmother in Mexico Beach, [Florida], so water was my backyard.”

Marriage to a military spouse and family ultimately landed her in Fort Campbell, which sits on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. It was a move that took her away from the sea and away from her dream of becoming a marine biologist. But it didn’t stop Jones from finding another career that allowed her to share her love of the ocean with others: teaching sixth grade science.

Jones, who has been teaching for 15 years, works at Kirkwood Middle School in Clarksville, on the edge of rural Montgomery County, where many of her students haven’t seen much, if any, of an ocean.

This fall, though, she will get a unique chance to get her students excited about the sea. Ocean Exploration Trust, a nonprofit organization that aims to explore the ocean and apply discoveries to Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics education, selected her as a 2024 Lead Science Communications Fellow.

That means Jones will spend 26 days onboard Exploration Vessel Nautilus in late September and early October. The expedition — Jones’ second — will explore and map the seafloor around Howland and Baker islands in the Pacific. The journey begins in Pago Pago, American Samoa, and ends in Koror, Palau.

Once onboard Jones, who is among 13 fellows selected nationally this year, will coordinate live, daily audio commentary and question-and-answer sessions through the Nautilus Live website. While ashore, Jones will use Google Classroom and other learning tools to engage communities and students around the world.

Jones recently talked to Chalkbeat Tennessee about how she approaches her work.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How does teaching ocean science to middle schoolers excite you?

Tennessee is landlocked, so I get a chance to bring that part of the world to my students, a world that they are rarely familiar with and a world that is largely unknown to them. I love that I can get them hooked. I tie the curriculum back to the ocean because, in some way, we all are connected to it. I want the students to have the opportunity to learn what’s out there, and the only way they can do that is for me to keep learning about what’s out there.

Why sixth grade?

I started out teaching fourth and fifth grades, and I was feeling a bit of a burnout, but someone told me about the science curriculum in middle school. I looked into it, and I decided, ‘Hey, sixth grade science — this is some really relatable stuff. This is something that I can really make an impact with.’

So, I decided to make the jump. I love the age range, the kids, the curiosity that they have. They’re at that age where questions are abundant. I can show them how what they’re learning is impacting their lives on a daily basis.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach?

One of my favorite units is biodiversity and human impact. On the very first dive we took [on the 2023 expedition] on one of the reefs, we saw something that looked familiar, but we weren’t quite sure what it was. But when we got closer, we saw that it was trash. But because we were able to date it — it had a Pepsi can from 1980 — I was able to show the kids the impact of what trash does, and how long it remains in the environment.

It was horrible to see, but its relevance made it a teaching moment. Helping them understand how they impact the ecosystem and the environment around us is huge because I want them to see that while they have the ability to destroy something, I also want to show them that they have the ability to change something for the greater good.

Describe your role on the expedition this time.

I get to lead other teachers as this will be their first time out. They’ll reach out to schools all over the world via telecommunications. They’ll take the kids on a virtual tour of the boat, and connect them to what the ROVs [remotely operated vehicles] are exploring at the bottom of the ocean.

We’ll cross the International Date Line to do seafloor mapping on a part of the ocean that hasn’t been mapped before. This is all new exploration to learn what is lying beneath us. Are there more trenches? We know they exist, but how do they affect biodiversity levels? We’ll be doing the mapping, and we’ll be out there for 26 days.

So, it’s a great way to get science into the classroom, and to get the kids excited about things that most of them have never known existed.

How do you use what you learn to help students relate to their immediate environment?

Clarksville is booming. There’s a lot of development, and I want them to understand the impact it has on the ecosystem, like humans have on the ocean. I want them to understand that in a few years, they’re going to be in charge of that future, so they need to understand the biological factors involved [and]the importance of what those changes are bringing.

What’s the best advice that you abide by?

Never be afraid to put yourself in positions where you can still learn and grow. In my classroom, I always see myself as the lead learner. As far as teaching goes, it’s building relationships with your students, to show that they’re not investing in you, but they’re investing in themselves. Also, keep the alarm clock ready and make time for yourself because while teaching is a rewarding career, the burnout is real.

How do you spend your spare time?

I focus on my family. I have three children and 12 grandchildren. I’ve been married for 32 years. Making memories is everything. Family is everything. I love to travel, and I’ll travel to places that I know are going to bring me peace and happiness, and it’s always going to be back to the water.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

Top NYC education official insists schools won’t get leeway on curriculum mandate due to demographics

2024-04-12T00:33:14+00:00

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A top Education Department official said on Thursday that schools would not have leeway to skirt a new reading curriculum mandate based on student demographics.

“There’s no difference in how we’re implementing based on demographics of kids,” First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg said after a Brooklyn superintendent suggested otherwise. “That’s actually a pretty disturbing suggestion.”

New York City is requiring all of its elementary schools to begin using one of three reading curriculums, Chancellor David Banks’ signature education initiative to improve literacy rates.

But Chalkbeat reported Wednesday that District 15 Superintendent Rafael Alvarez recently told families that his district would have more flexibility than District 19, which is also in Brooklyn. Most children in East New York’s District 19 are Black or Hispanic and come from low-income families. About 38% are considered proficient in reading based on state test scores. By contrast, fewer than half of students in District 15 — which runs from Cobble Hill and Red Hook to Park Slope and Sunset Park — are Black or Hispanic or live in poverty. Roughly 63% are proficient readers.

“We have a different community,” Alvarez said in response to parent concerns about the curriculum mandate at a Community Education Council meeting last month. “It’s the reason why there’s flexibility around how we’re using the curriculum — because we don’t have the same demographics where all of our kids need it verbatim with fidelity every day.”

Asked about those comments, top education officials said that there may be certain situations where teachers take different approaches to implementing the curriculum materials but stressed student demographics would not play a role.

“There’s all kinds of areas where we need our educators, our teachers, and our principals to customize for their kids,” said Weisberg, the Education Department’s second-in-command.

Reaction to Alvarez’s comments underscores the tension superintendents are facing, as some parents and educators raise concerns that the new mandates will brush aside materials that make their schools distinctive, including project-based approaches or other teacher-created curriculums.

Superintendents are directly appointed by Banks, who has empowered them to hand down curriculum mandates for the schools they supervise. Some have issued directives in a wider range of grade levels than initially required by Banks’ literacy overhaul.

Alvarez, who attended the press conference, did not directly address his earlier comments about student demographics, but said he is “100% on board” with Banks’ literacy mandate.

The approach in District 15 might look different from District 19 because leaders there began implementing a standardized curriculum before the latest mandate from Banks, Alvarez contended, and it will take teachers time to get used to new materials. He also stressed that district leaders are looking “to find ways to integrate project-based learning” into the newly mandated curriculums.

District 15 Superintendent Rafael Alvarez at the Education Department's Lower Manhattan headquarters.

Banks also did not wade directly into Alvarez’s comments, though he said the superintendent is doing “an amazing job.”

Some families have called for waivers to the new curriculum mandates, and Education Department officials initially suggested that a small slice of schools with high test scores could be exempt.

Although some schools expressed interest in a waiver, officials said school leaders ultimately decided to stick with the mandated reading curriculums. A department spokesperson did not share details about that process, including which schools sought exemptions or what criteria the city might use to grant them.

For his part, Banks said he was disinclined to entertain exemptions, though he hinted he may consider them for the highest-performing schools.

“I don’t take well to principals — anybody else — who will say to me, ‘You know, we want an exception because we’re at 55% [reading proficiency], and our colleagues at 35%,’” Banks said. “You don’t get an award for that. We all need help — we all need to continue to support one another.”

The city is also preparing to launch an advisory group to offer feedback to curriculum companies based on schools’ experience with the materials, Deputy Chancellor Danika Rux said on Thursday, adding superintendents have been meeting regularly to discuss implementing the new curriculums and best practices.

The curriculum providers “make a whole lot of money from New York City public schools — and so we believe that they should listen to us,” she said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Florida settlement’s limits on ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law may give teachers and students breathing room

2024-03-13T20:50:30+00:00

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Florida teachers can place a photo of their spouse on their desk. School libraries can stock books featuring LGBTQ characters. And anti-bullying efforts can protect LGBTQ students. But restrictions on classroom instruction related to sexuality and gender identity remain.

Those are the terms of a settlement agreement that puts an end to a lawsuit challenging what’s commonly known as Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. Advocates are hailing the lifting of a “shadow” that had fallen over the state’s schools. Gov. Ron DeSantis, who made challenging “woke” ideas in schools a cornerstone of his political brand, also declared victory.

The resolution calls attention to the enormous gray areas created by laws restricting how teachers talk about gender, sexuality, race, and history. These laws simultaneously touch on issues of personal identity where federal law protects students and teachers, and issues of curriculum and instruction where states have broad authority.

Fearful of lawsuits and state investigations, teachers have emptied out classroom libraries, taken down Pride flags, and quit their jobs. A high school class president was told he couldn’t mention being gay in his graduation speech. State officials have blamed local leaders for going beyond the requirements of the law, but never formally clarified what was and wasn’t covered — until the settlement agreement was signed Monday.

Essentially, the agreement means that the law won’t force teachers back into the closet or prevent students from talking about who they are.

Under the agreement, the Florida Department of Education will also disseminate guidance about the law to all 67 school districts.

“The vagueness of this law was intentional,” said Joe Saunders, senior political director at Equality Florida, a statewide LGBTQ rights group and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “At any point, [state officials] could have offered deeper guidance and didn’t. The only reason they’ve done it now is because we sued them in federal court and forced them to end the most harmful aspects of this law.”

Laws restricting teaching have wide-ranging impacts

As classroom restrictions proliferate, a survey by the research group RAND found that two-thirds of teachers reported self-censoring how they talk about certain social and political issues in the classroom, whether they lived in a state with formal restrictions or not. RAND also found — in a study released this week — that a majority of teachers thought these restrictions harmed learning and made students feel less welcome and less empathetic.

Teachers in Florida were the most likely to be aware of their state’s restrictions, and the most likely to report having changed instruction in response, RAND found. Florida also had more laws restricting instruction than other states.

A recent Washington Post analysis of FBI data found that school-based hate crimes against LGBTQ students quadrupled in states that passed restrictive laws, which include laws governing teaching as well as which bathrooms and sports teams transgender children have access to.

The relationship between state policies and bullying has been in the national spotlight after the death of Nex Benedict, a nonbinary student who died in February after a fight in their Oklahoma high school.

Related: ‘Am I not allowed to mention myself?’ Schools grapple with new restrictions on teaching about gender and sexuality

Some state laws ban discussion of certain topics or require that lessons be “age appropriate” or avoid “divisive” framings, while others require parental notification and the opportunity for parents to opt students out of lessons. Many states leave enforcement to school districts and provide little guidance.

Advocates of these laws say parents have a right to know what their children are being taught, especially on issues that might conflict with their own values, and that schools should focus on core academic subjects.

Students and teachers in states with teaching restrictions told Chalkbeat about LGTBQ student clubs receiving less support, and lessons in literature and history being scaled back to avoid talking about queer references in literature or the movement for gay civil rights.

Legal challenges to these laws are underway in a number of states, but how courts will rule could depend on specifics in individual states. Arizona’s teaching restrictions were struck down, for example, because lawmakers had wedged them into the state budget.

Keira McNett, staff counsel for the National Education Association, said the settlement is important in Florida and “for the national tenor.”

“Many states modeled their law after Florida’s and many are facing lawsuits of their own,” she said. “In many cases, they are overly broad. And when the state is required to actually explain what these vague laws mean, they explain it in a way that is a lot more narrow.”

Settlement provides clarity for classrooms, activities

Roberta Kaplan, the lead attorney for the lawsuit, said the settlement provides immediate relief to Florida students, parents, and teachers who were living under a cloud of uncertainty.

“Every kid should be able to go to public school and have their dignity respected and their family respected,” Kaplan said.

The settlement lays out examples of what’s allowed under Florida law, known formally as the Parental Rights in Education Act:

Teachers can respond to students who choose to discuss their own families or identities and can grade essays that include LGBTQ topics.
Teachers can make reference to LGBTQ people in literature or history.
Student-to-student speech and classroom debates can touch on LGBTQ issues.
Schools can explicitly protect LGBTQ students in anti-bullying efforts, and teachers can have “safe space” stickers in their classroom.
Students of the same gender can dance together at school dances and wear clothing considered inconsistent with their gender assigned at birth.

The settlement clarifies that restrictions on classroom instruction apply “regardless of viewpoint.” In other words, teachers can’t teach a lesson on modern gender theory to elementary students, nor can they teach those students that gender identity is immutable and determined by biological traits.

Kaplan said states have significant authority over curriculum, and that the part of the law specifying such restrictions was unlikely to be overturned on further appeal.

DeSantis’ office in a press release emphasized that the law as written remains intact and “children will be protected from radical gender and sexual ideology in the classroom.”

“We fought hard to ensure this law couldn’t be maligned in court, as it was in the public arena by the media and large corporate actors,” Florida General Counsel Ryan Newman said in the press release. “We are victorious, and Florida’s classrooms will remain a safe place under the Parental Rights in Education Act.”

Settlement ‘allows for a reasonable conversation’ on instruction

Suzanne Eckes, a professor of educational law and policy at the University of Wisconsin, said Florida’s law and others that are vague and broad potentially violate federal laws and protections.

As employees, teachers have limited free speech rights in the classroom, but states cannot discriminate against them on the basis of sex, which forms the basis of many legal protections for LGBTQ people. For example, they can’t penalize a teacher for having a picture of a same-sex spouse on their desk while allowing a colleague to have a picture of her husband. The federal Equal Access Act says that schools can’t limit extracurricular clubs based on their content. Bible study groups, future homemakers, and gay-straight alliance clubs all have the right to meet in school, Eckes said.

Eckes said the settlement suggests the challengers had viable claims on equal protection grounds, even as the state maintains the right to regulate curriculum and prevent teachers from offering personal opinions to a captive audience.

While the settlement creates no legal precedent, it could encourage some school district lawyers, even in other states, to reach less restrictive interpretations of their states’ laws. At the same time, even in Florida, there may be disagreements about what exactly constitutes instruction.

“If a teacher does give an opinion in class, there is this overall idea that teacher speech can be curtailed,” she said. “That is a grayer area than banning the gay-straight alliance or pulling all the books off the shelves due to your own ideology.”

Derek Black, a professor of constitutional law at the University of South Carolina, said the settlement could change the political and cultural calculus around sweeping prohibitions, even though it doesn’t set a precedent for other lawsuits.

“If DeSantis is willing to settle, maybe it’s OK for the governor of Oklahoma to settle,” Black said. “Maybe it denies cultural conservatives the ability to say that some governor or AG in another state is weak.”

The settlement also offers teachers important clarity, Black said: “This type of settlement rebalances things so you don’t have to be so afraid and that allows for a reasonable conversation about what’s instruction and what’s not.”

Michael Woods, a high school teacher in Palm Beach County who leads the Florida Education Association’s LGBTQ caucus, said he’s thrilled with the settlement even as he fears it will take decades to get back to the level of inclusion teachers and students experienced just a few years ago.

His school district’s guide for supporting LGBTQ students shrunk from 140 pages to 14 under Florida’s law, he said. And he stopped leading his school’s GSA club because he would have needed to send permission slips home, which led him to worry about outing students. He’s not sure that’s changed.

Woods also worries about colleagues in smaller, more conservative communities, and about trans educators who often face even more hostility than gay and lesbian teachers.

Still, he hopes teachers in other states feel inspired.

“One of the most hateful states in the nation for LGBTQ rights reached a settlement,” he said. “You have to fight, but it can happen.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

As NYC’s literacy mandate expands citywide, some school communities are pushing back

2024-04-10T17:07:34+00:00

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Twelve-year-old Carlo Murray perched on his tiptoes to reach the microphone as he addressed education officials last month. He then unleashed a withering critique of his school’s reading curriculum.

“I love to read all sorts of books,” Carlo told the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, a group that approves contracts and other school policies.

But this year, his teachers are focusing on short passages, leaving him frustrated and bored.

“It feels like I’m getting half an ELA sixth grade experience, half the story, half a piece of writing, only half a curriculum,” Carlo, who attends the Brooklyn School of Inquiry, often called BSI, said to applause.

One by one, Carlo and a handful of his classmates took turns at the microphone to bemoan their experience with the school’s new literacy curriculum. Educators at BSI, along with elementary schools across the city, have been required to adopt one of three reading programs, part of a mandate under schools Chancellor David Banks to boost literacy rates by flushing out popular but increasingly discredited programs.

The BSI students’ strong reactions are notable in part because there has been little organized opposition to the reading curriculum overhaul, as many literacy experts, the city’s teachers union, and several major education advocacy groups have supported it.

But resistance may grow louder as the city has required all local districts to adopt the new reading programs by September, up from just under half this school year. Some parents and educators at schools gearing up to use the new reading materials this fall have started speaking out, arguing the curriculum changes could threaten to upend the project-based learning or teacher-created curriculums that make their schools distinctive.

“Phase two is going to be harder than phase one,” said Susan Neuman, a New York University professor and member of the city’s literacy advisory council. A handful of wealthier districts that also tend to post higher test scores than average — including Districts 2 and 3 in Manhattan and Brooklyn’s District 15 — are all part of the second phase. “It’s going to be very interesting to hear how they respond,” Neuman said.

Most popular curriculum is getting most of the criticism

The reactions at BSI could serve as a preview of worries starting to bubble up elsewhere.

Much of the criticism of the curriculum overhaul has focused on the program that 22 of the city’s 32 local superintendents are requiring in their elementary schools: Into Reading, from the company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, also known as HMH. The remaining districts are either using Wit & Wisdom, from a company called Great Minds, or EL Education.

Unlike the other two approved curriculums, HMH is built around an anthology-style textbook that includes passages designed to teach reading skills. Experts say the curriculum may feel easier for educators to quickly unpack than the other options, and it also includes a Spanish-language version. One review faulted the curriculum for not being culturally responsive, which sparked considerable criticism, though HMH has disputed the findings.

To some students at BSI, a gifted K-8 program with competitive admissions and reading proficiency rates that topped 90% last year, their main worry is that the new curriculum feels like dry test prep.

Adding to the concern, the local superintendent that oversees BSI has required middle schools to use HMH, a step further than the citywide requirement to use an approved curriculum in grades K-5 — though more schools may be soon heading in that direction. Banks has pledged to overhaul curriculums across a range of other subjects and grade levels, including high school algebra, a process that is drawing mixed reactions.

Sixth grader Penelope Naidich said her reading classes now draw on shorter texts that come from the HMH workbook rather than teacher-designed classroom conversations of full books. Last year, “we had a whole class discussion, like what happened in the chapter, how did it relate to the theme and the plot,” Naidich said in an interview. “The deeper stuff you’re not getting from these excerpts.”

Still, students and parents at BSI said teachers have recently had more freedom to teach full books, though not as many as in previous years. A representative for HMH wrote in a statement that the curriculum materials for middle school grades includes “numerous complete selections, long reads and novels, in addition to excerpts” and the program “is designed to be flexible so that educators can make decisions that best serve their students.”

The school’s principal did not return a request for comment.

Top education officials contend the curriculum overhaul is essential because the city’s traditional approach of giving schools freedom to pick their own materials has produced meager results: Roughly half of the city’s students in grades 3-8 are not considered proficient in reading, according to state tests.

Banks has laid much of the blame on “balanced literacy” programs, including a popular one created by Teachers College Professor Lucy Calkins. That curriculum encourages students to independently read books at their individual reading levels, an approach meant to foster a love of literature but which experts say is less effective for struggling readers who need systematic instruction. Teachers were also encouraged to use discredited strategies like using pictures to guess at words.

Schools Chancellor David Banks reads to children at P.S. 125 The Ralph Bunche School.

Neuman, the NYU professor, applauded the city’s efforts to move away from balanced literacy and reign in the hodgepodge of approaches schools have used. But she acknowledged some tradeoffs. “The whole idea behind this initiative is to lift the boats of the kids who have been traditionally left behind, and that means some of the advanced students might be subject to a simpler program,” she said. “Right now, that’s the cost.”

City officials initially indicated that a small slice of schools with reading proficiency rates above 85% could be eligible for waivers from the mandate — and some BSI parents have pressed for one. Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said some schools sought waivers, but ultimately chose to use their district’s required curriculum. She declined to elaborate on the process for granting waivers or if the city abandoned plans to consider them for schools with high test scores.

Reading instruction shift worries some parents in next phase

Beyond BSI, some educators and families at schools that are gearing up to implement new reading curriculums in September are also raising alarms.

Alex Estes, the parent association president at The Neighborhood School in Manhattan, said he’s concerned about the new curriculum’s impact. The school, which is in District 1, will be required to use EL Education in September.

With lots of material to cover in the new curriculum, Estes worries educators won’t have time for lessons they’ve prioritized in the past. The school has a particular focus on creating a welcoming environment for LGBTQ students and staff, including a social-emotional curriculum that delves into age-appropriate discussions of gender identity and pronoun use. Estes fears that the school will have to make difficult tradeoffs to make room for the new materials.

“If we take EL’s curriculum 100% and follow it to the T, it is not theoretical that we will lose time for our homegrown curriculum like our identity unit,” Estes said. “There are only so many hours in a school day.”

At a recent Community Education Council meeting in District 15, which stretches across a handful of neighborhoods from Park Slope to Sunset Park, some caregivers echoed that they were happy with their schools’ current approach to instruction.

Students use an EL Education workbook at P.S. 169 Baychester Academy in the Bronx.

District 15 will require schools with dual-language programs to use HMH. All others will use Wit & Wisdom, a curriculum known for building students’ background knowledge and lengthy units on non-fiction topics.

“Mandates in general don’t necessarily acknowledge what’s going well,” said Lauren Monaco, a parent at The Brooklyn New School, a campus that often bucks traditional mandates including state testing in favor of student presentations of deep dives into various topics. “I don’t want the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater.”

In response to families at the meeting, District 15 Superintendent Rafael Alvarez suggested teachers won’t be expected to implement every element of the curriculum right away and said there will still be time for independent reading.

Alvarez also indicated District 15 will have more leeway to implement the curriculum gradually compared with Brooklyn District 19, which includes East New York and used the Wit & Wisdom curriculum districtwide even before the new mandate.

One reason for the added flexibility is their differing demographics, he noted. The vast majority of children in District 19 are Black or Hispanic and from low-income families. About 38% are considered proficient in reading. In District 15, fewer than half of students are Black or Hispanic or live in poverty — and 63% are proficient readers.

“We have a different community,” Alvarez said. “It’s the reason why there’s flexibility around how we’re using the curriculum — because we don’t have the same demographics where all of our kids need it verbatim with fidelity every day.”

Many educators haven’t spoken out

Educators have largely not organized against the curriculum changes. But Emily Haines, a veteran literacy coach at The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology in the Bronx, is trying to change that. She recently launched a petition to drum up support for letting schools pick their own materials.

“Communities should have a voice in choosing a curriculum,” Haines said. Her school covers grades 6-12, but her local superintendent in District 7 has also required that middle schools adopt EL Education, the same program mandated across the district in grades K-5. (An Education Department spokesperson declined to say how many superintendents have issued similar directives for their middle schools.)

Haines said her school currently uses Calkins’ program. She worries the new materials will leave less time for narrative writing, one strategy she uses to get to know her students. And though she acknowledges exposing students to challenging books is important, she’s concerned the new curriculum will force her students to read longer books well beyond their reading levels. About 55% of her school’s students are proficient readers, according to state tests, compared with 32% across District 7.

The Bronx educator said she’s heard from teachers who have privately complained about the changes but, “for some reason it’s not translating into pushback.” So far, her petition has fewer than 100 signatures.

She suspects educators may see little value in speaking out and might be hoping for light enforcement of the mandates. Some principals have indicated plans to sidestep the curriculum requirements.

“I think people are just waiting,” Haines added. “Banks and Adams won’t be around forever and we can go back to what we’re doing before.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Yes, it’s time to embrace cell phones in class

2015-01-09T15:35:55+00:00

In 2007, an excellent educator who was known for incorporating technology into his classes advised me not to assign YouTube videos to my students.

“It has too much of a distracting quality,” he said. “You may do better to stay away from it.”

His concerns made sense. YouTube was not yet two years old at the time, and people were still enamored with the idea of watching videos of funny household pets whenever they wanted. It was hard to see the website as anything but a distraction. Of course, seven years later, YouTube videos have become ubiquitous in classrooms across the city, and many teachers would have a hard time adjusting to not using them.

It’s common for educators to steer clear of new technologies when they are first presented. For many, that is because they understand just how complicated it can be to effectively turn a new technology into an actual tool for learning. They know that just having a new device isn’t enough, and the learning curve can be steep. (Anyone can watch a video. But teachers have to find high-quality videos and decide which part of the video to assign and how to hold students accountable for watching it, for example.)

My colleague was very “pro tech,” but because he could not see how YouTube videos could be a successful tool, he concluded it would be more of a distraction than anything.

But teachers do eventually figure out successful approaches and, before you know it, the technology becomes a part of the learning experience everywhere.

I see this same pattern playing out over the realization that cell phones are about to make their way into classrooms throughout the city. Last November, a Brooklyn teacher wrote a letter to the editor in the New York Times to say that “Permitting New York City public school students to bring their cell phones to schools will inevitably lead to more distractions in classrooms.” He went on to conclude that if the ban were lifted, students would “be spending less time learning.”

In the comments of a recent Chalkbeat article, one teacher delineated a hypothetical scenario where a student simply stopped paying attention to the lesson so that he or she could return a call. A friend of mine recently remarked that if cell phones were allowed into the classroom, his picture would be all over Instagram and Facebook.

These concerns are completely understandable. But allowing students to use cell phones in the classroom for specific, academic purposes has the power to increase student engagement and allow teachers to more effectively assess learning on a daily basis. I intend to ask my school leaders to embrace this “bring your own device” approach and allow me to have students use their devices in class.

One way I would immediately use phones as part of instruction would be to automate exit tickets — the micro-assessments that ask students to demonstrate their learning at the end of a lesson. They have become expected at many schools, and I’ve found them to be a great way to find out how well each student understood the learning objectives for the day.

An app called Exit Ticket will allow my students to submit their exit tickets using their cell phones. Students are given a registration code that brings them to a secure area reserved just for the class. They find the day’s assignment and tap their brief rsponses on their phones. After class, I am able to grade their answers on my phone or computer and can see data showing me how close each student came to meeting the objectives for the day.

Edmodo, known as “Facebook for the classroom,” is also available in app form, and allows students to see and interact with content on a virtual class wall, where teachers post assignments that students can submit through the app.

Other options for cell phone use may make teachers’ jobs a bit easier. If my school opts to allow cell phones in class, I may never have to grade another quiz again. Castle Learning, an online review, assessment, and reporting system that my school has purchased, will grade them for me. The software allows me to quickly generate standards-aligned quizzes with security features such as scrambling questions or allowing the quiz to be take only during a certain time frame (like during class) to ensure that students don’t cheat. Saving me even more time, the software provides me with instant item analysis so I can to see which topics and skills my students are having a difficult time understanding.

These are just a few ways I could use cell phones to help my students learn. I try to run a fairly structured class, so I may decide to stay away from learning tools like Google Docs, for extended writing and collaborative creation of projects, Evernote, for dynamic note-taking, Quizlet, for vocabulary creation and study (as well as other new tools I’ve just recently learned of like Kahoot and Padlet), for a while. Others might find those useful, too.

Of course, there will always be issues with using these tools in the classroom. Many students cannot afford these devices, and others will invariably use Facebook or Instagram, or even place calls, when they should be learning.

While these are legitimate concerns, we should try to avoid allowing solvable problems get in way of progress altogether. Many schools have laptops and tablets to distribute to students who do not have cell phones, and the appropriate use of technology, including when to use it, is better taught in schools than anywhere else. I’m fairly confident that the issues that arise from cell phone use can be resolved by the highly trained professionals that operate and teach in New York City’s schools.

It’s worth remembering that several decades ago, teachers and schools were hesitant to utilize another new and innovative technology in the classroom. Many teachers were convinced that it prevented students from learning valuable skills. I’m sure some very effective teachers felt that its presence in class would serve as a distraction to learning.

The tool was the TI-83, a graphing calculator that is now used in virtually every math classroom across the country. Several years from now, after teachers have become accustomed to a lifted cell phone ban and the presence of mobile devices in our rooms, the questions won’t center around whether we should use these tools in the learning process, but how we can use them best. That, too is part of the pattern.

About our First Person series:

First Person is where Chalkbeat features personal essays by educators, students, parents, and others trying to improve public education. Read our submission guidelines here.

LISTEN: A New York chapter on banned books

2024-04-03T09:00:00+00:00

This episode of P.S. Weekly takes a look at how a national wave of book bans has been coming ashore in surprising ways in New York City.

EVENT: Register for our virtual event to meet the students behind the new podcast

Between 2021 and 2023, there were nearly 6,000 instances of books being banned across the country, according to PEN America, a group that defends writers and protects free expression. Nearly 60% of these books were young adult books written for school-age kids.

New York City schools have not banned books, but recently got a taste of this controversy when books that touched on themes of Black history, immigration, and transgender identity were discovered in the trash near a Staten Island school, sparking an investigation, according to Gothamist. But educators here had already been embroiled or engaging in the national conversation around book bans in other ways.

This episode’s first segment features a school librarian who in 2022, after using social media to promote LGBTQ books during Pride month, faced an onslaught of vitriol and harassment online.

Librarian Lindsay Klemas poses for a portrait.

Lindsay Klemas, who was the librarian at Forest Hills High School in Queens at the time, said the incident took a toll on her mental health. She worries about the broader implications such attacks could have on educators and public schools.

“A parent has the right to say for their own kid what they can read. It does get murkier as you become a teenager,” said Klemas, who is now the coordinator for all Queens public school libraries. “But I also think that these groups are trying to erode the trust of educators in general, and so I think by placing doubt in people’s minds about what a teacher is exposing kids to is really just trying to attack the public school system.”

The show’s second segment looks at a Queens high school that has created a sophomore English class devoted entirely to books that have been banned elsewhere.

Amy Weidner-LaSala, who teaches the course at the Academy of American Studies, said the books they’re reading can help show students “how we open our minds and accept new things through literature.”

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell. Listen for new episodes Wednesdays this spring.

Read the full episode transcript below

Sabrina: Hey listeners, save the date! We’ll be having a virtual Zoom event on April 17 from 5-6 p.m.

It’s called Inside P.S Weekly: Meet the students and adults behind the new podcast

Join us on Zoom and learn how the podcast is made, how it can be used as a teaching tool, and how you could potentially have your voice, heard, on the show.

Check out the link in our show notes! Keep listening to hear the rest of this episode!

Tanvir: Welcome to P.S. Weekly… the sound of the New York City school system. PS Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat New York and The Bell.

Tanvir: I’m your host this week, Tanvir Kaur. I’m a senior at Academy of American Studies in Queens.On today’s episode: how the national wave of book bans is showing up in New York City in surprising ways.

But first! A Chalkbeat news bulletin…

NEWSBRIEF

Alex: I’m Alex Zimmerman, a reporter with Chalkbeat. Here’s a quick recap of the past week’s biggest education stories:

City officials are replacing metal detectors at nearly 80 campuses with new ones designed to let students keep their backpacks on instead of sending them through a separate x-ray machine. But the city will still make students take off their backpacks — raising questions about the $3.9 million upgrade.

Roughly 139,000 families applied to Summer Rising, the city’s free summer school program — that’s far more than the number of available seats. The program remains popular, even as Mayor Eric Adams has cut back middle school hours to save money.

And on Monday, April 8, a total solar eclipse is coming to parts of New York State. Several schools are hosting watch parties, as is the New York Hall of Science in Queens.

To stay up to date on local education news throughout the week, go to chalkbeat.org/newsletters and sign up for the New York Daily Roundup.

Tanvir: Last year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill banning books that contain violent, sexual, or sensitive content. Similar bills in other states have affected even more children’s schools and libraries.

Tanvir: Between 2021 and 2023, there were close to six thousand recorded book bans across America. Of these banned books, nearly 60% were young adult genres. Meaning, books written for school-age kids are being targeted.

Tanvir: I had heard about this trend, and it troubled me. I thought–At least, this isn’t happening here… But then…

NEWS CLIP

Reporter 1: An investigation underway this afternoon after some books were thrown out into the trash at a school on Staten Island.

Reporter 2: Now the books are about Black history and the LGBTQ community, and all were found with notes attached to them, critical of both. Eyewitnesses…

Tanvir: The Department of Education is currently investigating the incident in Staten Island — which appears to be an isolated case — but it’s a reminder that NYC is not immune to the national attempts to censor what students read and learn in school.

Today, we speak to a school librarian who used social media to promote LGBTQ+ books during pride month... and then experienced wrath online from parents across the country.

Then: how one Queens school is flipping the narrative on its head… embracing the books that some districts have deemed too dangerous to read through a course entirely devoted to them.

Our PS Weekly producer Salma Baksh has our first story…

Salma: I’m here with my school’s former librarian, Lindsay Klemas. We call her Ms. K. Let me tell you: the students at Forest Hills High School were devastated last year when she left. But we were also happy for her. She’s now the Coordinator for all Queens public school libraries.

Salma: I met Ms. K in my sophomore year. She quickly became my go-to person for basically anything – decision-making, emotional support, and book recs (obviously). Students knew her as empathetic and kind, making the library a true safe space.

Lindsay: I became a librarian in 2010. I started my career at a high school for students with emotional disabilities in the Bronx, and I worked there for about six years. And then I was at Forest Hills High School for a little over seven years.

Salma: What made you want to become a librarian?

Lindsay: I decided to become a librarian because librarians are pathological helpers and we like to give people information, make people feel welcome, and make sure that people can sort of have a third space they can go to.

Salma: What is your definition of librarianship?

Lindsay: A librarian, to me is someone who is able to allow others to see themselves on the shelves. So I think a good librarian is able to have books and resources that all of their patrons want to access, but it’s a place where people can be themselves and also find information or stories that speak to them.

Salma: Have there been any instances, any negatives that have arisen out of the way that you fulfill your definition of what it means to be a librarian?

Lindsay: Yes. In the fall of 2022, I actually became a victim of some online harassment. Um, It happened because our school library Instagram page was discovered by a group of people who didn’t like the books that I featured in a reel that we had made for Pride Month. And so people started to say that the book should be put in the woodchipper, that I should be fired. I was a pedophile. this was in reference to the book that’s called “This book is Gay,” which has received numerous starred reviews from professional reviewers and is considered an important book for teenagers, but is also a very banned and challenged book nationwide.

Salma: So receiving that kind of hate from people that don’t even know you must have been very heavy on you and your mental health. How did you react?

Lindsay: It was definitely heavy on my mental health. I feel like I’m still sort of processing slash. I’ll think to myself, “Did that even happen?” Or there might be conversations about book banning and people say, “Oh, that doesn’t happen in New York City schools.” And you’re like, “Wait, it happened to me.” And then you’re sort of in this situation where you’re deciding, “Do I bring it up and tell what happened? Or is that centering myself in the story when really the story is that kids deserve access to materials?” So I was sort of like, what stories do I turn to or what can I learn from this and how do I move forward? And I felt like there wasn’t really a road map for that. And so it was difficult for sure.

Salma: Have you heard of other incidents of librarians getting this kind of response?

Lindsay: I haven’t heard of any school librarians receiving as much vitriol as I did in my situation, but I know that there are New York City school educators who either feel like they can’t be their true selves at work because of their gender identity or their sexual orientation. There are teachers who have had parents question what they’re teaching, or there may be librarians who or, you know, E.L.A. teachers who sort of self-censor. That would look like saying, well, I don’t want to make waves or become a potential victim to people who are trolling. So I’m going to not teach that book or I’m going to not purchase that book for our school library collection. And so that’s a way that the censorship wars can impact people, subconsciously.

Salma: In this conversation of deciding if a book is appropriate, what role do you think parents play?

Lindsay: I think a parent has the right to say for their own kid what they can read. I think it does get murkier as you become a teenager. But I also think that these groups are trying to erode the trust of educators in general and so by placing doubt in people’s mind about what a teacher is exposing kids to, is really just trying to attack the public school system. And, I think we need to show parents that they can trust the education specialists to decide what is appropriate for their own child.

Salma: Ms. K believes that schools, by giving access to these challenged books, help students figure out who they are.

Lindsay: There are kids right now who might be in a really great school and they might hold it together during the school day. But then at home, they might have to hide their gender identity or their sexual orientation from their families, and they don’t have a safe space at home. And I think it’s just so important for kids to be able to be who they are and to have a space to figure out everything about who they are. And libraries can be that space.

Salma: This is Salma Baksh reporting for PS Weekly.

Tanvir: We’ll be back after a short break…

Sabrina: Hey listeners! We hope you’re enjoying this episode of PS Weekly.

We’ve got an assignment for you– follow us on Instagram @bell.voices. And, we want to hear from you! Reach out to P.S. Weekly at the email address: psweekly@chalkbeat.org with comments, questions, and suggestions.

Tanvir: And we’re back…

Tanvir: While some school districts around the country are banning books they think are inappropriate for students–one class at my school is putting those books on its mandatory reading list. I helped our reporter Shoaa Khan report the story….

Shoaa: Picture this: a stack of books that contain themes of race, LGBTQ identity, and sexual content… that have been banned elsewhere. But in this classroom, 10th graders are cracking them open.

SCENE TAPE of Banned Books Class:

OK folks if we can put our phones and your numbers–if you need your number let me know…

Shoaa: This is sophomore English at the Academy of American Studies. The class centers on banned or challenged books. I had to know more.

Shoaa: Our host Tanvir spoke with Amy Weidner-Lasala who teaches the class.

Shoaa: Ms. Weidner-Lasala’s classroom feels lively, as students stroll into class after the bell. They come in, greeting each other, engaging in small talk, shuffling in their clustered desks until it’s time for Ms. Weidner-Lasala’s instructions.

SCENE TAPE of Banned Books Class :

Ok folks, we’re going to spend today and tomorrow working on an argumentative essay for the regents…

Shoaa: She says It all started with a conversation with the school’s principal Mr. William Bassell

Amy: I think with the current events within the last couple of years, Mr. Bassell thought it would be a really interesting class to offer, and I think at first we were just going to offer it as an elective. But then he decided to sort of open that net a little wider to reach the whole 10th grade.

Amy: There’s a variety of books that we can teach, but I teach Night. I teach the Joy Luck Club. I teach Animal Farm, even though 1984 was also an option, which, you know, more explicit. Again, it’s an older book, but it still deals with that like censorship and banned books-ness, and control. So Orwell, it’s very popular.

Shoaa: If students feel upset about a particular book, they can choose to read a different one. But Ms. Weidner-Lasala says it takes away from the class experience and from participating in interesting group discussions and perspectives.

Amy: I think it opens their minds and lets them see that maybe like even what we think now is like not a big deal can be seen as a big deal to some people. And like how viewpoints and, change historically and how we open our minds and accept new things through literature.

Shoaa: A few years ago, the New York City Department of Education launched a new initiative called “Mosaic” to help expose students to diverse topics, including Black studies, Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies, and LGBTQ experiences.

The DOE sent more than FOUR MILLION books to diversify library shelves at schools across the city. The books found in the trash of the Staten Island school that we heard about earlier were part of Mosaic.

Amy: It’s supposed to show a mosaic of experiences, I guess. So a lot of the books have main characters or authors who are people of color, who are African-American, who are LGBT, you know that fit into sort of like a non-straight white man lens. So it allows students to see different perspectives and read different books that maybe wouldn’t fit in the traditional curriculum.

Shoaa: We asked Ms. Weidner-Lasala why she thinks some adults want to censor what students read.

Amy: I think a lot of times it comes out of fear and the fear of schools taking over values that maybe parents and the community don’t necessarily share, and that wanting to protect kids. I think it comes from a good place a lot of the time. But I think it’s often mis-done.

Shoaa: And how do students feel about the curriculum? Are they enjoying the class?

Drew: I’m Drew Mercado. I’m a sophomore and I currently take Banned Books 10. And I think this class is very interesting because it actually embraces what the government wants to be censored, and I think it’s a very unique experience and it’s a unique way of learning and honestly, I myself and I think the teacher also find the material really fun to learn. Honestly, this is probably one of the classes I look forward to the most. Not only because my friends are here, it’s because, yeah, what I’m going to learn next.

Shoaa: Tanvir also spoke to Tabassum Akter, a sophomore in the Banned Book class.

Tabassum: We read The Lord of the Flies, I think it was really interesting to learn about human nature because it’s something we discuss a lot in the class. It’s reflected in most of the texts that we’ve read, and we’ve done a lot of argumentative essays as well on the subject of morals. So I think something I’ve taken from my classes to always be a good person regardless of the situation.

Tanvir: Has there been anything special about this class compared to other English classes or other classes in general that you have taken?

Tabassum: It makes you think about the world more. Like you have to understand and connect to the world through the books you read. And I think Banned Books helps you do that because these books were books that you weren’t allowed to read at one point, and now we’re allowed to read it. And it’s important to know why they were banned and why they should be read.

Shoaa: So, should books be banned?

Tabassum: No, of course not, because any form of literature should be allowed to be read. Whether it’s bad literature or intense literature, we should be able to analyze it because it was created for a reason.

Shoaa: Books are incredibly important for sharing ideas and perspectives. Learning should include all kinds of viewpoints and stories, not just what people like or dislike. And this course puts these issues front and center, giving students the chance to decide for themselves what to take from these books. The class, according to the course description, “lends itself to complex and thought-provoking conversations about power, freedom, and social and cultural values.”

To me, this course provides something all students deserve: the freedom to explore and express ourselves fully.

Tanvir: Once again, that was Shoaa Khan for a piece we reported together at my high school, the Academy of American Studies.

Tanvir: That’s all for today, but before you go, here’s your extra credit assignment.

We want to hear from you. What’s your favorite book you read in school? It could be a banned book or not — just tell us the title, author, and what it taught you. Email your answers to psweekly@chalkbeat.org. We might give you a shout-out in a future episode.

And P.S. We’re back next Wednesday with an episode about special education, that you don’t want to miss.

Preview clip

Kaiya: I know it’s special education, but they look down on us, like there’s something wrong with us, or like we’re… disgusting.

Tanvir: Until then… class dismissed!

CREDITS:

Tanvir: PS Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation, The Summerfield Foundation, FJC, and Hindenburg Systems.

This episode was hosted by me, Tanvir Kaur.

Producers for this episode were: Salma Baksh, Shoaa Khan, and Me Tanvir Kaur, with reporting help from Chalkbeat reporters Alex Zimmerman and Mike Elsen Rooney.

Engineering support was provided by Christian Rojas-Linares

Our marketing lead this week was Marcellino Melika

Our executive producer for the show is JoAnn DeLuna

Executive editors include Amy Zimmer AND Taylor McGraw

Additional production and reporting support was provided by Sabrina DuQuesnay, Mira Gordon, and our friends at Chalkbeat.

Special thanks to our interns Miriam Galicia and Makenna Turner and all of our wonderful volunteer mentors.

Music from Blue Dot Sessions and the jingle you heard at the beginning of this episode was created by the one and only: Erica Huang

Thanks for tuning in! See you next time!

I am a veteran history teacher. Let me teach history.

2021-05-25T19:29:20+00:00

A couple of years ago, as I listened to a radio report about how North Carolina’s strict voter ID law “targets African Americans with almost surgical precision,” my eyes welled with tears. I wondered: Why do they hate us so much? Now the headlines in North Carolina, the state where I live and teach U.S. history, civics, and economics, read: “North Carolina House approves bill to limit teaching of race.” My reaction this time is different: This cannot and will not continue.

And it’s not just North Carolina. Lawmakers in states around the country are attempting to block the teaching of critical race theory, which looks at how racism continues to affect individuals and society. (One such bill was signed into law in Tennessee this week.)

Valencia Ann Abbott

I am a Black woman, and teaching my history — telling the truth about it — should not be controversial. Teaching historical facts in context should not merit a parent email that turns into a parent conference with the administration. An award-winning, vetted book should not be why calls are made to the district central office. Teachers are professionals, and while every lesson is not perfect, each teaching moment has the potential to challenge students, help them grow, and inspire their love of learning.

As a history teacher, a professional educator with years of experience in the classroom, my main job is to teach historical truths. Each year I attend so many professional development sessions that I sometimes don’t even turn in all of my continuing education credit certificates because I have surpassed the requirements for teacher recertification. In addition, I regularly connect with colleagues and organizations on social media to bring my students the most comprehensive and contemporary understanding of my content area. Finally, I often spend weekends at historical sites or walking trails while listening to the latest book talk on relevant topics. I do this so that I can be better, stronger, and know more for my students — and also because I have a passion for the study of history.

I come to my classroom prepared to teach, with hours of planning and research under my belt. Yet, after several recent incidents, I have left the classroom deflated, accused, and filled with anxiety. For example, one of my recent lessons about how the First Amendment protects the right to protest included an article about the Black Lives Matter movement that was met with criticism from a parent.

“They don’t do that in our home,” the parent told me.

Do what, I wondered. Learn about a current event that is gripping the country? Understand that that history is steeped in protest and civil rights are hard-won? See value in the lives of people of African descent? What do they think the American Revolution was, if not a big, old protest?

During the 2008 presidential election, I was teaching in Virginia. Soon after the media called the state of Virginia for Barack Obama, my youngest daughter sent me a text thanking me for living in the state that would give the country its first Black president. To me, that is my most precious memory of this historical moment.

During the 2020 election, I was teaching through a computer screen. I could see my students’ names, but that’s about it; their cameras were often off and their mics muted. To state the obvious, it wasn’t the ideal space to have organic political conversations with teenagers. But watching parades of trucks waving gigantic Confederate and Trump flags and seeing heinous postings on our social media platforms, I understood the polarization that continues to grip us and is making its way into my virtual and physical classroom.

This is not to say all of my efforts to teach “controversial” topics have been met with hostility. I had a 10th grade student tell me he was glad that I came to teach at her school because she had not learned about Black history until I got there. This student had spent over a decade in the public school system — and just now was having her first lessons that centered Black people. Not that it matters, but that student is white.

Another student sent me an email full of emotion after reading the book “Enrique’s Journey,” a true story about an undocumented immigrant family. It was the first time she had her culture reflected back to her in an educational setting, she wrote.

I hung a poster on the classroom wall of Harvey Milk, California’s first openly gay elected official, on the classroom wall, alongside images of Thomas Jefferson and the Constitution that I got from James Madison’s Montpelier. I did this because intentionally choosing to incorporate those underrepresented voices in the teaching of the curriculum is what an effective teacher does. Knowing that these voices matter to all students is what a caring teacher does.

The point is that none of this should be “controversial” to teach. My job is to teach historical truths, to help my students become critical readers and thinkers and skillful and persuasive writers. Revealing long-ignored history gives students a more comprehensive understanding of the past, which in turn gives us a deeper understanding of ourselves.

I make sure that my students’ identities are reflected in the lessons as I teach in civics and economics and American History I and II (which should be titled United States History I and II) so that my students understand the power that they hold in the world.

But the classroom has become a minefield of political dos and don’ts. Some educators have told me that there are now certain topics (truths!) that they will not touch or teach out of fear that it will put their jobs in jeopardy. Legislative attempts to block the teaching of critical race theory and The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project only raise the temperature. I am tired and mad that in the 21st century, I’m still fighting for people to see humanity in our Blackness, still forced to convince people in power that our stories are worthy of being taught.

Valencia Ann Abbott is the social studies department chair and a history teacher at Rockingham Early College High School in Wentworth, North Carolina. Abbott spearheads “The Civil Rights Movement Beyond 1968: Griggs vs. Duke Power Company” project, marking the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in a landmark employment discrimination case.

Student aggression against teachers spurs Colorado lawmakers to find solutions

2024-04-02T19:36:56+00:00

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Almost a third of Colorado teachers who took a recent teachers union survey said they had experienced physical abuse by a student in the past two years. A bill under consideration in the legislature aims to find solutions and stem teacher turnover.

“When I bring this bill up, every single person will then respond with, ‘Oh my gosh, this happened to my neighbor last week, this happened to my sister-in-law last week,’” State Rep. Meghan Lukens, a Steamboat Springs Democrat and former high school teacher, said during a hearing on the bill, of which she is co-sponsor.

“It’s crazy how many personal stories I’ve gotten from folks in the education space ever since I started talking more about this bill.”

House Bill 1320, which passed the House Education Committee March 18 a 7-4 vote, would create a task force to investigate those incidents and other topics, including the effects of special education staffing shortages and insufficient funding for student wraparound services. The task force would make recommendations for policy or law changes needed to improve teacher safety.

The same Colorado Education Association survey that spurred Lukens to co-sponsor the bill found that 58% of teachers who responded said they are considering leaving the profession in the near future, though the reasons varied. National surveys have found similar results.

But balancing teacher safety and student needs can be difficult, especially when a student’s trauma or disability is the reason for their behavior. Educators have said the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated mental and behavioral health issues for many students and worsened already unsustainable special education caseloads.

In testifying for the bill, Kevin Vick, the CEA vice president, told a story about a pregnant teacher who he said was kicked in the stomach by a high school student “hard enough to cause bruising, but fortunately not hard enough to endanger the child.”

The teacher quit that very same day, Vick said. When a long-term substitute teacher took over, the same student beat the substitute with a metal water bottle, he said.

“I don’t blame the student,” Vick told state lawmakers. “He had a condition that manifested that.”

Vick said a diverse task force is needed to come up with solutions to what is a complex problem. Others, including Brandon Smith, a social worker in 27J Schools in Brighton, agreed.

“For years, my coworkers and I were told that being assaulted in various ways was part of the job and we signed up for — and we should know what we were getting into,” said Smith.

He spoke of a first grade student he said “would flood sinks, destroy walls, furniture, take their clothes off, pee, throw feces, play with electric sockets, [and] punch and kick” staff members. District staff tried to get the student into a private program that could better meet his needs, but Smith said they encountered long wait lists and hesitancy about accepting the child.

Erin Kane, the superintendent of the Douglas County School District, the third-largest in the state, was the only district leader to testify. Speaking in favor of the bill, she ticked off specifics: In a district with 8,500 staff members, Douglas County schools had 313 workers compensation incidents last school year related to student aggression against a teacher.

Kane said the incidents usually mean a staff member had to see a doctor or go to the emergency room. So far this school year, Kane said the district has had 269 claims.

“We need help,” said Kallie Leyba, the president of the American Federation of Teachers Colorado, which represents teachers in Douglas County.

“The kids are not all right. And the educators are not all right.”

The four Republicans on the House Education Committee voted against the bill. Several Republican lawmakers said they agreed that aggression against teachers is a problem, but they disagreed that a task force would help.

“Why are we not taking action instead of just a study?” said Rep. Anthony Hartsook, a Parker Republican.

Republican lawmakers also expressed concern about an amendment that said the task force could not recommend policies that would increase student discipline or result in more students being referred to law enforcement. The amendment passed on a party-line vote.

“If a student is beating up teachers, then what is the task force supposed to do about that scenario? What is their policy supposed to be if it doesn’t include discipline?” asked Rep. Don Wilson, a Monument Republican.

“Those solutions are going to be coming from our group of experts,” answered Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, a Glenwood Springs Democrat and one of the sponsors of the bill.

Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat, said her yes vote doesn’t mean that students shouldn’t be disciplined or even charged criminally, but represents the hope that the task force can come up with solutions that get at the root causes of unsafe behavior.

“We need right now to think of something different,” Bacon said.

The bill says the task force would be made up of:

The director of the state Office of School Safety.
Three teachers at district-run schools, representing urban, suburban, and rural districts.
Two school administrators employed at district-run schools.
One school leader or administrator of a charter school.
One charter school teacher.
Two education support professionals, including one who works with English learners.
One school support professional, such as a school psychologist or social worker, who understands neurological and developmental disorders such as autism.
A representative of an organization that works with low-income families in a school district where most students identify as students of color.
A representative of an organization that works with students with disabilities.
A student representing a community that is disproportionately impacted by school discipline.
A person who works for a nonprofit organization focused on school safety and training.
A certified restorative justice professional experienced in community-based juvenile restorative justice, which focuses on repairing harm rather than punishment.

The task force would meet at least four times this year and three times next year to come up with a final report and recommendations by June 30, 2025, the bill says.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Out of the classroom, I feel less jaded but also less joy

2022-12-07T13:00:00+00:00

One teacher quit because they were tired, another for a salary that made their jaw drop when they saw it, and another still to work on an organic farm.

Last year at the high school where I worked, roughly a dozen teachers left between the beginning of August and the end of the school year. Their reasons for leaving were varied; they were also consistent. They were anxious from hard lockdowns, worn out by extra duties, stressed about student data, and worried for their students. Teaching gave them skills that someone else would pay for. It didn’t have to be this hard.

Kate Essig

I am now among them — writing from a place where you don’t have to send an all-staff email to take a bathroom break. I stopped teaching 11th grade English to start a doctoral program in Education in the fall. Now, when people ask me what I’ll do with my degree, I mutter something about research and then confess that I still want to teach.

So why does the classroom beckon? My husband is good company when I work from home, but he doesn’t shimmy through the door with a goofy hello the way my students used to do. Microwaving leftovers is lonely without a colleague to conspire with, and nobody’s practicing TikTok dances in my own hallway. Sure, I can take a midday phone call like I never could while teaching “The Great Gatsby,” but I’m not as present, intellectually engaged, as I was in those lessons either. I have the confidence of knowing my to-do list is surmountable without the challenge of knowing I can never master my craft. I sit more. I laugh less. I check emails during the time I used to check in with people.

Out of the classroom, I am much less jaded, but I also experience much less joy. The author Annie Dillard once wrote that the world is full of “unwrapped gifts and free surprises,” like “pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.” When you teach, those mundane miracles are as dense as the door at dismissal. A student brings you the beginnings of a sci-fi novel they’ve written in their notebook, while two others share sour punch straws that still taste good at 9 a.m., and you remember that, even in a time of increased isolation, schools are places where community happens whether we’re paying attention or not.

I pause when appeals to would-be teachers rely on sentiment without systems of support.

During a particularly challenging moment in the 2020-21 school year, I asked a senior who worked on the school newspaper what he wanted to write about. We were meeting on Zoom, and in the silence before he unmuted I predicted he’d say politics, the pandemic, or punitive discipline policies. “I want to write about how much we — students — care for each other,” he said. “No one really talks about that.”

I want to talk about that.

Still, I pause when appeals to would-be teachers rely on sentiment without systems of support. We know the meaning teachers have. What we don’t always know is whether or not our profession will treat us like professionals. And as states and districts consider bold measures to combat teacher shortages, I think some of us would come back for things that don’t feel radical. A wage commensurate with hours, education, and experience. The ability to schedule doctors’ appointments without docked pay or added guilt. Decision-making processes that feature teacher input, where their perspectives hold the significance their experience has earned.

My decision to leave the classroom came after my two teacher role models chose to leave their schools. These were the kind of people you want teaching your children: smart, caring, creative, and devoted to their craft. Neither of them looked for reasons to leave but both of them found them. The problems they faced weren’t personal but systemic. I followed them out of the classroom, hoping in grad school I’d learn more about why those systems exist and how much they can change. I don’t know how they change, but I’m keeping my resume updated, just in case.

Now, when I hear teacher friends talk about their schools I listen like a thief. Are they valued? What’s their principal like? Do they have a stipend for professional development or access to an in-school sub? Some of them have found places where they feel less jaded and more joy. They exist! I wish there were more of them, for teachers and students, too. I’d trade in unlimited bathroom breaks to teach well and be well.

Kate Essig used to teach in Brooklyn and now lives in St. Louis.

As school gets back to normal, things are better — and worse

2022-12-20T12:00:00+00:00

“Things are better this year, right?” I am asked again and again. The short answer, from this high school administrator, is yes and no, depending on which aspect we choose to focus on.

On the surface, things are mostly back to normal. We’re not in masks or tracking COVID cases or on a hybrid learning schedule. We’re having assemblies, sporting events, band concerts, and school dances. Hallway shenanigans are back. We had a senior prank last year. A couple of boys rounded up some local ducks and let them loose in the main hall.

I wasn’t even annoyed. It was nice to have the pranks back.

Brandon McCoy

This school year, I haven’t taken a single angry phone call from a parent about COVID restrictions (too loose or too rigid) and haven’t sat on a committee to determine the safest way to keep schools open. I haven’t heard the phrase, “We’re building the airplane in the air,” in many months. These are all victories in my mind and indications that the worst is behind us.

There are, however, some unfortunate realities that are far more prevalent now in a post-COVID high school world. The two primary culprits I see regularly are student apathy and a lack of perseverance. When students learned in a virtual setting, either fully or partially, the “school muscles” that they had been developing since kindergarten, didn’t get much exercise. The routine — one that so many students relied on to thrive — was broken.

I found that the kids who learned online only during the 2020-21 school year struggled the most with readjustment to campus life. Learning largely in isolation, some overwhelmed students fell behind; some gave up on their studies altogether. We are now trying desperately to catch them up academically, but we are starting to have difficult conversations with families about graduation being a semester or year later than expected for some learners.

We are also reminding our students how to exercise those “school muscles.” But apathy, which shows up mostly in the form of school days missed and assignments not completed, can be difficult to counteract. The overriding sentiment seems to be, “Why does any of this matter?” It’s especially prevalent among underclassmen, who were in middle school during the height of COVID learning. As such, they missed some vital developmental skills — grit, time management, self-advocacy, social communication, and even just how to handle their bodies — that the middle school experience provides.

The overriding sentiment seems to be, ‘Why does any of this matter?’

Juniors and seniors seem to have adjusted better. Juniors, after all, had made it through most of eighth grade, and seniors were already high school freshmen by the time schools shut down in March 2020. They are missing fewer pieces in the “this is how we do school” toolbox. The older kids also seem wiser than in years past. They’ve been through a lot.

We are, of course, experiencing our share of low lows this semester. We’ve seen students facing severe mental health crises, including those too anxious to come to school and those who have run away from home. We are hearing from parents struggling with how to help their children. Through a partnership with a local organization, we are offering free, on-campus therapy for students. And our days as administrators are booked solid with students who are still relearning how to “do” school.

Through it all, though, our teachers continue to show up with compassion and tenacity. But unlike in the spring of 2020, when parents — trying in vain to guide their students through virtual learning — heaped praise upon them, educators today are working under a dark cloud. Recent years have brought loud outside voices weighing in on everything from how we teach about race and gender to which books are in the school library.

There is more trepidation in teaching today than I have seen in my 15 years as an educator. But there is resolve, too. We went through COVID. We can do this.

As for the ubiquitous questions about whether things are better this year: On a day-to-day basis, they really do feel better. COVID took away social interactions and ate away at our school culture. We’ve reclaimed that culture; we’re in the process of catching students up on the academics they missed, all the while sharpening the school skills they need to be successful. There are victories each day.

Dr. Brandon McCoy is a high school administrator in Kansas City, Missouri, where he lives with his wife and three children. He writes about life, and public education at The Worst Kids Always Become Principals.

My first year teaching was demoralizing. It led me to my dream job.

2022-12-22T17:45:00+00:00

In March 2018, two months before graduating from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, I was recruited and hired to teach in a small city outside of Charlotte. I was beyond psyched that my dream of becoming a middle school teacher was finally within reach. I had plans for engaging my students in meaningful and developmentally responsive lessons. I imagined learning and sharing among supportive colleagues.

But by October, two months into my first year as a sixth grade ELA and social studies teacher, my excitement had morphed into disappointment. I was not included in planning meetings, beginning teacher conferences, or any other professional development opportunities. I should familiarize myself with the materials they gave me, school leaders told me.

Eric Gaestel

The expectation was that I reverse-engineer my lessons from the piles of worksheets and graphic organizers left on my desk each week. Many first-year teachers struggle with classroom management, and I was no exception. Teaching on the fly, which isn’t at all my style, made things worse. I felt anxious walking into the building each day.

After speaking with administrators to no avail, I decided to ride out the year as best I could, building meaningful relationships with my students, some of whom struggled daily with behavior at school. I listened as they told me about challenging situations at home. I wanted them to know that I cared and would advocate for them.

Through it all, I never doubted that I wanted to teach; I just knew that I needed to find a school that was a better fit. So in January, I quietly began looking for a teaching position for the following fall.

I realized then, as I do now, that while my first-year experience was disappointing, it was not a total loss. I started to think of it as a “Beginning Teacher Playbook” of sorts. I was now armed with interview questions about teacher mentorship, professional learning community expectations, and how I would be expected to contribute to my new teaching team. I understood what I needed from my next school and what I desperately had to avoid.

In June of that year, I attended a jobs fair in the Charlotte Mecklenburg district, where I met a McClintock Middle School principal. He told me about his expectations and listened. I expressed what I needed to be a successful teacher — all without speaking ill of my first school. A new partnership was forged that day, and I was offered a job teaching eighth grade ELA on the spot.

I felt anxious walking into the building each day.

On my first day there, I was assigned a mentor teacher, Mr. Jenkins, who observed my classes and provided specific and meaningful feedback. He helped shape my classroom management, teaching me to be fair, firm, and consistent. I still have a Google Drive folder named “Mentorship” filled with complete lessons, assessments, and other materials that I use to this day.

Now in my fourth year at McClintock, I am the chair of our school’s Faculty Advisory Committee and serve on multiple other committees, too. This year, one of our administrators approached me about being a teacher mentor. It truly warmed my heart — now I can offer up the support I so badly needed back in 2018. My mentee and I meet daily, so she can talk through her day and ask me any questions that she has. In the new year, we will be observing each other’s classes.

During my first meeting with my mentee this fall, I shared that “Mentorship” folder, happily passing along what my own mentor shared with me more than three years ago.

At McClintock, I have found the school I dreamed of during college, and I worried I’d never find that first year in the classroom. I can’t imagine ever leaving.

Eric J. Gaestel is an English Language Arts teacher at McClintock Middle School in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Capitol insurrection changed how I teach about American democracy

2023-01-05T12:00:00+00:00

Late in the evening of March 3, 1801, just after signing the last of the judicial appointments of loyal Federalists to an expanded federal judiciary, President John Adams wrote out another order. He suspended habeas corpus. He ordered the small U.S. Army detachment in the new capital city, Washington, D.C., to establish a cordon around the U.S, Capitol, where the next day’s inauguration was to take place.

Richard Schwartz

He issued a warrant for the arrest of leading Republicans, including James Madison, Aaron Burr, and President-Elect, Thomas Jefferson. Federal marshals arrested each man for violating the Sedition Act. Adams’ order explained that the threat from the Jeffersonian Republicans to the United States was severe, and he could not in good conscience honor the election results, such was his devotion to the nation. So Adams canceled the results of the Electoral College and blocked the first peaceful exchange of power in U.S. history.

Up through 2020, I annually narrated the above story on a winter’s day in my chilly Jersey classroom. And my high-achieving, eager-to-please 10th graders bent over their notebooks, scribbling down every word. But each year a small handful not only wouldn’t write this down. They would look back at me with a sort of smirk that suggested they were in on the ruse. I’d smile tightly and continue telling the story.

It ended, after a pause, when I would say, “Of course, none of this happened.” The students who had been dutifully taking notes slammed down pens, squawked, and stared at me stunned. You lied to us!

I would explain to them that Adams didn’t like the results. But instead of getting in the way of a peaceful transfer of power, he left town, unwilling to watch Jefferson’s swearing-in.

And I would say, “Of course, Adams gave way to Jefferson. This is the United States, right?”

Then I’d explain that, actually, it’s not just because we’re the USA. It’s chiefly because John Adams chose to do the right thing and follow the U.S. Constitution. And we’d then write down in our notebooks (for real) this: Adams’s ceding of the presidency to the electoral victor, Thomas Jefferson, constituted the first peaceful exchange of power in United States history. And every other president followed Adams’ precedent.

I would always add, “There are nations in our world today that still have not figured out how to do this.”

January 6, 2021, did many things, some of which we’re still discovering, but it absolutely torpedoed this lesson. The tale that I wove each year around Adams’ refusal to recognize the legitimate presidential election results, sad to say, no longer appears that outlandish.

‘Of course, Adams gave way to Jefferson. This is the United States, right?’

The conundrum for a public high school social studies teacher teaching about the January 6 insurrection is not to sacrifice one’s credibility while also not pushing one’s own political beliefs on students.

My approach before I retired last year allowed students to speak up as freely as they wanted under the terms of a classroom compact (agreed to by one and all) while pointing out that much of what happened that January day was not “normal” to American democracy.

I had an advantage that other teachers trying to thread this needle may not have. I enjoyed the support of colleagues, administrators, students, and parents. You may be a high school teacher working in a less generous environment — one in which local and state politicians have trained their sights on teaching history. You have my thanks and deserve the thanks of all our fellow citizens for your dogged, noble work on behalf of American democracy.

Two years on, I still worry as a citizen about many things relating to then-President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the election he lost — and the deadly attack by many of his supporters on the U.S. Capitol. But from a teaching standpoint, I worry for our students. Born in the mid-2000s, they’ve come of age in a nation that witnessed a violent attempt to overthrow an election. When in the future a charismatic leader scornful of norms and contemptuous of constitutional democracy rises to power, from the right or the left, will our students view that January 6 invasion as somehow “normal,” a legitimate precedent?

They won’t, at least not if we do our job as social studies teachers. That starts with defining for them what democracy means and does not mean at the very outset of any course in American history or government. And let’s drive our students just a little crazy by regularly asking them to cite and analyze evidence of the relative health of American democracy, both at specific points in history and today.

Let’s enthusiastically reinforce the lasting value of the actions of wildly diverse Americans across time who strengthened “government of the people, by the people, for the people” — and hold up for scrutiny those who sought to thwart that cause.

Richard Schwartz taught social studies at Whippany Park High School in Whippany, New Jersey, for 43 years before retiring in June 2022. He is the author of “The Prairies on Fire: Lincoln Debates Douglas, 1858.”

I am a Black female educator. In 2023, I need boundaries and intentions — not goals.

2023-01-05T14:00:00+00:00

I am not the only one, I suspect, who is anxious about going back to teaching after the holiday break. Over the past few days, I have read two books, spent quality time with my son, reconnected with friends, and worked out.

During the break, I was not stressed about any of the following: students being on their cell phones, having my lesson plan printed by 8:30 a.m., an inappropriate statement that one student made to another that might cause violence, getting caught up with grading. And on and on it goes.

Abigail Henry

These stressors could cause anxiety for any teacher. Yet, as a Black female educator teaching Black children in West Philadelphia, I have an additional demand of being perceived and judged over student achievement and compliance. That’s because other educators may assume that Black women instantly know how to give “tough love” or, even worse, will automatically be authoritarian. Such misjudgments and biases place additional pressure on Black teachers.

So about that anxiety — what am I going to do differently in 2023, even if this might be my last year in the classroom? Well, I am going to set some intentions.

I had this wonderful conversation with my best friend over the break about the new year. She said she set some intentions for 2023, and then we had a good laugh about the difference between a goal and an intention. Our agreed-upon definition was that an intention is something you have to engage with cognitively and be mindful of; a goal, by contrast, is some achievement received or fulfilled by a certain date. I like this distinction because as I set both professional and personal intentions for the new year, they seem more about my humanity and well-being each day, rather than some hoped-for finish line.

These are my intentions — things I will NOT do when I return to my classroom this week:

I will not do work around my son during the limited time I get with him after work.
I will not read/grade every single word/sentence of 120 student essays.
I will not respond to students’ or parents’ texts after 6 p.m. until the next day.
I will not let students not “getting” something in class mean that I (and my lesson plans) have completely failed.
I will not let the noise around Critical Race Theory distract me from teaching Black history.
I will not compare myself to other teachers, especially to other Black educators.

These are my intentions — things I WILL do when I return to my classroom:

I will continue to teach about institutional racism, colorism, and white privilege; I will seek Black liberation for my students.
I will meditate during my prep time if I feel triggered by a student earlier that day.
I will do school work at 6 a.m. for 45 minutes, so I can have the after-work time with my son.
I will continue to let my students know how much I love them.
I will schedule one specific time on Thursday to catch up on grading and contacting parents.
I will continue to bring Black joy to my Black students.
I will print out these two intentions lists and put them on my classroom desk.

What I love about what I just did is that I set boundaries for myself. What is interesting to me, too, is that none of what I listed above has to do with physical fitness. Yet I know the above intentions will allow me to get in a workout and eat healthier so I can meet fitness goals (not intentions) as well.

Now, will my lists solve all the challenges I am going to face at work? Absolutely not. Just like many other educators, I am exhausted. I frequently question the sustainability of teaching full-time in a classroom, and yet I know just by showing up every day, I am providing consistency for my students. I am optimistic that these intentions will help me survive the rest of the school year.

A version of this essay first appeared in Philly’s 7th Ward. It is republished with permission.

Abigail Henry has been teaching African-American History at Mastery Charter Shoemaker Campus for the past 11 years, and she is the Content Lead for the network. Last year, Abigail won a Pulitzer Center Grant to incorporate the 1619 Project into curriculum. This past summer, she worked as an adjunct professor for St. Michael’s College, where she developed the course “African American History for Teachers,” Henry has also provided African-American History consulting for Villanova University, PBS, and the Trellis Foundation.

How teachers can harness ChatGPT for good

2023-01-06T19:15:00+00:00

They say that it will kill the college essay. Some people think it’s a threat to education itself.

I don’t. I’m excited.

This potential school-slayer is ChatGPT, a new Artificial Intelligence interface that displays remarkable prowess. It can write novel poetry, compare literary characters, and evaluate arguments. Google has a similar program, not public yet, that’s apparently even better.

AI has arrived, and I’m watching educators wrestle with the ramifications of this revolution.

It has me thinking back to my childhood. Whenever I got fidgety, my mom would give me a calculator to play with. No rules, no directions — just me, a handful of buttons, and the chance to explore. It was heaven.

Ben Talsma

Back then, elementary teachers were in agreement: calculators were cheating. Kids needed to know their math facts, for goodness’ sake, and if they just asked the calculator all the time, they’d never learn.

But I did learn them and learned them well. I looked for patterns, made predictions, and constructed my own understanding. When I learned math in class, I had deep prior knowledge. I was always the best mathematician in my class, won statewide math competitions, and use math voraciously in my work and life today.

It all started with a piece of technology — the same tool that millions of teachers felt was cheating.

That feeling was perfectly normal. Every time a transformative technology comes along, we’re skeptical. Socrates worried that widespread literacy would make our species degenerate and forgetful. Spell check was considered cheating for years because people “ought” to know how to spell without assistance.

It’s human nature: When technology renders previously important skills obsolete, we feel offended.

ChatGPT inspires a similar fear in many educators, I know. So many students lack foundational writing skills, and teachers spend their time trying to fill those gaps — and to make writing joyful, too. I see how this program could seem to undermine those objectives, offering students a way around assignments meant to help them develop as writers and thinkers.

And yet.

I’m convinced that if we let our concerns — however legitimate — overtake our thinking on this topic, we ignore the history of technology and the possibilities offered by AI. Humanity benefits when we allow people to use whatever we can to learn. And students benefit from experimenting with technology in school settings and being able to discuss its use with their teachers. Banning something just increases the likelihood that students will use it in ways that don’t help them learn.

As a learning specialist, my job involves working with teachers and technology, so I’ve already seen many put ChatGPT to use, from kindergarten through high school. AI can help teachers model the concepts they want students to understand. This works for all sorts of things, from comparing and contrasting different characters to telling the difference between complete and incomplete sentences. Teachers can, in a matter of minutes, create dozens of examples for students to rate, rank, sort, or comment on.

This is a wonderful, inquiry-oriented way to explore ideas. As humans, we learn so much from observing and interacting with examples, and now teachers have an almost infinite supply of them readily available.

We must also prepare students for the world they’ll inherit. In the next few years, it will become increasingly important for humans to edit AI-generated work. Right now, I’m seeing teachers provide students with samples of AI-generated work, then working with them to improve it. This is an engaging way to open up deep conversations about writing.

ChatGPT often makes factual errors; having students fact-check ChatGPT’s writing is a wonderful way to improve information literacy. A fifth-grade teacher I’m working with recently provided small groups of students with AI-generated content and reported that they loved working to try to prove the articles wrong.

I’ve also seen teachers using ChatGPT to provide a first round of feedback on students’ work. Teachers can simply ask students to input their work into ChatGPT and ask it to provide feedback for improvement — the results are surprisingly good. Don’t believe me? Check out its analysis of this article. When teachers let AI provide preliminary feedback, it takes something off their plates and allows them to engage in higher-level conversations later in the process.

There is still value in having students learn to compose their own five-paragraph essays — just as there is value in teaching students their multiplication facts, even when they will always have access to a calculator.

But AI can allow students to do things that they previously couldn’t. Making use of AI might feel scary or strange; useful innovations always do. By understanding the power and possibility of AI, however, we can help students use their powers for good.

Oh, one last thing: ChatGPT can draft lesson plans. That alone ought to pique your curiosity.

Ben Talsma is a Learning Solution Specialist for Van Andel Institute for Education, a Michigan-based education nonprofit dedicated to creating classrooms where curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking thrive.

I recruit future teachers. I’m not always sure I’m doing the right thing.

2023-01-17T20:15:41+00:00

I recently read an essay in Chalkbeat written by Jasmine Lane, a former Teaching Fellow for the organization I recruit for. In it, she relates her personal experience entering the teaching profession in the U.S., from the financial challenges of student teaching to being treated as an outsider as a Black teacher at her first school. Eventually, she leaves to teach in another country.

Lane put a spotlight on the frustrations I hear from many teachers leaving the job. Her words brought up issues I wrestle with every day.

I am the national director of recruiting for Breakthrough Collaborative, now in my fifth year of recruiting college students for our summer program. For many, our program is their first step toward becoming a full-time teacher, and I recruit prospective Fellows with equal parts conviction and inner conflict, concern, and hope.

My conviction comes from piles of research showing that students are uniquely inspired when they see themselves in their teacher. For that reason, Breakthrough intentionally seeks to build its summer program with highly diverse teaching staff. More than two-thirds of the college students who participate in Breakthrough’s Teaching Fellowship are students of color.

But my conflict and concern come from other things we know are true about teaching.

One is the sad reality that, for college students, there is greater potential for economic mobility in choosing a profession other than teaching. I hear many say they are in college to break the cycle of poverty. Oftentimes, this climb is not only a personal endeavor but a collective one as well, with communities back home invested in their success.

Another is that our public school teachers do not reflect the racial diversity of public school students in the U.S., and schools are often unwelcoming places for teachers of color.

Am I asking Black and Latinx students to perpetuate the wealth gap? Am I setting college students of color up to find themselves in schools where they are unable to make a difference? As a white man, I struggle at times with the reality of my work.

This isn’t to inflate my role. Obviously, the capable students who join Breakthrough have agency as individuals to determine the best pathway to their goals. But every day, I am very aware of the tradeoffs in what I am asking of those with whom I engage.

I know I’m not the only one struggling with this dilemma. I am not sure, however, that we are talking about it nearly as much as we should.

Anything less than navigating a complicated “now and for the future” leaves people behind in a way that I can’t in good conscience be OK with.

Lane, for example, is exactly whom we aim to bring into teaching. Yet, she writes that it was unsustainable for her to make the impact she wanted. As we recruit more teachers of color, we must acknowledge and respond to the environment they will face: one, as she states, where teachers of color must “break down barriers of resentment” the American school system has created over hundreds of years.

How do we do that? I think it involves acknowledging two realities: There are fundamental issues with the teaching profession that require deconstructing old systems and building new ones over many years. There are also issues that can be addressed now, by doing things like making the pathway to becoming a teacher more supportive and financially sustainable. Anything less than navigating a complicated “now and for the future” leaves people behind in a way that I can’t in good conscience be OK with.

Lane’s essay shows why we cannot fix our education system simply by adding more teachers of color. A million more Lanes can’t be the answer unless they are allowed to contribute to change and have opportunities to lead.

So we must be intentional about naming and removing the barriers, including inhospitable school environments, that prevent teachers of color from thriving. And we must continue to recruit, train, and prepare them, without letting the fact that it’s not the whole answer prevent the meaningful gains that we can make now.

There is no perfect solution. As my dad used to say, “I prefer the way I’m doing it wrong more than the way you’re not doing it at all.”

Am I going to keep looking for opportunities to change the system? Of course I am. Do I hope for deeper change that would allow someone like Lane to thrive in our classrooms? Of course I do.

Jonathan Appleby is a national college recruiter focused on diversifying and strengthening the teacher pipeline in America. He lives in San Francisco and finds joy in exploring the surrounding coastline with his wife and two teenage sons.

I was once a struggling math student. Now I teach the subject that terrified me.

2023-03-14T12:00:00+00:00

It’s Friday, and I slide into my seat. I look up and feel the nervousness trickling in. I hear our fifth grade teacher tell the class we are about to take our weekly math test. She says not to worry about it. If we practiced our problems at home, we should be fine.

“Yeah, right,” I thought. “I’m sure this will be easy.”

Braxton Hall

All I can think about are the literal tears that covered my homework paper from the nights before. I take some deep breaths and tell myself, “It’s only 10 questions. How hard can it be?” Then I hear the teacher passing out the papers. Each time a paper flutters and lands on a desk near me, it sounds to me like glass shattering. When a blank test arrives on my desk, panic overwhelms me. Everything seems like a blur as I rush to finish.

But as I hand my paper to the teacher, I feel surprisingly good — maybe it’s because the test is over, and maybe (just maybe) it’s because I got a grade I could be proud of. Before the end of the day, though, she hands back the tests. “I thought you would have tried harder after last time,” she tells me. I look down. Another C.

Growing up, math was a struggle and filled me with anxiety. Only thanks to a dedicated teacher who worked with me the summer between elementary and middle school did I gain the foundational knowledge I needed to move forward. From then on, math felt more or less tolerable. Never thrilling. By the end of high school, I vowed never to take another math class if I could help it.

So you might be surprised to hear that I am now an elementary school math specialist who, with the help of encouraging college professors, learned to love math and went on to earn a graduate degree in math education.

Today, I spend my days helping children embrace the subject that long filled me with dread. It’s meaningful and even joyful. Because who better to demystify this often-feared subject than someone who knows first-hand what math anxiety feels like — and also what it feels like to be on the other side of it? That’s me.

I emphasize flexibility by slowing down and backing up, as needed, and by giving students multiple ways to show me they have mastered a concept.

I often think about why so many students find math scary, and I think it has something to do with how we teach students to “plug and chug” numbers without developing the critical thinking skills needed for math reasoning. That’s why my goal is to teach math as a way of thinking, not a system of algorithms.

Two simple ideas guide my lessons: “make the content attainable for students” and “teach students to look at math as something they will always work on” — rather than something they will learn and move on from.

Attainability means I emphasize flexibility by slowing down and backing up, as needed, and by giving students multiple ways to show me they have mastered a concept. It means not grading solely on a right or wrong answer but taking process into account. It means determining where each student is in their math journey and developing a plan for where they need to go. This can be done through vetted assessments, reviewing the results, and working with students to set attainable goals.

Fostering a growth mindset is important no matter the subject. But it’s especially important among students who have internalized the message that math is not something they are good at or even capable of doing. I remind them that math is a skill you never stop learning and perfecting. There will always be something you haven’t yet mastered, and that’s OK. It’s also OK to struggle along the way. We, math teachers, must show our students that it’s not the end of the world if a problem needs to be corrected; it’s an opportunity to learn and grow.

I think it helps that I talk openly about my own math journey. I tell them when we are working on content that used to be a huge struggle for me and recall my past mistakes. They know that I was once where they are now, and now I am teaching them the very subject that once filled me with self-doubt. I model math perseverance.

Braxton Hall has been an elementary school special education teacher for the past six years. As an educator and coach in Kentucky, he works to instill a growth mindset in all of his students — teaching them to face challenges head-on and develop a love for learning new skills.

The other thing locked classroom doors keep out

2023-02-08T13:00:00+00:00

At the beginning of this school year, the Maryland school district where I teach imposed a new regulation: All classroom doors are to be locked when students are in the building. Of course, we’ve had exterior doors locked and a strict visitor check-in policy for most of the 20-plus years I’ve been teaching at this high school.

The new mandate grew out of the recommendations of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, which reported, “There has never been an event in which an active shooter breached a locked classroom door.” I’m all for protecting our students and staff and am well-versed in the debates over locking mechanisms and who should be deputized to open a locked door when someone knocks. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about the policy’s effect on our school culture.

Jamey Melcher

We’re well into the school year now, and teachers areteaching, students are engaged, and classrooms are full of lively activity. But the hallways are now wonderful places for teenagers to disengage, stare at their phones, or roam around unnoticed. Exactly what we have been working so hard to combat in our post-pandemic school communities. Classroom activities and discussions that used to filter into the hallways and even draw passersby into them, now seem to exist within their own bubbles, and the overall feeling of community has decreased dramatically.

It’s easy to blame attendance policies or school administrators for not disciplining students when they skip class. But the blame game or heavier disciplinary consequences don’t really address the culture of isolation that we are now getting used to. As teachers, we see that students are more withdrawn when we deliver our lessons only on screens or otherwise overuse technology. Now, we’ve created a physical environment that also separates and isolates young people.

Until this year, students in my English classes would use the hallway as a practice and staging area when rehearsing their assigned scenes from “Macbeth” or “Antigone.” On performance day, they would grandly enter the classroom in their ridiculous paper crowns, fake beards, and other items from the prop box.

And I miss hearing students in the physics class across the hall propel race cars down the corridor or stretch giant springs and measure the force or torque or whatever it is they used to do out there. The French class students who would sit on the floor in small groups, spreading out into the hallway so they could work on conversational skills, are also gone now.

Open classroom doors fostered inclusion and unity within our diverse high school.

I miss hearing students in the physics class across the hall propel race cars down the corridor.

By locking our school’s interior doors, are we overreacting to the dangerous world around us? I think we probably are. I’m afraid that we’re also unwittingly contributing to the pervasive decline in interpersonal skills among our teenagers. We didn’t really understand the emotional and social damage caused by moving schools online for an extended period of time until we returned to in-person learning. In a similar way, I fear that our attempts to keep students safe by creating a lockdown atmosphere in schools every day is also damaging the social and emotional growth of many students.

Is the solution to be carefree and ignore the lessons of the tragic events that have occurred and continue to bring us to tears each time they happen? No. But we do need to react with a measured response. We haven’t stopped going to malls, restaurants, or concerts because fatal shootings have happened in those places. We continue to engage with each other because we need places that bring us together and create community; our students need that even more than we do.

Jamey Melcher is currently a Work Based Learning Coordinator and a former English teacher for Frederick County Public Schools in Maryland. She has been teaching and learning from her high school students for 26 years.

Dear teachers: As a future educator, I have one request

2023-02-13T13:00:00+00:00

Dear teachers,

I have been reading your Facebook posts laced with struggle and sorrow. My TikTok feed is filled with explanations for why you have chosen to leave the classroom — issues such as a lack of administrator support, burnout, and difficulties with the students in your classrooms. The last few years were draining, and I’m sorry for what you’ve endured. My mother always told me that it’s difficult to love and care for others when you don’t receive the love and care that you need.

I know your jobs have expanded far beyond teaching. Counselor, caretaker, advocate — your list of duties only seems to grow with time. No matter how much you give, or how little you’re paid, our society always seems to want more. I want you to know that your blood, sweat, and tears don’t go unnoticed.

As a college student working toward my teacher certification, I’ve closely followed your struggles, especially during the pandemic. But I have to admit that the constant news about teacher burnout is weighing heavily on me.

Hadley Hicklin

I’m full of hope for my future career. My parents work in education, and many of my role models were teachers. I didn’t choose this path for the money or the fame, but because I want to impact the next generation. Last semester, I got the chance to lead a few lessons with 10th graders at a local high school. Their joy about everything from their book choices to learning about argumentative writing techniques was tangible, and it gave me excitement for the possibilities of my future classroom.

But even as I look forward to a future in teaching, I am constantly exposed to overworked and overwhelmed educators. There is validity in both stories of struggle and success, but I fear I am losing hope. So, with apologies, I am about to ask you to put yet another item on your to-do list.

As you share your struggles, I wonder if you could also share the differences you are making in students’ lives.

As you share your struggles, I wonder if you could also share the differences you are making in students’ lives. I’m not asking for toxic positivity. I’m asking you to open up about the truly happy moments that make your time in the field worthwhile. I would love to see the letters of praise from your students, the projects being completed in your classroom, and instances where you see the direct impact of your influence. My teachers impacted me on a daily basis with their wisdom and encouragement. I could use a reminder that such relationships are still possible.

I am planning to graduate next year, and I often question if I have the ability to provide the help that my future students may need. Sometimes I wonder if I am naive to think I can make a difference; I am not alone. Conversations with my peers studying education often revolve around the same subjects: teacher burnout, mental health struggles, staffing shortages, and growing academic gaps. We know the profession can be difficult, and we question whether we have the capacity for change that we once believed we did.

Teachers, your work and advocacy for students and their needs has carved out a pathway for the next generation of teachers, and I appreciate it. I’m just asking you to remember how you felt when you first became a teacher. And then, think of me and my future colleagues.

Sincerely,

A future educator

Hadley Hicklin is a student at Missouri Southern State University, where she is pursuing a bachelor of science in education, English 9-12. She is a senior this semester and is looking forward to student teaching in the fall. Hadley credits her choice of becoming a teacher to all of the amazing educators she has been influenced by, including her parents.

How ChatGPT made my lessons more engaging

2023-02-16T12:00:00+00:00

Much of the education narrative around ChatGPT has focused on the potential downsides of the AI tool (think Skynet from “The Terminator”). But as a high school teacher who has experimented with the sophisticated word predictor app in my economics, U.S. History, and speech and debate classes, I’ve found that ChatGPT provides opportunities to engage the students in class activities. Here’s how I’ve harnessed a tool that is here to stay (no matter how many school districts try to block it).

Spencer Burrows

I welcomed our first “speaker,” ChatGPT.

Our student learning is anchored around Harkness discussions, an educational approach in which students discuss class readings, course material, and other texts. Students learn how to prepare for a discussion, have difficult conversations, understand different perspectives, and meaningfully participate. While many students grasp the notion of voicing their ideas, teaching them to build upon another student’s point is more difficult.

In Economics, we spent one class analyzing the dot-com bubble at the turn of the millennium. To prepare, I asked ChatGPT what caused the bubble, and here was the response:

“The dot-com bubble was caused by a combination of factors, including:

Irrational exuberance: Investors were overly optimistic about the potential of internet-based companies, leading to a huge influx of investment capital.
Overvaluation of tech startups: Startups with no revenue or profits were valued at extremely high prices, leading to a bubble.
Lack of regulation: The SEC failed to adjust its regulations to the new realities of the internet and the stock market.
Hype around internet technology: There was a lot of hype around the potential of the internet, which fueled the bubble.
These factors combined to create the Dot-com Bubble, which burst in 2000-2001 causing many internet-based companies to fail, leading to a significant loss of investment capital.”

In class, I asked the students to respond to or build upon the ChatGPT answer in 2-4 sentences. Next, the students considered what facts or context would make the ChatGPT response more accurate or complete. Then, the students created three Harkness questions based on the ChatGPT response: a clarifying question, a curiosity question, and a probing question.

Student questions included: How could the government help prevent a future dot-com bubble? What are the measurements that determine whether the stock price of a company matches its value? How would an investor utilize bubbles to increase the value of their investment before leaving when the going is good?

Finally, I input the student questions into ChatGPT, projected the app’s responses live on the board, and asked the students to build upon the app’s response in a live discussion.

After going back and forth with ChatGPT, the class reflected on how the AI tool produced its content. We discussed, for example, whether the word predictor technology focused on certain keywords to produce generalized information regarding a financial crisis, most of which could be generalized to any financial crisis, including the 1929 stock market crash. Through this exercise, students learned to build on a prior discussion point, think on their feet, and better develop arguments.

I asked teens to fact-check ChatGPT’s answers.

Right now in my U.S. History class, we are studying Reconstruction. During a recent lesson, I asked ChatGPT, “What is Radical Reconstruction?” The app replied:

“‘Radical Reconstruction’ refers to the period of American history from 1867 to 1877 in which the federal government, under the leadership of the Republican Party, actively sought to rebuild the Southern states that had seceded during the Civil War and to provide civil rights and political representation for the newly freed slaves. This period was marked by the passage of several important pieces of legislation, including the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, which granted citizenship and voting rights to African Americans. The period was also marked by conflict and violence, as white Southerners resisted the changes and the federal government’s efforts to enforce them.”

Students learned to build on a prior discussion point, think on their feet, and better develop arguments.

I then asked the students, working in pairs, to critically analyze the ChatGPT response. What is accurate about this response? What is inaccurate? What facts or context could be added to the response to make it more complete?

Working in pairs, some students observed that though the start and end dates were accurate, the response was very vague and could benefit from referencing notable people, quotes, amendments, and laws. Other students noted that because Radical Reconstruction was more of a movement rather than an event, it is difficult to establish the exact dates. Many online sources report that it ended in 1872 rather than 1877. Why is there a discrepancy regarding the exact dates? That prompted a discussion around historical accuracy, historiography, and how we choose to report and sequence events. Further, some students noted the 15th Amendment only applied to African American men.

This lesson reinforced that one must always view online content with a critical eye. One of the most important skills to teach students today is how to discern which online sources are credible, and which are not.

I had students debate the app.

In Speech and Debate, one of the hardest skills to teach students is to think on their feet and deliver rebuttals. In Parliamentary debate, students are given a topic and a short time to conduct quick research before the debate begins. This format requires participants to construct arguments on the spot and respond immediately to their opponents.

To practice for the upcoming debate tournament, I fed sample debate resolutions to ChatGPT, projected the app’s responses, and had the students respond in real time.

To begin, I gave ChatGPT the resolution, “Should 16-year-olds have the right to vote?” Students were quick to identify weaknesses in the app’s argument, and they delivered their rebuttals. For example, one of my students argued that 16-year-olds should not be able to vote because their prefrontal cortex is not fully developed (a keen observation from a fellow 16-year-old). Other students argued that 18 is an arbitrary age that confers the maturity of an adult (if not yet the ability to purchase alcohol) — so why not 16?

Students reflected that using ChatGPT in debate prep was valuable because the app was able to launch the debate, outline arguments, provide a foundation of the issue, and retrieve useful points that the students could later adapt and refine.

AI isn’t going anywhere, which means it’s up to us, educators, to find creative ways to engage with it in our classrooms. We are still smarter than the machines, for now!

Spencer Burrows is a history teacher and the 11th grade dean at Pacific Ridge School in Carlsbad, California. He is a Teach Plus and Coro Lead LA alumnus. Burrows serves as education adjunct faculty at National University and on the Board of Directors of TEACH Public Schools in South Los Angeles.

Future teachers need to hear the good stuff, too

2023-02-21T22:58:59+00:00

This piece was written in response to ”Dear teachers: As a future educator, I have one request,” published recently in Chalkbeat.

Dear Future Educator,

Just like you, I have been following the stream of articles and social media posts where teachers are talking about their struggles. I can even relate to many of those struggles, such as unrealistic expectations, challenging classroom behaviors, and mental health struggles. Despite all that we’re up against, I can say with complete confidence that I love being a teacher and couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Margi Bhansali

To be honest, listening to other teachers often makes me feel a bit guilty about how much I still enjoy teaching after more than 10 years as an early childhood educator in Chicago.

When I’m in a group of educators who are complaining, I often just sit back and listen. But after reading your letter, I no longer want to stay silent. I think it’s important for you to know that there will be challenges. Now I see that it’s just as important for you to hear the good stuff, too.

When I first started teaching in 2010, I was, like you, full of hope and possibilities. I would wake up a bit nervous, yes, but also excited and overflowing with ideas. However, I was the only new hire at my school that year, and I had a hard time finding another teacher to bounce ideas off and plan with.

Just like today, most teachers were overworked and underpaid. They were jaded — and with good reason. I entered the teaching force after my district had implemented a seven-year pay freeze. Most days the teacher’s lounge was filled with negativity and complaints about things like students who just won’t listen or how they had to learn yet another new curriculum. I felt just like you’re feeling. I wondered: Did anyone have anything good left to say about teaching?

I questioned my career choice and wondered if I was naive in thinking I could make a difference. One day, I clearly remember a veteran teacher looking at me and saying, “Don’t worry, soon enough you’ll be complaining every day just like the rest of us.” I was really disheartened by his comment, so I vowed to never become like that. And I haven’t.

How have I stayed in this career without becoming jaded? It’s just like you mentioned. It’s the relationships and the true moments of happiness I’ve experienced with students, families, and colleagues. I work hard daily to find joy in the smiles, the “aha” moments, and the hugs. Here are just a few recent experiences that keep alive my love of teaching.

This year, I was able to take some parental time off for the adoption of my daughter. We combined this time with winter break to visit our extended family in India, so it had been a month since I’d seen my students. The day I returned, I went outside to pick up my class in the morning. A 3-year-old student I’ll call Brianne, saw me from across the courtyard, started running full speed towards me while yelling “Ms. Margi!” and almost knocked me down with her hug. She was so excited to see me after such a long time. Those hugs keep my love of teaching alive. (All student names have been changed to protect their privacy.)

Peter and his mom had quite a journey getting here. They escaped their home country, only to have to relocate to a different country again before making it to the U.S. and settling in Chicago, all without the mother’s husband. Peter came to my class so excited to play and make new friends, but he needed a lot of social-emotional support. The first day of school was filled with screaming, crying, and hitting. I worked hard over the school year to develop a relationship with him so that he feels safe at school. Now, he often brings me notes and drawings that say, “I love you teacher.” His mom also sends me notes saying things like, “Thank you for your kindness and hard work. Thank you very much for the hard work you are doing for Peter to learn.” These notes keep my love of teaching alive.

One of my favorite units to teach is the one on insects. My students become little entomologists as we learn about insect characteristics, how they change, and the ways they help the earth. This unit is filled with vocabulary, questioning, and learning how to be patient. I bring caterpillars into the classroom, and we observe them as they grow, build their chrysalis, and transform into butterflies.

When those butterflies first emerge, my students are amazed. Even though “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle taught them that caterpillars turn into butterflies, watching it happen right in front of their eyes fills them with wonder. Darell said to me with eyes wide, “I can’t believe that actually happens! WOW!” Those moments of wonder keep my love of teaching alive.

And now I’ve found my teacher squad. My friends and I are a group of early childhood educators from across the city, and we all believe in the impact we can have in our students’ lives. When things get tough, and they will, we have each other. We brainstorm solutions to issues we face in our classrooms, such as how to have a tough conversation with a parent, how to advocate for our students, and how to build a relationship with that particularly hard-to-reach student. We go out for meals, take vacations together, and have an ongoing text conversation. We laugh, we cry, and we support each other.

We share our frustrations, but also share those little moments of success and joy that only another teacher would relate to. We send texts like, “Today Micheal read his first reader independently!” or “Sophia went to the calm corner instead of throwing her shoes this afternoon.” My teacher squad helps keep my love of teaching alive.

I hope these stories inspire you as you prepare to enter the classroom.

Sincerely,

A veteran teacher

Margi Bhansali is a nationally board-certified pre-kindergarten teacher at Chicago Public Schools. She is a part of Teach Plus’ inaugural Senior Writing Fellowship and has served on the Teach Plus Illinois Early Childhood Policy Fellowship. She is a mother of three and believes that play is the work of children.

NYC schools disband teaching and learning division, which oversees Banks’ top literacy initiative

2024-03-25T20:34:00+00:00

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In a major shakeup, the city’s Education Department is disbanding its division of teaching and learning, which oversees schools Chancellor David Banks’ centerpiece literacy initiative.

The deputy chancellor who leads that department is leaving at the end of the school year, according to a letter Banks sent to Education Department staff on Monday.

The announcement of Deputy Chancellor for Teaching and Learning Carolyne Quintana’s departure took some staff by surprise. Quintana has been supervising Banks’ top education priority to reshape how the city’s elementary schools teach children to read, mandating that all elementary schools across the five boroughs are using one of three curriculums by next school year. The department has also been working to overhaul high school algebra programs.

“We are moving forward with dissolving the Division of Teaching & Learning and integrating its work into the Division of School Leadership under the leadership of Deputy Chancellor Dr. Danika Rux,” Banks wrote in a Monday letter to Education Department staff.

Banks signaled that the move was designed to put resources closer to schools — a pledge he made with Mayor Eric Adams when he first took the helm of the nation’s largest school district more than two years ago. He suggested some of the staff could be placed under the purview of local superintendents, who directly supervise principals.

The shakeup follows other efforts to give superintendents more power, with Banks previously assigning other Education Department staff who work in central offices to local superintendents’ offices.

“The superintendents are clearly in charge, and the content experts are subordinate,” one staffer who works in a superintendent’s office wrote in a text message, adding that they were “shocked” to learn of Quintana’s departure.

Shakeup could be logical for next phase of literacy push

Some observers are optimistic that the restructuring could help create clearer lines of authority and streamline the implementation of the curriculum changes. Before the latest shakeup, decisions about which curriculums to mandate and how to set up teacher training came from Quintana’s division. But the local superintendents who work with principals to implement those curriculums answer to Rux, the deputy chancellor responsible for school leadership.

There are challenges “having decision making split between the curricular choices and the implementation of those across two different deputy chancellors,” said Evan Stone, the CEO and co-founder of Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group. The organization supported the Education Department’s push for a curriculum mandate, and Stone said Quintana is an “incredible leader.”

Another source involved with implementing the NYC Reads initiative said shifting responsibility for the program closer to the superintendents was logical now that districts have all chosen which curriculum to use and are focused on the daily work of helping schools adjust.

“This makes complete sense in terms of managing the NYC Reads initiative in particular,” said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Now we’re more into the implementation … and that falls on the superintendents.”

But other observers said that they are concerned that the reorganization will wind up shuffling many of the system’s literacy experts into superintendent offices where those leaders may not be able to deploy them as effectively. Education Department officials have not said how many staffers will remain in central offices or sent to local superintendents.

“Many of these district superintendents are just getting on board [with the new reading curriculums] and literacy is not necessarily their field of expertise,” said Susan Neuman, a professor at New York University who serves on the city’s literacy advisory council. She added the literacy council wasn’t in the loop on the shakeup which “came out of nowhere for us.”

Another department employee who works in a superintendent’s office said change could deliver needed manpower to help schools implement new curriculums.

“We don’t have the people to do that effectively on top of everything else,” the staffer said. Still, they added it was unclear who would be sent to their office and whether they would have relevant expertise.

The reorganization also comes at a delicate moment for Banks’ signature literacy initiative. The second half of the city’s districts will begin implementing the mandated curriculums in September, which requires a massive effort to train thousands of teachers. The initial rollout, which began this school year, has been bumpy so far with some teachers reporting that they have not received sufficient training on the new curriculum materials.

The overhaul of the high school algebra curriculum, which has drawn mixed reactions from educators, is also poised to expand next year.

Layoffs not expected

In his letter to Education Department staff, Banks indicated that the restructuring would not result in layoffs.

“I know change is hard,” Banks wrote. “I want to assure you that this restructuring is not a negative reflection of your work. In fact, we want to make sure that your hard work is as close to our students as possible.”

The teaching and learning division is staffed by about 2,000 people. The division includes hundreds of staff who oversee support for special education and multilingual learners; those people will not move to superintendent offices and will instead report to Rux.

Quintana did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the circumstances of her departure or whether she has another job lined up. The New York Post previously reported that Quintana was frustrated that she was paid less than a male deputy chancellor, though an Education Department spokesperson said that did not play a role in her departure.

“I want to thank the dedicated team of the Division of Teaching & Learning for their tireless work to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of students daily,” Quintana wrote in a statement. “It was an honor to lead you, and I will always be your ally in fighting for educational equity. I look forward to supporting this transition.”

Banks indicated the department’s Chief of School Support Miatheresa Pate will oversee the restructuring effort and will be the “interim executive chief” of teaching and learning during the transition period. The superintendent of Bronx District 10, Maribel Hulla, will move into the chief of school support role.

The chancellor indicated that Quintana will spend the remainder of the school year helping with the transition and advising him on “other key projects.”

Do you have inside details about the shakeup? Send us a tip to ny.tips@chalkbeat.org

Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed to this story.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Welcome to P.S. Weekly, a new podcast from Chalkbeat and The Bell: Meet the students behind the mics

2024-03-20T09:00:00+00:00

Get ready to hear the sounds of the New York City school system like never before.

Next week, Chalkbeat and The Bell are launching P.S. Weekly, a student-created podcast exploring the most pressing issues affecting students — and discussing possible solutions.

Episodes will come out Wednesday mornings this spring, starting March 27. Each will tackle a different topic: migrant students, book bans, career readiness, and more. Led by experienced executive producer JoAnn DeLuna, 11 high school interns are the show’s hosts, reporters, producers, and sound engineers. They’re leading its engagement efforts, designing social media posts, and writing episode summaries.

The show teaser is available below. Listeners can subscribe to P.S. Weekly on all major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

For the past 10 years, Chalkbeat has been a leading source of education reporting in the nation’s largest school system. The Bell came on the scene seven years ago, quickly becoming a premier provider of audio journalism internship programs for New York City public high school students from underrepresented backgrounds.

The partnership between the two organizations comes at a crucial time. A 2022 study found that about 1 in 4 New York City public high schools has a student newspaper or news site. For high-poverty schools, only 7% have one. The students who are least supported in the school system are the least likely to have platforms to share their stories.

Through The Bell, the podcast’s high school interns are paired up with Chalkbeat NY’s team of seasoned reporters and editors to create a series that will become a “must-listen” for students, educators, parents, and policymakers. The show will feature the latest education news, reports from the field, and thoughtful one-on-one conversations with students, educators, and experts.

Think of it as your hall pass to issues in the New York City public school system: access and perspectives you won’t get anywhere else.

And we want to hear from you. Tell us what you’d like to hear more about. Drop us a line at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org.

Meet your new guides:

From left, Salma Baksh, a senior at Forest Hills High School, Bernie Carmona, a junior at The Beacon School, and Dorothy Ha, a senior at Stuyvesant High School.

Salma Baksh, senior

Forest Hills High School, Queens

Salma is the editor-in-chief of the school paper The Beacon; co-founder of Youth Informed, a political discussion club; and co-president of Double Up, a peer mentoring club. When Salma isn’t writing emails, she continues her attempt to build a second brain.

Bernie Carmona, junior

The Beacon School, Manhattan

Bernie is an active member of the Bronx Documentary Center and Google’s Code Next Program, which is centered on computer science. When Bernie isn’t focusing on schoolwork, he’s often practicing the guitar, cooking, or photographing the streets of NYC.

Dorothy Ha, senior

Stuyvesant High School, Manhattan

Dorothy holds leadership roles in her school’s yearbook, theater, poetry club, and art history club. In her free time, Dorothy loves visiting art museums and solving crossword puzzles.

From left, Tanvir Kaur, a senior at Academy of American Studies, Shoaa Khan, a senior at Landmark High School, and Marcellino Melika, a junior at Francis Lewis High School.

Tanvir Kaur, senior

Academy of American Studies, Queens

Tanvir is a student voice writer for The Academy Gazette, an editor and producer for the Bronx Documentary Center, and a member of the NYC Youth Journalism Coalition. Outside of the newsroom, Tanvir is an avid singer of Indian classical music and enjoys playing harmonium and mandolin.

Shoaa Khan, senior

Landmark High School, Manhattan

Shoaa is part of her school’s student government and volleyball team. She enjoys painting, watching movies, and trying new cafes with friends.

Marcellino Melika, junior

Francis Lewis High School, Queens

Marcellino began his journalistic work as a part of his school’s journalism academy. He spends his time on his school’s Science Olympiad team and playing cello in the orchestra. Marcellino also loves to help others through his efforts to give back.

From left, Santana Roach, a senior at Frederick Douglass Academy II, Jose Santana, a senior at Dr. Richard Izquierdo Health & Science Charter School, and Christian Rojas Linares, a senior at University Neighborhood High School.

Santana Roach, senior

Frederick Douglass Academy II, Manhattan

At school, Santana enjoys mentoring his peers, conversing and connecting with others, and striving to tackle intellectual challenges. Santana serves as a role model to many students through the extracurriculars he takes on and values the connections he cultivates with those around him. He also spends his time watching cartoons and talking with his friends and family.

Jose Santana, senior

Dr. Richard Izquierdo Health & Science Charter School, Bronx

Jose serves as the president of his graduating class and leads the podcast/YouTube club in his school. Outside of school, he can usually be found reading a book, playing guitar or saxophone, shooting hoops, or messing around with tech.

Christian Rojas Linares, senior

University Neighborhood High School, Manhattan

Christian enjoys partaking in school events and using specialized AI technology to assist him with his assignments. He likes to listen to podcasts — including Science VS, The Daily, and many more.

From left, Sanaa Stokes, a junior at Professional Performing Arts School, Ava Stryker-Robbins, a senior at The Beacon School and JoAnn DeLuna the executive producer.

Sanaa Stokes, junior

Professional Performing Arts School, Manhattan

At her school where she majors in drama, Sanaa participates in the Black Student Union, Global Glimpse, and is the vice president of the Women Advancement and Liberation Club. When she’s not learning her lines, she enjoys watching rom-com movies.

Ava Stryker-Robbins, senior

The Beacon School, Manhattan

Ava is the co-editor-in-chief of her school’s literary magazine, a reporter for the West Side Rag, and an organizer for the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Teen Activist Project. She’s an alumna of The Bell’s Summer Youth Podcast Academy and the City Limits Accountability Reporting Initiative for Youth, orCLARIFY. Ava also loves to read, play classical guitar, and knit.

JoAnn DeLuna, executive producer

JoAnn is an award-winning bilingual journalist/audio producer and poet originally from Texas. She’s produced and managed podcasts for Sony and OTHERTone (Drapetomaniax: Unshackled History), Pushkin (WorkLife with Adam Grant & Am I Normal? With Mona Chalabi), and NPR (Latino USA, Radio Diaries, KALW). Before switching to audio, JoAnn was a print reporter covering the travel industry from Asia, Europe, and the Americas for more than a decade. She was also a crime and education reporter for newspapers on the US-Mexico border. Her English and Spanish poetry is published in anthologies in California, New York, and Texas.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

Computer science at an arts school: This Bronx teacher combines coding and dance

2024-03-19T20:46:00+00:00

About two years after Maha Hasen started teaching math at a Bronx arts high school, a few students urged her to create a computer science track. So she took it upon herself to learn the subject.

She did a fellowship with Upperline Code, which trains educators committed to expanding access to computer science, and was able to re-introduce AP Computer Science principles at Fordham High School for the Arts. Hasen also launched a coding club where students learned to create websites using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Now in her eighth year at the school where she started her teaching career, Hasen became an assistant principal while still teaching a few courses. Her school now has a four-year computer science track that includes work-based learning experiences through the Education Department’s FutureReadyNYC program.

And Hasen strives to increase the number of girls pursuing computer science, even collaborating with a dance teacher to combine step and coding. Girls make up more than 70% of students at her arts-focused school.

“My students are dedicated, vocal, and innovative changemakers that hope to use their skills in computer science to dismantle the belief that women do not belong in computer science and to truly change their communities for the better using their skills from the class,” said Hasen, who has won several accolades, including a 2023 Big Apple Teaching Award and Cognizant Innovation in Computer Science Award in 2022.

Besides being part of the second wave of schools in the FutureReadyNYC program, Hasen’s school was selected this year to join the city’s Career Readiness & Modern Youth Apprenticeship program. Through that, students can get paid apprenticeships with technology companies and take coursework at New York University in pursuit of an associate degree.

These programs, Hasen said, help “ensure that we go beyond a traditional high school experience.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How and when did you decide to become a teacher?

The short answer: I didn’t! As an applied mathematics and philosophy major, I had originally intended to become a Professor of Philosophy.

However, I had volunteered and worked at a number of schools in Washington, D.C., as a tutor, Ethics Bowl coach, site associate, and teacher, and I interned at the Center for Education Reform, so when my advisor recommended that I look into Teach for America, it made a lot of sense!

I was thrilled to join Teach for America and to be placed in the Bronx, as I was born and raised in the Bronx.

However, what is even more important than why I decided to become a teacher is why I decided to stay a teacher.

Of course, the cliché (and true!) answer is that the students are why I stayed, but after years of reflection, I have found that the most important factor to me staying in the profession has been that I have an incredible principal, Michael Johnson Jr., who has truly embodied the meaning of transformational leadership. Only through his leadership have I been able to take the intellectual risks and develop into the educator that I am now.

I believe an often overlooked factor in teacher development is who is actually supporting the development of teachers — and for me, I am fortunate to have a mentor/principal who consistently gives effective feedback and coaching to support my development.

Why did you decide to take the leap and become an assistant principal?

I wanted to take on a more formal role with the science and math department at my school. I love working with teachers and giving them feedback, and through my role as Master Teacher, I was able to work closely with many teachers and support them in their development.

However, I consistently found myself interested in taking on more administrative projects, and my principal had pushed me to pursue the role of assistant principal.

It was very important to me in the transition to continue to teach. As such, I still teach two sections of AP Computer Science Principles, and once a week, I teach an Algebra II Prep class. I believe that being able to teach these classes allows me to leverage my room as a lab classroom and to really practice what I preach to teachers. Overall, I’ve loved the transition!

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why?

I love facilitating student learning as they complete their final app in AP Computer Science Principles.

While this culminating project leads to a lot of frustration from students, it is incredible to see how students create apps that tie in their identity and serve the purpose of helping their peers.

Additionally, it is incredible to watch as students work their way out of their comfort zones and navigate through the challenges and frustrations of coding to develop their apps by collaborating and using each other as resources.

Last year, students created a song recommendation app, an app to help learn [American Sign Language], and one that helps you learn about African American inventors and scientists.

I saw that you collaborated with a dance teacher on a freshman coding and dance course aimed at girls. Can you tell me more about that class and why you decided to do that?

The whole premise of our STEM From Dance class was to train an AI to recognize dance poses and then use these dance poses to trigger animations that we can code! Students in this class leveraged the use of Google’s Teachable Machines and Scratch to code.

As a performing arts high school, it is important that we continue to look for ways to integrate the arts into the core academic classes. This was an incredible opportunity because it wasn’t just a unit activity — it was an entire class co-taught with our dance teacher that allowed students to explore computer science through dance.

Tell us about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

I always loved school, specifically my math classes. In college, I majored in applied mathematics and philosophy, and I think that shaped my teaching career significantly. As a philosophy major, I spent a lot of time asking questions and always focusing on learning more, sharing perspectives, and thinking outside the box.

I’ve aimed to translate that to my classroom and school by challenging the notions of traditional education. Some examples include the flipped classroom that I helped to pilot in the math classrooms in 2017 — where students watch ‘how-to’ videos at home and take assessments and do small group work in class — and the intentionality behind creating a computer science track and partnership with FutureReady.

Of course, as a math major, I am excited by math so it made sense that I started my teaching career as a math teacher! I hope that I have been able to instill that same love of mathematics and share the joy of the discipline with my students.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and how have you put it into practice?

Choose to be happy! While working in education is a very challenging job, it is so much easier if you consistently make the choice to be happy.

For me, that means continuing to teach what I am passionate about, assuming the best intentions of others, and prioritizing my health to ensure I am filled with energy each day!

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

As we embrace the ‘science of reading,’ we can’t leave out older students

2023-03-06T13:00:00+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free New York newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

The day before my first day of teaching middle school in 2018, I decorated my Brooklyn public school classroom with quotes from famous people reflecting on the importance of reading. Hanging on cream-colored cardstock were the words of Malcolm X, Toni Morrison, C.S. Lewis, Barack Obama, Maya Angelou, and dozens of other writers and thinkers. I hoped to inspire my students to fall in love with reading. I didn’t think to hope that all my students could do the very thing I was asking them to love. I didn’t know that part of my job as a sixth grade Humanities teacher would be to teach students to read in the first place.

Shira Engel

There was a round table in the very back of my classroom that a group of five sixth-graders bee-lined to on day one. On day two, I asked one, then another, to read aloud to me. My request was met with silence, guessing, a fist slammed on the table, and a student storming out of the room. When those sixth grade students finally sat down for a reading assessment, their ability to decode print text was at a first or second grade level.

As a newly minted middle school English teacher, I was shocked by the number of students who entered my classroom unable to decode text. As I got to know them, I saw that herculean efforts to mask their reading disabilities revealed intelligence, determination, and traumatic relationships to school.

Since my first year of teaching, I have dedicated a lot of time to understanding why that happened. With the toxic combination of inaccurate reading assessments and a whole-word approach that encouraged guessing rather than decoding, the Matthew Effect (rich get richer, poor get poorer) has been in full swing in middle schools all around the country. The children who lived in text-rich environments and/or with families who could afford supplemental private tutoring got to “get it.” And those who didn’t? Many never acquired the literacy skills that are tied to power and privilege in this country.

Since my first day of teaching middle school, the “science of reading” — tying reading proficiency to explicit phonics instruction in addition to comprehension work — became a catchphrase for Facebook groups, professional development, and curricula. Lucy Calkins revised her popular but widely criticized “Units of Study” curriculum to include phonics-focused lessons. “Sold a Story,” a podcast series investigating reading instruction, became one of the top podcasts of the year. I also got trained in Wilson Reading Systems, an Orton-Gillingham and multisensory approach to teaching the basic phonics instruction many of my middle school students never received.

In my experience, conversations about the science of reading are happening primarily with elementary and early childhood educators. Those conversations are preventing further literacy injustice and disenfranchisement. But how are we addressing the ways that the system has failed our secondary students when they first learned to read? How can I, a middle school ELA teacher, support the students in my class who were passed along without receiving the literacy instruction they needed?

I am worried that secondary students and secondary education as a whole are being left out of the conversation on how children learn to read. It’s wonderful that (finally!) we are getting to the root of the issue, but what about the young people for whom Tier I instruction comes too late? What about students who, from here on out, will need intensive intervention in order to get on grade level?

I found hope in literacy intervention programs targeting adolescents who lacked key skills.

My former sixth graders are in high school now, preparing for college and careers, but the best preparation they can get is one that helps them, once and for all, become fluent readers. I am concerned that among the excitement of elementary curriculum overhauls, we will leave the children who’ve been wronged even further behind. I am afraid that we’ll do to them what this country has done to people who struggle with literacy since its inception: disenfranchise, hide, and erase.

During that first year of teaching middle school, when I was shocked by the students in my class that struggled to sound out single-syllable words, who guessed based on the first two letters rather than sound out, and who, upon hearing they’d do partner reading, developed looks of panic in their eyes, I found hope in literacy intervention programs targeting adolescents who lacked key skills.

I want more for these students. I want every secondary educator to be trained in not just teaching kids about reading; I want them to be trained to teach their students to read, should one or two or 10 sit down in the back of their class and not know how.

I believe in the power of restorative literacy. Every day, I work with adolescents and pre-adolescents who have slipped through the massive cracks of our education system. What I have witnessed during my five years working in vastly different types of schools is that learning, achievement, and opportunity gaps either dramatically widen or dramatically close in middle school. Passion for social justice within our education systems is insufficient; the actual work — the literacy work — that makes change possible needs to occur.

Shira Engel is a former New Yorker who both attended and taught in New York City public schools. She now lives and teaches seventh and eighth grade Humanities in New Haven, Connecticut, and works as a Wilson tutor for students with dyslexia after school. Shira documents her experiences teaching, reading, and learning on Instagram at @readteachjoy.

NYC may encourage principals to hire teachers over other roles to reduce class sizes

2024-02-29T23:28:24+00:00

Principals with vacant positions next year might start feeling more pressure from the city to hire teachers over other roles to comply with the state’s class size law, officials said Thursday at a New York City Council hearing.

The law, passed by the state legislature in 2022, requires that kindergarten to third grade classrooms have 20 or fewer students, fourth to eighth grade classes have no more than 23 students, and high schools classes have 25 or fewer. The law takes effect in phases – requiring that 20% of classrooms across the city meet the mandates by this September, and 40% satisfy the requirements by September 2025. The entire city will have to be in compliance by September 2028.

So far, the city’s Education Department hasn’t had much trouble complying. Roughly 40% of classrooms across the city are currently at or below the caps, officials testified Thursday.

But to make sure the city is still in compliance by next September, and begin preparing for the stricter requirements in coming years, the department is considering some policy changes next school year, Deputy Chancellor for Operations Emma Vadehra testified on Thursday.

One of those changes may be “asking schools to prioritize hiring teachers over other positions” when they have vacancies, Vadehra said.

That could mark a significant shift in a system where principals have traditionally had wide latitude to manage their hiring decisions and decide how to distribute their dollars among classroom teachers and other positions including aides, administrators, deans, and counselors and social workers.

First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg said, pushing school hiring decisions “top-down” would be “overrid[ing] the judgment of the people we want making those judgments.”

Officials didn’t offer many details on how that directive would work. Schools already have some hiring restrictions unrelated to the new class size law, such as maintaining the mandated number of teachers and paraprofessionals for students with disabilities and ensuring they have teachers for required subjects.

The plan will need to be approved by the teachers and principals unions, and officials aim to communicate plans to principals by this spring before they have to begin hiring for next year, Vadehra said.

Henry Rubio, the president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, the union representing principals, expressed concerns about the idea, calling it “tremendously short-sighted.”

In addition to more teachers, schools also need “support staff, paraprofessionals, and supervisors to maintain effective instruction and provide the adequate professional development that a school’s staff needs,” he said. “Otherwise, the academic gains from smaller class sizes may be eroded since new teachers and other staff will require more support given their lack of experience.”

Mike Sill, the assistant secretary at the United Federation of Teachers, said the union “like[s] the concept in general,” but there are “caveats.”

Some schools might need more counselors or deans, he said. “It’s a half-baked plan at this point.”

Education Department previews other potential changes next year

Officials said they are considering a recommendation from a recently-convened working group to restrict how schools can spend $215 million in funding through a state program called Contracts for Excellence, or C4E.

C4E money is distributed by the city, based on the level of student need at a school, measured by the number of low-income and academically struggling students, as well as English Language Learners and kids with disabilities.

Currently, schools that receive C4E money can use it for reducing class sizes, launching professional development programs to improve teacher quality, offering full-day pre-Kindergarten classes, and running programs for English Language Learners, among other things.

Officials on Thursday said they’re considering restricting that funding so it can only be used to lower class sizes.

More than 1,500 schools got C4E money this year, with an average of nearly $141,000 per school.

Bigger changes are ahead

The challenges facing the Education Department are going to grow as the class size law continues to phase in.

Officials estimate that the city will need to increase its teaching force, which currently stands at around 77,000, by between 10,000 and 12,000 to fully comply with the law. That will cost between $1.4 to $1.9 billion a year, according to the Education Department’s estimates, and require a significant boost in hiring at a time when the number of new teachers entering the workforce is shrinking. The Education Department also estimates that there are about 500 schools that will need more classrooms than they currently have in their buildings to meet the class size standards. Some schools that only need one or two extra classrooms might be able to shift around existing space. But other schools need as many as 78 additional classrooms, Vadehra said.

The School Construction Authority, which is in charge of building new facilities, estimated that it will cost between $22 and $27 billion to build all the new facilities needed to meet the class size mandates – a budget far greater than is currently slotted in the SCA’s capital plan.

State legislators have argued that the Education Department doesn’t need any additional funding to comply with the law because Foundation Aid from the state increased by more than $1 billion in recent years. But Education Department officials say they’ve already committed that money to bolstering school budgets, increasing funding for low-income and homeless students, and paying for increasing mandated costs for charter schools and special education.

Adding to the complexity, the schools with the largest class sizes currently are more likely to have larger concentrations of students from affluent families, creating concerns that the city could have to shift resources away from schools with needier populations to those with lower levels of student need.

One of the city’s cheapest options for reducing class sizes citywide would be capping enrollment at the most overcrowded schools, and redirecting students to schools with more room and lower class sizes. But that policy would likely spur significant pushback from parents, since many of the schools with the largest class sizes are among the city’s most in-demand, especially at the high school level, where students have the greatest freedom to apply to schools across the city.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Educators: How are you planning to teach about the 2024 presidential election?

2024-02-22T19:00:00+00:00

Dear high school teachers,

In schools across America, the 2024 presidential election will likely become increasingly dominant in hallway conversations, lunch table debates, and teacher-led lessons — planned and unplanned. This fall, American citizens will once again cast their votes, and the two leading contenders are poised to be the same ones from four years ago. 2024 might feel eerily similar to the tumultuous 2020 presidential election and its aftermath.

You all have the important task of teaching history at the very moment it’s being made.

High schoolers: How important is this year’s election? Tell us.

As the presidential election cycle ramps up, The New York Times’ Headway team and Chalkbeat want to hear from you. How are your students thinking about this election? How are you planning to teach it? What questions do you have?

Let us know in the quick questionnaire below, and we’ll be in touch. (We’re particularly interested in learning from educators of current juniors and seniors in high school, but please don’t let that stop you from filling out our form. We want to hear from other types of educators as well!)

Do you have students we should talk to? We also have a questionnaire we are sharing directly with high schoolers. Do you know current juniors and seniors who would want to participate in this project? Please share the student questionnaire here.

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High schoolers: How important is this year’s election? Tell us.

2024-02-22T19:00:00+00:00

Dear high schoolers,

This year’s U.S. presidential election will dominate conversations worldwide. This fall, American citizens will once again cast their votes, and the two leading contenders are poised to be the same ones from four years ago. 2024 might feel eerily similar to the tumultuous 2020 presidential election and its aftermath.

Once again, inside your classrooms, history is being taught at the very moment it’s being made.

Educators: How are you planning to teach about the 2024 presidential election?

Since this could be the first election you’ll have a chance to vote in, we’re eager to know how important this moment feels in your classes and to you and your friends. Are you closely following the campaign? Or does it feel not that connected to your life?

The New York Times’ Headway team and Chalkbeat want to hear directly from you. Take a moment to complete our questionnaire below, and we’ll be in touch with you soon.

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NYC families and teachers: How are your schools handling student cell phones?

2024-02-22T22:21:37+00:00

School cell phone policies are under the microscope nationwide. We want to hear what’s happening at your New York City school.

When students returned to in-person classes after learning remotely during the pandemic, some educators noticed that kids were increasingly attached to their phones. Now, more schools are experimenting with systems to keep phones out of students’ hands during the school day.

And in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams has railed against the dangers of social media for children’s mental health, declaring it a public health risk and filing a lawsuit against five leading social media companies.

But efforts to ban or curb cell phone use in schools have also generated significant pushback. Some parents worry they won’t be able to reach their kids in emergencies, while some students and educators say restrictive rules rob them of a critical tool and opportunities to use technology responsibly.

At Chalkbeat New York, we’re hoping to dive deeper into how schools are handling cell phones. We want to learn more about the policies schools are adopting – or avoiding – and the benefits and drawbacks of those approaches. Please fill out the short survey below to help direct our reporting.

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How an AP African American studies class is helping Brooklyn students see themselves in history

2024-02-20T22:08:01+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

Until her junior year, Brooklyn high school student Afag Sidahmed never enjoyed history classes.

“I was so sick of learning about Europeans,” she said. Her courses rarely focused on Black history, with the exception of Martin Luther King Jr.

But this year, a new course offered at her school, the Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women, has changed her feelings about the subject.

“When I heard about AP African American Studies — and the word African was in there — I was like, ‘Wow, I am taking this class,’” she said.

In 2022, the College Board rolled out its first Advanced Placement course in African American studies through a pilot program at 60 schools across the country. This year, the program expanded to nearly 700 high schools nationwide, with 59 of the city’s schools offering the course locally.

Next year, the course will officially launch, allowing any high schools to offer it. Nearly 160 additional high schools in New York City have already expressed interest in the course, though that number will likely shift as schools develop their plans for the next school year, officials said.

The materials covered in the class have spurred controversy in some states. Last year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state’s schools wouldn’t teach the class and alleged it violated a state law that restricts how race and racism are taught. And when the College Board later released a revised curriculum that had removed much of the criticized content, others protested the organization had buckled under political pressure and watered down the course.

Still, despite being enmeshed in a national political dispute, educators in the city and across the country have emphasized the vital role the class can play in schools and the value it can bring to students.

At the Institute of Math and Science, 32 students across two classes are taking the course, both taught by teachers Kelly Preston and Martine Mercier. Inside their fifth-floor classroom, the walls are decorated with a timeline of Black history that spans thousands of years, and the flags of nations in Africa and the Caribbean. A class constitution encourages students to ask questions, value each other’s opinions, and express any disagreements respectfully.

For Preston and Mercier, the focus of the class has been on student-led discussions and engagement. Typical lessons rely almost entirely on students analyzing primary sources in small groups, instead of more-traditional lectures.

“Kids should be active agents of learning,” Preston said. “They’re not passive absorbers taking in what we tell them. They can create that understanding for themselves, and we want them to feel that agency, and feel empowered in their educational experience.”

Students look to primary sources

In one February class, Preston and Mercier used a hypothetical scenario to segue into a lesson on the Great Migration, a period in the 20th century when millions of Black people moved from the rural South to urban areas in other parts of the country.

Students considered what conditions would prompt them to leave their school for another — whether they’d do so based solely on negative treatment, or if a viable alternative school would be needed to pursue a new environment.

Afterwards, students turned to historical documents, discussing in groups of three or four. Preston and Mercier walked between tables, listening in, posing additional questions, and urging students to explain the reasons for their answers.

Mercier said she and Preston are prioritizing “having the students not always look to us to affirm whether they’re correct or not, but look to each other and look to other sources to affirm what they’re thinking.”

Alizett Tavarez, an 11th grader at the school, explained how she inferred the meaning of the Great Migration through clues from paintings by Jacob Lawrence, a 20th century American painter whose work documented aspects of the Black experience.

“The first thing that caught my eye was how in each of the paintings they have signs that show Chicago, New York, and St. Louis,” she said. “The next picture said tickets, tickets, tickets. It made me assume they were traveling north.”

During the discussion, students often turned to other figures and moments in Black history, drawing connections to Harriet Tubman, Black Wall Street, the Harlem Renaissance, and more.

When Preston and Mercier asked students to consider why so many individuals chose to migrate north, one student spoke up.

“For real freedom,” said Esha Azam, a 10th grader. “Because after slavery ended, the South created the Black Codes, literacy tests, and Jim Crow laws,” she added, referring to various laws that states adopted to restrict the rights of Black Americans to vote or own property, for example, and to enforce racial segregation.

More powerful than just an exam

The AP course pilot is one of several ways New York City educators are working to broaden the scope of how Black history is taught in schools.

Sonya Douglass, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and director of the Black Education Research Collective, helped develop a pre-K-12 Black studies curriculum that has been offered recently across roughly 10 districts as part of a pilot program. Douglass and others worked to develop the curriculum with the Education Equity Action Plan Coalition, a group of educators, nonprofits, and government leaders.

“So far, we have seen a lot of enthusiasm among educators, community members, and students — the older ones of which say, ‘This is long overdue,’” she said. “What we’re really excited about at the K-12 level is basically generations of young people who will have access to this information.”

The AP African American studies course has prompted further discussion and excitement among local communities, Douglass said. For educators who are tackling the material for the first time next year, it’s critical to approach it with “cultural humility,” she noted.

“No matter your background, even if you are of African descent, many of us don’t know this history,” she said. “Just taking that learner’s stance is so important.”

Preston and Mercier have also shared advice for educators in recent months, speaking about their experience leading the class on a local panel with other Brooklyn schools, and at the national College Board Forum in November.

The two educators suggest teachers who are new to the course embrace the work and trust their students.

“It’s not easy to roll out a brand new course — especially one that centers stories and narratives that haven’t always been highlighted,” Preston said. “It’s a lot of learning and unlearning you’ll need to do. … But really, trust the kids. The kids can do this. They can interrogate sources. They can create understanding for themselves. They can have meaningful, effective conversations.

“You just have to figure out how to support them in doing it,” she added.

Kiri Soares, principal of the Institute of Math and Science, praised Preston and Mercier for developing a successful model for the course in its first year at the school. But Soares noted she’s worried fewer students will be able to take the course if it isn’t able to count as a U.S. history credit toward a student’s graduation requirements. (The city’s Education Department said the class is credited as a humanities elective.)

Soares’ hopes for the class hinge less on the results of the AP exam in May — which will be offered for the first time this year — and more on what students can gain from the content covered within it.

“My goal in this course in particular is to have them see themselves written into history,” she said. “That is a disruptor to the history that their families have had, and it’s pretty amazing and more powerful” than a top score on an exam.

For some students at the school, the class has accomplished just that.

“It always ties back somehow to your roots,” Alizett said. “You always learn more than you expect.”

“You definitely learn about your ethnicity in the classroom,” added Amna Sobahi, an 11th grader. “Like I don’t even need a DNA test anymore — I have Ms. Kelly.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

A visit to Auschwitz changed how I teach about the Holocaust

2024-01-26T12:00:00+00:00

When I was in sixth grade, I read Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl.” This was my introduction to the Holocaust. I was so moved by her life — and subsequent death at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp — that I vowed to never forget Anne and the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis.

My 12-year-old mind could not fathom the senselessness of her murder. As I was reading her diary, I fully expected the outspoken girl who liked to read and disliked math, who had crushes and dreams for the future, to live. Anne reminded me of myself. To this day, it still saddens and haunts me that she did not survive.

Nikia Garland

The similarities between the plight of the Jewish people and Black Americans were also not lost on me. I was moved by photos of Black American soldiers helping to liberate the Jews from concentration camps, and struck by the irony of those servicemen returning to the U.S. where they were denied basic rights, faced racial hostility, and were still not completely free. I am a high school English teacher, and I was determined to teach my students about Black soldiers, such as Cpl. James W. Baldwin, who helped liberate Europe from Hitler’s rule.

Then, last June, decades after I first read Anne’s diary, I had the opportunity to travel solo to Poland and Germany as a Funds for Teachers Fellow. I pursued this fellowship because I wanted to learn more about the Holocaust, as I teach a unit on the subject.

When I arrived at Auschwitz, where about 1 million Jews were murdered, the atmosphere was heavy. Despite it being a sweltering summer day, I felt a distinct chill flow through me as I entered the gates that read, “Arbeit macht frei,” German for “Work sets you free,” even though the millions who passed through those gates were killed or brutally imprisoned and forced to work.

At Auschwitz, I was not prepared for the artifacts that were left behind. There were suitcases bearing names, dishes, and bundles upon bundles of human hair that the Nazis used for textiles. It was especially difficult to see the children’s clothing and shoes, photographs of grossly emaciated prisoners — including kids — and the squalid living conditions they endured.

Holocaust survivor Eva Mozes Kor stands outside the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, Indiana, during the filming of the 2014 Andre Singer documentary "Night Will Fall." Kor died at age 85 in 2019.

Entering the gas chamber there was like being transported back in time. The sharp scent of death still lingered in the air. It completely overwhelmed my senses, and I was moved to tears.

I also visited Oskar Schindler’s enamel factory in Krakow, Poland, which is now a museum. Schindler, a German businessman credited with saving more than 1,000 Jews, was the subject of Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning 1993 film “Schindler’s List.” Another museum visitor recommended the movie to me.

I watched it on my flight home from Europe — an emotional screening on the heels of an emotional trip. I was captivated by Schindler’s metamorphosis from an opportunistic industrialist to an upstander who, repulsed by the Nazis’ brutal treatment of Jews, developed a plan to save as many as he could. This year, I plan to have my AP students watch “Schindler’s List” and write a rhetorical analysis.

It’s one way my trip to Europe will shape how I teach about the Holocaust. I also created a PowerPoint about my trip to European Holocaust sites, and I have planned field trips to Indianapolis’ Peace Center for Reconciliation and Forgiveness, founded by a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and to a live production of “Letters From Anne and Martin,” which highlights the parallels between Anne Frank and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In addition, my students will research a real Holocaust victim and learn their story. They will also hear about Eva Mozes Kor, a Holocaust survivor who, along with her twin sister, Miriam, endured the experiments of the brutal Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Kor lived for many years in Terre Haute, Indiana, and opened a Holocaust museum and education center there. When I was at Auschwitz, I saw a large photo of Eva and her sister being liberated by Russian soldiers in 1945. (Kor died in 2019 at age 85.)

I also hope to speak to my son’s eighth grade humanities class as they study the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century. And I look forward to sharing what I saw and learned during my Holocaust education fellowship in other schools and classrooms, too.

My students, and all students, should know what happened during the Holocaust. They should understand the importance of empathizing with those who are suffering, regardless of race or creed, and advocating for justice on their behalf. They will read the famous verse “First They Came For…” by Pastor Martin Niemöller, to help emphasize the danger of being indifferent to those in pain.

In memory of Anne Frank, whose story captured my 12-year-old self and whose death broke my heart, I am determined to help shape a generation of upstanders.

Nikia D. Garland teaches British Literature and AP Language and Composition at Arsenal Technical High School. She has taught a wide range of secondary and college-level ELA classes in the U.S. and internationally. Nikia has been a Terry Fear Holocaust Educator in Action recipient, a Mark Schonwetter Holocaust Education Foundation grant recipient, a Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity Fellow, a Fund For Teachers Fellow, and a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow. In addition, she is a chair for the Indiana Teachers of Writing conference and president-elect for the Indiana affiliate of the National Council of Teachers of English.

You’re invited: Hear local educators share their stories of when lessons don’t go to plan

2024-02-14T22:01:49+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.

Things don’t always go as planned - even when there’s a lesson plan. And now, you can hear directly from educators about the times they adjusted those plans, whether it was in the moment or after another experience changed their perspective.

Join us for the “From Lesson Plan to New Plan” teacher story slam from 7 to 9 p.m., Friday, March 1, at Fay Biccard Glick Neighborhood Center, 2990 W. 71st St., Indianapolis.

The event is hosted by Indy Kids Winning and Chalkbeat Indiana, and supported by Teach Indy.

This story slam is a continuation of story slams hosted by Teachers Lounge Indy that were a place for teachers to share their stories, spend time together, and learn from each other. This time, it’s also the night before the Teach Indy Educators Conference.

Come to hear the stories, meet other educators, and try handcrafted vegan wines from Sip & Share Wines.

To attend, register here for a free ticket on Eventbrite: https://ckbe.at/indystoryslam

Also, if you’re an educator and want to tell your story, please let us know here.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. She also covers access to higher education and Warren Township Schools. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s what happened when my ‘no excuses’ school piloted a restorative justice program

2022-01-07T14:00:00+00:00

Restorative justice. I first heard the phrase during a summer school class back in 2019. The teacher explained that restorative justice is different from our social norm of punishing those who have hurt others or committed crimes. Instead, the goal is to promote accountability and allow both parties (victims and perpetrators) to heal. Understanding restorative justice helped me to envision a world without the prison industrial complex and mass incarceration.

Over the next two years, I spent countless hours reading and theorizing about restorative approaches, as well as advocating for their real-world application. As a member of my school’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team, I led forums on anti-racism and restorative approaches to discipline. But it was my personal experience with restorative justice that fortified my commitment to the practice.

It was a seemingly typical day in my African American History class: We were answering questions, laughing, and enjoying the academic company of each other. Meanwhile, we worked on our second-quarter group projects about the various methods of resistance for enslaved Black peoples across the Americas. My group had been assigned the Stono Rebellion, a 1739 revolt in colonial South Carolina.

I had an idea to add audio to the presentation to enhance the experience of the audience. Specifically, I wanted to incorporate juba, a genre of music birthed on the American Southern plantations and proved essential to mobilizing Black enslaved folks towards the Stono Rebellion.

I was surprised to receive an email from my teacher requesting a meeting about the verbal altercation.

But when I took out my phone to figure out how to add an audio file into our slide presentation, I heard my teacher say: “Chim! Put your phone away!” To which I reflexively blurted out, “I was just using my phone for our project!” This exchange stunned the class, altering its otherwise steady vibe. After a tense pause, my classmates went back to their projects. I tried to convince myself that it would blow over by the time the bell rang.

So I was surprised to receive an email from my teacher requesting a meeting about the verbal altercation. She asked me to choose from various approaches aimed at restoring harmony in my African American History class. I could select a meeting alone with my teacher, one with my teacher and my family, or one with my teacher and several classmates who witnessed the back-and-forth. Ultimately, I chose to meet with my teacher, a peer advocate, and two other classmates.

As the meeting approached, my heart picked up speed, and soon its beating was the only noise I could hear. My teacher began the session by assuring me I wasn’t in trouble. She explained that I was part of a restorative justice pilot program at my school. Restorative justice wasn’t really part of the DNA of the school — a charter known for its “no excuses” approach to academics and discipline. So hearing her say “restorative justice” gave me a sense of automatic relief, as I knew that my agency would not be debated or encroached upon. I realized I was surrounded by people who actually cared and weren’t automatically going to paint me as an aggressor. My heart rate slowed.

We discussed how our verbal interaction had been perceived, and we shared our feelings about it. By the end of the 15-minute session, we approached what everyone there considered an equitable way forward. My teacher conceded that she thought that by looking at my phone I was off-task. I agreed that I could have reacted in a way that was both less harsh and less defensive. The next day in class wasn’t awkward. I felt good about being back.

The restorative justice pilot allowed me to be advocated for, without the quick assumptions about who was in the wrong. If more students — especially those for whom respectability politics don’t play in their favor — could experience restorative justice, we’d all be better for it.

Black children, who often face disproportionate punishment, who may be treated like adults — or worse yet, criminals — in their own schools, need restorative alternatives to the status quo. Creating safer and more equitable school communities starts with relinquishing punitive discipline systems, and implementing restorative practices where students are heard, seen, and championed.

And as a Black girl, this issue is personal. Monique Morris, the author of “Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls In Schools,” has explained that while Black girls make up 16% of female students, they are massively overrepresented among those students referred to law enforcement or arrested on campus. This is what we mean by the school-to-prison pipeline. It’s the reality for Black girls across the country, especially those living in underserved, low-income communities. But the introduction of restorative justice approaches offers hope and lowers rates of recidivism by 11 percentage points, according to Communities for Restorative Justice.

Restorative justice has a role to play when it comes to more serious infractions, too, be they incidents of graffiti, truancy, or threatened violence. Rather than calling in student resource officers or issuing suspensions, restorative justice can de-escalate situations. Rather than officers and handcuffs, there are accountability, amends, and a willingness to believe that we can all do better.

Chimdindu Okafor is a senior at North Star Academy Lincoln Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. She has been accepted to 22 colleges so far. Chimdindu is a Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow.

As NYC overhauls literacy approach, one public school gets phonics help from nearby private school

2024-02-08T21:38:36+00:00

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Clasping a deck of pale yellow flash cards, Sloan Shapiro delivered a phonics lesson she’s taught countless times at her Manhattan private school for children with reading challenges.

“Q — U — Queen — Kwuh,” Shapiro chanted, pointing at the letters “Qu” printed on a card above a cartoon drawing of a queen. A chorus of students mimicked her sounds, tracing invisible letters on their hands.

Without missing a beat, Shapiro ticked off a spelling rule. “Q is always followed by a…”

“U!” the group responded in unison.

The chorus of students responding to Shapiro on a recent Monday afternoon at the Stephen Gaynor School, however, weren’t children. They were teachers from P.S. 84, an Upper West Side public school around the corner.

For the first time, Gaynor is offering a free 15-week course to nine public school educators to help refine their lessons on phonics, which explicitly teaches the relationship between sounds and letters. The small pilot program comes as elementary schools across the city are under a new mandate to emphasize phonics, part of a sweeping plan to overhaul the way New York City public schools teach reading.

Schools Chancellor David Banks has embraced partnerships with private schools that cater to students with reading challenges, though an Education Department spokesperson could not say how prevalent such arrangements are. Banks has also expressed interest in improving public programs to reduce the ballooning costs associated with paying for private school tuition. About 80% of families at Gaynor, which charges nearly $80,000 a year, seek tuition payments from the government, arguing the public schools can’t adequately educate their children.

For the past 17 years, Gaynor has partnered with P.S. 84 and nearby P.S. 166, offering free after-school help for about two dozen students each year who are behind in reading. But it didn’t make sense previously to directly train their teachers because the public schools’ approach to literacy was so different, according to head of school Scott Gaynor, who is the grandson of the school’s co-founder.

P.S. 84 has long deployed “Units of Study,” a curriculum created by Teachers College Professor Lucy Calkins. That program, which has been used by hundreds of city elementary schools in recent years, has been criticized by experts in part because it does not include as much emphasis on phonics. With the city’s new phonics push and curriculum mandate, schools are no longer allowed to use Calkins’ program, and Gaynor is considering expanding their training efforts to schools beyond P.S. 84.

But even as the city moves away from Calkins’ approach, that’s only a first step.

“The harder part of the equation is the training,” Gaynor said. “That doesn’t happen from a one-day or even a one-week workshop.”

Going deeper than previous phonics trainings

Teachers at P.S. 84 said their own experiences with phonics training have been mixed.

“We have been through many different [phonics] programs, so it was a little bit all over the place,” said Johana Talbot, a first grade teacher who said she appreciated the training program at Gaynor. (The principal of P.S. 84 declined an interview request.)

The pilot program at Gaynor involves 45 minutes a week of training in a method called Orton-Gillingham that has historically been used for children with dyslexia, but is increasingly deployed with a wider range of students.

That approach is designed to break down the building blocks of language, teaching children basic spelling rules and sound-letter relationships, building in complexity over time. It also incorporates sight, touch, and movement to help make the ideas stick. Students may tap their fingers as they sound out words or move their arms to represent certain sounds.

Though officials at Gaynor said the approach has worked for their students, the evidence of Orton-Gillingham’s effectiveness more broadly is limited.

Talbot has practiced some of the lessons she’s learned at Gaynor in her classroom at P.S. 84. She encouraged students to tap out sounds with their non-dominant hand instead of their dominant hand, a small tweak that helps them use that strategy during writing exercises.

“The movements for every sound [and] chanting the rules — they feel very empowered by that,” said Talbot. About 10 of her students are recent migrants and some of them have proudly shown off some of those strategies with their parents.

P.S. 84′s Carla Murray-Bolling moved this year from preschool to kindergarten, where she is teaching phonics for the first time. “I was basically just thrown in and told: ‘swim.’”

One practice she’s learned is how to encourage students to blend different sounds of a word together. “It’s been helping them by dragging the sounds out instead of breaking them down one letter at a time,” she said.

For Shapiro and her co-teacher, Kristi Evans, the goal is to help teachers understand the reading principles behind the lessons and determine whether students have actually mastered them.

“If you teach teachers the underlying structure of the language, they can really pick up anything,” Shapiro said.

During a recent training session, Murray-Bolling and Talbot paired up to practice testing each other on “nonsense” words that still follow normal spelling rules, giggling as they teased each other with words like “jetch.”

Students who struggle with reading often develop strategies to compensate by using context clues and pictures, Evans said. That often helps them advance to higher grade levels even if they’re behind in reading. By presenting nonsense words, Murray-Bolling and Talbot were learning a quick assessment to help identify whether any of their students had come up with ways to correctly guess a word’s meaning.

“We get those students,” Evans said, referring to students who enroll at Gaynor. “We’re hoping that in the public school we can catch those kids earlier.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat gets a shout-out on ‘Abbott Elementary’ season three premiere

2024-02-08T16:01:56+00:00

Well, that was cool!

Last night’s season three premiere of “Abbott Elementary” on ABC featured a Chalkbeat shout-out none of us was expecting.

Janine Teagues, played by the show’s creator Quinta Brunson, is telling someone from the district about choosing colors for her classroom: I wanted to go with blue, which inspires focus.

District employee Manny: And calm, which is so important for primary classes. I read about that in Chalkbeat.

Janine: You read Chalkbeat?

Manny: Mhm. Janine: I basically live in the comments section, so.

Our phones immediately lit up from readers across the country. The Chalkbeat staff was, to put it mildly, freaking out in the best way. And we loved seeing responses like this one:

Spot on and so well-deserved. Teachers do read Chalkbeat!! https://t.co/FxC8fEBGUM
— Sara Clough (@Sfclough) February 8, 2024

If you’re coming to Chalkbeat for the first time because you saw us on Abbott, welcome! We’re a nonprofit news organization that reports on schools and education policy in eight locations across the country. We are powered by award-winning journalists who live in the communities we serve and care deeply about education, and by a community of teachers and parents who read our work and tell us what’s happening inside their homes and classrooms. Many teachers like Janine are also members — donors who make it possible for us to stay independent as local news struggles.

How ‘Abbott Elementary’ speaks to the bond between students and teachers: ‘You are making a difference’

What was that story Janine mentioned? There’s no exact match, we did recently write about an Indiana school’s new sensory room with walls painted teal. (We’ve also written about the show and how other Philly teachers felt watching it.)

And about our comments section: We did have a thriving one in our early days, but switched to other ways of connecting with readers a few years back. Janine’s reference makes us think that, like so many teachers, she’s been a fan for a while. Did we mention this is our 10th anniversary year?

We’re grateful that so many of the Janines of Philadelphia, and the rest of the country, are avid Chalkbeat readers. We’re willing to bet that not every Janine in your community is a Chalkbeat newsletter subscriber yet, though. We’d love it if you’d share this with them — they can sign up here — or take a moment to tell us your reaction to last night’s episode.

Can you take algebra in eighth grade? In many cases, the answer is no, national survey finds

2024-02-07T19:00:00+00:00

If you’re an eighth grader who wants to take algebra, can you even take the class?

The answer to that question, it turns out, depends a lot on two things: how your school identifies students for advanced math, and where you live.

According to a new nationally representative survey released Tuesday, 65% of U.S. principals said their elementary or middle school offered algebra in eighth grade, but only to certain students. Meanwhile, just 20% of principals said their school offered the class in eighth grade and that any student could take it.

But that picture differed by state. In California, nearly half of principals said their school offered algebra only to certain eighth graders. But in Florida, more than 80% of principals said the class was restricted. In both states, 18% of principals said any eighth grader could take the class, similar to the national rate.

The findings, based on surveys conducted last spring by the RAND Corporation, shed light on the uneven access students have to advanced math classes in middle school, which can have lasting effects on their higher education and job prospects.

Algebra is often considered a gateway class. Eighth graders who take the course can more easily reach calculus by 12th grade — which can set students up for challenging math classes in college and career paths in science and engineering fields.

“The kids that aren’t in algebra by eighth grade, they can do that still,” said Julia Kaufman, a senior policy researcher at RAND, and the lead author of the report, “but they would have to do something special to get there,” such as doubling up on math or taking a summer class.

The report also details the extent to which students are separated based on their perceived math abilities, starting as young as elementary school.

More than 40% of elementary school principals told RAND researchers that their school grouped kids based on their math levels, mostly within the classroom. But by middle school, nearly 70% of principals said they grouped students in math. Most commonly, students were put into separate math classes on honors or career prep tracks, the report found.

“The amount of achievement-level grouping — that it does start within classrooms in K-5 schools and that by middle school, students are typically grouped by achievement level more often than they’re not in their math classes — that’s something new,” Kaufman said.

The findings come as parents and school leaders across the country engage in fierce debates over whether students should be able to take algebra before high school, and if so, what support students need to do well in the class.

Notably, San Francisco Unified schools, which attracted national attention for a policy that prevented students from taking algebra until ninth grade, are poised to bring algebra back to middle schools following parent pushback. School officials there put the policy in place 10 years ago to help prepare more Black and Latino students and students from low-income families to pass algebra and access higher-level math classes — a goal that hasn’t panned out.

The new survey data doesn’t look at whether tracking helps or hurts students’ math outcomes.

And there are other factors that could affect whether students can access higher-level math classes, the report notes, such as differing teacher certification rules, school funding levels, and state policies. California’s state math guidelines encourage students to take algebra in ninth grade, for example, while New York schools are supposed to offer high school math to eighth graders who want to take it.

But Kaufman says the report does suggest that schools should be looking at the criteria they use to group students in math, and whether it could be fueling racial or socioeconomic disparities.

“We’re not giving a recommendation that nobody should be tracked,” Kaufman said. “But if you are grouping students, I think this report calls for you to consider whether the way students are grouped, and how, is biased. Are a lot of students of color, for example, in the lower track? What’s happening there?”

Schools try various methods to expand algebra access

Nationally, white and Asian American students are more likely than their Black and Hispanic classmates to enroll in and pass algebra in eighth grade, the latest federal data shows. Historically, students from low-income families have had less access to algebra in eighth grade, too.

In Philadelphia, many students are blocked from the city’s most selective high school because their middle schools don’t offer algebra. Making algebra more accessible is part of the superintendent’s curriculum overhaul.

School districts like Chicago have taken steps to expand access to algebra in eighth grade, such as offering the class online and covering costs for educators to get algebra teaching credentials. Historically, fewer students in the city’s predominantly Black and low-income neighborhoods have been able to take the class before high school.

The RAND survey found that principals of more-affluent schools were much more likely than leaders of higher-poverty schools to say they considered parent or guardian requests to place students into advanced math classes. That could shortchange kids who don’t have a parent who can step in and do that kind of advocacy, Kaufman noted.

The report urges schools to look at multiple data points to place students into higher-level math classes, and to consider experimenting with the cutoff scores used to identify which students can handle the harder math coursework.

In Oklahoma, Union Public Schools is trying that, The Hechinger Report recently reported. The district, which serves parts of Tulsa and the city’s southeast suburbs, used to offer a pre-algebra placement test in fifth grade, just one time.

But after school officials realized that was mostly funneling kids from elementary schools in whiter and wealthier neighborhoods into the advanced middle and high school math classes, they made changes. The district now allows students to take the fifth-grade placement test multiple times, and teachers can recommend promising students regardless of their score. That’s helped diversify advanced math classes, particularly for Hispanic students.

Union Public Schools also added math tutoring starting in third grade — the kind of support that the RAND report says can be crucial for student success, but that many struggling students aren’t getting.

More than three-quarters of middle school principals told the RAND researchers that less than half of their struggling students participated in math support options offered by their school, such as tutoring, double-dose math classes, or a summer math program for rising middle schoolers.

That could point to the need for schools to universally screen kids for extra math help, or do more to make sure students and parents know about what help is offered. Schools may also need to change how the help is offered, such as moving after-school tutoring to during the school day or providing transportation so more kids can attend.

Those are crucial steps, Kaufman said, at a time when many kids are struggling to close math gaps that cropped up when school was remote or disrupted in other ways by the pandemic.

“I know tutoring is happening in a lot of places, it’s one of the priorities of the White House right now,” she said. But if tutoring is mostly offered to kids and parents who volunteer, “then the tutoring is not going to reach the kids who need it the most.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

The list is out: See which curriculum is dominating NYC’s reading mandate

2024-02-03T00:18:40+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

New York City kicked off its new literacy curriculum mandate this year, requiring elementary schools in nearly half of its districts to choose among three curriculums. One pick dominated: Into Reading, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Teachers wondered whether the same curriculum — which has won mixed reviews from educators — would continue to gain traction, as every elementary school must join the initiative by September 2024.

Now, there’s an answer: All elementary schools in 22 of the city’s 32 local districts will be required to use Into Reading, according to the Education Department.

The program’s popularity means the majority of the city’s elementary school students will soon use the same curriculum for reading. That’s a major shift, as the city’s previous approach gave principals leeway to choose their own materials.

It represents a big bet that one flagship curriculum will help schools Chancellor David Banks achieve his top goal: improving the city’s literacy rates. And it’s also a striking outcome given the Education Department vetted three options that officials said are high quality, including Wit & Wisdom, from a company called Great Minds, and EL Education, both of which have won praise from some advocates and educators.

Five districts will require EL Education, and five will use Wit & Wisdom, including Brooklyn’s District 15, where schools with dual-language programs will use Into Reading. It’s the only district that did not use a single choice across its campuses. (A full list of each district’s curriculum choice is included below.)

“It seems like, once again, Into Reading really wins,” said Susan Neuman, a professor at New York University and literacy expert.

Some educators and advocates have raised concerns about Into Reading, including that it is not culturally responsive enough. But Neuman said there is little definitive evidence about what the curriculum’s popularity will mean for student learning. “It’s really difficult to say one is better than another at this point,” she said of the three options the city selected.

Neuman and others said the three newly mandated curriculums are likely an improvement over the materials many schools have used in recent years, including a popular program created by Teachers College Professor Lucy Calkins. Backed by a growing chorus of experts, Banks has argued that Calkins’ curriculum has not worked, in part because it doesn’t include enough systematic instruction on the relationship between sounds and letters, known as phonics. It also includes some discredited methods, such as using pictures to guess what a word says.

The Education Department said it picked three curriculums more aligned with longstanding research about how children learn to read, often referred to as the science of reading. Separately, the city has required schools to use an approved phonics program alongside the three reading programs. Using a single curriculum across districts will allow the city to scale up more effective teacher training efforts, since materials won’t vary as much from campus to campus. Students who transfer schools will be less likely to start from scratch with a new curriculum.

Into Reading gets foothold in NYC schools even before the mandate

There are several reasons Into Reading likely has proved to be the most popular choice among local superintendents, who were tasked with making the final decision for their districts. The program is perceived to be the most traditional option and easier to roll out, with more regimented step-by-step lessons. And unlike the other two approved programs, Into Reading has a Spanish version that may appeal to schools with dual-language offerings.

“It’s so scripted, and if superintendents and district teams are worried about implementation, it could be easier” than the other choices, said a staffer in a local superintendent’s office who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the company behind Into Reading, also deployed a savvy marketing strategy. The publishing house made digital materials free for schools to use during the pandemic, potentially helping it gain a foothold in several districts. Superintendents may have been more compelled to select a curriculum already in their schools, since switching materials can be a difficult and time consuming process.

EL, Wit & Wisdom gain slightly more traction in second round

Despite Into Reading’s popularity, the other two curriculums were slightly more popular among superintendents who are part of the second phase of the mandate beginning this coming fall. Both Wit & Wisdom and EL Education place a greater emphasis on boosting students’ background knowledge, advocates say, a key element for boosting students’ reading comprehension across a wide range of subjects.

Those curriculums often lean on challenging nonfiction readings in an effort to ensure students are reading at their grade level, though some educators have said they can be difficult for students who are behind.

Some superintendents in the city’s more affluent neighborhoods, where certain schools have long-standing commitments to Calkins’ program, seemed to gravitate to Wit & Wisdom and El Education. District 2, which snakes from the West Village to the Upper East Side, is using Wit & Wisdom as is District 3, which covers Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

District 15, which includes Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Sunset Park, and Red Hook in Brooklyn split its schools between Wit & Wisdom and Into Reading. Still, other districts with fewer children from lower-income households — including Bayside, Queens District 26, and Staten Island — are using Into Reading. And some high-poverty areas, such as District 7 in the South Bronx are using EL Education.

Curriculum choices are only one part of the equation, though. Experts say the quality of teacher training and how committed educators are to making changes are also crucial. Among teachers in the first phase of the curriculum mandate this fall, some educators said they haven’t received as much support as they hoped.

“It’s been effective, but they say they want more of it — that it has to be ongoing,” said Marielys Divanne, the executive director of Educators for Excellence-New York, an advocacy group that supports the city’s curriculum mandate. “Curriculum alone is not sufficient.”

Kindergarten teacher Carla Murray-Bolling said she’s anxious and excited about the new curriculum mandate. Her school, P.S. 84 on the Upper West Side, uses Calkins’ program but will be required to switch to Wit & Wisdom this coming fall.

Murray-Bolling likes certain elements of Calkins’ curriculum, called “Units of Study,” including a recent lesson that teaches children that reading is a special power they can unlock — a superhero metaphor that got her students excited. But she also said the amount of time her students are expected to work independently can be a challenge, since many of her students have yet to master basic reading and writing skills.

“I’m anxious to see the changes,” she said, noting that she was not aware of opportunities for teachers to offer input on the new curriculum choices.

Still, she’s coming in with an open mind for the Education Department’s reading overhaul.

“If they feel it’s a curriculum that’s strong, and they think it’s good for the students, I don’t see anything wrong about that,” she said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

I teach future teachers. They don’t need the edTPA.

2023-03-31T14:00:00+00:00

I am a supervisor of teachers who work time and a half, for free. They arrive at work as early as 6:30 a.m., consult with guidance counselors during their free periods, tutor students after school, plan lessons and grade essays before and after dinner. They don’t sleep enough.

These teachers are student teachers, but they carry a full load. And they do all this work under the constant supervision of a veteran teacher and me, their university supervisor, with the expectation that they continuously revise their practice in response to feedback. Not all will make it out with a license. Those who do will have earned it.

When Illinois’ COVID Disaster Proclamation expires on May 11, the student teachers with whom I work will have even more on their plates. Lots more. The edTPA assessment for teacher licensure, which Illinois began requiring of all new teachers in the fall of 2015, will again be required in the spring of 2024.

The edTPA is often compared to the assessment required of veteran teachers seeking National Board Certification. Developed by the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity, it required my students to create some 50 pages of writing as well as video clips of themselves teaching. Despite its good intentions and fancy pedigree, this assessment is redundant, costly, and has the unintended effects of narrowing teacher education curricula and keeping strong candidates out of schools that need them — or out of the profession altogether.

To be sure, I want to hold future teachers to the highest standards; they are working with our most precious assets, our children. But to add such an onerous assessment when there are so many checks already in place is to fall prey to the accountability movement’s lie: that more testing is always good.

Already, pre-service teachers at my university have to apply for admission to our teacher education program after successful completion of prerequisite courses, maintain high grades in their education coursework, pass a state-administered content area test, and receive repeated positive evaluations of their student teaching by at least two veteran teachers. No additional testing is necessary.

For the few years that the edTPA was mandated in Illinois, its negative effects were immediately clear to me and went well beyond making a stressful student teaching semester remarkably more stressful. Because of the pressure to capture excellent student work on video, placement coordinators worried about assigning student teachers to some of the non-selective enrollment schools with which they had previously partnered. Because of the test fee, some teacher candidates with whom I worked — first-generation college students putting themselves through college and helping to support their families — put off licensure. And some, disheartened by not being able to finish on the planned timeline, put it off further.

Most ridiculously, my university colleagues and I devoted precious class time to teaching edTPA-specific vocabulary. The test emphasizes obscure terminology — terms like “language function” to describe “the content and language focus of the learning task, represented by the active verbs within the learning outcomes.” These terms left our and our students’ minds in tangles when we should have been focusing on teaching.

The edTPA doesn’t assess anything a good teacher education program doesn’t, and there are systems in place to assess the teacher education programs themselves. What the edTPA does do is distract from the work of teaching and increase stress, debt, and inequality, making it harder for lower-income student teachers to be licensed and disincentivizing their work in lower-income schools.

If the edTPA had proved itself to be a completely accurate assessment, that would be at least one point in its favor. But it hasn’t. Instead, we see damning data like that reported in a 2021 American Educational Research Journal article that “raise[s] serious concerns about scoring design, the reliability of the assessments, and the consequential impact on decisions about edTPA candidates.” (The testmakers have disputed those claims.) And yet edTPA is due to become required under law again in Illinois after the COVID-era emergency orders cease.

Hopefully, this will not come to pass. State lawmakers are considering changes to the licensure process, and I hope they make them. If the edTPA returns, I will have to return to using valuable class time to prepare students to clear this unnecessary hurdle. And I will again have to watch as the edTPA’s demands dangerously overload student teachers’ plates.

Indeed, as I watch this semester’s student teachers working so hard, giving up time with family and friends to support students of their own, I quake to think of asking future student teachers to do even more. Given Illinois’ teacher shortage (ISBE reported more than 2,000 unfilled teacher positions in 2022) and our children’s increased needs since the pandemic, we should be doing everything we can to get these dedicated aspiring teachers into the schools that need them.

Kate Sjostrom is a lecturer and associate director of English education at University of Illinois, Chicago.

At our parent-teacher conferences, students lead the way

2023-04-18T12:00:00+00:00

Each fall and spring, families and schools across the country take part in “parent-teacher” conferences. Filing in and out of classrooms (or Zoom rooms), educators and parents talk about student progress, participation, and social development. The children and teens who are the subject of the conference are not usually in the room.

At the Newark middle school where I work, though, our students are the ones leading the conference. They are the ones facilitating the conversation about their strengths and areas for growth.

Lauren Whidbee

It takes preparation to get there, but I’ve seen it pay off for everyone involved.

To help students to feel confident enough to advocate for themselves, we have them prepare and practice with their peers. Before parents arrive, students complete a reflection activity, and my colleagues and I use a checklist to ensure we make the most out of these rare opportunities to all get together.

The checklist, for example, reminds teachers that they can ask probing questions or direct the student to the agenda but to be careful not to dominate the conversation. We arrange for interpreters if needed. Even the design is intentional — we adjust our seats into seminar-style circles to promote discussion.

I remember one student whom I’ll call Maria. She was a hard worker and strong reader but was often uncomfortable speaking in front of her peers. At her first conference, she put her hands over her face, too nervous to share.

Through patience, practice in class, and the support of her family, her conference the next year looked completely different. She was able to present, her shoulders back and head held high as she discussed her progress and how she wanted to be pushed not just academically but also socially.

At traditional parent-teacher conferences, students may worry about being misrepresented, and parents and guardians might feel surprised and overwhelmed when a teacher expresses that their child is struggling. It also places a strain on teachers who have large class sizes.

It takes a lot of maturity to express your growth and areas for improvement, but I see a genuine effort from all of my students.

Empowering students to lead these discussions lessens the emotional and mental burden on educators. Students have the opportunity to reflect on the skills they learned, their accomplishments to be proud of, what they can work on during the next quarter, and how those goals align with our school’s values: bravery, ownership, and leadership. Families can also trust that if their student identifies they are struggling with completing math homework and assignments on time, it is true. From there, teachers, parents, and students can work together to create action plans.

Of course, it still takes work and an understanding of the students and their families. I know what classes my students are excelling in and if they are having trouble with behavior in a specific class or homework in another. I let the students lead, but I may ask probing questions or direct the student to the agenda. And I help the student if the parent is talking too much, redirecting the conversation if someone begins to get upset.

After the meeting, students send thank you notes to their guardians who attended the event. It takes a lot of maturity to express your growth and areas for improvement, but I see a genuine effort from all of my students.

Since moving to student-led conferences more than five years ago, we have noticed a subtle but important shift. Students are learning public speaking skills. They are learning to advocate for themselves and to manage their time while speaking. And we see parents making a real effort to attend.

For schools looking for a way to improve on their own conferences, shifting to a student-led model is worth considering. For families wondering how to connect the dots between school and home, ask your child’s school about student-led conferences. Some of the best innovations in education are low-tech and right in front of us.

Lauren Whidbee is a successor school leader at KIPP BOLD Academy in Newark, where she has worked since the school was founded in 2015. She started her career as a Teach for America Corps member in Baltimore. Whidbee is a proud alumna of the University of Pennsylvania, and she earned her master’s degree in education at Johns Hopkins University.

AP U.S. History is a ‘race across time.’ That’s an outdated way to teach.

2023-05-05T12:00:00+00:00

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I walk into my Advanced Placement U.S. History class, excited to teach the Vietnam War, yet knowing I will fail.

My students may learn some basic information about the war from primary documents and get a sense of its horror of it from film clips. But they will not have time to make deep connections to our world today — to wonder deeply about whistleblowers and government secrets, to connect it to “forever” wars, or to consider the implications of war and peace in Ukraine today.

But I smile at my students and queue up my slides because there is no time to waste on doubt. I only have one day for this topic.

For AP U.S. History, the number of units and topics — and their relative importance on the AP exam — are dictated by the College Board. Sadly, the last unit of the AP U.S. History course, Period 9: 1980–present, is the least represented on the exam, making up only 4-6%. The unit likely to be the most relevant to my students is the least tested, and preparing my students for the exam means giving it less emphasis in my classroom, too.

Jeremy Kaplan

The “race across time” content demands of the U.S. History curriculum have also meant that I have to cover a different historical topic each day. It means I have had little to no time to have my students study current and recent history so that they can make meaningful connections between the past and the present.

It’s a frustrating state of affairs, especially when AP History courses are upheld as the model for educational excellence. The assumed supremacy of AP courses is explicitly reinforced through initiatives like New York City’s push to enroll as many students as possible and implicitly reinforced when a school’s “best” teachers are “rewarded” by being programmed to teach AP courses.

I have not found this to be true. To me, AP History courses represent an outdated vision: the idea that knowing more information, however superficially, is good.

In my one-day lesson on the U.S. involvement in World War II, for example, my class did learn about the important topics of Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and the use of atomic weapons in Japan by the U.S. However, how rich would our discussions have been, and how useful to our democracy, if we could have gone deeper? If we could have asked questions about if it is ever justified to kill civilians during war? If my students could have researched current issues of U.S. military interventions? How far we should go to prevent or start a war or terrorism?

How rich would our discussions have been, and how useful to our democracy, if we could have gone deeper?

But no. This is AP History. And there’s no time.

I am totally in favor of students learning historical content. Plenty of research supports the importance of factual knowledge for higher-level thinking and reading comprehension. Current and recent events are also historical content, though, content that students usually do not know much about.

We also know that adolescents learn best when they find what they are learning relevant to their lives. But the AP course rarely allows us to “make it” to the present. The format means never giving my students today a chance to learn about such important, relevant events as the end of the Cold War, September 11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama’s presidency, or the Trump presidency. It simply does not make pedagogical sense to leave the current and recent past to the end of the year. That’s why this year, I opted to teach these more contemporary lessons first (albeit necessarily rushed) as an “entry point” to the other content.

I’m convinced that a more engaging course would prioritize deep learning and engagement by having students study fewer historical topics more deeply and including much more recent and current history. Every unit would include connections to more recent events. This is more straightforward than it seems: History happens chronologically, but history is not the events of the past; it is the study of the events of the past. We experience history by continually bouncing back and forth (cognitively) between the past and the present.

In my dream scenario, high school history classes would allow students to engage in civic action as they sow connections between history, their lives, and their hopes for the future.

Imagine a course where students spend 4-6 weeks on a Racial Justice unit, where students learn about Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, and choose a current issue of racial equity to research. Students could connect with an organization that is working on that issue, take some action on the issue, and write a paper reflecting on the experience.

This is the type of class I think my students need. I know it’s the type of class I need. And I think it’s the type of class our country needs.

Jeremy Kaplan is an assistant principal of supervision at High School for Health Professions and Human Services in New York City. He has been a teacher, instructional coach, and assistant principal in New York City since 1994.

In my classroom, I offer trigger warnings. Sometimes, I worry they do more harm than good.

2023-05-31T12:00:00+00:00

In my English classes at a community college in Sonoma County, California, I’ve been teaching the podcast S-town, off and on, since its release seven years ago. Students are overwhelmingly enthralled with the twisting plot, which begins as a murder mystery, evolves into a treasure hunt, and then meanders into examining the life and mind of John B. McLemore, a brilliant and complicated horologist (that is, a person who studies clocks).

Narrated by the unflappable Brian Reed, the podcast is a great vehicle for examining the line between art and exploitation and the debilitating grip of untreated mental illness, among other topics.

Jess D. Taylor

The last time I taught S-town, a student lamented that I didn’t give a trigger or content warning before they listened to the final episode, in which John engages in severe self-harm. (To ensure they felt comfortable with what was ahead, I did give them a trigger warning, but it was before we started the podcast as a whole.)

Through comments on Canvas, she told me, “I swear to you I nearly puked” while listening to the episode. She was a bright and inquisitive student. I valued that she felt comfortable enough to be honest with me, as I work hard to build rapport and trust with my students.

I empathized with her reaction, and I told her so, but I also explained that I wasn’t dismayed by her nausea. In this time of desensitization and apathy (one of John B’s major gripes), I’m actually glad she could let art move her so viscerally. I felt the same way when I read parts of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” for the first time. To be clear: I do not want my students to suffer needlessly, but nor do I want them to fear discomfort or expect other people to take responsibility for their feelings.

This is one of the reasons why Cornell University administrators recently rejected a student assembly resolution that would require faculty to provide trigger warnings for potentially upsetting or offensive material. In rejecting the motion, the school’s president and provost wrote that such a requirement would “have a chilling effect on faculty, who would naturally fear censure lest they bring a discussion spontaneously into new and challenging territory, or fail to accurately anticipate students’ reaction to a topic or idea.”

Of course, this is nothing new: Trigger warnings have been the subject of widespread debate for years now as educators across the country wrestle with whether and how to prepare students for what they are about to read, hear, see, or experience.

The Cornell student resolution said potentially triggering topics included materials discussing “sexual assault, domestic violence, self-harm, suicide, child abuse, racial violence, transphobic violence, homophobic harassment, etc.” But these topics are very often part of literature classes, as we seek to think critically about all aspects of the human experience.

As such, I actually do give trigger warnings, usually both verbally and in writing before the start of a unit. I do this despite the fact that studies have shown such warnings to be ineffective and possibly counterproductive. Students are used to these well-meaning signifiers of care, and I want my students to feel taken care of, especially as they come of age in a sometimes terrifying world in which their bodies, livelihoods, and environments are under attack. As Roxane Gay points out in her essay, “The Illusion of Safety/The Safety of Illusion,” “Few are willing to consider the possibility that trigger warnings might be ineffective, impractical and necessary for creating safe spaces all at once.”

Students are used to these well-meaning signifiers of care.

Another of the tenets of the rejected Cornell resolution was that students be allowed to opt out of the potentially upsetting material. The president and provost, however, wrote, “Learning to engage with difficult and challenging ideas is a core part of a university education.” It’s hard to disagree with that.

I take seriously my role in creating a safe space in which discomfort is valued as an invitation to deep engagement rather than something to be eschewed or feared. I do this in part by assigning challenging, provocative texts that demand a mature audience. In my experience, when my college students feel heard and seen as burgeoning adults, they are more likely to meet me with measured responses.

“Trigger warnings also, when used in excess, start to feel like censorship,” Gay writes. “They suggest that there are experiences or perspectives too inappropriate, too explicit, too bare to be voiced publicly.” An English class, or any class, may not be the place for a student to work through their trauma, of course. But it can be a place where they see that they are not alone in their experiences, whether that be mirrored through literature, discussions with their peers, or an imperfect podcast with all-too-human elements.

S-town gives my students an opportunity to lean into understanding (rather than summarily pigeonholing and dismissing) someone who sees the world differently. By coming to terms with John B’s conflicting, multitudinous self — at once generous, sensitive, repressed, angry, benevolent, and, sometimes, casually cruel — they can learn to embrace nuance over fundamentalism, which is beneficial in all public discussions.

“I have coaxed many infirm clocks back to mellifluous life,” John B writes in his suicide note. “I have audited the discourse of the hickories, oaks and pines even when no wind was present. I’ve lived on this blue orb now for about 17,600 days, and … I know that if I died tonight my life has been inestimably better than most of my compatriots. Additionally, my absence makes room and leaves some resources for others who deserve no less than I have enjoyed.”

Despite all the ugliness that led to this moment in the podcast, I think these beautiful words are worth considering — even as they may evoke discomfort, with or without warning.

Jess D. Taylor has written for Bon Appetit, Creative Nonfiction, SmokeLong Quarterly, Eater SF, Little Patuxent Review, and several other publications. For 18 years, she has taught English at both the high school and college level in Sonoma County, California, where she also edits Made Local magazine and raises her two daughters.

A new teaching assignment took me way outside my comfort zone

2023-07-12T18:34:21+00:00

I recently received five thank you notes saying that I had been a good teacher. I also got an invite to a graduation party.

These were nice gestures, but the truth is, I don’t feel like a good teacher. In fact, this past school year, I doggy paddled in self-pity for being in this position — involuntarily reassigned from my instructional coaching position to teaching full-time.

Yvette J. Green

The teacher shortage in my district meant that central office staff who were still part of the teachers union would once again become classroom teachers. I would be teaching 12th grade English, African-American literature, and speech. Finding my sea legs was hard, and I wasn’t excited about all that would be required of me — quickly assessing student work, adjusting and re-adjusting instruction, and keeping large groups of students off their devices. Students carried their trauma and pain into the classroom; as an empathic person, it impacted me daily.

It felt like many students were biding their time in a system they couldn’t escape. Some teens told me that school was an obstacle on the way into the real world.

Meanwhile, I felt so poorly equipped for the job before me. And yet I was determined to reduce the harm and offer something different in my African-American literature and speech electives. I introduced my students to some of the standard bearers of African American literature, such as Gwendolyn Brooks, August Wilson, and Lorraine Hansberry, and had them do research on topics relevant to the texts. Sure, they preferred to write notes passively from a PowerPoint, but my training taught me that students learn by thinking and doing.

As an instructional coach for six years prior, I loved working with educators and students one-on-one and in small groups. In those settings, I was able to assess students’ needs and push them harder and assist teachers with their lesson planning. It isn’t an efficient way to teach. Work takes longer to complete, and not all students are on task as I offer individualized instruction to their peers. But I saw real progress.

As the teacher of record, I did my best to bring practices from my coaching years into my classroom. For example, when students were nervous about giving speeches to the entire class, I had them speak in front of three or four students.

My students saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself.

One day, after students delivered their speeches, I said, “Tell me one thing you did well and one thing that you need to work on.” I never had a student say that they did everything perfectly; their responses were thoughtful. I wanted them to develop a habit of being self-reflective. Sometimes, I had them grade themselves.

Throughout the year, I gave my students different opportunities to practice thinking on their feet, conducting research, and making videos. We played games like Liar Liar, charades, and Finish the Story. Eventually, they raised their heads and looked at me as they spoke, and they eased into speaking before their entire class. Their classmates cheered them on. So did I.

And in their end-of-year notes, my students were generous with their praise. “I always appreciate the talks we had after class, they meant a lot to me. I consider you a friend of mine,” wrote one student. “Thank you for all of your spectacular teaching! You really helped me develop my voice!” wrote another. My students told me they learned from me that it is OK not to be OK. They said they now understood the importance of giving themselves space to get something wrong and space to grow.

I doubted myself often this past year. In my lowest moments, I felt like a failure, wondering what had happened to the teacher I had once been. But my students saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself. They saw in me a good teacher even if I didn’t feel like one. They reminded me that my heart, my grace, and my desire to do better in an imperfect and sometimes chaotic system were more than enough.

Yvette J. Green is originally from Nashville and has lived in the Maryland/Washington, D.C., area for over 20 years. She is a mother of two sons, a former educator, and a freelance writer. Her writing has appeared in Salon, Slate, Viator, midnight & indigo, and 45th Parallel, among other publications.

Middle school teacher at ‘exemplary’ Chicago school honored with $25,000 prize

2024-02-02T22:54:57+00:00

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Comfort Agboola was thinking about her upcoming math lesson while keeping an eye on her middle school students during an assembly this morning to celebrate her school’s recent achievement as one of only five majority-Black Chicago schools to earn an “Exemplary” designation from the state.

At least that’s what she thought the assembly was about.

Until one of the visitors at the assembly turned to announce a $25,000 award to one of Poe Classical Elementary School’s teachers. It was Agboola.

The gym erupted in applause and cheers as Poe students waved light blue Poe Classical flags and paper signs with Agboola’s face on them. The glittering Poe cheer team burst into dance, and colleagues rushed to hug a stunned Agboola.

The event brought out some special guests – including Congresswoman Robin Kelly, State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders, and Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Pedro Martinez – to the selective enrollment school in the city’s Pullman neighborhood.

Jane Foley, the senior vice president of the Milken Educator Awards, announced the award, which is given to up to 75 educators across the U.S.

Agboola is the only Illinois educator to receive the award this year and the first Chicago Public Schools district teacher to receive the award since 2010.

The Milken Educator Award was created by Lowell Milken in 1987 to honor early- to mid-career education professionals based on their achievements and “the promise of what they will accomplish,” according to a press release from the Milken Family Foundation.

“I was just in shock,” Agboola said afterward. “It pushes me to do more in the classroom.”

Martinez said in a statement that “exceptional efforts” for Agboola’s students “exhibit what we as a District can accomplish if we continue to focus on core instruction and welcoming, supportive school communities.”

Along with the cash award, honorees attend an all-expenses-paid forum with Milken in Los Angeles, receive mentorship opportunities, and become lifetime members of the Milken Educator Network, a nationwide group of educators and education professionals including past award recipients.

“They never let you go,” said Mark Jordan, who won the award in 1989 when he taught music at Gompers Fine Arts Option School in Chicago.

“It’s the Oscars of education. I don’t see anyone saying I do it for the accolades,” he said after helping to present the award to Agboola Friday. “So, if I see another educator being honored, I want to be there.”

The $25,000 award is unrestricted, and recipients have used the money in diverse ways, including spending funds on their children’s or their own education, establishing scholarships, or taking a dream vacation, according to the press release.

Agboola teaches reading, English language arts, and math at Poe. Her passion, however, is writing, and she brings that passion into the class. In her classroom, for example, students have a living room, library, and publishing area where they can practice spelling and respond to writing prompts on a collection of typewriters, while also learning about typewriter mechanics.

Outside of the classroom, Agboola extends student learning with opportunities like spelling bees, a podcast club, debate, and Model UN. She has earned several other distinctions including a Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellowship, the 2020-21 Network 13 Teacher of the Year Award, and the State of Illinois’ 2023 Meritorious Service Award in the Teacher Category.

“I like her teaching style,” said Jayson Ridgell, one of Agboola’s sixth grade students. “She doesn’t yell and she’s patient.”

He said Ms. A, as her students call her, visits every table in the classroom to work with individual students.

Agboola joined Poe in 2020 during the pandemic and spent her first year there teaching virtually, but that wasn’t the first challenge she’s faced in her teaching career.

In her first teaching job at the now-closed St. Hyacinth Basilica School in Avondale more than a decade ago, she worked with a young student who was non-verbal. When the student spoke for the first time in Agboola’s presence, she knew teaching was her calling - just as it was her mother’s.

“Parents are sending their most valuable thing to us,” she said. “I know that anything they do they are still growing and learning. They need our support.”

When the celebration waned and most students returned to their classes, Agboola remained surrounded by cameras as she called another important educator in her life: her mother.

“I just want to thank you too, mom,” she said over the phone. “Because you inspired me in your career as an educator.”

What Gen Z needs to know about 9/11 and its aftermath

2023-09-08T14:00:00+00:00

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Monday marks the 22nd anniversary of 9/11. Around the country, people will remember the unimaginable losses of that day with memorials, rallies, hashtags like #NeverForget, and acts of service. And then they will move on, relegating 9/11 to a one-dimensional and incomplete historical narrative that centers the attacks and the immediate aftermath but neglects the long-term effects of decisions taken after that day.

This cycle of remembering and forgetting can be damaging for young people, especially those who did not live through 9/11 or started school after it occurred. Given recent attacks on how and what to teach about U.S. history, coupled with rising acts of hate against communities of color, we must demand more inclusive curriculums about 9/11 and its aftermath.

For both of us, what happened after the 9/11 attacks catalyzed our research and teaching. For Ameena, it grounded her research with youth from Muslim immigrant communities in the U.S. and, eventually, the creation of the curriculum Teaching Beyond September 11th. Examining the two decades after 9/11, the curriculum covers U.S. foreign and domestic policy as well as solidarity movements, media representation, and Islamophobia. For Deepa, it led her to support South Asian non-profits and write a book that documents the post-9/11 experiences of South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh immigrants in America.

Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher, left, and Deepa Iyer

Today, we are also parents of Gen Z children and have witnessed how limited the conversation around 9/11 is, particularly in public schools. Much of this conversation focuses on what unfolded on that terrible Tuesday. Rarely do students examine the devastating aftermath on communities who have borne the brunt of policies that followed in the name of national security or the roughly 432,000 civilian victims of direct war violence in the global war on terror.

It is becoming clearer with each passing year that U.S. students are receiving partial, time-limited, and de-contextualized histories and perspectives about a watershed moment in history. According to a 2017 audit, only 26 states include 9/11 and the subsequent war on terror in public school curriculums. Where and when it is taught, the emphasis is often on national security with scant mention of the effects of Islamophobia, restrictions to civil liberties, or the vast human costs of military interventions.

For Gen Z, 9/11 and its aftermath is perhaps akin to how our generation, Gen X, perceived the Vietnam War. Most of us did not live through that time, and our lessons reduced it to a dark period of U.S. history disconnected from the present. Knowing about the costs of the wars in Southeast Asia, their impact on the global anti-war movement, and the treatment of refugees would have provided us with a vital lens to evaluate U.S. policy.

Similarly, understanding how the world changed after 9/11 will better prepare Gen Z to evaluate policy, understand current events, and form meaningful connections with members of the communities impacted by the backlash to the attacks. It will help them assess the recent U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the treatment of Afghan refugees, and the cynical use of anti-Muslim election rhetoric.

Social studies content about 9/11 should teach about the backlash perpetrated against Arabs, Muslims, Sikhs, and South Asians in the U.S. by fellow Americans and, later, by the state itself through government surveillance and profiling.

American history classes should probe how the U.S. immigration and national security infrastructure changed with the creation of the federal Department of Homeland Security. Students should learn how the war on terror did not just include wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also subsequent counterterror activities in 85 countries.

Our classroom amnesia around 9/11 could get worse.

Those who want to understand the fuller history have access to stories, case studies, voices of young activists, research, and documentation. These resources are likely to spark discussions about such topics as the mental health consequences of Islamophobia and the effects of domestic policies on working-class communities.

Still, our classroom amnesia around 9/11 could get worse, given the attacks on teaching and learning about the histories of people of color. But it’s crucial that students not receive watered-down historical information, be it about Black history in America or the 9/11 terror attacks and what followed.

Now, 22 years on, we have yet another opportunity to provide students with a complex and multi-layered understanding of 9/11. We have the chance to teach in ways that uplift historical accuracy and complex perspectives for young people. Our children deserve no less.

Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher, EdD, is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. She is the project director and curriculum lead for the Teaching Beyond September 11th curriculum project.

Deepa Iyer works on solidarity and social movements at the Building Movement Project. Her book, ”We Too Sing America”, documents histories of South Asian, Muslim, Sikh and Muslim immigrants in the wake of 9/11.

Outdoor classrooms should outlast COVID

2023-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

For me, the smiles in back-to-school photos felt extra forced this year.

How can I hold in one hand dystopian headlines about schools — closures for excessive heat, dilapidated buildings with dangerous indoor air quality, shortages of school-based mental health professionals, a worsening mental health emergency — and, in the other, the promise and excitement of a new year of learning?

I offer one common sense proposal to help. I “discovered” it as a teacher in 2011. Many educators deployed it in fall 2020. But it’s hardly new. It was apparent even in the early 20th century.

Teach students outdoors.

Becca Katz

I credit my old high school Spanish classroom for my discovery. It was located in a repurposed strip mall in Durango, Colorado, and its storefront window wall had exactly zero windows that opened. I wasn’t supposed to prop the doors due to security risks. The air conditioner didn’t work. August and September temperatures in my classroom hovered in the upper 90s and low 100s. It was unbearable.

We improvised. We spilled out to the parking lot, playing conjugation musical chairs standing on notebook-spots instead of sitting in chairs. We chanted and danced “Pie-pie-pie” (a Spanish-language twist on “head, shoulders, knees, and toes”) in a giant circle. Our paved heat island was better than indoors but still too hot. So we headed to a park a few minutes walk from our sauna.

We held class chasing shade. I got a small whiteboard and filled a cardboard box with dry-erase markers and extra writing utensils. I even started adapting my lessons to the park with fewer papers that could fly around and no screens. This gave way to more movement, flexible group work, and games. My students were super engaged in learning. Outdoors a chattering squirrel allowed for a “brain break” and a new Spanish vocabulary word, “ardilla.” Nature’s distractions almost felt like they helped my students focus. I’ve since discovered research validating that feeling.

Late fall arrived with cooler temperatures. Even though our outdoor classroom was working, and I had over a decade of experience as an outdoor educator, I led us back inside. My students didn’t question it. On autopilot, we marched indoors to be surrounded by classroom creature comforts: whiteboards, dry-erase markers, a sometimes-functional Smartboard, speakers to blast Aventura and Enrique, books, paper, desks, chairs.

Looking back, it feels like malpractice to have led my students back indoors. I faced fewer barriers teaching outdoors than most teachers do, thanks to two decades of experience leading wilderness expeditions and teaching high school students everything from English to natural history to environmental ethics in outdoor classrooms in the Bolivian Andes, the Canadian Arctic, Utah’s canyons, and Colorado’s mountains.

In Durango, a mountain town with a hearty outdoor recreation culture, most parents were happy for us to be outside. My curriculum at a project-based learning charter school was mine to invent. My students and I were insulated from many standardized tests and accountability pressures. We had a great park nearby.

COVID was our national window-walled classroom moment. In fall 2020, many districts, schools, and individual educators across the country took to learning outdoors out of necessity. Green Schoolyards America led a beautiful collective effort to document outdoor learning practices in a National Outdoor Learning Library.

If we can provide 1:1 tablets, surely we can do 1:1 clipboards.

In the fall of 2020, in a different rural Colorado school, we improvised an outdoor school to make in-person learning possible. Students spent full days outdoors alternating with days indoors with their classroom teachers. In November 2022, after that school received a Bright Spot award from Governor Polis for academic growth through the pandemic, I received an email from the principal. Her take? Outdoor school was a causal part of their success.

The evidence for learning in nature is compelling, robust, and growing. Reduced stress. Improved attention and cognitive function. More physical fitness. Fewer behavioral challenges. Higher engagement. Enhanced cooperation. Better relationships among students and between teachers and students. It even has promising potential as an equity lever.

But I fear the autopilot response that drove my students and me indoors is happening across our country post-pandemic. As we’ve returned to “normal,” we’ve forgotten the immediate benefits of learning outdoors.

I know the magical combination of favorable conditions I faced is far from the reality for most teachers. I also know widespread adoption of learning outdoors in nearby nature is simple and could happen almost overnight in schools with access to green spaces. In those schools, let’s build educator capacity to teach students outdoors. Let’s purchase the requisite resources to support outdoor classrooms. If we can provide 1:1 tablets, surely we can do 1:1 clipboards plus a class wagon, or “go-bin,” with writing utensils, foam sit spots, and a portable whiteboard.

Next, let’s retool or develop from scratch school systems to integrate and support teaching and learning outdoors. While we’re at it, let’s mobilize parents and community members as extra hands who can carry materials, help students cross busy roads, and share what they know about local flora and fauna. Just like that, outdoor learning can generate positive sentiment about what’s happening in (and outside of) school.

For some schools, the solutions are less immediate. Excessive heat. Poor outdoor air quality. Gun violence. Concrete as far as the eye can see. These are real issues that must be addressed. For these schools, let’s do two things. First, let’s immediately infuse the indoor environment with nature to create verdant learning spaces filled with plants (real or fake!), nature imagery, nature soundscapes, and nature objects, like pinecones, seeds, and shells.

In parallel, let’s do the longer work to ensure these schools have safe, nearby nature spaces.

Because back to school should mean back outside for all.

Becca Katz has been a teacher, administrator, and wilderness expedition leader in public and private schools, teaching in indoor, outdoor, and backcountry classrooms. Now, she writes about mainstreaming nature-based learning on her Substack, Learning, by Nature. Through her organization Good Natured Learning, she also works to help teachers integrate nature and the outdoors into their routine teaching practices.

Click here to read Becca Katz’s guidance for outdoor learning.

Schoolwork shouldn’t double as screentime

2023-10-16T20:31:22+00:00

Children get one childhood, and time is one of the most precious resources we have in schools. For these reasons, I am increasingly frustrated that I have next to no power to stop my own children from wasting their time in front of a computer screen.

That’s because screens are where they are expected to access and complete their schoolwork and homework. My children are assigned to watch online videos and answer questions about them in an online form. Their grades reflect their responses.

Jeff Frank

No doubt, this assigned screen time probably comes from a good place. Teachers want to provide students with experiences they will enjoy. Why give students a reading that they may not do when you could give them a video they are more likely to watch?

Watch enough videos and students begin to believe that learning must be passively entertaining and that the best way to take in new information is through streaming content. The most compelling story is often not the most truthful one, but the one that is the most slickly produced.

I don’t want that for my children. I want my children to enjoy the challenges of learning, to take in multiple sources, and to ask good questions about everything they engage with. I don’t want them on autopilot, screening their way through childhood.

UNESCO recently published a book titled “An Ed-Tech Tragedy?” and it is sobering. This book spells out how pandemic school shutdowns resulted in massive learning losses. It also highlights the costs, in terms of mental health, of spending so much time on screens.

For years, educational technologists have cast personalized online learning as an answer to what plagues education. But even when ed tech was needed most, these tools did not always rise to the occasion. They couldn’t take the place of teachers, peers, and classroom conversations. And our reliance on them has instilled terrible habits in teachers and students.

Parents were rightly frustrated and angry when their children were robbed of the opportunity to attend school because of pandemic lockdowns. It is not good for a child to be away from their peers and in front of screens. Key social, emotional, and intellectual skills are lost when this happens. That’s why we must not replicate the worst aspects of school lockdowns now that children are back in school. Children should spend time engaging their teacher and each other — making eye contact and appreciating what can only be learned through human presence — not retreating back into the safe, solitary spaces of their devices.

There is no greater gift we can give children than our fullest attention.

Their schoolwork should have them engaging with what is best in our culture, not what is most convenient or entertaining. This means reading challenging texts with students and doing the work of helping them develop their voices in relation to these texts. However, educators seem to be having a hard time remembering that distance learning was the best we could think to do during the lockdown, not a best practice that we should continue.

I am not afraid to mourn all that was lost because of the pandemic. Children suffered tremendously, and schools across the country will be dealing with the academic, social, and emotional fallout for years to come. My grieving process involves honoring my hopes and fears from the middle of the pandemic. I promised myself then that if we ever got back to normal, I wouldn’t take the physical presence of my students for granted. I would look at their unmasked faces and try to communicate how much I appreciated that we were together.

Screens, and the illusion of engagement they offer, get in the way of this type of lived gratitude, and they distract us from what matters.

To be clear, teachers’ lives in schools are often tremendously difficult. Many educators are demoralized and under-appreciated, but an over-reliance on screens will not make the work of teaching more rewarding or valued. It’s human connections that make teaching an endlessly rewarding calling. I know this from my own classrooms and my experience training future teachers.

As much as I may internally complain about having to pick up all the little Lego pieces, Magna-Tiles, and wooden blocks that my boys leave scattered around the house at the end of a long day, I know that this type of embodied play is the foundation of a good childhood. And as hard as it might be to listen — really listen — to the stories my daughters tell as they process their day at school (and not just let my mind wander to all the items on my to-do list), there is no greater gift we can give children than our fullest attention.

I am not a perfect parent or teacher, but I do know that I am at my best when I am present. And I know that screens keep me from offering my full presence. I wish I had more power to keep them out of schools because I know my children — and all of our children — deserve better.

Jeff Frank is a professor, department chair of education, and director of the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Assessment at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York.

Being a sub made me a better teacher

2023-11-20T16:15:00+00:00

My own path into teaching took a detour when COVID forced me to complete my student teaching online. I found myself adapting on the job and making the best of the hand I’d been dealt, which turned out to be good practice for what lay ahead.

After graduating, I couldn’t secure a full-time teaching position right away, so I turned to substitute teaching. It isn’t the path I would have initially chosen, but I’m grateful it chose me.

Torrey Barlow

Substitute teaching gets a bad rap, as subs may face inconsistent assignments and pay, and they often encounter more challenging student behaviors than their permanent counterparts.

But subbing, despite its drawbacks, allowed me to try more than I usually would as a new teacher — kind of like sharing a dessert platter with friends! Within just a couple of years, I’ve taught a variety of grade levels and subjects in all sorts of campus environments. It also exposed me to a variety of lesson plans, which permanent teachers left for me.

Sometimes, I served as a classroom aide, which meant I got to observe various teaching styles. I remember, for example, the first time I saw a teacher use a “think-pair-share” activity, in which the teacher asked students a question, had them think about it, write it down, and then share their ideas with a partner. I also saw how teachers used moments of levity to develop their rapport with students. It was moments like these that showed me how being part of a team helps new teachers turn theory into practice.

Variety also helped me discover the grade level that resonates with me. I went into teaching picturing myself teaching second grade, when students are full of wonder but they’re also making big strides developmentally. I was especially excited to help students learn to read during that stage of their lives.

Substitute teaching has been more than a 31-flavor tour of classrooms. It has also been a window into the distinct cultures of different schools.

That changed last year when I had a long-term substitute position as a sixth grade teacher. At first, I was intimidated because kids that age are going through so many physical and emotional changes. Then I fell in love with teaching sixth grade because I was able to engage students and content on a deeper level. My sixth graders even helped me realize that I love teaching math — a subject I hated learning. Admitting to my class that I wasn’t a great math student helped me quickly build crucial connections with students.

Substitute teaching has been more than a 31-flavor tour of classrooms. It has also been a window into the distinct cultures of different schools. Before I started teaching, I didn’t think much about finding a school that fits my personality, but now I can see why that’s so important for first-year teaching success.

My years as a sub taught me that I thrive in collaborative environments, something that I will seek out in a full-time position. (I’m close to finishing my master’s in education, which should make me an even stronger candidate.) I want to find a job where teachers hang out in shared spaces and eat lunch together, instead of at their desks, and where administrators walk around the campus and spend time in classrooms.

Had I not spent these past couple of years as a substitute teacher, I don’t think I’d appreciate teaching as much as I do. Instead of getting burnt out and quitting in my first few years, as nearly half of new teachers do, I feel an even stronger commitment to my students and the profession.

Schools would be wise to better support substitute teachers, providing opportunities to learn from and collaborate with permanent teachers, and developing a pipeline so that subs like me can move into full-time teaching roles.

Subbing wasn’t initially the path I saw myself on, but it has been the best possible training ground for me. I can’t wait for what’s next.

Torrey Barlow is a full-time credentialed teacher at the North County Coastal Substitute Consortium in San Diego, California.

When schools assign substitutes the wrong status, the error suppresses their pay

2024-01-31T10:00:00+00:00

This story was published in partnership with New York Focus, a non-profit news site investigating how power works in New York state. Sign up for their newsletter here.

This is the second installment in a two-part series reported with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. You can read the first part here.

When the Queens public school where she was working assigned Antonietta Auriemma to seven classroom sections, she realized something was wrong.

Between January and June 2023, Auriemma, a substitute teacher, filled in for two different teachers on long-term leaves of absence, on top of extra classroom periods as needed.

According to her handbook, she should have been classified as a “long-term sub” — and qualified for the requisite pay and benefits.

In the nation’s largest public school system, most substitute teachers work day-to-day, filling in for short-term absences at a fixed daily rate of roughly $200. But amid a teacher shortage made worse since the pandemic spurred educators to flee in droves, more and more New York City schools have come to rely on substitutes on longer-term assignments. Because they are more like regular teachers, these long-term subs are supposed to earn around $100 extra per day, which can add up to roughly $25,000 more per year, according to the teachers union. Some accrue sick time, vacation time, and even get health insurance.

Auriemma wasn’t receiving any of that.

“I was basically a full-time teacher,” Auriemma told New York Focus. “I was lesson planning for these classes, entering grades for these students, speaking to parents for parent engagement, all while making the [lower] sub pay of $200 a day.”

For years, subs like Auriemma have been underpaid for their long-term services — a violation of the New York City Department of Education’s teacher contract with the United Federation of Teachers, or UFT.

Interviews with 10 former and current substitute teachers or substitute paraprofessionals suggest that the practice is systematic and widespread across the city, and that since the pandemic began, violations may have increased. In a Sept. 11, 2023, UFT executive board meeting, Mark Collins, the union’s grievance director, stated that schools paying substitutes at an incorrect rate is “probably the most common grievance we have in the city.” A UFT spokesperson confirmed that it is one of the top grievances in the union.

Nearly all the interviewed substitutes, whose labor spans multiple city boroughs, said they knew of schools that underpaid subs because of misclassification. Five of them said they had filed grievances related to these issues; three have won back pay as a result, while the others’ grievances are still pending resolution.

Those who don’t grieve their wage shortages may choose not to because they’re unaware of the contract provisions. Others, because of their relative precarity: Many subs depend on the work as their primary income and cannot miss days for fear of falling behind on bills. Six subs described a culture of retaliation that might get them fired or suddenly removed from the classroom if they complain.

“Once you file, you’re essentially blacklisted at a school.”
JOE DIODATO, SUB WHO FILED A LABOR GRIEVANCE

Even if subs get to stay in the same school, they might get moved from classroom to classroom to preserve their place in the arcane classification system that keeps pay down. And when teachers get shuffled, students suffer.

Beth Ellor, who retired from full-time teaching in 2009, has subbed regularly since. She said she covered a class whose students blamed themselves for their lack of a regular teacher.

“They said, ‘Everybody hates us. Nobody wants to stay with us. We are a terrible class,’” Ellor recounted. Later, she found out that another substitute teacher had previously worked 27 days with that class before being moved to another assignment.

Ellor believes it was done to prevent that substitute from achieving the higher-paying status.

Asked about the problem, Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle acknowledged the “critical support” that subs provided during the pandemic.

“Thanks to temporary stimulus funding, we were able to provide additional financial support to schools to take on the additional costs of hiring more substitutes and have worked with the UFT and individual employees to address any outstanding pay issues from this period,” Lyle wrote in an email.

She declined to comment on the widespread, sometimes intentional practice of misclassifying subs, which existed before the outbreak of COVID.

In the education system, it’s not uncommon for subs to fall through the cracks, said David Bloomfield, an education law professor at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. “Those cracks widened during the pandemic,” he said. “This seems like a situation that hasn’t been given adequate attention by either the union or the central administration.”

Pay scale for subs varies by assignment length

The teachers union contract establishes various letter-coded “statuses” of service to which a substitute teacher can be assigned.

The most common sub classification, “O-status,” is for day-to-day subs who cover short-term absences. Subs are assigned “Z-status” or “Q-status” when working full-time for schools, filling in for longer-term teacher absences or vacancies. Those subs receive higher pay and limited benefits that are unavailable to O-status subs. The Education Department’s payroll system automatically grants the higher-paying Z-status to substitutes so long as they teach a class without an absence for 30 days.

When subs are told to miss a day, it resets the clock.

“What happens is a lot of principals know that [subs] get paid more money” under higher tiers of sub service, said a former school payroll secretary, who asked to remain anonymous because she still works in the school system and fears retaliation. “They don’t want to pay them the higher status, so they’ll tell a sub, don’t come in on this day, for whatever reason, and that defers them back to the old status so they can’t get paid more money.”

“You want to use money to hire more teachers, more supplies, or to get air conditioners. Nobody even thinks of subs.”
JOHN WENK, FORMER PRINCIPAL IN MANHATTAN

The substitutes who spoke to New York Focus described a widespread practice of either denying qualified substitutes Q- or Z-status, actively preventing subs from qualifying, or displaying incompetence in staffing subs under the appropriate status.

“It’s a known thing that principals have tight budgets … and [forcing a missed day] is one way they cut corners in saving money,” said the former payroll secretary. “It doesn’t even get discussed.”

When Joe Diodato subbed for a semester at an elementary school in the Bronx, it found a way to underpay him — without forcing a missed day.

Instead, according to documents Diodato shared with New York Focus, the school periodically changed the code in the payroll system associated with his work assignment. The action incorrectly made it seem like he wasn’t teaching the same class over the course of his employment, a condition required to earn Z-status.

Diodato didn’t learn about the higher-paying sub statuses until a couple months into the job. When he asked his payroll secretary about them, they said he didn’t qualify.

“Every day I came in I documented what I did,” Diodato explained. “I saved my classroom Zoom meetings, I saved my Google Classroom posts, my parent engagement. Everything that showed I did the job of a classroom teacher, I saved.”

At the end of the year, he used his records to file a 187-page grievance. He eventually won nearly $6,000 in a settlement with the Education Department.

Joe Diodato won nearly $6,000 in a settlement with the DOE. He’s now a full-time teacher.

Diodato intentionally waited for the school year to run out before filing his grievance. “Once you file,” he said, “you’re essentially blacklisted at a school.”

Now a full-time teacher, Diodato runs a private Facebook group for substitutes and a blog about the city Department of Education. He believes that more substitutes have likely been filing grievances on long-term status issues since the pandemic began, when the DOE increased its reliance on subs. But most violations, several subs explained, likely go unchallenged.

Without the higher pay and benefits, subs often quit mid-assignment, Diodato said.

Several subs who spoke to New York Focus requested anonymity because they were pursuing full-time teaching positions at their schools. They described a common belief that contesting their status would endanger their chances of full-time employment — or get them fired from their temporary positions.

One substitute, who requested anonymity, subbed regularly at a high school for seven years until she tried to claim increased benefits and wages.

When the sub challenged a principal’s reasoning as to why she could not earn Z-status, “she fired me on the spot,” the sub said. “She said, ‘You are on my last nerve … Yeah, I lied to you. I know what the rules are … but I’m the principal and I make the decisions, and you’re just a sub.’”

John Wenk, a former principal of a Manhattan high school, said that retaliation against subs is unsurprising behavior for some principals and can be done with impunity.

A principal, he explained, is free “to get rid of the sub for any reason whatsoever.”

“I’ve seen that happen,” said the former payroll secretary. But in most cases, she said, subs don’t bring the issues up in the first place. “They need a job. They need money,” she said, “so they’re not going to rock the boat.”

A UFT spokesperson acknowledged that most subs grieve pay violations after their assignment has finished, presumably out of fear of retaliation. They emphasized, however, that subs are already covered by contractual and legal anti-retaliation rules, and that the union is trying to add further protections so they are comfortable filing grievances as soon as the violation occurs.

Pointing fingers at Education Department red tape

Although it falls on individual school payroll secretaries, principals, and administrators to carry out pay violations, some argue that the DOE’s bureaucracy is to blame.

The money to pay substitutes comes from the DOE central administration, but once schools receive it, principals can use the money however they please. Operating under strained resources, with dozens of budgetary items to attend to, a principal may be incentivized to use the money intended for subs on resources deemed more necessary.

“You want to use that money to hire more teachers, or for more extracurricular activities, more supplies, or to get air conditioners,” Wenk said. “Nobody is thinking about this problem. Nobody even thinks of subs.”

Joe Diodato in the South Bronx. Though he's now a full-time teacher, he still runs a Facebook group for subs.

Bloomfield believes principals and individual schools are not equipped to deal with the problem in the first place.

“Principals have neither the expertise nor the budgetary acumen to make the substitute puzzle pieces fit together with all the other pressures they’re under,” he said. “It’s therefore incumbent on the central administration, both the DOE and the city, to offer clear guidance consistent with union contracts and other legal provisions to assist in filling these positions.”

A UFT spokesperson said the union has been working to shift the burden of ensuring correct pay from the subs to the Education Department. The spokesperson referenced an agreement the union won in recent contract negotiations to establish guidance to re-train and educate administrative staff on substitute hiring — to ensure correct classification, pay, and health coverage.

But some subs told New York Focus that they attribute the ubiquity of pay violations in part to the UFT’s inadequate representation of substitutes.

“While [UFT reps] seem to be helpful and they want to be that point of contact for when situations need to be escalated, a lot of them are just at a loss,” said a former substitute teacher in Bushwick, Brooklyn, who requested anonymity.

“We disagree that UFT reps are ‘at a loss,’” a teachers union spokesperson wrote in a statement. They noted that any substitute can receive immediate representation for a grievance.

Bloomfield sees the problem as baked into the DOE’s treatment of its workforce.

“Just that very term ‘substitute’ reeks of second-class citizenship in the personnel constellation,” he said. “They’re an afterthought.”

Teddy Ostrow is a journalist from Brooklyn. He was the host of The Upsurge podcast and his work has appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, In These Times, and elsewhere.

How well is your school teaching your child to read? Some parents feel in the dark, report finds.

2024-01-25T14:31:10+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

Mayor Eric Adams’ sweeping effort to improve reading instruction has focused on educators, but a report released Thursday makes the case that caregivers are crucial to boosting reading instruction and the city should do more to include them.

The report focused on parent perceptions of how well their schools are communicating about reading instruction and is based on focus group interviews with 19 New York City mothers conducted by Advocates for Children, a nonprofit group that has pushed the city to adopt stronger approaches to reading instruction.

In many cases, caregivers reported that their schools brushed off concerns about their child’s reading challenges, and they were unsure how to get the help they needed. Some said they heard little from their schools about the city’s new curriculum overhaul.

“The message needs to come from the top that family engagement requires more than just passing along information,” according to the report, which offers a series of recommendations for improving communication between parents and schools. “It means valuing parents’ expertise about their children.”

Parents who participated in the focus groups last summer were not randomly selected and all but one of them has at least one child with a disability. Still, their interviews reveal common roadblocks — and some bright spots.

Here are three takeaways from the report:

Parents struggle to be heard

Several parents said they noticed their child’s reading challenges early on but schools insisted they’d outgrow it. And in cases where a child was already receiving special education services, caregivers said schools seemed reluctant to provide help targeted at specific reading problems or acknowledge the possibility that they might also have dyslexia, a language-based learning disability.

In other cases, parents said educators flagged reading issues, but the school never came up with a solid plan for addressing them. Bronx mom Shy Washington said her son repeatedly did not meet the goals listed on his special education learning plan, falling further behind in reading. But she felt like she never got a clear explanation about the school’s strategy and why it wasn’t working.

“I wanted a roadmap — I wanted some direction,” Washington said in an interview with Chalkbeat. “I looked to them for the answers, and I ended up having to search for my own because they had none for me.”

Caregivers crave more information about instruction and how they can help at home

Parents said they often felt in the dark about how their child’s school approaches reading instruction, including the city’s sweeping curriculum overhaul.

“Most had heard little to nothing about NYC Reads [the city’s new reading curriculum mandate] or about the literacy curriculum being used at their children’s schools,” the report notes. “More than one wished there were more opportunities to discuss their child’s performance and individual needs in depth.”

Some parents said they wanted more guidance about how they could help at home, beyond standard advice to read to their child for 15-20 minutes each night.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein emphasized that the city is working with schools to inform parents about the curriculum changes, including how parents could support their child’s reading. She added that the focus group interviews were conducted before schools were required to change their instructional approaches, and the city is now prioritizing outreach to families.

“As always, family engagement and involvement is critical to fostering a strong and supportive school community,” Brownstein said in a statement.

Some parents welcomed regular communication about classroom instruction. One mom received emails throughout the week from her child’s kindergarten teacher about what they’re working on and provided optional worksheets to work on if a student needed to catch up from an absence.

“I felt so empowered by that, because I felt like I had some direction, some guidance,” the parent said in a focus group interview.

The process for getting extra help is murky

Parents often feel unsure what to do next if their child is struggling with reading and isn’t getting the help they need.

“The difficulty of navigating the public school system and getting answers to their questions came up in nearly every one of our conversations,” according to the Advocates for Children report.

Washington, the mother of an eighth grader who is behind in reading, said she struggled to navigate the city’s notoriously complex special education system, requesting multiple evaluations when her son was in elementary school. After years of feeling like her son’s services weren’t making a big dent, she ultimately sought outside evaluations with assistance from The Legal Aid Society to create more pressure for the city to offer extra help. She also looked for tutoring support outside of her son’s school.

Her main advice to parents: Be prepared to chart your own path.

This story has been updated with a response from the Education Department.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

COVID-era laptops made a dent in the digital divide. Now the real work begins.

2024-01-25T22:08:07+00:00

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When pests started attacking plants in the community garden across the street from M. Agnes Jones Elementary School in Atlanta, the students hatched a plan.

They didn’t want to use pesticides in the garden, and they had learned in their science lessons that bats eat insects. They researched how to attract bats to the garden, made paper sketches of bat house designs, then moved to digital design tools. The students could see 3-D versions of their houses, test modifications, and refine their designs — making the entrance narrower so bats would feel safe and adding rafters to create better spaces for brooding.

A new National Education Technology Plan released this week urges educators to use technology to enable this kind of engaged, hands-on learning and urges states and districts to provide the training, planning time, and technical support to make it happen.

First issued by the U.S. Department of Education in 1996 and last updated in 2017, the National Education Technology Plan provides guidance to help school systems use technology to improve learning and close achievement gaps. The latest iteration comes as virtual learning and federal pandemic relief “expedited the proliferation of technologies and connectivity on a scale and speed for which many districts and schools were unprepared.” Innovation actually slowed even as more students got laptops, and too much technology use today is essentially passive, the plan argues.

Surveys suggest more than 90% of secondary students and more than 80% of elementary students have access to a personal laptop or tablet — before the pandemic, fewer than half of students had such access. Schools are awash in digital tools and grappling with the implications of artificial intelligence. Yet a recent survey of more than 41,000 students found the main way students used technology in school was to take online tests and quizzes.

Wide gaps persist between digital haves and have-nots

The plan identifies three types of digital divides. There’s still an access divide — not all students have laptops or reliable internet. There’s also a use divide — some students log into Google Classroom to catch up on assignments while others produce podcasts and design top-notch bat houses. And finally there’s a design divide — only some teachers have the training, support, and planning time to learn how to use new technology in exciting ways.

School systems need to address all three divides to make full use of technological opportunities, the plan said. They also need to balance student privacy with responsible oversight, imbue students with digital literacy, battle the ills of social media, adapt to AI, and make smart decisions about which technology to invest in, according to the report.

Technology has the potential to help students take more control of their learning, make connections they couldn’t make before, and showcase their skills in new ways, the plan says. English learners and students with disabilities, in particular, could benefit from more ways to access material and show what they’ve learned, but if schools don’t plan carefully, these students are also at more risk of being excluded, the plan says.

The plan includes dozens of examples of educators already doing this work, including from rural and high-poverty schools, along with guidelines for decision-making and missteps to avoid.

Districts where internet access is spotty shouldn’t rely on online surveys to reach parents, for example. Consider hosting monthly in-person technology nights instead and send communication in a variety of languages. Special education directors buying screen-reading programs should make sure they also work offline and that they’re compatible with the operating system installed on district laptops.

The plan includes rubrics for assessing whether ed tech programs have evidence to back their claims and suggests regular audits of which programs teachers are actually using. An Associated Press investigation last year found school districts spent tens of millions of pandemic relief dollars on ed tech with little evidence it worked.

David Miyashiro, superintendent of the Cajon Valley Union School District in California, served on the technical working group that helped develop the report. He was an early proponent of embracing technology in education, and he’s led an expansion in Cajon Valley, where two-thirds of students come from low-income households and one-third are learning English.

Students get their first laptops in kindergarten and use them to deliver 30-second TED talks about what they’re afraid of and what they’re excited about, illustrated by generative AI. They’re learning presentation and communication skills while building community and connection with their classmates, Miyashiro said.

Students trade up in third grade, when they go to middle school, and again for high school. An ed tech bond helped pay for devices, IT infrastructure, and a replacement fund.

Miyashiro hopes the new federal plan helps districts incorporate technology thoughtfully. And he said it feels timely, now that many more students have devices.

“A lot of districts bought computers so teachers could Zoom synchronously with their kids,” he said. “Now what are they going to do? This plan helps them course correct.”

But for John Fredericks, an English teacher at West Tallahatchie High School in the Mississippi Delta, digital access has actually gotten worse since 2021. Pandemic relief money meant students had laptops and hotspots for the first time ever — though the connections could be spotty.

“The best thing, when the students had access to the internet and a computer at home, was the ability to differentiate, the ability to challenge the kids who want more work,” Fredericks said. “And for students who have trouble completing work, I could give them more time and grace.”

Now the hotspots are gone, laptops have to stay at school, and when a student is out sick, Fredericks is back to sending home paper packets. Students who take virtual dual-enrollment classes in the school’s computer lab try to get their college coursework done during other classes.

Fredericks said it’s hard to even imagine what learning opportunities his students are missing. He just hopes policymakers don’t forget that pandemic-era laptops are already breaking down and some communities still don’t have internet, at least not at a price families can afford.

“Throwing money at the problem kind of actually worked,” he said. “That’s not always true in government policy or education policy, but if you want to solve the technology divide, keep giving schools money for technology. Let them buy computers and buy hotspots and advocate for high-speed internet in rural areas.”

Blending tech with learning takes time, vision

When Margul Retha Woolfolk started as principal at M. Agnes Jones Elementary in Atlanta, she found a state-of-the-art building where the science lab was “really a storage unit.” The school serves a high-poverty neighborhood, and students spent a lot of time drilling basic skills.

Retha Woolfolk, now an associate superintendent with Atlanta Public Schools, knew her own students had done better when lessons in core skills were coupled with hands-on projects. And she loved science. She started going to conferences, learning everything she could, and seeking out partners at local universities and in the private sector.

Jarvis Blackshear, a paraprofessional with a background in music production, would come to play a critical role providing instructional support in science and technology. He had learned how to teach himself new programs as a music engineer, and he had a knack for bringing students and parents along with him.

Retha Woolfolk wanted to buy the school a programmable robot, but it cost more than $7,000. She could get it for $3,000 if she got it disassembled. Blackshear invited fourth and fifth graders to help him build it. He’d assemble each section ahead of time, sand down sharp edges, then disassemble it and have it waiting for students.

He took the same approach as students designed the bat houses, teaching himself design programs so he could support the students’ learning. When the 3D-printed bat houses weren’t up to snuff, he reached out to a grandparent with carpentry skills to help students make their blueprints reality.

Seven years later, Principal Robert Williams said he’s proud to continue the work. MAJ offers coding alongside art, music, and physical education. Students build electric cars and learn about force and motion, circuitry, teamwork, and the engineering design process along the way. The MAJ Rapid Racers team competes in Greenpower USA regional events, “the NASCAR of elementary school.”

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser, the district’s assistant superintendent for instructional technology, said leadership at the building level makes a big difference, but educators shouldn’t feel like they have to know everything to get started.

“Don’t be scared to take risks, and the kids will guide you,” she said. “Our kids deserve to learn like this.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

How Michigan schools are creating safe spaces for students to talk about the Israel-Hamas war

2024-01-24T22:18:41+00:00

Daniel Crowley, a middle school teacher in Ann Arbor, had been teaching about refugees this fall when the Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel catapulted the region into chaos.

In the days and weeks afterward — as Hamas militants’ bloody attack in Israel gave way to devastating death counts in Gaza — Crowley said he felt himself playing it safe in his classroom. When students asked about Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza, he told them they needed to ask their parents, because he didn’t know what the district policies were around the topic.

He regrets that now.

“In order for all my students to feel seen and safe in that community, I can’t just be doing test prep on Emily Dickinson,” Crowley said of his responsibility as an educator. “I have to include their identities, make space for their experiences, and build their voice and agency, and understand their sort of history, their narrative.”

Last week, Ann Arbor Public Schools made national and international headlines when its board passed a resolution calling for a “bilateral ceasefire in Gaza and Israel.” But it was another part of the board’s resolution that is impacting day-to-day learning in classrooms. Rather than steer clear of a difficult subject, the board urged teachers to encourage more classroom discussion.

The resolution calls for more professional development and resources for teachers to help them encourage “respectful, nuanced and age-appropriate dialogue around culturally sensitive real-world conflicts.”

Crowley said the resolution was necessary and liberating for teachers.

“I feel hopeful, after this resolution passing, that teachers themselves will be moved to take more risks. And teachers that I’ve talked to specifically who have played it safe, some of them for decades, are now starting to say … this is too important,” Crowley said. “And it impacts our students and our community too greatly for us to be silent.”

Educators navigate a tense environment in schools and on campuses

In the past week, Bridge Michigan and BridgeDetroit interviewed educators and students across several Michigan districts to learn how schools are, or are not, addressing the Israeli-Hamas war.

The stakes are high. Students, and their parents, are paying attention. Teachers say they are acutely aware that some students have loved ones in the Middle East. Ann Arbor, for instance, has significant Arab and Jewish populations. Dearborn and Dearborn Heights schools have many families from the Middle East. Tensions are immense.

“So I think what is also important is we’ve created a safe space for our students to feel and work and grapple with the things that they are feeling and navigating,” said Mercedes Harvey-Flowers, a social studies teacher and department chair in Dearborn Heights.

“What I don’t want to see happen is, through this, they begin to hate a group of people.”

That is already happening, and students have noticed. In late October, an Illinois man was charged with murder and hate crimes, accused of stabbing a 6-year-old Muslim boy for his religion. And there’s been a staggering rise in reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia since early October, raising tensions at U.S. college campuses in addition to K-12 schools.

Some U.S. students who have spoken publicly on either side of the Hamas-Israeli war have faced death threats, doxxing, or career consequences from keyboard warriors or potential employers. Several people approached for interviews declined to talk, citing concern about having their names publicly attached to the topic.

Crowley said the Ann Arbor resolution provides some insulation for teachers, but acknowledged that talking about the conflict still carries risk and questions about how the resolution will work in practice. For example, he noted that while many Ann Arbor parents felt comfortable signing petitions for or against the cease-fire resolution, only a handful of teachers felt comfortable speaking at last week’s board meeting.

Teachers share strategies for classroom discussion

Into this maelstrom, Michigan teachers are being asked to explain competing narratives about Israeli and Palestinian claims to disputed land and to help students separate fact from fiction in a conflict that’s been uniquely difficult to document.

Jennifer Lewis, a professor of teacher education at Wayne State University, said the success of schools’ efforts will depend in part on how well teachers are prepared to accurately address student questions. In Ann Arbor, for instance, Lewis said the board’s resolution could leave teachers in a tough position.

“To train people to do that takes significant work,” she said. “And we don’t know, from the resolution or from anywhere else, where those funds will come from, how they will be facilitated, who will be tasked with this, whether it will actually happen.”

Teachers across several districts shared classroom discussion strategies that have common themes: They try to share facts from reputable sources. They strive for thoughtful class discussion. And they acknowledge that students may have family or friends in the Middle East directly affected by the violence.

Harvey-Flowers said it’s important to help students find reliable information and analyze the credibility of the people sharing information.

“They can see a very inflammatory video on TikTok, and take that as gospel truth,” she said.

Wading into heated topics is risky for teachers

Teachers’ reluctance to lean into controversial topics is understandable. In recent years, educators in Florida, Missouri and other states have faced pushback, including threats to their jobs, for classroom discussions related to racism, gender identity, or other topics deemed divisive. Closer to home, local school board meetings have sometimes turned volatile over the selection of school library books.

“Doing this work can be very risky because the discussions can get heated, parents can complain,” said Judith Pace, a professor of teacher education at the University of San Francisco who writes about how to teach difficult topics. Sometimes, she said, nervous school administrators “don’t support doing this work. Especially in these times that are so contentious and polarized, I think it’s really important for teachers to be thoughtful and informed.”

Pace said teachers must cultivate a supportive classroom environment, which involves getting to know their students and students getting to know one another. And she stressed the importance of slowly easing into the topic to give students time to feel comfortable.

“Instead of having a debate or even a deliberation where students are deciding on what to do about something, you really need to find out what they know and surface their feelings and their thoughts,” Pace said.

“All of these things have to be taken into consideration.”

In some communities, faraway conflict is ‘real life’

Discussions can depend on the community.

Katelyn Walsh, a high school English language arts teacher in Dearborn Public Schools, where more than half the population is from the Middle East or North Africa, said there is an unspoken understanding that the majority of students and their families support the Palestinian position on the conflict. She said that if she were in a different district with a different student population, she would likely provide more information about the conflict itself. But what may be seen as an abstract discussion on faraway events in some schools, “is real life to some students of ours.”

In Dearborn Heights, Harvey-Flowers said students organized “a peaceful walkout in support of Gaza” on Oct. 20. She said she was pleased to see students share their voices on a subject they feel strongly about. But students “were being called vile things on the internet” after news organizations reported on the walkout. She said the district upped security afterward to ensure their safety. That experience, too, carried lessons.

“So I spent a lot of time in October more specifically talking about the consequences of activism, and how what may feel like a consequence is actually like a good thing, like how ‘you used your voice, and you shook it up and now people are nervous. And that’s a good thing,’” Harvey-Flowers said.

Bayan Founas is a high school English teacher at The School at Marygrove, a public school in Detroit. She conducted several activities with students last fall on the Israeli-Hamas War.

Another teacher, Bayan Founas, took an active role in facilitating activities and pro-Palestinian protests for students.

Founas, a high school English teacher at the School at Marygrove in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, said she helped students plan a walkout. Founas said she and her students wanted to show Palestinians that people around the world are supporting them.

“I obviously don’t know what they’re going through or what’s happening in (Palestinians’) minds, but I think it can go a long way for them to see that the world is not silent, that we are standing up for them and we’re not okay with what’s happening,” she said.

During the fall, Founas also organized school activities for her students, looking for ways to explain the complex relationship between Israel and the Palestinian people in ways teens can understand. One activity involved analyzing political cartoons that addressed segregation in the United States and South African apartheid and compared those to the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.

Students are hungry for information

Ishai Sussman-Yitzchaki, a junior at a high school in Ann Arbor, and Indigo Umlor, a senior at a high school in Byron Center, a small town in Kent County, are not enrolled in history or current affairs classes, but said they are clued in on what’s happening in the war from other sources.

Sussman-Yitzchaki, who is Jewish, said the topic comes up with friends, especially friends he knows from summer camp. He also hears things from his family, including his mom who is a “much more active news consumer than I am” and has studied the conflict for several years.

Umlor checks news organizations, journalists on the ground, and government sources to find information about the conflict, and is particularly interested in examples in which government sources disagree on specific points.

“Without doing some digging, it can be hard to find solid information that shows you the whole picture,” Umlor said.

So Umlor started an Instagram account that provides information on events in support of the Palestinian people and resources about what is happening in the Middle East.

“The Israel-Palestine conflict is one of those issues that’s complicated, but also very simple at the same time,” Umlor said, arguing that the killing of thousands of people in Gaza should prompt “more and more people around the world” to be outraged by the loss of life.

“I feel like that’s something I wish a lot more people would take away from this is that however you feel about Palestine and Israel as a whole, that you can morally oppose killing 30,000 people in the span of just over 100 days… . And I wish I saw my community caring more about this.”

(The Gaza Health Ministry reported this week that more than 25,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the Israeli military offensive began, the majority women and children. Its numbers do not separate civilian and combatant deaths. The Israeli government has reported between 1,100 and 1,200 deaths in the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas militants, mainly involving civilians.)

Teachers see a ‘responsibility’ to tackle tough topics

Sussman-Yitzchaki said the conflict has not come up in his classes, but he’s had a few teachers ask if he has relatives or friends in Israel and make sure he is OK. He said he believes teachers can handle having difficult conversations about Israel and Gaza, in part, because he has already witnessed teachers tackle tough topics like racism.

But he acknowledged the Israel-Hamas conflict brings nuances and debate that can be more difficult to navigate than typical classroom discussions on racism.

Sussman-Yitzchaki’s mother, Mira Sussman, told Bridge she believes it’s “a lot to ask of teachers” to instruct students about the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

But multiple teachers interviewed said they feel up to the task.

Tasneem Madani, a student teacher at Ann Arbor Public Schools, said students want to learn about what is happening in the Middle East. She also believes there has been a rise in anti-Palestinian and antisemitic sentiment because of a lack of education.

“I don’t see this as a burden,” said Tasneem Madani, a student-teacher in the Ann Arbor schools who is currently a student at the University of Michigan. “And I know other teachers don’t see it as a burden.

“We see it as our responsibility, as an opportunity. Because I think we feel like we’re doing the good work, right? Like, it is really difficult. It is hard. But it’s also what we want to be doing.”

Madani called the school board’s resolution encouraging classroom discussion a “first step in affirming our ability to do our jobs,” and there are several organizations and groups willing to share their expertise on these topics.

It’s important, she said, to communicate to students that certain topics aren’t off limits, while seeking to affirm “every single student’s humanity.”

Isabel Lohman is a reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com. Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Newark Teachers Union wants its second contract under local control to go beyond 2019 deal

2024-01-22T15:16:27+00:00

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The Newark Teachers Union is negotiating a “historic” and “unprecedented” contract that demands higher salaries, more autonomy, and respect for teachers, says union President John Abeigon.

Negotiators for the union and the district held their first meeting on Jan. 11 to discuss the contract. If approved, it will be the second contract for teachers since the state ended its 23-year takeover of Newark Public Schools in 2018 and the third union negotiation with Superintendent Roger León since he was appointed by the city’s school board in 2018. It would replace the union’s 2019 contract, which expires at the end of June.

“We look forward to successful negotiations over the next few months for the benefit of our staff and the ultimate beneficiaries, our students,” said Newark Public Schools spokesperson Nancy Deering.

The end of the state’s takeover of the district signaled a change for teachers who had long wrestled with New Jersey officials about the declining conditions in city schools and their roles in them.

The union’s 2019 contract, for instance, ended the practice of paying teachers based on their students’ performance, rather than how many years they spent in the district or the degrees they attained – a provision of the union’s 2012 contract. In the past, the union head fought incessantly with state-appointed superintendents Cami Anderson and Christopher Cerf, resulting in tense negotiations and public feuds.

Anderson, who was superintendent from 2011 to 2015, closed and consolidated schools causing a pool of displaced educators in the district, and she oversaw the city’s rapid expansion of charter schools. Cerf, who replaced Anderson in 2015, was also criticized by teachers and community advocates for his charter-friendly stance and for closing low-performing schools in the city.

Today, Abeigon, who was elected as union president in 2015, has a more amicable relationship with León. Regardless of who is on the opposite side of negotiations, though, Abeigon said his team is focused on fighting to improve teachers’ current working conditions.

“We will continue to fight for those same things we gained in 2019 but instead of stopping at where we once were, we intend to move beyond that, and forge new territory and create a mecca for teachers who wish to be recognized in the manner the profession demands,” Abeigon added.

The union will continue to negotiate with the district every Thursday until they reach a deal, Abeigon said.

Pay raises for teachers

In 2019, the union reached a deal to raise salaries by 2.9% the first year with raises growing each year, capping at 3.3% in the 2023-24 school year. The contract also included pay increases for advanced degrees, substitute teachers and aides, and more planning time for teachers.

Now, the union is looking to secure the highest teacher salary in the country, Abeigon said. Currently, New York teachers have the highest average salary in the nation, with some earning over $90,000 a year, according to 2021-22 data from the National Education Association. In New Jersey, the average teaching salary hovers around $79,000 annually, according to the same data.

In June 2022, the district agreed to raise the starting salary for new teachers to $62,000 a year after it negotiated with the union as part of a recruitment strategy amid staffing shortages during the pandemic.

Abeigon says higher pay means more respect for teachers who are still working through the negative effects of the pandemic on students, such as learning loss and an increase in mental health needs. It also communicates more respect for teachers, Abeigon added, which in turn, retains them, a problem the district has endured amid teacher and principal turnover.

“With a higher salary, we’ll be able to recruit and retain the best,” Abeigon said.

Improving working conditions to keep teachers in Newark

But pay alone won’t keep teachers from leaving the district, Abeigon said. Uniformity and more teacher involvement in the decision-making processes will help retain teachers, he said.

Teachers need more educational responsibilities and less pressure to fulfill duties outside of their teaching role, Abeigon said. Some teachers have been asked to serve as security guards, fix classroom leaks, or other tasks outside their day-to-day duties, he said. District leaders also need to focus on teacher and staff morale, as some face burnout and frustration.

He envisions a “teacher-led” school district that relies on everyone to do their job, said Abeigon.

“You show me the school and I’ll tell you the level of morale. Some of them are so worn that the morale is in the basement,” Abeigon said.

Other teachers are frustrated with changing curriculums, inefficient professional development, and lack of understanding of the challenges they face in the classroom, Abeigon said. They plan on creating a schoolwide and districtwide curriculum committee that oversees curricula across all grade levels and helps workshop those lessons with teachers. The goal is to have uniformity across the district and leave decisions about learning to teachers.

“Let’s replace the useless mandates, and the time consuming data consumption with responsibilities, educational responsibilities,” Abeigon added.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Moms for Liberty came to the Upper East Side. Protesters may have outnumbered guests.

2024-01-19T04:14:35+00:00

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Protesters may have outnumbered participants in Moms for Liberty’s Thursday night town hall on the Upper East Side.

The right-wing organization’s event, which according to organizers was sold out, attracted ire from politicians and parent activists across the city. As about 100 people rallied outside toting signs reading “Mom against fascism,” “Queer people have kids too,” and “Read banned books,” many of the speakers on the panel rehashed national issues like the influence of teachers unions, the teaching of anti-racism and “gender ideology,” and school choice.

Several speakers stood before the crowd of about 75 people and took digs at New York City’s class size mandate, its cap on charter schools, and its high spending and low rates of reading proficiency.

Moms for Liberty bills itself as a “parents rights” group. It was founded in Florida in 2021 and quickly made national headlines for its calls to restrict access to gender-affirming care for transgender youth and block LGBTQ-focused books and curriculum, as well as limit lessons about race.

The organization has swiftly made inroads across the country, raising $2.1 million in 2022 from the conservative Heritage Foundation and Republican donors, after raising just $370,000 the year before, according to the Associated Press. The organization has become influential in GOP politics and recently started a chapter in Queens.

It was named an “extremist” group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its divisive tactics and efforts to undermine public education.

The question-and-answer session after the panel turned fiery. Several parents and teachers challenged the panelists on culturally responsive education, their views on transgender children, and what specific curriculum proposals they recommended to boost reading scores.

Moms for Liberty event attracts familiar education names

Moms for Liberty’s town hall in a staunchly blue pocket of the city caused a stir. But for close watchers of local education politics, many of the panelists were likely familiar.

They included Maud Maron, who sits on the Community Education Council, or CEC, for Manhattan’s District 2, and has been sparring for years with other parents.

CECs are largely advisory parent-led boards that approve or reject school zoning proposals and issue resolutions about such topics as admissions and curriculum.

Maron is a co-founder of the group PLACE (Parents Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Learning), which has organized in support of selective admissions at a time when integration advocates had been gaining traction in their efforts to desegregate many schools.

Maron, who recently said in a private chat that transgender children don’t exist, faced a barrage of criticism Wednesday night at the District 2 CEC meeting for her participation in the Thursday panel.

She doubled down on her decision Thursday night, accusing her critics of being “illiberal” and shying away from arguments. She singled out one young woman who recently challenged her stance on transgender children.

“She identified herself as a proud queer woman,” Maron recalled. “Which I think means she’s a straight girl without a boyfriend.” A parent at Thursday’s event subsequently challenged Maron on the comment, calling it “unnecessary and spiteful.”

Charles Love, another District 2 CEC member who spoke on Thursday’s panel, said he hasn’t yet found any evidence that Moms For Liberty is racist or homophobic.

The flier promoting the event listed Maron’s affiliation with the education council, along with Love’s. The city’s conflict of interest rules say council members may only use their titles along with a written disclaimer on materials and a verbal disclaimer that they are speaking in their personal capacity.

Education Department officials said before the event they would follow up with CEC members to remind them of this rule. Love acknowledged he’d been warned and said he agreed not to use his title, but neither he nor Maron offered an actual disclaimer.

Other panelists included Wai Wah Chin, the head of an Asian American parent advocacy group, Natalya Murakhver, an advocate against closing schools during the pandemic, and Mona Davids, who leads a group pushing for more school safety agents and metal detectors.

Some opponents expressed concern that the group was starting to exert influence in city education circles. Abby Stein, a rabbi and transgender advocate, raised the group’s use of a Hitler quote in a newsletter in Indiana. “When you put a quote of Hitler on your newsletter and you’re trying to make your way into New York City, on to education councils, I am terrified,” she said. (The group later apologized for quoting Hitler.)

The conversation did at times center on city-specific issues. When Chin criticized the class size cap, which she said would force the city to hire more teachers of lower quality, several audience members piped up that they were former teachers fired because of the city’s COVID vaccine mandate.

Tiffany Justice, the co-founder of Moms for Liberty and the moderator of the town hall, said she didn’t think education in the city’s public schools could get “much worse.”

Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice opens up the organization's town hall on the Upper East Side on Thursday.

Still, speakers offered few specific prescriptions. One parent asked after the panel what precise curriculum suggestions the panelists had. Maron criticized the city’s long-time reliance on a Teachers College reading curriculum that has largely been discredited. The city is already midway through a two-year effort to move away from that curriculum.

It’s unclear how large Moms for Liberty’s presence actually is in New York City, and event organizers didn’t give specifics about expansion plans.

Several elected officials spoke out before the event, including Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, who called the group a “bunch of hypocrites.”

“You don’t believe in liberty if you ban books,” he said. “If you attack trans kids and the parents of trans kids, that’s not liberty. That’s fascism.”

Jo Macellaro, a trans teacher in a Bronx District 75 program serving students with disabilities, was holding a sign that read: “I’m the trans teacher you’re scared of.”

Macellaro, who uses they/them pronouns, said they were called a “groomer” several times Thursday night. They felt it was important to speak out as Moms for Liberty has made inroads in Queens.

“I think we need to make it very loud and clear they are not welcome here,” Macellaro said.

“[Kids] can see what’s going on. If they can see these people are coming here and spewing their hatred, what message does that send?”

(A Moms for Liberty supporter wearing a “Protect Our Children” sweatshirt did yell at the group’s opponents, “You’re absolutely disgusting, you’re grooming our children.”)

Some protesters tried to convince the event’s venue, the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association, to cancel ahead of time, but the nonprofit concluded it couldn’t do so.

“We are a completely apolitical organization concentrating on cultural performances, and – this particular group clearly does not fit our strong non-political stance,” Joseph Balaz, the organization’s president, wrote in a lengthy statement online explaining his rationale.

He said he planned to personally match the rental fee for the event and donate it to “one of our organizations which actively supports young, future leaders.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia shrugs off national controversy as it updates and reinvigorates Black history lessons

2023-02-27T19:27:42+00:00

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In 2005, Philadelphia became the first big city in America to require all students to take African American history in order to graduate. And as other states and districts pass laws and adopt policies that restrict teaching about race and racism, the city’s public schools are taking a very different approach to classroom topics now under a national microscope.

The district is redoubling its efforts to expose students to Black history and culture. This year, it debuted a substantially updated and revitalized curriculum for the course of study that relies mostly on primary and secondary sources rather than a standard textbook.

Students examine such essential questions as how Black communities retained their cultural identity in colonial America, and they compare the philosophies that motivated figures like Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey.

They also discuss whether the nation’s founders were “hypocritical for claiming freedom” while they tolerated slavery in the nation they were creating. And they are asked to ponder why the history of slavery should be taught in schools to begin with.

Philadelphia’s revisions to the course and new training for teachers track with the Board of Education’s commitment in 2021 to “address racist practices” in a multitude of areas, from discipline to the content of classroom libraries. Part of the board’s goal is to ensure that the district’s students, most of whom are Black or Latino, “see themselves in the curriculum” throughout their school careers.

The district is also incorporating instructional materials about Black history beyond the high school course. And the new materials can look quite different from things like traditional classroom textbooks.

Philadelphia’s updated high school course creates a natural avenue for students to think about and discuss topics and authors that were recently removed from early drafts of the Advanced Placement African American Studies course that the College Board has been piloting.

The controversial elimination of topics like the Black Lives Matter movement and Black feminism took place following prominent complaints from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican. The College Board has said that it did make changes to the course, but not due to political pressure.

Ismael Jimenez, the district’s social studies curriculum specialist and a driving force behind the revisions, cited the growing number of states where, as he put it, “You can’t even have these conversations” like the ones he wants to encourage.

Since early 2021, 18 states have enacted bans or restrictions on teaching topics related to race and racism, according to Education Week.

Legislators in Pennsylvania did make an effort in 2021 to restrict what could be taught about race, but their bill about the topic has failed to gain traction.

In Jimenez’s view, educators now have an even bigger obligation “to teach children the truth.”

New reading material and new training

Teachers in Philadelphia still have a Prentice-Hall textbook from 2005 for the mandatory high school course. But Jimenez said although the textbook is advanced considering when it was published, the district has also incorporated more primary sources, like Marcus Garvey’s “The Negro World.” The course relies on digital access for books like Garvey’s, which is available through the New York Public Library.

Links to sources, topics to be covered, and pacing schedules are listed for teachers in shared Google documents, which are continually updated.

When he taught the course for more than 12 years at two different high schools, “I found myself making my own materials,” Jimenez said.

Schools are also using materials that aren’t just more recent than Garvey’s work, but present history in a different way.

Earlier this month, Jimenez spoke to Philadelphia teachers and other district employees — many of whom work in elementary schools or preschools and don’t teach the mandatory high school course — at a Temple University event unveiling a new book for use in city schools called “Black Lives Always Mattered!”

The book was written and illustrated in the style of a graphic novel. It features 14 Black figures from 20th century Philadelphia history. These range from luminaries like opera singer Marian Anderson and sociologist W.E.B. DuBois, to lesser-known people like teacher and political activist Crystal Bird Fauset, photojournalist John W. Mosley, and Ruth Wright Hayre, who in the 1940s became the first Black high school teacher in the district and later rose to be Board of Education president.

The book’s lead illustrator and art coordinator is Eric Battle, who has worked for Marvel Comics and other publications. Battle said work on the book began in 2018, well before controversies about lessons on race and racism that are now making headlines.

“It came about as a way to let young people know their connections to the city, knowing why a street is named after a certain person. What did that person do to garner such an honor?” Battle said. “We want them to know that the people profiled in this book are ordinary people who did extraordinary things.”

Other changes are afoot to bolster the revised course.

While the student body in Philadelphia is mostly Black and Latino, more than two-thirds of the teachers are white. And although the mandatory course has been in city schools for 17 years, this is the first year teachers are required to attend professional development focused on the class.

Jimenez, who fought hard for the mandatory training, said it can be “problematic” if teachers “are left on their own without appropriate guidance” before presenting such important and potentially sensitive material.

Unlike in science, where teachers in Pennsylvania must be certified in the specialties of biology, physics and chemistry, social studies teachers have no such restrictions. They can be assigned to teach any required course, regardless of their expertise, even though “you have to be very knowledgeable on the subject before being able to go in and determine what should be emphasized or not,” Jimenez said.

Nicholaus Bernadini, who works at Samuel Fels High School, has been teaching African American history for 14 years and worked with Jimenez alongside other teachers to revise the mandatory high school course.

Bernadini, who is white and was born in Philadelphia, spent most of his formative years in Sea Islands, South Carolina among the Gullah people, a group of Black Americans who live along the southeastern coast and developed a distinctive culture. That background gives him a unique perspective. But Bernadini also recognizes that teachers from all walks of life can face “pitfalls” when dealing with the material.

“Teachers navigate better in environments where they can ask questions on what they are unsure about,” Bernadini said. “It is important for teachers to feel free to improve themselves as educators without backlash.”

During the professional development sessions for teachers on the course, Bernadini said there have been “incredible” conversations about everything from the role of states’ rights in the Civil War to personal perspectives on race.

“We had an educator talk about the idea that they don’t necessarily see color. We had a discussion around that along the lines of, ‘We can respect that, but what’s the impact of that mindset on you and your students?’” Bernadini said. “And while not all white teachers think that, there are teachers of color who don’t necessarily disagree. So having these conversations gets teachers to feel more comfortable about teaching the content.”

Jimenez said that teachers have told him that they appreciated the professional development sessions on a personal level.

“They realize that a lot of things they emphasized before were problematic and that it’s a reflection of the indoctrination in what society tells us about racial progress,” he said.

Teachers see broad benefits of learning Black history

Teachers at different levels of the school system say how invaluable it is for students to encounter things in their classes that presents them a fuller picture of American history through the lives of Black people. And they’re puzzled if not angered by those who say otherwise.

Tiffany Johnson teaches fourth grade at Ziegler Elementary School. Her students are learning about topics ranging from Black women’s contributions to society to the Green Book, a 20th century guide for Black travelers to the places they would be welcome to stay and to have a meal, where they could get their hair done, and which gas stations to patronize.

Many of her students previously had no idea about the existence of things like the Green Book in American history, she said.

“I don’t see what’s wrong with teaching the truth of what happened. I don’t get that. It’s not like we’re saying white people are bad,” said Johnson, who is Black. “We’re saying these events happened, this is how people reacted. The facts need to be told. It happened. We can’t sugarcoat it.”

Monique McKenney, now at Central High School, has taught African American history for most of her 24 years in Philadelphia schools. She said she is “not shocked, but disappointed and outraged” that politicians like DeSantis “would try to water down, or whitewash a curriculum that all students would benefit from.”

Central, one of the city’s leading academic magnet schools, is racially and ethnically diverse but it is predominantly white and Asian, unlike the district as a whole. In McKenney’s experiences, a broad cross-section of students have benefited from the lessons she teaches about the topic.

“It’s interesting to see students of various backgrounds who are able to connect with some of the experiences that you have in African American history,” said McKenney, who is also Black.

Some students, she said, “are surprised they’ve never heard about certain things before.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

As states adopt science of reading, one group calls for better teacher training, curriculum

2024-01-17T19:43:53+00:00

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Wisconsin is creating a new literacy office and hiring reading coaches. Ohio is dedicating millions to a curriculum overhaul. Indiana is requiring new teacher training.

Dozens of states are moving to align their teaching practices with the science of reading, a body of research on how children learn that emphasizes explicit phonics instruction alongside helping students build vocabulary and knowledge about the world. But a national policy group says many states still have significant work to do to ensure strong reading instruction.

A new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality finds that half of states don’t set specific standards telling teacher prep programs what future educators should know about teaching reading, and 28 states cede their authority over teacher prep programs to outside accrediting agencies with vague guidelines. A similar number of states administer weak licensure tests, the report said, creating uncertainty about how well prepared teachers are.

Meanwhile, just nine states require that districts adopt high-quality reading curriculum, NCTQ’s analysis found. Only three of those — South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia — require districts to choose curriculum from a state-approved list and cover the cost for districts.

NCTQ President Heather Peske hopes the report can serve as a roadmap for states looking to improve reading instruction.

“We cannot continue to accept the reading outcomes that we’ve been seeing,” she said.

Last year, NCTQ’s review of hundreds of teacher preparation programs found that thousands of educators graduate every year unprepared to teach children how to read, or trained using debunked literacy instruction strategies.

Some of the states that got good ratings from NCTQ in its new report have been at it for years. Mississippi passed its first reading law a decade ago. Colorado stepped up regulation of its teacher prep programs five years ago.

Other states NCTQ called out for their weak policies are just getting started. Illinois is poised to adopt a new literacy plan this year. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul just announced a major new literacy initiative. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy highlighted early literacy in his State of the State speech.

NCTQ makes five main recommendations. States should set well-defined standards for how teacher prep programs teach reading, review those programs thoroughly, use a rigorous licensing test that includes all components of how students learn to read, require that districts use high-quality curriculum, and provide ongoing training and support.

These types of policies often face pushback from school districts, universities, and teachers unions that see politicians infringing on educators’ authority and autonomy.

In Colorado, some school districts initially resisted state curriculum guidelines. Others struggled to find approved curriculum that felt culturally responsive. In Illinois, political opposition and lack of state funding means the new literacy plan has no teeth. In Ohio, Reading Recovery, a popular but increasingly disfavored reading program, is suing the state for banning certain methods of teaching.

NCTQ’s reports have also come in for criticism for their technical and narrow view of good teaching, for being incomplete, or for not relying on the right data — Peske said states had multiple opportunities to review the latest report and offer corrections. Other advocacy groups have laid out different priorities for reading instruction.

Melinda Person, president of the New York state teachers union, is excited the governor wants to invest $10 million in teacher training aligned with the science of reading. But she’s cautious about calls to get every district to adopt curriculum that meets a currently undetermined standard. She fears that state-approved lists could be influenced by lobbying or force districts to abandon good programs developed by local educators.

“Teaching a child to read is a very complex task,” Person said. “Don’t oversimplify this. It is brain science. Hundreds of studies are pointing us in this direction, but they are not pointing us to ‘buy this curriculum.’”

Data lacking on curriculum in school districts

Twelve states received “strong” ratings overall in NCTQ’s report, including Colorado, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

NCTQ categorized 16 states as having “weak” reading policies, including Illinois, New York, and New Jersey, while three states — Maine, Montana, and South Dakota — were marked as “unacceptable” because they had few or no state-level reading policies.

An analysis by Education Week found that 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new reading laws since 2013, but NCTQ found many of these states still had major gaps in teacher preparation or curriculum.

States with strong oversight of teacher prep programs lost points for having weak standards, and states with strong standards lost points for weak oversight. More than half of states, NCTQ found, review the syllabi of teacher preparation programs, but just 10 include literacy experts in the process.

Most teacher prep programs don’t devote at least two instructional hours to how to teach English learners to read in an unfamiliar language or to supporting struggling readers, NCTQ’s analysis found. Even fewer programs provide opportunities for student teachers to practice those skills.

Meanwhile, 21 states don’t collect any data on the curriculum their districts use, nearly half offer no guidance on picking curriculums that serve English learners, and a third offer no guidance on how to use curriculum to support struggling readers. Even in states that value local control, Peske said states have a duty to offer guidance, and many administrators likely would welcome it.

NCTQ’s analysis does not address third-grade retention policies that have been adopted in 13 states. Nor did NCTQ’s report address universal screeners that look for warning signs of reading difficulties such as dyslexia.

Advocacy groups like JerseyCAN have made universal screeners and parental notification key parts of their platform. “Parents cannot ring the alarm or participate in this goal effectively if they don’t know where their children stand,” Executive Director Paula White said.

Linking new policies to test scores can be challenging. Mississippi students’ growth on national exams has been touted as a “miracle.” But students there still have lower test scores than students in some more affluent states with weaker policies.

New York and New Jersey governors elevate literacy

New Jersey received a weak rating from NCTQ due to inadequate standards for teacher prep programs, no requirement that elementary teachers have reading training, and no curriculum requirements or even guidelines for local districts.

White, the JerseyCAN leader, said she hopes the state is turning the corner after years in which people told her “we got this, we’ll do it on our own,” or “We’re already doing what you want us to do, so why should we expend energy on state policy or legislation?”

In neighboring New York, NCTQ gave the state some credit for strong state oversight of teacher prep. But the state lost points because reading standards aren’t specific enough. Nor does New York require districts to adopt high-quality curriculum — its powers are limited under state law.

Hochul’s push on literacy comes as New York City is months into its own reading overhaul, with schools required to adopt one of three approved curriculums. It’s not clear yet how the state might encourage districts using low-quality curriculum to make different choices. State officials are also developing a plan to incorporate more science of reading into teacher prep programs.

Judy Boksner, a literacy coach and reading specialist at P.S. 28 in the Bronx, recalls the “aha moment” she experienced after getting trained in the science of reading on her own time. She said the approach helps more students more reliably than the methods she was previously trained to use, but it can be slow at first.

Curriculum and training requirements are good, Boksner said, but schools still need ongoing support, including literacy coaches.

“In all these curriculums, they have tasks in them. We don’t know if they’ve all been tested in the field. Some of the tasks are so hard for kids, and if you don’t train your teachers well, kids will still struggle,” Boksner said.

Illinois on verge of adopting new literacy plan

In giving Illinois a “weak” rating, NCTQ found the state has set good standards for teacher preparation programs, but called for more oversight to ensure programs are following through. And NCTQ labeled as “unacceptable” Illinois’ lack of any guidance around high quality curriculum.

The report comes just as Illinois is finalizing a literacy plan to help school districts revamp how students are taught to read. After a two-year legislative fight, advocates successfully passed a bill last year that requires the Illinois State Board of Education to write a literacy plan, create a rubric for school districts to grade curriculum, and offer professional development to teachers.

But the new law does not mandate school districts adopt a phonics-based approach that’s key to the science of reading. Other ideas, such as reading grants and an approved curriculum list, didn’t survive the political process.

“There are really no mandates on school districts,” said Stand for Children Illinois Executive Director Jessica Handy, a literacy advocate who helped write the 2023 bill and negotiated with lawmakers. “I think reading grants would be one way to get buy-in from school districts and get more people thinking about how they can accelerate their progress to improve literacy curriculum.”

Education advocates hope to see $45 million from $550 million in new state funding go towards regional literacy coaches and state board staff that work just on literacy — and Stand is working on a new bill that Handy hopes strengthens the literacy plan.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Schools have struggled to add learning time after COVID. Here’s how one district did it.

2023-10-26T22:10:38+00:00

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CICERO, Ill. — It was just after 2:30 p.m. on a recent Wednesday, and the school stage hadn’t yet transformed into a reading room.

Christopher VanderKuyl, an assistant principal in Chicago’s west suburbs, hurriedly dragged brown folding chairs across the wood floor. He made a mental note to figure out who’d rearranged the furniture.

“They can’t do that,” VanderKuyl lamented to his co-teacher, Megan Endre. “We’re using this as a classroom!”

A year ago, school would have been over around this time, and the students at Columbus East Elementary would be walking out the door. But this year, a group of fifth graders were instead sitting on the school’s stage, reading aloud about the life of Rosa Parks as they worked on reading fluency and comprehension. Similar activities were taking place in nearly every corner of the school: In another classroom, students rolled dice to practice two-digit multiplication and huddled close to their teacher to review their work.

What’s happening at Columbus East is one of the rare efforts nationally to give students more instructional time in an attempt to make up for what they lost during the pandemic. Here in Cicero School District 99, students are getting an extra 30 minutes of reading or math instruction every day, which adds up to around three additional weeks of school. School leaders hope that will be enough time to teach students key skills they missed and boost test scores.

“We do a lot of good things for our students, we have many, many resources, but our students need more,” said Aldo Calderin, the district’s superintendent. “There are challenges, I’m not going to sit here and say that there’s not. But I know that we’re doing right by our kids.”

Fifth graders at Columbus East take turns reading aloud as part of an extended-day reading exercise.

The district is about a month into the extra academic lessons, and staff say they’re still working out the kinks. The initiative has added new instructional challenges for Cicero teachers, who were already busy putting a new reading curriculum in place and helping students cope with the ongoing fallout of the pandemic.

Still, Cicero stands out for making a longer school day a reality. While many schools used COVID relief funding to beef up summer school or add optional after-school tutoring, far fewer added extra time to the school day or year.

In Cicero, a new teachers union contract, extra pay for teachers, and school board support helped make the change happen. Elsewhere, efforts to add instructional time have faced pushback from school board members and teachers who thought the added time would be too costly and disruptive.

Thomas Kane, a Harvard education professor who has studied learning loss during the pandemic, said “it’s great to see” districts like Cicero adding instructional time.

“It obviously depends, though, on how that time is used, especially if it’s coming at the end of the day, when kids or teachers might be tired,” Kane said. “But honestly at this point, more instructional time is what’s needed to help students catch up.”

How Cicero students got a longer school day

Cicero 99, which runs through junior high, serves around 9,200 students in a working-class, mostly Latino suburb of Chicago. About three-quarters of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and more than half of students are learning English.

School leaders floated the idea to lengthen Cicero 99’s school day before COVID hit, but the proposal took on greater urgency when educators saw how the pandemic set students back in reading and math.

The year before the pandemic, 22% of students in the district met or exceeded Illinois’ English language arts standards, while 16% cleared that bar in math. By spring 2021, after students spent nearly a year learning remotely, 10% met state standards in English and 5% met them in math.

At Columbus East, staff recall students who hid under bed covers or pointed their cameras at ceiling fans during remote learning. Others had trouble hearing over blaring TVs, barking dogs, and whirring blenders.

Kane’s research into district-level learning loss found that Cicero students in third to eighth grades lost the equivalent of a third of a year in reading from spring 2019 to 2022, and a little less than half a year in math. The losses were similar to those in other high-poverty Illinois districts, Kane said, but still “substantial.”

“There is a sense of urgency,” said Donata Heppner, the principal at Columbus East, who’s part of the district team that planned for the extended day. “If we don’t grow more than expected, we’re never going to catch up.”

So last year, Calderin, with the school board’s support, negotiated a new contract with the teachers union that included the longer school day.

Students at Columbus East Elementary in Cicero, Ill. are getting an extra 30 minutes of reading or math instruction each day this year.

“At the beginning, we were: No, no, no, no, no,” said Marisa Mills, the president of Cicero’s teachers union and a seventh grade English language arts teacher at Unity Junior High. “And then we really started to get down to the nitty gritty, and started to talk about: Well, what if we did do this?”

Teachers got on board after the district agreed that the extra time would be used only for instruction, Mills said, and that students wouldn’t be tethered to a device during that time. Teachers also got a “very fair” bump in compensation: A 10% raise, and a one-time $5,000 bonus for this school year, paid for with COVID relief dollars. The deal, which runs through 2026, got the support of 70% of teachers.

It helped, Calderin said, that the extra time was well-received by families. Many students’ parents work multiple jobs and struggle to arrange after-school care for their children — an issue somewhat alleviated by a longer day.

Here’s how the longer day works: The district gave students pretests and used those to group students with similar abilities. Students spent the first month of the school year practicing walking their routes to their extended-day groups and getting to know their new teachers.

Now students spend two weeks in a reading group, then two weeks in a math group, or vice versa, and then get reshuffled based on how they’re doing. The district provided lessons and activities for teachers that tie in with the district’s usual curriculum.

But there’s no additional staff working the extended day. So it takes everyone, from paraprofessionals to social workers to principals, to make it work.

On that recent Wednesday at Columbus East, VanderKuyl and Endre circulated among 16 fifth graders as they read. This group spent all of second grade learning remotely and now many struggle to write their letters in a straight line or pay attention when a teacher is talking.

VanderKuyl stopped to help one student pronounce “prejudice,” while Endre urged a distracted student poking her pen in the air to follow along.

“Alright, who would like to share their summary out loud?” Endre asked.

Fifth grade teacher Megan Endre leads a reading activity during Columbus East Elementary’s new extended day.

She pressed her students to elaborate — “Who’s the man you’re talking about?” — and checked to make sure they got the details right: “It wasn’t a school bus right? It was a public bus.” Her goal this year is to boost students’ confidence and help more students read at a fifth grade level on their own.

It’s about “building that independence in reading for them,” Endre said. “Maybe not necessarily ‘Oh, I can read a whole fifth-grade level text myself.’ But can I read and understand a paragraph?”

Longer school day is not without challenges

While it may seem simple, adding 30 minutes to the school day presents plenty of instructional challenges.

Not every adult is a math or reading specialist, so some staff need extra practice and training. The extended-day groups are smaller than students’ usual classes, but are still large enough that it can be challenging for teachers to provide one-on-one attention. Some students are hungry and tired at the end of the day and miss going home earlier.

“My brain is too over-capacitated!” said one fourth grader with dark hair and white-rimmed glasses at nearby Sherlock Elementary.

And some students struggle with the frequent regrouping. Columbus East, for example, has a program for students with emotional disabilities who typically learn in the same classroom all day. Some have found it challenging to be in a new environment with different peers and without their usual teacher.

On that recent Wednesday, a student sitting at the back table in Arlen Villeda’s fifth grade math group sobbed as she struggled with the extended-day lesson. At first, the student loved the extra math lessons, Villeda said later, but as the classes got harder, the student’s frustration started to mount.

“I hate my life!” she cried. “Everyone is done!”

Villeda tried to keep moving forward with the four students seated in front of her, as a classroom aide nudged the crying student to take a break.

Villeda has tried strategies shared by the student’s usual teacher — like walking the student to the familiar calming corner in her classroom when she gets overwhelmed — but Villeda says it can be challenging to know exactly how to help. For some students, she said, “consistency really makes a big difference.”

“Like with anything, we know that change is going to become easier as time goes on,” she said. “But I honestly feel like this is still an adjustment period for us — for the teachers and for the students.”

For now, Heppner, Columbus East’s principal, and others are revisiting how the extended day is going and making changes when needed. Going forward, for example, teachers will have more say over how students are grouped. And teachers can ditch activities that were “a total bomb,” as Heppner put it.

Mills, the union president, said she knows some teachers, especially those who don’t specialize in reading and math, are struggling with extra preparation work. But already she’s seeing glimmers of progress. She feels like she can do more with her seventh graders in the smaller extended-day groups, and some have made strides in their reading.

“It’s going to be a little nuts for the first year, for sure,” Mills said. “But if this is something we really want to do for our students, that’s what it’s going to have to be.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

NYC school suspensions spiked 13% last year, returning to pre-pandemic levels

2024-01-08T23:41:07+00:00

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Suspensions across New York City public schools came roaring back last school year, according to newly released data.

Schools issued 28,412 suspensions during the 2022-23 school year, a 13% spike compared with the 2021-22 school year, the first time students were required to return to school buildings in the wake of the pandemic.

The number of suspensions remained below the most recent academic year before the coronavirus forced school buildings to shutter in March 2020. But with fewer students enrolled in grades K-12, suspensions issued per capita returned to pre-pandemic levels. (The figures do not include charter schools.)

It’s difficult to know exactly why suspensions spiked last school year, the second year students were required to attend school in person since the pandemic. Some other large districts, including Nevada’s Clark County and Broward County, Florida, also have seen suspensions climb toward pre-pandemic levels.

It’s possible educators were reluctant to remove students from their classrooms the first year they returned to school buildings to avoid further disruptions to their learning — a feeling that may have faded last year. Student mental health remains a pressing concern that can affect behavior, and schools are not always well-equipped to handle it. There was also a 9% uptick in the overall number of weapons confiscated in schools last year, according to Police Department data.

Robert Effinger, a social studies teacher at the Bronx High School of Business, said fights and verbal altercations seemed to return to pre-pandemic levels, as students were less wary of the pandemic and masks were largely off. He noted that teachers’ were still dusting off their classroom management skills, too.

“I think some people had forgotten what it was like to go back to normal,” he said, noting that even as students first returned to buildings full time the prior year, they were still readjusting to regular school rhythms and were more skittish.

As in previous years, the new suspension data showed significant disparities between student groups. Roughly 40% of all suspensions went to Black students, though just 21% of students are Black. About 38% of suspensions were issued to students with disabilities, a group that represents about 22% of all students. Latino students represented about 40% of suspensions, roughly in line with their share of the student population. Meanwhile, white and Asian American students were much less likely to be suspended relative to their share of enrollment.

Still, the number of New York City students excluded from their classrooms remained at some of their lowest levels in at least a dozen years, partly the result of discipline reform efforts under former Mayor Bill de Blasio. But as suspensions creep back up, some observers contend that Mayor Eric Adams and schools Chancellor David Banks may be less focused on limiting their use.

Nelson Mar, an attorney at Bronx Legal Services, an organization that represents students in suspension proceedings, worries the uptick could signal “more of a disciplinarian approach” from the Adams administration.

“It definitely reflects the general attitude and approach,” he said.

Adams has ramped up harsher tactics to combat crime, one of his signature issues, though the administration has not sketched out a detailed vision on school discipline or moved to overhaul the discipline code, which spells out the city’s suspension policies. Banks has signaled that he doesn’t favor “zero tolerance” approaches to school discipline, though he has also said there must be consequences for misbehavior.

An Education Department spokesperson did not express concern over the rise in suspensions last year — or their disproportionate use against Black students and children with disabilities — and emphasized that students must follow school rules.

“We are focused on equipping schools with the resources they need to address any issues not only in accordance with our discipline code but in conjunction with meaningful moments for education,” Jenna Lyle, a department spokesperson, wrote in an email.

But some advocates worry that schools will soon have fewer resources at their disposal to address student behavior without resorting to suspensions. The city has used one-time federal relief funding to hire hundreds of social workers and expand funding for restorative justice programs, which prioritize peer meditations and other methods of talking through conflicts. Those programs are on the chopping block next school year as federal relief money runs out. Department officials have not said whether they are looking for alternate funding.

“With each of these, we continue to be concerned about the expiration of federal funding and what that will mean for support for students,” said Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children. “It’s important for students to have access to mental health professionals who can help work with students and help address student behavior.”

The figures also include breakdowns of suspensions by how severe the punishments were. Principal suspensions, which last five days or fewer and are typically served in school, increased nearly 14% last year. More serious superintendent suspensions, which stretch beyond five days and are served at outside suspension sites, increased about 11%. (Superintendent suspensions can technically stretch for an entire school year but have been restricted to 20 days in most cases since 2019.)

Under city law, the suspension data was required to be released publicly by the end of October. Despite requests from Chalkbeat over the past two months, the Education Department declined to release the statistics or explain the delay. Officials ultimately released the figures after Chalkbeat prepared to publish a story about the missing data.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

‘I’m terrified’: As new laws take effect, LGBTQ students and allies fear the consequences

2022-07-08T11:00:00+00:00

Cindy Nobles, a mother of four in Jacksonville, Florida, watched with mounting dread this spring as the local school board rewrote a guide meant to support LGBTQ students. She feared that every stricken passage left vulnerable children a little less safe.

The Duval County school district had reissued the guide on the heels of an alarming 2019 survey, which showed that more than 60% of the district’s lesbian, gay, and bisexual high schoolers felt sad or hopeless. Nearly 1 in 3 of those students said they had attempted suicide — twice the rate of their straight peers.

But after Republican state lawmakers passed a bill this March restricting lessons about gender identity and sexuality, Duval County gutted its LGBTQ guide. Officials released a draft in May that condensed the 37-page document into eight pages of an employee manual, and removed most references to transgender students.

“It was butchered,” said Nobles, who is president of Jacksonville’s PFLAG chapter. Now, as more school districts rush to comply with the new law, Nobles is convinced that student safeguards are in jeopardy.

“I’m terrified at the moment,” she said.

Cindy and Cody Nobles

For LGBTQ kids, just stepping out into the world as your authentic self can be treacherous. Family members could shun you, classmates bully you, and bigots harass you or worse. Youth of color and transgender kids face added resistance. At the school Nobles’ youngest child attends, a trans boy was barred from the boys locker room and a trans girl was assaulted on campus.

Yet, instead of shielding such students, conservative lawmakers across the U.S. are trying to prohibit practices meant to make LGBTQ youth feel safe and supported at school.

Just this year, legislators have introduced more than 300 bills targeting LGBTQ Americans, with many seeking to limit transgender kids’ access to medical care, school bathrooms, and sports teams, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Other proposals would ban books that “normalize” LGBTQ “lifestyles,” restrict what students can learn about sexuality and racism, or require parental permission for kids to choose their pronouns or join LGBTQ clubs. Republicans say the restrictions restore parents’ authority and defend students from indoctrination.

On July 1, anti-LGBTQ laws affecting young people took effect in six states, including Florida.

“We’re just kind of preparing for a fight,” said Nobles’ child Cody, a rising 12th grader who identifies as bigender and gay.

The full reach of the new laws won’t be known until schools begin enforcing them this fall. But already the targeted legal campaign and intensifying rhetoric have left many LGBTQ students feeling under siege.

“What they’re learning,” said Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, executive director of GLSEN, which advocates for inclusive schools, “is that some people don’t think they should exist.”

Unsafe at school

Even before the recent onslaught of legislation, school was not a safe space for many LGBTQ kids.

For Alex Rambow, a teenager in South Dakota who identifies as transgender, simply being himself at school is a struggle. Yes, most teachers use his correct pronouns. But others are less accepting and some students are openly hostile.

“I just hate being there,” said Alex, a soon-to-be 12th grader. “Not for my education, but just because of the environment.”

Last year, a student followed Alex to his car shouting slurs. Another time, a group of students threatened to beat him up if he used the boys bathroom. So instead, Alex uses an employee restroom or waits until he’s home.

This April, a teacher at Alex’s school gave some students letters challenging their gender identities and urging them to accept “the biological truth.” The superintendent quickly condemned discrimination based on sexuality or gender and said the district was investigating the teacher. But discouraging abuse is hardly the same as making everyone feel welcome.

“They don’t say anything about LGBTQ students,” Alex said. “We just get forgotten and swept under the rug.”

Silence starts at the very top. While every state has some form of anti-bullying law, half do not explicitly prohibit bullying based on race, gender, or other characteristics.

The lack of specificity comes despite research showing state laws that explicitly forbid bullying based on sexual orientation are associated with fewer suicide attempts, and LGBTQ students in schools with such policies face less victimization.

When state policies protect and embrace LGBTQ students, it empowers district and school leaders to follow suit — even if some parents or politicians object.

“It gives them the mandate to do this work,” said Elizabeth Meyer, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who has studied inclusive education policies. “They can say: This is the law and this is what I’m going to be doing.”

South Dakota’s anti-bullying law not only lacks a list of protected student groups, it also bars school districts from creating such lists. Alex’s district has no formal policies related to LGBTQ students, the superintendent confirmed in an email, though he said schools try to work with families to accommodate trans students.

The absence of inclusive policies leaves supportive parents to fill in the gaps.

Amy and Alex Rambow

Alex’s mother Amy formed a nonprofit, Watertown Love, that hosts annual Pride celebrations and monthly meetups where LGBTQ youth can go bowling or get pizza together. The district allowed her group to offer a workshop on inclusive practices during a staff training, but it was voluntary and Amy said only a handful of people attended. Meanwhile, Amy is trying to reckon with the possibility that her son will skip senior prom because he doesn’t feel safe.

“It hurts my heart,” she said.

Alex’s experience is disturbingly common. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual high school students are nearly twice as likely as their straight peers to feel unsafe at school and face bullying, according to a 2019 CDC survey. Some of those students endure additional abuse based on their race, religion, or other aspects of their identities.

Stigma and shunning, whether at school or home, can take a steep toll. Two-thirds of lesbian, gay, and bisexual high schoolers felt persistently sad or hopeless during the past year, and nearly half seriously considered suicide, according to the 2019 survey. The rates are even higher for transgender and nonbinary youth, a different survey found.

Those mental health risks reflect the discrimination that LGBTQ people face, said Preston Mitchum, director of advocacy and government affairs for the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention group.

“It’s not inherent to who we are,” he said. “It’s because of society and how society treats people.”

In recent years, as South Dakota legislators pushed more than 30 bills restricting LGBTQ rights, advocates fought back. Trans youth lobbied lawmakers and testified at hearings.

In February, Amy and Alex traveled to the state capitol, where they invited Gov. Kristi Noem to meet with trans youth and allies. She declined. A few days later, Noem signed a law barring trans girls from girls sports teams. It took effect July 1.

Whether or not such laws pass, the rhetoric promoting them can do harm. A staggering 85% of trans and nonbinary youth said the debate over laws targeting trans people negatively impacted their mental health, according to a Trevor Project poll last fall.

Campaigns seeking to regulate trans lives send young people a clear message, LGBTQ advocates say: They are a problem to be fixed.

“I’ve already got enough self-hatred as it is,” Alex said, “and that’s just piling more on top.”

Support under attack

It isn’t just LGBTQ students who feel increasingly targeted, but also the educators who support them.

Brandy Vance

Brandy Vance, a physical education teacher in Tallahassee, Florida, wears outfits featuring rainbows and unicorns that signal her acceptance of all students. Occasionally students confide to her that they are LGBTQ, including one child who came out as trans. Her class became a refuge for the student, who hid their identity at home.

Under Florida’s new law, schools must notify parents of changes in students’ mental or emotional condition. The state has offered little clarity about the vaguely worded rule, but Vance worries it will force her to inform parents any time a student discusses their identity.

“Do I potentially out this kid to their parents?” she said. “Or do I potentially lose the job that I know I’m meant to do?”

The law has put LGBTQ-affirming educators on the defensive. Conservative critics accuse teachers of usurping parents’ authority and imposing liberal beliefs about gender and sexuality on students — what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis calls “woke gender ideology.”

“We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” he said when signing the Parental Rights in Education law.

The law, which critics call “Don’t Say Gay or Trans,” says schools must respect “the fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding the upbringing and control of their children.” It allows parents to report and potentially sue school districts if they believe a teacher has discussed sexual orientation or gender identity with students in grades K-3 or with older students in a way that’s not “age appropriate.”

The restrictions seek to rein in districts that critics say went too far in affirming LGBTQ students. Republicans point to Leon County, the district where Vance teaches, as Exhibit A.

Last year, a conservative group sued the district on behalf of parents who said a Leon County school helped their child adopt a different gender without their consent. The lawsuit referred to a district guide, which warned that outing LGBTQ students to their parents “can be very dangerous” if families are not accepting. Republican state lawmakers began drafting the parents’ rights law after learning about the lawsuit and several districts’ LGBTQ guides, Politico reported.

After the law passed, schools scrambled to bring their practices into compliance.

Leon County convened a 14-member committee to rewrite its guide for supporting LGBTQ students. Like Duval County, the district condensed the guide and added new parent notification requirements. Most controversially, Leon County’s new manual says parents will be alerted if a transgender student in their children’s physical education class requests to use the locker room matching their gender identity.

During some three hours of public comment at a school board meeting last week, the revised guide came under fire from all sides. Some speakers said schools should only allow students to use facilities that match their biological sex, and argued that accommodating transgender students amounts to endorsing their identities.

“The school system is not a place to promote radical ideologies,” one parent said.

But other speakers said notifying families about transgender students’ locker room use would violate their privacy and expose them to hostility.

“LGBTQ students already are in a lot of danger,” said a high school student who warned the notifications could lead to bullying.

For her part, Vance said she’ll continue to accept students just as they are — even as she fears that expressing her support could now invite scrutiny or sanctions.

“If I have to go down that way,” she told Chalkbeat, “then that’s what’s going to happen.”

Beyond Leon County, other districts are also scrambling to revamp policies that could run afoul of the new law. They are doing so largely on their own, as the law gives the state education department until July 2023 to issue updated guidelines.

Meanwhile, Florida educators are trying to make sense of the changes.

A few days before the restrictions went into effect, the LGBTQ-advocacy group Safe Schools South Florida hosted a workshop for teachers. They asked union representatives whether they can still inquire about students’ preferred pronouns, post rainbow flags, or display photos of their same-sex partners.

Such activities are not expressly prohibited, the representatives said, but grade K-3 teachers should beware of actions that parents could interpret as “instruction” about gender or sexuality.

“We encourage you to be self aware, to be cognizant of the very real consequences that this law creates,” said Vincent Halloran, an attorney with United Teachers of Dade, the Miami-area union.

Florida officials have accused activists and teachers unions of trying to “sow confusion” about the new law. In a recent motion asking a judge to dismiss a challenge to the law, the state’s attorney general said teachers would still be free to display family photos or mention their partners during class.

The chaos in Florida could spread beyond its borders. Lawmakers in at least 14 states have introduced bills to restrict classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity, according to an analysis by the Movement Advance Project. Alabama’s bill passed, and the law took effect this month.

Even just the prospect of such restrictions is making some teachers second guess what is safe to say in the classroom, said Andrew Kirk, a high school teacher in Texas, where state officials plan to introduce a bill similar to Florida’s.

“This chilling effect is already happening,” he said.

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org.

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Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that a high school teacher in South Dakota gave letters to several students, including Alex Rambow, challenging their gender identities. Alex did not receive one of the letters.

Staffing, attendance, behavior: 7 big issues facing schools this year

2022-08-18T19:24:19+00:00

After surviving two school years “completely veiled in the pandemic,” teacher Kathryn Vaughn says this year is off to a different start.

Her stress levels are down. COVID protocols are relaxed. Teachers are feeling hopeful.

“It feels a little lighter this year,” said Vaughn, who teaches elementary school art in Tennessee. “It really feels like we’re just kind of back to business as usual.”

Many students and educators are returning to classrooms this fall with a sense of cautious optimism. But there are still many open questions after last year’s staffing shortages, student absences, and mental health and behavioral challenges interfered with academic recovery efforts.

Here are seven big issues facing schools:

How will schools handle staffing challenges?

Some schools are stepping up efforts to boost student attendance this year.

First, some reassuring news: Despite what you might have heard, there isn’t evidence of an unprecedented teacher shortage nor an exodus of teachers fleeing the profession.

Yet some schools are struggling to staff up — partly for reasons that predate the pandemic. High-poverty schools have long had trouble recruiting and retaining teachers, and the supply of new educators has dwindled over the past decade as fewer people enroll in teacher-prep programs.

But the pandemic also has created new complications. Many districts used federal relief funds to add more positions, including tutors and extra substitutes, creating huge demand for a limited pool of workers. Schools also must compete with other employers for lower-wage workers, such as bus drivers and custodians, spurring some districts to hike their pay and offer bonuses.

Those hiring pressures are bearing down on Paterson Public Schools, a high-needs district in New Jersey. Some 130 teaching positions remain unfilled, or nearly 6% of the total teaching force, about three weeks before students return, said Luis Rojas, Jr., the district official who oversees human resources. While some vacancies are expected, Rojas said the number has surged as teachers take advantage of the tight labor market.

“They understand the demand,” he said, “and folks are jumping around from school district to school district trying to move up the salary ladder and get as much money as they can.”

The causes of the staffing crunch are ultimately less important than the effect on students. Schools that can’t find enough teachers might have to raise class sizes, hire less qualified candidates, assign teachers to subjects in which they have limited training, or rely on long-term substitutes — all of which can get in the way of learning.

“I would tell you that one is too many,” Rojas said, “when you have a vacancy.”

Will student attendance improve?

Chronic absenteeism rates rose last year, as quarantines and COVID infections kept students home for long stretches.

This year, the CDC is no longer recommending that students quarantine after an exposure. Many think that will help stabilize attendance, though it’s possible other factors could persist, such as lingering student disengagement.

In Los Angeles, about half of all students were chronically absent last year. Even without quarantines, 30% of students were chronically absent, up from 19% before the pandemic.

“That is just not acceptable,” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said last week as he announced a new campaign to boost attendance by visiting student homes.

In Detroit, 77% of students were chronically absent last year, up from 62% the year before the pandemic began. There, the spike was especially concerning because the district has long worked to raise attendance. Now, officials are stepping up efforts to get kids to school.

Lisa Blackwell, a district attendance agent, is part of that. This summer, she’s been knocking on doors to talk up her elementary school’s new before- and after-school care options, and explaining to parents the COVID precautions her school is taking. She’s also planning incentives to reward students, like bringing an ice cream truck to school.

“I want to focus more so on getting the kids excited to go to school,” Blackwell said. “Maybe that will push parents a little bit more to say: ‘Well, my kid is very excited to be at school, so I as a parent, I’m held accountable to make sure they get there.’”

Can schools meet students’ mental health needs?

Inside classrooms across the country last year, the crisis in young people’s mental health was all too evident. After many months of social isolation and learning by laptop, some students were prone to outbursts, meltdowns, and squabbles.

“These kids are very anxious,” said Aaron Grossman, a fifth grade teacher in Reno, Nevada. “The uptick in behavior is very real.”

The distinct but overlapping challenges of worsening student behavior and mental health were fueled by the pandemic — and the stress, financial hardships, and trauma it caused. Federal survey data from this spring confirmed the twin crises: 70% of public school leaders reported an increase in students seeking mental health services during the pandemic, and 56% said disruptive student misconduct had become more common.

Efforts to address both issues have achieved mixed results. Some schools responded to student misbehavior by leaning into restorative practices, which aim for healing over punishment, but others issued more suspensions than usual. Many schools used federal aid to hire more counselors, social workers, and school psychologists, but not always as many were needed. In an April survey, just over half of school leaders said their schools could provide mental health services to all students who require them.

Nance Roy, the chief clinical officer of The Jed Foundation, which focuses on youth mental health and suicide prevention, says schools should encourage students to reach out for help and connect them with service providers.

“It’s developing a culture of care and compassion in schools,” she said, “where there’s no wrong door to walk through for support.”

What will public school enrollment look like?

U.S. public school enrollment held steady last fall, according to federal data released this week. That came after student head counts dropped 2.8% in the fall of 2020, following years of national enrollment growth.

Last year saw a spike in preschool and kindergarten enrollment, both of which dropped sharply when many districts turned to virtual schooling. The return of full-time in-person learning, declining COVID safety concerns, and additional family outreach likely helped boost those grades. But enrollment continues to fall among students in other elementary and middle school grades, a trend that could spell trouble for some districts as the extra funding from federal COVID relief packages dries up.

The issue weighs especially heavily on school leaders in big cities where the share of small schools has ballooned. Now, some are considering school closures, which can create schools that are less expensive to run and have a wider range of programs, but will mean more disruption for students who’ve faced a lot of it in recent years.

“There are really awful tradeoffs,” Shanthi Gonzales, a former school board member in Oakland, California, told Chalkbeat this summer.

Can schools get extra academic help to students who need it most?

Many schools are offering tutoring and other kinds of academic interventions, but it doesn’t always reach the students who need the most help.

The road to academic recovery is coming into focus as data rolls in. So far, elementary school students seem to be recovering more quickly than middle schoolers, but students of all ages are still significantly behind where they would normally be on reading and math tests.

Katrina Abe, a math teacher in Houston, has seen that. Last year, her eighth graders needed extra help with seventh grade topics like interpreting graphs and understanding rates of change. Those concepts are harder to grasp virtually and without working in groups, which happened if students learned online or missed a lot of class the prior year.

This year’s class is noticeably behind last year’s, she said, likely because half of them had three different math teachers in seventh grade. To help, Abe is planning small-group instruction every day and more turn-and-talk time so students can problem solve together. She’s also going to review some fifth and sixth grade standards.

“We’re going to just take that slow, depending on their level,” she said.

Many schools are offering tutoring and other kinds of academic support, but data on which recovery efforts are working is limited. More than half of public schools said they provided high-dosage tutoring in a recent federal survey — a highly effective strategy — but schools often have trouble staffing and scheduling that support. Some districts have turned to virtual tutoring, but it often doesn’t reach students who need help the most.

Meanwhile, educators are keeping their eyes on the larger crop of teens who are behind in credits needed to graduate.

Will schools ramp up COVID relief spending?

Schools have an unprecedented pot of federal money to spend, but many are still struggling to put it to use. There’s a few reasons for that. In some states, money got stuck in red tape and arrived late. Elsewhere, schools are having a hard time finding staff to fill new positions, or hiring contractors to make building repairs.

Some districts that have been slow to spend say they’re planning to ramp up spending over time. Indianapolis Public Schools, for example, had spent only 10% of its federal COVID aid as of late June, mostly to avoid staff cuts and buy PPE. But the district says it has budgeted all the money, including to tutor more students.

Still, this aid doesn’t always feel like new money. New York City recently gave schools the OK to use $100 million in federal aid that was previously set aside for academic recovery to pay teachers, after announcing $215 million in school budget cuts.

This money also has been difficult to track: School district spending plans vary widely in quality and there’s often limited data at the state and federal levels.

But some trends are apparent. When FutureEd, a Georgetown University think tank, looked at spending plans for some 5,000 school districts in June, it found a quarter of federal funds were budgeted for staff, and another quarter were earmarked for academic recovery. Just under a quarter was set aside for facilities and operations, mostly to upgrade heating, ventilation and cooling systems.

How will the culture wars shape what students learn?

America’s latest culture wars are being waged inside schools.

Seventeen states now ban lessons on racism or sexism, six states restrict teaching about sexuality and gender identity, and 18 states don’t allow transgender students to play on sports teams that match their gender.

Peyton, a 12th grader who is part of a support group for Black queer youth in Alabama, said the laws send a clear message to LGBTQ students.

“It’s just enforcing that you’re not normal and society does not want you here,” they said.

In addition to making some students feel less safe, the laws are limiting what they learn.

Some teachers have curtailed class discussions about the oppression of Black people and Native Americans, and some schools are restricting students’ access to books by or about people of color and LGBTQ Americans.

The Biden administration has proposed new rules to protect LGBTQ students, but conservative states are expected to challenge those rules in court. Meanwhile, school districts that run afoul of the new state laws already are facing consequences, and more attacks are likely: Florida’s new law allows parents to file complaints or even sue if they believe their children are taught banned topics.

But for every lesson that is challenged, many more will never be taught as schools seek to avoid sanctions and controversy. In a new survey, 1 in 4 teachers nationally — and nearly 1 in 3 teachers in states with curriculum restrictions — said higher-ups told them to steer clear of contentious topics in the classroom.

As Andrew Kirk, a high school teacher in Texas, told Chalkbeat: “This chilling effect is already happening.”

Jessica Blake contributed reporting.

Kalyn Belsha is a national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org.

Gov. Hochul wants New York schools to embrace the ‘science of reading.’ Will they?

2024-01-03T22:37:14+00:00

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Eight months after New York City announced a major literacy shakeup, Gov. Kathy Hochul sketched out one of her own on Wednesday that may encourage districts across the state to adopt new reading curriculums.

The effort comes amid growing pressure for officials to boost literacy, as dozens of states have enacted efforts to improve reading instruction and embrace what’s known as the “science of reading,” an established body of research about how children learn to read. New York is one of a handful of states that has not advanced similar proposals in recent years, even as fewer than half of students in grades 3-8 are considered proficient in reading on state tests.

Hochul said her goal is to move schools away from “balanced literacy” — including a popular curriculum developed by Teachers College professor Lucy Calkins that has come under intense scrutiny in recent years. The approach includes mini-lessons and lots of independent reading time to get students excited about literature and help practice reading skills on their own. Experts say that method often does not work for students who struggle to read, including those with learning disabilities like dyslexia.

The state will begin to favor programs that emphasize phonics lessons that explicitly teach the relationships between sounds and letters, an approach backed by research. Hochul indicated her plan would help rid schools of discredited methods often found in balanced literacy programs, such as encouraging children to use pictures to guess at a word’s meaning.

“We’re going to throw away the old methods: Say goodbye, it didn’t work, and get back to basics,” Hochul said during a press conference at an elementary school in Watervliet, New York.

The governor’s proposal is unlikely to force changes in New York City because the city’s Education Department already launched its own sweeping curriculum mandate that appears to line up with Hochul’s plan. It remains to be seen whether the governor’s proposal will lead to big changes in other parts of the state, especially as curriculum overhauls can be difficult — and expensive — to pull off.

The state’s power is also limited, as local school districts are responsible for choosing their own curriculum materials. A Hochul spokesperson suggested the state’s plan would require that science of reading principles would need to be “part of” a district’s offerings.

“I think she’s trying to appease people who have heard about the quote unquote ‘reading crisis’ but is being very careful not to step on districts’ toes,” said Jennifer Binis, a long-time curriculum designer who has worked with teachers in New York State.

Hochul’s plan would direct the state Education Department to create a series of “instructional best practices” related to literacy skills including phonics, decoding, and comprehension. By September 2025, school districts would be required to certify that their curriculums, instruction, and teacher training efforts aligned with those best practices, according to a press release. (Officials declined to provide the exact legislative language Hochul supports.)

The governor also proposed a $10 million partnership with the state’s teachers union to train 20,000 educators and to expand efforts from the city and state university systems to help educators learn about the science of reading, a priority among state officials.

Hochul’s plan won support from union officials, advocacy groups, and a flurry of lawmakers. The state’s Education Department declined to comment directly on the proposal until more information about it is available. Some experts said they were happy to see Hochul emphasize literacy instruction, but remained skeptical that her proposal would lead to significant changes.

“It’s the beginning and it’s a good step,” said Susan Neuman, a reading expert at New York University and former federal education official.

But she said it’s “unrealistic” to expect deep changes in classrooms without a more significant commitment to rigorous training, money for new materials, and clear accountability mechanisms. “Unfunded mandates don’t work,” Neuman said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Can artificial intelligence help teachers improve? A network of NYC schools wants to find out.

2024-01-02T20:28:53+00:00

A network of small public high schools in New York City is exploring whether artificial intelligence can change the way teachers receive feedback about their classroom instruction.

Urban Assembly, a network of 21 schools, is working with the American Institutes of Research to develop an AI-powered tool that can help instructional coaches analyze videos of teachers delivering lessons and offer feedback, according to network leaders.

Artificial intelligence is already transforming the classroom experience for many New York City students, who say chatbots like ChatGPT can help them understand difficult topics and speed up their research. But the technology has also sparked fierce pushback from some educators and officials worried about its potential to encourage cheating and spread misinformation and bias.

After initially banning ChatGPT on school devices over concerns about academic dishonesty, New York City’s Education Department pledged to teach students to use the technology responsibly, and plans to open an institute to study its applications in schools.

The use of AI in teacher coaching brings up similar questions. Proponents say it could save lots of time for instructional coaches and expand access to feedback that improves the quality of teaching. But some teachers said they still had questions about how accurately the technology can capture subtle classroom interactions, how useful its data will be, and whether it will be skewed by biases.

Judy Cappuccio, a math teacher and instructional coach at Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in Downtown Brooklyn, said she’s “open” to the idea of assistance from the AI tool, but has a “healthy amount of skepticism.”

“I would like to see it in action. It would take me some verification at first to trust it,” she said.

Several schools in Urban Assembly’s network are already part of a pilot where educators record themselves teaching and analyze the videos in detail with instructional coaches to improve their practice — a practice Urban Assembly CEO David Adams likened to athletes reviewing game tape.

The problem, Adams said, is that it can take the instructional coaches hours to review a single video, limiting the scale of the program. That means teachers aren’t getting enough feedback, and they’re getting it less often than they should be, he said.

That’s where the new AI-powered tool comes in. At the end of a two-year rollout, project leaders from the American Institutes of Research hope it will be able to measure things like how often students and the teacher are talking, laughing, and yelling, according to a proposal researchers submitted to Urban Assembly.

The tool will initially roll out to the 21 schools in the Urban Assembly network, though Adams hopes to eventually expand its use. It will cost around $500,000 to develop, test, and implement over two years, according to the network.

The tool will also be able to use “natural language processing,” a branch of AI that seeks to understand the meaning of language, to evaluate how “positive,” “respectful,” or “insulting” the teacher’s language is.

Some of the details captured by the AI tool might seem small, but they can offer clues about the climate of a classroom that teachers can learn from, Adams said.

When kids and teachers are laughing together, for example, it can be a sign that they’re “in the same emotional space” and students are better equipped to absorb the lesson, Adams said.

Capturing and documenting those moments on video can help teachers “replicate and grow” them, added Kiri Soares, the principal of Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women, one of the schools planning to pilot the new tool.

The tool won’t replace the instructional coaches, but will save them time by pointing them to relevant sections of the video, producing audio transcripts, and quickly gathering data that would take humans hours to compile, Adams said.

Ultimately, the tool could enlarge the program and allow more teachers to benefit, Adams argued.

The tool won’t be used in an evaluative capacity and won’t be tied to performance reviews conducted by the school principal, he added. The program is meant to be supportive and highlight what teachers do well, not just where they need to improve, Adams said.

Project leaders propose using the tool to help schools expand an existing teacher feedback program called CLASS, which taps instructional coaches to evaluate educators on metrics ranging from academic content to their relationships with students, based on video recordings of their classroom lessons.

Using videos rather than live observations can give a more honest glimpse of the classroom, and gives teachers the chance to see themselves in action, proponents said.

Teachers interested in AI proposal but have questions

Liza Backman, a science teacher and instructional coach at Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in downtown Brooklyn, said she could see the benefits of having the type of data the AI tool can quickly gather at her fingertips.

“I think it’s a tally that would be interesting,” she said.

Still, she cautioned, those data points are only useful if there’s an instructional coach to help make sense of what they mean within the context of the class.

“Some of the lessons, there would be no laughter because we were talking about a very serious topic,” she noted.

Backman also raised questions about what kinds of school environments would be featured in the videos used to train the AI, and whether any biases could be baked in as a result.

“If you feed it videos from primarily white schools, versus primarily Black and brown schools, how will it navigate names?” she asked.

Adams said the tool in development for Urban Assembly schools would be trained at other Urban Assembly schools with similar demographics.

There are other potential downsides.

The AI-powered tool may miss out on meaningful moments from a classroom video that don’t fit cleanly into one of the categories it’s meant to track — moments an instructional coach would’ve caught if they’d been watching, said Soares, the principal of Urban Assembly Institute.

But that’s a worthwhile tradeoff if she can expand the number of teachers participating in the program, she said.

“Yes, we might miss out on some of those moments,” she said. “But more people will get more things.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

La vida es dura para los estudiantes de intermedia y secundaria que tienen dificultad para leer. Esta escuela pública de Colorado quiere ayudar.

2022-05-26T16:26:08+00:00

Read in English.

Kaylee, estudiante de octavo grado vestida con un hoodie azul claro, le leyó una lista de palabras (una por una) a la maestra Jessica Thurby. Batalló un poco con algunas: Leyó ‘debate’ como “deblate”, sacred como “secret” y defend como “define.”

Ambas repasaron las palabras que Kaylee no leyó bien. Cuando intentó leer la palabra sacred otra vez, Kaylee dijo “Se ve como la palabra scared”.

“Así es,” dijo Thurby. “Por eso el cerebro adivinó automáticamente. Pero estamos tratando de no hacer eso, ¿recuerdas?”

Para los estudiantes que llegan a la escuela intermedia sin contar con buenas destrezas de lectura, estas palabras se convierten en barreras que les impiden entender y dificultan el aprendizaje. Un programa nuevo en la escuela Alameda International Junior/Senior High School de Lakewood está tratando de ayudar.

El programa Bright MINDS, lanzado el otoño pasado, ofrece tutorías intensivas de lectura para ayudar a 14 estudiantes de séptimo y octavo grado que tienen dislexia u otras dificultades para leer. Los líderes escolares tienen planes de agregar un grado cada año hasta que Bright MINDS incluya hasta el 12mo grado, y el objetivo final es que sirva de modelo para otras escuelas en el distrito Jeffco (cuya matrícula es de 78,000 estudiantes) y el resto del estado.

Bright MINDS ha surgido en un momento en que los líderes de educación de están bastante enfocados en mejorar la enseñanza de lectura en la primaria, con iniciativas que incluyen requisitos nuevos de capacitación para los maestros de Kinder hasta tercer grado, y límites más estrictos en el currículo de lectura. Pero aparte de ser un modesto programa de lectura subsidiado, quienes establecen las políticas en el estado le han dado muy poca atención a las decenas de miles de estudiantes de secundaria que tienen problemas para leer.

La especialista en aprendizaje/lectura Jessica Thurby trabaja con un estudiante del programa Bright MINDS. El programa comenzó con 14 estudiantes de séptimo y octavo grado, pero agregará un grado adicional cada año hasta llegar al duodécimo.

Los estudiantes que no saben leer bien enfrentan consecuencias a largo plazo. Están en mayor riesgo de abandonar la escuela, ganar menos ingresos como adultos, y de terminar en el sistema de justicia criminal.

Los líderes del departamento de educación estatal dicen que el rol de ellos es mínimo en cuanto a resolver el problema de estudiantes mayores que no saben leer, ya que no existe ley equivalente a la Ley READ de 2012, que los obliga a ayudar a los estudiantes más pequeños que estén batallando para leer.

“Como no hay una ley similar a la Ley READ, no existe estructura en cuanto a la lectura y escritura en [los grados] cuarto hasta 12”, dijo Floyd Cobb, director ejecutivo de enseñanza y aprendizaje en el Departamento de Educación de Colorado. “Esa responsabilidad recae mayormente en los distritos”.

Los expertos dicen que el panorama de control local de Colorado significa que hay una amplia variedad en los tipos de ayuda adicional provista a los estudiantes de secundaria que no leen bien — si es que hay alguna.

“Siempre somos honestos con las familias sobre el hecho de que, a medida que los estudiantes siguen subiendo de grado, a menudo hay menos recursos para el tipo de intervención recomendada”, dijo Laura Santerre-Lemmon, que dirige la clínica de neurosicología de desarrollo en la Universidad de Denver, un centro que frecuentemente hace evaluaciones de dislexia en niños.

Si bien los líderes educativos de Colorado han trabajado para mejorar la instrucción de lectura en la primaria, han prestado menos atención a los estudiantes de secundaria que tienen dificultades con la lectura.

Enemigo de la seguridad en sí mismos

La dislexia, una discapacidad de aprendizaje que afecta entre un 15% y 20% de la población, tiene la capacidad de ser devastadora para los estudiantes y hacer que las tareas escolares de rutina les causen estrés y vergüenza.

Elise, estudiante de 13 años y participante en el programa Bright MINDS, tartamudeaba al leer en voz alta en la primaria y los otros niños la llamaron estúpida porque leía lentamente y no sabía deletrear bien.

La niña de séptimo grado, que tiene dificultad para escuchar los sonidos de las palabras, recuerda cómo finalmente se memorizó la palabra “people” porque la maestra estaba bastante frustrada con ella.

“Memoricé muchas palabras de esa manera porque temía que ella se enojara conmigo”, dijo.

Aun después de identificar que un estudiante tiene dislexia, los problemas pueden persistir si no reciben el tipo adecuado de ayuda. Brody, otro estudiante de Bright MINDS, fue diagnosticado en quinto grado con dislexia y calificó para recibir servicios de educación especial. Su mamá, Kristina Trudeau, dijo que sin embargo no estaba teniendo progreso en su escuela en el condado de Adams.

Estaba leyendo a nivel de Kinder, y reconocía únicamente palabras básicas como “cat” y “dog”. En un momento, ella descubrió que el programa de lectura que los maestros de Brody estaban usando no era recomendado para estudiantes con dislexia.

Trudeau ha visto el impacto real de las dificultades para leer de Brody. Una noche lo encontró llorando solo en el cuarto de lavandería. Se había propuesto hacerse cena, pero no podía leer las instrucciones en el paquete de pasta china.

“Me rompió el corazón”, dijo Trudeau. “Él piensa de manera diferente. Aprende de manera diferente. Y merece que esas necesidades sean atendidas”.

¿Qué tan grande es el problema?

La escasez de datos hace difícil cuantificar cuántos estudiantes de intermedia y secundaria están teniendo problemas para leer en Colorado.

Más de la mitad de los estudiantes de intermedia en Colorado tuvieron puntuaciones de poco rendimiento en los exámenes de lectura y escritura del estado en 2019, el último año en que los estudiantes de sexto, séptimo y octavo grado tomaron el examen. Es una medida aproximada, sin embargo, en parte porque el estado no separa los resultados de lectura y de escritura.

El alcance de los problemas de lectura es más claro para los estudiantes más pequeños porque la ley de lectura de Colorado de 2012 requiere que las escuelas identifiquen a los estudiantes con problemas significativos de lectura desde Kinder hasta tercer grado y que definan planes para ayudarlos a mejorar. De hecho, el estado ha separado fondos para ayudar a este grupo de estudiantes.

La Asistente del Director de Alameda, Andrea Arguello (a la izquierda), diseñó el programa Bright MINDS junto con el sicólogo de la escuela, Todd Ognibene (a la derecha) y las maestras Jessica Thurby y Sarah Richards.

En contraste, para los estudiantes de cuarto hasta 12mo grado no existe ese requisito — y tampoco los fondos — aunque algunos estudiantes continúan sus planes de la ley READ por más tiempo después del tercer grado. Unos 48,000 estudiantes de Colorado en los grados cuarto hasta 12mo estaban en planes de la ley READ en 2021, lo cual representa un 8% de los estudiantes en esos grados.

Grado	No cumple las expectativas	Cumplio parcialmente	Se acercó a las expectativas	Total que no cumplieron
6	9.8%	18.3%	28.3%	56.4%
7	13.3%	16.9%	23.2%	53.4%
8	15.0%	16.2%	21.9%	53.1%

Porcentaje de estudiantes que no cumplieron expectativas en las pruebas de lectura CMAS

Estos datos vienen de las pruebas CMAS de literatura del 2019. Los estudiantes de secundaria toman las pruebas PSAT o SAT y no están representados.

Grado	Estudiantes
6	14.7%
7	11.7%
8	8.4%
9	6.1%
10	4.2%
11	2.6%

Porcentaje de estudiantes secundarios con plan de la ley READ en 2021

Pero muchos estudiantes con dificultad para leer nunca son identificados para tener un plan de lectura porque sus problemas no son lo suficientemente graves en los primeros grados o porque ellos ocultan sus debilidades con vocabulario avanzado, excelentes destrezas verbales, y otras estrategias de compensación. Esos estudiantes a menudo se las ingenian para seguir subiendo de grado con las calificaciones mínimas aunque no hayan captado gran parte de lo que leían.

Ese fue el caso de Collin, estudiante de séptimo grado y aficionado al lacrosse que vive en el distrito Jeffco y está matriculado en el programa Bright MINDS.

Su mamá, Leslie Dennis, dijo que hasta el segundo grado Collin podía tomar exámenes de lectura usando una herramienta que le leía los pasajes. A su hijo siempre le fue bien en los exámenes, pero en tercer grado tuvo que leer los pasajes por sí solo y sus puntuaciones bajaron drásticamente. Sin embargo, Collin no recibió un Plan de la ley READ; solamente recibió sesiones de ayuda para ayudarle a ser más fluido al leer — es decir, poder leer rápido, sin errores, y con la expresión apropiada.

Las sesiones no fueron suficiente. Collin obtuvo calificaciones promedio en toda la primaria, pero todavía titubeaba al leer algunas palabras, odiaba leer en voz alta, y se llamaba “tonto” a sí mismo.

Dennis sabía que el problema tenía que ser mayor, y dijo “pero no sabía exactamente cuál era”.

Finalmente, en quinto grado y siguiendo el consejo de otra mamá, llevó a su hijo a hacerse una prueba privada y descubrió que tenía dislexia.

Equidad y acceso

El programa Bright MINDS — donde ‘MINDS’ es la sigla de Multisensory Intensive Dyslexia Support — fue una idea de Jason Glass, pasado Superintendente del Distrito Jeffco, nos dijo Todd Ognibene, sicólogo escolar de Alameda y coordinador de Bright MINDS. Cuando Glass dejó de ser superintendente en 2020, otros administradores continuaron el plan.

“Salté de la alegría porque esto era algo que el distrito… finalmente reconoció que se necesitaba”, dijo Ognibene.

Alameda, donde casi tres cuartas partes de los estudiantes califican para comidas con subsidio, fue seleccionada para ser la sede del programa por su ubicación centralizada. Ognibene y Andrea Arguello, Asistente del Director de la escuela, diseñaron Bright MINDS junto con Thurby, maestra de educación especial, y Sarah Richards, maestra de inglés como segundo idioma y cuya hija tiene dislexia.

Para asegurar accesibilidad, no requieren un diagnóstico de dislexia, cuya prueba privada puede costar cientos de dólares. En su lugar, el equipo evalúa a los solicitantes del Distrito Jeffco y otros distritos del área metropolitana de Denver para detectar características asociadas con dislexia u otros problemas de lectura relacionados.

Encontrar un programa de dislexia estructurado dentro de una escuela pública es una agradable sorpresa para muchas familias. Las escuelas privadas que ofrecen servicios similares son bastante caras.

Algunos padres le han dicho a Ognibene, “Esto fue más difícil que encontrar una aguja en un pajar”.

Los estudiantes del programa reciben 80 minutos de lectura diarios. Aproximadamente la mitad recibe la ayuda más intensa, un programa de intervención aprobado por el estado llamado Wilson Reading System. La otra mitad, que cuenta con destrezas de lectura un poco mejores, usan Just Words, otro programa de Wilson.

Bright MINDS está apenas empezando, pero los primeros resultados son prometedores. Desde el otoño hasta el invierno, los estudiantes que participaron mejoraron un 68% más de lo esperado típicamente en lectura.

“Estoy agradecida… Por esto es que yo estaba exactamente peleando”, dijo Trudeau, la mamá de Brody. “No es justo asumir una deuda de $30,000 al año simplemente para que tu hijo reciba la educación correcta”,

Este año, Bright MINDS incluye algunos estudiantes que están en el programa de educación especial, algunos que tienen otros planes de aprendizaje, y otros que no tienen ningún plan. Algunos estudiantes hablan inglés como segundo idioma.

Los estudiantes del programa también reciben ayuda con destrezas como planificación y organización, ya que es común que otros trastornos ocurran junto con la dislexia, como por ejemplo déficit de atención/hiperactividad.

Los estudiantes de Bright MINDS no tienen que faltar a sus clases básicas para asistir a su clase diaria de lectura. En su lugar, simplemente no se matriculan en una de las clases electivas. Además, Thurby o Richards los acompañan en sus clases básicas para asegurar que estén recibiendo la ayuda necesaria para absorber el contenido.

Arguello, que también tiene dislexia, recuerda el impacto que tenía ser sacada de las clases generales en la escuela para recibir ayuda con la lectura.

“Me tomó mucho tiempo ponerme al día”, dijo.

La especialista en lectura Sarah Richards (a la derecha) mide un minuto durante un descanso del programa Bright MINDS. El programa ha tenido resultados prometedores hasta ahora, y los estudiantes han mostrado una mejora 68% mayor desde el otoño al invierno de la que normalmente se anticiparía.

Cambio en la atención

Hay señales de que pronto habrá más ayuda para los estudiantes de los grados mayores.

En 2020, el gobierno federal le otorgó $16 millones en grants a los distritos de Colorado para ser destinados a iniciativas de lectura y escritura que cubran desde la niñez temprana hasta la secundaria. Hasta ahora diez distritos han recibido los grants, y estos incluyen Aurora, Cherry Creek, St. Vrain Valley, Harrison, Lewis-Palmer y Sheridan.

Además, esta primavera se aprobará una ley para requerir que los directores de primaria y los intervencionistas que trabajan con estudiantes de cuarto hasta 12mo grado completen una capacitación en enseñanza de lectura similar a la que ya se les requiere a los maestros de los grados K-3.

Jill Youngren, consultora que está ayudando a los distritos St. Vrain y Sheridan con sus grants, aboga por una estrategia sistémica para ayudar a los estudiantes que están batallando con la lectura — asegurar que los educadores usen las evaluaciones correctas, identifiquen el problema raíz, y sepan cómo impartir enseñanza que resuelva la brecha.

“Si se empieza temprano todo eso se puede evitar, pero no podemos tirar la toalla por un niño que no recibió la instrucción correcta y decir, ah pues, lo sentimos, así es la vida, qué pena”.

Los estudiantes de Bright MINDS y sus padres dicen que este año el programa los ha ayudado con mucho más que lectura, deletreo y redacción. Ha logrado que la experiencia de tener dislexia se siente menos aislante.

“Ha sido excelente”, dijo Elise, “Es como tener un montón de hermanos y más padres que te están cuidando”.

Una encuesta rápida de las metas profesionales entre los estudiantes de Bright MINDS demostró una gran variedad: Astronomía, medicina, guardabosque, ingeniería y jugador de béisbol. Ognibene dijo que la prioridad es empoderar a los estudiantes para que logren sus metas.

“Queremos que se gradúen de Alameda sabiendo que esencialmente no existe opción que no puedan perseguir”, dijo.

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Ann Schimke es reportera senior en Chalkbeat y cubre temas de niñez temprana y de lectura y escritura en la niñez temprana. Comunícate con Ann escribiéndole a aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Las escuelas de Boulder están implantando la co-enseñanza para atender a los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés

2023-06-06T16:19:36+00:00

Chalkbeat Colorado es un noticiero local sin fines de lucro que informa sobre las escuelas públicas en Denver y otros distritos. Suscríbete a nuestro boletín gratis por email en español para recibir lo último en noticias sobre educación dos veces al mes.

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El año pasado, en la clase de primer grado Susan Tran en el Distrito Escolar de Boulder Valley, ella y otra maestra trabajaron en equipo, ayudando a los estudiantes a enfocarse en el lenguaje de las matemáticas, descifrando problemas matemáticos y usando palabras para comparar, contrastar y describir formas diferentes.

La labor de estas dos maestras es parte de los cambios que el distrito escolar de Boulder está haciendo en la manera en que los estudiantes identificados como aprendices de inglés reciben servicios en las escuelas primarias.

En lugar de sacar a los estudiantes de su salón de clases diariamente por aproximadamente 45 minutos para que aprendan inglés, el distrito está adoptando un modelo de enseñanza conjunta, en el que un maestro especialista visita los salones de clase regulares para ayudar a dirigir una lección para todos los estudiantes junto con el maestro de ese salón.

“Cada vez que ves a un maestro nuevo, aprendes algo nuevo”, dijo Tran. Aproximadamente la mitad de los estudiantes de su clase están aprendiendo inglés.

“Noté que los estudiantes estaban hablando con un vocabulario académico más sólido y con frases más completas”, dijo Rachelle Weigold, una de las maestras de inglés que trabajó con Tran. “Creo que han sido avances realmente fantásticos”.

Es un cambio que algunos padres hispanos habían pedido hace años y que el distrito ya había probado antes, pero sin tener éxito.

En la escuela primaria Alicia Sánchez en Lafayette, donde trabajan Tran y Weigold, casi un 36% de los estudiantes están aprendiendo inglés (en algunos salones, hasta la mitad), o sea, son estudiantes que hablan principalmente otro idioma que no es inglés. Por eso, la escuela ya llevaba tiempo probando la co-enseñanza. Sin embargo, este año hubo un nuevo enfoque en la planificación intencional antes de probar con lecciones enseñadas por dos maestros. La co-enseñanza durante la clase de matemáticas también fue algo nuevo.

Este próximo otoño, otras ocho escuelas se unirán a las cuatro que empezaron a usar el modelo este año. Los planes son que la mayoría de las escuelas primarias de Boulder hagan el cambio en los próximos años. Cada escuela decide qué asignatura combinar con las lecciones de inglés, pero muchas se están enfocando en la clase de matemática.

Según las leyes federales de derechos civiles, los distritos escolares tienen que proporcionarles servicios a los estudiantes identificados como aprendices de inglés para que aprendan el idioma y puedan tener acceso a una educación.

En Boulder, donde alrededor de un 7% de los estudiantes están en el programa para aprender inglés, esos servicios se habían prestado principalmente a través de un modelo en el que los niños salían de su salón para recibir lecciones de inglés con maestros especialistas y luego regresaban a tomar el resto de sus clases.

Es raro que los distritos escolares cambien su forma de ofrecer servicios.

Pero por mucho tiempo, los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés en el Distrito Escolar de Boulder Valley han tenido grandes diferencias de puntuación en los exámenes estatales en comparación con los estudiantes cuyo primer idioma es inglés.

Los resultados más recientes de las pruebas estatales mostraron una brecha de 54.7 puntos de porcentaje, una de las diferencias más amplias del estado. En 2022, un 9.1% de los estudiantes que estaban aprendiendo inglés en el distrito de Boulder obtuvieron una puntuación de dominio del idioma o más en los exámenes estatales, en comparación con un 7.9% del mismo grupo de estudiantes que obtuvieron puntuaciones de dominio o más a nivel estatal. Por otro lado, un 63.8% de estudiantes de Boulder cuyo primer idioma es inglés obtuvieron o superaron las puntuaciones esperadas.

Los líderes del distrito han dicho que una de sus metas a largo plazo es mejorar los resultados de los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés y cerrar esa brecha. A corto plazo, las metas giran en torno a mejorar la capacidad de los maestros para apoyar a los estudiantes durante todo el día y darles un mejor acceso a su educación.

Una de las metas más importantes “es no separar a los estudiantes de sus compañeros de grado y que no se sientan diferentes”, dijo Kristin Nelson-Stein, directora de educación cultural y lingüísticamente diversa del Distrito Escolar de Boulder Valley.

Los líderes del distrito dijeron que ya habían probado la co-enseñanza, pero que no había funcionado del todo.

“La verdad es que no funcionó”, dijo Meghan MCracken, coordinadora de educación cultural y lingüísticamente diversa del distrito de Boulder Valley. “Realmente no teníamos apoyo al más alto nivel para cambiar el programa”

Randy Barber, portavoz del distrito, dijo que la prioridad ha sido mejorar los sistemas de enseñanza para los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés, pero que toma tiempo escuchar a los padres y conseguir que todos estén de acuerdo en cómo deben cambiar las cosas.

En esta ocasión, parte de lo que ayudó para que todos estuvieran de acuerdo fue visitar el Distrito Escolar de Cherry Creek para observar cómo ellos usan los modelos de co-enseñanza para desarrollar el inglés.

Los padres preocupados fueron una fuerza de impulso

Los padres latinos habían pedido estos cambios hace años. Muchos pensaron que sus recomendaciones habían caído en el olvido.

Ana Lilia Luján fue una de las líderes de padres que hizo esa recomendación. Su hijo, que acaba de graduarse del distrito este año, tuvo problemas con el inglés la mayor parte de su tiempo en la escuela. Cuando empezó la escuela intermedia y todavía no progresaba en su aprendizaje del inglés, Lujan decidió sacarlo del programa.

“Yo tenía mucho miedo de quitarle esas clases, pero dije, no ya eran muchos años”, dijo Luján. “Lo quité y lo pusieron en clases regulares. Eso le ayudó grandemente. Su autoestima cambió. Su inglés mejoró porque estaba escuchando a niños que sabían más”.

Luján, que pasó años tratando de entender cómo se identifican y atienden los estudiantes que necesitan aprender inglés, dijo que ha llegado a creer que los métodos de sacarlos del salón de clases no son eficaces.

“Eso de sacar a los niños no funciona”, dijo Luján. “Llega un punto en que si no te gradúas de los servicios, nunca te vas a igualar con los demás. Y ellos piensan que no son inteligentes. Es como el sistema los está tratando”.

Ella dijo que quiere que los distritos reconozcan que los estudiantes son inteligentes, a pesar de las dificultades que puedan tener en los exámenes estatales.

“No confundamos el no saber un lenguaje con falta de capacidad intelectual”, dijo Luján.

A Luján también le preocupa que no haya suficientes padres que tengan el tiempo que ella tuvo para informarse sobre el complicado sistema o para aprender que otros modelos podrían funcionar mejor. Eso significa que son menos los que pueden abogar por cambios, lo que reduce la presión sobre los distritos para que sean creativos a la hora de buscar soluciones para mejorar el aprendizaje, dijo.

Los investigadores que estudian el desarrollo del idioma inglés dicen que el modelo de separar a los estudiantes tiene ventajas, pero que no suele ser el más eficaz. No obstante, cambiar a la co-enseñanza no es automáticamente mejor, dicen.

“A veces sacar a los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés del salón hace que los niños se sientan estigmatizados o no tan inteligentes como los demás niños de la clase normal”, dijo Kathy Escamilla, investigadora y antigua directora del BUENO Center for Multicultural Education en el campus de la Universidad de Colorado en Boulder. “Por otro lado, la co-enseñanza podría funcionar bien en matemáticas. Podría ayudar a los niños, pero eso depende de las estrategias usadas”.

Ester J. de Jong, profesora de educación cultural y lingüísticamente diversa en la Universidad de Colorado-Denver, dijo que los modelos de separación de los estudiantes pueden ofrecer entornos de aprendizaje seguros y funcionan mejor cuando ayudan a los estudiantes a aprovechar lo que aprenden en sus salón de clases regulares el resto del día.

Una vez que los estudiantes llegan a cierto punto en su aprendizaje de un idioma nuevo, no hay razón para sacarlos de un salón de clases de inglés sólo para que reciban más enseñanza en inglés, dijo de Jong. “Pero eso no significa que los estudiantes no tengan necesidades que no hay que cubrir”.

Los grupos aislados pueden ser especialmente útiles para estudiantes inmigrantes nuevos, que posiblemente tienen necesidades más específicas.

Los líderes del distrito dijeron que los estudiantes recién llegados todavía pueden ser sacados del salón para recibir apoyo durante los primeros meses en el distrito escolar, hasta que estén listos para recibir ayuda en el salón de clase regular.

Según los investigadores, ambos modelos requieren que los maestros estén bien preparados y tengan tiempo para coordinar.

Los maestros de la primaria Sánchez dicen que el cambio a la co-enseñanza ha sido un trabajo duro, pero que su estructura les ha permitido planificar bien, coordinar bien, y aprender los unos de los otros.

La planificación les ayuda a ajustar las clases para los estudiantes con capacidades diferentes, dijeron los maestros, pero nunca segregan a los estudiantes en el salón de clases simplemente por el hecho de que estén aprendiendo inglés.

Elizabeth Dawson, otra maestra de la primaria Sánchez, dice que los estudiantes pueden tener necesidades diferentes por traumas pasados, niveles de pobreza u otros factores externos.

“Hay muchas razones por las que los estudiantes podrían necesitar apoyo con el idioma”, dijo Dawson.

Luján, la madre del distrito de Boulder, es optimista, pero dijo que seguirá atenta para ver si el cambio contribuye a mejorar los resultados de los estudiantes latinos del distrito.

“Esa va a ser la pregunta”, dijo Luján. “El que estén haciendo este cambio pues ya es ganancia. Pero todavía hay que ver qué resultados da. Ese siempre fue mi punto”.

Yesenia Robles es reportera de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre temas sobre los distritos escolares K-12 y la educación multilingüe. Para comunicarte con Yesenia, envíale un mensaje a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Programas bilingües de Denver enfrentan problemas por muy pocos estudiantes y amenaza de cierres

2022-07-12T11:55:00+00:00

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El primer día de la escuela de verano en Denver, seis niños que empezarán el primer grado tomaron un examen de deletreo. Usando lápices con gomas de borrar nuevas, deletrearon palabras como noche, jugo, pequeño y vecino.

“Número tres es la palabra — es un poco larga — ‘pequeño,’” dijo la maestra.

Una niña con espejuelos y un lazo grande color rosa miró el papel que tenía en frente y trató de hacer los sonidos.

“P–p-p-pequeño,” susurró en voz baja mientras escribía una “p” al lado del número 3.

Estos niños de 6 y 7 años están matriculados en el programa de educación bilingüe de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, y por eso aprenden deletreo, lectura y matemáticas en español. Mientras van adquiriendo más destrezas académicas básicas, también aprenden inglés, y con el tiempo hacen la transición a una enseñanza que se da cada vez menos en español.

Los padres y educadores de Denver lucharon por este tipo de programa bilingüe — conocido como enseñanza de transición en el idioma nativo, o TNLI (transitional native language instruction) — y una orden de un tribunal federal requiere que el distrito lo ofrezca en cada escuela que tenga un mínimo de 60 estudiantes que hablan español y están aprendiendo inglés.

Sin embargo, los programas bilingües de Denver están enfrentando una gran amenaza: cada vez hay más escuelas con muy pocos estudiantes.

Los altos costos de vivienda y reducciones en las tasas de natalidad están reduciendo la matrícula en las escuelas públicas, y en especial en las comunidades históricamente latinas de Denver. Ha sido difícil llenar los salones de clase bilingües en las escuelas primarias, y los métodos alternativos, como combinar dos grados en un salón, no sirven bien los alumnos. El distrito ya había decidido cerrar cuatro programas pequeños TNLI — pronunciado “tin-li” — a principios de este año, pero después cambió de parecer.

El distrito también está considerando cerrar algunas escuelas completamente. Más de la mitad de las escuelas que cumplen los criterios recomendados para un posible cierre tienen programas TNLI. Esas 15 escuelas representan casi una cuarta parte de las 65 escuelas del distrito que tienen salones de clase bilingües.

Consolidar escuelas podría permitir programas más robustos, pero eso conlleva su propio costo.

“Esta escuela es parta de nuestra comunidad,” dijo Yuridia Rebolledo-Durán, madre de dos estudiantes de la Escuela Primaria Colfax, en una manifestación frente a la escuela el pasado mes de abril. “Es muy importante para nosotros como padres que nuestros hijos puedan hablar dos idiomas.”

Padres y maestros pelearon por educación bilingüe

Las investigaciones apoyan generalmente la eficacia de una educación bilingüe. En Denver, los estudiantes que aprenden inglés y adquieren dominio de ese idioma históricamente han tenido buenas puntuaciones en los exámenes estandarizados del estado. Los administradores de alto rango de las escuelas de Denver también apoyan esa idea.

“Nos entristece mucho el hecho de que la reducción en matrícula esté impactando nuestras escuelas bilingües,” dijo Nadia Madan Morrow, antigua maestra bilingüe que dirigió el programa de educación multilingüe del distrito hasta que fue recientemente promovida a Jefe de Asuntos Académicos, (CAO). “Estamos esforzándonos para determinar cómo ofrecer enseñanza en idioma nativo en las escuelas que están continuamente volviéndose más pequeñas.”

Las madres de los estudiantes de la Colfax Elementary School en Denver en la manifestación en abril en contra del cierre de Colfax por las Escuelas Públicas de Denver a causa de la reducción en matrícula.

No obstante, ese no siempre ha sido el caso.

Algunos educadores castigaban a los estudiantes que hablaban español en clase, una práctica que terminó en feroces protestas. En 1980, un grupo local llamado Congress of Hispanic Educators demandó al distrito por violar los derechos de los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés.

La determinación del juez federal en ese caso fue en contra del distrito. En 1984, Denver entabló su primer decreto de consentimiento, un acuerdo legal de brindar educación bilingüe. Ese decreto se ha modificado dos veces.

La versión más reciente, en vigencia desde 2013, dice que el distrito tiene que ofrecer programas TNLI en las escuelas que tengan más de 60 estudiantes de habla hispana que estén aprendiendo inglés, emplear maestros bilingües calificados, y usar currículos y exámenes de alta calidad en español.

“Nuestros padres bilingües quieren que sus hijos sean bilingües,” dijo Kathy Escamilla, miembro del Congress of Hispanic Educators y profesora jubilada de la Universidad de Colorado de bilingüismo y alfabetización bilingüe, lo cual significa poder hablar, leer y escribir en dos idiomas. “Ellos quieren la oportunidad para que su cultura y su historia estén representadas.”

El decreto de consentimiento se aplica únicamente a los estudiantes que hablan español, y que representan la porción más grande de estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés en Denver. Los demás estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés reciben enseñanza totalmente en inglés, a veces con la ayuda de maestros o tutores que hablan su idioma. El árabe y el vietnamita son el segundo y el tercer idioma nativo más común.

La cantidad de estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés en Denver ha subido y bajado durante una década, y lo mismo ha ocurrido con la cantidad de estudiantes inscritos en programas TNLI y el número de escuelas que los ofrecen.

En el pasado, el distrito revocaba el programa TNLI de cualquier escuela que tuviera menos de 60 estudiantes de habla hispana que estuvieran aprendiendo inglés, dijo Madan Morrow. Pero cuando el distrito trató de hacer esto el invierno pasado en cuatro escuelas primarias — Colfax, Cheltenham, Traylor y Schmitt — los miembros del Congress of Hispanic Educators pusieron resistencia.

Se acercan posibles cierres de escuelas

Tres de las cuatro escuelas han perdido tantos estudiantes, que están en riesgo de ser cerradas en el futuro cercano. Esto aumentó la preocupación de la comunidad de perder el TNLI.

Hace un año, la junta escolar electa en Denver aprobó una resolución que dice que los padres, maestros y otras personas deben ayudar a desarrollar un plan para consolidar las escuelas pequeñas. Las escuelas de Denver reciben fondos por cada estudiante, y las escuelas pequeñas batallan para poder pagar cosas como clases electivas y personal de salud mental.

El distrito hizo una lista de 19 escuelas que participarían en el proceso. La meta era que las comunidades en esas escuelas sugirieran ideas de cómo consolidar las escuelas.

Pero la lista causó pánico, y el Superintendente Alex Marrero la eliminó.

Cambiando la estrategia, el distrito este año seleccionó un comité asesor de la reducción en matrícula y le asignó definir los criterios para cerrar una escuela con poca matrícula.

El comité reveló los criterios propuestos el mes pasado: Se deben considerar para consolidación las escuelas primarias e intermedias con menos de 215 estudiantes el próximo año, así como las escuelas con menos de 275 estudiantes que anticipen perder entre un 8% y 10% de los estudiantes en los próximos años; de igual manera se deben considerar las escuelas chárter independientes que estén teniendo dificultades financieras.

Veintisiete escuelas operadas por el distrito tuvieron menos de 275 estudiantes este pasado año. Como las 19 escuelas en la lista original, la mayoría de las 27 escuelas atienden a poblaciones estudiantiles con más de 90% estudiantes de minorías raciales, y más de un 90% provenientes de hogares de pocos ingresos.

Quince de las 27 escuelas tienen programas TNLI, incluida la Colfax Elementary, donde los padres y defensores tuvieron en abril una manifestación en contra del cierre de la escuela. Varias madres dijeron que viven cerca y caminan con sus hijos a la escuela porque no pueden manejar.

“Me preocupa, porque ¿cómo voy a llevar a mis hijos a otras escuelas?” Esto nos dijo Cecilia Sánchez Pérez, madre de dos estudiantes de Colfax.

Escamilla, del Congress of Hispanic Educators, también asistió a la manifestación.

La Escuela Primaria Colfax es una de cuatro escuelas de Denver que casi perdió su designación para ofrecer “instrucción transicional en idioma nativo” en este pasado año escolar debido a la reducción en matrícula.

“Entendemos que DPS está enfrentando decisiones difíciles con respecto a presupuesto y a la reducción en matrícula,” dijo. Sin embargo, agregó: “con demasiada frecuencia estos cambios afectan de manera desproporcionada a las comunidades de raza negra, latina y pobres.”

Si el distrito les quita la designación TNLI a la Colfax y las otras tres escuelas, los defensores temen que los estudiantes se van a quedar sin programas bilingües. Aún con autobuses gratis a una escuela TNLI cercana, las familias van a dudar en dejar las escuelas que conocen y aman.

El Congress of Hispanic Educators también cuestiona las proyecciones de matrícula del distrito y le preocupa que los padres no han sido consultados, dijo Escamilla.

Debido a la resistencia de los padres, Denver acordó mantener la designación TNLI en Colfax, Cheltenham, Traylor y Schmitt. Pero Madan Morrow dijo que la reducción en estudiantes de habla hispana significa que los programas podrían no ser tan robustos.

Menos estudiantes significa cambios en el salón de clase

Muchas de las escuelas TNLI de Denver todavía tienen una matrícula saludable. Pero en las escuelas que no tienen suficientes estudiantes que hablan español en cada grado, el TNLI se ve diferente.

A menudo, dijeron los educadores, las escuelas mezclan dos grados en el mismo salón, algo que no es académicamente ideal ni popular con los padres. O las escuelas combinan estudiantes que hablan español nativo con estudiantes que hablan inglés nativo, una asignación difícil hasta para los maestros de más experiencia.

Kim Ursetta, que enseña preescolar bilingüe en la Traylor, tuvo este pasado año una combinación de estudiantes de inglés nativo y de español nativo por segunda vez en sus 28 años de carrera.

“Es difícil,” dijo ella. “Uno está constantemente saltando de un idioma a otro, y no importa lo que hagas, solamente les podrás enseñar la mitad del tiempo que normalmente tendrías.”

Si combinar estudiantes no es posible, a veces las escuelas ponen estudiantes que hablan español en salones que solo enseñan en inglés y envía a otro salón para aprender ciertas materias en español. Eso puede hacer que los estudiantes se sientan marginados o que se pierdan algunas actividades electivas divertidas.

Esto es algo que Carrie Olson, miembro de la junta escolar que fue maestra bilingüe en Denver por 33 años antes de su elección, vio con sus propios ojos. A Olson le preocupa cómo la reducción en matrícula está afectando los programas TNLI y le ha pedido repetidamente a la junta que hablen del tema.

Madan Morrow dijo que los directores y el personal del distrito están trabajando en planes para el próximo año escolar.

“Sabemos que cualquier cantidad de enseñanza en el idioma nativo es mejor que nada,” dijo ella. “Lo que estamos tratando de determinar en estas cuatro escuelas es, ‘¿qué cantidad es perfecta? ¿Cuánto les podemos dar para que sea beneficioso sin que tengan que estar en un sistema así todo el día?’”

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Martha Urioste, la ‘Madrina de Montessori’ en Denver, luchó por la educación bilingüe

2022-12-28T18:24:37+00:00

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Chalkbeat Colorado es un noticiero local sin fines de lucro que informa sobre las escuelas públicas en Denver y otros distritos. Suscríbete a nuestro boletín gratis por email en español para recibir lo último en noticias sobre educación.

Cuando Martha Urioste visitaba las escuelas de Denver como defensora de la educación bilingüe, con frecuencia se acercaba a los estudiantes para decirles algo que su abuela le dijo a ella.

“No dejes tu español”.

Sus esfuerzos con el Congreso de Educadores Hispanos de Denver ayudaron a establecer programas bilingües que, con el paso de las décadas, beneficiaron a miles de niños en Denver. Urioste, que fue maestra y luego directora, también trajo la educación Montessori a las escuelas públicas de Denver, empezando en una comunidad en la que la mayoría de los estudiantes eran de familias negras y latinas de pocos ingresos.

Urioste falleció el 8 de diciembre, a la edad de 85 años, y siempre estaba pensando en la educación. Su amiga y colega Kathy Escamilla la visitó en el hospital un par de días antes, y dice que Urioste le pidió que le contara las últimas novedades en las escuelas de Denver.

“Se la pasaba instigando cosas buenas”, dijo Darlene LeDoux, educadora latina desde hace mucho tiempo que ahora trabaja en la oficina del ombudsman de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, y que conoció a Urioste por décadas. “Siempre estaba asegurando que siempre fuéramos más lejos, hiciéramos más y nos esforzáramos más por los niños.”

Según su obituario y las personas que hablaron en su servicio de recordación esta semana, Urioste nació en Nuevo México y se mudó a Denver cuando era adolescente. Después de graduarse de universidad en 1958, inició una carrera como maestra de primer grado en la Escuela Primaria Gilpin, que ya está cerrada. Urioste fue maestra de primaria y de intermedia, y hasta dio clases de español para el distrito en la televisión pública.

Obtuvo dos maestrías y un doctorado, y con el tiempo llegó a ser directora asistente en la Escuela Secundaria North y luego directora de la Escuela Primeria Mitchel en el noreste de Denver a mediados de la década de 1980. Un tribunal federal ordenó que el Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver dejara de segregar sus escuelas, pero la migración de estudiantes blancos a los suburbios y a las escuelas privadas hizo más difícil que la Mitchell y un par de escuelas más pudieran cumplir la cuota de estudiantes blancos ordenada por el tribunal.

En un breve documental producido por la ciudad como parte de la serie “I Am Denver”, Urioste contó: “Nos dijeron, ‘¿Qué van a hacer para asegurar que niños blancos y niños de clase media se suban a un autobús y vayan al noreste de Denver?’”

Urioste eligió la educación Montessori, que en ese momento no estaba disponible en ninguna de las escuelas públicas de Colorado. Fue a Roma a estudiar el currículo, que alienta a los niños a trabajar de manera independiente en tareas prácticas y aprender de los demás en salones de clase con niños de múltiples edades.

En su velorio, su amiga Erlinda Archuleta recordó cómo la maleta de Urioste se abrió cuando salía del vuelo de regreso a Denver.

En vez de recoger su ropa, Urioste le dijo a su hermano (que había ido al aeropuerto a buscarla): “‘¡Encontré la solución! ¡Montessori!’”, contó Archuleta. “Lo menos que le importaba era su ropa.”

La hija mayor de Honey Niehaus estaba en Kinder el primer año que se ofreció Montessori en la Mitchell. El programa era maravilloso, dijo ella. No obstante, Urioste y otros notaron que los estudiantes blancos estaban progresando más rápido que los de minorías, dijo Niehaus — una desigualdad que Urioste quería eliminar estableciendo un programa Montessori para bebés y niños pequeños.

Un edificio abandonado al frente de la escuela Mitchell fue la oportunidad. Niehaus miró adentro un día y le preocupó lo que vio. Dice que corrió a la oficina de Urioste y le preguntó a la directora qué iba a hacer con respecto a las actividades de drogas al otro lado de la calle.

“Ella me miró y dijo, ‘Cariño, ¿qué vas a hacer tú al respecto?’”, nos contó Niehaus. “Dondequiera que iba, conseguía más personas para el sistema. Siempre que conocía gente que auténticamente se preocupaba por los niños y la educación, ella los apoyaba”.

Con ayuda de los líderes de la comunidad, políticos y voluntarios, Urioste y otros compraron el edificio y lo transformaron en Family Star, una escuela Montessori de niñez temprana que abrió sus puertas en 1991. La escuela capacitó a las mujeres de la comunidad para ser las primeras maestras. Más tarde, Niehaus fue la directora ejecutiva.

Más de 30 años después, Family Star tiene dos escuelas en Denver y las Escuelas Públicas de Denver cuentan con cinco escuelas Montessori. A Urioste se le conoce como “La Madrina de Montessori”. El programa original de la escuela Mitchell ahora está en la Denison.

Además de ser la pionera de Montessori, Urioste fue miembro del Congreso de Educadores Hispanos (CHE), que demandó a las Escuelas Públicas de Denver por su tratamiento de los estudiantes que hablan español. La demanda resultó en el decreto modificado actual de consentimiento, que requiere que el distrito proporcione educación bilingüe para los estudiantes cuyo primer idioma es el español.

Urioste fue miembro del CHE por 50 años. Escamilla, que se unió al grupo en la década de 1990, dijo que aparte de por su defensa de la educación bilingüe, Urioste también será recordada por ser mentora de los maestros más jóvenes, a quienes alentaba a obtener diplomas de educación avanzada y ser líderes.

Carrie Olson, miembro del Consejo Escolar, fue contratada por Urioste como maestra bilingüe de primer año en la Mitchell en 1985. Olson recuerda cómo Urioste la encontró llorando un día en su salón de clases.

“Entró, me tomó de las manos y dijo, ‘Carrie, vas a ser una maestra excelente. No te puedes dar por vencida. No puedes dejar de ayudar a estos niños’”, dijo Olson en el evento de recordación.

Otros dijeron que Urioste tenía un excelente sentido del humor. Era bien fanática de los Denver Broncos, le encantaba jugar en las máquinas tragamonedas, y era una “bonafide groupie de Cher” que solía viajar a Las Vegas con su hermano Richard para ver a la cantante en concierto, dijo Archuleta.

Craig Peña, cuyo padre Robert trabajó junto a Urioste en el CHE, dijo que la recordaba como “una mujer increíblemente capaz, increíblemente atenta, sumamente amable y bien cariñosa.

“Pero tampoco era alguien que se dejara manipular”, dijo. “No se puede confundir la amabilidad y gentileza por debilidad”.

Melanie Asmar es reportera sénior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre historias sobre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, envíale un mensaje a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

4 estudiantes de la Secundaria North dicen por qué Denver necesita más maestros de color

2022-05-23T18:53:47+00:00

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Martin Castañon, estudiante de duodécimo grado de la Secundaria North, creció en una comunidad en la que la mayoría de la gente se veía como él. Pero ahora, dice, los nuevos residentes blancos se muestran irritados con él, cuando ellos fueron los que “se mudaron a mi comunidad y me arrancaron la cultura.”

La decisión de la Secundaria North de no renovarle el contrato a Tim Hernández, maestro de inglés, Literatura Latinx y una clase de Liderazgo Latinx, y que también dirigía un club de estudiantes, todavía se siente como otro golpe para el estudiantado (en su mayoría de origen Latino) de una escuela situada en una de las comunidades más gentrificadas de Denver.

“Es triste. Es deprimente,” dijo Martin. “Fue como cambiar de muchos colores y alegría a un ambiente de depresión y oscuridad. Es terrible que le quiten eso a uno.”

Hernández creció en el Norte de Denver y comenzó a enseñar en la Secundaria North el pasado año escolar. Fue contratado nuevamente este año con un contrato de un año. Cuando solicitó seguir enseñando en North el próximo año, Hernández dijo que no le renovaron el contrato.

En una declaración, el Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver no dijo por qué no se le renovó el contrato a Hernández. La declaración decía que el distrito está comprometido con reclutar y retener maestros de color calificados, y que la decisión de a quién contratar está de parte del comité de personal de la escuela (que en la Secundaria North incluye al director, Scott Wolf). Si el comité no puede llegar a un consenso, el director tiene la última palabra de conformidad con el contrato del sindicato de maestros.

Los estudiantes de Hernández dicen que ha sido devastador perder al maestro que les enseñó sobre el movimiento Chicano, sobre estudiantes activistas de Colorado como Los Seis de Boulder, y las marchas en la West High en 1969, cuando los estudiantes de Denver protestaron contra el racismo y la discriminación. Hernández mantuvo un refrigerador que los estudiantes del Club llenaban de despensa para distribuir gratuitamente. Su salón de clases estaba decorado con banderas y un cartel pintado a mano con la frase “casa de la cultura.”

“Sabemos que nuestra cultura no está destacada en ninguna otra de las paredes de nuestro edificio,” dijo Hernández, “pero sí en mi salón de clases.”

El maestro Tim Hernández posa cerca de la Secundaria North a principios de este mes.

Los datos del distrito y el estado muestran que un 75% de los estudiantes de Denver son minorías raciales. Sin embargo, solo un 29% de los maestros son personas de color. Los estudiantes hispanos o latinos representan un 52% del distrito, pero solo un 19% de los maestros de Denver son hispanos o latinos.

“Esto es y siempre ha sido algo más grande que el caso del Sr. Hernández,” dijo Nayeli López, estudiante de noveno grado de la Secundaria North, y que es miembro del club llamado SOMOS MECHA. “La razón por la que hablamos tanto sobre él es que era uno de los pocos maestros de color en la escuela. Retener maestros de color es más que solo ofrecerles empleo, es hacer que la escuela sea un lugar seguro para ellos.”

Durante las últimas semanas, los estudiantes de la Secundaria North han tenido una sentada y dos abandonos del edificio para exigir que la escuela vuelva a contratar a Hernández. El jueves, unos 50 estudiantes y apoyadores marcharon hasta las oficinas centrales del distrito para decir a voces, “¿A quién queremos? ¡Al Sr. Hernández! ¿Dónde? ¡En la Secundaria North!” Aproximadamente 20 personas se apuntaron en una lista para hablar sobre Hernández y la Secundaria North en la reunión de la Junta Escolar el jueves por la noche.

Al terminar la reunión, la junta votó unánimemente que Hernández fuese eliminado de la lista de maestros “sin renovación de contrato.” El superintendente Alex Marrero dijo que aunque eso no significa que Hernández regresará a la Secundaria North, sí significa que “lo apoyaremos en su camino a encontrar otro puesto dentro de DPS el año próximo.”

Chalkbeat habló con cuatro estudiantes — Nayeli, Martin, la estudiante de duodécimo grado Daniela Urbina-Valle y la estudiante de undécimo grado Viridiana Sanchéz — sobre Hernández y la necesidad de que el Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver contrate y retenga más maestros de raza negra, indígenas, y de otras minorías raciales (categoría conocida como BIPOC, Black, Indigenous and People of Color). Esto es lo que nos dijeron.

Estudiantes de la Secundaria North protestan frente a las oficinas centrales del Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver el 19 de mayo.

¿Cuál ha sido su experiencia en cuanto a tener maestros BIPOC en la escuela?

Martin: En total he tenido dos maestros de color. … el Sr. Hernández fue uno de los únicos maestros que realmente mostraba orgullo por su raza y cultura. Es lamentable que no podamos aprender sobre nuestra cultura de los maestros. … Contratar maestros de color nos ayudaría mucho. Nunca sabremos quiénes somos en verdad si no aprendemos de dónde venimos.

Viridiana: Finalmente tener un maestro que habla exactamente como tú, que viene de un trasfondo exactamente como el tuyo... fue revelador. Fue algo refrescante.

Nayeli: Yo crecí en una comunidad de personas que fueron parte del movimiento Chicano. Así me crie, pero nunca había escuchado sobre eso en la escuela.

Daniela: Aunque tengamos maestros que se ven como nosotros, la expectativa es que se conformen a un sistema creado por hombres blancos… Muchas veces el hombre blanco piensa que la educación se trata de control, y el Sr. Hernández nos enseñó que eso no es cierto.

¿Qué aprendieron en las clases del Sr. Hernández? ¿Y cómo se sintieron?

Martin: Aprendí quién soy. Aprendí lo que significa ser Chicano. Por ser hijo de padres mexicanos, la palabra Chicano tiene bastante peso. La definición de ellos es completamente diferente a la verdadera. Para ellos, Chicano significa haragán; alguien que vive del sistema. Pero ese no fue el significado original. Chicano se trata del poder latino.

Las primeras semanas del año escolar, [el Sr. Hernández] nos llevó a la reunión de la West [Secundaria]. Y no era solo una reunión, fue una celebración de las protestas de la West. Lo primero que aprendí del Sr. Hernández sobre la raza latina fue eso.

Nayeli: Yo conocí al Sr. Hernández en la actividad de la Secundaria West. Mi papá [Paul López, Denver City Clerk y exmiembro del consejo de la ciudad] es exalumno de la Secundaria West y era uno de los oradores. Yo era la única estudiante pensando, “Uf, soy de la Secundaria North y aquí estoy, en la escuela rival.”

Fue entonces que vi un grupo grande de estudiantes marchando con un letrero que decía “From North to West, Chicano Power.” Entonces pensé, “Oh wow, ¡qué cool!” Nunca había escuchado la frase “Chicano Power” fuera de mi casa.

Daniela: Mi mamá nació en México y mi papá en Nicaragua, así que soy la primera generación nacida aquí. … no era normal que yo dijera que soy Chicana porque para ellos, es un término negativo. … [Hernández] nos enseñó a sentirnos orgullosos mostrándonos la historia. … no se trata únicamente de César Chávez. No se trata solamente de Dolores Huerta. Es mucho más que esas personas.

Viridiana: Yo conocí al Sr. Hernández cuando comenzó el año. … recuerdo que le dije lo mucho que odiaba estar en la clase de Lenguaje AP porque no sentía conexión con el currículo. Todos en la clase eran blancos. Solo éramos tres estudiantes de color, contándome a mí, y me sentía horrible. Me sentía sumamente aislada.

Entonces él me dijo que era el maestro de Literatura Latinx y que la clase era divertida. … tan pronto llegué, me sentí bienvenida, sentí comunidad, y él únicamente quería que uno se mostrara de manera auténtica.

La Secundaria North.

¿Qué les gustaría que los adultos a cargo del Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver sepan?

Nayeli: Queremos que nuestro maestro regrese. ... para nosotros no es un simple maestro. Es alguien que nos hace sentir seguros. … Él, siendo uno de los únicos Chicanos en la Secundaria North, era un excelente sistema de apoyo.

Martin: No solo queremos que nuestro maestro regrese, también queremos más maestros que se vean como él, que representen su cultura. No queremos gente que se vea como nosotros pero que no nos represente.

Daniela: Ser inclusivos y diversos es más que celebrar el Mes de la Historia LGBTQ+ o el Mes de la Historia Negra. … la North piensa que esa es la manera inclusiva de apoyarnos. Pero de ninguna manera lo es.

Martin: Es como que somos una inconveniencia para ellos.

Nayeli: Es como que nos anotan en un cuaderno pero luego nos desechan.

Daniela: Sé de personas que han dicho que les han dicho a los orientadores o maestros de AP que se van a inscribir en clases de estudios étnicos y les han dicho, “Eso no se verá bien en tu transcripción de créditos.” No creo que aprender y actuar de conformidad con quienes somos sea algo que nos haga menos atractivos para las universidades. Los maestros no deberían decirnos eso.

Viridiana: Nos han llamado “problemáticos.” O que los maestros saben cómo manejar a “estudiantes como nosotros” porque han trabajado en otras escuelas donde la mayoría del estudiantado es “como nosotros.”

Martin: Siempre usan frases como “you people” (la gente como ustedes).

Viridiana: Lo hemos reportado, pero no hacen nada.

Nayeli: Los mismos estudiantes que los maestros y muchos administradores tildan de “problemáticos” son los que maestros como el Sr. Hernández ven como chicos que van a lograr algo en la vida.

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre historias sobre el Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Pruebas para detectar dislexia: Colorado busca identificar a los estudiantes temprano

2021-04-02T20:35:20+00:00

El distrito escolar de Denver tendrá un programa piloto de pruebas para detectar dislexia este otoño, después de que los padres frustrados las pidieran por años, los grupos de trabajo del distrito las recomendaran, y la pandemia causara un retraso en la educación.

Y el programa piloto de Denver no es el único. El Distrito Escolar Boulder Valley empezó un programa piloto de pruebas de dislexia en 10 escuelas el otoño pasado y ya ha evaluado a 345 estudiantes de Kinder.

También es posible que comience un programa piloto estatal en los próximos meses, pero la escasez de solicitantes significa que su futuro es incierto.

Los funcionarios de educación en Colorado estaban listos para seleccionar cinco escuelas primarias para participar en el programa piloto de un año (con un costo de $92,000) a fines de abril. El viernes, último día para solicitar, solamente cinco escuelas lo habían hecho y los funcionarios de educación están todavía determinando si esas cinco cumplen los requisitos para participar.

Las nuevas iniciativas para detectar dislexia en Denver y Boulder (además del posible programa piloto del estado) han surgido en medio de un empuje nacional para mejorar la lectura, que incluye prestarles más atención a los estudiantes que tienen discapacidades que dificultan la lectura. Los expertos calculan que la dislexia afecta entre un 5% y 15% de la población. En Colorado, eso podría representar más de 100,000 niños en edad escolar.

La dislexia es una discapacidad de aprendizaje que dificulta la lectura. Las personas con dislexia tienen problemas para identificar sonidos, descifrar palabras, y deletrearlas.

“Estos niños no pueden distinguir entre los sonidos ‘eh’ e ‘ih’ de palabras en inglés como como ‘pen’ y ‘pin,’” dijo Robert Frantum-Allen, director de educación especial de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, y que también sufre de dislexia. “Uno les puede mostrar letras, pero ellos no las entienden porque todas parecen iguales.”

Los tres programas piloto cubren diferentes grados escolares y usan diferentes herramientas de evaluación. Los programas de Denver y Boulder incluyen evaluaciones en español para los estudiantes que estén aprendiendo inglés, mientras que el programa estatal no las tiene.

En Denver, los padres han estado por años pidiéndole dos cosas al distrito: Una mejor manera de evaluar a los estudiantes para detectar dislexia, y el uso de métodos basados en ciencia para enseñar a leer.

En septiembre de 2019, Nicole Wallerstedt le contó a la junta escolar el caso de su hija Finley. El año antes, Finley se había ‘descarrilado por completo’ del tercer grado, dijo su mamá. Tercer grado es cuando muchos estudiantes cambian de ‘aprender a leer’ a ‘leer para aprender’. Finley no pudo hacer la transición y se quedó rezagada.

Fue un año lleno de lágrimas, ansiedad social, citas de terapia, y días de ausencia en la escuela. Wallerstedt dijo que observó cómo su hija, que siempre había sido bulliciosa y amigable, se retraía en su mundo. Finalmente, un diagnóstico de dislexia hizo que pudiera recibir ayuda y acomodos en la escuela, y logró que Finley regresara a ser como siempre, dijo ella.

“Imagínense qué tan diferente fuera si a Finley le hubiesen hecho una prueba de detección al salir de Kinder y [su dislexia] se hubiese identificado temprano,” Wallerstedt dijo. “Ella no se hubiese sentido tan mal. Habríamos tenido un plan. Y no hubiese habido ningún estigma.

“Aparte de que no se habría quedado rezagada en el tercer grado.”

‘No hay mala intención’

A principios de 2019, un grupo de trabajo de Denver formado por padres, educadores y defensores de las personas con discapacidad había recomendado que todos los estudiantes que entraran en el distrito fueran examinados para detectar predictores de futuros problemas de lectura, incluida la dislexia. Y en abril de 2020, un grupo de trabajo del distrito recomendó que se pusieran a prueba dos herramientas particulares de detección.

El grupo sugirió que se examinara a todos los alumnos de Kinder y primer grado de 20 escuelas utilizando una herramienta llamada Shaywitz DyslexiaScreen, que al parecer cuesta $1 por estudiante. Esta herramienta, administrada por un maestro, identifica a los estudiantes como “en riesgo” o “sin riesgo” de dislexia.

El grupo también recomendó que se pruebe un segundo método de detección, más caro, en 10 de las 20 escuelas. La evaluación, conocida como Predictive Assessment of Reading, cuesta $7 por estudiante y se les daría a los estudiantes que tuvieron una puntuación de “riesgo” en la evaluación Shaywitz. La meta sería darles más información a los maestros sobre dónde los estudiantes en riesgo pudieran necesitar ayuda adicional.

Y algo importante es que la Predictive Assessment of Reading está disponible tanto en inglés como en español, según el primer informe del grupo de trabajo. Eso es crítico para las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, que bajo la orden de un tribunal federal tienen que ofrecer materiales de currículo en ambos idiomas.

“Ha llegado el momento de iniciar nuestro programa piloto de detección de la dislexia”, escribió Holly Baker Hill, facilitadora del grupo de trabajo y especialista en educación especial del distrito.

Pero 11 meses más tarde, el programa piloto todavía no ha comenzado. El retraso ha frustrado a los padres y estudiantes.

En una reunión de la junta escolar celebrada el mes pasado, Forest Hansen, estudiante de segundo grado, dijo que había estado vendiendo mascarillas faciales cosidas por su abuela para recaudar dinero a fin de que Denver pudiera iniciar el proyecto piloto. Forest tiene dislexia, algo que no sabía hasta que su familia pagó por unas pruebas privadas. Con la ayuda de un tutor externo, le va bien en la escuela. Forest dijo que quiere que otros niños reciban ayuda también.

“Dr. Hill, yo creo que usted ahora está escuchando,” dijo Forest. “Mi mamá le enviará este cheque.”

El cheque era por la cantidad de $136.

Los funcionarios del distrito dijeron que ellos nunca abandonaron la idea de un programa de detección de dislexia. Frantum-Allen, director de educación especial de Denver, dijo que la pandemia de COVID-19 (que empezó justo antes de que el grupo hiciera sus recomendaciones) puso el proyecto piloto en pausa.

“No hay mala intención y no estamos tratando de ocultar nada,” dijo él. “Estamos tratando de lidiar primero y primordialmente con las prioridades de esta crisis.”

Ahora que los maestros están siendo vacunados y las escuelas han reabierto para el aprendizaje en persona, Frantum-Allen dijo que el distrito tiene planes de reanudar el trabajo relacionado con el programa de dislexia, el cual dijo será parte de un proceso más amplio para identificar a los estudiantes con problemas de lectura.

“Lo veo como una forma de identificar las verdaderas necesidades para poder ayudar a los maestros a satisfacerlas”, dijo Frantum-Allen.

Un examen estatal modesto

En 2019, los defensores de la dislexia impulsaron una ley estatal que autorizara la detección de la dislexia en todo el estado para los niños con problemas de lectura, pero terminaron respaldando una propuesta más modesta para un programa piloto en cinco escuelas. Se supone que comenzara el pasado otoño, pero se pospuso. Este invierno se abrió un nuevo plazo para solicitar, pero con menos solicitudes de las esperadas, el futuro del piloto está en el aire.

Si sigue adelante tal como está previsto, los estudiantes de Kinder a tercer grado de las escuelas participantes serán examinados a partir del otoño.

Un grupo de la Universidad de Oregón dirigirá el proyecto piloto, que además de detectar el riesgo de dislexia en los niños, busca mejorar la calidad de la enseñanza de la lectura y de los programas de intervención mediante un programa desarrollado por la universidad llamado ECRI (Enhanced Core Reading Instruction).

Nancy Nelson, profesora de investigación de la Universidad de Oregón que está ayudando a dirigir el proyecto piloto, dijo que el objetivo es garantizar que los niños reciban el tipo adecuado de enseñanza de lectura: es decir, explícita y sistemática, con ayuda especial para los niños que tienen dificultades para leer y que está alineada con las lecciones de toda la clase. El proyecto piloto incluirá mucha capacitación para el personal de las escuelas, y posiblemente comience a finales de esta primavera.

“Pasar por una prueba de detección no significa que un niño va a ser asignado a educación especial,” Nelson dijo.

De todos modos, el formato del programa piloto tiene la intención de darles a los niños un acceso mucho más temprano a ayudas especializadas en vez de esperar hasta que se hayan rezagado demasiado, dijo ella.

El piloto incluye un sistema de detección de dos pasos, donde el primero se basa en la prueba de lectura Acadience, que ya está siendo usada en muchas escuelas de Colorado para cumplir con la ley estatal sobre la lectura, la Ley READ.

Los estudiantes identificados por la prueba Acadience recibirían 30 minutos diarios adicionales de instrucción sobre habilidades básicas de lectura, con lecciones que anticipen lo que se cubrirá al día siguiente durante las lecciones de toda la clase. Los líderes del proyecto calculan que un 20 a 25% de los estudiantes estarán en este grupo, pero la proporción podría ser más alta en algunas escuelas.

Después de dos meses, los estudiantes que no progresen con las clases adicionales pasarían por una segunda evaluación, esta vez con información proveniente de varios exámenes y fuentes, e incluyendo el historial familiar de dificultad para leer. El personal de la escuela entonces intensificaría la instrucción para los estudiantes identificados.

Los que todavía no mejoren probablemente calificarán para servicios de educación especial, estando en una categoría general (conforme a una ley federal) conocida como ‘discapacidad específica de aprendizaje’, y que incluye la dislexia. (Las escuelas no diagnostican la dislexia, y no se necesita un diagnóstico oficial para que los estudiantes entren en la categoría de discapacidad de aprendizaje específica.)

Nelson dijo que entre un 5% y 10% del total de estudiantes en los grados K-3 de la escuela podrían terminar calificando para educación especial.

El programa piloto del estado solamente incluirá exámenes de lectura en inglés. Nelson dijo que los protocolos del programa piloto requerirán modificarse para funcionar en español u otros idiomas, y que aunque eso es un paso importante, su equipo de trabajo quiere primero demostrar los resultados posibles para los estudiantes que reciban la instrucción en inglés.

Todos los niños del Kinder - eventualmente

El distrito Boulder Valley comenzó su programa de detección de dislexia el otoño pasado, evaluando a 345 estudiantes de Kinder en 10 escuelas, entre ellas una escuela chárter. Los funcionarios del distrito volverán a examinar una muestra aleatoria de esos niños esta primavera para determinar si el momento del examen durante el año produce alguna diferencia. Hasta entonces, el distrito no dará a conocer el número de estudiantes que resultaron tener características de “alto riesgo” de dislexia en el examen.

“Todavía estamos definiendo la validez”, dijo Michelle Qazi, directora de lectura de Boulder Valley, señalando que a los padres no se les notificó el pasado otoño si sus hijos estaban en la categoría de alto riesgo, pero se les notificará al final de este año escolar.

Para la mayoría de los estudiantes, el programa piloto de Boulder utiliza una evaluación gratuita llamada Mississippi Dyslexia Screener. Los niños cuyo primer idioma es español son evaluados con la versión en español de un examen de lectura común combinado con un examen de ortografía de otra evaluación.

Qazi dijo que los estudiantes que obtengan una puntuación de alto riesgo en el examen de dislexia no necesitarán automáticamente servicios de educación especial. El distrito ya usa un programa de fonética de alta calidad — llamado Fundations — para todos los estudiantes de primaria, dijo. Saber qué estudiantes de Kinder tienen rasgos de dislexia a través del proceso de detección ayudará a los maestros a darles una ayuda más intensiva a los que la necesiten, dijo.

“Este es un dato más que puede ayudarnos a reducir el número de niños que se quedan rezagados”, dijo Qazi.

El proyecto piloto de Boulder, de tres años de duración, se ampliará a 22 escuelas el próximo año y al resto de las 37 escuelas de primaria y K-8 del distrito el año siguiente. Qazi dijo que el otoño pasado el distrito capacitó al personal que normalmente administra los exámenes de visión y audición para realizar los exámenes de dislexia. Algunas pruebas de detección se hicieron en persona y otras en línea. El distrito cuenta con un presupuesto de $102,000 para el programa piloto.

Traducción por Milly Suazo.

Perry school opens a sensory room with space for students to wind down — or amp up

2023-12-13T12:00:00+00:00

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The first thing a student might notice in Burkhart Elementary School’s new sensory room is the light tube. Or maybe the slide. Or the trampoline and crash mat.

There are magnetic tiles on a wall to the right and scooter boards all over the floor.

The room invites play, but it also serves a purpose: To help students calm down — or wake up — and get ready to learn.

“It’s such a cool opportunity, because there’s not a child in the school who couldn’t benefit from it,” said Brooke McDonald, the school’s occupational therapist who supervises the room.

The sensory room at Burkhart opened last week thanks to a $9,000 grant from the Perry Education Foundation. It’s a first for the school and only the second such space in Perry Township elementary schools, said the foundation’s president, Mary Blake.

In addition to funding the project, foundation representatives assembled the furnishings, painted the room teal blue, and dimmed the overhead lights with fabric hangings.

The sensory room at Burkhart Elementary is open to all students who need it for a few minutes at a time.

It’s open to all students who need it for a few minutes at a time, said McDonald, who also trains classroom teachers to determine which students might benefit from a break in the room. Only a few students at a time will use the room.

It will also serve as an important space for students in the Comprehensive Intervention Program, the self-contained special education program. Two of these classrooms opened at Burkhart this year after Perry redrew its attendance boundaries.

What each student needs from the sensory room will vary.

CIP teacher Ailis McCarthy said her students who get overwhelmed with noise and activity benefit from spending a few quiet minutes in the room in the dim light or watching the bubble tower. After that, they’re able to rejoin the group for their regular activities, she said.

Before the sensory room opened, McCarthy’s students would try to take these breaks in her classroom — which can be distracting to others, she said.

“We make sure they have regular time in their schedule to decompress or bring them up, depending on what they need, and that room has enough activity that they could do both,” McCarthy said.

The sensory room will serve as an important space for students in the Comprehensive Intervention Program, the self-contained special education program.

McDonald said some students may use it as a space to calm down at the end of the day, do movement exercises, and watch the bubbles in the light tube. Others may jump on the trampoline or rock on the soft foam spinners to burn some energy and regulate their emotional state ahead of a lesson.

“All of that is good for your body, and they have no idea,” McDonald said. “They just think, ‘I’m playing on the slide.’”

The district hopes to open sensory rooms at each of its elementary schools, said Vickie Carpenter, assistant superintendent for foundational learning.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Middle school is rough. Here’s how Colorado’s Teacher of the Year helps students find their voices.

2023-12-12T00:20:00+00:00

When Jessica May was 11, her family fostered a baby who’d been severely neglected and didn’t make a sound.

But May’s mother had a plan to get Baby Isabella cooing, babbling, and laughing just like a typical 1-year-old. The whole family lavished her with attention, and eventually, the little girl caught up on every milestone.

May, who is now a family and consumer sciences teacher at Turner Middle School in Berthoud, Colorado, said her experience with Isabella encapsulates what she loves about her job. These days, she helps students find their voices as they traverse the rocky road from childhood to adolescence.

All her students are her own “Baby Isabellas,” said May, who teaches lessons on everything from child development to making a budget and doing laundry.

May, who was recently named Colorado’s 2024 Teacher of the Year, talked with Chalkbeat about growing up with nearly 200 foster siblings, how she helped students cope with a classmate’s death, and what she leads with when she speaks with parents.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Was there a moment when you decided to become a teacher?

No. I grew up wanting to hang out with all my teachers. I also gave assignments to my dolls and stuffed animals and graded them while they were at recess. The profession simply chose me at a young age.

A portrait of Jessica May, Colorado's 2024 Teacher of the Year.

How did your own school experience influence your approach to teaching?

I always loved school and had an innate longing to know my teachers on a personal level by keeping in touch with them. Growing up, I consistently asked them questions about teaching, searching for advice in order to figure out who I wanted to be as a teacher.

In fact, I still communicate with many of them. My first grade teacher just sent me a congratulations card the other day for my Teacher of the Year award. During my first year of teaching, I was paired with my former junior high school teacher, and now we are best friends!

You’ve mentioned that you like to tell students stories to connect lessons with the real world. Can you give an example?

My mom was a lifelong foster parent, starting when I was 3 years old. By the time I graduated from the University of Northern Colorado, I had 189 foster brothers and sisters. In that time, I learned a lot from my mom about kids with trauma. One of the stories I tell my students is the story about Baby Isabella.

When I was 11 years old, my mom told me we were getting a 12-month-old baby girl, but that she was the size of a 6-month-old. She explained that Isabella had learned early that when she cried, no one would respond or come to her aid — not to change her diaper, not to feed her, not to hold her. Because of this, she learned to stop crying. Therefore, she didn’t coo or babble, she couldn’t lift up her head, she couldn’t roll over, and she definitely didn’t crawl or walk.

Our job, my mom told me and my older sister, was to teach her how to cry again. The plan was to continually hold Isabella during the day and so my mom, sister, and I traded off while we went about our daily lives at home. My mom reminded us to talk to her in “motherese,” make eye contact when we spoke to her, kiss her cheeks, and sing to her. We did this for two weeks straight.

Then my mom told us “Step 2.” Every time we put Isabella down and she made any type of noise, we were to pick her up. We did this over and over until she finally realized that every time she made a peep, someone would interact with her. She started to coo and babble, she started to gain weight, she could lift up her head, and roll, and army crawl; she’d giggle and smile and squeal. By the time she was adopted at 18 months, Isabella had caught up to all the milestones of the average 18-month-old.

I explain the connection of this story to my students because they are stuck between being a little elementary kid and a young adult in high school. People, including their families, think they don’t want hugs anymore, that they don’t want to talk or play family board games, and that they want to be left alone. But that’s not accurate. They want to feel seen, heard, and talked to about life.

The reason I was meant to teach middle school and why I love it so much is because I can teach them how to “cry” again — to find their own voice, and tell others what they want and need.

Tell us about a favorite lesson to teach. Where did the idea come from?

A few years back, I had a seventh grade student with whom I had a close relationship. I dedicated several hours each week to helping him access content and overcome challenges he faced at home and in his social interactions at school. He tragically took his own life during the school year.

The loss of the student weighed heavily on my heart as he was the first current student I had ever lost. I knew I had to take immediate action for my students. I contacted the district’s restorative justice representative and requested she co-facilitate Peace Circles for each of my classes the following day. The students desperately needed an outlet to express their emotions and engage in the grieving process with their peers.

These circles evolved into experiences that profoundly impacted everyone present. They fostered a sense of safety, belonging, healthy emotional expression, and a sense of community. My hope was to make sure my students felt love, acceptance, and peace that day ... and hopefully for a lifetime.

Tell us about a memorable time — good or bad — when contact with a student’s family changed your perspective or approach.

I think all teachers are nervous about making phone calls home because it can go either way for us. However, I have learned when calling a parent about an issue to always start with why I enjoy their child or what strength they possess. When I start this way, the parent or guardian understands that I’m not out to get their child and I have their best interests at heart. We then have a really wonderful conversation about how I can support their student so they can become their best selves. I’m no longer a nervous wreck when calling home.

What are you reading for enjoyment?

I’m reading “Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis. I’ve read this novel many times, but it continues to blow my mind. He wrote this fictional story in 1942, yet so many of the situations that Screwtape — a demon who is mentoring his nephew — talks about are actually occuring today. It’s also a good reminder to be mindful about my habits, thoughts, and actions on a daily basis.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s class size working group delivers recommendations — but some members dissent

2023-12-12T00:54:10+00:00

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After months of deliberation, internal clashes, and comments from nearly 2,000 people, a working group tasked with advising New York City’s public schools on complying with a landmark state law capping class sizes released its final recommendations Monday.

The 55-page report, which had an initial Oct. 31 deadline, includes more than 50 recommendations. Its prominent suggestions include capping enrollment at some overcrowded schools, moving pre-K programs out of district buildings and into community organizations, and offering financial incentives to boost teacher hiring.

The report, which is similar to a draft version released in September, is non-binding. Education Department officials still have final say in how they’ll meet the new legal mandates, which are expected to be phased in over the next five years. But the contentious process of putting the recommendations together illustrates how complicated meeting the new mandates will be.

The caps require K-3 classes to be no larger than 20 students, classes in grades 4-8 to be smaller than 23 students, and high school classes to be capped at 25 students.

Proponents of the law, including a wide array of parents, advocates, legislators, and educators, point to extensive research on the educational benefits of lower class sizes — and argue that the new recommendations give the city a clear roadmap for how to get there.

“Given these actionable proposals — many of them cost-free — the Chancellor no longer has any excuse for delay,” said Leonie Haimson, working group member and executive director of Class Size Matters, in an email. “If the DOE really cares about following the law and the goal of providing all NYC students with a better opportunity to learn, the time for action is now.”

But the law has also prompted fierce pushback from city Education Department leaders, who argue they don’t have the necessary funding to implement it. Parents concerned the law could restrict enrollment at sought-after schools and advocates worried about equity implications have also criticized the law.

Several studies suggest that the highest-poverty schools will benefit less because they are already more likely to have classes under the legal cap.

The working group’s deliberations got so contentious that nine of the working group’s 46 members declined to endorse the final recommendations — and several even authored a dissenting “minority report.” Those dissenters argue that the law itself is deeply flawed.

Dia Bryant, the former executive director of Education Trust-New York and one of the dissenters, said the law and the working group ignored practical concerns and are “very aspirational.”

“Ultimately, I think the implementation under the current conditions … is just bad for kids,” Bryant said.

In response to the report, schools Chancellor David Banks noted the city is currently in compliance with the class size law, but that “the work to remain in compliance will take changes, tradeoffs and additional resources across NYCPS.”

Currently, more than half of the classes across the city’s 1,600 public schools, or more than 73,000 classes, are out of compliance, the working group has said.

Here are some of the working group’s most controversial recommendations.

Cap enrollment at overcrowded NYC schools

Capping enrollment at oversubscribed schools and diverting kids to under-enrolled ones nearby was among the most divisive suggestions.

There are 386 schools across the city currently enrolled above their building’s capacity, the report noted, and in many cases, there are neighboring schools with plenty of room.

But many of the city’s overcrowded schools are also among its most popular and sought-after, meaning any efforts to cap their enrollment are likely to meet fierce opposition.

One way to decide who should get access to limited seats is by prioritizing those who live within a school’s geographic zone, the working group noted. Roughly 17,000 kids at overcrowded schools are attending those schools from out-of-zone, according to the report.

But the authors cautioned that decisions about if and how to cap enrollment should still be made “in harmony with the principles of equity and community cohesion.” For example, they pointed out that some out-of-zone students attend specialized programs like dual-language classes.

Meanwhile, the dissenting minority report argues that enrollment caps are a nonstarter because they would lead to increased travel times for families in overcrowded districts and fewer seats in popular programs.

Instead, the working group’s dissenters want to give parents a role in deciding when schools should be exempt from the law, according to Stephen Stowe, a working group member and co-author of the minority report who is also Community Education Council President in Brooklyn’s District 20. (Currently, under the law, only the chancellor and union officials can weigh in on exemptions).

Moving prekindergarten classrooms out of overcrowded schools

As the city works to fill empty 3-K and pre-K seats amid enrollment declines, the working group’s enrollment committee offered a possible solution: consider relocating 3-K and pre-K seats from schools that are overcapacity to nearby pre-K centers that are under-enrolled.

This could help struggling programs — which get funding from the city based on their enrollment — have “more sustainable budgets,” according to the working group report. The pre-K sector has long complained about the competition it faces from programs in district schools.

With nearly 14,000 empty 3-K classrooms, all 3-year-olds in school-based programs could move to community-based organizations, the report suggested, freeing up as many as 451 classrooms in schools. For pre-K, which serves the city’s 4-year-olds, nearly 17,000 empty seats could accommodate the majority of those in school-based programs, potentially opening up 1,000 elementary school classrooms.

The report did say that some members of the working group worried this solution might inconvenience parents, especially those with older children in public schools. In response, the group urged programs to have flexible drop-off and pick-up times, as well as longer days for families needing after-care.

Merge co-located schools, avoid opening new schools

The creation of small schools gained traction under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with nearly 470 new schools opening between 2003 and 2010. That has resulted in more administrative overhead and less classroom space, the report stated.

In light of that, the working group suggested merging schools that share buildings, “especially those that have similar or complementary designs, programs, and student populations.”

The working group also advised the city to reconsider the creation of new schools (except for schools in District 75 that serve students with significant disabilities).

“If there is a perceived need or idea for a valuable new program or service, existing underutilized schools should be given the resources and support to provide these new programs or services,” the report stated.

Pay teachers more in schools where hiring is hard

New York City will need to hire at least 17,000 new teachers to meet the class size mandate over the next several years, according to the Independent Budget Office. The Education Department put the figure at somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000.

Some working group members worried that a wave of new teachers could affect the quality of instruction — an issue that researchers have raised — and could dilute the intended impact of smaller classes.

At the same time, in public forums on the law, many teachers spoke out in favor of smaller classes. Some of them said it could improve their working conditions, reduce burnout, and cut down on attrition.

To address concerns around the influx of new teachers, the working group issued various recommendations, including providing teachers with “high-quality, research-based lesson plans” to reduce workload.

The group also wants to analyze whether teachers in non-teaching roles — such as deans, lunchroom supervisors, or grade advisers — could return to the classroom, giving greater oversight to superintendents of these so-called compensatory positions.

The report said such a change “would be a historical shift away from greater principal autonomy and defer control to a more centralized system.”

(Only one member of the working group dissented from this, the report noted.)

The working groups also wants to offer pay differentials to educators in hard-to-staff schools in places like the Bronx, Far Rockaway, and Central Brooklyn, as well as in difficult-to-hire subjects, including special education and bilingual education.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

David Banks has a top priority: improving literacy. Will his agenda be overshadowed by budget cuts?

2023-12-08T10:00:00+00:00

Before running the nation’s largest education system, David Banks had never been responsible for supervising more than a single school.

He had years of on-the-ground experience and often ticks off the jobs he held — safety agent, teacher, principal. He helped launch the Eagle Academy, a network of six district schools devoted to boys of color, ultimately running the foundation that supports them. When Eric Adams, a longtime friend, tapped Banks to be his schools chief, the incoming mayor said he didn’t seriously consider anyone else.

Adams, who often spoke on the campaign trail about his own experience with dyslexia, never staked out a detailed education agenda. At the event formally naming him chancellor, Banks spoke in broad strokes about a “fundamentally flawed” system and a sprawling bureaucracy that isn’t set up to serve vulnerable children. The question remained: What direction would this chancellor take the city’s roughly 1,600 schools?

In contrast with his early comments about transforming a broken system, Banks has narrowed his focus. He’s staked out a goal above all others: improving the city’s dismal literacy rates, particularly for Black and Latino children. He also wants to create a stronger path to the workforce by expanding students’ access to career-focused coursework and paid internships.

To Banks’ supporters, focusing on a couple key issues is more likely to yield results. Still, others say that the administration has struggled to define a clear vision for improving the system as a whole, as many schools aren’t part of his signature initiatives.

Meanwhile, a looming set of budget cuts threaten to overshadow Banks’ agenda, as more than $7 billion in one-time federal relief money is drying up and Adams has ordered up to $2 billion in cuts on top of that.

Banks may have to maneuver to maintain funding for his top priorities. And he’ll have to navigate steady drum beats from politicians and advocates who are pushing to save a range of programs that serve high-need children.

“They are going to need to make tough decisions,” said Mark Dunetz, president of New Visions for Public Schools, an organization that supports a network of city schools. The challenge, he added, will be to make those choices “based on evidence of effectiveness rather than the push and pull of politics.”

A ‘realist’ at the helm?

Two weeks into the school year, Banks took the stage at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, the mammoth auditorium packed with hundreds of department staff, union leaders, parents, and elected officials. With a slideshow at his back, and the mayor looking on, Banks was selling his vision — and in his element.

The “State of Our Schools” speech laid out his case for requiring all elementary schools to use one of three approved reading curriculums by next fall, ticking off statistics that show half the city’s students aren’t proficient in reading, figures that rise to about 60% for Black and Latino children.

“I’m really staking my reputation on reading,” Banks told Chalkbeat in a recent interview. “If you don’t get that right all these other things don’t really matter.”

Banks touted his other signature initiative, FutureReadyNYC, which helps 100 high schools offer more early college credit and paid work opportunities in education, technology, business, or health care. The effort will expand to 50 more schools next year, he said.

To Banks, zeroing in on those two issues is essential to make his mark. Given the system’s size and complexity, “if you don’t focus the entire operation on a couple of areas, it will be just rhetoric,” he told Chalkbeat.

Some observers agree the moment demands a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer, especially as schools are still digging out from under the pandemic and grappling with learning loss, mental health challenges, and alarming rates of chronic absenteeism.

When Banks took office, some educators wondered if he would pursue changes in the mold of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s divisive schools chief, Joel Klein. Klein sought to overhaul the district’s structure and moved to shutter large high schools and replace them with smaller ones like Eagle Academy. Banks tapped Dan Weisberg, Bloomberg’s school labor strategist who often sparred with the teachers union, to be his top deputy.

But observers said Banks has charted a less disruptive path, bringing the teachers union on board with his two biggest initiatives.

“Joel Klein said ‘I’m going to break the system so hard nobody is going to put it back together,’” said David Adams, the CEO of Urban Assembly, a network of about two dozen schools across the city. “I think being really strategic around where your energies are going to be put forth can be a more effective way of changing the system.”

Still, others said it’s difficult to discern Banks’ broader plan to improve schools across the system, a tension with Banks’ initial diagnosis that the system is “broken.”

This administration’s approach is “pretty small bore,” said Clara Hemphill, founder of the school review website InsideSchools. At this point in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure, he had already added tens of thousands of pre-K seats, part of what is widely seen as a successful universal prekindergarten program.

“Having 70,000 pre-K seats was a huge, huge accomplishment. I don’t see a big issue like that with Adams,” Hemphill said. The current administration also seemed to be reversing course in some areas, she added, including abandoning de Blasio’s goal of expanding the program to include all 3-year-olds.

Hemphill acknowledged that improving literacy rates would be a major accomplishment, but she worries the most popular curriculum the city has mandated is not the strongest choice. Plus, the city disbanded an existing literacy coaching program in favor of training from outside vendors and scrapped a program that focused on improving literacy in middle schools, a move Hemphill found baffling.

For their part, school leaders have had mixed reactions to Banks’ tenure so far. Some expected the schools chief, a New York City principal himself for 11 years, to give them more freedom to innovate — something Banks signaled was a possibility.

De Blasio favored top-down supervision of principals, and many school leaders complained of burdensome compliance mandates. Banks has taken a step further, giving superintendents the authority to mandate which curriculums schools can use based on a list of approved options.

“The system is still running the way it was under the last administration which is: Schools are problems to be fixed rather than systems to be supported,” said one Brooklyn high school principal who spoke on condition of anonymity. “There’s just a whole lot more people out there trying to micromanage schools from afar.”

Banks said he believed strongly in principal autonomy when he was a school leader. “I also am a realist,” he said, adding that not every principal thrives with more freedom.

“If they were, we would have much better results than we have,” he recently told reporters.

Banks strikes a middle ground

Beyond his two main initiatives, critics and supporters alike say Banks has earned a reputation for hearing out opposing viewpoints and finding ways to compromise.

“If the evidence is there, he moves. He’s not ideological,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, a strong supporter of Banks’ reading curriculum overhaul.

When Banks took office, he faced a key decision about whether many middle and high schools could resume screening students for top grades and test scores after pandemic-related disruptions to the admissions process.

The debate over how to proceed was charged, with some parents arguing that strong students should have access to accelerated learning opportunities at top schools. Others worried a return to the pre-pandemic norm would exacerbate segregation and contended that public schools should be open to all children.

Though Banks has bluntly suggested some students deserve to be in top schools more than others, he struck a middle path: Selective admissions would continue with key caveats. High schools may no longer consider state test scores, though they can still use students’ grades. For middle schools, he gave local superintendents the authority to determine how to use selective admissions. The result: far fewer screened middle school programs.

Jasmine Gripper, a frequent critic of the administration, said the approach is emblematic of Banks’ leadership style.

“The finesse of this administration has been their ability to take on hot button issues and produce a solution that neutralizes the opposition,” said Gripper, previously the executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education and now a leader of the state’s Working Families Party. Banks “leaves everyone walking away feeling like they won something.”

Financial challenges could derail Banks’ plans

The biggest obstacle on Banks’ plate right now may be one that’s much harder to control.

A brewing storm of fiscal problems could derail some of Banks’ existing initiatives, threaten to consume his agenda with painful fights over budget reductions, and make it difficult to find money for new programs.

More than $7 billion in one-time federal money is running dry. Starting with the previous administration, some of it has been used on recurring costs, including social workers, expanded summer programming, and new seats for preschool students with disabilities who had been shut out of universal pre-K. The funding has also been used to keep school budgets steady despite significant enrollment declines, raising the possibility of painful cuts at individual schools.

As the federal funds evaporate, Adams has also ordered the city to cut 5% of its contribution to all city agencies, a move he said is needed in part to finance services for thousands of asylum-seeking families. The Education Department recently outlined plans to reduce spending by $547 million, and it may need to slash roughly $1.5 billion more if Adams follows through on future rounds of cuts.

Advocates have warned that it will be impossible to make cuts of that size without affecting key programs, and the first round of cuts has already prompted political pushback.

A new state law mandating the city reduce class sizes looms over these fiscal pressures: The Education Department will need to spend billions more in the coming years to comply, city and fiscal watchdogs project.

On top of that, Banks may have another fight on the horizon. As enrollment declines accelerated during the pandemic, the city now has nearly 200 schools with 200 children or fewer.

Banks has suggested that mergers or closures could be on the table, a process that often generates outcry from parents and elected officials with deep roots in school communities.

“That’s kind of a ticking time bomb,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “It’s just not going to be sustainable to maintain very small schools.”

Banks has offered few hints about how he plans to navigate the growing budget pressures, including what criteria he’s using to determine which programs survive. He said he’s “fighting like heck” to preserve funding for the literacy overhaul and career pathways initiative. Everything else is on the table.

“It’s gonna be a tough negotiating season,” Banks said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Sustainability, arts, math: ‘Themed’ middle schools are spreading, but do they help students?

2023-12-04T10:00:00+00:00

This story about themed schools was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

On a sunny Friday in early November, four 10- and 11-year-old boys stand on the corner of 26th Street and Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, holding homemade clipboards and signs that read “Take our food equity survey.”

A young man rushes past the group, headphones on, eyes on his phone. Susan Tenner, executive director of the Brooklyn Urban Garden Charter School, or BUGS, where the boys are sixth graders, suggests they let him pass. The next passerby is a runner — even more unpromising.

When a guy in his 20s or 30s in a puffer coat with fur trim comes along a half a minute later, Elias, a 10-year-old, remarks that he looks busy too. But Tenner urges the students to pounce.

“Everyone in New York City looks busy,” she tells them. “You guys are cute; people are going to want to help you.”

And the man does. After the boys call out as he passes, the man doubles back to take the student-made survey. Their first success.

Over the next half hour, the boys and a group of girls positioned a block up will interview a postman, a construction worker, a pair of teenage girls in fleece Snoopy pants, and several others about their access to healthy, affordable food.

BUGS, one of hundreds of “themed” middle schools spread across New York City and the nation, fully embodies the “green” school concept. There are gardens out front and hydroponic produce growing inside, an indoor tank for raising trout and recycled furniture in the classrooms. Students take a weekly sustainability class and participate in monthly field study days that send them into the community to conduct research on topics like land use, pollution and food equity.

Adopting a theme like sustainability, the arts, or math and science can cement a middle school’s culture, give coherence to its curricula, and boost student engagement at a time when many students are losing interest in school. Done well, proponents say, a theme can help students connect what they’re learning in the classroom to some larger purpose or vision of their future.

But not all themed schools are as distinctive as BUGS, and some aren’t all that different from mainstream middles. It can be hard to tell, based on a name alone, whether a self-proclaimed “green” school offers a fully integrated sustainability curriculum, or is simply located in a net zero building.

Attending a themed school offers no guarantee of success in the focus subject, either. At some STEM-themed schools in New York City, students score below the citywide average on the state standardized math test.

Meanwhile, some high-performing themed schools remain out of reach to many low-income students, due to screenings — such as tests or auditions — that favor families who can afford private lessons and tutors.

This variation in scope, access and outcomes means that students and parents need to do their research before choosing a school with a catchy name, said Joyce Szuflita, a longtime school consultant to Brooklyn families. “Buyer beware,” she advised. “Sometimes there will be a name on a school that has nothing to do with what’s happening in the building. It’s more like branding.”

There’s no national count of the number of themed middle schools, which are less common than themed high schools. But they’re cropping up across the country, particularly in places where families aren’t limited to their neighborhood school zone, according to Andrew Maxey, a member of the board of trustees of the Association for Middle Level Education, or AMLE, an organization that supports middle school educators.

In cities like New York, where students can choose among public schools, public charters, and private schools, a theme can be a way for a program to stand out from the competition. It can also help convince some middle-class parents to stick with city public schools for the middle grades, instead of fleeing for private schools or the suburbs.

A theme, said Maud Abeel, a director in the education practice at the nonprofit Jobs for the Future, “is a signal to families and educators that you’re trying to make school relevant and engaging.”

It’s also a signal to business leaders, said David Adams, the CEO of the Urban Assembly, a school support organization that has opened more than 20 career-themed public middle and high schools in New York City since 1997.

When the Urban Assembly’s founder was looking for ways to get industry more involved in public education, back in the early 90s, he settled on themes as a way “to mobilize the private sector to invest in schools,” Adams said.

But there are downsides to proclaiming a specialty. Doing so can scare away parents who worry — sometimes needlessly — that their child will be pigeonholed or miss out on opportunities to explore other areas, Szuflita said. And claiming a theme creates real pressure to “live up to the moniker,” added Abeel.

“If you’re going to put it in your name, you have to show why it’s there,” she said.

Sophia, left, and other BUGS sixth graders talk with a construction worker for their food equity survey.

In New York City, where there are schools with straightforward names (the Middle School for Art and Philosophy), schools with clever or cute nicknames (BUGS), and schools that combine concepts in head-scratching ways (the Collegiate Academy for Mathematics and Personal Awareness), that “why” is more obvious in some cases than others.

On one end of the spectrum are schools like Ballet Tech, where middle schoolers dance five days a week, and Harbor Middle, where students pursue projects like boat-building and oyster reef monitoring.

On the other are schools that no longer fit their names, due to mission drift, leadership turnover or curricular change. A prime example is Brooklyn’s Math & Science Exploratory School, where leaders have asked the Department of Education for permission to drop the “Math & Science” from the name because “the curriculum has evolved” and the current name is “limiting and misaligned with the school’s value and goals,” according to a resolution in support of the change.

In between are dozens of schools that are implementing their themes in different ways and to varying degrees. Some, like the Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women, offer an additional period or two in the theme, along with extras, like hydroponics and coding.

Others focus their electives on the theme. At New Voices, in Brooklyn, students sample six arts forms in sixth grade, then pick a major for the last two years. But parents whose children attended the school said the arts theme isn’t infused into the core subjects.

Broadly speaking, themed middle schools set aside less time for their target subject than their high school counterparts. That’s mostly because the school day is “too full to pile things on,” said Maxey, who, in addition to his work as a board member for AMLE, is director of strategic initiatives at Tuscaloosa City Schools, where there is a performing arts middle school.

Maxey said the most successful schools take an integrative, rather than an additive approach, weaving the theme across all subjects.

“You don’t carve out time for the arts,” he said. “You make them the essence of the school.”

The research on the effectiveness of themed schools is thin; experts on middle school teaching say they aren’t aware of any rigorous studies comparing themed and mainstream middles.

But a pair of studies by the Research Alliance for New York City Schools — one on turnaround middle schools and another on small high schools — suggest that themes can lend cohesion to the curriculum and facilitate collaboration across disciplines, said Cheri Fancsali, the Alliance’s executive director. They can attract students, as well as teachers, to a school.

Yet the studies also showed that themes sometimes lead to a narrowing of the curriculum and alienate students who aren’t interested in the theme, Fancsali said.

Nancy Deutsch, a professor of education at the University of Virginia and an editor of the Journal of Adolescent Research, said she has mixed feelings about themed middles.

On the one hand, Deutsch said, letting students select schools that align with their interests might prevent some of the drop-off in motivation and engagement that often begins in middle school. On the flip side, attending a themed school might limit students’ future options, if they can’t take courses — Algebra I, for example — that would allow them to pursue different interests in high school.

“I would want to make sure that while there may be specialization, it’s not cutting off potential pathways,” she said.

Equity can be a concern as well. Some themed schools admit students based on factors like test scores or grade point averages, or require them to submit a portfolio or undergo an audition. Others have moved away from such screening methods, in an effort to build more racially and socioeconomically balanced classes.

Brooklyn’s District 15, where almost half the middle schools have themes, switched to a lottery system a few years ago. The change has reduced segregation in the district’s schools, but it has also coincided with a sharp drop in test scores at some themed schools, including the Math & Science Exploratory School, which had historically drawn a disproportionate number of white and higher-income families. This has led to speculation that the move to change the school’s name was motivated by declining test scores — a charge the school has denied.

Even so, the school’s pass rate on the state math exam — 64% in 2021-22 — was still twice the citywide average for middle schools of 32% (and climbed back to 80% during the last academic year, recently released data show). Several STEM-themed schools weren’t even meeting that low bar.

BUGS, which shares a building with a District 15 public themed middle school, the Carroll Gardens School for Innovation, is required under state charter law to admit students by lottery, with preference given to students in the district. The school is fairly diverse — roughly half the students are white — and a quarter qualify for free and reduced lunch. Close to a third have disabilities.

Last year, according to data from the New York State Department of Education, two-thirds of BUGS students passed the state math exam, though pass rates were significantly lower for students with disabilities (48%), and economically disadvantaged students (32%). The citywide average for all middle schoolers was 46.3%.

BUGS CEO Susan Tenner stands in the hydroponic garden. Kelly Field for The Hechinger Report

When BUGS opened a little over a decade ago, its focus was squarely on environmental sustainability. But over the years, it has expanded its purview to social and economic sustainability, too, said Tenner, the executive director.

The school’s all-in embrace of the sustainability theme is fairly unusual, said Jennifer Seydel, executive director of the Green Schools National Network. The Network’s members include schools with a couple courses in environmental studies, those with after-school “green teams,” and schools with net-zero emissions, among others.

“Operating in a public school system, you can’t go as deep or be as innovative as BUGS,” she said.

Still, given the school’s name, Tenner sometimes has to correct parents’ misperception that it’s all about planting and harvesting.

“The garden is a great outdoor classroom, but it’s only one of many in the city,” she tells families.

Their confusion may not matter much, anyway. In interviews, parents whose children attend or attended themed middle schools in Brooklyn said they made their choice for a variety of reasons, often unrelated to the theme: a school’s location, academic reputation or small size.

Parents whose kids attended the Math & Science Exploratory School said it was an open secret among affluent families living near the school that the emphasis was on exploration, and not on math and science. They wondered whether families from poorer parts of the district, whose children now make up a large share of the school’s enrollment, would know that.

Sarah Russo, whose son is a seventh grader at BUGS, said it was the school’s co-teaching approach and nurturing environment that sold her. Her son has an Individualized Education Program (a plan for students with disabilities), and she worried he’d get lost in a big, competitive school.

BUGS students with one of the signs they made to advertise their food equity survey. Kelly Field for The Hechinger Report

The BUGS survey-taking sixth graders, meanwhile, had other reasons to like the school. Elias was really excited about the lockers, while Sophia, whose group had interviewed passersby on a different corner, was thrilled that they’d get released for lunch. Sena picked BUGS over New Voices, the school her two best friends planned to attend, after realizing that the arts “aren’t my thing.”

Back in the classroom after completing their survey, the students get a refresher lesson on converting ratios into percentages and tally their responses. They find that roughly half of respondents have more restaurants and fast-food chains than grocery stores in their neighborhood, and 40% don’t know what food equity is. Three-quarters spend more than $50 per person on groceries each week.

Armed with these statistics, the students take action, writing letters to Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso to urge him to bring more grocery stores to Brooklyn neighborhoods and install more community fridges in the district.

In his letter, Elias asks Reynoso to tackle inflation and add lessons on food inequity to the city’s curricula.

“Please, Mr. Reynoso, we must do something!” he concludes, and adds his signature: a smiley face giving a thumbs up.

Some social studies teachers wary as national conference meets in increasingly censored Tennessee

2023-11-30T22:54:25+00:00

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About 3,500 social studies teachers converge on Nashville this weekend for their annual national conference, but not without some pushback for meeting in a state with multiple laws aimed at classroom censorship and restrictions related to discussing race and gender.

“Some of our members have worried that this could be a hostile environment for them,” said Wesley Hedgepeth, a social studies teacher in Henrico County, Virginia, and this year’s president of the National Council for the Social Studies.

Even so, attendance is set to surpass last year’s convention in Philadelphia, the group’s first in-person gathering since the pandemic. The last pre-COVID conference, in 2019, drew about 4,000 participants to Austin, Texas.

“There have been concerns about Tennessee’s divisive-concepts law and perceived censorship by the government, as well as the suppression of certain identities,” Hedgepeth said on Thursday, the eve of the three-day conference.

“We’ve been working tirelessly to make sure this is an inclusive conference and remind people that Nashville is a welcoming place,” he said.

Gov. Bill Lee, flanked by GOP legislative leaders, speaks during a press conference at the close of the 2021 session of the Tennessee General Assembly.

Under the leadership of Republican Gov. Bill Lee and the GOP-dominated legislature, Tennessee was one of the first states to impose legal limits on classroom discussions about racism and white privilege. It gave a state commission new authority to ban certain library books statewide. It also enacted restrictions on the rights of transgender students in school. One new law ensures that school and university employees can opt out of implicit-bias training.

And earlier this year, the predominantly white and older House of Representatives ousted two young Black Democratic members for the way they protested the body’s failure to pursue significant gun reforms after a shooter killed three children and three adults at a Nashville school.

Related: The ‘Tennessee 3′ made history. Will their story be taught?

Add in a 2023 state law restricting drag shows — which has since been overturned by a federal judge — and some social studies teachers from elsewhere in the nation were balking at coming to the Volunteer State.

That spurred the council, which is the nation’s premier professional organization for social studies, to issue a three-page statement this spring titled “Why Nashville?”

The paper noted that, in addition to its renowned music scene, Tennessee’s capital city is home to key moments and movements in U.S. history.

On Aug. 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women across America the right to vote.

And in 1960, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, a group of college students including Diane Nash formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Nashville. The chairman was a young John Lewis, a student at Nashville’s Fisk University, who went on to become a civil rights icon and longtime congressman from Georgia before his death in 2020.

“We remain committed to providing a safe and welcoming environment for all social studies educators to come and learn with us in Nashville,” the organization’s statement said.

The last time the group held its national conference in Tennessee was in 1993. The state’s affiliate organization submitted a 2017 pitch for a return to Nashville, and organizers soon signed contracts with local hotels and convention facilities. That was before the national racial reckoning spurred by the 2020 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and a conservative backlash to subsequent anti-racism protests. Tennessee has been at the forefront of culture wars ever since.

Related: How the age-appropriate debate is altering curriculum

This spring, after the legislature expelled the two young Black Democratic members, the National Council for the Social Studies issued a four-page rebuke of the Tennessee House of Representatives. The statement called the ouster an attack on the foundational principles of democratic and republican norms and said that, intentionally or not, the state was sending its students a message that the rights to free speech, peaceful protest, and holding their elected officials accountable are “reserved for those who have a specific view or perspective.” (The two lawmakers were later reelected by their local constituents.)

Rep. Justin Pearson raises his newly signed oath of office after being reinstated to the Tennessee General Assembly on April 13, 2023, days after the Republican-controlled legislature ousted him and another Democratic lawmaker over the way they protested the state’s lax gun laws.

The vagueness of Tennessee’s censorship laws also is having a chilling effect in classrooms and school libraries. In Memphis this fall, for instance, the co-authors of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about Floyd were told not to talk about systemic racism during an appearance at Whitehaven High School.

“It’s like walking on eggshells,” said Laura Simmons, an eighth-grade U.S. history teacher from Bedford County, south of Nashville. “We want to give our students the information they need, including multiple viewpoints and narratives. At this point, I think most social studies teachers are just feeling out the climate of their school, their parents, and their administration.”

As president of the Tennessee Council for the Social Studies, Simmons is co-chair of this year’s national conference and helped to plan it, along with Hedgepeth, the national president. Attendees represent all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and nine other countries. About 10% are faculty at colleges and universities.

The 2023 conference theme is “Social Studies: Working in Harmony for a Better Tomorrow,” with sub-themes about inclusivity, elevating local narratives, and seeking partnerships beyond physical and political borders.

Featured speakers include Isabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Caste” and “The Warmth of Other Suns,” and Albert Bender, a Cherokee activist, historian, political columnist, and freelance journalist. Jelani Memory, author of the bestselling “A Kids Book About Racism,” will talk about tackling difficult topics with young learners.

“We are not shying away from controversial issues,” said Simmons, a 22-year teacher in Tennessee. “Our philosophy is to make sure we’re giving our educators the things they need to best help their students.”

Ultimately, said Hedgepeth, the conference is focused on the future of social studies, which research shows is systematically marginalized in the U.S. education system, from kindergarten to college.

“This is a critical time right now, with the war in Israel and Palestine, the upcoming presidential election, and how politics have divided our country after COVID and other traumatic events,” he said. “I think we are seeing the consequences of a lack of social studies education echoing across our country — from how we relate to others to how we digest media to how we discern between what is true and false.”

“If you don’t teach social studies,” Hedgepeth said, “you don’t get those skills. It’s as simple as that.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Raucous protest against pro-Israel Queens teacher is ‘teachable moment,’ Banks says

2023-11-28T02:11:23+00:00

New York City schools Chancellor David Banks vowed Monday that last week’s chaotic student rally for the ouster of a pro-Israel teacher at Hillcrest High School can be a “teachable moment.”

The turmoil unfolded on Nov. 20 when hundreds of students filled the halls of the Queens school in protest of a social media photo of a teacher holding an “I Stand With Israel” sign, according to students and officials. Social media videos show a raucous gathering with students dancing in hallways and a water fountain ripped from the wall. The health teacher at the center of the protest, who is Jewish, took cover in an administrator’s office on a separate floor, officials said.

Multiple students were disciplined for their role in organizing the protest, but officials declined to provide details because of privacy restrictions.

The incident drew a wave of condemnations over the Thanksgiving break, including a statement from Mayor Eric Adams calling it a “vile show of anti-semitism.”

During a visit to the school Monday, Banks, an alum of Hillcrest, tried to strike a balance between denouncing students’ actions and pushing back on what he described as overly broad criticism of the students.

“A teacher … was targeted based on her support for Israel, expressed in a permissible way outside of school hours, and her Jewish identity, and that is completely unacceptable,” Banks said Monday.

He added, in reference to media coverage of the incident and statements from some elected officials, that “the notion … these kids are radicalized and antisemitic is the height of irresponsibility, and I for one will not accept that at all.”

Students used social media to organize the walkout, which started during a changeover between classes, officials said. An estimated 400 students participated in the initial protest out of Hillcrest’s roughly 2,300-person student body. A followup student protest was planned for Nov. 22, but administrators were able to shut it down before it started, officials said.

School officials said they got wind of the Nov. 20 protest in time to alert police, who responded quickly. The teacher targeted in the protest, whose name Chalkbeat is withholding to protect her privacy, was already in an administrator’s office on another floor talking with police when the protest began, and she stayed there throughout, officials said.

Banks maintained the teacher was “never in direct danger.”

The educator didn’t reply to a request for comment, but previously told the New York Post that she was “shaken to my core by the calls to violence against me that occurred online and outside my classroom last week.”

Several students and elected officials also reported students threatened the teacher and posted her address online.

Banks said the teacher is expected to return to work this week and promised that the school will “ensure her safety” and that staff and students will “wrap arms around” her.

The school is partnering with an organization called Operation Respect to help lead conversations about improving school culture, officials said.

Students at Hillcrest acknowledged Monday that the protest had gotten out of hand, but maintained that the students who escalated the action weren’t the ones who’d organized it.

“It was meant to be a peaceful protest in the very beginning,” said Muhammad Ghazali, the senior class president. “But some of these students lack maturity. These are teenagers.”

Many of the students who participated didn’t “think of it as a serious moment or a moment to actually go out and protest,” but “did it for their personal enjoyment,” he added.

Another student who spoke to Chalkbeat anonymously pushed back on the accusation that the protest was antisemitic.

“The intent … was just to be pro-Palestine,” the student said. “It was not, it was not to attack her for being Jewish. We have teachers that are Jewish, and we love them to death.”

Banks said he came to Hillcrest Monday not just to offer a condemnation but to listen to students and try to better understand what sparked their anger.

Roughly 30% of Hillcrest’s students are Muslim, and some “came from warzones” like Yemen, said one Hillcrest educator who spoke on the condition of anonymity. What’s happening in Gaza is “traumatic” for them, the educator added.

“They consume their information through social media,” Banks said. “And what they are seeing on a daily basis are children and young people in Palestine … being blown up.”

“When they all of a sudden saw this image of the teacher that says, ‘I Stand With Israel,’ the students articulated to me they took that as a message that I’m affirming whatever is happening to the Palestinian family and community,” Banks said. “That made sense to me.”

Schools across New York City have struggled with how — and if — to talk to students about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which militants killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis and took more than 200 hostage, and Israel’s subsequent bombardment, which has killed more than 14,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Students told Chalkbeat they’re inundated with graphic images of the violence on social media and often struggle to make sense of conflicting sources of information. Many crave safe spaces to talk about those issues in school.

But many educators are wary of wading into such a potentially explosive conversation — some more so after Banks reminded teachers not to share their political beliefs in class and cautioned about out-of-school political activism.

Several Hillcrest students said they had few chances to talk about what is happening in Gaza and Israel before last week’s events.

“Don’t just think you can just skate by it,” one student said. “Because these [issues] are in these children’s hearts, and they’re going to feel a type of way about it. So it’s best to address it … It’s a boiling pot. Now, that exploded, and this is what happened.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC students want to talk about Israel and Gaza. Schools are struggling to keep up.

2023-11-21T23:21:34+00:00

For many New York City teenagers, the violence that’s unfurled thousands of miles away in Israel and the Gaza Strip over the past seven weeks has felt startlingly close to home.

Both Muslim and Jewish students told Chalkbeat they’ve noticed an uptick in hurtful and derogatory comments from classmates at school or over social media, echoing a recent state review that found Islamophobic and antisemitic rhetoric have each jumped by more than 400% on social media since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the country’s retaliation.

Students, meanwhile, are glued to their phones. They’re trying to keep up with an endless stream of often-graphic social media content about the ongoing war while attempting to sift through a barrage of conflicting information and viewpoints, they said.

It’s “scary … to be teenagers and dealing with antisemitism and Islamophobia,” one Brooklyn high school student said, adding that they were “grappling with how to feel about this horrible thing that’s going on that we don’t have any control over.”

School can feel like one of the few safe places to make sense of the Israel-Hamas war, learn about the historical underpinnings of the crisis, and try in some small way to take action, teens said.

Hamas militants killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis and took another 240 hostage, and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza has killed at least 11,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children.

City schools, however, are taking divergent approaches to navigating conversations about the war, and in some cases largely avoiding it, according to interviews with educators and students at six high schools, most of whom spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

At some high schools — particularly large ones — pressure to keep up with fast-paced curriculums, fears about further inflaming tensions, and caution about steering clear of political landmines, especially after a warning from schools Chancellor David Banks to keep personal views out of the classroom, have made it difficult to create dedicated spaces to talk about the war, educators and students told Chalkbeat.

“It’s kind of like an elephant in the room for many students,” said a senior at Midwood High School in Brooklyn. “There haven’t been any discussions in classes.”

“It’s very sensitive … and no one wants to get written up or lose their job,” added a Brooklyn Tech staffer. “No one wants to say anything because no one wants to get into trouble.”

The Education Department provided school leaders with a resource guide to “help them work with their staff to support instruction based on facts about the war in the Middle East as well as resources on supporting students during this difficult time,” spokesperson Chyann Tull said.

Banks’s warning about political speech was only meant to reiterate existing city rules and to encourage teachers to remain objective when discussing charged issues, according to officials.

At one Brooklyn high school, students frustrated by the lack of opportunities to talk about the conflict during the school day organized an after-school meeting, supervised by teachers at school, between Jewish and Muslim student groups. They plan to invite expert speakers to give students more background, according to a student who helped organize the events and spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation.

“Having these conversations is really important, and if we can have them in a setting that’s monitored and we have access to concrete information, that’s really helpful,” the student said. “It’s something that 16-year-olds should not have to organize … but I think teachers are scared to be talking about it.”

Some schools and teachers wade into difficult conversations

That’s not to say there aren’t educators and schools across the city wading into difficult conversations.

Kate Cook, a Spanish and senior advisory teacher at Brooklyn Tech, doesn’t normally teach about Israel and the Palestinian territories, and she was nervous about upsetting kids and doing justice to the complex history of the conflict. In each of her classes, she knew she’d likely have multiple students with ties to the region, heightening the stakes. But she decided the risks of avoiding the discussion outweighed the potential pitfalls of diving into it.

“If teachers don’t address it, it sends the message it’s not important and we don’t care about it,” she said.

Cook started with several informal check-ins shortly after Oct. 7 and again after the Israeli bombardment of Gaza began, and asked students to check in on both their Jewish and Muslim classmates. Several weeks later, she led a lesson meant to help students think through all of the ways they process news about the war – intellectually, emotionally, and as a matter of conscience.

There were challenging moments, including a spirited debate between a student forcefully arguing “Hamas needs to be eradicated” and another saying you “can’t ignore” decades of occupation, Cook said.

But she knew it was the right decision when the mother of one of her students approached her at parent-teacher conferences to thank her. The girl had family in Israel and “came home in tears because she was so happy” Cook had checked in with her students, the mom said.

“Particularly at a big school, we can often underestimate our impact as teachers,” Cook said. “But when something big happens in the world, we need to say something.”

Other educators who’ve led classroom lessons about the conflict said they prompted valuable discussions about the relative advantages of social and mainstream media.

Teachers said they tried to help students approach social media more skeptically and spot misinformation without dismissing their arguments that social media has galvanized young people and made information accessible to them in a way mass media hasn’t.

“With the mass media, you are fed information, but on social media, you get to contribute to the message,” one Brooklyn Tech teacher recalled a student saying.

At several smaller schools, teachers have organized optional “teach-ins” during lunch periods and after school for students who want more background on the conflict.

“It was very informative and it didn’t try to force a stance and gave students a chance to make their own conclusions,” said Alexander Calafiura, a senior at East Side Community High School in Manhattan who attended one such session to get a better factual understanding of the conflict. (Calafiura is currently a Student Voices fellow at Chalkbeat).

Teachers who led lessons on the conflict said they were acutely aware that it’s emotional for students and took pains to keep their classrooms feeling safe.

One Brooklyn Tech teacher said he had students frequently flash “thumbs-up” signs to each other to indicate they were OK continuing the lesson. Sari Beth Rosenberg, a history teacher at the High School for Environmental Studies in Manhattan, started her lesson by asking students to agree on the shared principle that all death is bad.

“I think you’re more likely to have a civil discourse if you start it off by framing it as ‘what do we agree on,’” she said.

Students, teachers, and pro-Palestinian allies march through Midtown Manhattan during a student walkout protest calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas on Nov. 9, 2023 in New York.

Politics loom large

The crisis in Israel and Gaza has reignited long-standing debates about the appropriate role of politics in school.

On Nov. 8, the day before a planned student walkout calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, Banks sent the message to all city schools staffers reminding them that city rules bar teachers from expressing their personal political views in class, and that even out-of-school political activity could be out of bounds if it causes a disruption in school.

An Education Department spokesperson said Banks’ warning wasn’t in response to any single event, and Banks told the publication City & State that his intention was not to “silence anybody.”

But critics including New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman argued the missive would “likely have the effect of stifling political discussion both inside the classroom and in the broader community.”

Some educators said that’s indeed come to pass.

“I think it’s egregious that our voices are being censored right now,” said a social worker who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “As faculty and staff we’ve been clearly discouraged from supporting these students.”

Some students and staff argue, moreover, that condemning Hamas’s attack – like Banks did on Oct. 10 – without also acknowledging the ongoing siege of Gaza is itself a political stance.

One Midwood High School student who participated in the Nov. 9 walkout said it “symbolizes our anger towards the Department of Education for their neutral stance and support of the genocide,” a term that has been hotly contested as a way to describe Israel’s siege of Gaza.

At Brooklyn Tech, students sent a letter last week to Principal David Newman criticizing his decision to send an Oct. 10 email acknowledging the Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel without sending a subsequent message acknowledging the deaths in Gaza.

“The Palestinians currently being killed in Gaza at overwhelming rates, most of whom are women and children, are, above all, innocent civilians,” the students wrote. “They, just as innocent Israeli civilians addressed in Mr. Newman’s email, do not deserve death or suffering in any way. They deserve the same amount of respect as the Israeli civilians that Mr. Newman addressed in his email.”

The students also called for more dedicated spaces in school to talk about the conflict, and additional counseling resources.

Newman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But it’s not only statements about the violence in Gaza that have proven controversial: At the Museum School in Manhattan, administrators declined to include a statement from the Jewish Student Union condemning the Oct. 7 attacks in the school newsletter out of concern it violated Education Department rules on political speech, the school’s newspaper reported.

The debates over political speech also play out on the smaller stage of individual classrooms.

For some teachers, keeping a firewall between personal political beliefs and classroom teaching is critical.

“We shouldn’t be talking about our political beliefs in the classroom, I don’t think that should be controversial,” said Rosenberg, the Manhattan history teacher, adding that teachers’ backgrounds also shouldn’t play a role in how they discuss current and political events.

“Your classroom is not the place to work out your identity issues,” she said.

But other teachers argue it’s not so simple, and that shielding students entirely from their political beliefs and biases is unrealistic and counterproductive.

“If people ask me, I will have separate conversations,” said one Bronx history teacher, who said her students know she is both Jewish and “anti-occupation.”

“I have no problem with people seeing my point of view as one point of view.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

IPS board approves new teacher contract with average of 3% raises

2023-11-15T01:04:36+00:00

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The Indianapolis Public Schools board unanimously approved a new two-year labor contract on Tuesday that gives teachers an average of 3% in raises plus more time off.

The contract, which Indianapolis Education Association members voted to ratify last month, bumps starting pay in the district from $50,400 to $51,900 in 2023-24, and raises it again to $53,460 in 2024-25. Current teachers can also increase their base salary based on their educator evaluation ratings, their years of service in IPS, and whether they serve in high-need subject areas.

Those pay increases range from $1,850 to $2,790 for 2023-24, and $1,900 to $2,870 for 2024-25. Teachers who were rated as ineffective or needing improvement, however, are not eligible for an increase.

Teachers will also receive two floating holidays each academic year that can be used at their discretion. These holidays are designed to benefit those employees whose religious holidays are not recognized on the traditional school calendar.

The agreement, heralded by both IPS and the IEA as a positive collaborative effort, will guide compensation and bonus pay at a critical time for the district, which will shift teachers to different schools next school year when IPS breaks up its K-8 schools.

“I’m extremely proud of the agreement that we were able to build together by working collaboratively to find solutions to the fiscal and logistical obstacles that we face as a district,” Tina Ahlgren, the bargaining chair for the IEA, said at the meeting.

A new pilot program in the contract will allow teachers to receive additional pay if they are forced to give up their preparation periods to cover for an absent teacher in another class. Teachers can receive $25 per hour under this new provision.

Teachers can also receive that extra pay if principals increase their class size by at least 30% because of another teacher’s absence.

“We are both proud of and grateful for the collaboration that we’ve had with our partners at IEA to get to this point this evening,” Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said at the meeting. “Thank you to the team, both the bargaining team as well as my administrative team, who really did engage in this deep collaboration, positive conversations and discussion.”

The contract also provides new pay for staff who serve as certified school psychologists, social workers, or teachers of English as a new language.

Teachers who are approved to serve as long-term substitutes in addition to their regular teaching roles can also get additional compensation under the new contract.

The contract increases the payout for unused sick time that teachers can cash out upon retirement, from $35 for every seven hours to $50. That payout had not changed in over 15 years.

The district, however, will no longer pay for long-term disability insurance. Teachers can opt in to the insurance but will pay premiums on their own.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s new algebra curriculum mandate divides educators

2023-11-10T21:08:58+00:00

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The ninth graders in Katie Carson’s Algebra I class had only a foggy memory of how to use the “greater than” and “less than” signs that appeared in their warm-up exercise on a recent Tuesday afternoon.

One student said he hadn’t seen the symbols since elementary school.

Carson, a teacher at Energy Tech High School in Long Island City, Queens, gave her class no explanation. Instead, she asked students what they noticed about how the signs work.

“If the open side is pointing to the left, it’s less than, and if it’s to the right it’s greater,” volunteered a student named Adam.

The answer wasn’t right, but Carson gamely copied it onto the whiteboard and began testing it on sample problems. A minute later, Adam interjected. “It doesn’t work. I think it’s whatever the open side is on, that’s greater.”

Dropping students into unfamiliar math problems with minimal introduction and refraining from correcting their errors can seem counterintuitive in a subject where the answers are black and white. But those practices are at the core of an approach that Carson says has transformed her teaching. It’s one that New York City officials are hoping can spark a sea change in how math is taught across the five boroughs.

Carson’s school was an early adopter of Illustrative Math, the curriculum New York City officials began rolling out this year as part of an unprecedented effort to improve and standardize the way algebra is taught across the city’s more-than-400 high schools.

This year, more than 260 schools are using Illustrative Math for Algebra I, while receiving extra coaching, professional development, and supervision from the Education Department. The Algebra I curriculum mandate is set to expand next year, though a department official didn’t say whether it will reach all high schools by then.

A message on the whiteboard of Katie Carson's Algebra I class at Energy Tech High School in Long Island City, Queens.

The stakes are high: Fewer than half of the city’s elementary and middle school students scored proficient on state math exams this year.

The pandemic has only heightened the challenge. Passage rates for high-schoolers on the year-end Algebra II Regents exam, which builds on Algebra I, fell a whopping 24 percentage points over the course of the pandemic, from 69% in 2019 to 45% in 2022, according to state data.

There are also gaping disparities in math achievement between schools: At some selective high schools, 100% of students who took the Algebra I Regents exam last year passed. At others, where almost all students are Black or Latino and low-income, zero did, city data shows.

Two months in, the experiment in shared curriculum has divided educators. Some argue it’s a long-overdue shift toward teaching that prizes deep conceptual understanding of math over rote practice and memorization. But other teachers say the curriculum lacks the kind of structure and built-in repetition that many students — particularly struggling ones — need.

“We show them something and don’t tell them anything, and it’s ‘What do you think?’ with no guidance,” said one special education math teacher in Queens participating in the pilot this year, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “For a special education student who already needs a little more help, it makes it almost impossible, they check out, they lose interest.”

Proponents of the curriculum, especially teachers who’ve used it for multiple years, say they’ve found just the opposite: The curriculum’s open-endedness can help draw in even the most resistant students.

“You typically have students who walk into a math class and have heard … that they’re either a math person or they’re not,” Carson said. “But when they walk into an [Illustrative Math] class, the curriculum doesn’t care if you’re ‘good at math…’ it just makes you explain and prove and share and discuss in a way that it’s going to be challenging for everyone.”

To standardize or not to standardize?

Schools Chancellor David Banks has bet big on the idea that standardizing curriculum can move the academic needle citywide in a system where that’s notoriously hard to do.

Alongside the math push, he’s requiring the city’s elementary school superintendents to choose among three pre-selected reading curricula that officials say better align with a growing body of research about how kids learn to read. The literacy push has gotten significantly more attention, but educators say the math initiative is no less important – or controversial.

Traditionally, high schools and secondary math educators have had wide latitude to select or create their curriculum. For some teachers, especially experienced ones, that freedom can be helpful and spark innovation. Banks, however, argues that as a citywide policy, curricular autonomy has produced mediocre and inequitable results.

“Everybody is not ready for that level of autonomy,” he recently told reporters. “Because if they were, we would have much better results than we have.”

Why Algebra I?

Banks’s curriculum mandate isn’t the first time city officials have tried to boost math achievement by targeting algebra.

An initiative called “Algebra For All” under former Mayor Bill de Blasio attempted to give every student a chance to complete Algebra I by the end of eighth grade – a goal that has become a flashpoint in national debates about equity and math instruction.

That experiment yielded some positive results: In 2023, about 45% of the city’s 62,000 eighth graders took the Algebra I Regents exam, according to the Education Department – up from 30% in 2015. About three-quarters of them passed.

But disparities remain: A higher proportion of white and Asian American students took the test in eighth grade than Black and Latino students, and they were far more likely to pass it, according to a Chalkbeat review of 2022 Algebra I Regents results in more than 200 middle schools.

For the remaining students who either never took the course in eighth grade or flunked the exam, finishing it in ninth grade is critical, educators argue.

Without that, there’s little chance students will be able to advance to higher-level math courses like precalculus or calculus.

Algebra I teacher Katie Carson works through a problem on the whiteboard during a recent class at Energy Tech High School in Long Island City, Queens.

Teachers of high school Algebra I say there are significant obstacles to that goal, including a large number of students who are far behind grade level.

In many cases, teachers feel pressure to return to what feel like safer approaches, like relying on rote practice and pausing grade-level instruction to focus on remediating basic skills like multiplication, multiple educators said.

Jason Ovalles, a math teacher at Chelsea Career and Technical Education High School and master teacher through the professional organization Math for America, knows that pressure well. He began his career as a middle school teacher in East New York without a set curriculum. He tried finding interesting problems and activities on his own, but was often “pulled back” into the way he was taught: “Just tell them how it’s supposed to be, so that they can copy what you did.”

Switching to Illustrative Math allowed him to keep up with grade-level math without alienating or discouraging his struggling students, Ovalles said. Proponents hope it can do the same thing citywide.

Curriculum draws mixed reactions

Illustrative Math was created in 2011 by a University of Arizona professor in the wake of sweeping changes to math teaching during the 2009 rollout of the Common Core standards, a set of benchmarks meant to give states shared academic goals.

Other large school districts, including Los Angeles, are also rolling out the curriculum at scale.

Teachers participating in New York City’s pilot get eight professional development sessions and between eight and 12 visits from an instructional coach throughout the school year, according to the Education Department.

But multiple educators said there are major flaws in the curriculum, and the Education Department’s approach to rolling it out.

Some students don’t have the necessary vocabulary or background knowledge to engage in the open-ended discussions, said one Brooklyn educator who used the curriculum last year at his administrators’ behest. He compared it to asking students in an automotive class who’ve never seen a car engine before to fix a muffler.

“All the investigative time in the world will not make them successful at making it run quietly,” said the teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

The lack of built-in practice time can make it difficult to verify whether students fully understand concepts before moving on, several educators added.

Katie Carson, standing (in gray shirt), teaches Algebra I at Energy Tech High School on Oct. 31, 2023 in Long Island City, Queens.

Teachers who have used the curriculum for years countered that part of what makes it work is that students don’t need vocabulary up front. They can describe concepts in their own words – a feature that’s especially helpful for English language learners – and teachers can bring in the technical terms later.

Ovalles said he’s learned that it’s okay – and expected – to move on before every student understands 100% of the lesson because the curriculum builds in future opportunities to revisit topics.

Education Department officials are holding teachers to a pacing guide, reminding teachers when they should wrap up units, according to communications reviewed by Chalkbeat.

Several educators said the pacing expectations are unrealistic and have made it harder to adjust to the new curriculum. An Education Department official said the pacing guide is “not a mandate” and teachers have freedom to spend longer on individual lessons if they need.

Regents loom large

A big question hangs over the entire experiment: Will the new curriculum improve results on the year-end Regents exams?

Multiple educators who are using the curriculum for the first time said they’re worried that it doesn’t align well with the Regents. The test is mainly multiple choice and it phrases questions in specific ways.

Energy Tech has been using Illustrative Math since 2020 as part of a pilot funded by New Visions, a network that runs and supports public schools, and the school saw its percentage of students who passed the Algebra I test rise from 64% in 2019 to 72% last year, even as citywide numbers declined, according to state data.

Kiran Purohit, the vice president of curriculum and instruction at New Visions, said overall, the schools in the pilot “saw a better post-Covid recovery” in Algebra I than the city average, with an especially big bump for English learners.

Sixteen-year-old Energy Tech student Mostafa Aboelfadl said he’s “not the best test-taker” and would often freeze up on open-response questions on the Regents. But after spending a year chipping away bit-by-bit at complex problems in his Illustrative Math algebra class, he said he realized he could “extract points” from Regents questions even if he didn’t know the full answers.

An Education Department spokesperson said the pacing guide includes some designated Regents review days and suggestions about which lessons can be “deprioritized” because they don’t appear on the exams.

It’s also likely that the Regents test itself and its role will continue to shift. The Algebra I Regents exam is changing this year to better reflect a new set of learning standards. And a Blue Ribbon commission is poised to release a set of recommendations about how and whether Regents exams should continue to serve as graduation requirements.

Ovalles said after several years of using the curriculum, he hasn’t seen much change in his students’ Regents scores – but that’s okay.

In the past, he’d spend “spend weeks and months” on Regents prep, only to see scores stay flat as well.

Now, at least, the tone seems to have shifted among students. “They’re actually understanding math better and are more confident talking about it,” he said. “It feels like a net positive.”

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

You’re invited: Hear true stories told by local teachers at this storytelling event

2023-10-12T11:30:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.

The infamous “teacher voice” — we all know it, and now you can hear directly from local educators about the times they may have needed to use it.

Join us for the “Don’t Make Me Use My Teacher Voice” teacher story slam from 6 to 8 p.m Thursday, Nov. 16, at Ash & Elm Cider Company, 1301 E Washington Street in Indianapolis. The event will be hosted by Teachers Lounge Indy along with Chalkbeat Indiana and Indy Kids Winning.

Teachers Lounge Indy was formed to help early-career teachers build community, said organizer Ronak Shah. The group last hosted a story slam in 2019. Since then, many in the group have moved on and are no longer early in their careers.

However, Shah said a current teacher encouraged him to bring the event back, so he revived it.

To attend, register here for a free ticket on Eventbrite: https://ckbe.at/3FSCr6z.

Also, if you’re an educator and want to tell your story, contact: teachersloungeindy@gmail.com.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. She also covers access to higher education and Warren Township Schools. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

Tentative IPS teacher contract includes average 3% pay raises, more time off

2023-11-09T01:06:49+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.

Teachers in Indianapolis Public Schools could see average raises of 3% and more days off under a tentative contract agreement between the district and the Indianapolis Education Association.

The new contract, which would cover the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years, would raise starting salaries from $50,400 to $51,900 for 2023-24. The contract’s maximum salary for teachers would also increase to an estimated $94,000.

The estimated salary range for the 2024-25 school year would be $53,460 to $94,000.

No teacher would make below the minimum salary for each school year unless given an evaluation of “ineffective” or “needs improvement.”

The tentative contract would offer special increases to base pay for special education teachers, English-as-a-new-language teachers, school psychologists, and social workers.

As required by state law, only teachers rated “highly effective” or “effective” will receive increases to their base salary. But recent data indicates the vast majority of teachers would receive those raises under the proposed contract.

In 2022-23, nearly 35% of teachers were rated highly effective and roughly 64% were rated effective, according to district data obtained through a public records request. Only 15 out of the 1,586 teachers who were evaluated were given ratings of “improvement necessary” or “ineffective.”

Increases in base pay for qualifying teachers would range from $1,850 to $2,790 for 2023-24 and $1,900 to $2,870 for 2024-25. Salary increases for the current school year would be retroactively paid dating back to July 23 of this year. Raises for the 2024-25 school year would take effect during the first contract day of that year.

The school board will vote on the contract next week.

Here are some major changes in the proposed contract.

Base pay increases by teacher evaluations

Teachers who receive a rating of “highly effective” for the prior school year would receive:

$1,290 in year one (reflecting their 2022-23 rating).
$1,310 in year two (reflecting their 2023-24 rating).

Teachers who receive a rating of “effective” for the prior school year would receive:

$1,050 in year one (reflecting their 2022-23 rating).
$1,070 in year two (reflecting their 2023-24 rating).

Base pay increases for in-demand positions

Employees who served as certified school psychologists, social workers, special education teachers, teachers of English-as-a-new-language, core content teachers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), STEM career and technical education teachers, or credentialed dual-credit course teachers in the prior school year would receive:

$530 in year one (if employed for 2022-23).
$550 for year two (if employed for 2023-24).

This provision would exclude teachers working in these areas on emergency permits.

Base pay increase by years of service

Teachers who were employed by IPS for at least 120 contract days in the prior school year would receive:

$530 in year one (if employed for 2022-23).
$550 in year two (if employed for 2023-24).

Teachers who completed one to seven years of effective IPS teaching as of the effective date of salary increase would receive:

$440 in year one (if teacher completed one to seven years by July 23, 2023).
$460 in year two (if teacher completed one to seven years by the first contract day of 2024-25).

Teachers who completed eight or more years of effective IPS teaching as of the effective date of salary increase would receive:

$270 in year one (if teacher completed eight or more years by July 23, 2023).
$280 in year two (if teacher completed eight or more years by the first contract day of 2024-25).

Pilot program to pay teachers for class coverage

The district would launch a pilot program for 2023-24 and 2024-25 to pay teachers for class coverage when another teacher is absent.

Teachers would receive $25 per hour when they give up their designated preparation periods to cover a class with an absent teacher.

Academic coaches, interventionists, and International Baccalaureate coordinators would only receive this compensation if they cover for at least three hours and lose their prep period. Job-sharing teachers would not receive this compensation when their co-teachers are absent, unless the coverage also requires them to give up their prep period.

Teachers would also receive an extra $25 per hour if principals place additional students in their class that increases their total class size by at least 30% due to the absence of another teacher.

More days off during the school year

Teachers will receive two floating holidays for each academic year that can be used for any reason. Unlike sick or personal time off, these days do not roll over from year to year and cannot be cashed out upon retirement.

The tentative contract would provide for two additional bereavement days for extended family, bringing the total to three full paid days off to attend the funeral of an extended family member. Such family members are defined as aunts, uncles, nieces, or nephews.

The contract would give more flexibility for bereavement days for immediate family, a term that would extend to an unborn child.

Employees would have five bereavement days for immediate family as in the old contract, but could take three within 14 days of the death and reserve the other two for up to a year after the death to attend to affairs of the deceased.

Compensation to serve as a long-term substitute

The new contract allows licensed teachers to accept a role as a long-term substitute to cover vacancies outside the classroom instruction hours of their current teaching position.

This scenario could cover teachers who, for example, finish their school day sooner than other schools and may have the ability to travel to another school still in session to cover a class there.

Teachers would be paid at their standard hourly rate for this long-term assignment, which would end either at the end of the semester or until the vacancy is filled. Priority for vacant positions would be given to teachers whose schedule, licensure, and endorsement matches the needs of the vacant position.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Vitti gives update on the state of DPSCD schools

2023-10-20T14:59:51+00:00

Detroit Public Schools Community District has come far since its days of emergency management, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in his State of the Schools address Tuesday evening.

In the wide-ranging speech, Vitti touched on ways DPSCD has improved since he took on the top job in 2017: The district has re-established Parent–Teacher Associations (PTAs) at every school in an effort to get more parents involved in their students’ education. Students have improved their M-STEP, PSAT, and SAT scores in literacy and math. And DPSCD created a newcomer program for immigrant students at Western International High School.

“Our work as a superintendent/board team was to rebuild the district and the way that it would function and how it would operate before emergency management, but also think to the future and be transformative to modernize the school district so that it can actually lead to change for children,” he said. “And we did that by starting with a plan.”

Vitti also noted that the district has increased teacher salaries, invested in art and music classes after they were cut under emergency management, and created a facility master plan to rebuild and reopen aging school buildings.

An invitation-only crowd of teachers, students, parents, and community members filled the auditorium at Renaissance High School. When promoting State of the Schools, the district sent out emails to the school community, asking recipients to RSVP on Eventbrite. An edited video of the event will be available at a later date, a district spokeswoman said.

Vitti touts improvements in attendance

In his speech, Vitti addressed the struggles DPSCD has faced over the years is chronic absenteeism. During the 2021-22 school year, 77% of students were chronically absent at a time when COVID-19 cases in Michigan reached their peak. But even before the pandemic caused a spike in absenteeism in school districts across the country, students in the Detroit district and charter schools were missing school at crisis numbers.

Vitti noted the many barriers students face to get to school, such as poverty, crime, and health problems such as asthma. However, he said the district is starting to improve its attendance rates.

During the 2022-23 school year, the district’s chronic absenteeism rate was 68%. While it is better than the previous year’s rate, the percentage is still above pre-pandemic levels. Vitti attributed that to school attendance agents, counselors, principals, and teachers engaging with students and getting parents involved with schools.

One school he highlighted was Pulaski Elementary-Middle School, which saw a 36.5 percentage point decrease in chronic absenteeism and 10 percentage point increase in daily attendance.

“Beyond Pulaski, there are multiple people in this room that have urged students to come to school when they’re tired. They have urged families to do their best to get kids to school,” Vitti said. “There are people in the audience that even in the snow, in negative 10 degree weather, still visited homes to get the kids to school.”

Students show improvement on standardized tests

Vitti also talked about student achievement and the efforts the district is making to get students to perform at grade level and ready for college.

For students in grades 3-7, 2023 English language arts and math M-STEP proficiency results improved at 13% and 9.1%, while the 2022 results were at 10.9% and 6.2%. PSAT and SAT scores also improved. For eighth graders, the percentage of students who were proficient in reading and writing on the PSAT increased to 24% in 2023, while those proficient in math rose to 8.6%. This is compared to 10.9% proficiency in reading and writing and 6.2% proficiency in math the previous year. For high schoolers taking the SAT ,reading and writing proficiency levels increased to 32.9% and math to 11.7%. In 2022, those percentages were 26.9% and 8%, respectively.

However, Vitti said the district’s goal is for students to rise above single-digit performances on the standardized tests.

“We still have work to do since the pandemic, but we’ve definitely improved,” Vitti said. “If we look at our literacy data, you can see that 75% of schools improved at or above grade level performance the year after the baseline year.”

District plans to renovate school facilities

Facilities were also on Vitti’s agenda. He brought up a 2018 review of school buildings, which found that 50% were considered deficient and only 7% were considered in good condition.

But DPSCD is planning to improve the state of its buildings with its $700 million facility master plan, which includes rebuilding, reopening, or demolishing certain schools. The plan calls for rebuilding the following schools: Cody High School, Paul Robeson/Malcolm X Academy, Pershing High School, Carstens Academy, and Phoenix, a building that closed in 2016. Meanwhile, a handful of school buildings, including Ann Arbor Trail, Sampson Webber, and Clark, would close, but not immediately. The district would phase out enrollment in those schools, eliminating a grade each year until the buildings are empty.

Vitti showed a rendering of Pershing to give the audience a sneak peek of what to expect from the plan.

A rendering of the plan to rebuild Pershing High School in the Detroit school district was shared with the audience at a state of the schools event Wednesday.

“We love our advanced schools, we love our application schools, but we have to invest in our neighborhood high schools,” he said. “In building a new Pershing and Cody, we believe it keeps people in the city, they keep people in the public school system and there’s a legacy that has continued from previous years.”

Tramena O’Neil, a parent outreach coordinator at Southeastern High School, said the points that stood out to her during the address were improvements in student achievement and how parents, students, and school staff are working together to improve the district.

“DPSCD is a good district and if we continue to work together, it can be a great district,” she said. “If we can have more parental involvement, we wouldn’t have too many incidents in certain schools. For me, he (Vitti) is doing a fair job so far.”

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit, where she covers arts, culture, and education. Contact Micah at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Many school district tax measures on November ballot would pay for teacher salaries

2023-11-02T21:54:53+00:00

Many of the more than a dozen tax measures Colorado school districts put on the ballot for the Nov. 7 election are intended to fund teacher and staff salary increases that officials say are urgently needed.

District leaders say they are facing budget crunches from various factors such as drops in enrollment and an end to federal COVID-relief funding. Some districts say they’re having a hard time hiring enough teachers and keeping them.

Alan Kaylor, superintendent of the Weld Re-8 school district in Fort Lupton, said his district started this school year with 18 vacancies out of about 210 certified teachers.

That’s more than in the past, he said.

“It used to be in special education, math, science, but it’s kind of across the board right now,” Kaylor said. “It’s hard to recruit teachers.”

School districts around the metro area have been raising salaries. In Westminster, the school district raised starting pay to $61,000 this year. According to the Colorado Education Association, 30 unions have won an 8% or higher raise this year. A few districts, including Aurora and Sheridan, have struggled to negotiate raises.

Weld Re-8 is asking voters to approve a $4 million mill levy override and a $70 million bond request. For at least the first year, the measures would not cost homeowners any more in property taxes. The bond issue would go to funding building upgrades, but the mill levy override would help raise the starting salary for teachers from $45,000 to $52,000.

Kaylor said that even though Re-8 is considered a rural district, with about 2,500 students, it borders larger urban districts including St. Vrain Valley School District, where the starting salary for teachers is $56,000. On top of that, he said, houses in the community are priced in the $500,000 range, similar to the metro areas.

“My teachers are locked out from that market,” Kaylor said. “We don’t have many multifamily units either. Those tend to be filled. Most of my teachers live out on that I-25 corridor. They drive right through St. Vrain to get here.”

Re-8 is growing in enrollment, one of few districts in the state that is. But Kaylor said other budget issues coming up are related to the end of COVID relief funding.

The relief money wasn’t used in his district to fund teacher salaries, but he did use it to pay for new support positions such as instructional coaches that may not have funding to continue next year.

Kaylor is also concerned about the upcoming cost of renewing licenses for online programs purchased during the pandemic that teachers still use and whether he’ll be able to find funding to maintain an online program the district still offers as an option for about 50 students who preferred the model.

In Englewood, another small district requesting a $4 million mill levy override, the district has had to spend down reserves, or savings, in order to increase salaries for teachers over the past few years.

The Englewood district, south of Denver, has had a drop of more than 11% in enrollment in the last five years.

If the measure is approved, the district already negotiated an increase of 5% for teachers and a minimum increase of 7.5% for classified staff, both effective Jan. 1.

Englewood’s tax request would not increase property taxes for homeowners because the measure would simultaneously lower the taxes for the bond approved in 2016.

In Douglas County, the district is trying a second year in a row to ask voters for a mill levy tax measure. The $66 million mill levy override would pay for teacher raises. Last year, the same measure failed by less than 1% of the vote.

Superintendent Erin Kane said average salaries for teachers in the Douglas County school district are $19,000 less than in neighboring districts. It has meant more vacancies at the start of the school year.

At one elementary school, a teacher who took another job elsewhere over the summer was not able to be replaced in time for the school year to start. The school had to combine three second grade classrooms into two, with 33 students each.

“That’s the very real impact,” she said.

In talking to the community about the need for the measure this year, Kane said that voters understand that teachers deserve a raise, and that a teacher hired at $45,209 — the current starting salary — can’t afford living in Douglas County.

“It’s a shift in our community,” Kane said, of having more teachers commuting into the district for work.

But the challenge, she said, is helping voters understand how Colorado school districts are funded.

“Our community is under the impression that since their local property taxes are going up that their schools would be benefiting from that,” Kane said. “Higher local property taxes just means less money from the state.”

Colorado runs a formula that dictates how much money each district should have per student. The money comes first from local property taxes, and then the state fills in the gap, to get the funding to what the formula says it should be. Districts get more money than the formula says they should only when voters approve local tax measures that are on top of the regular property taxes.

In Douglas County, Kane tells voters the district is getting $2,000 less per student than neighboring districts because of those local measures, meaning the salaries she can offer are less competitive.

“I would have told you last year it was urgent,” Kane said. “This year it’s a crisis.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools graduation rates hit record high, data show

2023-10-31T19:01:51+00:00

A greater share of Chicago Public Schools students graduated last school year than in 2022, reaching a new record, officials announced Tuesday.

The graduation rate of 84% — representing students who graduated in four years — was 1.1 percentage points higher than the graduation rate for the Class of 2022, when 82.9% of high school students graduated on time. The dropout rate for the Class of 2023 was slightly higher at 9.4% than it was for the Class of 2022, which saw 8.9% of students drop out between freshman year and graduation.

Chicago Public Schools’ five-year graduation rate for the Class of 2022 — which includes students who take extra time to finish their diploma either at a traditional or alternative school — was 85.6%, 1.6 percentage points higher than for the class of 2021 when it was 84%.

District officials announced the numbers with fanfare at Walter H. Dyett High School for the Arts, with CPS CEO Pedro Martinez flanked by Mayor Brandon Johnson and joined virtually by U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.

Martinez said the rising graduation rate was a sign that the district is continuing to recover from the pandemic, reminding the audience that the students in the Class of 2023 were freshmen as the pandemic started in 2020, followed by two school years of remote and hybrid learning.

“When you think about their last year, their senior year, was probably their most normal year, I want you to take these results and put them in that context,” Martinez said.

Cardona described the graduation rates as “promising signs for the future of education in Chicago.” He highlighted the district’s use of federal COVID relief dollars, which CPS has put toward several purposes, including covering teacher salaries and hiring more instructional staff.

The announcement came one day after Illinois state education officials released statewide data, including graduation rates that had also increased across Illinois. (The state and Chicago Public Schools calculate graduation rates differently, so Chalkbeat is unable to provide direct comparisons.)

Chicago’s graduation rate has steadily increased over time, hitting a record high in 2022 even as students have faced academic challenges connected to the pandemic. Tuesday’s announcement comes on the heels of another report that found a rising share of CPS students are enrolling in college.

Racial disparities among graduates still remain, though they are narrowing. Graduation rates increased for Black, Hispanic and Asian American students, while dropping slightly for white students — by .4 percentage points — compared to the Class of 2022. Rates also dropped for multiracial students by 5.7 percentage points.

Nearly 75% of Black boys graduated in four years, up from roughly 65% five years ago, according to district data.

Despite higher graduation rates, SAT scores dipped for the Class of 2023, to an average composite score of 914. The average score for the Class of 2022 was 927, according to district data. Separately, the district also saw slightly fewer ninth graders — 88.7% — who were on track to graduate by 2026. That’s compared to 88.8% of the class that’s one year older than them.

As the pandemic set in, the district relaxed some grading policies, as did other school systems across the nation — raising questions about how such policies may have contributed to CPS’s rising graduation rates. Martinez argued that an increase in students completing college-level credits was a sign students were held to a high standard. Just under half of the Class of 2023 earned early college credits, a 5% increase from 2022, according to the district.

One of those students is Zaid Orduño, who said at Tuesday’s press conference that he took college-level courses at Daley College during his time at Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy, through the district’s Early College Program. His classes at Daley included English, math, sociology, and psychology, and he ultimately earned an associate’s degree alongside his high school diploma.

Taking those classes, he said, inspired him to pass up his original plan of joining his family’s construction business and instead pursue a civil engineering degree at Illinois Tech, he said.

A wall at Walter H. Dyett High School for the Arts is dedicated to remembering a hunger strike held in 2015 to demand for the reopening of Dyett, which was closed at the time.

Dyett, located in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side, saw its graduation rate tick up by more than 3 percentage points, to 86%. Johnson noted how far the school had come since he and other community members participated in a highly publicized hunger strike in 2015 to demand that Dyett, then shuttered, reopen. He also recognized fellow hunger striker Ald. Jeanette Taylor, who now represents the neighborhood nearby in City Council and serves as the chair of the Committee on Education and Child Development.

“A hunger striker can turn into a mayor and an alderman, and more importantly, a hunger strike can lead to the success that we are experiencing with our students right here at Dyett High School,” Johnson said.

He also used the moment to once again advocate for expanding the Sustainable Community Schools Initiative that Dyett and 19 other schools are a part of. The program partners schools with a nonprofit that provides wraparound services for students and families.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit student who fought for ‘right to literacy’ is still in the fight

2023-10-31T13:15:02+00:00

For four years, Jamarria Hall rode the city bus 13 miles from his home on the west side of Detroit to Osborn High School on the east side, a nearly two-hour trip along Seven Mile Road.

He spent the time looking out the window and meditating on the state of his hometown, as the bus passed block after block of dilapidated houses and shuttered buildings.

Hall recalls the bus rides and his time at Osborn, one of the city’s lowest-performing schools, as “a waste of time.” Students were forced to learn in buildings in bad condition, with poorly qualified teachers and a shortage of textbooks. He remembers often seeing rodents crawling on the floor and having to teach class himself when regular teachers were absent.

His high school years would not be a waste, though. At age 16, Hall became the lead student plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against the state of Michigan, Gary B. v. Snyder, claiming that state officials had failed to provide Detroit students a basic reading education when they oversaw the Detroit school district between 2009 and 2016 under emergency management.

“Joining the lawsuit really gave me an outlet to be able to kind of tell our story,” Hall told Chalkbeat in an interview. “It felt like we had no control over the conditions and ecosystem that we were living in.”

A 2020 settlement in the so-called right-to-literacy, or “right to read” case called for the creation of two Detroit-based education task forces and earmarked $94 million in state money for the Detroit Public Schools Community District to support evidence-based literacy interventions.

Now, after years of delays, that money is finally in the school aid budget and headed to Detroit. And the two task forces have invited the community to weigh in on how best to spend it to improve reading education in the city.

The task remains huge: Reading scores among Detroit students have ranked among the lowest in the nation over the past decade and a half. In fourth- and eighth-grade reading, the Detroit district’s test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress rank near the bottom statewide and nationwide.

Hall, now 23 years old, is a public speaker and social entrepreneur focusing on education activism. And he remains connected to the effort he helped start. Most recently, he’s participated in those task force meetings about where the lawsuit money should go.

Hall spoke to Chalkbeat about how he got involved in the lawsuit, his vision for the future of Detroit education, and how he would like to see the settlement funds spent.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Before you joined the lawsuit, how did you feel about attending school?

By the time I got to Osborn, school was easy. Like too easy. We never got homework. The classwork we were doing was work that I had done in prior years.

Detroit right to read lead plaintiff Jamarria Hall, stands beside Osborn High School college advisor Andrea Jackson and attorneys for the lawsuit in 2016.

I only attended school and thrived academically because I knew I had to for sports. I knew if I wanted to be the best athlete, I had to be the best student-athlete. I really used those four years of high school to train and build a resume academically and athletically so that I could get into a Division I school, hopefully on a scholarship.

That was my objective, but to be honest, I felt like school was a waste of time. If I didn’t have basketball practice, most of the time, I wouldn’t go to school. Because it was like, I know the work. I can make it up in a snap of a finger. I know I’m not missing anything academically. And then the other thing that I’m truly passionate about — basketball — is not going on today. So why am I getting on the bus for an hour and 45 minutes to go to school?

Was there any other school you could have attended? Or was Osborn the only option?

If I wanted to go to the top schools, I could have.

I went to a charter middle school. So our feeder schools were (examination high schools) Cass Tech, Renaissance, and King. All of my classmates from middle school, that’s where they went. It was more an athletic choice (for me) than an academic choice.

What was going on in your life at that moment when you were chosen to be a plaintiff? What changed for you once you were a part of the lawsuit?

I bounced around to a couple of different states with different family members throughout middle school, so now in high school having stability, I was still kind of unstable.

Even though I had stability, I didn’t want to lean on it, because I wasn’t comfortable with it. And that wasn’t just in my home, or my family. It was just me as a young adult trying to find myself as a young man. I found the lawsuit, or it found me.

James Baldwin has an amazing quote. He says: “As one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.”

Being able to connect with (attorney Mark Rosenbaum) and being able to just tell my perspective on the educational atmosphere at that time … was great. Just talking to somebody who also understood that these things were wrong, sharing that made me feel heard and seen.

Why did you think the lawsuit was so important at the time?

It was presented to me that we were going to go after a minimum requirement for quality education as a constitutional right. That sounded amazing, and for me, it was really simple. We obligate children to go to schools, but we don’t obligate schools to teach.

But to be honest, I never thought past what was that minimum requirement. So that’s when the conversation started to happen about what would that look like. And that’s how it came up to be reading.

I didn’t care too much about reading. I could read, but I never thought too much of it until it kept being brought up within the lawsuit, and then I started to see the relevance of it.

If you can’t read, then you can’t do simple things such as fill out a job application, vote or be a part of the democratic process. This plays a part in unemployment. This played a part in society’s impacts and problems that were going on at that time.

What is motivating you to stay involved in this cause?

Figuring out the solution. What are we going to do to make sure that this doesn’t happen again? That’s the most important part because we have seen a lot of lawsuits where those same issues play out in different facets, because the people who were defendants in the case are now the same people who provide solutions for the community.

I want to change education. If you look at the last century, education has not changed at all. The classrooms, the way we teach, the building foundations, the one teacher to 30 students in a class — all these things have not changed at all. Our students are actually worse off than our ancestors were when they were segregated. In the age of artificial intelligence, our students are nowhere near as proficient as we need to be.

What role do you think students should play in deciding how the district spends the settlement money?

This class action lawsuit wasn’t just for current students. It was for the students before us. And the students after that.

They need to at least be at the table. I attended four of the six task force community meetings, and the other two, I had representatives go in a team. There were no students.

We have to be a part of the conversation, and we have to understand the conversation that we’re being a part of. A lot of people still don’t even understand the importance of the lawsuit, what happened, and what we were fighting for.

We have to focus on young people and find out how to get them engaged and involved in their own education. Some of that money should go to employ these students, especially when we have teacher deficits and teacher shortages. We need to use this as a precedent to create a student-to-teacher pipeline that is sustainable.

There’s a program I like called the Young People’s Project, where students are paid as organizers within their community, teaching math to younger students. We know a lot of students have the option between providing for their families or going to school. A program like that would bring both of those options together.

How prepared did you feel for college? What was that feeling like when you were in your first college seminar? What have you struggled with in college?

I definitely felt prepared — until I got there. “If I have the highest SAT score in my school, I’m second in my class, if I’m going and not being proficient, then nobody is” was kind of the mindset that I had within my mind.

I wound up going to a community college and taking remedial classes. So I was thinking, “If I went to university, how far would I have been behind if I’m already behind at a community college?”

It was really just a huge reality shock. I always felt like, “OK, after I get out of Osborn, I know I can turn it back on.” But when a professor asked me for a 500-word essay, it made me realize that in the past four years, I hadn’t even written anything remotely close to that. I haven’t had to work that hard or actually challenge my mind at that point.

How do you feel about your education journey now, versus when you were experiencing those initial challenges with community college?

I think it was all for a reason. Times have changed drastically to where we no longer feel like we only can get an education in school. There are so many different outlets out there now to not only get certified education, but to get experience. And experience is one of the best forms of education, especially for someone such as myself, and someone from poverty.

My world has been opened up from the Algebra Project, from Earn Your Leisure, from multiple connections to different organizations.

Jamarria Hall. “We obligate children to go to schools,” says the 23-year-old social entrepreneur, “but we don’t obligate schools to teach.”

I’m really trying to set a precedent for young people, because a lot of young people when they see me feel like I have it all figured out. But I’m still very connected and close-rooted to the grassroots. I don’t have a doctorate. I don’t have a bachelor’s degree. I don’t even have an associate’s degree. But I have qualifications that can get me there.

So understanding and letting them know that there isn’t one route to success, that was important for me, because I used to believe that the only way I was going to be successful was if I took this certain specific route, because that’s how it was taught to me my whole life.

You mentioned culturally relevant curriculums. What do you think could actually work for Detroit students that hasn’t been tried before? What do you think culturally responsive lessons would look like and mean for students here?

It would be a very unique and different approach. A lot of our students know about things that they shouldn’t know about but don’t know about things that they should know about. So when we say those students know about all the lyrics to rap songs, but can’t read a book, or can’t read on grade level, how can I bring that rap song into the classroom to help this student be or get more proficient on their grade level?

Even if that means letting them do a performance, create lyrics, or do some type of engagement. Maybe even a process where they act as producers, or they are directors. So now these students are getting experience being judges and hosts, doing these different things that they are having fun with, but they all have a script that they have to read. Now this is a component where they’re actually learning but they’re having fun at the same time.

What is your message to the next generation of student activists?

You already have the power. Power is not something that you obtain solely through education. It’s once you understand who you are and what you are.

I always tell them: You are the future, but you are also the present. So don’t just think you can lollygag around. Always think about, how can I make a change? How can I be productive? How can I make an advancement for society, not only for myself and my family but for others also?

I push a lot of social entrepreneurship on students because a lot of young people are becoming entrepreneurs, but they aren’t familiar with social entrepreneurship. So even students who often do nonprofit work, just letting them know that being woke doesn’t mean being broke. So make sure that you’ve taken care of yourself or your family, and making the most of the knowledge that you already have by just being yourself — a young person.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

How Michigan teacher evaluations would change under proposed reforms

2023-10-30T10:30:00+00:00

Proposed legislation in Michigan that would eliminate student test scores as a factor in teacher evaluations would represent a victory for teachers if it passes, and a turnabout in an education reform effort that began nearly a decade ago.

Current state law requires that student scores on standardized tests count for 40% of a teacher’s performance rating. Under two proposed bills that passed the Senate last week, that requirement would go away, and the districts would be able to use their own criteria for evaluating teachers, such as classroom observations, samples of student work, rubrics, and lesson plans.

The bills would also de-emphasize evaluations as a factor in districts’ decisions to fire or demote teachers or deny them tenure. But they would require districts to take action against teachers who don’t improve after repeated interventions.

The House Education Committee is expected to take up the bills on Tuesday.

Here’s some background on the current law, and highlights of the new proposals:

Michigan law followed a push for more accountability

Michigan’s law on test scores and evaluations grew out of a push for greater accountability in education that began in the 2000s. Some advocacy groups theorized that more rigorous reviews would generate detailed feedback that could be used to improve teachers’ performance.

In 2009, under the Obama administration, the federal government offered money from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to states that made policy changes, including revamping teacher evaluations to include test scores.

In response, Michigan passed a law in 2015 requiring that teacher evaluations be 25% based on student growth, as measured by changes in test scores from one year to the next. The requirement went up to 40% at the start of the 2018-19 school year.

Skepticism of test-based evaluations has grown

Teachers have long argued that growth in test scores is an unfair way to measure their job performance, because it compares the performance of two different cohorts of students.

And in recent years, many education experts and policy analysts have become more vocal in questioning the changes that were made in the 2010s.

By 2019, nine states had stopped requiring that test scores be considered in teacher evaluations. Many other states have considered making the same change.

Proponents of returning to the old evaluation method say there is no evidence to suggest the current system benefits students, and that tying ratings to test scores contributes to burnout amid persistent teacher shortages.

Critics are concerned that de-emphasizing student test scores could lower standards for teachers while students are still struggling to recover from pandemic learning loss and need high-quality instruction.

How the proposals would change teacher evaluations

The bills proposed in Michigan would be a return to the system that was used before 2015. Districts would have more power to set their own standards to decide how and when teachers are evaluated.

But the proposals would still require districts to set up a common rating system, and they prescribe some consequences for teachers who don’t measure up.

School districts would have to start using teacher and administrator rating systems by July 1, 2024, that include four possible ratings: “highly effective,” “effective,” “minimally effective,” and “ineffective.” After that, districts would have to add “developing” and “needing support” ratings as well.

Teachers rated “needing support” would get individualized development plans from their districts to improve their performance within 180 days.

Districts would not be allowed to fire, deny tenure to, or withhold full certification from teachers rated “ineffective.” But they would be required to terminate teachers or administrators who are rated “needing support” three years in a row. Those who receive that rating could request reviews of their evaluations.

Staff who conduct evaluations would have to take “rater reliability training” from their districts.

A Senate analysis of the proposals said local districts might face some new costs to update teacher and school administrator evaluations and to incorporate collective bargaining agreements as part of that process.

On the other hand, it says, schools could save money by not having to calculate testing data, and by evaluating consistently effective teachers less often.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Berthoud teacher named Colorado’s 2024 Teacher of the Year

2023-10-28T00:11:45+00:00

Growing up, Jessica May saw her mother nurture many foster children over the years — 189 to be exact.

“I got to see her be a mother and a voice for those who didn’t have a voice,” she said.

May sought to continue that legacy by raising her own voice on behalf of children as a teacher at the front of the classroom.

“This is my way of doing it,” she said on Friday afternoon after being named Colorado’s 2024 Teacher of the Year in a ceremony at Turner Middle School in Berthoud.

After speeches in the gym by state and district officials and the promise of an ice cream party for the school, a beaming May headed toward the bleachers where she was deluged by students offering congratulatory hugs.

The family and consumer science teacher was one of seven finalists for the award, which is given annually by the Colorado Department of Education and other sponsors. She’ll spend the next year serving as an ambassador of sorts for the state’s teachers and will join the education commissioner’s Teacher Cabinet, a state advisory panel of educators. She’ll also represent Colorado in the National Teacher of the Year competition, visit the White House, and participate in NASA space camp.

May, who last year taught at Conrad Ball Middle School in Loveland, is in her 21st year teaching middle-schoolers in the Thompson school district. It’s an age group she appreciates. They still like hugs, want stickers, and enjoy playing Twister, but they’re also finding their way to the next stage of life, she said.

“Middle school is unique because they’re stuck between being elementary little kids and young adults in high school,” she said. “And I’m trying to help them find their voice.”

May, who has four children of her own, also helps students with life skills that run the gamut from cooking and couponing to personal finance and relationships.

“Everything that I do, if I can’t hook it to real world relevance, I don’t teach it,” she said.

Take her rice baby assignment, for example. Students learn about child development (and the challenges of parenting) by using panty hose, five pounds of rice, and a styrofoam head to fabricate a “baby” that will go everywhere with them for two weeks.

In addition to imparting real-life lessons on students, several speakers at Friday’s awards ceremony noted May’s enthusiasm and her ability to connect with kids.

“You are emblematic of excellence here in our school district,” Thompson Superintendent Marc Shaffer told May. “I couldn’t be more proud of you.”

During a short speech, May, who grew up in the northern Colorado district, described herself as “feisty” and pledged to fight for teachers’ needs in her role as teacher of the year. She also told students she loved them.

“You give us the greatest job on the planet,” she said. “Life is not about money. It is about going for your passion and knowing it in every part of your body.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Perry Township teachers will receive performance stipends through new grant funding

2023-10-27T16:07:59+00:00

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Perry Township schools will receive over $6 million in federal grant funding over three years to help hire and retain teachers, and to support efforts to improve literacy.

It’s the only district in Indiana and one of 29 nationwide to receive a Teacher and School Leader (TSL) grant from the U.S. Department of Education this year. The funds are aimed at increasing teacher compensation, retention, and diversity, according to the department, in part by helping districts create performance-based compensation models.

The bulk of the total funding — over $5 million — will go to performance-based pay and stipends for Perry teachers, while the remainder will fund two more literacy coaches at the district. The district will receive $2.5 million from the TSL grant in fiscal 2023.

Under the grant, the district will develop a formula to award teachers these bonuses. For every teacher, $1,000 will go into a fund, which will then be distributed according to teacher effectiveness, officials said. The district hopes to retain its master teachers, who model teaching and lead professional development, with the bonuses.

While the district already employs a literacy coach for elementary school students, one of the new coaches will focus on training teachers on reading skills for older students, officials said. Perry, which has a large population of English learner and immigrant students, has recently seen more new immigrant students enroll who can’t read fluently in English or another language, Southport High School principal Amy Boone said at a Thursday press conference.

As Indiana pushes to implement new literacy strategies tied to the science of reading, Perry officials said they hope to adapt some of those strategies to older students as well. In its grant application, the district said it hopes to grow overall student achievement in math and literacy by three percentage points per year, and narrow achievement gaps among Black and Hispanic students by 10%.

Another new coach will focus on literacy data for all students.

“It’s difficult for them to be successful if they lack the foundational ability to interact with the text,” said Jeff Spencer, the district’s assistant superintendent for K-12 services.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado loan forgiveness program for teachers accepting applications through Oct. 31

2023-10-27T00:41:35+00:00

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Colorado teachers have a few more days to apply to the state’s temporary student-loan forgiveness program for educators, after the higher education department extended the deadline.

The program, in its second year, taps federal pandemic relief money to provide newer educators in the state with $5,000 to help reduce their student loan balances. The new application deadline is Oct. 31.

Lawmakers intended to hand out about 2,000 such awards. But the state has rejected more than half of all applicants, and so far only about 1,200 have received the aid.

Part of the problem, some educators say, is confusion between two Colorado loan forgiveness programs for educators. The one funded through federal pandemic relief money is for educators who started working after the 2019-20 school year. Most of the rejected applicants had been in the profession longer, and some thought they were applying for a similar but separate program approved in 2019 that’s for teachers at all levels of experience.

Nonetheless, the large number of applications points to wide demand for debt relief.

The newer loan forgiveness program was part of a $52 million package of measures funded by federal relief money to help Colorado address teacher shortages. It also included programs that provide aid for educators to pay for certification tests and stipends for student teachers.

Colorado lawmakers set aside $10 million for the loan forgiveness plan through December 2024. So far the Colorado Department of Higher Education has distributed about $6.25 million of that and expects to spend the rest in the latest round. Educators can apply for an award even if they previously received money.

Teachers have had issues navigating the program, and some educators haven’t completely filled out the required paperwork, according to department spokeswoman Megan McDermott.

“We believe that teachers and special service providers are busy in their classrooms and may not have the time to complete the paperwork,” said McDermott. “Also, there is confusion between the federal programs and the state of Colorado programs, which is confusing to educators determining which programs are available.”

In the first year, the pandemic-era program served only rural teachers or those in hard-to-recruit fields, such as math or special education, who were in their first few years on the job.

That year, 359 educators received $5,000 awards, according to the higher education department. Of that group, the state has data on 281 applicants. They represented 52 districts and were mostly teachers in their first two years on the job. Most had less than $51,000 in total debt.

To reach more teachers, lawmakers broadened eligibility this year by removing the stipulation that teachers must be from rural districts or teach in hard-to-recruit subjects. The updates also increased the income limits.

After that change, the state gave aid to 884 more applicants.

Many more — over 2,250 applicants — have had their applications rejected.

Sarabeth Smith, a 12-year educator in East Grand School District, said she didn’t realize she had applied for the program for newer educators. Both programs use the same online form.

She said the directions weren’t clear, and she didn’t get a reason for her rejection the first time she applied.

More educators need help, she said, and not just those within their first few years.

Smith said many educators in their seventh or eighth year of teaching have a hard time staying in the field because of financial constraints. She said she works multiple jobs and is paying off loans for her master’s degree.

She used a federal loan forgiveness program for teachers to help pay off her bachelor’s degree loans and is hoping for more help.

“Any help towards the professional is just always going to make it a little easier to keep teachers and attract new teachers,” she said. “We know these shortages are not getting any better.”

The state’s other loan forgiveness program, which began before the pandemic, was slated to last five years and help rural teachers and those who specialize in hard-to-fill subjects. It’s open to educators of all levels.

Lawmakers were forced to put that program on hold because of budget shortfalls. The program will distribute money in 2024 to this year’s applicants, according to the higher education department.

Instructions on the top of the current application form say: “The Original rural educator application is closed at this time. You can apply for the Temporary Educator program.” But they don’t specify that the temporary program is only for newer teachers.

The program for new teachers has received about 600 applications in the latest round, the state said when it extended the deadline. This may be the last application period, or there could be one more round in the spring, the higher education department said.

McDermott reminded applicants to answer all questions and to submit required items such as a copy of their teaching license, if applicable, and employment verification.

Also, applicants must include their student loan information for the state to be able to make the payments, she said.

Despite the confusion, the program has helped, said Frank Reeves, who retired as East Grand’s superintendent last year and is the director of operations and strategic partnerships of the Colorado Rural Schools Alliance.

Districts like East Grand that are in resort areas have less trouble recruiting teachers, he said. But housing is expensive, and teachers need help, especially with student loan payments that cut into their expendable income, he said.

“It’s been more incentive to keep people, not really attract,” Reeves said.

Meanwhile, research shows the longstanding federal loan forgiveness program for educators isn’t succeeding at helping districts keep teachers and attract new ones.

That program, established in 1998, forgives $5,000 of debt for teachers, and possibly more for teachers in certain subjects. But a study released this summer found that attrition patterns among participants were the same as for those who didn’t get loan forgiveness.

The program also ran into issues getting applicants to properly fill out the forms, and researchers recommended streamlining the process.

How running track led this Bronx middle school teacher and coach full circle

2023-10-25T10:00:00+00:00

Running track changed the course of Elías Cruz’s life.

At his Bronx middle school, Cruz joined a track team started by his English teacher. Now a Bronx middle school English teacher himself, Cruz started a running team for his students in the fall of 2021.

He credits his middle school English teacher, Shawanda Weems, who started a track team at P.S./M.S. 15 through the Rising New York Road Runners’ free youth program. Besides its robust youth programming and races that Cruz’s students are training for, the New York Road Runners is renowned for hosting the TCS New York City Marathon; this year, the marathon is scheduled for Nov. 5.

Cruz recounted how he and his friends wanted to become fast runners, so they joined the running group immediately.

“Looking back on that one decision, it changed my life in countless ways,” Cruz said.

Cruz started teaching six years ago at New School for Leadership and the Arts, near where he grew up in University Heights. He became an English teacher, like his first coach, Weems, who continues to offer him mentorship and advice.

Cruz brought the Rising New York Road Runners program to his students about two years ago, when school buildings reopened to all students after the majority of New York City children learned remotely for more than a year.

Worried how the students would transition back to being in person after prolonged isolation, he thought track could be as transformative to his middle schoolers as it was for him.

“The need to develop their social-emotional skills, teamwork, and help them improve their physical and mental health was at the forefront of my thoughts,” he said. “It triggered the memory of middle school track with Ms. Weems.”

As a student on the track team, he bonded with friends outside of the classroom. They began to think about their health and what they were eating, and they formed “lifelong memories” at their track meets, Cruz recounted. His middle school teammates, Cris, Jose, and James, continue to be a “huge” part of his life.

“Till this day,” Cruz said, “we still speak of the many races at Central Park, Washington Heights, the dreaded hills of Van Cortlandt Park, the meets at Icahn, and the bus rides back to school after a day running.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

It’s amazing to hear that you still live and teach in the neighborhood where you grew up. How and when did you decide to become a teacher?

During my high school years, my track team would practice Monday through Thursday, and I would write down all our workouts, drills, stretches, and my own personal times in a little notebook. Every Friday I would go back to my middle school and help the younger runners — help them improve with what I learned. I would demonstrate to them how to do new drills, how to improve their form on old drills, and help them improve on their own individual events they wanted to run at their track meets.

Little did I know, I was already forming a culture of teaching within myself.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why, whether in the classroom or the field?

During our track practices, I love when we do our buddy runs. For this activity, the upperclassmen must find a buddy in the sixth or seventh grade and run with them for the practice. You can actively see the upperclassmen not only mentor the younger runners but also teach them all the skills I have taught them over years.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your school?

Our school is located in the northwest section of the Bronx. We are able to go outside for runs, have practices in local parks, and walk to some of our track meets at Van Cortlandt Park. Even with all these great benefits, we cannot escape the economic perils that hold back many Bronxites.

Our first year with the Rising New York Road Runner program, we began with a core of around 15 students. The following year, 2022-2023, our numbers ballooned to 40 or so students. After our first month of practice, it was immediately clear that we had a nutrition and running attire issue.

With so many of our student-athletes living severely under the poverty line, it was almost impossible for all of them to go out and purchase running sneakers, something they drastically needed. I still remember one of our returning runners confessing to us that he had to stop running because his feet were in too much pain for him to keep on going any longer.

Thankfully, with the partnership of the New York Road Runners, we were able to gift to our runners and many from our school student population brand new New Balance running sneakers.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and how have you put it into practice?

The best advice I’ve ever had is to make anything you do in the classroom or in practice engaging. A student who can’t wait to accomplish a goal is a student who has bought into your program and philosophy.

Have you ever run the NYC marathon?

Next year will be my first-ever marathon. I took a break from running to focus on teaching and just recently began running again. Slowly ramping up my mileage in hopes that in 2024, I cross the finish line of the New York City Marathon.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.