This week, a plunge into something new. I'm interning at the Statehouse working on education policy. Firsts: first time working in a government building, first time walking through a metal detector to get to the office. We all deal with policy--ramifications, fallouts--on a daily basis. But--first time dealing with it from the inside-out.
My first day my supervisor handed me a three-inch-thick binder. Instructions: learn everything you can about English Language Learners. I put my head in the binder and emerged a few hours later swimming in Whereas this and Ch. that.
The inherent limits of policy strike me right off the bat. I'm not in an ELL classroom, and most of the briefs and reports I've read don't make me feel like I am. I'd love to read some organized testimony of teachers: what's it like to do this work? What do you think the law should say? I'm sure it's out there for the finding.
Even if policy is informed by the grassroots, how much of current, or amended, policy can reach back to the classroom? Should reach that deep?
**
It's an interesting way to learn. Before Wednesday, I knew almost nothing about ELLs. I know something more about language acquisition. This is perhaps the most transactual learning I've ever done. Learning for the purpose of tweaking a bill that has already been written. Learning just enough, in compressed time, to suggest those tweaks. Borrowing ideas already in use in other states. Writing to the constraints of four-page policy memos. Will it feel liberating, having so specific an outcome? Will it feel limiting?
**
It was a hard decision to drop my fifth class. I was already feeling overwhelmed by the workload. I found myself stringing together 14-hour days, yet still not fully engaging with the work in some courses. I pulled the plug on an extra quantitative class, in favor of being able to dive more deeply into projects I'm passionate about in other classes. I think it's the right tradeoff.
The limit to the one-year program is always having to make these trade-offs.
I already feel better. I can follow through on having a discussion group for a class. Talking through readings solidifies learning for me. I'm excited all over again for this last semester.
**
An observation this year: I miss the grassroots. I miss my students, my class. I miss the crafting of lessons, the buzz of carrying them out, the lightbulbs when folks make connections. The new recruits for the next course. I loved--love--working with adults to help them overcome the limits of not speaking English. I miss pushing the limits of practice.
I'm trying to heed the voices of my passions as I answer the $39,500 question: What Comes Next? I came to grad school because I wanted to touch more than a dozen or two lives at a time. I came because I saw my students confronting the realities of living poor in Boston and wanted to be part of a movement that could holistically address, upend, change those realities.
Should I go back to a classroom? I don't think having a foot (heart, head) back in the grassroots need be seen as a limit. I'd love to do good work on the ground and connect to good work at the 10, 20, 30,000 foot level. Not sure how. Still working on the roadmap.
Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
February 10, 2012
January 9, 2012
Sharing the Love
I've written before about my fascination with--and questions for--cradle-to-career programs like the Strive Partnership in Cincinnati. Education Sector just put out a report on Strive, a collaborative effort by countless schools, nonprofits, and businesses to support positive academic achievement for children along a continuum from birth to college completion.
There's a lot that's promising and new about Strive. To name just a few elements: First, from a partnerships standpoint, universities have taken the lead in new ways. Strive emerged, six years ago, out of conversations among more than 200 education and nonprofit and community leaders. Who convened them? Then-University of Cincinnati President Nancy Zimpher. It's refreshing to witness the active role of local universities not just in supporting these initiatives, but finding ways to measure their own success in relation to K-12 work. Second, from a policy standpoint, there is a long-overdue focus on early childhood education--often the forgotten stepchild of ed funding. Third, from a jurisdictional standpoint, Strive is not just Cincinnati: it also involves the smaller Kentucky cities of Newport and Covington, just across the Ohio River. And the efforts don't just comprise public schools--multiple parochial schools are actively included in the partnership.
The report covers a lot of the same ground dealt with elsewhere, but here are some nuggets I haven't seen in other reports:
The whole report is short, to the point, and free, so it's worth a complete look.
There's a lot that's promising and new about Strive. To name just a few elements: First, from a partnerships standpoint, universities have taken the lead in new ways. Strive emerged, six years ago, out of conversations among more than 200 education and nonprofit and community leaders. Who convened them? Then-University of Cincinnati President Nancy Zimpher. It's refreshing to witness the active role of local universities not just in supporting these initiatives, but finding ways to measure their own success in relation to K-12 work. Second, from a policy standpoint, there is a long-overdue focus on early childhood education--often the forgotten stepchild of ed funding. Third, from a jurisdictional standpoint, Strive is not just Cincinnati: it also involves the smaller Kentucky cities of Newport and Covington, just across the Ohio River. And the efforts don't just comprise public schools--multiple parochial schools are actively included in the partnership.
The report covers a lot of the same ground dealt with elsewhere, but here are some nuggets I haven't seen in other reports:
- Strive's shared accountability is both in line with the edzeitgeist in its focus on data, and cuts against it by moving the focus beyond individual teachers or schools
- The Feds' Promise Neighborhoods Initiative, which echoes Strive and is centered on schooling, nevertheless requires that the lead partners of each PNI be a nonprofit or institution of higher education: this "serves to broaden the range of desired outcomes beyond the purely academic to include the developmental needs of student"
- Sharing data is really, really hard--many partners at Strive "often collect, store, and analyze data in incompatible and disconnected way"; but they're working on improving the scene
The whole report is short, to the point, and free, so it's worth a complete look.
December 18, 2011
Next Steps for Adult Learners: A Sequence of Possible Classroom Activities
Last week, I laid out a concern facing many adult language learners: when you've maxed out the course offerings at one site, how do you find the next class? Especially in a climate of long waitlists at the publicly- or grant-funded programs sought out by many low-income immigrants? At my former small agency, where we could only support a five-month beginning-level ESOL course, the issue of connecting students to "next steps" became so paramount that one of the most important parts of the program became what students would get to do after the program.
Because all of my students wanted so badly to keep studying English once they'd gotten an initial taste, I developed, through trial and error, a series of activities designed to help them do just that. I had a few guiding principles. First, I wanted to elicit students' interest in next steps. I had my own theoretical bases for why it was desirable for students to keep their language-acquisition momentum, and was happy enough to share it, but I tried to maximize their own urgency. Second, it's a big, bad (well, at least long-waitlisted) world. The Boston area, like many metropolitan regions, is replete with agencies, course offerings, and levels of study. Negotiating these thickets in English is hard enough; harder still if one is learning English. I was there to support students. Finally, I made the process iterative. This might be nice: write down three program phone numbers; add water; enroll in intermediate English. But it's unrealistic. The issued needed to be visited, then revisited.
So here's the rough sequence of activities to help students explore--and secure--"next steps":
Pose the Problem: Using the "problem-posing" methods derived from the revolutionary Brazilian educator Paolo Freire, I introduce a "codification" of the problem of continuing English. Usually I show students a picture of a few adults sitting at home, looking downbeat (thanks, Google Docs), with a couple lines of dialogue from each I've typed on the paper: "I used to study English at X location. I called Y program. I'm waiting." I lead students through a five-stage process to uncover the dilemma, make meaning of it, and develop an action plan for the characters. At the end, I ask: What would you do in this situation? And it turns into an action plan for themselves.
Write a Script: Students brainstorm questions to ask a program when they call it, e.g., Is there a cost? What levels do you have? When does class meet? What's your address? Students can usually hit the main ones themselves. Teachers can suggest others they might have missed. I help them collectively edit the quesitons, then pass out a "next-steps" form. They write down the questions, and the form goes in a sacred spot in their binders.
Practice Phone Calls: This is your classic practice asking and answering the questions students have devised. Student A is potential program registrant; Student B is a staff member at the agency being called. It's more fun when students pull out their cells. For those who are ready, it's most fun (and realistic, and challenging) when one student goes into another room, actually calls the other, then holds the conversation.
Bring in a Guest Speaker: In the past, I'd invite an adult-ed mentor of mine, whom I'll call Tim, a highly-respected program director at another program, to visit my class to talk about next steps. He'd talk about "confidence," answer students' many questions (in English!), and recommend programs to look at. Students already have an intrinsic drive for next steps, but this exposes them to another voice to reinforce the message and motivate them. And, it provides them with a connection to a program. I used Tim's visit as a placeholder the rest of my course to connect back to the next steps concept.
Find Programs: I provide students with directories of local English classes, divided by neighborhood. Sometimes this means packets printed from the state Department of Education Web site, or Boston's English for New Bostonians Web site. Sometimes this means directing students to those Web sites, with guidance on how to navigate the search functions. Students fill out a preset worksheet with contact information for four to six programs.
Call Programs: A nice weekend homework assignment: between Friday and Tuesday, call two programs, ask the questions you brainstormed earlier, and write down the answers. Now, some programs' outreach officers speak languages common to Boston immigrants, like Spanish or Haitian Creole. But not always. And few programs have staff who speak languages like Mai Mai or Somalian that other students of mine have spoken. So while students may find they can simply speak their native language when calling certain programs, they'll have to ask the questions in English sometimes.
Share Back: After the first homework assignment, I have students share with each other the information they've heard from other programs. If one student calls a program in Jamaica Plain and there are no intermediate classes, another student can cross that program off her list, and add in a different program that might make more sense. We also discuss how it's going: Are there other questions students should be asking? Did somebody's aunt just get in a program nobody knew about? Do they have more spaces? Often this informal networking is just as important to getting students in continuing education.
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat: The next week or weekend's homework is to call three or four more programs.
Celebrate Successes: One morning last spring, a student came into my class early: "I have news," she said, "I have a class for August!" Chances were, she had already told classmates the good tidings, but I asked her if I could put her on the agenda to make sure everyone heard, and celebrated, her news.
Hit the Pavement: I take my students to visit one other program, which in the past has been a well-respected site, located downtown off several bus or train lines, with multiple ESOL levels. Such a visit, at which the program's outreach coordinator presented the course offerings and registration process, gave the concept of "next steps" yet another friendly face, provided a practical option for many students, and gave them practice getting there on public transit. A visit to a local literacy center got at the issue from the other end: most public libraries are hubs for education and job-placement resources.
Discuss Plan B: After a few weeks of this process, I often raise the qustion: what happens if you're put on waitlists everywhere you call? We brainstorm steps: read books, go to the literacy center, take a lighter-level conversation class at the library; call me for more ideas. I make sure everyone has my cell phone number (though not every teacher would be comfortable with this) and office number to call me for more support should they still be exploring classes after graduating my course.
Follow Up Individually: Over the last few weeks of class, in one-on-one conferences with students, I check in with students about their progress finding classes. As important as whole-class activities are to investigate next steps, individual check-ins can uncover particular difficulties or be a space to comfortably suggest new pathways or ideas.
Connect to Curriculum: I haven't done this in every class, but in one course our next steps explorations coincided with a unit on Following Directions (turn left, turn right, where's the restaurant? and so on). I created mock conversation between a student and program staff involving directions from the train to a downtown program. I built it into a Jazz Chant, which students practiced over multiple classes, both to reinforce in a high-energy way what they were learning grammatically as well as to suggest language useful for phone calls. Ultimately, we turned it into a role-play, again with cell phones.
**
As I look at these activities, carried out in this fashion, a few things stand out. First, it takes a lot of time and effort. Not that that's a bad thing, but it's striking how prominent a role this has played in my classroom. Second, there are obvious connections to students' self-advocacy for other resources. The most obvious parallel is to securing free or affordable childcare, a common issue for so many of my past students: just as with ESOL programs, there are eligibility requirements, many suppliers, a variety of ways in which the service is offered, and variation in quality. It might make sense to frame "searching for English classes" more explicitly as "searching for resources in general." Third, the process assumes the need for next steps is universal, and lays out the activities accordingly. In my experience, the need has been universal, but what about when several students have already discovered their next class. Does it make sense to continue to use everyone's classroom time to address the remaining needs of a few students? What would it look like to do some next-steps activities on a voluntary, out-of-class-time basis?
My dear Blog Visitors--what stands out to you? What sounds good? What's missing here? What could be done differently?
Because all of my students wanted so badly to keep studying English once they'd gotten an initial taste, I developed, through trial and error, a series of activities designed to help them do just that. I had a few guiding principles. First, I wanted to elicit students' interest in next steps. I had my own theoretical bases for why it was desirable for students to keep their language-acquisition momentum, and was happy enough to share it, but I tried to maximize their own urgency. Second, it's a big, bad (well, at least long-waitlisted) world. The Boston area, like many metropolitan regions, is replete with agencies, course offerings, and levels of study. Negotiating these thickets in English is hard enough; harder still if one is learning English. I was there to support students. Finally, I made the process iterative. This might be nice: write down three program phone numbers; add water; enroll in intermediate English. But it's unrealistic. The issued needed to be visited, then revisited.
So here's the rough sequence of activities to help students explore--and secure--"next steps":
Pose the Problem: Using the "problem-posing" methods derived from the revolutionary Brazilian educator Paolo Freire, I introduce a "codification" of the problem of continuing English. Usually I show students a picture of a few adults sitting at home, looking downbeat (thanks, Google Docs), with a couple lines of dialogue from each I've typed on the paper: "I used to study English at X location. I called Y program. I'm waiting." I lead students through a five-stage process to uncover the dilemma, make meaning of it, and develop an action plan for the characters. At the end, I ask: What would you do in this situation? And it turns into an action plan for themselves.
Write a Script: Students brainstorm questions to ask a program when they call it, e.g., Is there a cost? What levels do you have? When does class meet? What's your address? Students can usually hit the main ones themselves. Teachers can suggest others they might have missed. I help them collectively edit the quesitons, then pass out a "next-steps" form. They write down the questions, and the form goes in a sacred spot in their binders.
Practice Phone Calls: This is your classic practice asking and answering the questions students have devised. Student A is potential program registrant; Student B is a staff member at the agency being called. It's more fun when students pull out their cells. For those who are ready, it's most fun (and realistic, and challenging) when one student goes into another room, actually calls the other, then holds the conversation.
Bring in a Guest Speaker: In the past, I'd invite an adult-ed mentor of mine, whom I'll call Tim, a highly-respected program director at another program, to visit my class to talk about next steps. He'd talk about "confidence," answer students' many questions (in English!), and recommend programs to look at. Students already have an intrinsic drive for next steps, but this exposes them to another voice to reinforce the message and motivate them. And, it provides them with a connection to a program. I used Tim's visit as a placeholder the rest of my course to connect back to the next steps concept.
Find Programs: I provide students with directories of local English classes, divided by neighborhood. Sometimes this means packets printed from the state Department of Education Web site, or Boston's English for New Bostonians Web site. Sometimes this means directing students to those Web sites, with guidance on how to navigate the search functions. Students fill out a preset worksheet with contact information for four to six programs.
Call Programs: A nice weekend homework assignment: between Friday and Tuesday, call two programs, ask the questions you brainstormed earlier, and write down the answers. Now, some programs' outreach officers speak languages common to Boston immigrants, like Spanish or Haitian Creole. But not always. And few programs have staff who speak languages like Mai Mai or Somalian that other students of mine have spoken. So while students may find they can simply speak their native language when calling certain programs, they'll have to ask the questions in English sometimes.
Share Back: After the first homework assignment, I have students share with each other the information they've heard from other programs. If one student calls a program in Jamaica Plain and there are no intermediate classes, another student can cross that program off her list, and add in a different program that might make more sense. We also discuss how it's going: Are there other questions students should be asking? Did somebody's aunt just get in a program nobody knew about? Do they have more spaces? Often this informal networking is just as important to getting students in continuing education.
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat: The next week or weekend's homework is to call three or four more programs.
Celebrate Successes: One morning last spring, a student came into my class early: "I have news," she said, "I have a class for August!" Chances were, she had already told classmates the good tidings, but I asked her if I could put her on the agenda to make sure everyone heard, and celebrated, her news.
Hit the Pavement: I take my students to visit one other program, which in the past has been a well-respected site, located downtown off several bus or train lines, with multiple ESOL levels. Such a visit, at which the program's outreach coordinator presented the course offerings and registration process, gave the concept of "next steps" yet another friendly face, provided a practical option for many students, and gave them practice getting there on public transit. A visit to a local literacy center got at the issue from the other end: most public libraries are hubs for education and job-placement resources.
Discuss Plan B: After a few weeks of this process, I often raise the qustion: what happens if you're put on waitlists everywhere you call? We brainstorm steps: read books, go to the literacy center, take a lighter-level conversation class at the library; call me for more ideas. I make sure everyone has my cell phone number (though not every teacher would be comfortable with this) and office number to call me for more support should they still be exploring classes after graduating my course.
Follow Up Individually: Over the last few weeks of class, in one-on-one conferences with students, I check in with students about their progress finding classes. As important as whole-class activities are to investigate next steps, individual check-ins can uncover particular difficulties or be a space to comfortably suggest new pathways or ideas.
Connect to Curriculum: I haven't done this in every class, but in one course our next steps explorations coincided with a unit on Following Directions (turn left, turn right, where's the restaurant? and so on). I created mock conversation between a student and program staff involving directions from the train to a downtown program. I built it into a Jazz Chant, which students practiced over multiple classes, both to reinforce in a high-energy way what they were learning grammatically as well as to suggest language useful for phone calls. Ultimately, we turned it into a role-play, again with cell phones.
**
As I look at these activities, carried out in this fashion, a few things stand out. First, it takes a lot of time and effort. Not that that's a bad thing, but it's striking how prominent a role this has played in my classroom. Second, there are obvious connections to students' self-advocacy for other resources. The most obvious parallel is to securing free or affordable childcare, a common issue for so many of my past students: just as with ESOL programs, there are eligibility requirements, many suppliers, a variety of ways in which the service is offered, and variation in quality. It might make sense to frame "searching for English classes" more explicitly as "searching for resources in general." Third, the process assumes the need for next steps is universal, and lays out the activities accordingly. In my experience, the need has been universal, but what about when several students have already discovered their next class. Does it make sense to continue to use everyone's classroom time to address the remaining needs of a few students? What would it look like to do some next-steps activities on a voluntary, out-of-class-time basis?
My dear Blog Visitors--what stands out to you? What sounds good? What's missing here? What could be done differently?
December 10, 2011
Next Steps for Adult Learners: What's the Problem?
This past April, I had the good fortune to spend a week in Montreal, bumming around la belle ville, barely missing the chance to use Bixi bike-sharing, and everywhere I went trying to pull together the bits and scraps of French I'd learned in the U.S. (and was learning there): at my hostel, at the grocery store, on the street. I had enough grammar to purchase my share of wine, if too little vocabulary to discuss whether it was any good, to say nothing of follow the conversations that pinballed around my hostel's rather cramped and enlivened dining room once that first (second, or third) bottle had been uncorked.
I got by--indeed without having to fall back on English too often. And I got better. But eight months later, grad school has intervened and made those bits and scraps suddenly seem all the more infinitesimal. It's a situation any of us who has labored through the beginnings of a foreign language as an adult can attest to: three steps forward, a few months off, two steps backward. Language "attrition," as it's known, is only one of a murderer's row of hurdles facing adult language learners. For adult ESOL learners, whose language acquisition is quite a bit more high-stakes than anything I've experienced, it's a big concern. And an issue that raises important questions about helping adult ESOL learners access their "next steps"--how to help them keep studying English once they've maxed out the opportunities within a single program.
Given the demand for ESOL in Massachusetts, it has been heartening to see how many small programs exist in all imaginable corners of the city: in the pocket-sized human-services agency where I used to work, in school-based community centers, housing projects, daycare centers, churches, prisons. There are still the established, state-funded, multi-level programs, but who's kidding themselves? The state can't or won't fund all the demand.
The challenge with storefront programs like the one I worked at is that they may not have the multiple levels provided by the state-funded bulwarks. Students put 6 or 9 months in, then what happens? In my five-month program, students did a number of things to prepare for graduation and the inevitable search for a next course. For more on that, stay tuned. But after a few months, either through the grapevine or formal follow-up, I would tally up the progress of my alumni. The result was usually this: about half were studying English elsewhere, another quarter were looking or were on a waitlist, and the rest I either couldn't get in touch with or had ceased looking for more English.
I wasn't concerned about the 50 percent still studying. These students were the obvious successes of our next-steps preparations. It was the other 50 percent that got me thinking. I hardly expected every student to keep studying English. Life happens, especially for the low-income immigrant folks who came through our doors. In one of many such examples, a student once had to drop my class right after starting because her daughter had a baby. She was now a rather heavily-involved grandmother; English could wait.
I was curious about those three, four, or five who wanted to continue but didn't have the relatively immediate opportunity to. Like virtually all my students, they had entered my program with clear goals for learning English: To defend myself in everyday situations. To help my daughter with her homework. To get a job (or a better one). By the same token, I cannot remember a single student who didn't want to keep studying English once she got a taste of a class. In following up months after graduation, I found that many were waiting for a call back, and many were on a waitlist--often at multiple programs.
That wasn't surprising, given demand in our area. The main adult-education program in Cambridge has a waitlist of 439, a smaller program, 128. In Somerville, the waitlist for the program run through the public schools currently stands at 1011. In Boston, an organization in Chinatown runs to 296, another in South Boston to 211. It was an accomplishment that my students had the motivation and wherewithal to get on those waitlists in the first place. That can't be overlooked. But the waits that inevitably ensued--three, four, five months or more--were a frustration to my old students. And the likelihood that they were squandering to attrition some of their hardwon language skills ought to be a concern to all of us in the field.
Many a student--current or former--complained to me about this situation. Nearing the closure of one cycle I taught, my beginner-level crew teamed up with an offer I wish I hadn't had to refuse: Would I make my next class intermediate-level, and keep them all on board for the next six months? I couldn't, but it only reinforced my efforts to prepare students for what could come next. Still, the mixed results of future groups suggests new ways to think about next steps. Indeed, not every program has the bloated waitlists of the ones I mentioned above. But how do we go about finding out what's available, and where? And how do we get students into those spaces?
I got by--indeed without having to fall back on English too often. And I got better. But eight months later, grad school has intervened and made those bits and scraps suddenly seem all the more infinitesimal. It's a situation any of us who has labored through the beginnings of a foreign language as an adult can attest to: three steps forward, a few months off, two steps backward. Language "attrition," as it's known, is only one of a murderer's row of hurdles facing adult language learners. For adult ESOL learners, whose language acquisition is quite a bit more high-stakes than anything I've experienced, it's a big concern. And an issue that raises important questions about helping adult ESOL learners access their "next steps"--how to help them keep studying English once they've maxed out the opportunities within a single program.
Given the demand for ESOL in Massachusetts, it has been heartening to see how many small programs exist in all imaginable corners of the city: in the pocket-sized human-services agency where I used to work, in school-based community centers, housing projects, daycare centers, churches, prisons. There are still the established, state-funded, multi-level programs, but who's kidding themselves? The state can't or won't fund all the demand.
The challenge with storefront programs like the one I worked at is that they may not have the multiple levels provided by the state-funded bulwarks. Students put 6 or 9 months in, then what happens? In my five-month program, students did a number of things to prepare for graduation and the inevitable search for a next course. For more on that, stay tuned. But after a few months, either through the grapevine or formal follow-up, I would tally up the progress of my alumni. The result was usually this: about half were studying English elsewhere, another quarter were looking or were on a waitlist, and the rest I either couldn't get in touch with or had ceased looking for more English.
I wasn't concerned about the 50 percent still studying. These students were the obvious successes of our next-steps preparations. It was the other 50 percent that got me thinking. I hardly expected every student to keep studying English. Life happens, especially for the low-income immigrant folks who came through our doors. In one of many such examples, a student once had to drop my class right after starting because her daughter had a baby. She was now a rather heavily-involved grandmother; English could wait.
I was curious about those three, four, or five who wanted to continue but didn't have the relatively immediate opportunity to. Like virtually all my students, they had entered my program with clear goals for learning English: To defend myself in everyday situations. To help my daughter with her homework. To get a job (or a better one). By the same token, I cannot remember a single student who didn't want to keep studying English once she got a taste of a class. In following up months after graduation, I found that many were waiting for a call back, and many were on a waitlist--often at multiple programs.
That wasn't surprising, given demand in our area. The main adult-education program in Cambridge has a waitlist of 439, a smaller program, 128. In Somerville, the waitlist for the program run through the public schools currently stands at 1011. In Boston, an organization in Chinatown runs to 296, another in South Boston to 211. It was an accomplishment that my students had the motivation and wherewithal to get on those waitlists in the first place. That can't be overlooked. But the waits that inevitably ensued--three, four, five months or more--were a frustration to my old students. And the likelihood that they were squandering to attrition some of their hardwon language skills ought to be a concern to all of us in the field.
Many a student--current or former--complained to me about this situation. Nearing the closure of one cycle I taught, my beginner-level crew teamed up with an offer I wish I hadn't had to refuse: Would I make my next class intermediate-level, and keep them all on board for the next six months? I couldn't, but it only reinforced my efforts to prepare students for what could come next. Still, the mixed results of future groups suggests new ways to think about next steps. Indeed, not every program has the bloated waitlists of the ones I mentioned above. But how do we go about finding out what's available, and where? And how do we get students into those spaces?
October 24, 2011
How Much, or How?
Ooh boy, Nicholas Kristof writing about all the things I care about!
He gets right to the point about how little public funding goes to children under age 5. And to how early investments in children actually have documented cost-benefit pay-offs.
Kristof's also refreshingly frank in taking on Head Start questions. He admits what we've long known, that some gains (e.g. IQ) for kids who go through HS wear off quickly. But he points out that "the former Head Start participants are significantly less likely than siblings to repeat grades, to be diagnosed with a learning disability, or to suffer the kind of poor health associated with poverty." Those are really important measures, especially when you consider how repeating grades sets kids up to drop out.
His closing point is: we can't afford not to fund early childhood. But it's not just a question of how much funding early-childhood gets. It's a question of how programs are run.
Problem is, quality of day-care varies a lot. And overall, the picture isn't pretty--some programs are excellent, others terrible, most in-between. That variation happens even within a government-funded program like Head Start, not to mention in the ever-growing area of private day-care. Are play areas safe? Are teachers well-trained? Are adult-child interactions engaging? These are not side questions, they are the main questions.
Dumping a whole lot of money into early-childhood without ways of ensuring programs are actually well-run won't do much for the disadvantaged kids Kristof cares about. Kids from tough backgrounds need great programs, not just more programs.
He gets right to the point about how little public funding goes to children under age 5. And to how early investments in children actually have documented cost-benefit pay-offs.
Kristof's also refreshingly frank in taking on Head Start questions. He admits what we've long known, that some gains (e.g. IQ) for kids who go through HS wear off quickly. But he points out that "the former Head Start participants are significantly less likely than siblings to repeat grades, to be diagnosed with a learning disability, or to suffer the kind of poor health associated with poverty." Those are really important measures, especially when you consider how repeating grades sets kids up to drop out.
His closing point is: we can't afford not to fund early childhood. But it's not just a question of how much funding early-childhood gets. It's a question of how programs are run.
Problem is, quality of day-care varies a lot. And overall, the picture isn't pretty--some programs are excellent, others terrible, most in-between. That variation happens even within a government-funded program like Head Start, not to mention in the ever-growing area of private day-care. Are play areas safe? Are teachers well-trained? Are adult-child interactions engaging? These are not side questions, they are the main questions.
Dumping a whole lot of money into early-childhood without ways of ensuring programs are actually well-run won't do much for the disadvantaged kids Kristof cares about. Kids from tough backgrounds need great programs, not just more programs.
October 20, 2011
The Weakened Links
Trying to fund linkages is impossible, because it we'd have to deal with too many funding streams--federal, state, and local.
That's what staff members from a foundation that fights poverty in a large U.S. city told me when I asked them if they provide funding to help programs link together with other ones--not just drive funding to single organizations.
Research shows that helping poor people through interventions works best if one intervention leads to another. Nonprofits are notorious for protecting their turf and avoiding collaboration. We're never gonna solve tough problems unless we solve them together. And we're never gonna work together unless we can line up our dollars.
By the way, this was a major foundation with a lot of pull. If they step back from linkage-funding with their hands in the air, that says something.
That's what staff members from a foundation that fights poverty in a large U.S. city told me when I asked them if they provide funding to help programs link together with other ones--not just drive funding to single organizations.
Research shows that helping poor people through interventions works best if one intervention leads to another. Nonprofits are notorious for protecting their turf and avoiding collaboration. We're never gonna solve tough problems unless we solve them together. And we're never gonna work together unless we can line up our dollars.
By the way, this was a major foundation with a lot of pull. If they step back from linkage-funding with their hands in the air, that says something.
October 17, 2011
Shout #1: From Dependence to Independence in the ESOL Classroom
The home-cooked arepa. The colorful pencil, offered during break. The stuffed doll brought back from Puerto Rico: There was nothing more touching than when one of my adult ESOL students took the time to give me a gift.
After a year of teaching, under almost all circumstances, I stopped accepting them.
Dependence. My students--mostly Latino--had a major cultural predilection to it. Growing up, they stood up when their teachers entered the room, and called them maestros. In the U.S., they were heavily dependent on the social-service safety net. They were women of color taught by a white male. If they had jobs, most worked as housekeepers, where they busted butt and kept their mouths shut. Everywhere they looked, the power differential was against them.
But for immigrants, any pathway to success in the U.S. must be a path away from dependence and toward independence.
Every time students asked me for my opinion during a class discussion. Every time they asked me for my perfect pronunciation. Every time they waited for my approving smile after giving me a slice of cake--built their affinity for me. It filtered their class experiences through me. It made me the source of All Language Knowledge. It made them rely on ... me.
Are there times to accept gifts? Absolutely, and I'll discuss that more in a future post. Are there times to jump in with a correct pronunciation? Sure. In the classroom, is some reliance on the teacher a good thing? Yes, at least at first.
But my students came in with tons of dependence, and didn't need any more from me, that's for certain. So with every subsequent decision, I started asking myself one question: How will this help my students become more interdependent and independent?
It's a question all of us ESOL teachers should be asking ourselves every day.
After a year of teaching, under almost all circumstances, I stopped accepting them.
Dependence. My students--mostly Latino--had a major cultural predilection to it. Growing up, they stood up when their teachers entered the room, and called them maestros. In the U.S., they were heavily dependent on the social-service safety net. They were women of color taught by a white male. If they had jobs, most worked as housekeepers, where they busted butt and kept their mouths shut. Everywhere they looked, the power differential was against them.
But for immigrants, any pathway to success in the U.S. must be a path away from dependence and toward independence.
Every time students asked me for my opinion during a class discussion. Every time they asked me for my perfect pronunciation. Every time they waited for my approving smile after giving me a slice of cake--built their affinity for me. It filtered their class experiences through me. It made me the source of All Language Knowledge. It made them rely on ... me.
Are there times to accept gifts? Absolutely, and I'll discuss that more in a future post. Are there times to jump in with a correct pronunciation? Sure. In the classroom, is some reliance on the teacher a good thing? Yes, at least at first.
But my students came in with tons of dependence, and didn't need any more from me, that's for certain. So with every subsequent decision, I started asking myself one question: How will this help my students become more interdependent and independent?
It's a question all of us ESOL teachers should be asking ourselves every day.
October 10, 2011
ConStrived?
I had a fascinating conversation Friday with a self-described "instigator" who's helping lead a replication of the STRIVE Together program of the Cincinnati area elsewhere in the Midwest.
Such organizations are modeled loosely off the Harlem Children's Zone and attempt to create cradle-to-career pathways for kids in disadvantaged areas. These Midwestern models differ from HCZ in that they are larger than 100 square blocks and promote collaboration among existing agencies. And their funding is different--I mean, not everyone can be hand-in-glove with Wall Street, right?
Here's what else the Other Midwest Plan has going for it: business, community, and school-district buy-in. Focus on STEM subjects: science, technology, math. Accountability measures from top-to-bottom, including managed instruction and continuous improvement plans. Use of great practices from across the country. Assurance of on-the-ground quality, through plenty of support and professional development for teachers, out-of-school time programs for kids, inclusion of volunteer labor. Emphasis on kindergarten readiness. I took the devil's-advocate pose over and over, and got pretty satisfying answers back.
When what started as a 20-minute call ended at an hour, I thought: Wow, this Other Midwest Plan sounds great! ...
... But is it too good to be true?
The rapid dissemination of the cradle-to-career idea (which I've written about before) is encouraging, insofar as I think it's a good way to frame the movement to achieve legitimate outcomes for kids from tough backgrounds. But it's also a new path full of booby-traps.
A few questions that I think must be addressed:
Such organizations are modeled loosely off the Harlem Children's Zone and attempt to create cradle-to-career pathways for kids in disadvantaged areas. These Midwestern models differ from HCZ in that they are larger than 100 square blocks and promote collaboration among existing agencies. And their funding is different--I mean, not everyone can be hand-in-glove with Wall Street, right?
Here's what else the Other Midwest Plan has going for it: business, community, and school-district buy-in. Focus on STEM subjects: science, technology, math. Accountability measures from top-to-bottom, including managed instruction and continuous improvement plans. Use of great practices from across the country. Assurance of on-the-ground quality, through plenty of support and professional development for teachers, out-of-school time programs for kids, inclusion of volunteer labor. Emphasis on kindergarten readiness. I took the devil's-advocate pose over and over, and got pretty satisfying answers back.
When what started as a 20-minute call ended at an hour, I thought: Wow, this Other Midwest Plan sounds great! ...
... But is it too good to be true?
The rapid dissemination of the cradle-to-career idea (which I've written about before) is encouraging, insofar as I think it's a good way to frame the movement to achieve legitimate outcomes for kids from tough backgrounds. But it's also a new path full of booby-traps.
A few questions that I think must be addressed:
- How does the laudable focus on educational achievement not get narrowed to outcomes in math and English (or, in a better world, math, English, and science)?
- How do you avoid imposing so much quantitatively-based accountability that you create (unfortunate but plausible) incentives to "teach to the test," or worse, manipulate data? How do you create broad, fair evaluations?
- We know that quality of teaching and adult-child interaction are so important in both K-12 classrooms and daycare. How do C2C programs assure that the consensual, progress-oriented message from movement leaders is not diluted at the grassroots level? More to the point, how do they plan to increase the supply of effective front-line practitioners, especially in an era of fiscal retrenchment?
- The C2C approach is warm, fuzzy, and consensus-oriented. It sometimes seems everybody's determinedly on the same page--or at least trying to get there. What if the consensus is wrong?
- How do you make room for (Business-Speak Alert) "process correction" or continuous reflection, when you're keeping a good face up to secure grant money and political will?
- Many of the major social advances in American history grew out of mobilization and politicization of people at the grassroots. People spoke up and got angry, and things changed (see Civil Rights, women's rights, the Voting Rights Act). Can a movement that is so--in some ways--bloodless have long-term impact?
- How do you keep funders and agencies working together? If funding pulled back at some point, or results were uneven between agencies, wouldn't agencies be tempted to steer their own ship again?
- Isn't this an idea from Rich White Men for poor people of color?
September 28, 2011
Eight Is the Loneliest Number
Every once in a while, a statistic just comes out of nowhere and knocks me down. The share of GED recipients who actually complete college once they've started (now, there's a conversation for another day). The Red Sox' abysmal September record (now, there's a conversation for ... oh wait, there might not be another day).
Yesterday's stunner? A number (from the 90s) showing that only 8 percent of public investment in education is spent on children birth-to-5.
Everything we know says that kids cognitive, emotional, linguistic development has a huge, lifelong impact. Why don't we fund 0-5 better?
Now, I understand: the public K-12 system is a 500-billion-dollar gorilla taking up much, much more than 8 percent. A lot of birth-to-five life happens at home. The private-public balance for daycare is more on the private end than in K-12. The "Head Start didn't work" perception is out there--even if it's not entirely true. But it's still shocking how little our society invests in arguably the most important five years of life.
For society at large, I think it comes to down to this: perception of crisis. Major foundations like Gates, Broad, and Walton zealously fund all stripes of K-12 school reform. These initiatives are problematic in many ways, but I think they've caught fire among donors because of the obvious crisis of American high schools. Open the paper and you read about this-or-that failing school. Turn on the news and you get a steady diet of "kids these days'" troubles with drugs and gangs. Employers are finding that young adults can't do the job. Colleges are finding freshman can't do the classwork.
But there's very much a 0-5 "crisis," as well. Toddlers with health problems, kids who haven't seen letters or heard enough talking at home, and on and on. But this crisis is much more silent. It has to do with complicated genetic-environment interactions beyond the grasp or interest of policymakers. Further, three-year-olds who are falling behind aren't marauding the streets in gangs ... they're just not getting right kind of attention or discipline from Mom or Dad. And even if kindergarten teachers can already see the negative outcomes, these outcomes aren't blaring over the news or failing in droves out of Stats 101 at Your Local State College.
So we don't intuitively grasp early-childhood issues the way we do with older kids. Even if we did, where would the political will be to act? Kids don't vote. Parents of poor, at-risk kids don't either.
Just yesterday, I heard a former advocacy worker say: You have to kiss serious politico butt to get lawmakers to give money to early childhood. I don't want to be mired in pessimism, but how do we change this?
Yesterday's stunner? A number (from the 90s) showing that only 8 percent of public investment in education is spent on children birth-to-5.
Everything we know says that kids cognitive, emotional, linguistic development has a huge, lifelong impact. Why don't we fund 0-5 better?
Now, I understand: the public K-12 system is a 500-billion-dollar gorilla taking up much, much more than 8 percent. A lot of birth-to-five life happens at home. The private-public balance for daycare is more on the private end than in K-12. The "Head Start didn't work" perception is out there--even if it's not entirely true. But it's still shocking how little our society invests in arguably the most important five years of life.
For society at large, I think it comes to down to this: perception of crisis. Major foundations like Gates, Broad, and Walton zealously fund all stripes of K-12 school reform. These initiatives are problematic in many ways, but I think they've caught fire among donors because of the obvious crisis of American high schools. Open the paper and you read about this-or-that failing school. Turn on the news and you get a steady diet of "kids these days'" troubles with drugs and gangs. Employers are finding that young adults can't do the job. Colleges are finding freshman can't do the classwork.
But there's very much a 0-5 "crisis," as well. Toddlers with health problems, kids who haven't seen letters or heard enough talking at home, and on and on. But this crisis is much more silent. It has to do with complicated genetic-environment interactions beyond the grasp or interest of policymakers. Further, three-year-olds who are falling behind aren't marauding the streets in gangs ... they're just not getting right kind of attention or discipline from Mom or Dad. And even if kindergarten teachers can already see the negative outcomes, these outcomes aren't blaring over the news or failing in droves out of Stats 101 at Your Local State College.
So we don't intuitively grasp early-childhood issues the way we do with older kids. Even if we did, where would the political will be to act? Kids don't vote. Parents of poor, at-risk kids don't either.
Just yesterday, I heard a former advocacy worker say: You have to kiss serious politico butt to get lawmakers to give money to early childhood. I don't want to be mired in pessimism, but how do we change this?
September 23, 2011
Out Standing in the Field?
Took a lot of field trips today:
11:15: Interview at an organization that facilitates policy-changes to strengthen community-college outcomes
1:00: Met with the co-director of an upstart parenting program that is explicitly trying to be small and focus only on early-parenting--while linking with other resources to help low-income parents give their kids a successful life
3:30: Met with a social-entrepreneur/student who's poised to launch an organization that would connect poor schoolchildren with wraparound services for their families, to help remove barriers to learning and change the "conversation" about how schools operate
It's a good thing at my age you don't need to fill out permission slips!
By my count, that's 1 existing "linkage" program that's very big and supports front-line work, 1 new front-line program that supports linkages but wants to remain small, and 1 new linkage program that works at the front lines and wants to be big.
If you followed that, I bet you can tell me where the pea is!
Two lines of argument I'm constantly thinking about (in a very, very reduced form):
1) We have enough organizations and enough services. To help disadvantaged folks, we just need to connect them better from one program to another.
2) Poor people shouldn't have to run from program to program to meet their needs. Give them one-stop shops with all services under a single roof. Found a new org that does it all. Or add another program to round out your org.
What do you think?
11:15: Interview at an organization that facilitates policy-changes to strengthen community-college outcomes
1:00: Met with the co-director of an upstart parenting program that is explicitly trying to be small and focus only on early-parenting--while linking with other resources to help low-income parents give their kids a successful life
3:30: Met with a social-entrepreneur/student who's poised to launch an organization that would connect poor schoolchildren with wraparound services for their families, to help remove barriers to learning and change the "conversation" about how schools operate
It's a good thing at my age you don't need to fill out permission slips!
By my count, that's 1 existing "linkage" program that's very big and supports front-line work, 1 new front-line program that supports linkages but wants to remain small, and 1 new linkage program that works at the front lines and wants to be big.
If you followed that, I bet you can tell me where the pea is!
Two lines of argument I'm constantly thinking about (in a very, very reduced form):
1) We have enough organizations and enough services. To help disadvantaged folks, we just need to connect them better from one program to another.
2) Poor people shouldn't have to run from program to program to meet their needs. Give them one-stop shops with all services under a single roof. Found a new org that does it all. Or add another program to round out your org.
What do you think?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)