New Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has had a rough first few days. On Friday morning, she was supposed to make her first visit to a public school in Washington D.C., but she was blocked from entering by a group of protesters. The protesters physically blocked DeVos from reaching the entrance of Jefferson Academy, a middle school. One of them yelled, “She doesn’t represent anything they stand for” and another one, “Keep giving money to senators and find your way to positions, you should be proud of yourself.”

WATCH: Sec. Betsy DeVos physically blocked by protesters from entering DC school–turned away and left.
Video: @SweeneyABC pic.twitter.com/RAycuKEVgm

— ABC 7 News – WJLA (@ABC7News) February 10, 2017

DeVos and her driver turned around and left, but entered the school through another entrance and met with teachers, the principal, and the chancellor of D.C. public schools.

Earlier in the week, DeVos–or whoever runs her Twitter account–sent out a tweet about her first day on the new job.

Day 1 on the job is done, but we’re only getting started. Now where do I find the pencils? pic.twitter.com/0vRKF1opE9

— Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVos) February 9, 2017

What was probably meant as a cute question did not sit well with the public. A ton of Twitter users offered their answers.

@BetsyDeVos not in the thousands of public schools that can barely afford supplies. Looking forward to you cleaning that lil issue up.

— Erin Weaver (@ByErinWeaver) February 9, 2017

Many others pointed out that public schools are underfunded and that many teachers have to use their own money to buy pencils for the students.

@BetsyDeVos At the store. Something you should know: we teachers buy pencils and supplies for our classes with our OWN money.

— Robin McCauley Lynch (@RobinMcCauley) February 9, 2017

Others criticized DeVos’s earlier statement that guns could be necessary in some schools, because students could be threatened by grizzly bears.

.@BetsyDeVos He has them… pic.twitter.com/6UkaKaP0sN

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) February 9, 2017

Some were wondering what she was going to do with the pencils:

.@BetsyDeVos is this what you plan to do with your pencil while public school teachers work hard to educate and protect students? pic.twitter.com/fzyCPlhLkb

— Jaipreet Virdi (@jaivirdi) February 9, 2017

And yet others came up with ideas for how she could make some money to actually buy pencils:

@BetsyDeVos You worked a whole day but didn’t have anything to write with? Maybe you could hold a bake sale to buy some pencils.

— (((David Lytle))) (@davitydave) February 9, 2017

While it was a laughing matter for some, there are still concerns that the new Education Secretary is a billionaire who has no experience working in education or even attending a public school. But as the Washington Teacher’s Union said during an earlier, peaceful, gathering; if DeVos succeeds in her new role, everyone succeeds.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In their final stand against Betsy DeVos, Democrats spent Monday night on the Senate floor, bracing for the controversial cabinet nominee’s confirmation vote. The overnight protest was to no avail, however, as DeVos, President Donald Trump’s education secretary nominee, was confirmed. The vote was split 50-50 until Vice President Mike Pence broke the tie with a deciding vote. But DeVos will begin her post with intense opposition which, Democrats hope, will lead her to shift some of her more radical views to the mainstream. 

Critics of DeVos, a longtime Republican donor, say she will fail to be an advocate for public schools, and might even radically change the country’s education system to be more choice-based. DeVos has decades of experience in private education, and is a fervent supporter of charter schools and religious schools, but lacks experience, personally and professionally, in public education.

In a hearing a few weeks ago, DeVos displayed a basic misunderstanding of the federal law regarding public schools. Responding to a question about the federal law that requires public schools to provide equal opportunities to students with disabilities, DeVos said, “I think that is a matter that’s best left to the states.” Evidently, DeVos did not realize the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is federal law, and is inherently not a state-level issue.

“Cabinet secretaries can’t be expected to know everything. But this is different,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on the Senate floor on Monday. “The nominee for secretary of education doesn’t know some of the most basic facts about education policy.”

Senate Dems protest to keep the failed status quo. Betsy DeVos is a reformer, and she is going to be a great Education Sec. for our kids!

— President Trump (@POTUS) February 7, 2017

Monday’s overnight protest is the latest salvo in a weeks-long flurry of friction from Democrats, lawmakers and constituents, against Trump’s cabinet nominees, most pointedly focused on DeVos. Senators’ phones have been ringing seemingly nonstop, with concerned constituents pushing their representatives to oppose DeVos, and to do more to sway Republicans to their corner.

Two Republicans, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) did just that last week, when they said they would not support DeVos; one more Republican needed to join them in order to block the billionaire. But Collins and Murkowski represent states with vast rural communities, where parents rely on public schools to educate their children. School choice, for many parents in those states, is not an option.

“One thing is very clear: if she is confirmed, she would enter the job as the most controversial and embattled secretary in the history of this department,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) on the Senate floor on Monday. Murray is the top Democrat on the Senate committee that questioned DeVos in her confirmation hearing and, with voting along party lines, propelled her to a full Senate vote. “She would start her job with no credibility inside the agency she is supposed to lead,” Murray added.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” That may be true, but it is not a smooth trajectory. Nor can you set society on the path to more justice and expect it to progress to your goal unsupervised. Creating a just society is not a one-time event. It is a constant process that requires continued maintenance.

More than 60 years after the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education we still face the challenge in the United States of ensuring that students of all races have the same access to a quality education. In many places, the gains that were made in the 1960s and 1970s have been eroded. In some places, it is as though no change took place at all.

Not only is segregated schooling contrary to our laws, it is contrary to our most deeply-held values as a nation of liberty and equity. And if neither the legal nor the moral argument persuade you that this should concern you, consider the self-interest argument. Because the children that we refuse to invest in today are the ones who will be unable to invest back into our society tomorrow.

All Deliberate Speed

This video is long, but if you are interested in a thoughtful discussion of the history of school integration and the challenges that we still face in making its promise a reality it is well worth watching.

Brown vs. Board of Education was in many ways a radical decision, and in some ways not radical enough. It refuted the earlier Supreme Court ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson, at least in the context of public education. In Plessy, the court had held that requiring black and white passengers to use separate accommodations on trains was not unconstitutional so long as the separate facilities were also equal. Thus the question became, in a discrimination case, a question of fact as to how the accommodations actually compared. Requiring black students to use facilities that were of markedly different quality wasn’t permissible, although in practice happened often, but if the facilities were equivalent then separate wasn’t discriminatory.

Brown changed this in the arena of public education. The rationale for opposing the segregation that existed was not merely because the resources provided to children of color were unequal–although that was the case and represented the primary, practical motivation for challenging the status quo–it was that having separate schools, even if those classrooms were identical, was inherently unequal. That separating American children based on race, even if all the other factors of their education remained the same, was in and of itself something that was damaging. In fact, evidence was produced to show psychological harm to black children from their segregated schooling. The practical effect for a school that could have been shown to be unequal in resources would have been the same with a Plessy standard. The school would have to be integrated or given more resources, the same way it would be forced to integrate under Brown. But in terms of what society was now willing to accept as equitable and just, Brown represented a profound change.

But Brown provided no roadmap for how to get from the world of 1954 into a modern, integrated society. And with the use of the now infamous phrase “all deliberate speed,” the court gave the societal forces who opposed integration ammunition in their fight to slow it down or halt it completely. Sixty years later there is still a backlash to integrating our schools.

Take a look at this video that highlights the situation in one town in Alabama that is still struggling with integration.

The Scope of the Problem

If you think that integration is a problem only in the South, think again. In the period from 1968 to 2011 school segregation actually increased in the Northeast–the percentage of black students in schools with at least 90 percent minority students went from 42.7 to 51.4 percent. In New York, 64.6 percent of black students go to a school that fits this definition of “hyper-segregation.”

If you attend a segregated school you are put at an immediate disadvantage, especially if you are a member of a minority group. You are segregated not only by race but also often by class, doubling down on the negative effects of growing up in a low-income neighborhood. Not only do you miss out on the social and cultural stimulation of meeting people who are different from you, you miss out on more tangible perks of a good school as well. Good teachers, good materials, and good courses aren’t on offer for you. The message is no less clearly received by children just because it is not said out loud: You don’t matter.

In contrast, a student who attends an integrated school is given an advantage over his or her segregated peers, whether they are black or white. If you are black and spent a year in a desegregated school your chance of graduating high school went up by 2 percent, for each year you attended that integrated school. If you spent five years in that integrated school your future wages rose by 15 percent, or an extra $5,900 in annual family income. You also are probably less likely to have a criminal record, since for minority boys the racial makeup of their school can have a significant impact on whether they commit a crime. A nonwhite boy in a school that has 60 percent minority students, versus 40 percent minority students, is 16 percent more likely to commit a crime.

Given that schools that have a high minority population are also, by every metric, of lower quality, it is not surprising that parents try to get their children in school elsewhere. Parents diligently research local schools when purchasing homes, take part in lottery systems, advocate for “freedom of choice” in schooling with voucher programs, push charter schools, and sue to resist integration attempts. This impulse is so strong among white parents in particular that even if two schools are equivalent in test scores white parents will opt for the school that has the “right” ratio of white and minority students. Apparently, you want a little diversity, but not too much.

In the midst of this, the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that two school districts could not use race as a factor in assigning pupils to schools. Racial discrimination is not, according to Chief Justice Roberts, an answer to racial discrimination.

Political Will

If taking the race of an individual student isn’t the answer, what is? Take a look at this PBS NewsHour interview that strives to answer that question.

Professor Noguera argues that the situation that we see here–where poor, minority children are unable to break out of a cycle of segregation and poverty–is because of a lack of investment and a lack of political will. Our Nordic neighbors would definitely agree. In Finland, a country that is generally lauded as having the most successful education system in the world, decisions are made very differently.

In her book, “The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life,” Anu Partanen explains the two different philosophical approaches to the question of education. The first approach is the “demand” approach. Education is an investment that parents are making in their children. And so to increase the quality of education you need to increase the demand for it made by those parents. Competition–charter schools, private schools, school choice vouchers etc.–will help to so this. In the United States many people, often Republicans but not exclusively so, support this theory. It allows parents to take the initiative to advocate for their children and to place them in the best possible circumstances.

Partanen’s critique of this approach is twofold. First, although parents are expected to make this investment they don’t directly benefit; it is the children and society at large who benefit from this investment–and not for 20 years or so. This may make the link between reward and investment tenuous for parents and perhaps discourage the investment. Which leads to the second, stronger criticism that it places all children at the mercy of their parents’ willingness and ability to invest in them. The most vulnerable children, children born to parents who do not have the means to invest financially in their education and/or do not have the inclination to do so, are just out of luck. Unless they happen to fall into a good school district, which is highly unlikely. Your entire academic fate rests on that first roll of the dice–who you were born to.

The Nordic Model

The alternate approach is the approach that holds sway in Finland and most other Nordic countries: the “supply” approach. Under this approach, education is viewed as the child’s right to receive an education, not the parent’s right to select the kind of education they want for their children. Because it is a right for the child, it is the government’s responsibility to supply the means to that education: high quality, equitable schools. Not the parents’ responsibility to demand it. While it by no means ensures an idyllic childhood for everyone it eliminates one of the principle vicissitudes of fortune, the quality of your education, that usually accompany your birth.

The keys to that approach being successful are having universally high-quality education, regardless of where the child is, and the decision by the government that a society as a whole is going to invest in its children. The fact that both of these are absent in the United States is what leads parents to play the game to get their children into predominately white public schools, or private schools, to give them the best shot of receiving a valuable education. In a society where all schools are excellent, there is no need to play that game. But because we do not practice what we preach–that all of our children are created equal–that society does not exist here.

The Gorilla In The Room

One problem with solving the issue of integration is that we have so far been unwilling to profoundly question how our schools are funded. School districts are largely funded with property taxes in that locality, so it creates a vicious circle of poverty and discrimination. Poor districts, with their disproportionate minority populations, raise less money than their wealthier and whiter counterparts. So they spend less per student, reducing the quality of education, and encouraging even more “white flight” from the area. Which, in turn, causes affluent parents in good school districts to turn a blind eye to the plight of other people’s children. Parents don’t feel that they need to worry about education and opportunity in a school their child doesn’t attend.

But whether they realize it or not, the middle class and the wealthy do have skin in the game. As both PBS video discussions make clear, these children may be other people’s children but they will not be someone else’s problem. They will be the workers who support social security in our old age. They will be the consumers acting as the engine of our economy. They will be the law-abiding citizens who participate in our democracy.

Or, because we did not invest in them, they won’t. And all Americans, not just those in the neighborhoods of these failing schools, will feel that burden.

Conclusion

The secret to America’s success is her dynamism and her diversity. We cannot be exactly like Finland, nor should we strive to be. But we are stopped from making reforms to our education, not by the things that make us different from Finland but by a lack of commitment to our own core values and a lack of political will. For example, rather than funding schools based on local property taxes a state could collect property taxes, pool them together, and divide the resources based on the number of students and student need as opposed to the accident of their geography. Another solution could be to reinstitute busing requirements for segregated districts. Or programs that encourage neighborhoods to not be so segregated in the first place.

These approaches may seem radical. And truthfully an overhaul of how schools are funded would be about as ambitious a project as one could undertake, politically and just logistically. But they are not radical if we decide that we are going to embrace the value of equity in our culture and treat education as something that every child, regardless of birth or circumstance, is entitled to. Not just because it is morally right in and of itself, although it is, but because our mutual investment in our children is to our mutual benefit.

Resources

Cornell Law School: Plessy v. Ferguson

Cornell Law School: Brown v. Board of Education

Slate: Brown v. Board of Education: On 60th Anniversary Schools Are Segregating

New York Times Magazine: Choosing a School For My Daughter in a Segregated City

Goodreads: Savage Inequalities

PBS: The Return of School Segregation in Eight Charts

The Washington Post: How Segregated Schools Turn Kids Into Criminals

Slate: When White Parents Have a Choice They Choose Segregated Schools

CQ Press: Racial Diversity In Public Schools 

NPR: Supreme Court Quashes School Desegregation

Goodreads: The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life

Goodreads: The Shame Of The Nation

Atlantic: The End of Busing in Indianapolis

The Washington Post: ‘Don’t Force Us to Give Up Our School’ a Mississippi Town is Being Forced to Integrate 

PBS: A Return to School Segregation in America

USA Today: Still Apart: Map Shows States With Most-Segregated Schools

Mary Kate Leahy

Mary Kate Leahy (@marykate_leahy) has a J.D. from William and Mary and a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Manhattanville College. She is also a proud graduate of Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart. She enjoys spending her time with her kuvasz, Finn, and tackling a never-ending list of projects. Contact Mary Kate at staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post How Can We Fix Racial Segregation In American Schools? appeared first on Law Street.

On Tuesday, May 3, teachers across Detroit called in sick. Enough, in fact, that 94 of the district’s 97 schools had to close for the day. This was not the result of Zika or some other new super virus; the teachers weren’t actually sick at all and everybody knew it. So what is exactly was happening? A sick-out. In Detroit and in other places in the past, teachers have been resorting to this desperate tactic in order to protest the shabby state of schools. Read on to find out more about the “sick-outs,” why they are happening in Detroit and other places and whether or not they are doing anything to inspire the changes they are meant to incite.

What’s happening in Detroit?

A sick-out is defined as exactly what is sounds like: “An organized absence from work by workers in the pretext of sickness.” The sick-out that occurred in Detroit earlier this month was a two-day, school district-wide protest that involved over half of the area’s 3,000 teachers. After fears that the school district would not be able to pay all of its teachers for the full year heightened, many teachers began protesting.

Specifically, there are two ways teachers can be paid–with paychecks spread out over a full calendar year or only during the school year. Due to serious budgeting shortfalls, the school system is set to run out of money for teacher salaries some time in the summer. As a result, those paid year round will end up with less than those who get paid only during the school year itself. If the budget was in good shape, teachers on both pay schedules would get the full amount, just paid out over a different period of time. Teachers in Detroit already held a mass sick-out in January to protest the deteriorating conditions in many Detroit public schools, which include pest infestations, mold, and damaged infrastructure. They have so far opted for sick-outs because other traditional means of protest, namely strikes, are against the law for teachers in Michigan.

The video below looks at the most recent sick-out:

A stop-gap measure has already been in place since March in the form of a $48.7 million agreement passed by the legislature to keep schools operating until the end of June. While this temporary fix is already in place, Michigan legislators have been debating whether or not to pass an additional $700 million dollar solution. This plan would create a new school district to educate students and leave the debt to be paid off with the old district. Essentially, it would leave one district to handle the task of paying the debt and the other would only be concerned with educating students. However, even if this plan makes it through the state legislature, there is no guarantee that it will work.

These budgeting issues are largely products of Detroit’s much-publicized bankruptcy back in 2013. When Detroit declared bankruptcy, city leaders estimated it had as much as $18 billion in debts that it could not pay, ranging from pensions to bond obligations. The amount of debt was ultimately reduced to $7 billion, which included a grand bargain in which private entities agreed to donate approximately $816 million to not only reduce cuts to pensions but also to ensure the survival of other important aspects of Detroit’s culture, such as its art museum. Even with Detroit emerging from bankruptcy and early returns showing the city doing better, it is still a long path to full recovery.

The following video looks at the totality of the Detroit bankruptcy:

Where else are sick-outs happening?

This was not the first time Detroit’s teachers have fought back. In 2006, they held a strike and earlier this year held another sick-out. However, this most recent sick-out was the largest. Detroit’s teachers are also not alone in using tactics such as these to protest pay and working conditions. In 2014, teachers in Colorado staged sick-outs of their own. In that case, the dispute was partly over the collective bargaining agreement, but also over attempts to prevent changes to history courses, which conservatives within the school districts thought would reflect poorly on American history.

A closer comparison, though, may be what is happening in Chicago. While there have not been any actual sick-outs in Chicago yet, the situation certainly seems ripe for that type of action. Much like Detroit, the governor of Illinois has called for the school district in Chicago to declare bankruptcy, which would, among other things, free the district from its obligations to many of its teachers and employees.

This situation is not new to Chicago either; teachers protested in 2012 over many of these same issues and the situation was only averted through concessions from both sides. However, movements to strip state employee rights as cost cutting measures have been growing lately, as displayed by events like these as well as developments like the anti-union legislation of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Chicago has already forced teachers to take unpaid days off and has laid off employees, including some teachers, to cut costs. This is also the impetus for getting the school district to declare bankruptcy–if that happens the state is no longer beholden to union agreements and may be able to reduce its pension obligations.

In order for the Chicago Public School System to declare bankruptcy, the city itself would have to declare bankruptcy. In the case of Chicago at least, it is not able to file for bankruptcy under current laws, though a proposal may be making its way through the state legislature. In 2015, Illinois Republicans proposed a bill that would make bankruptcies legal for municipalities, but it failed to pass. While it would certainly be a major embarrassment if Chicago, the third largest and a very affluent city, was forced to declared bankruptcy, many state leaders support the option.

Is any of this making a difference?

The battle in Detroit has drawn the usual criticisms from both sides. The teachers are critical of the government’s handling of the city’s finances, claiming they just want to be paid the money owed to them and be provided with acceptable conditions to teach in. Conversely, politicians called the teachers’ actions political, claiming that they are jeopardizing the futures of the students they teach. While the two sides hurl accusations at each other, it is fair to ask if what they are doing is actually improving the situation.

On the Wednesday following the recent sick-outs, teachers agreed to return to work after the state legislature moved forward on a $500 million measure to address the district’s fiscal issues. However, this deal must still be reconciled with a similar piece of legislation passed by the state’s senate before a solution can be finalized. If the two sides are unable to agree, another stop-gap measure may be used, but that would risk more sick-outs and further erode the confidence in the state government.

The video below looks at the cumulative problems plaguing Detroit Public Schools:

Conclusion

Can Detroit right the ship when it comes to its schools?  This is a question and a problem that is only compounded by the many complicated issues facing the city. Detroit Public Schools have lost over 100,000 students in roughly 13 years to charter schools, private academies, and attrition. That is a lot of lost revenue for any city, but it is especially taxing for one that just emerged from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Detroit isn’t the only city with public schools in poor fiscal shape. Chicago is probably the most comparable example, which may soon face many of the same issues and has already taken some drastic measures to cut costs. In light of Detroit’s bankruptcy, teachers and city officials have become increasingly concerned with how the school district will meet its long-term pension obligations and even its regular teacher salaries. The same issues play important parts in the debate over whether bankruptcy is the appropriate tool to deal with the city of Chicago and its public school system.

In light of Detroit’s bankruptcy, several difficult decisions were made yet the city’s schools are still in a particularly difficult situation. If the city is unable to find a solution beyond paying off one debt by accruing another, while at the same time offering fewer services, this may not be the last time its teachers call in sick.

Resources

CNN: Most Detroit Schools Closed Again Due to Teacher ‘Sickouts’

Merriam-Webster: Definition of Sick-out

Detroit Free Press: DPS Sick-outs a Symptom of Lansing’s Ill Behavior

Think Progress: Everything You Need To Know About Detroit’s Bankruptcy Settlement

The Bond Buyer: Detroit, A Year Out Of Bankruptcy, Still Faces Long Road Back

In These Times: Why Chicago Won’t Go Bankrupt-And Detroit Didn’t Have To

The Guardian: Colorado Teachers Stage Mass Sick-out to Protest U.S. History Curriculum Changes

Fortune: Why Chicago’s Fight With Teachers Is the Sign of a Much Bigger Problem

Chicago Business: GOP Plan Would Allow State Takeover of CPS and Bankruptcy

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Calling in Sick: The Problems with Detroit Public Schools appeared first on Law Street.

In February 2015, Teach for America was invited to West Virginia schools for the first time. The first Teach for America educators are slated to arrive in West Virginia next August but only 15 educators will be stationed in the state, and Teach for America only plans to expand that number to 30-35 teachers in the next five years. Several county officials, teachers unions and education advocates have opposed the introduction of Teach for America, claiming that they do not need or want under-qualified teachers.

Despite this backlash, the West Virginia education system is in dire need of educators and is willing to take on Teach for America educators. West Virginia’s teacher salaries are among the lowest in the nation, and installing Teach for America recruits is considered by some to be the cost-efficient alternative to raising teacher pay. However, critics are concerned that cutting costs may also result in cutting quality in the classroom. Read on for a look at Teach for America’s current training program for new teachers and how it is implemented in new locales.

What is Teach for America?

Teach for America (TFA) founder Wendy Kopp began the project as a senior thesis at Princeton University in 1989. Low-income schools faced a debilitating teacher shortage and student outcomes had remained stagnant for several years. In 1989, Knopp launched recruitment programs at 100 universities and began funneling college graduates trained by TFA into the American school system.

Since then, TFA has expanded to 52 regions across the country and has an average of over 40,000 applicants every year. TFA provides educators in the most low-income and low-performing school districts in the country, which have difficulty attracting qualified teachers. The recruits that TFA introduces to the school system are tasked with closing the achievement gap between students from different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. According to the TFA official website, a majority of school principals are satisfied with the commitment of TFA educators and would gladly hire from TFA again in the future. The statistics on the official website suggest that TFA teachers perform at the same level, if not higher, than their colleagues who were trained through traditional education programs. Despite these positive reports, there has been a growing backlash against TFA for not training teachers for the challenges they will meet in their classroom.

Teach for America Training

TFA usually recruits college graduates (often without education degrees) to teach in the most high-need school districts across the nation. Recruits undergo a five-to-seven week training course the summer before they begin their two year contract at a given school. According to TFA’s website, there are five components to the summer institute: teaching summer school, receiving observations and feedback, rehearsals and reflections on the classroom experience, curriculum instruction, and lesson-planning clinics. The training course is built on the assumption that recruits will learn quickly and embrace challenges. After the summer institute, a five day regional induction/orientation period introduces recruits to the town in which they will be working, connecting them with fellow educators and community members. Recruits rely heavily on mentors both within the school system and from the TFA regional network to aid them in the transition.

Concerns with the TFA Training 

TFA has come under fire over the past several years for how little material the summer institute covers. In an essay for The Washington Post, Professor Jack Schneider summed up the problematic nature of this training:

Even filling every moment of the day as they do, there simply isn’t enough time in five weeks to prepare novices for the classroom.  And to make matters more complicated, TFA corps members are often placed in schools where they are least qualified to be.

TFA subscribes to a philosophy of “learning by doing,” wherein teachers adapt to the needs of their classroom in real time. TFA cites the Mathematica Policy Research group’s 2004 report that students taught by TFA recruits topped their peers in math and matched them in reading as evidence that this strategy works. However, a 2010 review of independent research by Professors Julian Vasquez Heilig (University of Texas at Austin) and Dr. Su Jin Jez (California State University, Sacramento) revealed that students taught by TFA recruits perform at significantly lower levels than their peers taught by credentialed beginning teachers. This report found that

Teach for America recruits start at a disadvantage. After several years, they perform equal to or better than their peers, but they often leave the profession before the benefits of their experience can make an impact in the classroom. School districts must spend more money on recruiting as a result of Teach for America’s churn. In addition, the organization charges school districts an average of $2,500 for each teacher it provides, and districts spend extra money to train teachers once they arrive.

One of the largest problems with TFA recruits is that they only sign on for two-year periods. Fortunately, many TFA recruits have begun to stay longer than their two-year commitment. A 2011 study found that 60.5 percent of TFA teachers continue as public school teachers beyond their initial two-year commitment. However, remaining within the public school system is not equivalent to staying in the same teaching position. The same study found that 56.4 percent of TFA recruits leave their initial posting after two years and that after five years, only 14.8 percent of recruits continue to teach at the same low-income school to which they were originally assigned. TFA recruits may develop a love for teaching but that doesn’t mean they stay in the schools where their skills are most needed.

Teach for America in West Virginia

The TFA training program will encounter a new set of hurdles upon its implementation in West Virginia. As the program has not operated in the state before, and is only sending a minimal cadre of teachers to work there, the mentoring network for TFA recruits will be less engrained. One big concern is that it will be difficult to hold an effective regional orientation if the organizers themselves are only just adjusting to the West Virginian environment. TFA has operated in Appalachia for several years, but its activities have been confined to Kentucky–specifically to rural eastern Kentucky. TFA recruited a substantially larger set of teachers in Kentucky, bringing in 30 a year since 2011. The Kentucky program is well-established, with connections to the public school system and a set of TFA alumni who can serve as advisers for incoming TFA recruits in the region. TFA is hoping that West Virginia will parallel the Kentucky program, creating a broader Appalachian success story, but the nonprofit’s proposed efforts in West Virginia are currently so minor that it will be difficult for TFA recruits to make any sort of significant impact in the community.

Teach for America: Are there alternatives?

Teach for America is often considered the only successful program of its kind in the American educational system. Despite its inefficiencies, there is no nationally integrated program that attracts as many college graduates as TFA does. This may change in the coming months, due to a host of educational grants enacted this fall. In November, the Gates Foundation announced that it will be funneling $34 million in grants to five teacher education and preparation centers across the nation. Vicki Phillips, director of College Ready Education at the Gates Foundation, said that

We know that having an excellent teacher is critical to a student’s success, but there is still much to learn about how to best prepare teacher-candidates to be successful in the classroom. We’re excited to fund these new Teacher Preparation Transformation Centers so that together, we can better understand which practices are the most effective in preparing new teachers.

Funding these teacher preparation systems will create a new supply of credentialed teachers for K-12 education, so the most needy schools in America will have access to more qualified candidates and will not be as reliant on TFA recruits. In addition, the Harvard Graduate School of Teaching announced a brand new pilot program that will be launched next year called the Harvard Teaching Fellows, which is marketed as an alternative to TFA. The Harvard program plans to:

Engage Harvard students in the second semester of their senior year, with selected students taking a foundational course in the spring and remaining at Harvard for a summer-long training program following Commencement. In September, they will be deployed to partner school networks and districts where they will teach in a classroom, though with only a 60 percent workload. Fellows will then come back to Cambridge for a second summer of professional development for additional support before they return to classrooms. Upon a second year of teaching and program completion, fellows will continue to have support and connections to Harvard Teaching Fellows for the next few years of their careers.

After student protests against TFA in 2014, Harvard has been moving away from connecting its graduates with the organization. The Harvard Teaching Fellows program is only in its infancy, but the fact that it was designed specifically to address the shortcomings of TFA gives it a certain cachet in the education world. School districts like those in West Virginia may prefer to receive teachers from these preparation centers in the coming years rather than the handful of TFA recruits they are currently relying on. More efficient and comprehensive training for teachers could transform school districts across the country to the point that TFA may become less prevalent. In lieu of reforming TFA, the education sector may prefer to phase the program out entirely, replacing TFA recruits with teachers who graduated from these newly funded preparation centers.

Conclusion

Teach for America began twenty-five years ago with the best of intentions: connecting educated and passionate young people with students in dire need of educators and mentors. However, educators are concerned that the lack of training that these teachers receive may leave their students struggling in the classroom and the brief nature of their contract leaves school administrators scrambling to find replacements every two years. The introduction of new teacher preparation centers may solve the shortcomings of the Teach for America training process, but for now, Teach for America is the only organization sending a steady stream of teachers into the nation’s most desperate schools. Parents and educational professionals in West Virginia are only just opening their doors to Teach for America, but with that invitation, they also may be welcoming a lower caliber of teacher.

Resources 

Primary

TFA: Summer Training

TFA: Our History

TFA: On The Record

Additional

Charleston Gazette-Mail: Teach for America Still Coming to W.Va, but Impact May be Limited

Metro News West Virginia: Why WV needs Teach for America

Washington Post: Teach for America’s “Dirty Little Secret”

Washington Post: A New Look at Teach for America

Harvard Magazine: Is Teach for America Good for America?

The Gates Foundation: Gates Foundation Awards Over $34 Million in Grants to Help Improve Teacher Preparation Programs

The Harvard Crimson: To Teach A Teacher: Harvard’s Alternative to Teach for America

Education Week: TFA Teachers: How Long Do They Teach? Why Do They Leave?

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

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The news has been full of stories lately from lower-income schools; stories about teachers cheating to pull ahead, children falling through the cracks, and many schools leaving children completely behind in their studies. But there’s another group of students who don’t necessarily get a lot of attention–children who are viewed as “gifted” or “talented” but don’t have access to the resources that would propel them forward.

The National Society for the Gifted and Talented has a comprehensive definition of what it means to be gifted and/or talented:

This definition of giftedness is the broadest and most comprehensive and is used by many school districts. It speaks of talent, which includes all areas of a child’s life: academic, artistic, athletic, and social. Most schools limit their definition and their programs to academics, but it is important to focus on performance and accomplishment. It is not enough to just have the talent; you must be using that talent to achieve at remarkably high levels. However, this definition does also recognize that while all very talented students have the potential to achieve at high levels, some may not have yet realized or demonstrated that potential. Such students may be underachievers, twice exceptional, or represent underserved groups who have not had a nurturing environment to bring out those talents. Finally, this definition is a comparative one; these students achieve or have the potential to achieve at levels way above their peers.

Many of our gifted children aren’t getting the attention they deserve because there simply isn’t enough money, there aren’t enough teachers, and in some cases the curriculum fails students. Read on to learn about the challenges in teaching gifted students at every level of the American education system.

Achievement Gaps

Achievement gaps have always existed in schools–especially between those in inner cities and their suburban counterparts. Achievement gaps occur at all ages between lower-income students and those who are better off financially. The methods used to measure a student’s retention and knowledge, including grades, classroom testing, standardized testing, course selection information, and drop-out rates all show the problem that exists. The difference between the scores of lower- and high-income students has been plaguing our nation for years, and there has been very little noticeable improvement overall.

There are racial disparities in academic achievement even when the most able students are taken into account. Evidence for this is found specifically among high scorers on the SAT math and reading sections. The National Research Center for the Gifted and Talented has found that “African Americans, Latinos (especially Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans), and Native Americans are currently severely underrepresented among the nation’s highest achieving students, by virtually all traditional academic achievement measures, including GPA, class rank, and standardized test scores.” When studies have compared measurements between the two levels (SAT scores and GPAs), they see a huge difference between what a student is capable of (SAT score) and how that manifests itself in schoolwork (GPA).

The Washington Post explained the problem by looking at state testing, stating, “Less than one percent of low-income eighth-graders scored ‘advanced’ on the 2011 NAEP reading exam; more-affluent students were five times more likely to score advanced. Math was better, but not much: 2.5 percent of low-income eighth-graders scored advanced, compared with nearly 13 percent of more-affluent students.”

Poverty also plays a big role in how a student succeeds. According to the Davidson Institute, a report called “Achievement Trap:”

Tracked the performance of high-achieving lower income and high-achieving upper income students and found disparities at the beginning of elementary school that grew larger over time. This means that the students who started off in poorer schools received fewer and fewer opportunities as they approached high school. Disparities between upper income and lower income high achievers also were found in higher education in terms of college graduation rates, and attendance at prestigious colleges.

Overall, there are significant achievement gaps between our students at many different levels and for many different reasons.

Gifted Programs

There have been specific programs in the past that have been implemented to help students in poorer school districts reach high levels, including the Minority Student Achievement Network, for example. The problem is that the achievement differences, especially among gifted and talented students, are especially pronounced within the major urban school districts within the United States, specifically in Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. However, there are also smaller school districts that have similar problems. Many poor minority children and new immigrants reside in these underfunded school districts that are struggling to survive and provide for the children. In many states, gifted programs don’t even exist within urban schools.

In-Class Issues

Lower-income students are underrepresented in all aspects of gifted programs. In a recent study, it was discovered that most of the students that qualified or were even tested for gifted programs, even in schools where they were the minority, were Caucasian or Asian students. Another study found that black students were underrepresented by as much as 55 percent nationally in all gifted programs.

The problem isn’t always that the students aren’t able to qualify for gifted and talented programs, sometimes it is that they aren’t even being tested.

Curriculum

Another problem is that gifted programs, if they exist at all in lower-income schools, can lack the rigorous curriculum that other schools have. One of the biggest reasons seems to be the focus on testing. The National Education Association states that:

The law is uniformly blamed for stripping curriculum opportunities, including art, music, physical education and more, and imposing a brutal testing regime that has forced educators to focus their time and energy on preparing for tests in a narrow range of subjects:  namely, English/language arts and math.  For students in low-income communities, the impact has been devastating.

The curriculum now revolvse more heavily around memorization and by-the-book learning. In an area with many lower-income families and students, like Los Angeles, for instance, “one-third of the 345 arts teachers were given pink slips between 2008 and 2012 and arts programs for elementary students dwindled to practically zero.”

While testing is one facet, students also struggle because schools lack educational resources they need, such as libraries, textbooks, and technology, and often employ less experienced or less qualified teachers.

In schools where the children do have resources and they do get tested for gifted programs, a whole other problem with the curriculum arises: they may not feel included in the classroom. They aren’t present in the literature that so many gifted programs use, and may experience difficulties connecting with it. For instance, classes are often assigned to read books that revolve around white, middle-class families rather than reading books that include minorities like “Parrot in the Oven” or “A House on Mango Street.”

Even if schools with high levels of poverty have gifted programs and have the appropriate procedures in place to identify students who need them, an achievement gap may still be present. Gifted and talented programs can’t be one size fits all and need to set up as many students as possible for success.

Conclusion

So what can we do? Unfortunately, we aren’t going to fix these problems overnight. Teachers are trying the best they can, but with so much going on within school hours, it can be difficult for them to get it right. Even more, we do need to focus on getting teachers who live or lived in those areas back into their schools. Teachers who understand the struggles these students face will be able to reach them better.

The answer may also fall to the state and federal governments and their emphases on testing. Even more so, it is going to take parents and students demanding programs for their schools: better gifted programs, better gifted testing, and better curriculum all around. It is going to take all of us banding together to push the gifted and talented ahead.

Resources

Primary

National Governor’s Association: States Close the Achievement Gap in Advanced Placement Courses

Additional

National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented: Promoting Sustained Growth in the Representation of African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans Among Top Students in the United States at All Levels of the Education System

National Society for the Gifted and Talented: Giftedness Defined

NEA Today: The Testing Obsession and the Disappearing Curriculum

Washington Post: Gifted students — EspeciallyThose Who are Low-income — Aren’t Getting the Focus They Need

Edutopia: How Should We Measure Student Learning? Five Keys to Comprehensive Assessment

ETS: Parsing the Achievement Gap II

Sage Publications: Experiences of Gifted Black Students; Another Look at the Achievement Gap

University of Colorado: Identifying Gifted and Talented English Language Learners

Editor’s Note: This post has been revised to credit select information to the Davidson Institute. 

Noel Diem

Law Street contributor Noel Diem is an editor and aspiring author based in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is an alum of Albright College where she studied English and Secondary Education. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, theater, fashion, and literature. Contact Noel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Common Core State Standards have been a matter of controversy for a few years now, garnering opposition from both sides of the aisle. Common Core in some ways saw its inception in the George W. Bush era and serves as a predecessor to the No Child Left Behind Act. But what exactly is Common Core, why was it launched, and what is the opposition? Read on to find out.

What is Common Core?

The Common Core State Standards “aim to raise student achievement by standardizing what’s taught in schools across the United States.” They include a particular focus on language arts and mathematics. The objective is to universally prepare students from Kindergarten to high school to be successful for entry-level college courses or to enter the workforce. It lays out what students should know and be able to do by the end of each specific grade. The standards are results driven, but the methods used to achieve the set results are chosen by local teachers and facilities.

The History Behind Common Core

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was first signed into law by President Bush in January 2002. The next decade was spent revising the law’s requirements and attempting to create more successful “adequate yearly progress” reports. However, people quickly realized that NCLB was in need of serious reform itself. In November 2007, state chiefs first brainstormed Common Core standards at the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) Annual Policy Forum. The following year, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA), CCSSO, and education nonprofit Achieve released Benchingmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-Class Education. In it they recommended the common standards. In April 2009, the NGA and CCSSO officially invited states to commit to the Common Core standards, and by June 49 states and territories announced commitments. After public feedback, a final draft was released in June 2010.

The NGA and CCSSO  led the development of the standards and actively advocated for their implementation. They also sought input from teachers, parents, school administrators, and various state leaders in “how the standards are taught, the curriculum developed, and the materials used to support teachers.” Implementation, however, is completely up to the states. Once a state adopts the Common Core standards, it is delegated to local teachers, principals, and superintendents to introduce the standards into school curriculum.

 Why was the Common Core program started?

It has long been a bipartisan view that the U.S. needs education reform. Common Core was started to allow high school graduates to be competitive in college, but also in “the rapidly changing American job market and the high tech, information-based global economy.” It is widely believed that U.S. students are falling behind their counterparts in other countries. Standardized tests in countries like China and Singapore have advanced well beyond the U.S. over the last few decades. Bill Gates, a heavy investor in the Common Core, advocated,

Our nation is one step closer to supporting effective teaching in every classroom, charting a path to college and careers for all students, and developing the tools to help all children stay motivated and engaged in their own education. The more states that adopt these college and career based standards, the closer we will be to sharing innovation across state borders and becoming more competitive as a country.

In Gate’s interview, he repeatedly noted that the standards are not based on curriculum. They are “solely” milestones for where the students should be at each grade level.

How much does Common Core cost?

The cost for implementing Common Core will vary from state to state, but will undoubtedly be expensive. Training teachers and buying new materials will take a substantial amount of money. In 2011, California estimated that replacing its current standardized tests with Common Core standards would cost taxpayers approximately $1.6 billion. In Texas, the estimate is upward of $3 billion dollars.

According to the Common Core Initiative however, the implementation will allow for states to eventually save on resources, materials, and “cross-state opportunities that come from sharing consistent standards.” The cost-benefit ratio should end favorably. As of 2014, 43 states, Washington D.C., Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Virgin Islands adopted the Common Core.

What are some characteristics of Common Core?

English and Language Arts

Generally, the standards call for “regular practice with complex texts and their academic language.” They demand a steady increase in complexity and progressive reading comprehension. There is to be an emphasis on academic vocabulary, focusing on meaning, nuances, and range. There isn’t a required reading list; however, categories of literature are required. Examples include classic myths, foundational U.S. documents, works of Shakespeare, and staples of American literature.

Students should know how to provide evidence from the text when forming analyses and arguments at different levels. The standards call for text-dependent questions on assessments as opposed to questions based on student experiences and/or opinions. The objective is for students to be able to effectively inform and persuade, and for these skills to become stronger as students move up in grade levels.

There is also a larger focus on nonfiction. For grades K-5, there is a 50/50 ratio between informational (history, social sciences, etc.) and literary texts. In grades six through 12 there is substantially increased attention to literary nonfiction.

Mathematics             

In mathematics, the standards call for a “greater focus on fewer topics.” The standards aim to narrow and deepen lessons on concepts, skills, and problemsolving depending on grade level. For example, K-2 will focus on addition and subtraction, while grades three through five will focus on multiplication and division of whole numbers and fractions.

There is an overriding theme across grades of linking topics and thinking. A standard at any grade level is designed to build upon the standard of the previous grade and act as an extension. This consistently reinforces major topics, which are used to support grade-level word problems that need mathematical applications to solve.

Finally, the mathematics standards aim to pursue conceptual understanding, procedural skills and fluency, and application with equal force. The idea is to deepen the understanding of concepts as opposed to memorizing rules. If the building blocks of complex math concepts are completely understood by students, that will eliminate degrees of future difficulty. Speed and accuracy are both to held in high importance.

What are the arguments against Common Core?

The goals of the Common Core seem to have U.S. students’ best interests at heart. So why is there so much opposition? Here’s a look at some of main challenges.

National Standards

First, some argue that the name “Common Core State Standards” is misleading. Since they have been adopted by 43 states, they are truly national standards. Detractors worry that states didn’t necessarily adopt the Common Core by choice, but were strong-armed by conditions ascribed by federal Race to the Top grants and the No Child Left Behind programs. Prior to the implementation of Common Core, all 50 states–whether on board or not–adopted NCLB or revised standards under the threat of losing federal funding.

More of the Same

Many see the Common Core as round two of No Child Left Behind. NCLB failed in both “raising academic performance and narrowing gaps in opportunity and outcomes.” This propagated the notion that American schools need to be fixed. Test results from NCLB did not meet expectations. After the first ten years, more than 50 percent of the nation’s schools were categorized as failing. Many of these same schools never received the support or resources necessary to stand a chance. In the same respect, will all schools be supplied with the needed computers required to take the Common Core tests?

Too Curriculum Based 

There are also worries that Common Core has become more curriculum based than originally intended. In the video below, a seven-year public school teacher discusses why the Common Core is not good for kids and dictates curriculum. She argues, “when the standards are tested that’s what you are going to spend your time on…[there is] no room to teach anything else.”  Her job security is based on meeting the standards. As a result, she’s concerned that the standards must be taught 100 percent of the time, and don’t allow flexibility or creativity.

She continues to argue that the material is not condensed, using the 93 elements of the third grade reading standard as an example. Her largest problem with Common Core is its age appropriateness. Although she advocates pushing students, she doesn’t believe seven year olds should be expected to master the difference between an adjective and an adverb. She labels the standards as a  “race to the middle” with “mediocre teaching.” Using a uniform approach, the faster learners are bored, while the slower learners are under immense pressure.

There is plenty of concern on the length and difficulty of the assessments as well. In the first round of distribution of the Common Core tests in New York, students, parents, and teachers strongly voiced their concerns. Many students felt immense pressure and were scared of failing, and teachers complained about the atmosphere the tests created.

Opting Out

Some children have started to opt out of the tests, often with parental support. The “opt out movement” has grown in popularity–thousands of students nationwide have chosen this route. Opt-outs protest the Common Core standards and the overemphasis on testing in public schools. There is even a National United Opt Out group comprised of parents, educators, students, and social activists. The legality of opting out seems to be a gray area, varying from state to state. In an extreme case, the Illinois State Board of Education sent a letter stating students opting out would be breaking the law and teachers refusing to administer the test would face legal consequences.

There are a variety of other arguments as well. One other concern is that corporate businesses are behind the standards to create a marketplace for Common Core resources. Others argue that electives like music and art will be sidelined. Finally, many teachers and parents don’t approve of the “one-size fits all” approach to teaching children.

Conclusion

It’s hard to say what is in store for U.S. education reform. We do need a change, but is Common Core the right one? There aren’t any studies regarding Common Core’s success to fall back on. Only time will tell. There are convincing arguments on both sides. Ultimately, everyone involved wants the same thing: U.S. students to be as educated and prepared for the world as possible.

Resources

Primary

Common Core State Standards Initiative: About the Standards

CCSSO: National Governors Association and State Education Chiefs Launch Common State Academic Standards

U.S. Department of Education: No Child Left Behind

Additional

Washington Post: The Common Core’s Fundamental Trouble

EdWeek: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World Class Education

U.S. News & World Report: Who is Fighting for Common Core

Truth in American Education: State Costs for Adopting and Implementing the Common Core State Standards

U.S. News & World Report: The History of the Common Core State Standards

U.S. News & World Report: The History of the Common Core State Standards

U.S. News & World Report: Opt-Out Movement About More Then Test, Advocates Say

U.S. News & World Report: Who is Fighting Against the Common Core

Why Science: A Historical Timeline of No Child Left Behind

Jessica McLaughlin

Jessica McLaughlin is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in English Literature and Spanish. She works in the publishing industry and recently moved back to the DC area after living in NYC. Contact Jessica at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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