Bursting With Pride

It is hard to hold back the tears when a teenager who you’ve come to know and care about dons a cap and gown and walks the stage during a high school commencement. It’s a memorable occasion.

Tears will flow Sunday at President William McKinley High School in Honolulu when Miriama Pele Fa’ala’ula’u fulfills one of her dreams and strides confidently into her future as a high school graduate.

This is a happy time for “Miri” and for several reporters from NEA Today who interviewed her, her family and teachers last year. We wrote and produced a series of articles and videos beginning with our November cover story titled, “Tale of Three Sisters.”

The story examines the high school dropout problem through the experiences of Miri, 17, and two of her sisters: Tu’uali’i Pele, nicknamed Stuki, age 18 and a recent dropout at the time; and Beatriz Pele, a 14-year-old freshman. After spending five days with the girls and their mother, Mareta Pele, we couldn’t help but admire and sympathize with the plight of this immigrant family from American Samoa. “I brought my kids here for the education,” says Pele.

The family is categorized by government agencies as Asian and Pacific Islanders (APIs), a diverse population whose heritages represent more than 50 ethnic groups and over 100 languages.

Last year, Miri was enrolled in a “last chance” seniors program, while Stuki attended an alternative high school program to gain a GED. Each had their own set of academic, financial and emotional struggles. For Stuki, who is filled with potential and as smart and creative as any of her classmates, it meant swallowing her pride and returning to the classroom a year behind her peers.

To everyone’s delight, Stuki received her GED from the Honolulu Community Action Program earlier this week. Meanwhile, after a shaky transition from middle school, Beatriz passed her tests and was promoted to 10th grade.

The Three Sisters article is supplemented by online video of Stuki, several McKinley students, and dropout prevention programs. Another recent NEA Today article focuses on dropout prevention programs that includes McKinley’s Occupational Skills Program work-study curriculum.

A Web-only feature about the Teen Parents Program at McKinley describes this campus-based program for pregnant students and young parents still pursuing a high school diploma. Student-parents are able to take courses about child care while earning academic credit and spending time with their child.

Another online installment about the Pele family is titled, “From Fishing Village to Tourist Town: Immigrant Families Experience Culture Clash, Causing Impressionable Students to Drop School.” This article describes how Stuki joined about 15 percent of students who drop out in Hawaii.

Unlike Stuki, most who quit school will not return anytime soon if at all. For them, we shed a tear as well.

Creationism in the Classroom

A little buzz was generated last week over a survey, published by the Public Library of Science Biology, that examined high school science teachers’ attitudes toward creationism. According to the report, roughly 13 percent of teachers present creationism and intelligent design as a viable alternative to evolution in the classroom. Other interesting tidbits:

• 25 percent devote at least one or two classroom hours to creationism and intelligent design


• 60 percent spend between one and five hours on evolution


• 2 percent do not teach evolution at all

As with most other surveys, a number of grey areas emerge within the data. For example, a number of teachers surveyed say they address creationism with the intent of essentially discrediting it, or at least discussing why it doesn’t belong in a science classroom. And some teachers who don’t believe in evolution still feel obligated to teach it. Nonetheless, the report concludes that, overall, between 12 and 16 percent of the nation’s biology teachers are “creationist in origin.”

US courts have repeatedly ruled that creationism and intelligent design are religion, not science, and therefore have no place in science classrooms. So what’s going on? Ultimately, it’s up to the individual to implement the curriculum, and science teachers have different religious views and, as the report points out, different levels of education. For example, the survey’s data suggests that teachers with more college level credits in biology devote more time to evolution than their colleagues with fewer credits.

The report then naturally recommends that all teachers be required to complete a course in evolutionary biology.

"The extra background could make a large difference" says the study’s author, Michael Berkman of Penn State. "The legal ruling and legislative victories are clearly necessary for evolution to maintain its proper place in the biology curriculum, but they are not sufficient."

Of course, compared to the 40 percent of the overall population who believe in creationism over evolution, 13 percent of science teachers seems quite low.

Who's Number One?

What is the number one 'Model Minority'?

Asians, you think?

No, it turns out to be Nigerians.

According to a Houston Chronicle analysis of census data, Nigerians are ahead of every other ethnic or racial group in the country in level of education. Four percent have doctorates, compared with three percent of Asians and one percent of Whites. Seventeen percent of Nigerians have a Master's, compared with 12 percent of Asians and eight percent of Whites.

Of course, it depends on how you define the groups. Nigerians are a nationality, not a race. The Chronicle didn't look at nationalities within the Asian community, or at subgroups within the White category.

Even so, I was surprised. Weren't you?

The Chronicle says the high level of education among Nigerians in the US is "largely due to Nigerian society's emphasis on mandatory and free education" but Wikipedia, citing United Nations data, lists Nigeria 138th out of 177 countries in adult literacy (69 percent), below many other African countries.

The Chronicle also says a 1965 immigration law made it easier for Africans to enter the United States as students or skilled professionals but not through family sponsorships, and once in the US, they could stay here so long as they went to school. But it doesn't explain why Nigerians in particular are so well educated.

Anyone out there have an explanation?

--Alain Jehlen

A Look Back at a Living Wage Campaign

New York State ESP leader Debbie Minnick looks back to the time her local affiliate boosted starting paraprofessional pay by 50 percent.

We paraprofessionals were the lowest paid in the Ithaca, New York, district. And you know what we do: We work with the most difficult kids in the whole school district. Sometimes, we have more of a connection with the students than the classroom teachers. I’m talking about special ed students; we’re with them more, directly teaching them more.

Respect was such an issue throughout our whole living wage campaign. Not only did we want the pay, but we wanted the respect that went along with that.I had three different women in my local come to me and say they went to the Salvation Army for dinner. They didn’t have any more food at home and they didn’t have any more money to make it through to their pay day. Three of them happened to run into one another eating at the Salvation Army.

You just get pushed into a campaign like this. What’s right is right, and what’s just is just, and you have to take on this kind of commitment—all of you.

It’s a Ton of Work
We started negotiating with the district in January 2001. We took several months before that preparing for negotiations with staff from the NEA state affiliate. We were very lucky to have a local living wage coalition.We asked for $11.50 per hour, which I think was a 73 percent raise. When we told him, the assistant superintendent had his own calculator out. He put his glasses down, looked at us incredulously and said, “You do know that’s a 73 percent raise, don’t you?”Not to fool you—it’s a ton of work. And it was key to have all members on board before we started. We had meeting after meeting, before the campaign, during the campaign, all the time.Written communications were going out, telling members what we were asking for, telling them what we were getting ourselves into. We told them we could not do this without everybody’s support. If you don’t have your own members on board, it’s going to fail.

Reaching Out to the Community
Our next step was to get the community involved. Throughout the year and a half of this living wage campaign, we escalated our outreach activities—we held candlelight vigils, rallies, panels with well-known community members, and testimony of paraprofessionals. We told the community who we were, what we did, and what we earned for all of that.We made a video (Video Part I; Video Part II) and we screened it at the local library, and at the same time, invited a panel of seven religious leaders—including a priest, a rabbi, a minister, and a Tibetan monk--who all read scriptures about the indecency of paying people poverty wages, which is what we were earning.As the campaign escalated, we had a "Parade for Paras." We ended having 500 people in the parade itself, not counting the people who were watching the parade. We had stilt walkers and jugglers, kids from the schools, kids on bikes with signs that said, “Tykes on bikes for pay hikes.” It was a huge family and community event.

We also sent out petitions, that were very easy to create and get signatures for. We just asked: Would you pay more in your taxes to support paraprofessionals in the district so they can earn a living wage? People were signing left and right. At first, they didn’t know who paraprofessionals were. When we explained what we did and what we were payed, they were appalled.In just a couple of days, 3,000 people signed -- a tenth of the population. We turned the petitions over to the board members.

You Have to Go For It
Just before we settled, one of our last activities was taking over the school board meeting completely. . . We had about 50 people signed up to speak. The board said, “We’ll take the first couple of people and then we’ll adjourn for executive session,”which they knew would last a couple of hours. “The rest of you can wait until we get back,” they said. Well, the announcement sent everybody over the edge. We all stormed the microphone, chanting, “Let us speak! Les us speak!”They were so embarrassed, that the whole nine-member board, the superintendent, and all the school administrators huddled for about ten minutes, and finally said, “OK.” And then they listened to all 50 of us individually.

You'll Get What you Bargain For
Remember, if you’re asking for 50 percent or 20 percent, who cares what you end up with? It’s better than the 3 percent that you normally get. So you can’t think of any of it as a failure, because you’re going to get more than what you normally bargain for. And, in June 2002, we won a 50 percent raise in the starting salary at the end of the third year of the contract, and no givebacks!

—From an interview with Dave Winans, NEA Today

An Extraordinary Graduate and a Future Teacher

When Lindsey Maclin crossed the stage earlier this month at Wayne State University in Michigan, she might have appeared from a distance to have been much like her fellow graduates. But those in the know realized that Maclin’s diploma attainment represented an impressive feat: the recent graduate is only 19 and the mother of a 3-year-old. As of her graduation, she is also now a certified teacher.

In just three years, Maclin earned a bachelor’s degree in special education and graduated summa cum laude. In those same three years, she gave birth to a boy named Christian. With the help of her mother, also a special education teacher, Maclin juggled her full-time coursework load at Wayne State, dropping off and picking up Christian at daycare, caring for him in the morning and evening, and squeezing in her own homework at night. Her goal: finish school when Christian is three, allowing her two years to be there for him until he starts kindergarten. "It was kind of stressful, but my mom has been a total support as well as other co-workers and friends," says Maclin.

Maclin got pregnant when she was 16, but at the time she was already a high school senior, having skipped her junior year. Facing this new pressure, she opted not to drop out, as many in her position do. "I got good grades and had a few scholarships and I knew I didn't want that to go to waste," says Maclin, who was in the high school marching band and drama club president. "I also knew that the only way to provide the best I could for my son was to stick with it and finish school, then go on to college."

Summer won't bring any slowdown for Maclin, who says she's pursuing a career in teaching because of the influence of her own superlative kindergarten and sixth-grade teachers and her mother. She hopes to teach summer school and just today she had her first job interview. There's little doubt Maclin had any trouble answering questions about how she handles multi-tasking and unique challenges.

The Nobel Prize for Education

It was Monday morning in Brownsville, Texas, and the air blew cool as students at Porter High School hurried to class. They don’t push or shove or even talk real loud. They seem to have manners. One student says to me, “hello, sir.” Over the course of my visit, I notice that teachers, security staff, and cafeteria workers are addressed this way too.

“It’s a requirement in my class,” says economics teacher, George Borrego. “It’s a courtesy we don’t want to lose.”

Porter is part of the Brownsville Independent School District (BISD), the southernmost district in the state. It’s a warm and folksy town that shares a border crossing with Matamoros, Mexico.

You don’t hear much about Brownsville and its 160,000 residents. Most talk concerning Texas centers on activities in Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio.

But that will change, at least within education circles. Last week, a group of national education experts were in town evaluating BISD for the prestigious Broad Prize for Urban Education.

“What’s going on here in Brownsville is something the rest of the country should know about,” Broad Foundation spokeswoman Erica Lepping said at a news conference.

Lepping announced that BISD is among five school districts in the nation that have been chosen as finalists for the Broad (rhymes with “road”) Prize, which honors urban school districts that demonstrate the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement while reducing achievement gaps among ethnic groups and between high-and low-income students.

The winner of the prize will be announced in October and receive $500,000 in scholarships for graduating seniors. The four finalists will each receive $125,000 in scholarships.

This year, 100 of the largest urban school districts nationwide were eligible for the award. The five finalists were selected by a review board of 19 prominent education policy leaders, practitioners and executives from leading universities, and think tanks.

Brownsville was chosen as a finalist for many reasons. For example, in 2007, BISD outperformed other Texas districts serving students with similar income levels in reading and math at all grade levels, according to Broad prize methodology.

The Broad Prize is sometimes referred to as the Nobel Prize for education because school districts can’t be nominated and can’t apply for the award. The selection process is managed by an education research consulting firm, MPR Associates.

Another firm, SchoolWorks, evaluates a district’s performance by visiting the site with a team of researchers and practitioners. They conduct interviews, collect documents and analyze district practices.

Whether BISD wins the top prize in October or not, the students and educators who I met at Porter on a warm and breezy spring day will always be tops in my book.

What Teachers Think

Leaders rarely consult teachers before coming up with their plans for changing schools, so for that alone, the think tank Education Sector deserves credit for its new survey of teacher opinions: They thought it might be interesting to ask those who do the work some questions about how it can be done better.

And the answers were interesting -- in some cases, very surprising.

One surprise: a fast-growing number believe teachers unions are "absolutely essential": 54 percent in 2007 vs. 46 percent four years earlier.

Almost all of that increase is due to a new attitude among newcomers to the profession. In 2003, only 30 percent of new teachers thought unions are "absolutely essential" but in 2007, it was 51 percent.

The conventional wisdom has been that unionists will face growing problems recruiting new members because the labor movement has been shrinking for decades, so young people have grown up in a mostly non-union world. But apparently the tide is moving the other way. Veteran teachers still like unions more than new teachers, but the gap has shrunk dramatically (57 percent of those with more than 20 years' experience felt unions were "absolutely essential" in 2003, vs. 60 percent in 2007).

Why do younger teachers favor unions more than they did a few years ago. No Child Left Behind is one possibility: Teachers see the insanity of some of the law's provisions up close, and feel that in unity there is strength.

But the union question was only one of several interesting areas explored by this survey.

Here are some others. (I'm paraphrasing--they used a lot of wordy questions.)

Is it harder than it should be to get ineffective tenured teachers out of the classroom?
Fifty-five percent, Yes. Thirteen percent, No. (The rest not sure.)
Half said the union sometimes fights to protect teachers who should be out of the classroom, and 63 percent would support their union taking the lead to simplify the process for removing ineffective teachers. (Of course, the problem is finding ways that are fair and that don't open the door to administrators getting rid of people who annoy them. But some locals are working on that.)

Should there be extra pay for teachers who:

• Work in tough, low-performing schools? Eighty percent, Yes, up from 70 percent four years ago.
• Earn National Board Certification? Sixty-four percent, Yes, also higher than in 2003.
• Have students who score higher than similar students on standardized tests? Thirty-four percent, Yes, and that's down a little over the past few years.

The whole survey is worth reading.

-- Alain Jehlen

Don't Go Away Mad, Just Go Away

An article in the latest issue of The Washington Monthly by Greg Anrig of the Century Foundation argues that the school vouchers movement is essentially kaput. Anrig tracks the slow but steady decline of what was once a potent political force after a series of stinging (and extremely expensive) defeats, most notably in Utah this past November. Conservatives can grumble all they want, but, as Anrig points out, vouchers are withering under the glare of too much empirical evidence that they just don’t work. Low-income students are not benefiting, student achievement is not improving and public schools have not been reenergized by competition.

Ok, so the news is encouraging, but voucher proponents have deep pockets and are nothing if not resilient. Florida’s voucher program – struck down by the state Supreme Court in 2006 – is being resuscitated and is likely to appear before the voters as a constitutional amendment this November. And President Bush continues to push vouchers at the federal level.

For recent news about the campaign against school vouchers and how you can take action, visit Issues in Education and the Legislative Action Center at NEA.org.

Love List

Pity the poor principal. She's got a really tough job. There are so many vital parts to it, so many things to keep track of. Like--the list of high school couples. Requires constant updating!

You don't think it's essential to keep track of the romantic lives of your students? That apparently puts you at odds with the Memphis, Tennessee, school board and Principal Daphne Beasley of Hollis F. Price Middle College High School, which operates in collaboration with LeMoyne Owen College to let students earn a high school diploma plus two years of college credit.

According to the Memphis administration, Principal Beasley got complaints from the college that students were engaging in "explicit sexual behavior in public view" on campus. She warned her charges that this sort of thing was forbidden, but the complaints continued. So, ever resourceful, she asked her faculty to send her the names of all student couples, and started calling their parents, asking them to back up her admonitions.

The list included two boys named Nicholas and Andrew. "Principal Beasley called my mother and outed me to my mother!" said Nicholas in an interview with a local TV station.

She also posted the list on her office wall, where apparently students and staff could see it. Nicholas said he and Andrew have had to endure verbal abuse since the list went up.

As if the beleaguered principal's To Do list wasn't long enough, now she may have to make time to respond to a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, which claims she invaded the students' privacy.

But so far, she's enjoying solid support from her superiors in the school administration.

Summer reading

It's not quite summer yet, but you can keep it on the shelf for a few more weeks...
I've got a copy of Relentless Pursuit, a Year in the Trenches with Teach for America, by Donna Foote -- and I'd be happy to send it to whoever wants it. (Or whomever??) It's fabulous. I know there are a lot of these in-the-trenches books, but this is better than most.

Donna Foote is a former Newsweek reporter who spend a year in a poor South Los Angeles high school, spending lots of time in the classrooms of four new TFA teachers. As you can imagine, this is not an easy assignment for them.

My favorite line: "He did it. Dante urinated in a water bucket right in the middle of Miss Snyder's class."

You have to admire these young teachers. They have a great sense of mission, if not much self-preservation... But you also have to wonder about a system that takes chronically under-prepared educators and ships them to the most challenging schools in the country to serve our neediest students, hoping that their enthusiasm and intelligence will be enough to carry the day.

As you'll see, sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't.

Reading Last?

Students enrolled in Reading First, a key component of President Bush’s so-called No Child Left Behind law, read no better than students who aren’t in the program, according to a new Department of Education study.

“There was no statistically significant impact on reading comprehension scores in grades one, two, or three,” Grover J. Russ Whitehurst, director of the Institute of Education Sciences at the Depart of Education, said in a press briefing.

This comes as no surprise to educators:

“As an experienced teacher of third grade, I am deeply saddened by the Reading First Program. I have been teaching for more than 25 years and I have never seen so many students hurt by something that is supposed to be helpful,” writes one educator. “Many of our best teachers are seeking employment in non-Reading First Schools. The reason …is that the focus is on fluency and not comprehension. As a result, we have students who quickly read a passage, but cannot comprehend a word that they have read. I have [also] seen language skills, math, science, social studies, and all other aspects of education neglected because of the pressure of Reading First.”

Others are frustrated by the constantly changing curriculum procedures, and mountains of documentation requirements:

“I am a veteran teacher and this is my first year in a Reading First school....The workload is outrageous! I never seem to be caught up because we make changes constantly. Everyone is on pins and needles waiting for a state visit. There is no room for flexibility. I plan to leave at the end of the school year,” says one frustrated educator.

President Bush and Education Secretary Spellings have lauded Reading First as an effective program rooted in science and research, but controversy surrounded it from the start. Federal investigators found that some overseeing the $6 billion program had financial ties to the publishers of Reading First materials.

“The Bush Administration has put cronyism first and the reading skills of our children last and this report shows the disturbing consequences,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate education committee. “Instead of awarding scarce education dollars to reading programs that make a difference for our children, the Administration chose to reward its friends instead.”

Are you in a Reading First school? Share your experiences on our discussion board.

Education Foundation Raising Funds for Tornado Victims

We mentioned earlier this week that several tornados ripped through southeast Virginia, causing an estimated $21 million in damages to local communities. At least two schools sustained damages, and scores of teachers, students and families were forced out of their destroyed homes.

The Suffolk Education Foundation is now accepting donations for students & staff whose families fell victim to the tornados. Monetary contributions -- payable to the Suffolk Education Foundation and designated Tornado Relief -- can be mailed to the Foundation at P.O. Box 394, Suffolk VA.