Black Boys in Crisis: How to Get Them to Read

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis.

The statistics point to a startling, yet simple, truth: black boys who cannot read are already in trouble. So if we know that black boys aren’t reading the level they should, what can we do to improve that? It starts with awareness and extends to:

Customized reading plans

A large part of improving the reading rates of black boys is to provide curriculum plans that are a little less rigid and a little more nuanced. As adults, the reading materials we pick up for the pure joy of reading are as varied as we are and it’s acceptable for individuals to prefer certain genres over others. Kids don’t have the same freedom. In fairness, before kids can determine what reading materials they will love, they must first have exposure to a wide variety. Still. When reading is uninteresting, it’s hard. That’s something that doesn’t change into adulthood. Early learning teachers, from preschool through the rest of elementary school, must have a diverse knowledge of the reading materials available for their age groups and try, try, and try again until a certain subject or genre clicks.

The idea that all Kindergartners, and older grades, should read the exact same things is not only flawed, it’s unnecessary. Today’s technology makes it simple for kids to read a variety of materials that are equal in grade level to each other, even if the topics differ. There is even educational software that creates supplemental and testing materials based on the individual pieces that children read so that teachers are not tasked with writing 20 different lesson plans based on reading preferences. Young children love fantasy, but they also connect most with what they know.

Diversity in reading materials and the ability to choose what to read based on interests will go a long way toward pulling black boys into the literacy realm early on and keeping them there. This is true from preschool through college graduation. This strict adherence to a literary canon filled with mainly white, European, male authors and viewpoints hurts all of our students, but particularly those of color. To instill a love for reading our students have to genuinely love what their eyes see. That view must expand to include much more diversity in options, both electronic and books in hand.

Intervention targeting

The concept of learning everything first, and testing last, is starting to see its way out of our classrooms – but not fast enough. Feedback throughout the learning process, and taking action immediately when students are falling behind, is a much smarter way to keep students invested in learning. A student who misses out on a learning concept will not learn at the next level and that will continue indefinitely until remediation occurs. Teachers are on the frontlines of intervention, and parents are a close second string. Parents whose own parents were never involved in their learning pursuits may not know how to follow their kids’ progress and some may simply not care. When either scenario takes place, it falls on the teacher to step up and fill in the learning gaps.

When it comes to intervention targeting, Kindergarten teachers should take entry assessments as more than a baseline number; they should see them as a call to action. Very specific actionable steps should be at the disposal of the teacher so when certain weakness are noted, there is a plan in place that addresses them. These plans must be thorough and come with benchmarks that delve deeper than what the average and above-average performing students must achieve. Does this mean more work for teachers? Some extra upfront time and planning time, yes. Which is why entire school systems must recognize the need for better reading intervention that begins on day one of Kindergarten, whether that manifests itself in more teacher aides, better technology for reading customization, or more reading specialists on staff.

I’m not suggesting that teachers label and remediate every student individually, but rather that more concrete policies on how to bring students up to speed are put in place in school districts around the country. In public schools this is especially vital. While it’s true that some parents choose public schools, the majority of children attend out of default. It’s not a bad thing – but parents who take the time to research and send their children to non-public options often have the time and energy to follow the academic journeys of their kids. There’s a stronger chance that a child in a public school needs that extra watchful eye of a teacher in order to reach goals. That eye can’t just observe; it must take what it sees and use it as a tool for strengthen academic weaknesses.

Individual intervention is not the only thing that black boys need to read better and perform at a higher academic level. Blanket programs that research, create, and deliver literacy-driven content to black boys should exist. Public schools are wards of the state but this issue is too big to leave to the whims of partisan-driven agendas. More federal oversight into what black boys, and all at-risk groups, are reading from their earliest days in public school classrooms is needed.

These programs need insight from experts in the fields of education, literacy, minority studies, and even civil rights. To really get to the heart of the problem of black boys not reading at an acceptable rate, expertise must combine with first-hand experience. Teachers who work in early education classrooms should certainly sit on the consultation teams in order to develop appropriate standards of intervention based on real-life scenarios that take place. A wider approach to answering the needs of black boys in a reading crisis will go a long way toward raising awareness and actually impacting individual children.

Why teachers are unable to stop bias-based bullying

SeriaShia J. Chatters, Pennsylvania State University

State and local lawmakers have put policies in place to address and prevent bullying. Many schools too have implemented interventions to improve school climate to reduce bullying behaviors.

Despite these efforts, in my research and experiences in schools as a counselor educator and school counselor, I have found bullying based on bias continues to be an issue in school settings.

“Bias-based” or “identity-based” bullying, defined as students being bullied specifically based on their race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, socioeconomic status or weight, is far more difficult to recognize or address when compared to traditional forms of bullying.

Teachers too may fail to notice and address such behaviors and, at times, may even be involved in them.

Response to bullying

Bias-based bullying incidents involve explicit and implicit forms of racism, sexism and other forms of prejudice or discrimination. They are not only harmful emotionally, socially and psychologically to students, but are also a violation of a student’s civil rights.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights urges schools to be vigilant in the identification and prevention of bias-based bullying and provides guidance on specific laws that prohibit bias based harassment such as Title IX, a federal law, that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, Section 504 or Title II, which protects individuals with disabilities, and Title IV, which protects individuals from harassment based on religion, ethnicity or shared ancestry.

Bias-based bullying behaviors can go unnoticed. Twentyfour Students, CC BY-SA

Despite this protection, however, bias-based bullying behaviors persist and can go unnoticed, or even be endorsed, by teachers in the field.

For example, a recent study investigated physical education teachers failing to respond to bullying behaviors against students being targeted due to their weight. Studies have also highlighted teachers failing to respond to students being bullied due to their sexual orientation.

Failure to recognize bias-based bullying behaviors can lead to tragic consequences.

Ryan Halligan, a 13-year-old student who committed suicide in October 7, 2003, was targeted primarily with homophobic slurs. A more recent case was that of Kennedy LeRoy, a teen who committed suicide in June 2015 after he was bullied partly due to having Asperger’s syndrome.

Bullying by teachers

Worse still, some students report being victimized not just by their peers but by their teachers as well.

In a study titled The Youth Voice Project published by my colleagues, Charisse Nixon and Stan Davis, students in special education testified that their teachers were more abusive toward them than toward their peers in general ed.

Although this information may seem surprising, teacher involvement in bullying students extends beyond special education settings to general and alternative education settings.

A 2011 study, for example, by researchers Christine Zerillo and Karen F. Osterman indicates that, although teachers were aware of colleagues who bully students, they felt more accountable to report peer bullying.

When teachers think they are outsiders

Although most schools are preparing educators and staff to recognize and respond to bullying, behaviors that are based on bias are often overlooked.

The results of a study I conducted indicated that educators may lack the knowledge of and skills to respond to bias-based bullying.

I investigated perceptions of undergraduate students in teacher education programs. I asked participants about their perceptions of their role when faced with a situation involving bias based bullying.

Most people consider themselves outsiders and do not respond to bullying. Denise Krebs

Approximately 50 percent of participants considered themselves to be outsiders or not involved in situations involving bias-based bullying. Additionally, participants believed that they lacked the knowledge and skills to respond to situations involving bullying and prejudice.

There was one encouraging finding, however. After participating in a full-day workshop that included bullying prevention and prejudice reduction, participants reported significant changes in attitude. Their knowledge and skills to respond to situations involving bullying and prejudice improved. And they also changed how they perceived their role – from considering themselves to be outsiders (57 percent pre-workshop, 20 percent post-workshop) to defenders of victims of bias based bullying (20 percent pre-workshop; 78 percent post-workshop).

Training teachers

So how can schools respond to bias-based bullying?

School administrators can include questions regarding bias-based bullying on their school environment, assessments and evaluations. This can help schools gain a better understanding of what forms of bias-based bullying are most common in their schools. Training teachers to recognize and respond to bias-based bullying could also improve the likelihood that they would intervene when they saw bullying.

These initiatives can be effective when implemented as a part of an intervention that includes the whole school, parents and the community.

The Conversation

SeriaShia J. Chatters, Assistant Professor of Education (Counselor Education) , Pennsylvania State University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Learning from successful learning: A look at the new NCLB

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest column by Brian Aull

Congress is now ironing out a revision of the No Child Left Behind Act.   This 2001 law mandated yearly testing with the goal of holding federally funded public schools accountable to yearly improvements on the scores.  The current bill gives states more latitude in determining learning goals and deciding what to do about schools that are failing by standard measures.

The renewed debate on the role of government brings to mind Onora O’Neill’s insight:  “Instead of working towards intelligent accountability based on good governance, independent inspection and careful reporting, we are galloping towards central planning by performance indicators, reinforced by obsessions with blame and compensation.”  This is an opportunity to reflect about how we judge success in education.   What does a good teacher or a healthy public school community look like?   Perhaps the answers come not from test score statistics but from the kind of anecdotal evidence that gives insight into what happens on the ground to make a school succeed.

In late June we said farewell to a giant in the field of elementary education. Marva Collins was a teacher in the Chicago public schools in the 1960’s.  Frustrated by bureaucracy and teacher apathy, she left the system and started a one-room schoolhouse in her attic.  She emptied her pension fund to pay for the needed construction work. She recruited a small group of students that the public schools had given up on.   After one year, these pupils’ test scores had improved by at least five grade levels.  60 Minutes aired a story about her remarkable classroom.  When Ronald Reagan became president, he unsuccessfully tried to convince her to be his Secretary of Education.

It’s instructive to look at the secrets of her success.  Rather than teaching students to regurgitate facts for a test, she taught them how to think critically, how to ask meaningful questions.   Her pupils would read Plato’s Republic, for example, and talk about the meaning of justice.  She viewed her work as nourishing the children’s souls as well as their minds.  She said that scholarship divorced from moral concerns is dangerous.   She created a genuine community in the classroom where the pupils learned from mistakes without fear of ridicule and applauded each other’s successes.  At the core of her motivation was love.   “There is no magic here,” she said. “I do not walk on water.  I do not part the sea.  I just love children.”

Marva Collins had the luxury of being both teacher and principal.   One might say that her success is a rare exception and could not be widely replicated in public schools.   But there are many success stories from which we might learn. One 2007 study highlighted Fraser Academy (a pseudonym), a failing elementary school in a high-poverty district of Buffalo, New York.   In 1997 a new principle came on board.   In a few years, Fraser changed from a place parents wanted to avoid enrolling their children to a place with a waiting list.

What did this new principal do?  Her work was about transforming the culture of the school, making it a genuine community that included parents, teachers, and students.   She encouraged strong patterns of parent involvement.  She had an “open door” policy, and listened to the concerns of all members of the school community.  She believed that the children could learn and set a clear expectation that they had a right to a school that served that purpose.  She supported the professional development of the teachers and staff, and encouraged them to experiment and to be active learners themselves.  She never expected the teachers to do things that she was unwilling to do herself.   The culture of the school reflected virtues of service, dedication to learning, and building community.  While her leadership was a big factor in this, there were material resources that also made a big difference; she was hired as part of a partnership with a bank that provided $500,000 a year in supplemental funds to improve the school.  It was an arrangement that gave her substantial autonomy to put her vision into practice.

What are the lessons to be learned from such success stories?  No Child Left Behind focused on standardized testing as the measure of school improvement, and punished schools that did not measure up.  This created powerful incentives to reduce the classroom to a test prep center, manipulate tests, lower standards, and otherwise game the system.

Most importantly, the law’s emphasis on “scientific” and quantifiable performance measures conceals the stories that tell us why schools succeed or fail.   “Teaching to the test” was the last thing on Marva Collins’ mind. Fraser Academy created a culture in which the school community worked collaboratively to evaluate its own success using measures that everyone agreed made sense.   When the school was working well, you could sense it within seconds of walking in the door.

Fresh thinking is needed about the role of both state and federal governments.  How can government be a resource rather than a regulator, facilitating the spread of best practices and providing funding to enable struggling school communities to adopt them?

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Brian Aull is research scientist at MIT and the author of The Triad: Three Civic Virtues That Could Save American Democracy. His blog on civic renewal can be found at
http://www.AwakenDemocracy.com

Learning to think or to work?

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest column by Edgar Wilson

Why are we learning this?

The anthem of disengaged students takes on new meaning when applied to America’s universities. It isn’t merely a question of individual lessons or trivial facts; when hyper-expensive degrees and all but unavoidable student loans are as much a rite of passage as walking the line at graduation, the meaning behind the mission deserves to be scrutinized.

Students today should be forgiven for feeling confused about just what they are supposed to be getting from school. In the classroom, lessons will often function to stimulate problem-solving, discussion, analysis—in short, getting students to think.

On the policy-making side, the goal is less abstract: school exists to prepare students to be productive workers. The message has become even more critical and urgent as the global economy proves that students around the world must all be competitive with one another. If our schools don’t create more productive workers, they will quickly find the jobs filled by immigrant labor, or face the prospect of the U.S. losing its status as an economic leader.

At the post-secondary level, the language still manages to distinguish between “trade schools” and universities; at every other level, the intersection of economic pragmatism and a more liberal arts-influence is less pronounced.

American healthcare makes for a powerful case study, as it is suffering from a similar polarity.

Primary care provider shortages mean that there is a demand for both bedside caregivers and administrators with overlapping occupational skills. Nursing is a trade, certainly: from administering medication to coordinating care, nurses are hands-on and highly skilled; yet administrators must also have the less tangible skill set of the entrepreneur, able to dissect complex organization systems and manage people effectively. They need the liberal arts training to think critically and creatively, as well as expertise in their trade.

Current continuing education requirements emphasize the tradecraft aspects of nursing, and it is up to individuals to find, finance, and complete the sort of advanced degrees that serve as a prerequisite for administrative careers. The needs are parallel, but the avenues for fulfillment have been segregated.

The answer to the compartmentalization of education—of learning hard or soft skills, of preparing for lifelong learning and lifelong doing—isn’t just a post-secondary consideration. Schools at all levels need to engage students on all levels—a model known in some sectors as kinaesthetic learning. This is more than a learning style; it is a pedagogical discipline that promotes learning by doing, activating curiosity as well as providing practical applications.

In a world (and an economy) where change is constant and disruptive, students and workers alike need the capacity to adapt quickly, apply knowledge constructively, and never treat the learning process as having a clear beginning and end.

The “why?” of academics cannot afford to be withheld; neither can soft skills be relegated to liberal arts instruction, while hard skills masquerade as cutting-edge STEM initiatives or high-demand trade fields. The artificial degree-to-career pipeline, and the accompanying price tag barring the way to higher earning through higher learning, obscures the reality that lifelong learning has become mandatory, not elective. All occupations—not just healthcare—need dynamic workers who both learn and do.

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Edgar Wilson is an Oregon native with a passion for cooking, trivia, and politics. He studied conflict resolution and international relations and has worked in industries ranging from international marketing to broadcast journalism. He is currently working as an independent analytical consultant. He can be reached via email here or on Twitter @EdgarTwilson.