Touchdown

I miss my students in Tbilisi (stay tuned for the Teaching Portfolio that documents my volunteer experience in the Republic of Georgia).

It's good to be back - Chuck Berry says it best…

Oh well, oh well, I feel so good today,
We just touched ground on an international runway
Jet propelled back home, from over the seas to the U. S. A.

New York, Los Angeles, oh, how I yearned for you
Detroit, Chicago, Chattanooga, Baton Rouge
Let alone just to be at my home back in ole' St. Lou.

Did I miss the skyscrapers, did I miss the long freeway?
From the coast of California to the shores of Delaware Bay
You can bet your life I did, till I got back to the U. S. A.

Looking hard for a drive-in, searching for a corner café
Where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day
Yeah, and a juke-box jumping with records like in the U.S.A.

Well, I'm so glad I'm livin' in the U.S.A.
Yes. I'm so glad I'm livin' in the U.S.A.
Anything you want, we got it right here in the U.S.A.

Well, I'm so glad I'm livin' in the U.S.A.
Yes. I'm so glad I'm livin' in the U.S.A.
Anything you want, we got it right here in the U.S.A.

Me - Through the Eyes of Children in საქართველო

Even with the numerous challenges they must navigate, children in the Republic of Georgia are amazing… 

Where is Dr. t. lee?

დიახ, ვარ საქართველოში!

Yes, I am in Georgia! 

I am serving in the Teach and Learn with Georgia program.

Tasks for the 2011-2012 School Year

There are two primary tasks for the 2011-2012 school year: 1) responding to high stakes testing and 2) facilitating more inclusive school environments.

Responding to High Stakes Testing

Recently, many urban principals have kicked off the school year with celebrations of test score gains and the practices that led to them. The celebrations are understandable given the immense pressure to raise standardized test scores and the sad state of American public education. The fact is that raising scores may get some schools to “safe harbor” or minimize the pressure from local districts, but what are we really celebrating?

Several questions arise as we celebrate: Are short term number gains worth what is being sacrificed? Is better teaching happening or is better teaching to the test taking place? When we narrow the curriculum to teach to the test, are students really learning anything that will be of value to themselves, their communities, or the world 20 years from now?  Is the end goal of our educational mission higher test scores or something much greater? Are short term test score gains worth the cost we will pay when we are faced with a generation of people that have limited critical thinking and creative problem solving skills?

With respect to the rabid high stakes testing sensation still gripping public schools, here are a few suggestions for parents and students to get involved:

Parents can join: Opt Out of the State Test: The National Movement

Parents can get informed at: FairTest

Parents should also check out: Parents Across America for information about improving schools and responding to NCLB.

Students can join: The Bartleby Project

Facilitating More Inclusive School Environments

As the new school year begins we have an opportunity to facilitate more inclusive and compassionate classroom environments. While the emotional trauma of being subjected to teasing and bullying is well established, recent studies have indicated that high achieving students of color, particularly Blacks and Latinos also suffer academically from exposure to bullying.

This year No Name Calling Week is January 23-27, 2012. Encourage your school to participate or participate in your own classroom by using the classroom resources and sharing the book The Misfits by James Howe with your students. Students can also take part in a national Creative Expression Contest where they can raise awareness about teasing and bullying.

During the 2004-2005 school year I taught sixth grade gifted English Language Learners at a public middle school in East Los Angeles; my students participated in the inaugural No Name Calling Creative Expression Contest. My English class was very proud when Jessica Carrillo won second prize (view press release here). Jessica’s original story is an inspiration to upcoming authors and this year she should be starting her first year of college. You can view her story below:

Name Calling Hurts by Jessica Carrillo

Name Calling Hurts by Jessica Carrillo from T. Lee

Exciting NCLB and RttT News!

Recently, seemingly exciting and promising news has emerged in the world of P-12 education about No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RttT). Essentially, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that NCLB waivers will be granted to States that agree to implement the Common Core Standards and privatization/charter-school model changes promoted by RttT.

The waiver move is the latest kowtow to the reality that American public schools cannot and will not meet the ridiculous goal of 100% proficiency in Reading and Math by 2014 as NCLB demands – at best, it’s chipping away with a butter knife at a piece of legislation we need to jackhammer into oblivion; at its worst it is a strong-arm maneuver aimed at a deepening of the corporate agenda for public education.

The cheating scandals of Atlanta and those that have not yet been exposed are just the tip of the iceberg in the debacle that an overemphasis on standardized testing has produced in American public schools. It seems everyone can agree that something is terribly amiss but the few who are in a position to effect legislative change remain reluctant to publicly admit that we are headed down the wrong path with NCLB and RttT – by the by, the “growth model” schemes proposed as compromise measures in both will get us nowhere closer to achievement equity than the absolute proficiency models have for the past 10 years.

Even with waivers and the other roundabouts that are sure to come, the fact of the matter is that NCLB remains the law of the land and along with RttT, it is an egregious affront to The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Let's not get unfocused here, we still need to repeal NCLB and remove RttT.

Waivers are not Saviors

During the past 10 years of NCLB implementation, America’s urban communities have lost almost an entire generation of creative/critical thinkers and problem solvers. For too many economically disadvantaged students and students of color, the entire scope of their elementary, middle, and high school experience has been test preparation, scripted programs, and an emphasis on compliance. The outcomes of these disastrous corporate educational policies are just now beginning to manifest in our higher education institutions and society at large.

Any sort of waivers granted to states will not change the real drudgery of teaching and learning in urban schools that NCLB implementation has created; they will not change the demoralization and dehumanization of students and teachers that continues to occur on a daily basis. Unfortunately, new administrators and teachers have been raised up in a climate that promotes and celebrates McEducation and given the high attrition rates for many educators it is all they have ever known.

Understanding the Political Landscape

For a moment, let’s pretend that party lines still mean something. The 111^th Congress had great potential to address No Child Left Behind head on. The fairly young (average age 58.2) Democrat dominated Congress  was comprised of a record number of women (95),  African Americans (41), Hispanics/Latinos (31), Asians/Native Hawaiians/other Pacific Islanders (11), and American Indians /Native Americans (1) – its predominant religious affiliation was Protestant with a strong representation from the Roman Catholic denomination.

In 2009 I warned, “Such a composition may seem to bode well on the surface for restoring American education, but what is unknown is how many members of the 111^th Congress have already pledged their allegiance to sell American public schools down the river to corporate and military interests that are deeply entrenched in the political mechanisms on Capitol Hill and have been steadily working towards the goal of privatization since the 1980s.” (Lee, 2009, “The Human Fallout: Educators' Perspectives about No Child Left Behind Implementation in Urban Schools,” p. 284).

The fact of the matter is that the 111^th Congress had the opportunity to make a positive change and rollback or repeal NCLB, an educational policy gone completely wild - and they failed. Instead, they did absolutely nothing and left NCLB in legislative limbo; instead, they were more concerned with not rocking the boat and maintaining their positions in the corporate pantheon that calls itself our representative Congress.

A Word of Caution

Too many are rallying against NCLB and RttT along party lines instead of seeing the big picture.  While it’s easy to unite and rally against a “bad guy” – a harder task is to understand that the struggle is not against a personality or even the illusory “party lines” that too many hold too dear.

Unlike some of the recent counter-rhetoric, the struggle to save our public schools is not against “Obama’s Education Plan” any more than it was against “Bush’s Education Plan” – this struggle is against a longstanding conglomerate of corporate interests that supersede and outlast presidential appointments and political parties -- deeply entrenched baobabs that threaten to implode our very existence.

Sure, the education summits held by George H.W. Bush set up the playlist for the reforms to come; yes, Clinton primed the dance floor with Goals 2000 and George W. Bush was the dancing fool that announced No Child Left Behind; and now Obama did in fact pop lock Race to the Top in your face to the States. But, it’s all in the family and each of these actions are but tiny brushstrokes in the big picture.

The architects of our current state of P-12 educational policy transcend political party. These think tanks, lobbyists, and corporate/business associations have a staying power that outlives the presidential figureheads that serve as the mouthpieces who present their seedy machinations to the public.

The Time is Now

• It’s time to stand up for our public schools in the struggle against corporate greed and privatization by resisting the establishment of charter schools and vouchers in our local communities.
• It’s time to call our so-called representatives to task and demand that they represent the will of the people and not corporations.  
•  It’s time to monitor and call organizations like the CCSSO, NGA, BRT, ALEC, and others to the floor and tell them to stop mucking around in urban educational policy.
• It’s time to get involved with teacher and administrative training and preparation programs to build up a force of educators committed to public education, social justice, and an increased understanding of pedagogic sociology. 
• It's time for local school boards to mount stronger resistance to federal and state mandates for local education practices; they are seeing firsthand the human fallout of these harmful laws.
•  It’s time for parents, students, and communities to actively resist the overemphasis on standardized testing by opting out or refusing to participate and telling administrators and teachers that we won’t stand for school time being devoted to doing test prep.
•  It’s time to vociferously call out the illegitimacy of the Common Core Standards which have been developed by special interest groups and corporations to represent their CORE and not the core of any community.
• It’s time to Save our Schools.

P.S. I blog, twitter, and facebook infrequently. But, for those who have emailed me, my thoughts about the Save our Schools Conference, March, and Congress are found in the Comments field of the previous post. Please feel free to leave responses or questions about my posts directly in the comments fields and I will publicly respond to each one in due time.

Save Our Schools March in Washington D.C.

I am attending the Save our Schools Conference, March, and Congress in Washington, D.C. from 7/28/11-7/31/11 as an unaffiliated observer; while I have received a scholarship for the Conference fees, I am not presenting in any sessions or participating on any panels.

I support the stated demands of the Save our Schools (SOS) movement with one important caveat – the realization of the stated goals and demands requires a radical alteration of the legislative strictures currently imposed on urban schools.  Specifically, in order to manifest any of SOS’ stated demands and indeed in order to resuscitate our urban schools and communities, the bloated octopus of No Child Left Behind must be repealed (and its poisonous tentacle Race to the Top must be severed).

                        

Learning Connections to SOS March in D.C.

One simple thing teachers can do is to begin to inform their students and families about international student movements against standardized testing including supportive movements like the SOS March and hold discussions about test preparation and how class time is spent, standardized testing, and their dreams and hopes for American education.

Teachers in year round or summer school session can use 7-30-11 and the SOS March to engage their students in learning opportunities about the importance of civil activism, NCLB, standardized testing, and asserting their vision for American public schools. Students can write and perform poems or songs to present their viewpoints, and a community panel does not take much time or resources to organize.

Beyond the Classroom 

Beyond the classroom, on 7-30-11 in D.C. I hope to see teachers, students, parents, families, administrators, administrative assistants, coaches, consultants, bus drivers, janitors, cafeteria staff, unionized employees from every spectrum, community/civic leaders, and religious figures, out for the mid-day rally and march to Save our Schools starting at the Ellipse. Budgetary concerns may prohibit many of us from attending in DC, but participation in this national effort can be fulfilled at an official or unofficial local event.

While I am not affiliated with the SOS March organizers or any interest group, we’re in this together. The struggle for public schools is the struggle for our very lifeblood. It’s time to bring our views from the hallways, the lunch rooms, the happy hours, the venting sessions, and the living rooms into the streets to demand an end to standardized testing, equitable funding for all schools and communities, a living wage, genuine teacher and community inclusion in education policymaking and curriculum developed by and for local communities.  At the core for me, what is required to accomplish any of these demands is a repeal of No Child Left Behind and end to Race to the Top. NCLB and RttT are wrong for urban schools, wrong for Gifted students, wrong for students of color, wrong for students with disabilities, wrong for teachers, wrong for administrators, wrong for states, wrong for districts, wrong for communities, wrong for public schools, and just… plain… wrong.

I’m excited to meet others with a similar interest in meaningful education reform led by parents and educators who have the physical proximity and/or financial wherewithal to make it to D.C. this summer, but I also recognize that the vast majority of us may be unable to attend for various reasons.

In solidarity.

Examining Immigration Reform Legislation in the Classroom: Student Activism and Policy Matters

Ten years after the bill was first introduced, today the Senate finally found the time to hold a hearing about The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (The DREAM Act). This legislation would provide undocumented children with a pathway to maintain residency and opportunities to become citizens. It continues to be met with fierce opposition from the usual suspects who seek to scaremonger, exclude and alienate.

The issue of immigration reform provides great opportunities for teachers to involve students in the practice of meaningful and purposeful scholarship. Much of the opposition to immigration reform and the fire behind anti-immigration legislation is the reality of changing demographics and rise of the Latino student population (See SB 20 in South Carolina, HB 87 the Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011 in Georgia and SB 1070 the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act in Arizona for a few examples). Recent NAEP analyses have noted that Latinos are the second largest racial/ethnic group in the United States; over the past 10 years their population has increased by about 43 percent. Mexican American students comprise about two-thirds of Latino eighth graders in public schools nationally and in the state of California 80 percent of Latino eighth graders are Mexican American. The state of California has one of the largest Latino populations, most of which were not born in the United States.

My sixth grade middle school students have engaged numerous policy matters and shown a particular interest in immigration reform. In 2006, one of the matters they addressed was The Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act (HR 4437); students brought HR 4437 to my attention because they felt it was an anti-amnesty, enforcement-only, xenophobic bill that threatened their families and people they knew and sought to harshly criminalize those who assisted individuals seeking asylum. The nationwide protest and boycott activities surrounding HR 4437 are historic in nature because they represent the first massive national push and mobilization for Latino communities around the issues of immigration and human rights.

Sort of like the present sense of urgency being produced by the Obama administration’s attempt to shotgun the reauthorization of ESEA/NCLB by fall, my students felt a sense of urgency regarding HR 4437 because it had already passed in the House of Representatives and was under Senate consideration. Because I had read House Mouse, Senate Mouse to them, they knew what that meant and also knew it was time to inform others and act.

As part of a Civics elective class I developed, in 2006 students researched HR 4437 in depth, organized and held a community panel for fellow students, parents, teachers, local education leaders, political representative office staff, and school principals where they presented information about the bill’s provisions to inform and respond to community questions/opinions, performed songs and poems stating their conclusions about the bill, and wrote letters to their local legislative representatives; in addition, numerous students and their parents reported to me with elation about their attendance at the historic March 25, 2006 march (The Great March / La Gran Marcha), and May 1, 2006 Great American Boycott/Day Without Immigrants march/protest against HR 4437 in Los Angeles (two of the largest civil/human rights protests in the city and nation’s history). Several of the students and their families also participated in the Great American Walkouts of March 24 – March 31, 2006 that were staged by students nationwide to protest HR 4437. Students and communities rose up and apparently, someone was listening to their voices because the bill died in the Senate. To date, comprehensive immigration reform remains a priority political issue for many families in the Latino community and for people that support liberty and justice for all.

Student Activism in Action: Inform and Engage the Community about HR 4437

Following is an edited 5 minute snippet showing part of a 2 hour community panel presentation and dialogue conducted entirely by my sixth grade students in 2006 about HR 4437:

Parent Response to Student Activism

Following is a parent comment made during the panel’s question and answer period:

Teaching Tools

Additional information about HR 4437 from a summative PowerPoint presented to students:

Hr4437

School should not be disconnected from students' daily lives. We live in fascinating times and it is possible for schools to engage communities with issues that are important to them while increasing the practice of scholarly dialogue. Every day, we are making and living history. The ongoing issues of immigration reform legislation afford teachers of students in Latino communities and all communities with an opportunity to consider the concepts of social conflict, basic human rights, justice, global awareness, fairness, and human dignity. Many activities -- from classroom discussions to school-community panels to Socratic Seminars to the development of poetry, songs, and dance performances can provide students with an opportunity to address these matters in an engaging way and practice expressing their viewpoints to others.

 

True Inclusion – Cliques, Teasing, Bullying, and Homophobia in the Classroom

Recently Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a historic letter to school Districts regarding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) student rights and school district responsibilities to provide equitable access to noncurricular student organizations (http://www.edweek.org/media/gay-straight-letter-blog.pdf) . It is an exciting time when many political and social leaders in our nation are finally standing up and saying that teasing and bullying are not “just a part of growing up.” Some teachers eschew discussing LGBT issues or even the issues of teasing, cliques, bullying, or homophobia for fear of some sort of reprisal or that some students might be made to feel uncomfortable. With suicide and drop-out rates of LGBT students remaining disproportionately high, I strongly suggest that teachers develop a comfort level of addressing not only LGBT issues in the classroom but the problems of teasing and bullying in general.

For those just beginning to address these issues, The Gay, Lesbian, Straight Educators Network (GLSEN; www.glsen.org) provides several highly recommended resources and training programs for teachers to address sensitive issues and anti-bullying with students in developmentally appropriate ways.  In addition, a good starting point to begin exploring how to incorporate discussions of teasing and bullying into the classroom is: The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander: From Preschool to HighSchool--How Parents and Teachers Can Help Break the Cycle by Barbara Coloroso.

Middle school is too often a place where some children are ostracized and alienated for being different – it does not have to be this way. If you are so inclined to use thematic teaching for the middle grades, the theme of Conflict is one that provides a platform and multiple opportunities to explore and discuss the internal and external social conflicts many young people experience-- things like cliques, teasing, and bullying. Below are a couple of student work examples demonstrating how my former sixth grade students interacted with the theme of Conflict in literature about teasing and/or bullying (click on each photo to enlarge):

Reading aloud to students is another way that teachers can explore the issues of teasing and bullying. Students are never too old to enjoy a good read aloud. Read alouds are a way to increase the joy of reading for pleasure, model proper diction, provide explicit demonstration of reading skills (such as predicting, connecting to the text, and interpreting the text), increase listening comprehension, and help students recognize language patterns.

I start each instructional period by reading aloud to my students and highly recommend the following books as read alouds with students to develop class discussions, literature circles, Socratic Seminars, and other activities using them as springboards for discussion (list is not exhaustive):

·       The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes

·       The Misfits by James Howe (this is one of my favorite books of all time to share aloud)

·       The English Roses by Madonna

·       Trouble Talk by Tracy Ludwig

·       Oliver Button is a Sissy by Tomie dePaola

·       It’s Okay to be Different by Todd Parr

·       The Other Foot by Ray Bradbury (also deals with the problem of racism)

·       Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun: Having the Courage to Be Who You Are by Maria Dismondy

·       Say Something by Peggy Moss

·       The Family Book by Todd Parr

·       Heather Has Two Mommies by Lesléa Newman

·       And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson

·       The Rat and the Tiger by Keiko Kasza

·       Nobody Knew What to Do: A Story About Bullying by Becky Ray McCain

I have made the following books that deal with the issues of cliques, teasing, bullying, and alienation available to students in my classroom library for students to read independently (list is not exhaustive):

·       The Misfits by James Howe

·       Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney

·       Lord of the Flies by William Golding

·       Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger          

·       Jake Drake, Bully Buster by Andrew Clements

·       Crash by Jerry Spinelli

·       Totally Joe by James Howe

·       Bullies Are a Pain in the Brain by Trevor Romain

·       The Meanest Doll in the World by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin

·       Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco

·       Hot Issues, Cool Choices: Facing Bullies, Peer Pressure, Popularity, and Put-Downs by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

·       Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

·       There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom by Louis Sachar

·       The Truth About the Truman School by Dori Hillestad Butler

·       The Revealers by Doug Wilhelm

·       The Kids' Guide to Working Out Conflicts: How to Keep Cool, Stay Safe, and Get Along by Naomi Drew

·       The BFG by Roald Dahl

·       Bystander by James Preller

·       The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

·       How to Handle Bullies, Teasers and Other Meanies: A Book That Takes the Nuisance Out of Name Calling and Other Nonsense by Kate Cohen-Posey

·       Stick Up for Yourself: Every Kid's Guide to Personal Power & Positive Self-Esteem by Gershen Kaufman, Lev Raphael and Pamela Espeland

Finally, the following film is excellent for exploring mob mentality:

·       The Red Balloon by Albert Lamorisse

We have an opportunity to increase dialogue and understanding to better our world via our classrooms. Remember, everything you do is “Standards-Based” – particularly when our ultimate Standard is to raise the humanity and acceptance of all people in our diverse world.