U of M's Institute for Urban Education

Hugh Zimmer of the Kansas City Star has an interesting recent editorial about the University of Missouri's Institute for Urban Education, a program specifically geared toward preparing aspiring teachers to embark on a four-year stint in the neediest urban school districts. Sounds a little like Teach for America, but the IUE seems to put the emphasis squarely on the long haul. I found this snippet of Zimmer's article particularly intriguing:

"Research indicates that in the fourth to sixth year of teaching, beginning teachers reach their stride and begin to have the greatest impact on increasing student achievement. Unfortunately, research also shows that many urban teachers leave the field within three years because of inadequate preparation and discouragement. The university program addresses these issues with support beyond graduation."

Zimmer doesn't go into a lot of detail about what that support actually entails, but good on the IUE to recognize that it's sorely needed. I've heard far too many stories of idealistic young people dropping out of programs like Teach for America because they're unprepared for the challenges they face. If the IUE's support system can convince newbie teachers to stick it out past that critical "fourth to sixth year," I'm all for it.

Microsoft's School of the Future: A progress report

Three years have passed since the opening of Microsoft's School of the Future in Philadelphia, a high-profile pilot project designed to kick urban education up a few notches with learning strategies from the corporate world. Two years have passed since I wrote about this daring initiative for Fast Company magazine. Now--if education experts at a recent American Enterprise Institute panel discussion are to be believed--the experiment is showing signs of stagnation.

For one thing, the School of the Future has suffered from a lack of stability. It's had four principals ("chief leaders") in only three years, according to an eSchool News report, and some attempted school-community partnerships have gone belly-up. Meanwhile, students' standardized test scores have been unimpressive to date, and in the midst of rapid administrative turnover, truancy rates have risen.

Still, Microsoft's Mary Cullinane, who supervises the project, thinks it's far too early to cry uncle. "To say this school is a failure is not correct. It's only in its third year, and innovation always takes time," Cullinane told eSchool News. "We can't use a short-term yardstick for a long-term journey; shame on us if we give up so easily, and so quickly." Many educators will be watching, no doubt, to see if the much-vaunted School of the Future can turn things around.

(Cross-posted from Pushing the Limits, my Fast Company blog)

Wendy Kopp of Teach for America: Charisma is overrated

I loved this New York Times Adam Bryant interview of Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America. When Bryant asked what she's looking for in new teachers, Kopp had a somewhat surprising response: She doesn't seek the most charismatic candidates, but the ones who seem to have an "internal locus of control"--the ability to keep calmly forging ahead, to concentrate on what they can do rather than blaming others for the uphill climb they face in urban schools. Kopp even states that the most successful teachers are often the least charismatic.

Thinking back on my own experiences--at the teachers who, looking back, contributed the most to the person I am today--I tend to agree with Kopp's assessment. My best, most memorable teachers weren't the ones who blew into the classroom like hurricanes, juggling Power Point presentations and fancy cross-disciplinary activities to try to keep the kids occupied. They were the ones who encouraged me, day by day, and without any fanfare, to question my own assumptions and to probe my capabilities to see if I could go a little bit further. Kopp's point is well taken: This is the kind of teacher challenged youth need, not well-spoken people who are friendly and engaging but can't motivate their students to do a thing.

Corporate ed

With so many public school districts tapped out when it comes to funding, test scores, and graduation rates, the private sector has begun swelling into the gap, taking more and more of an active role in shaping the direction of public education. This trend has intrigued me ever since I wrote a story on Microsoft's School of the Future in Philadelphia for Fast Company a couple of years back. I expected to be put off by Microsoft's efforts to ingratiate itself into public ed, but came away surprisingly impressed. The School of the Future kids I met were much more confident speaking in front of large groups than I was at their age, and let's face it—in today's world, it pays to know how to use Power Point.

Microsoft isn't the only corporate behemoth anxious to put its stamp on today's youth; other companies pursuing public-education ventures include Lockheed Martin, Citigroup, and Google. In many cases, public school districts welcome corporate intervention. Paul Vallas, former “CEO” of the Philadelphia school district, was known for actively courting public-private partnerships. Such partnerships tend to be win-win—the sponsoring company gets good PR and a chance to evaluate its pedagogical ideas, and students in financially stretched districts get access to resources and teaching methods that might never be available to them otherwise.

The question now isn't whether public-private ed is going to take off—it already has. The questions of the moment are what rules should govern company involvement in our kids' education and at what point corporate self-interest gets in the way of the public good. (In this case, “the public good” is a well-rounded education that prepares kids for any occupation they might choose—not just for becoming denizens of corporate cube farms.)

The Algebra Waterloo

In my two years volunteering with San Jose-based California Community Partners for Youth (CCPY), I've worked with high school freshmen and sophomores who face a vast spectrum of challenges: distant or absent parents, pressure to join gangs, run-ins with the law. But when it comes to academics, the kids' Waterloo is almost always the same--algebra. Many public school students who earn As and Bs in their other classes fail algebra and must re-enroll multiple times. Some of them barely squeak through on their second or third try; others, discouraged by repeated failures, simply drop out. As this superb Los Angeles Times investigative piece notes, of 48,000 ninth-graders in Los Angeles schools taking beginning algebra in 2004, a staggering 44% flunked out. I haven't seen the San Jose statistics, but I imagine they're depressingly similar.

When I encountered this phenomenon firsthand, I was mystified. Why were students who were clearly not lacking in natural ability--who could hold up their end of a conversation about any subject from fetal pig dissection to social inequality--seemingly so powerless when it came to slaying their math demons?

Two years later, I haven't come up with any real answers, but I can guess at some of the factors contributing to mass algebra hara-kiri in so many urban school districts. The biggest factor is foundational. While teachers typically advance kids in sub-par learning environments from one elementary-school grade to the next without much ado, the kids aren't always internalizing the basic math facts they're supposed to be learning. Ninth-grade algebra is when this incremental falling behind really starts to snowball. All of a sudden, there are objective state standards of performance students have to meet before they can graduate. If they never quite mastered things like multiplying fractions or the concept of negative numbers years before, they'll be starting with their heads way underwater when it comes to isolating unknown variables or graphing equations--processes that require a complete understanding of nearly all the fundamental math concepts taught in earlier grades.

At this point, it's only the most determined who fight their way back to the surface--who teach themselves, or have a tutor teach them, basic math concepts that should already be old hat, and then go on to learn to apply these basic concepts to more complex problems. Mixed-metaphor alert: It's like trying to salvage your game in Tetris when your blocks are piled almost all the way to the top. I'm amazed by kids who manage to pull this off, but school districts need to bolster early math instruction to ensure that students never have to play this frustrating game of catch-up in the first place.