Some people view education as a triangle consisting of students, teachers, and curriculum. This diary will look at some basic ways to improve education without considering changes to teachers and curriculum. (Our group has other diaries to focus on those important subjects.) Our nation has over seventy million students, and, as we all know, every one of them is unique.
Some of the changes needed to our educational system are directed at certain subgroups, though even these changes will affect everybody indirectly, while others are directed at all, or almost all, students. I will start with the changes that will impact everybody.
STRUCTURE SCHOOLS TO ENCOURAGE PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
One basic human need is the need to have a relationship. One of the needs that a school can fulfill is the creation of relationships across generations. Many students already have such a bond thanks to their family and neighbors, but one of the greatest thing schools can do is provide an extra link and, in the case of students without other adults playing a significant and positive role in their lives, schools can provide that relationship.
Unfortunately, in many middle schools, high schools, and colleges students spend their time in large, short classes which do not do a good job of facilitating positive relationships. Many teachers in such situations do not get a chance to see students beyond a single subject area.
Here are some ways that schools can facilitate strong relationships between students and teachers. It is not necessary for schools to do all of these things:
- "Self-contained classes": These are common in elementary schools, the idea being that one teacher spends several hours a day with a single class of students and works with them in a variety of areas. This works best when there are twenty or fewer students per teacher. This can be modified somewhat, especially as students get older, so that two or three teachers are given primary responsibility for the student. Problems arise when each student has at least five teachers, each teacher has over one hundred students, and no teacher looks at the overall well-being of the student.
- Advisory system: A system in which a teacher is assigned a group of about twenty students. The teacher meets the parents, has individual conversations with the students, works on the overall educational program of the students, and preferably stays with the student for several years.
- Small School or School Within A School: A group of at most one hundred students all have the same teachers in common. Even though each teacher has the student for a single subject, this allows for teachers to communicate easily about shared students and for flexible scheduling. The downfall of this option is that it is difficult to offer as many options to 100 students as to 1000 students. Therefore, families and communities have to agree that improved student-teacher relationships are a good trade-off for fewer options, or small schools have to join together so that exceptions can be made for students whose needs and wishes cannot be met within mainstream classrooms.
- Project Supervisors: This is a possibility when the curriculum involves a student completing a major project, sometimes necessary to graduate or advance to a certain grade. A Project Supervisor meets individually with the student to discuss the progress and needs of the student’s project. With this possibility, it usually works out better if there is a prior positive relationship between teacher and student or if there is a mutual interest in the subject of the project.
- Teachers Following Students (aka Looping): This probably should be combined with above options. Teachers can develop more complete relationships with students if they are with those students for more than one year. Many schools are already doing this.
GET MORE FROM ASSESSMENT
Another important factor in meeting the needs of individual students is assessment. Traditionally, assessment (or grading) has been done to differentiate students between those prepared for rigorous advanced study and those not prepared. It has also been used as a carrot-and-stick to encourage students to do what they are supposed to do (pay attention to the teacher, complete homework, study for tests, and so forth). These traditional uses have some merit, but there are other purposes that assessment can serve, which is why assessment is a major topic for school reformers.
Here are a few important principles in assessment:
- There are different kinds of assessments, and different ways to report assessments. Teachers often use a combination of assessments (such as watching students and telling them when they are on the right track, reading or watching the product of student work to provide feedback and, in many cases, rate the work). It is often helpful for students to get feedback on works-in-progress.
- Assessments must be aligned with the goals of the school. If a school wants to prepare students to participate in a democracy, but the report cards only mention math, science, English, and history, then the goals are unlikely to be met. If we want students to be able to design and carry out major projects, then we must make sure we are assessing their ability to design and carry out major projects. These assessments do not need to be a simple number or letter--they can be descriptive or constructive in nature.
- Assessment is a part of meeting the individual needs of students. Before teachers can decide which work is appropriate for which students, they must have a good sense of each student’s capabilities. This makes it important for transcripts/report cards/records to include information that can be applied by future teachers.
- It is useful to let students and parents have input into assessment. The idea is not to let the patients run the asylum, but it is useful to find out what students and families think are their own strengths and weaknesses and what they want to work on in the future.
- Assessments should provide useful feedback. Receiving a grade of C for a semester of work can be a frustrating experience because it is such an incomplete description and leaves a lot of ambiguity as to what to work on the future. It is more useful to receive a description of what went well and what did not go well.
In high schools, there is always resistance to change in assessment because of the implications for college admission. However, there have been cases of schools with nontraditional assessments that have been successful in getting their students into selective colleges. Additionally, there are ways to combine traditional assessments with nontraditional assessments. Elementary schools, as opposed to high schools, generally are already using more meaningful report cards then they were fifty years ago.
To some extent, these principles of assessment are only possible if the school restructuring ideas given before them take place. A teacher with over one hundred students generally will not have a good sense as to the individual needs of those students. Furthermore, it is impossible for that teacher to read the assessments of all incoming students and keep track of them in a meaningful way.
PROVIDE A SAFE AND POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT
Another basic need for students is a safe and positive environment. This need is so important that any national movement for accountability from schools should start in this area. Any reasonable person walking into a school should feel safe and should immediately notice that people in the school (students, teachers, staff, parents, and administrators) are treated with dignity. If this is not the case at any school, then there is need for intervention, because little learning will take place if the environment is not conducive to learning.
Sometimes, the needs of one student may be difficult to reconcile with the needs of another student. For example, one student could wear clothing with confederate flags to show pride for his heritage and family, while another student may take offense or feel threatened by those symbols. We are well aware of the fact that it is easier to promise a safe environment than it is to deliver one.
Schools also need to make sure that students of different races, genders, and sexual orientations are treated with respect. Every school needs people knowledgeable about these issues that students can talk to whenever they feel like it. Schools also need to make an effort to hire a diverse staff so that students get used to working with a variety of adults.
One important piece of a safe environment is making sure that students generally have a place where they can talk about their problems. Many people are students when they have their first experiences with violence, drugs, alcohol, overt racism, sexuality, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, death, family changes, and just the basic experiences of learning about yourself and others close to you as you approach adulthood. Our society must help students deal with these issues as they arise. Currently, the distribution of social workers and counselors, like much in education, is very inequitable, with the wealthiest areas having an adequate number while the poorest areas have very few. This help must be offered at schools if it is going to be accessible to many students.
MEET THE PHYSICAL NEEDS OF STUDENTS
Students also have basic physical needs that must be met. People under the age of twenty should see a doctor at least once each year, should have eye screenings at least every three years, and should have hearing screenings at least every four years. This basic level of care should be free for all families, and schools should work with their communities to insure that these needs are met, perhaps setting up temporary clinics to perform these services in the school or hiring qualified nurses. Many schools already do this.
One area where our country has gotten worse in recent years is meeting the need for students to exercise. Ironically, the decrease in emphasis in recent years given to recess and physical education has come at the same time that research has proven that people think clearer when they get some exercise each day. Schools need to make time in the day for physical activity.
In addition to the above suggestions which apply to all students, there are several things schools can do for specific subgroups. Of these subgroups, one in particular that needs to be addressed in a significantly better way than it has been is students living in families below or near the poverty line.
One great program our government already oversees is the National School Lunch Program, overseen by the USDA, which offers free and reduced-price lunches to millions of students every day. This program needs to continue. There have also been movements in schools to make sure that the food served is healthy and does not cause obesity, and those movements need to continue growing.
INCREASE FUNDING OF TITLE ONE AND RETURN ITS FOCUS TO HELPING STUDENTS
Title One is the primary program through which the federal government assists states and localities to educate students in poverty. Because (depending on the state) most of the funding for education comes from local taxes, and tax bases are very weak in impoverished areas, this program is necessary. The Bush Administration has increased Title One funding significantly under No Child Left Behind, but this funding has largely gone into assessment rather than student services.
Additionally, Title One funds have traditionally been focused on the first five grades of school, which leaves gaps in funding for middle schools and, even more so, high schools. This is one reason that high schools in poor areas are often chaotic—the funds to fully staff the schools do not exist. Title One funding, which is currently at $13 billion each year, needs to be increased significantly (by about $10 billion), and its priorities need to be on student services and program improvement.
When the federal government funds a state or local program, it has the right to ask for accountability. Under No Child Left Behind, however, the accountability has been improperly focused on standardized test scores and Adequate Yearly Progress. (I will not focus on the many flaws of NCLB in this diary, but one of its basic tenets is that all students, including special education students, should test at grade level within the next seven years and that schools should progress towards this goal each year.) It would be better if the federal government focused on clearer financial reporting, taking advantage of the internet to make such information accessible to citizens. This change would bring more local control back to our schools in terms of pedagogy and curriculum.
PROVIDE MORE HELP TO STUDENTS BEFORE THEY ENTER AND AFTER THEY LEAVE ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL
Head Start has proven to be helpful in preparing students for Kindergarten, though the extent of its long-term benefits is a controversial subject. Because the program is helpful to communities with a lot of poverty, we hope that the recent decreases in funding are reversed and that there is research on how to improve the program in addition to the ongoing research measuring its effectiveness.
One program related to education that has received short shrift in recent years is federal support for child care. The Child Care and Development Block Grant budget has been given constant funding during the Bush Administration without adjusting for inflation. This has led to fewer children being served, which in turn increases the number of families with young children that live below or near the poverty line.
At the other end of the student age spectrum are college students, where current prices are simply too high for poor and middle class students (and now even upper middle class students). Many state universities were established to give college students an affordable option, and forty years ago it was possible for students to pay for college tuition entirely by having a low-level summer job. While many community colleges are doing a good job serving their communities, many state universities are now trying to compete with elite private universities for prestige rather than serve their students. Because of this trend, many college students need to take out huge loans to have a chance at their dreams. States need to think seriously about returning to a time when families could afford to pay for college.
Congress is now debating a plan to reduce interest rates on college loans. This change would be a small improvement for students.
Spending money to help poor students is often labeled as ‘throwing money at the problem’. These accusations often come from areas willing to spend $15,000 per student per year on their own kids or from politicians happy to have a military budget that is seven times that of any other nation in the world. Money is not the only answer to our educational problems, but at some point our nation needs to decide whether it is willing to spend more money helping poor students or it is willing to give up on these students and their futures.
FUND IDEA (FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES)
One area in which the federal government has done an admirable job setting standards but a horrible job meeting its funding obligations is in helping individuals with disabilities, a subject our group will write a diary about in the future. There are more than six million such students being served, and the average cost required to serve their needs is more than double ($17,000 vs $7500) the cost required to educate students without those needs.
In 1975, the federal government started forcing schools to make educational plans for students, make accommodations for students with handicaps, and attempt to place students in the least restrictive reasonable environment. This has led to great strides for students with disabilities.
However, the federal government promised in 1975 to pay 40% of the extra costs required to help students with disabilities. Unfortunately, they have consistently paid only about 15-20% of these extra costs. This funding gap puts a major strain on state and local education budgets throughout the country, which makes it difficult for schools to improve in other areas. This gap must be closed if the federal government wants to claim that its support of education is anything beyond negligent.
Another problem with the federal government and special education has been the constant shifting of goals and methods, with the only constant being lots of paperwork. There have been many changes related to Adequate Yearly Progress and its relationship to special education, and it is difficult for schools to know what is expected from them each year. There is also a lack of clarity from the federal government with respect to new special education approaches such as Response to Intervention. Because special education is a complex subject that is causing a lot of difficulty for our schools, our group will have a diary devoted to it in the future.
In conclusion, there are a lot of important things we can do to get great schools in our country. All of the above, and I barely mentioned curriculum or teaching, which of course are each very important. The next time somebody tells you that the only way to improve schools is to give away vouchers, fire the teachers, or use more standardized tests, be ready with an idea that actually will make schools better.
