Shoddy Safety Nets (3-18-09)

I've come across many teachers who believe that one of the most exciting things about teaching is that every day is different. New challenges, dynamic students, "never a boring day," and ever changing content are just a few of the cited reasons for this belief. However, when mid-March comes around and you've spent every day of the year pushing students to learn Algebra while forcing them to abide by the expectations of the school, it's hard not to think that every day is the same.

I still have those special days where kids do and say amazing things. Don't get me wrong, I love my students and I love those moments where magic happen in the classroom. Nonetheless, putting those immaculate events aside, teaching freshmen mathematics in a "no-excuse" classroom is both repetitive and exhausting. How many consecutive days can you hound students to get into dress code, use appropriate language, act appropriately, and most importantly, use every one of the 85 minutes in class to learn mathematics. At some point you’re going to hit a wall. What makes the whole dilemma even worse is that you can never let down. You have to break through the wall. Unlike a job where sitting in your cubicle and fake working for an hour or so each day is common practice, there is no room for such downtime in the “no-excuse’ classroom. Burnout is not just an urban teacher problem as many careers face this same point of exhaustion. However, in our profession, the results are not that of bottom line dollars, but that of human life. Thus, we have no choice but to keep pushing and never give up.

Two weeks ago a couple of homeless adults came in to speak with my advisory group of 14 students. They told us their life story, detailing how they reached their personal rock-bottoms, and described the struggles they go through on a daily basis. Continuing their conversations, both men explained their efforts to get out of their situation and the never-ending challenges they face that inevitably seem to lead them back to the streets. I watched as the “homeless forum” sank into some of my students. It made a difference in their thinking and in mine too.

So often, teachers like me dream of the wonderful places our students will end up. Alma will be a public trial lawyer with a beautiful family, a cozy home and 2.4 kids. Donovan will be a famous public speaker, touring the country and inspiring youth to stand up for their lives and achieve their goals. Ronnie will be the CEO of a non-profit organization working to provide healthcare to every child living in the United States. Lupita will be a respected pediatrician, caring for kids with both extensive medical expertise and an enormous heart, always being sure to provide the young ones with a lollipop as they exit the office. What we rarely if ever discuss is the opposing perspective. What about the kid who ends up addicted to drugs, flat broke, disengaged from society and living on the streets? It’s all well and good to support our students in every way possible to reach their ambitions and to constantly encourage and promote their forward progress, but we must look at the counter-argument. What about our kids who are at risk of becoming homeless adults, and not world-renowned published authors?

After listening to our homeless guests and reflecting more deeply on their experiences I began to realize who exactly was at risk of joining their ranks. What I concluded was that it wasn’t me. Meaning, middle class kids like myself (I’m 27 by the way), who have a college degree, a strong network of close friends, a tightly knit family, and financial independence and saved assets, are very unlikely to live on the streets. There are so many safety nets that would catch me well before I lost everything should my life turn “bad,” for lack of a better word. If I developed a drug addiction or lost my job or was in a horrible accident I wouldn’t be alone in my recovery, whether social, emotional, financial or physical. There would always be someone there to get me back on track and remind me of the life I am capable of living. In extreme opposition to my situation, take my worst off students. Living with one parent who can barely take care of themselves, major deficiencies in skills and knowledge, lack of social skills and awareness of middle class values, a dysfunctional and broken family, and a network of friends who are in nearly the same situation.

If we, the school, don’t ensure that this child is able to prosper in the highly competitive and demanding world that lies beyond our building’s walls then that student may very well end up homeless one day. My intention in that statement is not to simply be negative and say that our students are doomed to a life of stress and struggle. However, it is my intention to say that the school has more of a responsibility than some of us recognize, especially those outside of urban education.

When I hit that wall of exhaustion where I’ve had it with doing the same thing day in and day out I have to consider the opposite perspective to the wonderful dreams that many of our students will no doubt achieve. It’s our job to not only prepare students to get where they want to go, but to also ensure that they don’t end up begging for money on a street corner and moving from shelter to shelter. I have a college degree, am fiscally sound, a caring and capable family and a group of friends who could help me in a variety of ways should I ever need to rely on them. Our students in many cases may not have any of these supports and therefore have a safety net filled with holes. It’s our job to do everything in our power to ensure that they never slip off of life’s trapeze and hit that shoddy net. If so, it may not catch them.

Negative Six Minus Eight (3-5-09)

First and foremost, my apologies for my recent hiatus. Life has been a little nuts, and as such I haven't been doing as much blogging or none at all for that matter. A big thank you to those who recently posted comments regarding my previous two posts. Your insights are thought provoking and greatly appreciated. Keep sharing as it makes all of us think a little more and that's how we get smarter.

On to today's blog...

Proctoring the CSAP is always the most depressing time of the year for me. Having only taught in the most difficult environments (low socioeconomic, urban) over the past 6 years I have yet to be part of a school that produces results greater than 15 % proficient or advanced on the 9th grade math portion of the assessment (compared to a state average of roughly 35 %). As I read through the directions of the math component on Tuesday and we embarked on the first of three math sections, I watched in complete frustration as my students answered the first sample question. - 6 - 8 = ____. The overwhelming majority bubbled the empty circle next to the response "2."

Nothing highlights my problems in succeeding as a teacher and closing the achievement gap better than that simple problem, - 6 - 8. We've worked with negative integers through out the year in a variety of capacities. From the "drill and kill" perspective, we've spent weeks going through mad minutes directly focused on adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers. Not moving on to the next set of skills until we'd seen substantial growth in this area, the typical student moved from doing 4 to 5 simple problems such as the sample in 1 minute to being able to handle 10 - 15. In terms of applying this skill to a meaningful task, students were taught how to find an equation when provided with a set of linear data. Using the linear model, students worked on making predictions about the future and used their equations to analyze real world situations such as cell phone bills, population growth, and job opportunities. This entire process started with finding the slope of a line which requires students to subtract positive and negative numbers on a regular basis. To support this necessary skill, the DO NOW's, starting problems for each day, asked students to find the slopes of points involving both positive and negative integers.

The bottom line is this. We encountered/worked with adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers over a long period of time. Most, if not all students showed growth in this area as they improved their skill set. This growth was evident in their ability to answer 16 simple arithmetic problems, i.e. -3 - 6 or -5 + - 8, in a minute, their accurate completion of DO NOW's on a daily basis requesting them to find the slopes of a line when given two points, i.e. (2, 5), (-3 , - 6), and their ability to utilize this basic skill and apply it to more complex Algebra such as determining the equation of a line when given a set of linear data. Nonetheless, despite all of the data that I've collected to monitor their growth and despite the tremendous amount of practice they've received coupled with intense coaching, the students failed to answer - 6 - 8 correctly. I failed.

Take Aways

The reality is that our students enter the classroom more like 5th and 6th graders in their skills and knowledge, particularly in the area of mathematics. Therefor, it makes sense for us to emphasize and reward growth. Meeting grade level proficiency would be a nearly impossible task for 90 % of our student body as this would mean increasing 3 to 4 grade levels in 3/4 of a year (don't forget, CSAP's in early march). While recognizing improvement is valid and necessary, it doesn't quite get the job done in a "results oriented" society. It's beautiful to bring a 9th grader from 6th to 8th grade levels of proficiency in a year's time, but this doesn't ensure our students the chance to compete with their middle class and affluent competitors.

The biggest take away I have is the fact that we have to change our approach if we're going to get the job done and become true "gap-closers." The obstacles are clear to see, the biggest being how do we ensure mastery of such vast content in such a short time span. This year, more than any other, I've used objective assessment data to dictate instructional and curricular decisions. Although this is a valuable practice, it also throws a wrench in our plan. If we constantly teach, re-group students, and re-teach to ensure mastery than how do we get through the content? Teaching for mastery takes far longer than the traditional covering of content, and in turn, makes it impossible to get through the depth and breadth of material assessed on the CSAP. That is unless we change the system in which we're teaching.

Solutions

There is a reason that highly successful "no-excuse" urban charter schools have a longer school day and a longer school year. Their low socioeconomic students of color need the time to catch up. There's also a reason that a huge percentage of these schools have summer academies before students ever step foot in an actual class come fall of their first year.

My solution to the dilemma of developing proficient 9th graders who come in way behind grade level is multi-stepped.

1.) All students have to attend a math skills boot camp prior to entering 9th grade. For three weeks in the summer students would work on nothing but the foundation skills necessary to engage in Algebra (fractions, percents, decimals, integers, ratios, operations, etc.). Students who feel they already have these necessary skills could test out of boot camp by performing at a proficient or advanced level on a rigorous assessment tool. Students enrolled in boot camp would take this same assessment at the conclusion of their three week period. If at this time they still score below proficient, they are placed in an additional class outside of their Algebra class that runs for a minimum of 9 weeks. At the end of this time students would have another opportunity to demonstrate proficiency on the high-stakes assessment. If they reach a proficient level of mastery they may exit the class and replace it with a regular class from the menu of options, but if they don't they are enrolled in another 9 week session. The entire "boot camp" program/philosophy basically says that improving isn't good enough and that proficiency is all that matters. It also sends the message to students that the school is going to do everything it can to level the playing field, but that it's up to the students to own their learning and to prove their mastering essential content.

- Issues with this plan are both financial (who's going to pay for the program) and staffing based (what teachers want to run a 3 week drill and kill math boot camp). Solve these two potential road blocks and you may have a workable piece to the overall solution.

2.) Urban schools need more time to handle the math dilemma, especially at the 9th grade level.
Schools have to constantly instruct, assess, re-group, and re-assess students. As such, I suggest a norm of 2 hours, everyday of mathematics. Many "beat the odds" school already employ this double math time schedule and their results are evidence of its effects. Should schools use the additional time wisely, creating a sense of urgency in the classroom and making every minute count in addition to constant assessment and monitoring of student learning, the 2 hours a day should be enough to reach mastery of essential content. Keep in mind that in this model students might move around to different teachers based upon their results of their assessments. On a weekly or monthly basis students could be re-distributed to work with other students who have the same learning needs. Rather than force three-tiered differentiated instruction to take place in a single classroom, students could be moved around to work with distinct groups struggling with the same deficiencies.

- There are certainly a slew of issues with this plan from school schedule to staffing capacity. However, consider the notion of going slow to go fast. If 9th graders could get caught up then the rest of their high school career would look a whole lot brighter. It's often said that failing Algebra is a great indicator of student drop outs. Let's reverse the cycle, emphasize mathematics with time, resources, and staff, and really close the gap.

Parent Involvement? Helpful or Hindering? (1-29-09)

This morning was one of those mornings that throws you off. It wasn't that I got up on the wrong side of the bed, or that I wasn't prepared to teach. I was running a bit late, but even that wasn't much to overcome. What really knocked me off course was the parent/student meeting that started my day.

Parent involvement in their students' school lives is crucial. There is no question that having an engaged family can most certainly benefit both the individual student and the school community. This positive side of the parent coin is one that I wish was the only side. Unfortunately, there is a negative side to this coin, no matter how infrequently it shows.

The parent this morning was such a negative and intimidating presence in the room that you had to question whether involving her at all was a wise decision. As the student sat with tears running down his face and the parent continued to unleash her intensely negative and degrading rhetoric I found myself feeling more and more uncomfortable. Trying to gain some semblance of productivity, the teachers and I continued to go back to the positives we've been seeing as well as interventions that we believe could be used to support this student in improving. No matter what we said it all went back to the same thing.

The parent didn't say it and it wasn't written anywhere, but all I kept hearing was "you suck...what's wrong with you?" Was it really such a shock to see that this student was floundering at school and has been for years? This is a kid who hasn't "legitimately" passed a class since elementary school and has more disciplinary referrals then there are members of the Senate.

After having a few hours to reflect on the experience and others that I've had in the past of similar caliber I derived a few notions. Here they are in no particular order.

1.) How could this parent not be angry?
- Whether she did it to herself, meaning that the parenting techniques used during the student's childhood led to his current state, or this is just how things turned out after a valiant effort as a mother, it's almost impossible not to see where the anger comes from. If I had a financially inadequate and personally unsatisfying job, lived in a run down house and had one child who was completely failing in his academic endeavors for a series of years I too would be pissed. To stay optimistic and provide constant positive support to that student and to the school would become a nearly impossible task. I don't believe this gives a parent the right to degrade their child in front of their teachers, but it does allow me to empathize with her position.

2.) Parental involvement can be a hindrance to our work
- Parents have a right to know about their child's progress at school and to be involved in their child's life. However, once we engage with certain parents and discover that their presence can at times be more harmful then helpful we must take such knowledge into consideration in future attempts to support that student. So many of our students have heard "negative talk" for so long that simply piling more of it on at the high school level won't do anything to turn things around. The famous study titled "The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3" makes a clear note of the differences experienced between children of professional families and those growing up in poverty. According to their study, children being raised by professional families hear an average of 166,000 encouragements compared to 26,000 discouragements over the course of a year. Inversely, children from welfare families will hear an average of 26,000 encouragements versus 57,000 discouragements over that same year. I believe our students have heard enough of the negative. It's time to focus on the positive.

3.) Some of our biggest problems don't have clear solutions
This is obvious, but at the same time needs to be addressed. The student we were dealing with this morning has serious learning deficits in addition to chronic behavior problems and a lack of motivation. Combined, he becomes one of our greatest difficulties when it comes to ensuring that he receives an education that will allow him to thrive in both school and life. Finding solutions to making sure he learns what he needs to be successful from both the academic and character side of the education spectrum is a daunting if not impossible task. However, it is the task that we've chosen to take on and the task in which we must succeed.

This morning was a tough morning. The kind that makes you step back for a second and realize the realities of where you're working and who you're working with. It's scary to think that millions of parents like the one I encountered this morning are raising millions of children across this country. Regardless, it is our job to move past mornings like the one I had and put all of our energy into educating our students. This morning wasn't a new experience for me, but it really does get me each time it happens. Part of you wants to give the student a big hug and another part wants to ream into the parent. When you let your emotions subside you realize that all you can do is work your ass of to make sure you save that student. The parent may be too far gone...the child can be saved.

Math teacher...who said anything about math?

Progressive vs. Traditional – Who’s right, who’s wrong (12-17-08)

There I was, sitting in the kitchen at an antique wooden table staring at a giant page of numbers. Rows and columns filled with digits jumped off the paper, screaming at me where only an hour ago my mother’s turkey loaf had done the same. The multiplication table was my nemesis (no different then the turkey loaf). I don’t remember what grade I was in or who my teacher was, but the sound of my father’s voice reaming into me about how important it was to master this matrix of data from one through twelve still resonates in my head. As the family embarked into the living room to watch one of the classic Star Wars films on the latest and greatest technology, laser discs, I was stuck at that antique wooden table, staring at numbers and for the one and only time in my life, wishing it was the turkey loaf instead.

School didn’t have to make sure I mastered my multiplication fluency, my family did. In fact, there are a lot of things school didn’t have to do for me.

Here are just a few examples

• How to act around professionals: My father always had business colleagues over at the house.
• How to advocate and negotiate: I learned this through compromising with my mom from an early age.
• How to speak using professional language: It’s all I heard from birth through adulthood.
• How to persevere in difficult situations: That’s all I saw. No one around me ever folded growing up. There was no task that couldn’t be accomplished. From starting companies to getting patents approved…anything and everything was possible.

Now let’s go back to that pesky multiplication table. My personal experience strikes at the heart of the national debate between progressive and traditional math instruction. The reality is that not all students from the multitude of backgrounds that we teach need the same thing. In fact, providing them with the same instruction is a complete disservice. To argue for Saxon math (the most traditional drill and kill curriculum I’ve ever seen) or Interactive Mathematics Program (IMP – the most inquiry, discovery based curriculum available) is a ludicrous notion if the students that the curriculum is going to serve aren’t taken into consideration.

The bottom line…I don’t think it mattered what curriculum my math teachers used during my middle and high school years. Regardless, I was going to have my math fluency down…not much of a choice when your father is an engineer. However, when I consider the students that I’m teaching, impoverished minority adolescents entering 9^th grade with only 8 % demonstrating grade level proficiency, it’s clear that my fate as a numerically literate individual is not the same for the clients I serve unless our school does what my family and my school were able to do for me.

It’s no secret that every “beat the odds” school I’ve visited across Colorado and the country uses direct instruction as their primary means of delivering information. Their thinking…we have way too much to cover because we’re already two to three years behind. There is no choice but for the teacher to own the content and for the students to sponge it up. As a result, you don’t see collaborative groups working through open ended projects at their own pace. You don’t see spiraling curriculums in place where the teacher moves on even though the majority of the class hasn’t shown mastery because they know that the topic will come back sometime before the end of the year or maybe next year. In fact, what you see is the opposite. A consistent push for mastery of specific learning outcomes that are the foundation of mathematics understanding.

Coming out of college all I could think about was getting students to see relevance in their mathematics and engaging them in exciting, dynamic learning experiences. I wanted them to discover the big ideas of mathematics with my facilitation, but I didn’t want to force or rush it. I taught with little to no urgency. In contrast, the schools that are preparing our most under serviced youth in this nation, poor, minority students, for college and beyond teach as though every minute was a last breath in an effort to resuscitate a drowning victim. These schools recognize the Lisa Delpit perspective that so cautions us of worrying so much about engaging and encouraging our “behind grade level” students that we fail to teach them the rules of the game.

Her argument is framed around writing and literacy, but its message resonates in the world of math education just the same. If all we worry about is engaging our students in mathematics thinking and we fail to teach them function-notation or the various ways to write a ratio then we are not preparing them for life. There is a way the game of life is played and grammar, punctuation and sentence structure all play a role. Just because a student is able to organize some creative thoughts on a piece of paper doesn’t mean we’ve gotten them ready to compete. Those thoughts need to be presented with a commanding understanding of formal English language if we want them to be taken seriously and accepted when they enter the global economic workplace. Math is no different.

We can’t simply pat our students on the back for finding a pattern in a sequence of numbers. They need to be able to use the professional terms associated with such mathematics. I found the “recursive routine” and the “starting value” is ________ and the “rule’ that gets you to the next “term” is ___________. Students need to engage in the fundamentals and formalize their understanding using the same mathematics language that will be presented to them when they enter college. If we want them to become successful college students then we have to treat them as such from early on. This includes not only our interactions with them, but the way in which we deliver content and what we deem as acceptable mastery before moving on to the next piece of content.

In the end, the debate between progressive and traditional math instruction is one that we all know the answer to, we’re just not talking about it. Picture it as a possible 100 % combination. Meaning, in a perfectly balanced classroom we would see 50 % of one mixed with 50 % of the other. In my case, having been pounded with “math facts” from an early age I would have thrived regardless of the ratio, but it’s clear that a progressive leaning combination might have served me better, say a 70 % progressive/30 % traditional ratio. On the other side of the spectrum, if my students are provided with the same 70/30 split then it is unlikely they would ever really catch up and be able to compete with their middle and upper class counterparts. An ideal ratio for my 6^th and 7^th grade 9^th graders would be the inverse, a 70 % traditional/30 % progressive ratio. As I emphasized earlier, not every child needs the same education and to provide them with the same, even at a high quality, would be doing a great disservice.

There is no singular solution to this national debate between Progressive and Traditional math instruction practices. Both have a place in the American classroom. However, both can’t have the same amount of weight in different classrooms serving different students. We must look at who is producing results, for which students and with what practices. The Avon, Connecticut’s and Cherry Creek, Colorado’s of our nation will most likely prosper regardless of curricular and instructional practices decisions. The same can not be said about the Newark, New Jersey’s and Oakland, California’s. Education reform in the world of schools and math must consider the assets and deficiencies of the clients they are serving if they are to be truly effective.

As the “beat the odds” schools in our country are living and dying by the motto “every minute counts” so too must our push for delivering appropriate and necessary math instruction to our under serviced students. It’s not ok to simply engage in mathematical thinking and to share ideas. It’s a great start, but it doesn’t get kids who are four and five grade levels behind to catch up. If our philosophies clash with our realities then we must waive “bye-bye” to philosophy and “hello” to reality. Results are the only thing that matters and instead of thinking like education reformers lets think more like venture capitalist. What’s the bottom line?

Two weeks till break…two years till radical change (12-7-08)

I’m currently reading a book titled “No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning,” and I can’t help but feel that I should be using the title as a guiding motto for the next two years of my life. In this upcoming week I have two important meetings scheduled, one with the Colorado League of Charter Schools and the other with a representative from Get Smart Schools. I’m hopeful that both organizations will play pivotal supporting roles as I look to open an ECE – 8^th grade public charter school housed right in the Manual Facility. The school opening date is fall 2010. From this point until that date I would like to follow the no excuse life model.

There are so many reasons why the school won’t open on its scheduled date. Whether it’s the fact that I have no expertise in early childhood education or that I just had my 27^th birthday two days ago, or that I’ve never done any fundraising in the private sector; it’s easy to see the shortcomings I bring to the table. However, I’m going to acknowledge all the possible deficits that I have, do whatever I can to fix them by either improving myself or recruiting human capital, and move forward. There are “no excuses” for why this school won’t open on time and do exactly what it says it’s going to do. Eliminate the achievement gap and prepare impoverished minority students to compete with their middle and upper class counter parts.

As the text I’m reading states, “indifference to minority children who arrive in kindergarten already behind and continue to flounder is no longer an option for schools.” (Thernstrom 3) It’s no longer an option for our communities and it’s no longer an option for our country. I am frustrated, to put it nicely, with the students who walk into my 9^th grade classroom three and four grade levels behind their peers. I think about my own peer group, law school graduates, commodities and insurance salesmen, bankers, accountants, small business owners, and I can’t help but think about whether my students can compete with them. Do they have the academic, social and cultural capital necessary to thrive in our competitive country? Simply stated…no. That’s not to say they’re not able to develop these assets or that they have less innate ability then my friends did at their age, I simply mean that should the school not ensure the attainment of these assets then the students chances of success in our global economy are dire.

For those wondering how I define success I will put it in non-financial terms and simply define it as the ability to do whatever you want in this world without being held back by your deficits. When I think about the quality of some of my students writing and what a cover letter on a job application would look like I quickly see a deficit that could hold them back from achievement. When I say good morning to a student and put out my hand only to receive a barely audible voice in response with a weak hand shake and no eye contact I once again see a deficit that could stop one of our students from getting what they want in this world.

As the “beat the odds” schools are proving and as all research that I’ve been reading states…we must develop the human capital of our students which includes everything from writing engaging, organized and grammatically correct text to shaking a persons hand, looking them in the eye and confidently saying “good morning.” This is the backbone of inner-city academic institutions that are changing the odds for our most underserved student population and this will be the back bone of Make it Happen Academy, an ECE – 8^th grade charter school that will open in fall of 2010 and will ensure that minority students living in poverty can and will compete with my peer group. There are “no excuses.”

Geoffrey Canada and "Directors of Change" (11-25-08)

I'm almost done reading Paul Tough's whatever it takes and with each page I find myself more and more engaged in the work of Geoffrey Canada. Last night in particular, as I worked through the chapter titled "Conveyor Belt" I was struck by his sediments. The passage that really hit me read as follows.

"Here's the problem with everything that we've been doing in this field," he told me. It was a chilly February morning, and we were sitting at the small round meeting table in his office. "For the last thirty or forty years, all of us have chosen to work in places where kids are behind, with the thought that we would be superheros and we would go in and save these kids." The superhero method was often emotionally rewarding for those who practiced it, Canada said, even if it was also usually personally exhausting. It meant you were engaged in battle in the most hopeless neighborhoods, teaching or mentoring or otherwise rescuing desperate kids whom the system had written off, and if you were good at your job, it meant that you regularly performed miracles.

Canada had felt the sense of triumph that came with those successes. He knew it well, in fact. It could be exhilarating. "But the problem with that approach is you will always have more business than you can handle," Canada said. "You will never solve the problem. You will only save some small number of kids who are on their way to the dark end of things. We've all done it, and we all still do it, and we need to keep doing it. But it is what I've come to think of as the old-fashioned way of working in these communitis."

What the conveyor-belt idea represented to Canada was the hope of a new alternative. "The question is, can you build a system where kids in middle school won't need these kinds of interventions in order to be successful?" he said. "And my bet - I could be wrong, but this is my bet - is if we start with kids very early, and we provide them with the kind of intense and continuous academic rigor and support that they need, then when they get to the middle school and high school level, we're not going to need those superhuman strategies at all."

Whatever it Takes - pg. 196

What Tough pulls out of Canada's philosophy on solving issues of poverty is the exact dilemma that I've been facing since the start of my career and most recently, since helping to re-open Manual High School. How much can we really do when we start with 15 year olds? We know from the studies of economists, sociologist and brain development psychologists that much of our cognitive abilities have already been established by the time we reach the ages of 15 or 16 years old.

The nobel prize winning economist James Heckman does a great job of synthesizing this idea. In essence, intervening with a 16 or 17 year old is too late. "A person's cognitive abilities are fairly stuck in place. But the same level of intervention at an early age can make a very big difference in a child's life." He goes on to illustrate his point. "If you intervene in a child's life early, later intervention wil have more to build upon, which means that they will pay off more as well. But if you don't start early, the reverse happens: each year it gets harder and harder to have an effect on a child's development." (Tough 193)

Where does this leave me?

Simple...Manual High School, regardless of its "Superhuman" efforts, will never save all of its students. We're certainly giving them a way better chance to succeed in life and I'm confident that we will in fact have a lot of successes. However, as Canada stated, we'll only be saving a small number kids. My solution...stop putting so much effort into a solution that doesn't work (or at least doesn't work nearly as effectively as others).

Instead, I propose turning the Manual High School facility into a mini-version of the Harlem Children's Zone. The facility would include everything needed to take a newborn baby from birth through college (the whole notion of Canada's plan in Harlem).

• Baby college
• Intense Toddler Support
• Health Clinic
  
• Early Childhood Education
  
• Elementary, Middle and High School
  
• Alumni Support
• Mentor Programs
  

Canada's entire philosophy is grounded in the fact that if students of color growing up in poverty are given the right, intensive supports through out their life that we can in fact eliminate the achievement gap and in many ways, never see it in the first place. By turning Manual High School into an interwoven community facility, a conveyor belt of programming that works with kids at each stage, our chances of successfully preparing our neighborhood's kids to compete with upper and middle class society will grow exponentially.

To make this vision a reality, one that I believe many would love to see, it will take a few entrepreneurial leaders (amongst millions of dollars and an overly dedicated staff) with time, energy, passion and some serious know how. Human capital is the essential ingredient to any start up company and the same is true for any efforts on the non-profit, educational side of the world; especially one trying to create major social change. What we need to do is find people with specific interests in each of the sections of the conveyor belt. Someone needs to lead the charge on early childhood education. Another individual needs to run our Baby College. Yet another needs to head the health services clinic. The question is, what pieces of the conveyor belt need to be implemented first? It's clear that getting all of these support systems in place at once would be a nearly impossible challenge. Therefor, which ones are top priority for not only future success, but short-term, temporary success as well?

This is the question that I would like to pose to a board of directors that I've fittingly titled the "Directors of Change." Such a group would oversee the effort on all fronts and ensure cohesion between the different sections of the "conveyor belt." The Directors of Change would be the leaders from each intervention effort, i.e. the principal of the Middle School, the Director of the Baby College, etc. as well as CEO's from successful private and non-profit entities in the Denver Metro Area. Beyond answering the question stated above, the board would lay out a mission statement, organizational charts, a detailed plan for staffing, child/family recruitment, and facility usage , and all other necessary endeavors needed to bring the vision to life.

At the end of the day we must stop relying on our "superhuman" efforts to save 15 and 16 year old kids. It's time to stop using what Canada refers to as a "traditional method' of solving our problem and move towards a set of intervention solutions that when tightly woven together actually stand a chance at creating real change. On his march to the White House Obama carried a message entrenched in the notions of hope and change. He wasn't saying that he alone was going to be the change...he was simply planting and motivating seeds so that we could all stand up and act. The timing couldn't be more right for this effort. Let's make it happen!

Input vs. Output (11-16-08)

I used to love editing video in college. Whether a news story for our weekly broadcast or a highlight video for the sports teams to use for recruitment; The editing room is an exciting place where you can combine creativity and hard work to make a product that you can be proud of. The beauty of editing is that when you're done you get a finished product and your input (time, effort, imagination, etc.) has a direct correlation to the output (the quality of the video).

The world of urban education, however, does not follow this simple input/output model. Many educators in schools in Denver and around the country are inputing a great deal of time, effort, innovation, dedication, etc. and are still not seeing a quality finished product (results). What's the problem? The problem, as I see it, is that we're putting way too much time and energy into a system that doesn't work. The teacher in a comprehensive high school of 2,000 kids who's working insane hours to catch kids up that are 3 or 4 grade levels behind is deserving of great accolades and praise, but how much of an impact can that teacher have? What if we gathered handfuls of these overachieving educators and had them put all of their energy into the early ages of child development?

As I discovered in Paul Tough's "Whatever it Takes," kids coming from poverty are already at a tremendous disadvantage by the time they are 3 years old. Children at this age from a professional family have an average IQ of roughly 117 and a vocabulary of approximately 1,100 words. Their impoverished counter parts score an average of 79 on the same IQ tests and their vocabulary is roughly half with an average of 525 words. Talk about an uphill battle. By the time these same kids reach the high school level it's no wonder there is a significant "achievement gap." That is why our efforts need to shift...not in the energy level and dedication we're inputing, but in where we're putting it.

If the same group of highly intelligent and dedicated urban educators shifted their focus to the birth though 5th grade population we could see some significant results. Maybe our input might start matching our output. This isn't to say that we don't need highly qualified and passionate teachers working at the secondary level. We obviously do and those kids deserve our best efforts to turn things around. However, recruiting a new group of educators and taking some of the current work force to focus in on the age levels where we can really make a difference and ensure that a gap never starts seems to me as the only way to make a dent in this giant social dilemma.

As Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children's Zone states so clearly, we must "transform every aspect of the environment that poor children are growing up in." This is why they've created an endless chain that takes kids from birth through college. There are no breaks in the chain. My suggestion is to take Mr. Canada's idea and run with it. We must focus far more energy on the formative years of childhood so that the gap between poverty and middle class never starts in the first place. Let's gather our great educators, those passionate for change, and open more ECE - 8th grade programs, more baby colleges, and more of anything that's going to give our kids a chance to compete with their middle and upper class counterparts long after they leave our schools.