Archives for December 2011

Based on data from the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, minority students are being suspended or expelled in disproportionate numbers.  The report drew on national and state data.

As a percentage of enrollment, more African-American students nationally have received out-of-school suspension of one or more days than their peers.  Data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found in 2006 more than 28 percent of African-American middle school boys had been suspended at least once, compared with 10 percent of white males.  For females, it was 18 percent of black students compared with 4 percent of white students. The Education Department found that 3.25 million students or 7 percent of the total number of students in school had been suspended at least once.

Most suspensions were for minor violations such as being tardy or skipping school.  The North Carolina study, found that students were suspended for possessing or using a cellphone at school.  Thirty-three percent of African-Americans were suspended for possession of a cellphone while, 15 percent of whites were suspended.  Thirty-eight percent of African- Americans were suspended for dress code violation, while 17 percent of whites were suspended.

The incident at Columbine High School have contributed to the imposition of zero tolerance rules.  But the studies indicate that the suspension for minor offenses like being tardy do not make the school safer.  I favor suspension or expulsion for bring weapons to school.  But not for minor offenses.  Suspending a student for excessive absence only contributes to excessive absence.  Imagine as an adult, the police took away your driver’s license the first time you passed a red light or was caught speeding.    Punishments need to equal the severity of the offense.  And absolute rules fail to do so!

US News and World Reports recently posted their list of the 50 best careers for 2011.  Educators might want to post this list and let their students know about it. 

Here’s our list of the 50 Best Careers of 2011″”click each job to learn more:

Business Jobs:

“¢ Accountant

“¢ Actuary

“¢ Financial adviser

“¢ Financial analyst

“¢ Logistician

“¢ Meeting planner

“¢ Public relations specialist

“¢ Sales manager

“¢ Training specialist

 

Creative and Service Jobs:

“¢ Commercial pilot

“¢ Curator

“¢ Film and video editor

“¢ Gaming manager

“¢ Heating, air conditioning and refrigeration technician

“¢ Interpreter/Translator

“¢ Multimedia artist

“¢ Technical writer

 

Healthcare Jobs:

“¢ Athletic trainer

“¢ Dental hygienist

“¢ Lab technician

“¢ Massage therapist

“¢ Occupational therapist

“¢ Optometrist

“¢ Physician assistant

“¢ Physical therapist

“¢ Physical therapist assistant

“¢ Radiologic technologist

“¢ Registered nurse

“¢ School psychologist

“¢ Veterinarian

 

Social Service Jobs:

“¢ Clergy

“¢ Court reporter

“¢ Education administrator

“¢ Emergency management specialist

“¢ Firefighter

“¢ Marriage and family therapist

“¢ Mediator

“¢ Medical and public health social worker

“¢ Special-education teacher

“¢ Urban planner

 

Technology Jobs:

“¢ Biomedical engineer

“¢ Civil engineer

“¢ Computer software engineer

“¢ Computer support specialist

“¢ Computer systems analyst

“¢ Environmental engineering technician

“¢ Environmental science technician

“¢ Hydrologist

“¢ Meteorologist

“¢ Network architect

The National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) stated that Colleges of Education need to set higher standards for admission and need to give aspiring educators more exposure to classrooms during their training.  The group said that being in a classroom and mentoring by professional educators are critical to new teachers.

The organization said that many teachers colleges had low admission standards and some do not even require minimum teast scores or grade point averages.  Many draw students from the bottom two-thirds of their college classes.

Because of these factors the teacher retention rate in the United States is lower than many other countries.

I never understood why student teaching takes place at the end of the college experience rather than at the beginning.  Having some practical experience in a classroom with field-based people is as valuable, and may be more valuable, than sitting in a college classroom.  But this report raises another valuable point.  Maybe we need at low school performance in the United States because colleges are accepting from the lowest two-thirds of the high school graduating class.  If the present administration is really serious about getting highly effective as well as highly qualified teachers into the classroom, maybe they need to give individuals incentives to go into the teaching field. 

Create a “”G.I. Bill” for educators.  Pay for people to go to college to become educators.  If they work in a classroom for five years, their college tuition would be paid off.  If they worked in a low-performing classroom for three years, their college costs would be wiped off.

As we enter the second decade of the new millennium, how is digital access changing, and what are the implications for schools?

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 95 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 use the Internet? And all of this is happening while we are in the midst of an explosive rise in mobile technology.  According to Pew research, in 2010, just 45 percent of households that earned less than $30,000 a year had broadband in their homes. Access to the Internet has become a necessity.”

How Things Have Changed

Mobiles: According to CTIA – The Wireless Association, some 91 percent of Americans now use a cell phone, and 90 percent of cell phone subscribers in the United States and Western Europe have phones that are Internet-ready, according to comScore’s 2010 Mobile Year in Review. Whether cell owners are using the Internet-access feature or not, it’s there, and if the trends say anything, they’ll be adopting its use by leaps and bounds.

“Kids are bringing more technology to school in their pockets than we have been able to buy them over the last thirty years,” says Shelly Blake-Plock, blogger in chief at TeachPaperless and a faculty associate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. This fact has prompted some to say that the digital divide is shrinking: African Americans and English-speaking Latinos are among the most active users of the mobile Web, and cell phone ownership is higher among these groups than it is for whites, according to several recent studies. But for many of these cell phone users, mobile technology is the only way they can get online. At the same time, many schools continue to ban cell phone use during school, which may be an outdated policy. Not only are there an increasing number of educational applications for mobiles but also, as Blake-Plock suggests, prohibiting phones now means “disconnecting the kid from what’s actually happening in most of our lives.”

Digital Inclusion: In some circles, the term digital divide is itself defunct. Students who are excluded from the digital universe know exactly what they’re missing, according to Deloney. “They know they’re not getting the homework help that everyone else is; they know they’re not getting that discount textbook or taking classes to further their degrees.”

Perhaps the authors of the “NMC Horizon Report: 2011 K-12 Edition” — part of a series of research-based analyses of trends in ed tech by the New Media Consortium — said it best: “The digital divide, once seen as a factor of wealth, is now seen as a factor of education: Those who have the opportunity to learn technology skills are in a better position to obtain and make use of technology than those who do not.”

How to Level the Digital Playing Field

Schools need to look at how the new technology enhances learning.

Availability of the Devices Themselves: Is there broadband installed at home or at a library close by? If there’s a computer in the classroom, does it do more than collect dust? Has it been updated in the last five years?

Accessibility of the Technology At Hand: Once there is a Web-enabled computer at a community center or school, can students access the websites they need to in order to learn, contribute, and create? Is there help nearby if a computer breaks down or if a piece of software fizzles? If it’s a broadband connection at home, is the monthly cost sustainable for the family? Blake-Plock calls this the access divide. This is a more complex issue to address because it encompasses a variety of obstacles. Among the remedies is to end the practice at many schools of blocking creativity-enabling websites, to make sure there’s a computer maintenance staff on hand (or to allow tech-savvy students to do the troubleshooting), and to regulate telecommunications companies so they adopt open-Internet rules when it comes to low-income consumers.

Literacy: Blake-Plock refers to a final and crucial barrier to digital equality. This refers to literacy, not only with hardware and software but also with the vast global conversation that the Internet enables. He notes that there is a gap between those who are “getting connected into broader networks, building their capacity and their social capital, creating the new wave of learning” and those who are, for a slew of complex reasons, not doing so. Addressing this means beefing up effective technology-integration programs at schools of education, encouraging and enabling students to create media and to participate in collaborations with others around the world, and making sure that every computer lab — whether at a school or elsewhere — has a way for users to tap into an educational component.

Affordability: 36 percent of non-adopters, or 28 million adults, said
they do not have home broadband because the monthly fee is too
expensive (15 percent), they cannot afford a computer, the installation
fee is too high (10 percent), or they do not want to enter into a
long-term service contract (9 percent). According to survey
respondents, their average monthly broadband bill is $41.
We also know that Broadband is not available to many Americans.

Digital Literacy: 22 percent of non-adopters, or 17 million adults,
indicated that they do not have home broadband because they lack the
digital skills (12 percent) or they are concerned about potential
hazards of online life, such as exposure to inappropriate content or
security of personal information (10 percent) So in some places that I go
even when schools have the access the filtering even weeds out the National Geographic. At the Wireless Conference last week, most of the Superintendents
admitted that filtering was used because of the fear of cyberbullying and inappropriate access to pornographic sites
.
Relevance: 19 percent of non-adopters, or 15 million adults, said they
do not have broadband because they say that the Internet is a waste of
time, there is no online content of interest to them or, for dial-up
users, they are content with their current service.

Digital Hopefuls, who make up 22 percent of non-adopters, like the idea
of being online but lack the resources for access.
Few have a computer and, among those who use one, few feel comfortable
with the technology. Some 44 percent cite affordability as a barrier to
adoption and they are also more likely than average to say digital
literacy are a barrier. This group is heavily Hispanic and has a high
share of African-Americans.

Computers and the Internet can make learning more authentic and powerful for students. The question is not whether we can get an iPod into every kid’s hand. It’s whether communities can leverage the capacity of networks to make It’s not just word processing, but blogging and tweeting; not just a class project, but an international student collaboration; not reinventing the wheel every time, but tapping into a professional-learning community that shares ideas and resources”.

For more information on the digital divide, visit our Digital Divide Resource Roundup.

Sara Bernard is a former staff writer and multimedia producer for Edutopia.org.

Additional Resources on the Web

• Internet for Everyone website
• The Digital Inclusion Forum
• Digital Media and Learning Research Hub
• “Internet Access is a Human Right” (Amalia Deloney, Center for Media Justice)
• Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue’s United Nations Report ( PDF)
• “Mobile Phones and America’s Learning Divide” (S. Craig Watkins, The Young and the Digital)
• What is Digital Inclusion? (Washington State University)
• Media Action Grassroots Network
• Digital Inclusion Champions Pledge (Center for Media Justice)

I am indebted to my friend, Bonnie Bracey Sutton for bringing this article to my attention.

 

 

I was raised to believe that one of the key foundations for America’s success was our nation’s desire and ability to educate all people who came to this shore.  It mattered little if they spoke the language, knew the culture, if they were poor or rich.  In fact if you go into a room of successful people, you will find that there is one commonality ““ they all were successful in their education. 

 But that is all changing.  With the vilification of education and educators by some of our nation’s governors and federal officials, there is a dramatic decline in the number of people seeking a position in education because teachers are being laid off and others are unable to find a job.

 

For decades, young people were told to go into education because there were a growing number of children and that many states were lowering class sizes that would create a growing demand for educators.  They were told that someone with a teaching credential would always have a job or would never have difficulty finding one. 

 

 A survey conducted by the American Association of School Administrators in May of this year found that of 1,000 school superintendents, 74 percent expected to cut jobs this year.  In California alone, budget cuts resulted in 30,000 teachers being laid off in the past 3 years.  In Michigan, the number of teachers shrunk by nearly 9 percent or 10,000 educators.  Austin, Texas hired 72 teachers this year.  Six years ago they hired 800.

 

According to the Associated Press, at the University of California, Los Angeles the number of applicants desiring to go into education fell by more than one third since 2003.   

 

So the message is getting out to potential educators.  Do not saddle yourself with tens of thousands of dollars in student loans because you will not find employment and if you do, there is a strong likelihood that you will be laid off.

 Politicians do not seem to mind that they are eating America’s seed corn.  Obviously they got their education.  Besides when it is time for children to vote, they will be long gone from the political arena.