Waiting for Superman and Our Responsibility

By Matt Buccelli

This past Monday, I was riding a bus back to DC from New York and happened to be sitting across the aisle from a GW student who had been in New York for an interview and became my friend for the trip.  After we exchanged the usual pleasantries (school, major, class year, etc.), and I mentioned that I worked with DC Reads, my new travel companion (David was the kid's name) asked me about what it was like to work in the DC school system.  Immediately this set off a very interesting conversation that I think says a lot both about the state of education reform in this country and about our broader responsibility as people who work in schools.



David had recently seen Waiting for Superman, and once I told him I worked in a school he could not ask me enough questions about education.  This kid was pretty chatty to begin with (that's an understatement - I had been trying to put my headphones in when he started talking to me), but I also got the sense that he was genuinely interested in learning more about education after seeing the movie, and as someone who is always down for a good conversation about education, I was happy to oblige.

David's existing perspective had been almost entirely formed by the assertions made in WFS - the first thing he said to me, almost verbatim, was "so it really seems as if the big problem is just the teachers' unions then, right?"  Regardless of your personal opinion on the movie (I had generally positive but still very mixed feelings), we know that this is simply not true.  I started from scratch and tried to use the way WFS portrays unions as a jumping off point to talk about how there are a lot of issues for schools to contend with, and shared my own personal view that the only way to solve these problems effectively is for every party in the educational process (parents, students, teachers, administrators, policymakers) to respect each other and work together.

The education gods must have been having a good time that day, because not five minutes after David and I started talking about the movie, a young twenty-something girl sitting in front of David turned around, apologized for eavesdropping on our conversation, and explained that she was interested because she teaches preschool in Ward 8 and thus had a firsthand perspective on the exact issues we were talking about.  For the next 2 hours or so, David, the teacher, and I had a lively conversation that consisted mainly of David asking questions, the teacher answering them, and me trying to chime in where I could but treading carefully and being careful to respect this teacher's experience and not saying anything that might make me sound like I didn't know what I was talking about.  The conversation touched on just about everything - from unions, to charter schools, to teacher evaluation, merit pay, and the role of standardized tests in contemporary education.

What's the broader point here?  I didn't get on the bus back to DC to have a lengthy conversation about every education-related issue under the sun, but it happened anyway.  The kid sitting across from me got on the bus with a perspective on these issues that had been almost entirely formed by a two hour documentary, and got off of it understanding that things might just be a little bit more complicated in real life.  And while I would have to say that the teacher sitting in front of David deserves the lion's share of the credit for this, it still shows how much of a difference we all can make in DC Reads by using our experience inside of the classroom to help better inform people outside of it.

Waiting for Superman was effective in the sense that it introduced mainstream audiences to the education issue, just as An Inconvenient Truth did for global warming.  But that doesn't change the fact that it also presents an overly simplistic portrayal of school reform, makes some fair points about teachers' unions but also makes it seem like they are the only thing standing between underserved kids and a good education, which isn't true, and gives the false impression that charter schools are always the answer (in reality, only 17 percent of charters outperform traditional public schools).  Waiting for Superman should not be taken as gospel, but treated as a place to start a more extended and better-informed mainstream conversation about education. 

In this regard, it is incumbent on all of us, as people who work in schools, to share our perspective, and insure that one well-produced film doesn't create legions of faux experts who, in the words of an old MTV show, think they know but have no idea.  When we talk about being advocates for our students in DC Public Schools and for just education throughout the country, we need to show that we mean it by taking advantage of opportunities to share our knowledge and experience - and become better informed when our own perspective on the challenges of school reform isn't as complete as it can be or should be. 

There is a lot of attention being focused on education right now in America.  It's up to all of us to help make the most of this opportunity by being the best informed and most willing advocates that we can be.

DC gets hosed, Gray gets arrested

By Matt Buccelli

I'm taking a class on Washington, DC history this semester, and a couple weeks ago we had a local talk radio host (Mark Plotkin for WTOP FM) come and talk to us about local DC politics and other related issues.  Mr. Plotkin has lived in this city since he was a student at GW in the 1960s, so he had plenty of perspective to offer.  When the conversation turned to DC voting rights, and the injustice of living in a city that is federally taxed but not federally represented, the class talked about how people here and around the country seem to be complacent toward, if not completely ignorant of, the voting rights issue.  Mr. Plotkin gave his opinion that it would take something dramatic, something eye-opening, a we're-not-going-to-take-this-anymore type of moment, to raise public awareness and actually change the predicament here in DC.

Although the ramifications of DC Mayor Vince Gray's arrest on Monday remain to be seen, it at least may have provided the optic that people like Mr. Plotkin have been waiting for. 


Mayor Gray was arrested along with several DC city council members while protesting controversial provisions in the budget agreement negotiated last week between President Obama and congressional Republicans.  As part of the agreement, Congress will block DC from using its own money to pay for abortions, and will also terminate a needle-exchange program meant to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS, which afflicts 3 percent of DC residents - the largest percentage in the country.  More relevant to the DC Reads program, and to the cause of equal and just education throughout our city, was a separate provision mandating that DC reinstate its private school voucher system.

The return of the school voucher issue is a big deal.  Vouchers are taxpayer subsidies given to low-income parents so that they may send their children to a private school of their choice.  But could the money that is being set aside for vouchers not instead be spent on shoring up the current budget gap in DC Public Schools, which is forcing schools to scale back essential programs and extra-curricular activities that help students succeed?  Republicans also plan on cutting the federal appropriation for DC that helps the city to fund its education system and pay for other essential services.  So Congress is setting aside money for DC students to flee public schools, but at the same time continuing to undermine those schools by forcing the city to cut its budget.  This makes no sense. 

Beyond vouchers, however, the federal power grab currently taking place in Washington gets to several deeper questions.  The idea that Congress could impose its will on a city that is meant to represent freedom and democracy would be laughable if it weren't so true and steeped in history.  DC was not even permitted to govern itself until 1973, when District residents first voted for a mayor and city council.  Even since then, Congress forcibly took control over the city's budget during the 1990s, and continues to dictate what the city can and cannot do with its own resources.  Meanwhile, the people of this city have no political recourse because they have no legitimate congressional representation.  Part of the reason this hasn't changed is because many people don't even know it's a problem - two-thirds of college educated adults do not know that Washington, DC has no congressional voting rights.  Many students on the Georgetown campus don't realize that they live in a city that literally does not have the right to solve its own problems; a city that can have essential programs and services cut or altered at any moment by politicians who have an ideological agenda but could care less about the people that actually live here. 


Education has been referred to by Arne Duncan, Al Sharpton, and others within the reform movement as "the civil rights issue of our time."  I know for a fact that this is a motivating factor which drives a lot of the work that many of us do within DC Reads.  So how can we begin to talk about the injustices surrounding education in America while ignoring the fact that the city where we live and work lacks the basic right to have its voice heard?  And what kind of a world are we tutoring and educating our students to live in if we can't also face up to this reality?

If we're to be advocates for students in this city, we also need to be advocates for this city.  And recognize that whether it's education reform or any other issue that needs to be addressed, DC will not reach its true potential as long as someone else is pulling its strings.

Program Snapshot: Afternoons in the 3rd grade

We have four different tutoring programs within DC READS: our traditional one-to-one after-school tutoring for third graders; Saturday tutoring at libraries and community centers; morning tutoring, where we serve as de-facto teachers' assistants in classrooms for all the different elementary school grades; and then our 4th and 5th grade program, which functions as an after-school classroom run by a group of tutors and coordinators and focuses on personal development goals, writing, vocabulary, and other forms of student enrichment. Over the course of this year, we'll be posting a mixture of tutor and coordinator reflections to allow us to convey our experience as educators and mentors, while also filling our readers in on exciting developments within each of our programs.

****

The following post was written by Justine Achille, a sophomore in the NHS who is currently tutoring at Kenilworth Elementary School:

The session was going to go great. I knew it. I had printed out a vocabulary activity that I made up that I knew my tutee would enjoy, and I was bringing the white board. I didn’t really have a plan as to what to do with it, but that didn’t matter. As a rule, all tutees love using white dry-erase boards, and mine is no exception. So in my mind, the day was going to be a hit, without a doubt, and at first, everything was going just as planned. We ambled through a book about a nice woman who owned “The Strawberry Inn,” and then we began to tackle my vocab worksheet.

Outside of Kenilworth Elementary

First, I should probably back-track and explain that my tutee has been obsessed with the idea of “creating a community.” When I first heard this I was completely blown away. My tutee, this little third grader, is thinking of ways to build a good community! So I asked her how she would go about doing this, excited about what kind of insight she might have about the workings of a community or town. Her reply was something along the lines of: well… we could use milk cartons…and construction paper….and…Of course. She means literally, let’s build a community. I have to say, I should have probably expected this. But nonetheless, I decided to try to work with the idea. 

Thus the vocab worksheet was full of words describing either components of a good community, or those of a bad one. Her job was to read the words, try to understand their meanings, and decide if they should be part of this imaginary community. Wanting to challenge her, I threw in some words that I knew she would not recognize, but I hoped that together we could define them, and then she could learn their meanings. The first words we came to were “GREEN SPACE,” as in parks or something of the sort; the word was circled. Perfect. Next was “SIDEWALKS,” again, circled. Great. Then we got to “LAW ENFORCEMENT”; I expected that she might not know the meaning of this one immediately, so I was prepared for her pause. She began to read the word out loud. “Law,” she said confidently, and then stopped. I gave her another second to think, but instead of moving on, she looked to me. I then began with the old standby: now, let’s try to sound it out. And so we did. Or, I should say, I did.

We began with the very first letter: e. What sound does the “e” make? She excitedly responded with “Eh! Eh! Eh!” Correct. We moved on. The “n” to my surprise, made the “Mmmm mmmm” sound. Close. But not quite. After a quizzical look up at me, I gave in. It makes the “Nuh nuh nuh” sound, I confessed. Unfortunately, the rest of the word followed in a manner much like the “n.” Without wanting to lose the whole purpose of the activity, I shook if off, chalking up her mistakes to unfamiliarity with the new word, and we began to try to dissect its meaning. Thankfully, after finding the word “force” hidden in there, we were able to come to the definition rather quickly. I think both my tutee and I were a little wary to continue, given the amount of errors we encountered with “LAW ENFORCEMENT,” but nonetheless, we proceeded cautiously through the activity. After a lot more help on my part than I had originally anticipated, we finished, and I came to a decision about how we should use the white board that day: we would review phonics.

I started by writing the letter “D” on the board and asking her to give me the sound or sounds it makes and a word that begins with that letter. Without hesitation she complied. To make it fun, I let her take a turn and quiz me – tutees seem to love feeling like they are controlling the game. She gave me a letter and then we switched back. The game continued smoothly, building her self-confidence and my confidence in her. However, when we got to “c,” things got rocky again. I know “c” is tough; who would expect it to sometimes be an “s” in disguise? Certainly not me! But nonetheless, it is something that every child needs to learn to recognize eventually. When I pushed for a second sound that this letter might make, she began guessing at random, giving me any sound she knew. With a slow nod of resignation, I once again gave in and made the sound for her.

We moved on to vowels, and to my surprise, it was “long” vowel sounds that seemed to trouble my tutee the most. She stared at the large round “O” I had written on the board, and as the seconds went by, I closed my eyes a moment and just hoped that she would come up with the right sound. She had already done the hard part and given me the short “o” at the beginning of “octopus,” but as I continued to press: and what sound does the second “o” in octopus make? I received nothing but blank stares. She finally smiled and said “ohhh! I know!” Yes, yes yes! That’s exactly right! But wait, she wasn’t finished: “ohhh! I know!” she said, “It’s the puh puh puh sound!”

I froze, and prayed that my face was not betraying my true emotions.

I was crestfallen in the truest sense of the word. I, of course, had thought her original exclamation was her answer. As she continued to smile up at me, looking completely pleased with herself, I couldn’t speak. This beautiful, enthusiastic eight year-old girl does not know the sounds of the alphabet. Dumbstruck I just sat there for a moment, but the longer I waited, the more confused she was getting, and the angrier I became on the inside. How could her school have let her move on to the third grade without making sure she knew the sound of every letter of the alphabet? How could they let such a devastating learning deficit slip through the cracks? What teacher, who spends two hundred-odd days of the year with her, had not spotted this problem, which I had picked up on in only my fourth hour of knowing her? She is in the third grade! I was appalled and outraged and frustrated and more than anything else, deeply saddened by my discovery. 

Not knowing what else to do, I slapped a smile back on. Close, I told her, let’s try it again. The day certainly was not a hit. By the end of the session my tutee was visibly dejected as one can only be from trying and failing time after time after time. Hey, I said, you did a great job today. I held out my hand, our cue for our secret handshake. Slowly, she looked up, and seeing my gesture, a smile spread across her face. At the end of that long day, I couldn’t help but feel a new sense of urgency in my position as a tutor. It’s tough days like these that make me realize how the DC public school system struggles to serve their youth, but it is smiles like the one I saw on my tutee’s face that remind me that what I can do, even though it may not be much, is enough to make a difference. This is why I tutor.

To me, education...

We're starting a new feature here on the DC Reads blog.  It's an idea born out of our excellent tutor advocacy committee, which is currently doing a yeoman's job helping to advocate for just education throughout Washington, DC.  More on that as the year progresses.

Anyway, in our last meeting we were sitting around talking about things we can include on the blog, and one of our members came up with a very simple concept: one sentence, from everyone on the committee, describing what education means to them.  Brilliant!

So from now on, throughout the year, we'll be posting one of these sentences each week.  Our inaugural sentence comes from Hannah Hill:

"To me, education is the only national tool that ubiquitously provides a forum for reform and development."

Well put.  Stay tuned for more -- and as always, happy reading!

DC Reads Program Snapshot: 4th and 5th Grade

We have four different tutoring programs within DC READS: our traditional one-to-one after-school tutoring for third graders; Saturday tutoring at libraries and community centers; morning tutoring, where we serve as de-facto teachers' assistants in classrooms for all the different elementary school grades; and then our 4th and 5th grade program, which functions as an after-school classroom run by a group of tutors and coordinators and focuses on personal development goals, writing, vocabulary, and other forms of student enrichment. Over the course of this year, we'll be posting a mixture of tutor and coordinator reflections to allow us to convey our experience as educators and mentors, while also filling our readers in on exciting developments within each of our programs.

****

Coordinator Reflection: Matt Buccelli

This past Thursday in our 4th and 5th grade classroom at Houston Elementary School, we had a "poetry café" to celebrate some of the work our students have been doing and give them a chance to share their creative material. For the previous two weeks, we had been teaching a unit on poetry and its different styles. After going over basic poetry terms like rhyme, couplet, alliteration, stanza, and syllable using the rap song "I Can," by Nas, we spent four classes teaching our kids to write acrostics, haiku, cinquains, and free verse poems. During each class, students had the chance to share their work quietly with a friend or individual teacher, but we intentionally put off having kids share their poems with the class and instead reminded our students during each lesson that if they behaved well and continued to worked hard, our efforts at writing would build up to a class spent sharing our poetry and eating treats. In each class building up to the poetry café, every student in class wrote at least one poem in each style; some who finished early wrote more, while others chose to draw illustrations to go along with their poems. Many of our students had the opportunity to draw illustrations but chose to write more poems instead.



So by the time we had our café last Thursday, each student had plenty of material to work with. We began the class with a 30 minute game of "Jeopardy!" to review the vocab words (one "Word of the Day" each day) that we had been learning, with the winning team getting first dibs on the cookies and brownies we brought as treats. Then we rearranged the room so that the clusters of desks normally scattered across the middle were moved to the walls and we could all make a circle with teachers and students sitting together on the floor. Once the whole class had had a chance to get a plate of cookies and brownies and a drink, one of our teachers introduced each student and allowed them to share their poetry. Each student was instructed to pick one piece of work to share -- once the entire class had gone, students who wished to share another poem were the given the opportunity to do so.

Aside from being lots of fun, I think the poetry café really demonstrates some of the ways that programs like DC Reads can enrich the academic experience of our kids. Our 4th graders have an excellent teacher in Ms. Crump at Houston, but with all the learning standards and academic material to cover during normal school hours, even if writing and poetry are part of the curriculum (as they should be -- and are in Ms. Crump's class), it can be hard for even the most skilled teacher to find time to work in something like the poetry café. While DC Reads, in all of our programs, spends a lot of time working on basic literacy skills and teaching academic material, like our Words of the Day and the poetry terms we introduced, we also have a lot of freedom and leeway to incorporate a celebration like the one we had last Thursday, which was great on so many levels. Not only was it a fun after-school activity; as a class, it also allowed all of us -- teachers and students -- to celebrate the hard work and learning we've already done together in this young year, while further building the relationships, trust, and goodwill between us and our students that will help us set the stage for more learning to take place in the coming weeks and months.

If you have an experience from site that you want to share, please contact me at mrb73@georgetown.edu so we can feature it on the blog!

Happy reading,

Matt

Ward 7 Promise Neighborhood Celebration

This Saturday, several DC Reads coordinators attended a neighborhood celebration to mark the awarding of a $500,000 federal grant to the Parkside-Kenilworth community in Ward 7 for the planning and implementation of a new Promise Neighborhood. The site in Ward 7 is one of 21 across the country that was recently selected by the U.S. Department of Education for its Promise Neighborhood Planning Grant program, and it includes Kenilworth Elementary School, which is one of the places where we tutor on Friday afternoons.

Location of the new Promise Neighborhood (click to enlarge)

DC's Promise Neighborhood will be modeled, in part, after the Harlem Children's Zone in New York, which spans a 100 block radius and takes a community-based approach to improving educational outcomes for kids. The idea is that by working to comprehensively build communities, we will also insure that students achieve at a higher level; both the Harlem Children's Zone and the Promise Neighborhood planned for DC seek to foster a safe, nurturing environment for kids by combining good schools, after-school programs, and other opportunities to engage youth with affordable housing and health care, job training, and other so-called "wraparound services" for adults.

The celebration on Saturday took place at the Mayfair Mansions, a sprawling complex of several apartment buildings in the Promise Neighborhood community. There was free food and a live DJ who led several games of musical chairs with the children in attendance. There were also two ponies. At one point, about two dozen people got up to do the Cha-Cha Slide, which drew Noelle's excitement, and she did an awesome job following along.

Noelle does the Cha-Cha Slide

Several community-based organizations that will be involved with the new Promise Neighborhood were also in attendance, so it was good for DC Reads to be present and explain our role in the community. Certainly our tutoring program plays a big part in offering the kind of comprehensive support for kids that the Kenilworth-Parkside neighborhood will aim to encourage with its new grant, and we did a lot of networking with the other organizations that were out on Saturday. The woman representing Head Start, which helps low-income kids go to preschool, actually turned out to be the grandmother of one of my tutees in the fourth and fifth grade program at Houston Elementary School, which is located just outside of the Promise Neighborhood area. Aside from being a nice coincidence, I think this really illustrates why DC Reads tries to establish its presence in the communities where we serve. The more we can show up and make connections with people who have a stake in our success, the more successful we will ultimately be.


For more information on the Parkside-Kenilworth Promise Neighborhood, check out their website. We'll also keep you updated on its progress as the year progresses.

Will Rhee stay or go?

By Matt Buccelli

After City Council Chairman Vincent Gray's triumph over incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty in the September 14 DC mayoral primary, the jury is still out on what Gray's victory may mean for the future of DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. During Gray's tenure as council chair, he and Rhee have maintained a rocky relationship, and on the day after the primary, Rhee chose to characterize the result as "devastating for the children of Washington, DC." (ouch) Over the course of the campaign, Rhee signaled that she wouldn't work for Gray should he win, and given her engagement to the current mayor of Sacramento, California, she may be ready to skip town anyway. For his part, Gray remained mum during his bid for the mayoralty about whether or not he would keep Rhee, and has refused to make any decisions on administrative personnel until he is officially the mayor; even in heavily Democratic DC, the presumptive mayor-to-be still has to at least go through the motions of a general election in November.

Basically, we're unlikely to hear anything for awhile. But that shouldn't stop us from speculating anyway on what Gray's victory means for the Chancellor and for the future of DC education policy as a whole.



Rhee and other prominent Fenty supporters suggested during the more heated stages of the campaign that a Gray victory would bring Washington, DC and its education system back to the "old days" of inefficiency, embarrassment, and failure, but this seems like hyperbole. On education and other matters, Gray's platform throughout his campaign was basically to continue Fenty's reforms, but to listen more to local communities. One of the major knocks on both Fenty and Rhee that created a fundamental weakness for Gray to exploit was the mayor and chancellor's brash style and perceived inability to listen to complementary voices. As far as matters of substance go, however, Gray has indicated that he is determined to continue the basic track of school reform initiated by Rhee, with a few tweaks. Reading Gray's education plan, the main difference seems to be his insistence that he will solicit community input and foster a more "collaborative approach" to education reform. (To read Gray's educational platform, as seen on his campaign website, click here)

It is reasonable to debate the merits of Gray's commitment to "collaboration" versus Rhee's more dictatorial style: arguably, Rhee has been able to get more done in her three years at the helm of DC schools because she has been so hard-charging. And it is easy for detractors of Gray's approach to deride his love for deliberation and community input as a recipe for not actually getting anything done. The bottom line, however, is that regardless of whether or not Rhee stays or goes, her current boss was voted out because the people her policies are affecting most -- the residents of DC's poorest neighborhoods, along with teachers and parents of students in the city's most underperforming schools -- were turned off by her brash demeanor and low regard for community engagement and support. In the Chancellor's own words: "cooperation, collaboration and consensus building are way overrated." Feeling disenchanted, the people whose support Rhee failed to bring along voted for someone who has promised to listen more. If Rhee isn't committed to at least moderating her approach, she should probably leave too.

Many of the Chancellor's reforms, such as her streamlining of administrative operations at the DCPS central office, have resulted in a school district that is leaner, less wasteful, and more efficient. School facilities have been improved. Textbooks now get delivered on time. And student achievement, as measured by standardized test scores, has at least ticked up -- although elementary school literacy did drop this year by 4 percent.

Still, despite these measures of success, there are legitimate issues surrounding the future of school reform in Washington, DC. What role will charter schools play? Teachers must be held accountable, an issue whose cross Rhee chose to bear, but do standardized test scores really provide a fair assessment of teacher and student performance? Does the district rely excessively on these tests, and does this damage the quality of education that students receive in the classroom by mandating that teachers "teach to the test?" How else can we insure that teachers and schools are doing their job? What else do we need to help children coming from difficult life circumstances succeed in the classroom?

These are not easy questions to answer, but the only way that the challenges they present will be met successfully is if education reform in DC, to paraphrase an article that recently appeared in The Root magazine, is done with the people it affects, instead of to them. Michelle Rhee has enjoyed some notable successes during her tenure with DCPS, but this is something that she hasn't seemed to grasp. Whether it's her or somebody different, the next chancellor of DC public schools under Vince Gray will need to have a better understanding that truly good leadership requires the support and buy-in of those who are being led.

Welcome Back! Fall 2010

Hey readers!

Welcome back to the DC Reads Just Education blog. After a busy three weeks of tutor recruitment and training, DC Reads is finally back in the saddle and doing what we do best -- helping kids learn to read, that is. We sent our first tutors to site this afternoon, and we've got a busy week and year ahead, with more morning tutoring sessions, additional afternoon times, and a new after-school classroom curriculum for fourth and fifth graders that we developed and used for the first time this summer.

DC Reads is back, and that means our flagship blog, Just Education, is too. Last year we debuted the blog as a project of our awesome Advocacy Committee, and we look forward to developing the blog further in the coming weeks and months. When you read our blog, you can expect to find updates on our work in and outside of the classroom, along with individual analysis about DC Public Schools and the broader public education system in which we tutor. We will also look to connect you with a wide range of material concerning the education system in DC and across the country, from the Washington Post education page to other online resources. Throughout the year, we will continue to attend Chancellor's forums and other public events designed to connect the DC community with the progress of its school system.

Check back frequently for updates and new developments, and if you're helping us tutor this semester, have an awesome first week!