Obama Administration Plan Seeks to Rate Teacher Training Programs

Great commentary by Bruce Baker can be found here in his blog post titled, "Arne-Ology & the Bad Incentives of Evaluating Teacher Prep with Student Outcome Data."
Yes, this is a terrible idea.

-Angela

Obama Administration Plan Seeks to Rate Teacher Training Programs

NY TIMES By MOTOKO RICH   APRIL 25, 2014

The Obama administration on Friday will announce plans to develop ratings of teacher preparation programs to try to make them more accountable for their graduates’ future performance in the classroom.

Teachers have long complained that training programs often do not adequately prepare candidates for the challenges of teaching children with varying needs and abilities. Prospective teachers, in turn, have no common way of evaluating the quality of thousands of programs across the country, whether they are in colleges of education or based in alternative groups like Teach for America.

Arne Duncan, the education secretary, said he often speaks with teachers about how they trained for the job. “I ask teachers, were they prepared when they entered into that school, or entered the profession, and there’s often a fair amount of nervous laughter,” Mr. Duncan said in a conference call with reporters.

By this summer, the administration will propose rules for evaluating all teacher training programs, using metrics that could include the placement of graduates in schools, pass rates on licensing exams, teacher retention rates and the performance ratings that teachers receive on the job.

A 2013 review of 2,420 teacher preparation programs by the National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit group that advocates tougher standards for teachers, found that less than a quarter provided candidates with concrete strategies for managing students in a classroom. The majority failed to guarantee that candidates were placed with highly skilled teachers during student-teaching stints.

Any proposals by the administration are likely to be controversial, particularly those requiring teacher training programs to release the evaluation data of their graduates in the classroom. Currently, 43 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have agreed to develop teacher performance ratings that include student test scores.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the country’s second-largest teachers’ union, said she supported improvements in teacher training programs. But, she said, the administration should not implement “a quick-fix, test-and-punish, market-based ranking of programs.”

Education leaders said policymakers should have started with changes to teacher preparation programs, rather than focusing on the overhaul of tenure or changes to current teacher performance ratings. “It’s like the public health equivalent of trying to cure people who have a malady versus trying to prevent the malady in the first place,” said Charles Barone, policy director for Democrats for Education Reform, a group that pushes for test-based teacher evaluations and has battled teachers’ unions. “We’re putting a lot of money in the evaluation of teachers who never had any business getting into the profession anyway, or we’re remediating and telling them things to do that they should have been told in their teacher prep programs. They were cheated. It’s not fair to anybody.”

Two years ago, the administration tried to come up with a proposal for rating teacher training programs, but the committee convened to develop the rules could not agree and the proposal stalled. David M. Steiner, the dean of the School of Education at Hunter College in New York, who served on the rulemaking committee in 2012, said he hoped the administration would be more successful this time.

“We have 1,400 education schools that are all over the map in terms of what they’re doing and how they do it,” Mr. Steiner said. “And we owe our kids highly effective teachers, and we’ve got to begin to be highly transparent about what we’re doing.”

Bilingual Education: Learning While Learning English by Angel Noe Gonzalez

New book out on Bilingual Education by one of our most beloved, important early bilingual education leaders in the Mexican American Community, Angel Noe Gonzalez.  

He is a treasure, indeed.  Look forward to reading this book.

-Angela

Bilingual Education: Learning While Learning English

A Book for All Americans

            This book was born as a result of my decision to donate all of my collection of materials that I have accumulated over the last forty-three years to the University of Texas – Pan American.  While collecting all the materials I realized that I needed to bring all of this collection of materials and joint experience of numerous bilingual education advocates and practitioners into focus for use by all those who will follow in the bilingual education arena.  So now we have a book which provides credible information and facts.  It is my belief that everyone is committed to ensuring that all students are entitled to equality and opportunity to LEARN, regardless of the language they bring to school.
Chapter I opens with historic evidence that a superintendent of schools in Mercedes, Texas knew in 1937 that  the problem existed, moved to a position of power in the state education agency,  and did nothing to solve the problem.  Soon thereafter, a group convened in Tucson, Arizona, and organized a symposium with the support of Senator Ralph W. Yarborough (D) Texas, the National Education Association (NEA), several United States Senators, and many educators and community advocates.  National hearings were held with proposed legislation styled as Senate Bill 428 as the focus of the hearings.  These hearings gave impetus to the passage of The Bilingual Education Act which was signed into law on January 2, 1968 by President Lyndon B. Johnson (D), Texas.

Court cases and respective decrees followed the passage of the Bilingual Education Act. These cases and their impact on bilingual education are reviewed in the book.  Federal legislation and mandates are reviewed in detail, as well as one of the most comprehensive state policies promulgated as Chapter 89 BB in Texas by the State Board of Education..

A partial listing of some important “Research Findings”, from such researchers as, Cummins, Tucker, Collier and Thomas, Hakuta, Krashen and many others also is provided in this book.

Chapter VII focuses on: A Case Study of Advocacy, the design and findings of the Texas Successful Schools Study which documented the effectiveness of bilingual education programs; the Houston ISD Immersion Study and the Houston ISD Model Bilingual Program.  In Chapter VIII some Bilingual and ESL models are given focus as advocated by James Crawford.

One of the most interesting topics covered in the book is related to the Office of Inspector General’s audits, which prompted an Oversight Congressional Hearing on Bilingual Education in Washington D. C. of suspect federal audits conducted by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) on six Texas Title VII Bilingual Education programs.  The targeted grantees in Texas audited by the OIG with an obvious political agenda included: Austin ISD, San Antonio ISD, Edgewood ISD, Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD, Dallas ISD, and Region One Education Service Center.  The Department of Education OIG was demanding federal grant refunds in the amount of $5.8 million.  Upon conclusion of the hearing, and based on challenging testimony by representatives of the grantees and the Texas Congressional Delegation, the Congressional Oversight Committee ruled in favor of the Texas Title VII grantees that refunded $0.0!

Also included in this publication are the “Twenty-two Recommendations” made by the then Superintendent of Schools, Angel Noé González and presented to the Crystal City School Board in 1973, in response to student demands for Bilingual Education.  Recommendation number twenty-two advocated for equal prestige to the Spanish language as a medium of instruction, identical to the English language..  The school board adopted the recommendation as district policy.
The book is written to profile the evolution of bilingual education.  While many problems bilingual education faced have been addressed, now we must solve the biggest problem which is training and recruitment of appropriately trained certified bilingual education teachers.

          “Bilingual Education: Learning While Learning English” is a literary contribution like none other that has been produced to refute the myths and misconceptions about bilingual education and its effectiveness.  It factually profiles the battles fought, both those won and lost, and are ongoing such as the English Only movement, the litigation brought about on behalf of non-English speaking children and their parents, and the politics utilized by misinformed opponents of bilingual education.  Additionally, the book illustrates the documented evidence in state and national research that bilingual education can be effective in learning English when administered, implemented and evaluated in appropriate fashion.

ANGEL NOE GONZALEZ, Author
OSCAR M. CARDENAS,  Major Contributor

Wishing Away Inequality: Reaction to the Supreme Court’s Schuette Decision | ACS

Wishing Away Inequality: Reaction to the Supreme Court’s Schuette Decision | ACS

Wishing Away Inequality: Reaction to the Supreme Court’s Schuette Decision

April 24, 2014

Guest Poby Liliana M. Garces, William C. Kidder and Gary Orfiel* Garces is an Assistant Professor of the Higher Education Program and Research Associate of the Center for Study of Higher Education at Penn State College of Education. Kidder is the Assistant Executive Vice Chancellor at UC Riverside. Orfield is the Professor of Education, Law, Political Science and Urban Planning and Co-Director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA.

Chief Justice Hughes famously said that a dissenting opinion is “an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day, when a later decision may possibly correct the error into which the dissenting judge believes the court to have been betrayed.” Dred Scott, the Civil Rights Cases, Plessy, Korematsu—In these and other landmark race-related cases, dissenting Justices spoke eloquently to “the intelligence of a future day” in laying bare the errors in the holding and reasoning of the Court’s majority opinions.

Justice Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion in Schuette, joined by Justice Ginsburg, is both brooding and compelling in the way it speaks to an intelligence of a future day, a day when, “as members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society. It is this view that works harm, by perpetuating the facile notion that what makes race matter is acknowledging the simple truth that race does matter.”

We deeply regret the decision by the Supreme Court upholding Michigan’s ban on race-sensitive admissions as constitutional and overturning the Sixth Circuit’s en banc ruling that the referendum violated the federal constitutional guarantee of equal protection. On the heels of recent voting rights and campaign finance decisions—decisions that not only create enormous barriers but further weaken minority political power and increases the power of money—the Schuette ruling exemplifies how legal decisions can ignore the stark realities of our nation and the deep racial inequalities that continue to exist in America. 

The reality in Michigan is that 64 percent of whites but only 14 percent of African-Americans (Michigan’s largest minority group) voted in favor of Proposal 2 in that state. And our research at the Civil Rights Project shows myriad educational inequalities in Michigan that corroborate Justice Sotomayor’s observation about the “simple truth that race does matter.” Michigan K-12 schools are some of the most racially segregated in the nation: over half (53 percent) of African-Americans in Michigan attend schools where less than ten percent of the student body is white.  And contrary to Justice Roberts’ facile notion that race-conscious programs “do more harm than good,” Michigan’s ban on these policies caused the proportion of African-Americans graduating from the University of Michigan Law School to drop below three percent, the lowest percentage at the School since 1969.

With race-sensitive admissions policies, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor graduated more African-American freshmen—and at a higher graduation rate, no less—than the combined total for UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego with bans on such policies. As Justice Sotomayor correctly notes, for African-Americans, bachelor’s degrees, Master’s degrees, doctoral degrees and professional school degrees have all declined precipitously at the University of Michigan in the wake of the ban.

Institutions of higher education in Michigan wishing to address the ways in which race continues to matter in shaping students’ educational opportunities now face an enormous barrier forbidding them to do what they have concluded to be necessary for educational and social reasons—to overcome racial barriers and take actions that enrich their classes and their ability to adequately prepare the future leaders of the state and the nation. This decision hobbles institutions seeking diversity in the few states with bans similar to Michigan’s.

As Justice Sotomayor stated, the Schuette ruling “drains the Fourteenth Amendment of one of its core teachings” that protecting the right to meaningful political participation “must mean vigilantly policing the politi­cal process to ensure that the majority does not use other methods to prevent minority groups from partaking in that process on equal footing.” It is extremely difficult for relatively powerless minority communities to have the financial and other resources needed to make a serious effort to amend a state constitution. The Supreme Court had recognized that creating such an insurmountable barrier to considering positive civil rights policies violated principles of equal protection. There were very important precedents including one striking down the California proposition which would have prohibited fair housing laws and another overturning a proposition which would have prevented school desegregation in Washington State.

Schuette is another in a series by the current Supreme Court that are pushing the nation backward in terms of racial equity and interpreting away key civil rights precedents. In California, the decision means that the state's ban on race-sensitive admissions, which has so negatively affected public universities, will stand until and unless supporters of diversity and equal opportunity in higher education can marshal the resources to reverse Proposition 209.

This is a particularly urgent issue, of course, for one of our campuses (UCLA) had the largest number of applicants of any in the nation this year and is struggling against the odds created by proposition 209 to create the kind of diversity that helps students and future leaders of our state prepare to live and work and govern in a state where the substantial majority of students who are Latino, African-American and American Indian have too little access.

As individuals and as a society, we must remain committed to advancing diversity and equal opportunity in higher education and to support institutions of higher education that implement constitutionally permissible race-conscious admission policies to reduce inequality and enhance the prospects for degree attainment and future leadership contributions. To do so is to confront openly, rather than wish away, underlying inequalities and thereby help to secure a brighter and fairer future for entire communities and for American society.

Excellent commentary by Monty Neill at FairTest. -Angela

Testing resistance movement exploding around country

• BY VALERIE STRAUSS

• April 15 at 4:00 am

• More 

 

Comments

(freepik.com)

The testing resistance movement is growing rapidly around the country and parents are opting out their children from high-stakes standardized tests in most states. What do test reformers want to accomplish? Monty Neill, executive director of  FairTest, explains in this post. FairTest, or the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, is dedicated to eliminating the abuse and misuse of standardized tests.

By Monty Neill

This spring, the testing resistance movement has exploded across the nation. It will continue to grow as the testing season heads into the final stretch. How can assessment reformers marshal this energy and use it to accomplish positive change?

Protest activities around the country reinforce the three core demands of Testing Resistance and Reform Spring: test less, end high stakes, and implement multiple forms of performance-based assessment of student learning.

Parent, student and teacher concerns include:

* There is too much testing. It crowds out other subjects, even recess, depriving children of an engaging, well-rounded curriculum.* The tests are not useful to teachers, parents or students because they don’t assess important areas of learning, questions and answers are secret, and scores are not returned in a timely manner.

* Parents, teachers and students object to spending millions of dollars on testing and computer infrastructure for online testing while schools suffer increased class size and cuts to arts, sports, and other engaging activities.

* As a result of stress and anxiety, students are crying, vomiting and soiling themselves during standardized exams. Children fear that if they fail, their teachers will suffer. Some justifiably worry they will be denied promotion to the next grade or graduation.

*  Computer systems around the country are crashing during test administration, often compounding the stress, especially for students less familiar with technology.

* The tests are unfair, particularly to students whose first language is not English and to students with disabilities, as well as students who attended ill-funded schools in low-income communities.

* Parents dislike the use of student test results to judge teachers. They know that federal mandates to evaluate teachers based on student scores produce inaccurate ratings, a huge increase in testing, and more teaching to the test.

* The exams are too long and full of errors: unclear questions, obscure reading passages, math problems embedded in confusing language, more than one right answer – or no right answer.

* Parents object to huge, profit-making companies using their children as unpaid “guinea pigs” to try out questions for the PARCC and SBAC Common Core tests.

Most resisters say they don’t oppose all standardized testing. They want it cut way back and the stakes dramatically lowered. Many say that evaluation should be in the hands of teachers, not states and testing companies. They point to real work kids do in classrooms as the best evidence of student learning.

In some states, thousands of students and parents are opting out. Elsewhere, organizing drives are just getting started. Activists across the country understand this will be a multi-year effort.

In addition to expanding the movement, there are two other critical issues to address.

One is to continue strengthening alliances across boundaries of class and race. To win, assessments reformers must build a broad, diverse movement with political muscle.

In several communities, urban students across the nation have taken the lead by walking out of test sessions. Hundreds of parents of color in low-income New York City boroughs of Harlem  and Brooklyn recently publicized their opt out actions. They know that test overkill most damages schools serving low-income, minority and second language students, and that authorities are using test scores to justify closing schools, with resulting disruption of community life.

Parent, teacher and student activists at the recent United Opt Out conference in Denverplanned concrete steps to diversify the movement. For example, students working to build the Colorado Student Union are organizing meetings with both urban and suburban peers.

Our nation has historically failed the often-segregated schools attended by students of color. Thus, parents and communities demand accountability from schools and systems. Unfortunately, too few people know there are far better ways to provide information about schools than focusing on test results. Test reformers must develop and promote high quality assessment and evaluation that responds to the needs of all communities.

Second, while the resistance is shaking up the education establishment and has won important victories, meaningful policy changes have been implemented in only a few states and districts. The assessment reform movement needs to focus on important goals, such as:

* Districts must sharply reduce the number of standardized exams they require on top of federal and state mandates (e.g., “benchmark” tests). They should also end high stakes uses of exams for purposes such as grade promotion.

* States must eliminate testing requirements that are not federally mandated and drop high school graduation exams.

* Federal law should reduce required statewide assessments to once each in elementary, middle and high school, as recently introduced legislation will do. It should allow states to use sampling rather than test every child. Test scores must not be the basis for punitive actions against schools; genuine assistance must replace punishment.

*  The federal government also must end its requirement that states evaluate teachers “in significant part” on student scores in order to receive waivers to NCLB.

Since students deserve high-quality assessments that enhance learning, districts and states need to work with teachers to overhaul assessment. To know how well students are learning, the best evidence comes from reviewing their ongoing school work. This will also ensure the use of multiple measures. For those concerned about a lack of objectivity or comparability, there are effective ways to validate teachers’ judgments.   Limited use of standardized testing can act as an additional check on the system, as can school quality reviews. Without such structural changes, schools will remain vulnerable to an inevitable counter-attack from profiteering corporations and testing zealots.

Winning these changes will take political clout. As the resistance grows, we must find ways to turn anger and mobilization into concrete changes. Activists have employed various tactics toward that end. These include forums with elected officials (or empty chairs if they refuse to participate), working with legislators to draft bills, rallies and lobby days at state capitols where the public meets with their elected representatives, and letters-to-the-editor that identify policymakers who are blocking assessment reform. Building alliances across communities is essential. Texas parents and their allies persuaded the legislature to eliminate two-thirds of the state’s graduation exams through careful “inside” (legislative meetings and lobbying) and “outside” (rallies and grassroots mobilization) strategies.

Efforts to placate the opposition with changes that are more cosmetic than substantivewill inevitably continue. Activists should not be fooled. New Yorkers, for example, launched an enormous escalation of their opt out campaign just days after a mostly irrelevant “reform” bill passed in Albany, showing they would not be tricked. (On the bright side, the new law states that tests cannot be a “major” part of grade promotion decisions.)

Authorities also may promote “solutions” that benefit more privileged communities, thus re-dividing people by race and class. Examples include proposals to allow high-scoring districts to test less or to design alternative accountability systems, even though it is low-income schools and districts that most need these options. Reformers should welcome sound changes to assessment and accountability systems but insist they include all communities. By rejecting schemes to divide us, the testing resistance and reform movement can grow stronger and win fundamental changes.

The resistance movement has grown from modest roots to a flowering movement with increasing power and sophistication. That is a fantastic start for winning long-term victories.

The Earth Shifted A Bit This Last Week Here In Austin and Texas

 by Angela Valenzuela

On Wednesday, the march for Mexican American Studies to the capitol took place. 

On Thursday, a Civil Rights Conference that brought Presidents Obama, Carter, Clinton and Bush to the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Auditorium at the University of Texas commemorated 50 years since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  Accordingly, two important reports came out that underscore the continuing importance of civil and human rights struggles:

New Civil Rights Report Confirms Racial Inequity in US Schools

A Future In The Balance::  Confronting Inequities And Creating Equal Opportunity For Austin’s Poor And Minority Students

Simultaneously, outside of the LBJ auditorium, immigrant rights students, parents, organizations, and community organized a Not 1 More Deportation Rally and March.  
 Specifically, they protested, asking President Obama to halt the deportation of the mostly undocumented Mexicans.  

Impassioned pleas were made and three arrests took place.  Ironically, this rally and march calling for an end to deportations mirrors that very same call for social justice and human dignity that fueled the legislation that expanded civil rights to U.S. minorities 50 years ago. 

Surely, if Martin Luther King were alive today, he would have  stood with us outside of, rather than inside, the LBJ Auditorium.  He would never have turned a blind eye—and most importantly, would have stood up to the savagery of our nation's immigration policies.

Our local, state, and national leaders really do need to hear the suffering of our children and families as a result of harmful, unjust deportation policies.  Here are links to testimonies that I gathered at the rally outside of the LBJ Auditorium.  

Although the first recording is in English by one of the three young people that got arrested shortly after this testimony, you will certainly hear and understand the acute pain and suffering of the remaining three testimonies in Spanish that our inhumane deportation policies have wrought:

Listen to this moving testimony of Patrick Fierro who got arrested in today's demonstration (April 10, 2014), along with Emily Freeman and Alejandra Gomez on either side of him for crossing federal jurisdictional lines in front of the LBJ Library.— at LBJ auditorium, University of Texas at Austin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHhfae4ufag

 

A poignant shout out to President Obama by Cecilia Hernandez, immigrant rights advocate, leader, and parent. Ms. Hernandez is one of our beloved, trusted leaders in the immigrant rights movement and community in Texas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJeccf2kj0g

This young boy asked me to share his story. He is sharing a very terrible experience. He says that his father was put in jail after having a traffic accident. He was put in jail and then deported. His father found his way back to Austin and he was caught again and his father was put in jail again. Currently, he is in jail. His family is very sad and it is very hard for his family right now. — at LBJ auditorium.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S8bG3Ru1pM

Another beloved, tireless leader, Maricela Galvan, speaks about the unconscionable 2 million deportations of undocumented immigrants and urges the President to use his power to stop them.  She also points to how his re-election was not only enabled by the Latino vote but that he also promised in his campaign that he would institute comprehensive immigration reform.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1wr2LBbYt8

 

Despite the intransigent, reactionary resistance to righting wrongs in many quarters with respect to these unjust immigration policies, (more) just education policy was developed by the State Board of Education which is indeed the culmination of decades-long advocacy, scholarship, and activism.  I list an assortment of articles that can give you a good sense of what played out this week:

1) State Board of Education Plans Mexican-American History Course

by Patrick Michels Published on Thursday, January 2, 2014,

2) The Jury's in: Texas Wants MAS, Mexican American Studies is Act II of the Civil Rights Act

3)  More Texas Educators Throw Support Behind Mexican-American Studies 

Posted: 04/04/2014 7:34 am EDT

4)  Why Mexican-American Studies Is 'Going To Spread Like Wildfire' In Texas   

Posted: 04/10/2014  

5) Texas mulls adding Mexican-American studies course By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press | April 8, 2014 | Updated: April 8, 2014 11:30am

6) Mexican American History Supporters Urge State Board to Approve New Cours Accessed: 9 April 2014

7) Students push for Chicano studies minor - News - The Battalion - Texas A&M by Pallavi Kaushik Wednesday, April 9, 2014

8) Mexican-American Studies, Other Cultures Now Electives in Texas BY RAUL A. REYES

9) MEXICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES COURSE REJECTED BY TEXAS EDUCATION BOARD

by KRISTIN TATE 10 Apr 2014

The apparent growing strength and diversity of the protests community  led me to think and feel that  the Earth shifted a bit this past week.  This was a much-needed offsetting of the status quo with a shifting of the political center of gravity with respect to our state curriculum.  

This is actually no small thing as curriculum is very much connected to the development of critical faculties in our young people that will go on to graduate and vote in greater numbers with an enhanced, more meaningful sense of who they and their communities are in the world.  

While Mexican American Studies and other area studies that will surely get taught in our public schools with much greater frequency, this will not happen automatically.  As an advocacy community we must remain ever vigilant in order to extend this right and opportunity to every school, community, and child that seeks this opportunity—and there are many.

 Finally, our community celebrated the re-opening of Resistencia Bookstore casa de Red Salmon Arts at it new site at 4926 E. Cesar Chavez St., Unit C1 Austin, Texas 78702. It was a beautiful ceremony that consisted of prayers, dance, and poetry reading.  Here is one photo that I took of Rosa Tupina Yaotonalcuauhtli, Susana Almanza,Yvette Mendez , and Diana Barragan, thanking them for their leadership and prayers for our community—prayers for respect, dignity, human and civil rights, peace, inclusion, and a more just and caring society.

 

While this shift suggests the growing political power of the Latin@ community, we must not forget all the incredible work and sacrifices that have been made for this to occur.  Indeed, this is a community that embraces democracy  and core uniting values like tolerance, inclusion, due process, fairness, the rule of law, equity, civil society, and the public good.  We should all feel encouraged.

Not 1 More Deportation Rally and March 4.10.14

 Listen to this moving testimony of Patrick Fierro who got arrested in today's demonstration (April 10, 2014), along with Emily Freeman and Alejandra Gomez on either side of him for crossing federal jurisdictional lines in front of the LBJ Library. Ironically, today was a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This rally and march calling for an end to deportations mirrors that very same call for social justice and human dignity that fueled the legislation that expanded civil rights to U.S. minorities 50 years ago.

-Angela

https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=aHhfae4ufag

Students push for Chicano studies minor - News - The Battalion - Texas A&M

Students push for Chicano studies minor - News - The Battalion - Texas A&M

 Panel to generate buzz for petition Wednesday

By Pallavi Kaushik

Published: Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Updated: Wednesday, April 9, 2014 00:04

Jenna Rabel

Curriculum
and instruction graduate student Jose Luis Zelaya discusses media
strategies for the Latino-Chicano studies panel Wednesday.

While the University offers a Hispanic Studies minor, some students believe there is a need for expansion of the curriculum.


Aggies advocating for the addition of a Latino-Chicano studies minor at
A&M will convene a panel to discuss the proposal and generate
publicity for online and paper petitions.


Jasmine Jimenez, panel organizer and sophomore political science major,
said the University doesn’t offer enough courses relating to Hispanic
culture aside from those related to literature.


“The University currently offers a Hispanic studies course path, which
concentrates mainly on Spanish literature and arts and a linguistic
course for the Spanish languages,” Jimenez said. “But for someone like
me who wishes to learn about the history, problems and relevant issues,
like immigration and laws, of my people, it’s pretty inadequate.”


According to the current petition, the standing Hispanic Studies minor
has a focus on the Spanish language and literature but fails to
adequately cover disciplines such as history, sociology and political
science.


Joseph Puente, forefront speaker for the panel and senior
telecommunication media studies major, said the addition of the minor
would enrich the educational opportunities at A&M by allowing
students to learn more about the influence of Hispanic cultures.


Puente said he hopes advocating to adopt the Latino-Chicano minor will
empower and create a greater future for those who belong to or are
studying these communities.


Student advocates on the panel are involved with the Council for
Minority Student Affairs, Hispanic Presidents’ Council, Mexican Student
Association, Committee for the Awareness of Mexican-American Culture and
Phi Lota Alpha.


Adam Brennan, author of the petition posted at change.org and freshman
business administration major, said one of the most important aspects of
this movement is to help accomplish the University’s goal of Vision
2020 by diversifying the A&M undergraduate community and educational
standards.


Alfredo Garcia, CMSA president and senior economics major, said the
idea to push for the minor is a culmination of his experiences
advocating for minority students and his conversations with a professor.


“I wished to work together and unite the Latino community at Texas
A&M and so I spoke with sociology professor Pat Robio and he gave me
the idea and inspiration to further the movement for a Latino-Chicano
studies minor here,” Garcia said.


Jose Luis Zelaya, curriculum and instruction graduate student involved
with the panel, said the push for the minor is part of a greater social
legacy that these student advocates aim to leave at A&M. Zelaya said
those advocating can inspire the next generation of leaders to be
better informed of the “Latino reality” and more involved with the rise
of a large minority.


“Texas A&M is where ideas can grow and we wish to allow our
community to be inspired and more educated on a culture that we have
built our communities in America on,” Zelaya said. “We are aiming for
realistic and a beneficial, positive social change.”


The panel, which will involve students and University officials, will be from 7-8:10 p.m. Wednesday in Rudder Hall 308.

Authentically caring teachers make a big difference in the world.  Exactly what I found to be the case in my case study research, SUBTRACTIVE SCHOOLING:  U.S.-MEXICAN YOUTH AND THE POLITICS OF CARING (1999).

What Americans like best about their favorite teachers

• By Valerie Strauss

• April 5 at 1:00 pm

(freepik.com)

What attribute do Americans find most compelling in the teacher they have identified as having the greatest impact on their lives?

I learned the answer recently when I was listening to a speech by Brandon H. Busteed, the executive director of Gallup Education, about public education and what polls show about how Americans view their teachers.

He noted that a strong majority of Americans say they have trust and confidence in public school teachers (even if many school reformers don’t).  He also said that when asked to describe the teacher who had most affected their lives, the attribute that was seen as most important wasn’t smart or demanding but, rather, “caring.”

The 2012 Gallup study, titled “Public education in the United States: A nation divided,” said this:

Over 40% of Americans describe the teacher who had the most positive influence in their lives with words such as caring, compassionate, motivating, and inspiring; while just 17% of Americans thought intelligent, knowledgeable, persistent, hard-working, and demanding were words that describe the teacher who had the strongest influence on them.

I’d like to see how teacher evaluations linked to student standardized-test scores measure for “caring.”

Chicana/o Psychology: History and Relevance of Mexican American Contributions

Students, Friends and Colleagues:

Dr. Manuel X. Zamarripa will be delivering a seminar on Chicana/o Psychology here in Austin on April 22nd at 4:30PM at South University in Austin. As you can see from the flyer, he will speak on contributions of early Chicana/o psychologists, ethnic identity, acculturation, indigenous traditions of healing, and elements of teaching a Chicana/o Psychology course.



Bio

Dr. Manuel X. Zamarripa is the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program Director for South University’s Austin campus. He has fifteen years of university teaching, including teaching graduate courses in mental health since 2003. His clinical ex-perience includes working with individual adults, adolescents, couples, and families in community and school settings (rural and urban) from varied economic and cultural backgrounds. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor and approved supervisor. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Counseling Psychology, his M.S. from Our Lady of the Lake in Counseling Psychology, and his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame in Psychology.

Wish I could make this. Haven't heard a talk like this in years.  Pass this along to anyone who you feel may find this of interest. 

Please direct any questions or inquiries to Manuel Zamarripa .
Best wishes, Manuel!

Dr. Angela Valenzuela

Colorblind" Policies Harm Our Diverse Public Schools

http://www.tc.columbia.edu/news.htm?articleID=9440

Colorblind" Policies Harm Our Diverse Public Schools
Published in Research/Publications
4/1/2014

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Amy Stuart Wells, Professor of Sociology and Education

A policy brief by Amy Stuart Wells explains how so-called “colorblind” educational policies fail to support the diverse public schools more parents are demanding.

So-called “colorblind” educational policies not only fail to address racial inequality in American classrooms, they worsen and perpetuate it, according to an evidence-based policy brief by TC’s Amy Stuart Wells, professor of Sociology and Education. The brief, recently published by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, concludes that education reforms that ignore racial differences and disparities have worsened, rather than corrected, racial inequalities in student access to high-quality schooling.

In Seeing Past the “Colorblind” Myth of Education Policy: Why Policymakers Should Address Racial/Ethnic Inequality and Support Culturally Diverse Schools, Wells describes “mounting evidence to suggest that so-called ‘colorblind’ accountability and school choice policies, premised on narrow definitions of school quality and absent interventions to support diversity, exacerbate racial and social class segregation and inequality.”

Wells, who is also the Director of the Center for Understanding Race and Education (CURE) at TC, concludes that the most popular education policies of the last 30 years – namely, school choice policies and strict accountability systems – rarely consider race, diversity, or the dramatic racial and ethnic demographic shifts taking place in the public school population. As a result, she argues, these policies advance an ineffective “colorblind” approach to educational reform that ignores stark racial inequality when implementing policies and then bemoans vivid racial inequalities in educational outcomes.

The policy brief raises serious concerns about the capacity of the current education policy agenda to promote racial equality and prepare children for the 21st century. The U.S. Department of Education’s enrollment data suggest that by this fall the public school student population will be less than 50 percent white, non-Hispanic for the first time in U.S. history.  On March 21, the Department’s Civil Rights division released another report finding that minority students are more likely to be suspended from schools – including from preschools – and have less access in general to preschool, advanced courses and college counselors.

Meanwhile, Wells writes, ostensibly colorblind policies fail to support the multiple “educational benefits” of diverse universities, schools and classrooms.  Such benefits include lessening stereotypes while supporting better-informed class discussions, greater cross-racial understanding, and preparation to succeed in an increasingly diverse society. At the same time, a growing number of parents are seeking such diverse and dynamic educational settings for their children.

Wells notes that the Civil Rights era of the 1960s and 1970s saw several race-conscious education policies, including affirmative action and school desegregation, which directly addressed racial inequality. The same period, she writes, “coincided with the largest reductions in the black-white achievement gap in the nation’s history.”

By contrast, in perpetuating segregation of all kinds, contemporary “colorblind” policies “are also at odds with a multi-racial and ethnic society in which a growing number of parents and educators see the potential educational benefits of paying attention to diversity and difference as a pedagogical tool.” Racial achievement gaps, Wells contends, can only be closed “if policymakers are not blind to the role that race plays in our educational system.” She argues that education inequalities must be proactively addressed with a new set of 21st century policies that embrace diversity and support diverse schools.

Wells offers a series of recommendations that address policies, practices and conditions that perpetuate segregation and inequality while simultaneously tapping into the changing racial attitudes of Americans. Educational benefits can accrue to all students in schools and classrooms that are diverse.

The report was made possible in part by funding from the Ford Foundation.

To read the full report by Amy Stuart Wells please visit http://bit.ly/1hOfazi