Bill Gates on the Daily Show tomorrow

In an effort to send more students--especially underserved populations--to college, Early College High Schools have received a great amount of attention in the last few years.  Much of the funding for this movement has come from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

Bill Gates will be interviewed on the Daily Show tomorrow (1.31.2011). So if you're curious about this foundation and its work, I encourage you to watch! (Not to mention, I encourage viewing the Daily Show in general). I'll post the video Tuesday. Stay Tuned!

Also, Bill Gates has appeared on the Daily Show previously to talk about his foundation. See below.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Bill Gates
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

A week in the life of a School Psychology Grad Student

As a grad student at Berkeley, each step of my school psychology program has been starkly different from the last.  My first year was almost exclusively academic—coursework, term papers, attending talks from visiting professors, and sitting on committees that I did not completely understand.  Next year, my focus was much more applied—serving internships for consultation (i.e., working collaboratively with teachers to work through student issues) and assessment (Testing!).  

Now in my third year, I want to share my latest week with you.

[Action!]

Monday: The internship site, a non-public school setting for emotionally and behaviorally challenged students where I work as a clinician, is off today.  This day off of work means I can put in some much-needed time studying for my qualifying exam*, which is less than three months away.  So, I find my way to a coffee shop with my headphones (my chatter/music/lady-talking-on-her-cell-phone-canceling headphones) and I plug away.  Unfortunately, the day felt so much like Sunday that I almost forgot to read for my classes tomorrow.  As a result, I switched gears and reviewed my class-assigned readings over dinner.

Tuesday: In my program, we have Super Tuesdays, a day devoted to all things Berkeley School Psychology. First, I finished my readings before classes. Then, from nine to noon, I attended class with my four cohort members.  We discussed termination with clients and group therapy.  Some of our discussions applied to my internship, and some did not. The remainder of the day was spent with another student creating a survey for a local high school; I am stoked, because my advisor is letting me use some of my own measurement scales about student engagement and motivation on his survey**.  I also met with my advisor to review my progress on my reading list for my qualifying exams.  Despite his strong feedback, I’m still freaked out.  So I go back to the coffee shop to study.

Wednesday: Today, I was back at my internship.  My day consisted of meeting with clients, most of whom wanted no business meeting with me.  On the positive side, today was a calm day, so there are no physical restraints or fights.  I am able to test of student’s cognitive functioning, and I completed the requisite paperwork that accompanies working at a non-public school (AB3632, anyone?).  The back half the day is full of clinician meetings (again some of which are helpful, and some of which are not).  During unhelpful sessions, I scribble notes about my qualifying exams on the borders of my papers.

Thursday: In my work with my clients, rapport can be a rare commodity, and so I strive for it anyway possible—even if that means driving a client and his Grandmother to San Leandro for a court date. So rather than going to the non-public school, I am working as a taxi driver/social worker/clinician.  The court date goes well, and afterward I have a really productive meeting with the client, his grandmother, and his probation officer (Success!).  I come back to the school for individual supervision with my clinical supervisor. The meeting is interrupted, because two students have managed to get on the roof of the school.  I go outside with another intern to cajole these kids down to solid ground.  Unfortunately, this was not a topic covered on Super Tuesday.

Friday: I have no internship on Friday, which means I can work on a publication today.  My advisor and I are writing about the relationship between ethnic identity and academic achievement—interesting but complex stuff.  After a few hours of writing, deleting, and re-writing, I realize that I haven’t read for my qualifying exam since Wednesday.  I grab the headphones, order a mocha, and get back to the grindstone.  

[… and close scene]

Hopefully, I’ve been able to show that my days and efforts are inherently splintered.  We are trained as scientist-practitioners, which means that I have applied and research responsibilities.  Half of my week is direct contact with students, and the other half is academic (i.e., training, reading, and writing).  The splintered-ness can be stressful, but all told, the practice informs my research, and vice versa.  I don’t always know what I’m doing, but the training, supervision, and experience are heading me down the road toward competence (I think!).

*The qualifying exam, also known as Orals, is the last big hurdle before I can begin work on my dissertation.  The qualifying exam consists of four professors having a three-hour discussion over your research areas of interest.

**Nerd alert, I know. To be clear, data or the prospect of getting data is a graduate school victory, a dance-worthy victory.

Exciting New Course: Creating a New School

Happy New Year! My hibernation from blogging is over, and I'm anxious to get back.  2011 is full of promise and exciting new challenges (e.g., Qualifying Exams-- yikes) and changes (e.g., new housing situation-- Yeah!).  One experience that I am extremely excited about is a new course.  See the description below:

This  1-unit course will offer an overview of the broad scope of  issues involved in creating a new school from scratch. Whether private or public independent school (charter), or pilot school within a  district, the course is for those who may at some time start a new school, or be a founder, leader, board member or employee of one. The instructor is founding director and CEO of the High Tech High (HTH) public independent schools (charters) in California. Begun in 2000, HTH now has 11 schools with 350 employees and about 3,700 students. Since 2005, it has also had a teacher credentialing program and  graduate school of education. The course will draw from that recent experience, as well as from the twenty years that the instructor spent on school reform in traditional public high schools.



Courses of such exploration are one of the reasons I love academia.  New ideas and discourse continue to push my thoughts of what schooling and education should be. My hope is that I'll be able to blog much of the content of the course! To be continued...

For Teachers, More Experience Means More Effectiveness, Right?

Common wisdom and current pay scales suggest that the longer one teaches the more effective they become.  However, there is substantial research to suggest that the relationship between experience and effectiveness is not so linear. Here (The Impact of Teacher Experience) is a link to a recent publication from the Urban Institute. In short, teachers, on average, make substantial gains in their first five years of teaching.  After this point, however, gains are marginal, and there is some evidence to suggest that, on average, there can be points of decline. "This and other research shows that, on average, teachers with more than 20 years of experience are more effective than teachers with no experience, but are not much more effective than those with 5 years of experience" (Rice, 2010, p. 2).  The brief does acknowledge the heterogenity across subjects and grade-levels and the complexity of differential attrition rates and teaching positions (e.g., high vs. low poverty schools). Nonetheless, the findings are noteworthy--experience does not always correlate to increases in student achievement!

Price suggests front-loading experience and pay in the first few years, adding incentives for on-going professional development, redistributing experienced teachers. Beyond these general suggestions, how can we help teachers continually better their practice?  From a more controversial standpoint, how can we attract teachers who are more driven to improve their practice?  From (my favorite) a person-environment fit perspective, how do we shape the profession so that it promotes growth and attracts growth-oriented people? As a school psychologist, I cannot help to wonder the relationships between teacher experience and students' relationship with teachers, or social-emotional well-being.

Inevitably, there will be some marked decline in marginal improvement, but to see actual declines in effectiveness is unsettling and a call to action.  This is certainly an opportunity to move the profession forward, and let's not forget the ultimate benefactor-- Students!   

Coping with Loss

At my clinical internship, I am working to understand the trauma and healing that occurs for African American males in Oakland.  Much of their experience is very different from mine, and I work to circumvent those differences.  The students' struggles, and the therapeutic struggle are trying endeavors, and everyone is working for incremental gains in self-determination, healing, well-being.

Because these victories can be small, I was elated to stumble upon this NPR blog  (full disclosure: Tracy actually found the link).  The men from Oakland in the video below recently experienced the death of a friend/half brother.  Their expression of grief and coping is unique, real, and beautiful.  

Divine Opinions

I recently had a political discussion with a friend. She acknowledged that, despite her moderate views, she believes on most social issues, "there just is no other side to it".

I remembered this conversation when I read news based on the pentagon report that 70% of service men and women polled about the Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) policy were in favor of allowing openly gay members in the military. Other headlines read,

Pentagon Says It's Safe to Overturn Gay Ban (Fox)

and

Letting Openly Gay Troops Serve Won't Hurt Military (CNN)

Since when do the principles of democracy apply to civil rights issues? Why did we need 70% of service members to tell us, that, in their humble opinion, there would be no negative ramifications of the repeal?

Oliver Duggan deplored this paradox: Instead of celebrating the results of the poll, we should ensure the civil rights of a group are never again left to the opinion of the majority (think: any civil rights historical example).

This is what Gary Olsen was referring to in his 2007 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, on the 'Apotheosis' of opinion. That is, exalting a subject to a divine level.

Here he laments,

"Apparently, nowadays an opinion will trump a fact, a reasoned argument, an empirically verified observation -- even a treatise by an eminent scholar. An opinion is the great equalizer, and everyone has one. It silences all arguments, squelches all dialogue: That's your opinion. End of discussion."

Further,

"...others are training themselves not to become critical thinkers, not to search for evidence or support of an assertion, and not to hold themselves or others accountable for the assertions they make."

We are perpetuating these notions when we leave critical policy decisions up to opinion. I can picture it now - the anti-DADT politicians in Washington, fingers crossed, waiting for the results of the poll, and thinking,

"Gee, I really hope the service members don't think our ideas are too dangerous for the military".

Recent Education Documentaries

Two recent documentaries have stoked debates in education.  I have viewed both, and I wanted to briefly comment on the films, their meta-messages, and their influence on education.  Hopefully, this is helpful in the discourse, rather than incendiary for proponents or opponents.  

Waiting for Superman
Website: www.waitingforsuperman.com
Trailer


I enjoyed this movie.  Despite some seemingly misleading depictions or hyperbolic anecdotes, the movie was engaging, clean, and well-produced.  The over-arching message is one the continued disparities and shortfalls in the public education system.  In a cathartic manner, the movie exposes the lottery system that can dictate--for many students--who gets into a high-achieving charter school and who remains as their under-performing non-charter public school. Further, teacher unions are demonized and pilloried.  The movie shows dramatically and redundantly how amazing charter schools can be, but it does not give equal time to the 80% of charter schools that function at or below the level of the average public school.   I wish the movie had focused more on what exactly makes up an effective teacher and how to professionalize the practice, rather than bifurcating two types of schools.  However, I really appreciated the point of relative accountability among professions.

Race to Nowhere
Website: www.racetonowhere.com/
Trailer


Cinematically, this was a weak film.  Low budget or not, this film could have been sharper and more aesthetically engaging. As related to education, the meta-message is that a focus on standards, tests, and normative competition is having a negative influence on our students' social-emotional well-being and their ability to think critically.  Moreover, the essence of childhood is lost when schedules are packed and expectations are raised too high.  I felt like the move did not rely enough on the data, and I would have appreciated more cross-generational comparisons.  Further, in my opinion, the efforts to generalize this problem across socioeconomic groups came up short and rang false.  The best asset of the movie was its conclusion which provided concrete actions that various stakeholders can take.

Both movies have started a dialogue and brought attention to the education system, which I see as positives.  Further, I enjoyed watching both movies, and I left the theaters with a sense of purpose and motivation. On the whole, I think both movies tended to be somewhat reductionistic (but this is to be expected, right?).  To close, I think these films should help motivate us to seek out the true nature of the problems and evidence-based solutions, rather than replace the data and heterogeneity across the education system. 

Watch them, and let me know what you think!