[regional_school] Re: Why Boys Fail - interview with Richard Whitmire
- From: Shawgi Tell <stell5@xxxxxxx>
- To: regional school <regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 08:48:12 -0400 (EDT)
Good questions Dan and Henry. Yvonne and everyone, check this out:
The “History” section of the school site says: “Urban Prep Academies is a
nonprofit organization founded in 2002 by Tim King and a group of
African-American education, business and civic leaders.”
The Seligman-style phrase “We Believe” appears frequently on many web-pages on
the site. Martin Seligman is the “father” of “positive psychology:” you can do
anything regardless of many real and objective obstacles, all you have to do is
will it and keep repeating you can do it! It goes hand in hand with the
philosophy of the “no-excusers”—mainly corporate folks and those who agree with
them.
The Board of Directors is a list of who’s who of big business and
corporate-oriented players, including KIPP, Nike, and several other big
business players.
While it is always positive when young people go to College, I’m guessing there
are lots of holes in this “success story.” And while I can’t prove it without
first reading them carefully and thoroughly, I’m also guessing that the
picture-heavy reports on the school’s site contain revealing AND restricted
information at the same time. I found practically nothing about teachers’
working conditions based on the search I did.
The “admissions” page states: “Urban Prep Academies operates non-selective
enrollment high schools that admit students via lottery.” While many charter
schools formally say this, it is well-known that in practice things are
sometimes different, i.e., there is subtle and not-so-subtle selection taking
place, typically through certain application forms and “counseling” methods.
I’m also guessing that parents must sign some sort of “my kid and promise to do
well” contract.
It also appears that there are at least 10 people listed as “security” for one
or more campuses.
Other Facts:
--There are fewer than 450 students at Urban Prep Academy.
--Big contributions from “anonymous donors” and foundations.
--Big emphasis on testing and test scores.
--School has a strict uniform policy.
--School has metal detectors.
--No board minutes available on the site.
--School day is longer than average school day, which probably means teachers
are over-worked, as is the case at many charter schools
I’m worried about what more research will reveal.
Shawgi
----- Original Message -----
From: Henry Padron <Henry.Padron@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: regional school <regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:00:26 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [regional_school] Re: Why Boys Fail - interview with Richard Whitmire
and-how many are english language learners proficient in their native
language...
________________________________
From: regional_school-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Dan Drmacich
Sent: Sat 3/20/2010 4:58 PM
To: regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [regional_school] Re: Why Boys Fail - interview with Richard Whitmire
Great questions, Shawgi. I'd also add,"How do they measure success & how
reflective are the methods for determining a student's ability to apply skills
to real world problems/"
--- On Sat, 3/20/10, stell5@xxxxxxx <stell5@xxxxxxx> wrote:
From: stell5@xxxxxxx <stell5@xxxxxxx>
Subject: [regional_school] Re: Why Boys Fail - interview with Richard
Whitmire
To: "regional school" <regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: yvonne.villareale@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Saturday, March 20, 2010, 8:24 AM
Yvonne,
Do you have any reliable and verifiable information on any of the
following:
* Typical class size at the school
* Total number of students at the school
* How long it has been open
* Whether a union is present or not
* The age, experience, and pay of teachers
* Hours and conditions of work of teachers
* Teacher, staff, and student turnover rates
* The for-profit company or philanthropies such a school is
potentially affiliated with
* The facilities available or lacking at the school
* If any of the members on the board of trustees is elected or
ran publicly for their position
* The background and cultural capital of the parents of these
students
* The admissions process at the school
* The number and percentage of special ed students attending the
school
Usually, only a tiny amount of some of this info is available on a
website and even then it often does not resemble what actually happens at a
school.
Regards,
Shawgi
----- Original Message -----
From: "Yvonne M. Villareale" <yvonne.villareale@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "regional school" <regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, March 20, 2010 7:56:33 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [regional_school] Re: Why Boys Fail - interview with Richard
Whitmire
Success story of an all male, urban charter school in Chicago. The
young men they interviewed were incredibly bright, motivated, articulate, and
very PROUD of their accomplishments--many, if not all, coming from areas of
concentrated poverty. Success like this can be realized when schools take
chances and side step mainstream methods. Good luck to the all male charter
school starting next year. Hope you get the support you need to be as
successful.
Yvonne Villareale
http://www.urbanprep.org/100percent/
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews/ct-met-urban-prep-college-20100305,0,3299917.story
Four years ago, Bryant Alexander watched his mother weep.
She stared down at a muddle of D's and F's on his eighth-grade report
card and threatened to kick him out. He had barely passed elementary school,
and high school wasn't even on his radar.
"Something just clicked," Alexander, now 18, said. "I knew I had to do
something."
On Friday, Alexander proudly swapped his high school's red uniform tie
for a striped red and gold one the ritual at Englewood's Urban Prep Academy
for Young Men that signifies a student has been accepted into college.
As the Roseland resident and 12 others tied their knots, Chicago's only
public all-male, all-African-American high school fulfilled its mission: 100
percent of its first senior class had been accepted to four-year colleges.
Mayor Richard Daley
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/politics/government/richard-m.-daley-PEPLT007475.topic>
and city schools chief Ron Huberman
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/schools/ron-huberman-PEPLT0000076.topic>
surprised students at the all-school assembly Friday morning with
congratulations, and school leaders announced that as a reward, prom would be
free.
The achievement might not merit a visit from top brass if it happened
at one of the city's elite, selective enrollment high schools. But Urban Prep,
a charter school
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/schools/charter-schools/chicago-charter-schools-5005000966.topic>
that enrolls all comers in one of Chicago's most beleaguered neighborhoods,
faced much more difficult odds.
Only 4 percent of this year's senior class read at grade level as
freshmen, said Tim King, the school's founder and CEO.
"There were those who told me that you can't defy the data," King said.
"Black boys are killed. Black boys drop out of high school. Black boys go to
jail. Black boys don't go to college. Black boys don't graduate from college.
"They were wrong," he said.
Every day, before attending advanced placement biology classes and
lectures on changing the world, students must first pass through the
neighborhood, then metal detectors.
"Poverty, gangs, drugs, crime, low graduation rates, teen pregnancy
you name it, Englewood has it," said Kenneth Hutchinson, the school's director
of college counseling, who was born and raised in Englewood.
He met the students the summer before they began their freshman year
during a field trip to Northwestern University
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/colleges-universities/northwestern-university-OREDU0000132.topic>
, the first time many of them had ever stepped foot on a college campus. At
the time, Hutchinson was Northwestern's assistant director of undergraduate
admissions. Inspired by what he'd seen, he started working for Urban Prep two
months later.
"I'm them," he said Friday as he fought back tears. "Being accepted to
college is the first step to changing their lives and their communities."
Hutchinson plays a major role in the school, where college is
omnipresent. Students are assigned college counselors from day one. To prepare
students for the next level, the school offers a longer than typical day
about 170,000 minutes longer, over four years, than other city schools and
more than double the usual number of English credits, King said
Even the school's voice-mail system has a student declaring "I am
college-bound" before asking callers to dial an extension.
The rigorous academic environment and strict uniform policy of black
blazers, red ties and khakis isn't for everyone. The first senior class began
with 150 students. Of those who left, many moved out of the area and some moved
into neighborhoods that were too dangerous to cross to get to the school, King
said. Fewer than 10 were expelled or dropped out, he said.
At last count, the 107 seniors gained acceptance to a total of 72
different colleges, including Northwestern University, Morehouse College,
Howard University
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/colleges-universities/howard-university-OREDU0000172.topic>
, Rutgers University
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/colleges-universities/rutgers-university-OREDU0000234.topic>
and University of Illinois
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/colleges-universities/university-of-illinois-at-urbana-champaign-OREDU0000155.topic>
at Champaign-Urbana. Alexander was accepted to DePaul University
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/depaul-university-OREDU000019.topic>
.
While college acceptance is an enormous hurdle to jump, school leaders
said they know their job isn't done; they want to make sure the students
actually attend.
To that aim, King said, staff made sure that every student has
completed the dreaded Free Application for Federal Student Aid, lest the red
tape deter them.
Later in the year, the school plans to hold a college signing day where
every student is to sign a promise to go to college, he said. Staff will stay
in touch through the summer and hopefully in the first years of school.
"We don't want to send them off and say, 'Call us when you're ready to
make a donation to your alma mater,' " King said. "If we fulfill our mission,
that means they not only are accepted to college, but graduate from it."
For now, students are enjoying the glow of reaching their immediate
goal.
Normally, it takes 18-year-old Jerry Hinds two buses and 45 minutes to
get home from school. On the day the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
was to post his admission decision online at 5 p.m., he asked a friend to drive
him to his home in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.
He went into his bedroom, told his well-wishing mother this was
something he had to do alone, closed the door and logged in.
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" he remembers screaming. His mother burst in and began
crying.
That night he made more than 30 phone calls, at times shouting "I got
in" on his cell phone and home phone at the same time.
"We're breaking barriers," he said. "And that feels great."
At 04:13 PM 3/19/2010, you wrote:
My research and familiarity with this subject is why I am a
co-founder and co-applicant for the University Preparatory Charter School for
Young Men, scheduled to open in Sept 2010, here in Rochester, NY. Check out the
website at: www.Upreprochester.org <http://www.upreprochester.org/> . I belief
we each can make a difference by doing something and not be paralyzed by the
games people play with labels when it comes to the important issue of educating
our young people. No matter how much we talk about the issues, if we do not
act, nothing will change; for the future will not wait for us to figure it
out!! And in turn, we cannot sacrifice the future. Thanks for sharing, good
reading. Peace.
Hussain B. Ahmed, Ed.D.
--- On Thu, 3/18/10, NSMULTER@xxxxxxx <NSMULTER@xxxxxxx> wrote:
From: NSMULTER@xxxxxxx <NSMULTER@xxxxxxx>
Subject: [regional_school] Why Boys Fail - interview
with Richard Whitmire
To: regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thursday, March 18, 2010, 8:40 PM
Wish I knew how to forward this interview video -
you'll have to put the web address in your browser.
It's definitely worth it!
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/whyboysfail/2010/03/cep_report_on_gender_gaps_released.html?print=1
Also: in the EducationWeek piece below, Jack Jennings,
president and CEO of the Center on Education Policy <http://www.cep-dc.org/> -
a Washington-based research and advocacy group that just released results of
their gender gap study, says: âEURoeSomething is going on in our schools
holding back boys.âEUR?
Yes, yes, yes!!!! And the why is so obvious to those
of us with knowledge about brain development who've been closely observing PreK
and Kindergarten classrooms over the past 15 years! Finally someone is
speaking out and has found a national audience!! According to Richard
Whitmire, it all started about 20 years when the Governors got together to
upgrade standards! (Sound familiar?) Moving second grade literacy standards
into Kindergarten back then did not take into account the hard wiring of the
male brain! And it's just the tip of the iceberg!
Education Week
Published Online: March 17, 2010
Boys Trail Girls in Reading Across States
By Erik W. Robelen
<http://www.edweek.org/ew/contributors/erik.robelen.html>
A new study on gender differences in academic
achievement, offering what it calls âEURoegood news for girls and bad news for
boys,âEUR? finds that, overall, male students in every state where data were
available lag behind females in reading, based on an analysis of recent state
test results. At the same time, in mathematics, a subject in which girls have
historically trailed, the percentages of both genders scoring
âEURoeproficientâEUR? or higher were roughly the same, with boys edging out
girls slightly in some states and girls posting somewhat stronger scores in
others.
In certain states, such as Arkansas, Hawaii, New
Mexico, and Vermont, the gender gap for reading proficiency was 10 percentage
points or higher, based on 2008 test data.
âEURoeThe most pressing issue related to gender gaps is
the lagging performance of boys in reading,âEUR? says the report, released
today by the Center on Education Policy <http://www.cep-dc.org/> , a
Washington-based research and advocacy group.
In a conference call with reporters, Jack Jennings, the
groupâEUR(tm)s president and chief executive officer, noted that whether
looking at student outcomes at the elementary, middle, or high school level,
male rates of proficiency were lower than for females across all states studied
in 2008. (Forty-five states had data available for all three levels.)
âEURoeThere is a consistent achievement gap,âEUR? he
said. âEURoeSomething is going on in our schools holding back boys.âEUR? The
report does offer some encouragement for boys in reading, suggesting that as a
group, they are making some gains over time, and that the gender gap has
narrowed in many states.
For instance, in 38 out of 44 states, the percentages
of 4th grade boys scoring proficient or higher climbed between 2002 and 2008.
Also, in 24 out of 44 states, the gender gap for 4th graders in the percentage
of students scoring proficient or higher narrowed over that time period, though
it widened in another 14 states.
When looking at the data another way, however, based on
changes in the average of test scores, the gaps between boys and girls in
reading âEURoewidened across all three grade levels [elementary, middle, and
high school] as often as they narrowed.âEUR?
âEUR~Clear and StartlingâEUR(tm) Differences
The new report from the Center on Education Policy is
part of a series of studies the organization has been conducting that examine
trends on state tests since 2002, when the federal No Child Left Behind Act was
signed into law by President George W. Bush.
Math
Percentage of Female and Male Students Proficient in
Math on State Tests, 2008
[]
Reading
Percentage of Female and Male Students Proficient in
Reading on State Tests, 2008
[]
SOURCE: Center on Education Policy
The center notes that one reason for the
reportâEUR(tm)s focus on the rate of students deemed âEURoeproficientâEUR? is
that the designation is the key indicator used to determine whether districts
and schools have made adequate yearly progress under the federal law. However,
as the report emphasizes, each state uses its own tests to gauge proficiency
and also sets its own cutoff score for what it judges proficient.
The report says that research has long noted historical
differences in the achievement of boys and girls in reading and math, though
considerable recent research suggests there is no longer a gender gap in math
achievement.
With its state-by-state analysis, the report is able to
identify those states that appear to struggle the most with gender gaps in
reading. In Arkansas, the gap was 13 percentage points at the elementary level
and 14 percentage points at both middle and high school in 2008. On state tests
in Hawaii that year, boys came in 14 percentage points behind at the elementary
level, 13 in middle school, and 16 in high school.
In the conference call, Mr. Jennings noted that even
Massachusetts, a state known for its strong academic standards and performance,
has a sizable gender gap, at 13 percentage points for elementary students in
2008.
Some other states, however, such as Florida, Kansas,
Nebraska, and Virginia, had much smaller reading gaps at all levels. In
Virginia, for example, the gender gap for boys was 3 percentage points at the
elementary and middle levels and just 1 percentage point in high school.
In most cases, the gender gap in state math achievement
did not exceed 5 percentage points, the 2008 data show.
Susan B. Neuman, an education professor at the
University of Michigan who specializes in literacy development, called the new
study âEURoean extraordinarily important document.âEUR?
Ms. Neuman, a former U.S. assistant education secretary
under President Bush who was invited to participate in the conference call but
was not involved in the study, emphasized the findings with regard to
boysâEUR(tm) achievement, noting that it is a relatively recent trend.
âEURoeWeâEUR(tm)ve been talking about closing the
achievement gap in so many different ways, ... but we have not focused on the
gender gap, which is very clear and startling in this report.âEUR?
She added, âEURoeI think we have to re-evaluate our
curricula, re-evaluate how we are managing our classrooms.âEUR?
Vol. 29, Issue 27
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/17/27gender.h29..html?tkn=QUWFFACOCp9dRJixqIXUzDtAjsWu8TC2Ewmg&cmp=clp-edweek
<http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/17/27gender.h29.html?tkn=QUWFFACOCp9dRJixqIXUzDtAjsWu8TC2Ewmg&cmp=clp-edweek>
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