1994-03-07: Bright from the Start: Minority Youth Education

Vol. II, No. X

Transcription:

Elaine Witty, NSU
James Coale, VMI
Bright from the start
Minority Youth Education
WITH GOOD REASON
Volume II ,No. IV
MUSIC
GREETING
This is
joining us.
education.
"With Good Reason," I'm Laura Womack. Thanks for
Today, we're talking about issues in minority
MUSIC
INTRO
I used to go to a private school and I learned a little bit
better, by myself. It was just all whites though. But my mom and I
thought that I should mix with different with other cultures so she
put me into this school.
We asked a small group of eighth graders from Gildersleeve
Middle School in Newport News, their thoughts about attending a
multicultural school. One that has African American and white
students and many non-English speaking students. Most said they
socialize primarily with students of their own race but like going
to school with people from different backgrounds.
I'm glad that we have different nationalities in our class -because
if we have different people in our class like I've had a
couple of friends that are from different countries and they teach
me some games that they used to play that we've never really
thought of or played here. And then they can also sometimes ask,
like words like "hello" and stuff in their language and they can
teach me that kind of stuff. Not like real hard stuff, just the
simple stuff.
You know how, back then it was prejudiced. Whites hated
blacks, blacks hated whites. And now, it's like, we are like
getting together now and we're like joining each other now.
Whites and blacks should attend the same school, especially
because when we get older we are going to have to work with whites
and blacks so we should go ahead and start learning how to relate
to each other now.
Sometimes different nationalities, they can talk in their
language and you won't know what they're talking about. You don't
know if it's good or bad. Sometimes you just get into arguments
about that. But that's basically all that's bad about it.
When the first person talked to me right, I don't even know
what to say to them so I just say it in my language. Cause I don't
even know what they're talking about. Sounded like they were going
blah, blah, blah, blah and stuff like that.
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The good thing about it is having all the different kinds of
friends that you can learn about. Learn about their cultures. There
is this girl her names Janice and she's Phillipino. She's a good
friend and she tries real hard to learn to talk. And I try to help
her.
These eighth graders seem to enjoy their learning environment.
But while race relations at many schools are improving, test scores
for minority students are improving at a slower rate. And statewide,
fewer minority students take advanced classes like algebra.
Here to talk about minority education is Dr. James Coale from
Virginia Military Institute. Dr. Coale's College Orientation
Workshop Program, which is designed to encourage non-college bound
high school students to change tracks and get a higher degree.
He'll tell us about that program in a minute.
Dr. Elaine Witty is dean of the Education Department at
Norfolk state University.
INTERVIEW
Womack:
What do you think is the single most important factor in the
success of a a minority student in school?
Witty:
Well, of course, you know, uh, the students academic, uh,
intellectual ability is important. His his ability. Um, but, um,
the most important thing is what this student believes about how
well he can achieve. So that a student who really believes that he
can achieve well, uh, even with, uh, not as much academic
preparation for the level where he is at that moment, he can do
better than a student who has good preparation but does not believe
that he can achieve.
Womack:
Well, there are a lot of different factors that go into
determining whether that student believes that they can achieve or
not. And Jimmy, I know that you have a program called, cow
Coale:
cows is the name of it. It stands for College Orientation
Workshop Program.
Womack:
And that program is actually designed to help students feel
more confident about their ability to succeed in college.
Coale:
Exactly. That's pretty much the sole purpose of it. We try to
focus on "at risk" or underachieving, uh, minority youths that need
a little bit of direction as to where they're going. And to let
them know that they can go to this three-week program and
accomplish quite a bit. It gives them a confidence that once
they're finished that they can achieve these things and they can go
to college and they can be successful. And they can set goals and
they can accomplish quite a bit, if they get focused. Now, a big
deal with our program is to try and get them to focus on what they
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want to do with their future.
Womack:
How do you do that?
Coale:
Well, there are a number of things we do at VMI. We, uh, start
off the day with them and they're in from the morning -- well at
6:15 a.m. we do some physical training with them to get them ready
for their classes and then
Womack:
Sort of wake them up.
Coale:
That's right. And then they go to breakfast and then they're
in classes pretty much all day and uh, we give them some recreation
time at the the end of the afternoon. But, we keep them busy, we
try and um, again, keep them focused and eliminate distractions.
Womack:
Looking over the program curriculum, it seemed to me that a
lot of what you do is structure their day and you have a very
disciplined format for them to go through and they sign a contract
saying that they will Coale (Yeah) meet certain Coale (That's
Right) like attending class and that sort of thing.
Coale:
Yeah, we want them to know that they have to work hard and
hard work pays off. They have a contract agreement, I think this is
one of the reasons the program at VMI is very successful is they
sign this contract agreement for three weeks and if they violate
it, uh, they can be terminated from the program or separated from
the program. We put a lot of emphasis on completing the program.
There's a graduation ceremony that we have and we give a diploma
and not everybody gets a diploma, not everybody graduates. And um,
they understand that they've got to put out or they're not going to
achieve.
Womack:
Elaine, how does that sound to you? I understand that
discipline is a strong element in a lot of inner-city schools, um,
that are successful. I mean, the the successful ones, a lot of
their success is -- and there are other factors as well -- but
discipline is a big factor.
Witty:
I think discipline is an important factor, although it's not,
um, I don't think the major one. But it is critical. I I like what
they're doing in this program and I think that there are a number
of reasons why they can experience a good deal of success that we
see missing in some of the public schools. For one thing, they have
high expectations on the part of the teachers. All the staff
persons working with these youngsters in this three-week period
fully expect them to be successful and they work toward that end.
Um, the second part of it is: If they provide them opportunities
they have, each student to have success, everyday as they go
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through with things, they master things. They get successful
experiences that they can build on. This is often missing in the
regular public school system. And very, very, important here, they
have eliminated the distraction of their peers.
Now I think this is really critical in minority education,
is where you have young people who may want to be academically
successful and effective, not putting forth their best effort
because they may feel that it will take them out of their social
peer group. or they may not be appreciated, in fact they may be
ostracized and talked about by their peer group and so some of them
will fail to do or will intentionally not do their best in order
not to experience that social problem. In a program, like we're
talking about, a self-contained program, where that elimination of
that distraction of the peers is the case, you have greater
opportunities for students to be successful.
Coale:
We have all the students that come in write letters to why
they want to attend and where do they see themselves in 10 years,
in 20 years. I was just reading one of the students before I came
in, said he gets ridiculed all the time because he gets on bus and
he has 20 pounds of books and gets made fun of all the time and his
his reaction to that, his answer to that is to withdraw. He doesn't
have any friends, he doesn't socialize because he said a lot of the
other people he knows are driving Mercedes and Jeeps and you know
its the big thing not to take books and there's there's not that
pressure at VMI. You' re expected to bring your books, you' re
expected to do your homework. We've had students who are fairly
good students to attend the program who have good SAT scores and
uh, didn't finish the program because they came in with the idea
that: This is a summer camp and we' 11 be able to do all these
things. And they were a distraction to the program and we've had
other kids that we have heard from high school counselors that uh,
be careful this student, they probably won't achieve very well and
they don't, we can't motivate them and they don't, and things like
that and you get them in that environment at VMI and they flourish.
And its like they -- and its good, you know, whether it works when
they get back or not you don't know but you hope you've instilled
something in them that gave them enough confidence that they can
rise above that and see something down the road and do something
with it and, I think that's important.
Womack:
How Elaine, do you translate that into the public school
environment? You don't have the luxury of sequestering the students
you don't have a small number of students, putting them on an
isolated campus in the middle of the summer and you've got them
there round the clock. How do you do that, given the limited
resources in public schools?
Witty:
Well, it is certainly a challenge and I think that is what we
are struggling with so much in public schools today. But I do think
that it's possible and we some schools around the nation where they
are experiencing a great deal of success. See, I think we have a
chance to save many of these students so they can be academically
successful if we are very effective before the fourth grade. Um,
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usually when we have waited until the students are high school -junior
high and high school -- it's extremely difficult to teach
them the skills they need. To teach them the uh, the trust lev71
that they need in the system and the trust level that they need in
the adults around them to think that this is really, in fact, going
to be good for them.
Womack:
But give me some specific examples of how, uh, teachers in
those first few years might help children learn to learn.
Witty:
Basic to all the success that we can have with minority
students, as with other students, is um, strong academic skills.
So, one way to get going is to make sure that in the first grade
and second grade and third grade, children learn to read. And this
is just a skill that all teachers should learn to teach. It has
nothing to do with whether they are minority students or not. But
if minority students don't master those basic skills, they are much
more open to all of the other distracting factors.
Womack:
Reading skills. Aren't schools supposed to be teaching reading
skills at a very young age anyway? Isn't that the basic idea of
those first few years of education?
Witty:
That is exactly the fact. We assume that they are and they do
try very hard to. What they find is that many minority students do
come to school with less than optimal reading-readiness skills. So
they may start at a level that's not a where the teacher wants them
to be when she starts her instruction. If that gap is never filled,
then the children are constantly behind, um, where they should be
in their reading skills. But one of the things that we know from
all of the statistics around us and from our own observation, is
that many minority students are not being taught to read well in
first, second and third grades. And part of it has to do with
teachers understanding the culture from which those children come
and being able to use their culture in the instructional process.
Making the reading and learning materials interesting, rather than
boring to the children. So that they can be engaged in the process.
Womack:
Well, that's just what I was going to ask you. Is that is
seems that there is um, a cultural gap, not unlike the generational
gap that we've talked about in in previous eras. That teachers
simply are not familiar with um, where their students are coming
from, so to speak. Now, how do you address that problem at VMI?
Coale:
I think what we're fortunate there to have quality educators
involved with the program and that understand these things and that
have taught and been in education long enough to deal with these
things. Our math and computer guy, uh, Dr. Brigare gives them a
preliminary quiz at the beginning of the course to find out where
everybodys at and then he he changes his schedule and his content
of his class every year to accommodate the levels of where the kids
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are. And, uh, similar things are done in the English class.
Womack:
Do you do any testing of your students before they come into
the program?
Coates:
Not before they come in. We look at their high school grades,
you know, and look at anything that any of the counselors had to
write about them and things like that. If they've taken their PSATs
or SATs, we will get those things but we don't do any preliminary
testing to qualify them to get into the program.
Womack:
Well, the reason, the reason, I'm asking about whether you use
tests or not to determine who enters your program is that tests
themselves are, of course, very controversial, in terms of what
they actually test for. The tests are generally considered in the
past and maybe there's an update that I'm not aware of. That there
good indicators of success in our larger society and would you
disagree with that?
Witty:
Yeah, I would disagree with that. I think we would say that
uh, well and it's hard to talk about tests in general too. But,
standardized tests for the most part, tend to underpredict,
underaccess, the abilities and strengths of minority students. Um,
but I don't want to say the tests are al together bad. It just
depends on how you use the information you get from giving the
test. A standardized test is always asking the student the
question, "Do you know what I know? If I am the testmaker. If I've
made this test and you're using it as a teacher, what you're asking
the child is, "Do you know what I know?" because he has to indicate
on this test sheet in the little bubble place that he knows that
particular thing.
Womack:
Okay.
Witty:
The standardized test cannot ask the student, "what is it that
you know?" And so the student may know a lot of things that we're
not asking on this test. Because by the structure of the test, it's
it has to ask, "Do you know what I know?" What we assume is that
what I know and what I'm asking you to tell me is something that I
have determined as a professional you need to know. And it's the
most important thing that you need to know. Well, we have to
question that, you know. We're not sure that always the tests are
asking the most important things that students need to know. So
it's that plus it's not finding out what is it that students know.
But we have to have some types of assessment instruments and I I
I'm very pleased to note that there are lots of hopeful signs in
schools today of other ways to assess the level of mastery that
students have over academic content, leadership skills, personal
development and all of those areas where we think it's important
for students to grow.
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Womack:
Well, let's hear about some of those because I think that we
Witty:
One of the ways, it's. These are more difficult, more time-consuming
and are more expensive than standardized tests, which are
the cheapest things that we all know about. And can use. But
assessing portfolios, you know, having students to um, having the
teachers to help students collect samples of their work in folders
and notebooks or however you keep making some assessments of growth
in looking over the students own work throughout a certain period
of time. I think that's one of the most hopeful signs.
Making sure that we understand the broad range of outcomes
that we expect students to demonstrate beyond, um, answers to math
and science and reading questions. Um, by observing students in
leadership activities, by looking at the variety of talents they
display in a variety of ways, um, by giving them a chance in the
classroom to to tutor or to be pure leaders in the classroom. So
that we don't have to be totally dependent upon on a standardized
test to get an idea of how well students are learning.
Womack:
The nice thing about standardized tests, though, is that you
can apply that. If I take a standardized test in Virginia, and I
want to go to California or New York or some other area that they
can know exactly under what circumstances I took that test and
exactly -- they know that I can perform on that test. Whereas one
of the problems with even grades in general coming from different
schools across the country, is that, you know, they don't know
whether that was a really tough school that graded really hard or
was it a really easy school that graded really easy? And so the
grades, when you're using evaluations that were done by a person,
_you never know the standard from which that person is judging.
Witty:
Yeah, that's quite a key point. And with standardized tests,
you have to think about, we don't know how much you were taught,
uh, of what's on that test before you sat for that test. so, uh,
when I see your standardized test scores, I don't know that this
reflects your real ability or whether or not this reflects, the
score reflects the fact that you weren't taught the things that we
measured on that particular test. So
Womack:
Sure, I could have gotten lucky and I could have only known
exactly those answers and nothing else.
Witty:
Right, but more likely you would have not had some of the
instruction in some of the areas that would be covered on the
standardized test. And so while we know they are called
standardized because you can -- they are standard across the nation
-- across the usage but what we have to be concerned about is how
we're going to use those data that we're going to get from that
test.
Womack:
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What's the problem with the way that we use the information
that we get from those tests and this is open to either one of you
Jimmy or Elaine.
Witty:
One of the problems that I really want to mention right away
with the way we use some of this data that we get from tests is by
tracking students into certain curriculum tracks that are pretty
rigid and that student is pretty much required to stay in
throughout their educational experience. And although we think that
they can catch up and get into another track, the way it really
operates is that once students are tracked into a low-level track,
they tend to stay there throughout their schooling. And
consequently are never really exposed or taught some of the
curriculum and some of the content that students in other tracks
get.
Womack:
Let me interrupt you for a minute and say that that's exactly
what your program is designed to stop, Jimmy, I would think that
you are um, taking kids who are tracked into the not-college track
and saying you can be in college ...
Coale:
Sure and an example of that is we had a student from Lynchburg
that uh, came to our program a few years ago, the orientation
program, and was really undecided whether he wanted to go to
college or not. Didn't feel like he was capable or qualified to do
it. came to the program. He matriculated at VMI, he's going to
graduate with an electrical engineering degree and is probably a
student who was hesitant to come into the program initially because
he may have been tracked as being not college material.
Womack:
So Elaine, when a teacher is struggling so hard with just
keeping up with the forty to fifty students in their class, how can
they, how can we expect them to go beyond, go beyond presenting the
material but also keep track of those individual students and say,
"You know, you can achieve a little bit more," But as a teacher I
just don't have any more time to give you.
Witty:
That's true and that is extremely hard but we have a lot of
very good teachers out there working who are doing a good job. What
we need to have is more descriptions of exactly how they do that.
But, they use, um different approaches to getting children to
learn. They use more cooperative learning groups. They have
children working together in teams. Uh, they emphasize cooperation
rather than competition to a great extent. They focus on
accelerating the students rather than remediating them so that they
know that they have to give some of these children more
experiences, not fewer experiences, if they want them to close the
gap.
But those teachers need a lot of support from the public and
from the school system. They need. And from the parents. They need,
uh, smaller classes, I really am for smaller classes, so when you
mention having forty or so students in the room. That, I really
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would rather have smaller classes. They need more resources, more
technology in the classroom. I think that we're going to be able to
take advantage of a lot of technology that will be helpful to
teachers and have students work on an individual basis in terms of
their own mastery of specific content. Um, we need more volunteers
in the classroom. We need more businessmen giving a half day to go
into the classroom to work with reading to students or listening to
students. Or at least talking to them about life. We need, um, more
retirees working in the classroom, giving teachers a hand, you
know, working with them when they try to expose children to things
outside of the classroom on field trips and tours. Um, I think we
have a lot of teachers working very hard and they have a lot of
challenges.
Now, in addition to that we have to make sure, from a higher
education standpoint, that we are producing people who are going
out looking at a group of young individuals in a classroom as
individuals rather than as a class. Knowing that I'm not teaching
one class of 30, I have thirty different children and it's
important to give each one of them some success every day. Some of
my attention, some eye-contact, some smiles, some touching and some
encouragement.
Coale:
Teachers can't do it all as she was saying, they need help and
her, I think her idea, her suggestions of volunteers and positive
role models and things like that are very important, it's an
inexpensive way to do it. It's a multi-faceted approach I think.
Programs, if they can encourage children to take advantage of
summer programs, like at VMI or maybe an Outward Bound type thing
or something to build their confidence and self-efficacy and things
like that.
Womack:
Unfortunately, we're out of time, I think we just sort of ran
through and introduced a lot of topics that I think people need to
think a lot more about. But we're out of time. Thank you both for
joining us on "With Good Reason."
FEATURE
Womack:
Finding methods and money to successfully educate students in our
increasingly multi-cultural society is a challenge for educators.
With Good Reason's Carolyn Elliott Sundquist went to Newport News
to look at how one city is coping.
Sundquist:
The cultural diversity of Newport News is reflected in the city's
public schools. Forty-nine percent of the students here are African
American, 45 percent are white and there is an increasing number of
Hispanics and Asians. Situated on the James River at the mouth of
the world's largest port, Newport News also has an influx of
immigrant families and therefore immigrant students from around the
world. Jean Beckerdite is Regional Director in the school system's
central office. She says with the right strategies, schools can
teach every child, no matter how diverse the population.
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I've seen young people that we've taken that have potential, that
we've grouped with other talented, um., and advanced students and
placed them with a strong academic teacher who believed that all
children can learn. And over a period of two years, those
children's standardized test scores, which typically are not
supposed to change drastically actually increased to the point that
they qualified for gifted and talented programs.
By law, school systems must offer programs to help non-English
speaking students excel academically. In Virginia, English as a
Second Language, or ESOL classes, serve more than 18,000 students.
Gildersleeve Middle School is one of 13 schools in Newport News
that houses an ESOL program. Eighth grader Anil Ustin came to
Gildersleeve two-and-a-half years ago from Turkey.
First I came to the ESOL class, I was very nervous. And, I didn't
understand the teacher very well. Later, I learned to speak
English. Now I have a lot of friends and now is not frightening
anymore.
Anil spent two years in the ESOL intensive class, which at last
count served students from as many as 26 nations. ESOL teacher
Terri Gleason uses pictures, sounds and a little drama to teach
English in a modern-day Tower of Babel.
I would basically try to begin a vocabulary unit with possible
words that a11 have the same initia1 sound. For example the M
sound. Then I would have a series of pictures, visuals. And we
wou1d begin our vocabulary unit with words with the initial
consonant Mand use these pictures to learn the vocabulary.
Like most ESOL students, Anil mastered enough English after two
years to begin taking some regular classes. He now reports to a
resource class a couple of periods a day to continue working on
reading and writing skills with teacher Diane Guthmiller.
Especia1ly at this age -- they want to be like the other kids. They
want to take as many of the regu1ar classes as fast as they can so
they go through a process of a lot of repetition, a lot of study at
home -- using dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries -- but all the
instruction is in English so they must attend to it.
In addition to helping non-English speaking students learn the
language, city schools are helping other students switch tracks. In
a recent survey 70 percent of the city's white population said they
plan to attend college compared to 42 percent of minority students.
AVID is an experimental program designed to close that gap. This
year the program targeted 135 kids who are not working up to their
potential. Now, during their AVID class period, these students
learn study skills. get academic help and learn about different
careers. Tyrone Perry, a junior at Warwick High School started
taking AVID class in September.
It's like a mom in school. When we first took the class, I really
didn't like it because I didn't like nobody really checking up on
me everyday. I guess, I got -- It's alright that she checks up on
me. I'm glad because sometimes I don't want to do my work. I don't
10

want to do my homework. And I know Miss Whitaker, that's my AVID
teacher, she gonna stay on me and my mom is going to stay on me to
do it. I have somebody to push me and I think that's what every kid
needs. Someone to push them.
What happens when you get to college and mom isn't there?
I think I've got myself motivated now, that I can do my work on my
own without anybody being over my shoulder telling me what I have
to do and telling me when I have to study and what I have to study.
I know what I have to do and I just do it.
Freshman Dominque Green says AVID has helped him understand what it
takes to get through four years of college and successfully pursue
a career.
I probably wouldn't have gotten as much background information on
becoming an engineer and at Ferguson there's like so many students
and teachers don't seem to pay that much attention. But when you're
in AVID there's like a small group and the teacher focuses two
periods a day and she has enough time to put all of her energy into
those students.
Newport News efforts to meet the needs of its diverse student
population aren't cheap. In 1993, the city's ESOL program carried
a pricetag of five hundred amd seventy thousand dollars, with the
state picking up roughly one-fifth of the cost. The budget for AVID
is forty-eight thousand dollars. Again, part of the money came from
the Virginia. Jean Beckerdite.
We're trying to level the playing field for these children.
And if it means giving them a little added attention, uh, in school
to help them be successful um, then that's time well spent. Those
are dollars well spent. There's an old Indian expression that it
takes a community to raise a child and I think that it couldn't be
truer today.
During budget debates last spring, the school board echoed
Beckerdite's sentiments. After reinstating money for several "at
risk" programs, one school board member said cutting the funds
would be a be a step backwards for the school system.
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OUTRO
MUSIC
HOST
our guests today Elaine Witty of Norfolk State University and James
Coale of Virginia Military Institute.
on our next show we'll give you some tips on chasing childcare.
This is "With Good Reason." I'm Laura Womack. Thanks for joining
us.
ANNOUNCER
"With Good Reason" is a production of Virginia's public radio
stations and the Virginia Higher Education Broadcasting Consortium.
This program was produced with the assistance of Virginia Military
Institute, Norfolk state University and WCVE Radio. Thanks to
Latara, Marcus, Tandalaya, Nina, Bunt and Patrick--eighth graders
at Gildersleeve Middle School. Thanks also to principal Donna
Whitmore. Special thanks to WMRA Radio.
The views expressed in this show are not necessarily those of the
consortium or this radio station.
The Project Coordinator for "With Good Reason" is Michael McDowell.
Laura Womack is the Producer. Carolyn Elliott Sundquist is the
Associate Producer. Kevin Piccini wrote the theme music.
If you would like to receive tapes or transcripts, please write
"With Good Reason" care of the State Council of Higher Education
for Virginia at 101 North 14th Street, Richmond, Virginia, 23219.
Or call area code 804, 225-2632. Tapes and transcripts are five
dollars for a set.
MUSIC
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