What If We Only Trained Pediatricians?

In recent years, it hasn't been uncommon for educators to hear about applying "the medical model" to schools. Generally, this refers to efforts at improving teacher quality. Similar to teaching hospitals, some schools have worked to develop teaching systems that involve mentorship and increasing responsibility. Though less successful to this point, some schools have also worked to "depersonalize" conversations about education. How can we talk about our teaching failures in a way that does not imply that our teachers are failures? Doctors often learn from situations in which patients die; however, teachers rarely are given a formalized opportunity to learn from the situations when students do not succeed. In applying the medical model, some educators are trying to address this challenge.

Taking  a step back, it's interesting to look at the entire system. Can we continue the medical analogy? I believe we can. For a long time, we have focused educational resources on early childhood education, elementary schools, and middle schools. High school students have been held accountable for their own success or failure. If we produce "healthy learners" by middle school, then we expect the students to achieve in high school. In the medical field, it seems that this begs the question: What if we only trained pediatricians?

Ideally, we would have healthier children than ever before. With such strong resources for pediatric medicine, we would expect better health indicators for young people. Healthy children are probably more likely to become healthier adults. However, we would never consider training only pediatricians. We recognize that issues must be addressed differently at different stages of the life cycle. Additionally, there are some issues that only become present after childhood. Yet, for some reason, we offer only "educational triage" to high school students.

Reach provides a new course of treatment for academic skills gaps present upon entry to high school. While many high schools simply serve a sorting function (kids with significant gaps are referred to GED programs, job skills programs, or classes outside the college track), we believe that every high school students can achieve highly. Like a doctor faced with a challenging disease, we must use our knowledge and act aggressively. Regardless of how bad the prognosis is when we encounter a high school student, the right approach can lead to healthy outcomes.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

What's the Perfect Event?

In this challenging economy, many non-profits are looking to create revenue through events as other income streams bring in fewer dollars. This, sadly, has resulted in many organizations hosting expensive events with underwhelming returns. And, as many of you are likely aware, the organizations end up repeatedly inviting (and asking money from) the same core supporters. When considering events as an income stream, I have always tried to offer some sort of return for the donation offered by our supporters.

On May 7th and 8th, Reach will be earning revenue through two separate events, and this is due in large part to the intelligent infrastructure created by two our hosts. 

On Friday, Reach will benefit from Town Tavern's Philanthropy Friday. For a $5 donation, supporters will receive significant drink discounts for a five hour period. The fact that Town Tavern has this infrastructure in place allows the beneficiary organization to focus on creating additional revenue where possible. For instance, we will have a number of raffle prizes for next Friday's event. Additionally, since Town Tavern is on a popular strip in Adams Morgan, we will gain some walk in traffic. Using fliers crafted for the event, we will educate walk ins with the hope of winning new supporters.

On Saturday, Reach will benefit from DC Nerd Nite (click here for the Facebook invitation). Nerd Nite is a series of short lectures, in a bar, aimed at young intellectuals (or nerds). Nerd Nite donates proceeds from ticket sales to a different non-profit each month. In May, that non-profit is Reach. They provide the event, the venue, and the attendees. Each month, the event sells out. This provides a great opportunity for each beneficiary non-profit to market the organization to people who are not already supporters.

A truly successful event should raise money, bring in new supporters, and provide something in exchange for the attendees' donations. Next weekend, I believe both our events will successfully do all three. If you'd like, come on out and enjoy the fun! 

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Giving Circles

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with a representative from an organization called Black Benefactors. This group is the grant-making arm of The Black Philanthropic Alliance. Slightly different than a typical foundation, Black Benefactors is a giving circle. In a challenging economic climate, I think giving circles have the potential to play a very important role in ensuring continued innovation in the nonprofit community.

First, let me briefly explain the way a giving circle works. Many people want to support nonprofits; however, they often feel that they can not give enough to make a significant impact. In a giving circle, like minded people pool their resources so they can make more substantial gifts to selected organizations. Last year, Black Benefactors was able to give away $10,000 by asking members to contribute a minimum of $250.

Currently, very few foundations are considering new organizations. While many organizations got their initial funding through a couple generous grants, this is no longer the reality. For that reason, I believe that giving circles have the ability to assume a unique position in the philanthropic community. Giving circles can ensure continued innovation and ensure impact by focusing on supporting the work of small start-up organizations. Through strategic thinking, giving circles can use their limited resources to make an even bigger impact.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Maintaining High Expectations

Often, we hear of reform movements that claim to focus on high expectations. The phrase has become so common in educational discussions that I'm no longer certain we know what it means. Too often, when we say we are maintaining high expectations, it appears that, in reality, we are promoting obedience. More often than not, the changes made to promote "higher expectations" are related to the elimination of negative behaviors. In many schools, appropriate behavior is expected. Why do we consider it a sign of high expectations in urban schools? What does this say about the expectations we have for different student populations? 

By chance, I read two stories today in two different newspapers. First, Jay Mathews writes about a principal in Prince George's County, Maryland who has improved a school, in part, through the forced transfer of unmotivated students. In Detroit, we read the story of a female version of Joe Clark, the inspiration for "Lean On Me." She - yes, with her baseball bat - has decided that those that disrupt her village do not get to stay. In both schools, additional steps have been taken that I would actually consider raising expectations; however, we tend to focus on the process of creating order.

If we claim to maintain high expectations for all students, then what do we say about those students that are expelled? Clearly, on some level, the "tough" principals have decided to give up on some kids to save others. If we maintained high expectations for all students, wouldn't we make efforts to engage these students? 

While I respect the efforts of these leaders, I sometimes wonder if we actually pay attention to how we speak about education. It doesn't seem possible to maintain high expectations for all students by throwing some of them out. Perhaps we, at some point, must look at ourselves and ask a more difficult question: what must we do differently to motivate all students to actively pursue an education? Creating a well-behaved student population is not maintaining high expectations, it is creating the environment necessary to establish high expectations. Let us not confuse the two.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Lesson #2

Last week, I gave you a sneak peak at part of our Tutor Training Manual. Using an original poem, we will teach our tutors how to provide instruction in each of the five core components of literacy development: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. Through this process, students gain an understanding of the instructional process.

With this newfound knowledge, Lesson #2 will allow students to construct a lesson themselves. This will be our final training exercise before tutoring begins. Lesson #2 is explained below.

Lesson #2:

An adapted excerpt from a speech by Dr. Benjamin Carson about the importance of teaching Black children about their history:

Anybody could take a young Black boy by the hand and walk down the streets of Baltimore. They could give him a Black history lesson that would thrill his heart.

You could point at his feet and tell him it was Mr. Matzeliger, a Black man, who invented the machine used to make shoes. Looking down, you could point at the street and say it was Mr. Brooks, a Black man, who invented the street sweeper that cleans the streets.

When you came to a traffic light, you could tell him it was invented by Mr. Morgan, a Black man. Morgan also invented the gas mask, which saved many lives during wars. Speaking of war, it was Ms. Bradbury, a Black woman, who invented the underwater cannon – now used for torpedoes.

When you see a beautiful Black woman, you can tell him about Madam Walker, the first woman in America to become a millionaire on her own. She invented make-up for people with a dark complexion.

If you walk by a hospital, you can tell him how Dr. Drew, a Black man, created blood banks. Or, you could tell him about Dr. Williams, a Black man, the first doctor to perform open-heart surgery.

You could even tell him about Mr. Latimer, a Black man, who invented the part of the light bulb that allowed it to work for more than two or three days. Mr. Latimer worked very closely with Thomas Edison, but few people have ever heard of him.

Finally, you can tell him about Mr. McCoy, a Black man, who invented the lubrication system for trains. He was so good that people, before buying something, would ask, “Is this a McCoy? Is this the real McCoy?”

-----

Using Reach's Lesson Planning Template, our tutors will then be guided in using this content to develop a lesson plan for a future tutoring session. The tutor will identify a word family, generate an exhaustive word family list, and outline various ways of showing the identified sound. Tutors will also identify potential vocabulary words and strategies for defining those words. Additionally, tutors will identify at least four questions that will check text comprehension during reading. Finally, the tutor will come up with a plan to promote fluency. By the end of this final training session, each tutor will have created a high-quality lesson plan based on Dr. Carson's speech. A potential plan is outlined below:

1) The tutor introduces /ack/ word family.

2) The student orally generates lists of words with /ack/ sound.

3) The tutor writes out words, showing that the sound can be shown with different letter combinations. The tutor then identifies /ack/ (back, lack, black) as today's focus, but recognizes the same sound can be shown in different ways (Cadillac, plaque, vacuum).

4) Using prepared notecards - ack, b, l, t, r, ing, s, ed - the tutor uses manipulation of cards for lessons in phonemic addition, deletion, and substitution.

5) Turning to today's passage, the tutor reads the passage out loud. The tutor then identifies two potential vocabulary words - complexion and lubrication. The tutor then demonstrates use of context to define complexion and uses dictionary to define lubrication.

6) The student and tutor read the passage together.

7) The student reads the passage alone while the tutor asks comprehension questions. After 2nd paragraph - What do you think the rest of the passage will be about? After 3rd paragraph - What were Mr. Morgan's two inventions? After paragraph 6 - Who did Mr. Latimer work with? After completing the passage - What was the most interesting part to you?

8) After completing the lesson, the student can pick a book from the classroom library to read until program conclusion.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

The Next Level

A recent Time Magazine article provided an overview of a recent program piloted in Chicago, Dallas, New York City, and Washington DC. This program, called "Capital Gains" in Washington DC, is the brain child of Harvard economist Roland Fryer Jr. When I mention that our tutors will be compensated, people often compare our work to that of Dr. Fryer. 

One caveat: I would state that the main difference is that we provide compensation in exchange for additional time and effort - it does not fall within the typical school day. The bonuses we provide are related to job performance and the improved qualifications of our tutors.

I would like to speak specifically to three issues presented in the article. I feel that they are relevant to Reach, Inc.'s work as well.

1) It is absolutely true that the education sector needs to do more research and development work. Our fear of failure often prevents us from trying to new approaches. Because we refuse to do this research, reform often looks very similar to existing approaches and programs.

2) The article talks about rewarding factors over which children have some control. We address this in two ways. First, our incentives are connected to a number of factors: attendance, timeliness, GPA, standardized test scores, tutor reading improvement, student reading improvement, and program compliance. All of our tutors will do better in some areas than others; however, the diversity provides all tutors with the ability to earn incentives. Second, we can not look at any child's ability as static. Our entire incentive system focuses on improvement rather than mastery, so we are always pushing our kids to take the next step. If our training program is working effectively, then our tutors will gain increasing control over the factors we reward. In the beginning, they can focus on showing up on time each day; however, with training, our tutors will gain the capacity to begin focusing on improving their grades.

3) When talking about incentives, detractors often site research stating that extrinsic motivation rarely works long term. This is true. We do know, however, that intrinsic motivation is effective in the long term. In this article, representatives from KIPP talk about the need to "start where they are." Extrinsic motivators can, and do, work to promote initial efforts. When children receive the motivator, it is then up to the adults to make that transition from extrinsic to intrinsic. Many of the students Reach will work with have never experienced academic success. When incentives encourage our students experience success for the first time, it is up to us be vocal about the pride we feel in their success. It is through our responses that these extrinsic motivators can produce intrinsic motivation.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Lesson #1

A Reach, Inc. Original: From Our Tutor Training Manual

"Train in the Rain"

Outside in the cold, cold rain,

I sit here waiting for the train.

I'm mad about this long, wet wait.

The train is fifteen minutes late!

Near the depot, the crowd huddles,

while one boy runs and jumps in puddles.

As the group begins to whine,

we see a headlight's bright white shine.

At the station, the train pulls in -

the conductor with a mile wide grin.

We say, "We waited as it rained and poured!"

He shrugs and says, "All Aboard!"

As we construct our training manual, we're more concerned with the richness of the content than the quality of the poetry, so please don't insult my literary skills. As I've mentioned previously, there are five key components of literacy development: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. This short poem provides at least one entry point for each of the key components.

Phonemic Awareness: Simply put, this is the understanding that words are made up of sounds. The rhyming pattern above makes it easy for kids to identify repeating phonemes (sounds). Additionally, we can use rhyming words to do some phonemic awareness exercises. What's the first sound you hear in train? It's the /t/ sound (That's phoneme isolation). What if you took that away? You get rain (That's phoneme deletion). The awareness created by exercises in phonemic isolation and deletion is an first step in strong literacy development.

Phonics: In phonics, we draw connections between phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (letters). While phonemic awareness allows us to develop word families (words that share a characteristic - for example, the /ain/ sound), phonics allows students to learn that this sound can be shown in multiple ways (train, reign, sane, vein). In phonics, it's important to show that different letter combinations can produce the same sound. Rhyming poems provide a great opportunity for this to be demonstrated (In this poem, you see both wait/late and bright/white, while you also see rhyming words shown by the same letter combinations, like train/rain and whine/shine).

Fluency: Research shows us that fluency improves most significantly through partnered reading aloud. Students should hear something read aloud, then have the opportunity to read aloud themselves. Poetry is a natural literary realm for this practice. Additionally, rhyming provides an additional cue for getting the word right, as students can expect rhyming sounds.

Vocabulary: Often, it is best to teach necessary vocabulary before a student reads a passage. There are multiple opportunities for vocabulary instruction (for a 3rd grade student) in this poem: depot, huddles, and conductor, for example. Additionally, the poem provides contextual clues so the reader may be able to derive meaning.

Text Comprehension: When focusing on comprehension, we often focus on three strategies: summarizing, clarifying, and predicting. The above poem provides plenty of chances for a tutor to check comprehension using these strategies. For example, "Why is the writer mad?"

This (at least in our first draft) will be the first piece of content our tutors encounter. In just twelve lines, we provide all the content necessary for instruction in all five keys areas. This brevity is important as long texts are often intimidating for struggling readers. Through this first poem, we will be able to show how effectively they can provide literacy instruction in all the necessary areas.

I welcome your thoughts. What do you think of the content for Lesson #1?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Another First!

What a wonderful birthday present we received! Over the weekend, Reach received a $3,000 grant from The Crowell & Moring Foundation. While it may seem like a small grant, this is the first time we've received funding through a competitive process. Many foundations are not currently considering new organizations, but Crowell & Moring has shown leadership in continuing to support strong programs at all stages. We are very grateful, and we look forward to being responsible stewards of these resources.

On Thursday, I look forward to telling you about a summer full of exciting Reach events!

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Happy Birthday (Almost)!

On April 3, 2009, while sitting in Gutman Library at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I received a phone call. Our Articles and Bylaws had been filed and a Certificate of Incorporation had been issued. Reach, Inc. was now a legal - and for the first time, real - entity.

As Reach approaches its first birthday, it's interesting to look back on the progress we've made. For me, it's often easier to see the length of the journey ahead, so these moments of reflection are both important and encouraging. I often think of my job in three parts, and I'll frame our progress in the same way.

Fundraising: In a year, we've raised almost $100,000 in cash and pledges. We've received our first donation, first corporate contribution, and first foundation grant. Starting from donations of $10, we have been able to celebrate our first $1,000 donation, our first $5,000, and our first $10,000 donation. While there is a long way to go, we've had great successes in our first year.

Networking: I can't even begin to recount all the great people I met this year. Many in DC's nonprofit community have been willing to provide guidance and support in what is often a difficult process. We've also had two incredible individuals join our Board of Directors - and I knew neither of these individuals a year ago. I'm now in a position where I know where to turn to get many of my questions answered. Additionally, people are starting to talk about Reach, if just a little bit, around this city. Most important, the professionals that I have met now allow me to feel, on some days, that I'm not doing this entirely on my own.

Programming: This is where are greatest strides have occurred. A year ago, I thought I had a concrete idea that would improve literacy outcomes for both high school and elementary school students. I've spent the past year learning how little I then knew. I've learned so much about literacy development - more than I knew existed. From this concept, we now have a signed Memorandum of Agreement, an upcoming pilot program, training materials, an approach to assessment, outlined learning activities, and a strategy for recruiting participants. In the coming months, we'll hire contract teachers and begin recruiting current 8th grade students for next year's program. We've even started targeting potential expansion sites for the fall of 2011.

I'm very proud of how far we've come, and confident in our ability to handle what lies ahead. It won't always be easy, nor has it been to this point, but we will succeed. And in the process, we'll show that it's never too late for a student to address previous academic failure.

Thanks for your support thus far, and I look forward to the continuation of our shared journey.

Mark