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E-mail Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2008 > April > 30 > Entry
Here’s one plan for saving urban kids
Jawanza Kunjufu
The problems of urban education are complicated. There have been a lot of “magic bullet” ideas proposed as solutions. But it’s never been that easy. We know it will take more than one change to really make a difference. But what are the right changes?
This week, I spent some time over at Central State University where 100 teachers and principals from around Ohio were trained in “cultural competency.” This is a hot idea now. The fact is most urban schoolchildren are minorities and the majority of their teachers are white. The hope is to train the teachers to better understand the cultural backgrounds of their students.
To kick off the training, CSU brought in Jawanza Kunjufu as a keynote speaker. Kunjufu offered up a list of 10 changes he says would make a big impact on the learning of urban students.
Here’s his list:
1) Only employ principals who are instructional leaders, not CEOs
Kunjufu said most principals see themselves as CEOs. They love their offices, where they can spend their time managing the budget and the facility. Urban schools, he said, need principals who are experts in instruction and can help teachers in the classroom.
2) Hire master teachers and coaches
Kunjufu said he believes there are five teacher types:
— Custodians. These are teachers who have not changed lesson plan in 30 years. They are caretakers of the status quo.
— Referral agents. These teachers quickly refer kids to others — the nurse, the principal, the discipline dean, etc. Only 20 percent of teachers make 80 pct of referrals, he said.
— Instructors. These teachers love their subject matter and teach their subjects, whether the children get it or not.
— Master teachers. These are teachers who are experts in pedagogy and learning styles.
— Coaches. These teachers get subject matter and learning styles, but also find ways of bonding with students on a personal level.
Kunjufu said urban schools need to focus on expanding the pool of master teachers and coaches in their systems because the other three teacher types are often counterproductive for urban students.
3) Institute Looping
Kunjufu favors “looping,” or keeping the same teacher with the same group of students. The teacher will teach freshman English, then sophomore English, then junior English and senior English. Then she starts over with a new freshman class.
The advantage, he said, is students form relationships with teachers. He cautioned that this will only work with high quality teachers (master teachers and coaches, in his terminology). This is a way, he said, of making large urban schools feel smaller.
4) Raise expectations
Kunjufu said some research has shown teachers lower expectations for poor children, boys, minority children and kids who appear unkempt.
Schools, he said, must enforce high expectations for kids without exception. If you expect kids to perform poorly, they will. If you expect them to excel, they will too.
5) Retain students who fail
Kunjufu said no student should be advanced to fifth grade if he or she cannot read competently. But students cannot just be held back with the same teacher and curriculum. He said the student must be moved into a different classroom, one with a master teacher, a single gender classroom, an Afrocentric curriculum, etc.
6) Reading must be treated as the most important subject
Whether you look at kids in special education or prison, you’ll find a large percentage with major reading problems, he said.
In majority black schools, Kunjufu said too often the reading materials are not targeted to the kids’ interests. He urged teachers to consider the reading materials they have and ask if they would interest their students, especially black boys.
7) Recognize gender differences
Schools should be training their teachers to recognize gender differences when it comes to learning styles and to adapt their teaching methods to meet the needs of those kids.
8) Delay entrance of boys going to kindergarten until age 6
Girls should start kindergarten at age 5 and boys at age 6, Kunjufu argued. He said girls tend to mature faster than boys and that young ages there may be large gaps between their skill levels. This change, he said, would help even the playing field and keep boys from falling behind early.
9) Offer single gender classrooms and single gender schools
Referencing the need for teachers to recognize gender differences (No. 8), Kunjufu said some kids simply do better in a single gender environment and school districts should make that an option for those kids.
10) Teach kids capitalism
Urban kids tend to focus on unrealistic career paths, such as playing pro basketball or becoming a famous rapper. Schools should teach them tools for more realistic careers where they can gain similar fortunes.
Schools, he said, should be teaching kids about the stock market, entrepreneurship and real estate. These careers can give the kids the financial success they desire.
He suggested making a senior project in which three student-designed business plans would get $50,000 in seed money to start the businesses. That sort of realistic incentive would motivate kids to learn financial skills.
What do you think of Kunjufu’s list?
Permalink | Comments (16) | Post your comment | Categories: Urban School Issues
Comments
By Melissa colin
February 27, 2009 12:29 AM | Link to this
I agree with some of the comments. Dr. Kunjufu needs to give this talk to school districts and boards. They are the ones who can alter the school system. I do not agree with looping the children with the same teacher if the personalities of the teacher and students are not compatible. It is easy to say to do this, but teachers face many obstacles to even try and implement some of these suggestions. Teachers are on the front line with students and even the teacher who really wants to try these suggestions are faced with many obstacles with building administration, parents and a board who often has not been in a classroom for a very long time.
By Bev
February 11, 2009 11:26 AM | Link to this
So what can be done to make the parents take responsibility for their childrens education? Is there anything a school system or community can do to ensure the parents take responsibility?
By Rick
May 4, 2008 12:47 PM | Link to this
Lots to agree with Mr. Kunjufu and comments on this board. I disagree with him about and Afro-centric curriculum. No, black kids need to learn, live, and, hopefully, thrive in the larger culture. J, I disagree with you that nothing will change without getting the parents more involved. That is a huge problem, but as Mr. Kunjufu and others have pointed out, there are schools with bad demographics who still succeed. The things they usually have in common are: a) a dynamic and involved principal, b) high expectations of students, c) high expectations of teachers, d) parent-friendly, and e) enough discipline to allow education to learn.
By Laura
May 1, 2008 4:06 PM | Link to this
Frightening thought but I agree with Mary again. What, exactly, are Mr. Kunjufu’s qualifications? Are his recommendations research based? I have a feeling I would have had the reaction Mary described- what a waste of my time. First, some of the recommendations are too costly. Second, some are far too unpopular to be accepted. His recommendation that students be retained only with a new teacher/new curriculum, etc. has been research based for many years, but considered unpractical. Teachers have been recommending boys start school later than girls for years but it isn’t popular with parents. Teachers have tried for years to teach students that Pro Sports and Entertainment careers are mostly unrealistic. It isn’t the parents pushing those careers- it is the parents. Looking for big bucks with little or no education required.
By Scott Elliott
May 1, 2008 11:40 AM | Link to this
I should make clear that Kunjufu did talk a lot about parents and community in his speech. He largely argued that poverty and home life difficulties of the kids have been used as excuses by teachers for why they can’t do better with kids. But he pointed to a bunch of examples of schools that get good academic results with the same profile of kids. He acknowledged that poverty and parenting are issues but said they are out of the school’s control. Kunjufu argued that teachers should focus on what they can do at school to affect positive outcomes and said he felt there was much teachers and schools can do.
By Dayton View Triangle Mom
May 1, 2008 11:07 AM | Link to this
4 reflects a similar principal that Larry Steinberg lists in his book Beyond the Classroom. That book isn’t about urban children but disengaged students and parents across the socioeconomic spectrum. The idea is that many kids aim to pass in school instead of striving for academic excellence or having a strong desire to learn. While I believe this could be a help to kids in Dayton, I also believe that parents set the culture and standard for this at home as much as or more than schools do. He seems like a good speaker overall and that his comments could transcend urban districts in some cases.
By J
May 1, 2008 9:28 AM | Link to this
Funny, nowhere on Kunjufu’s list is the word “PARENT”! How about getting to the root of the problem and start making the parents step up and take some responsibility for their children. Kunjufu says nothing about kids not learning up to their potential due to their parents not providing basic necessities for their kids: clean clothes, breakfast, help with homework, a stable home environment (NO drugs, NO violence, clean bedding, a quiet place to sleep, etc), showing up for parent-teacher conferences, showing some enthusiasm for their child’s improvements… COME ON! WAKE UP! Until we figure out how to get parents of urban kids more involved with their children, we won’t fix anything else. This list shows that teachers are now expected to do more than ever in a school day… and when kids don’t learn what they need to be learning in school, everyone blames the teachers and the schools. What about the 70-90% of a child’s life (between the ages of birth and 18) that is spent OUTSIDE the classroom!?
By Oldprof
May 1, 2008 9:23 AM | Link to this
My first response is “OK, who’s going to pay for this?” Getting beyond the tricky business of trying to squeeze blood out of John Husted, I feel most of his proposals are solid; I particularly like the notion of finding a new strategy for students who fail a grade. Two points where he and I part company. (a) Having a single teacher looped with a class through multiple years doesn’t help the students learn how to learn—those who remained with one teacher would get fixed on that one teaching style—and it also won’t work because inner-city kids are quite mobile and they wind up changing school systems often. We need to get teachers to coordinate course content across schools and districts so that students can transfer seamlessly. (b) Capitalism is fine, but research shows that the arts correlate with higher academic achievement; where’s music, painting, dance, drama? Those disciplines probably will yield more learning than an expensive upgrade of the old student achievement programs.
By null
May 1, 2008 9:03 AM | Link to this
I feel like these are great ideas. Most who work in an urban district would have to agree. The problem is our unions won’t allow for us to get rid of those first three types of teachers Kunjufu speaks of. There are a great number of master teachers and coaches in the urban schools. But they are always overlooked because of the problems the other teachers create. And as many of you should know the media only focuses on the negative and very seldom on the positive. Although, I will give Scott credit that he does have positive stories as well and the negative.
By JT
May 1, 2008 8:32 AM | Link to this
While I agree with most of Mr. Kunjufu’s assertionsand ideas, I find it interesting that he did not mention any parental involvement in a child’s education. Parents are the most important factor in educating a child and that is evident in every type of school, inlcuding an urban district. When parents take an active interest in their child’s education, a child will be more likely to succeed. That is true no matter where a child goes to school. As teachers in urban schools, we often find ourselves in a adversarial relationship with our parents, we are the enemy and they expect us to do everything. There is no ownership of their child’s future. Mr. Kunjufu seems to lay everything in the teachers’ laps, which is more of the same old same old. Until urban parents require more from their children, their children and community are doomed to follow the same dangerous paths to nowhere.
By David
May 1, 2008 8:06 AM | Link to this
Sounds great: 1) when will DPS be dropping their emphasis on sports (keeping high school athletics and middle school) during their major financial cuts? 2) When will DPS be employing administrators who are more interested in doing education and discipline in the classroom than in athletics? 3) When will the schools be holding back kids who don’t meet performance levels at each grade instead of shipping them on because the principal and Reynolds Tower folks don’t want the bad data on record? 4) When expectations aren’t lowered for various reasons, will administrators and Reynolds Tower accept that the failure rate is going to higher because parents and kids don’t perform? It’s nice to say we expecct, but the reality is there’s learning to be done and if the kids don’t want to do it for whatever excuse their kid or the parent conjures up—like the teacher is racist or the teacher can’t teach—are administrators who are supposed to be educators going to support the teacher? 6) Are black parents going to stop emphasizing things that aren’t reading oriented for their kids as a way of life? 7) MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL IS THAT THE WORKPLACES WILL HAVE TO BE SINGLE SEX, SINGLE GENDER, AND LEARN TO HAVE COACHES INSTEAD OF INSTRUCTORS FOR THEIR JOB TRAINING. AND THE WORKPLACES WILL HAVE TO ADJUST THEIR EXPECTATIONS TO MEET THE REQUIREMENTS OF AFRICAN AMERICANS, ETC., TO FIT THE EDUCATION THEY HAVE BEEN GIVEN? I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Let’s train kids for the real world. It’s nice to be an “expert” and come up with lists, but reality is kids need to be ready to learn and expected to learn instead of passed on and excuses given by parents and administrators blaming everyone else but the parents, kids, and the administive environment set for the building and discipline.
By Mary
May 1, 2008 7:34 AM | Link to this
Maybe he should be on David Letterman with his simplistic top ten list instead of talking to school employees. What are his background and qualifications? I would think if I were a teacher or principal attending his talk, it might have wasted my time. Unfortunately, there are a lot of professional seminars like this in the work world - the blind leading the blind - no offense intended to the blind.
By Barb
May 1, 2008 7:07 AM | Link to this
All very good ideas and have a lot of things that are valid. It does bother me that they are referring to this as a culture. If it is a culture it is a culture to drugs and people who are reproducing because of lack of knowledge or the need for more welfare money. What is being done is glorifying the lack of parenting that happens and this is certainly different than poverty. What if some one turned around and said we need to fix the problem at its source and improve parenting. How about if the think tanks work on that issue to help out. Without parent accountability things will not change. No matter how much is done in school these students go home to what they have watched for years and works for them. While a few will change the majority will continue what they are seeing.
By Fred
May 1, 2008 7:06 AM | Link to this
Nothing new here. Why does no one want to talk about the real reason urban children have trouble learning? The lack of parental support is keeping urban youth from learning and succeeding. More parental support = more urban youth success.
By Null
May 1, 2008 6:50 AM | Link to this
All good ideas but what about the most basic need - parents that care! Even the best teachers can’t teach a student who has to take care of himself and his siblings while the parent(s) sleep off the effects of the nightly activities. Teachers can’t teach students that are not in school.
By School Supporter
May 1, 2008 6:06 AM | Link to this
Well, the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights Education Fund highlighted work from the Ohio Department of Education in its “Realize the Dream” effort—work supported by data. I’d be interested in who believes they know better than LCCREF—and why. Meanwhile, Scott, you’ve neglected this: “The next time Obama—the candidate who purports to be our next ‘education president’—discusses education on the campaign trail, it would be nice to hear what he thinks of his Hyde Park neighbor’s [Bill Ayers] vision for turning the nation’s schools into left-wing indoctrination centers.”