“Our future depends on having an excellent public education system, where all students graduate from high school prepared for college or the world of work, no matter what the color of their skin, the language they speak, or where they happen to be born. And this is a goal I believe we can achieve.” - Dr. María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel, IDRA President and CEO

Published 10 times a year, each edition explores issues facing U.S. education today and strategies to better serve every student. This newsletter is published in print and on the IDRA website, in addition to this eLetter format.

by Albert Cortez, Ph.D.

Researchers studying which aspects of education have the most substantial impact on students have long declared that the quality of teaching provided to students is the single most important factor contributing to long-term student success, which includes not only post-high school job performance, but also enrollment in and graduation from college (Darling-Hammond, 1997; Fuller, 1999; Cochran-Smith, 2003). Research also indicates that “quality teaching is more important than a student’s ethnicity, family income, school attended or class size” (Policy Studies Associates, 2005). Despite these findings, not enough has been done at the state or national levels to improve teaching quality, and in some cases ineffective or dysfunctional policies have been created that actually exacerbated the problem (Yuan, et al., 2013).

Looking at the literature about what is needed to improve the quality of teaching in many U.S. schools systems, we do know that high quality preparation of teachers is crucial to producing well qualified educators. This means that colleges and universities that prepare new teachers have needed to update their teacher training processes to include more mentoring and support in the preparation and transition phases. Alternative certification programs – including non-university-sponsored teacher preparation efforts – were created to accelerate the process by re-training professionals choosing to change their career paths. Those programs soon learned that content specialization was not enough and that instruction in pedagogy was critically important for future teacher success. – Keep reading

by Bradley Scott, Ph.D.

The discussion about the big initiatives the U.S. Department of Education and the administration have undertaken does not end with the Common Core State Standards (Scott, 2013). It must extend to the ESEA state flexibility waivers. The Secretary of Education offered an invitation to all states and territories to apply for flexibility waivers to meet the student achievement targets that were set in the original No Child Left Behind Act. Since states were experiencing difficulty in achieving or even approaching the targets for 2014, which in 2001 seemed to be a long way off, states and school districts established very ambitious annual goals. 2014 is practically here and, clearly, achieving grade level proficiency and success for all students will not happen by then.

The invitation to apply for flexibility to reach the achievement targets by 2014 in a different way as determined by the state and approved by the U.S. Department of Education is as much of a civil rights concern for diverse learners as is the implementation of the Common Core. Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia are approved for ESEA flexibility. Other states have applied and are awaiting review and approval. This article lays out some of the civil rights concerns that may arise around the plans for flexibility that have been submitted and approved by the U.S. Department of Education. – Keep reading

by Aurelio M. Montemayor, M.Ed.

Tracking is bad educational policy and practice. It is damaging to many students. Its failure is well documented. Returning to bad policy as Texas is doing, will return us to a time of great failure. But successful policy and practice exists. Reneging of the policy successes requiring rigorous, high-level curriculum and instruction for every child is damaging to everyone, to our economy and our future. We must avoid policy that tracks students into low level curriculum and instead put in place practice that prepares all students to enroll in and complete college.

A form of tracking called ability grouping is a sorting approach schools used to organize classes and assign students. Decades of research point to the fact that it does not help teachers succeed more in their instruction of students and, even worse, castigates students (mostly poor, of color or English learners) to limited results. The data clearly show academic failure and subsequent limited access to, and success in, college. Ability grouping has helped very few and harmed many. It’s a myth that such clustering facilitates better and more appropriate instruction.

Instead, tracking of all kinds encourages bias toward students, and these classifications narrow the expectations of the teachers and the school community. – Keep reading

See IDRA’s policy note: Tracking, Endorsements and Differentiated Diplomas – When ‘Different’ Really is Less

All children are valuable; none is expendable. But the fact is U.S. high schools lose more than one third of their students before graduation, and the cumulative impact of this attrition affects every person. But, schools can increase their holding power by transforming how they recognize students’ inherent value, their contributions, and their potential significance to their communities and society, as a whole. The Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program is a research-based, internationally-recognized dropout prevention program that is keeping more than 98 percent of participating students in school, young people who were previously at risk of dropping out. – Keep reading

Hear from Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program tutors…

“The only thing that kept my feet firmly planted on the ground was the knowledge that I was here for someone else, and they were depending on me… These children were my light.” - High school tutor

“The Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program has made me a better student because interaction with children has helped me be more caring and understanding. Knowing that my tutees are expecting me to be there, I enjoy going every day… I understand now that we can all improve a student’s outlook on school by taking time a few minutes a day to help out.” - High school tutor

“When school started, I felt a big emptiness inside me. I felt that if I missed a day of class no one would notice. Now that I started in the Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program, I have a better self-esteem. Through the VYP, three kids have made a change in my life… I know that I am making a big difference in their lives.” - Middle school tutor

“Our nation must move from its low expectation that only some of our students can successfully graduate to expecting and supporting all of our students to graduate college-ready.” - Dr. María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel, IDRA President and CEO

Supported by Houston Endowment, Inc., IDRA developed and lead the initiative, titled InterAction: Higher Education and Latinos in the New Millennium, seeking to build stronger, enduring links among K-12, institutions of higher education and the community and business sectors to effect meaningful education reform. IDRA convened three forums addressing issues facing a specific community of interest – urban, rural or border areas. The forums were hosted by the University of Houston-Downtown, the University of Texas-Permian Basin, and the University of Texas-Pan American, respectively. The LULAC State Education Committee and the Texas Latino Education Coalition co-hosted all three forums. IDRA then held a statewide seminar where participants reviewed 31 policy solutions stemming from the series of three InterAction forums. The 31 policy solutions follow IDRA’s framework that identifies seven distinct areas of opportunities for reform: preparation, access, institutional persistence, affordability, institutional resources, graduation, and graduate and professional studies.

Principal on Creating a College Going Culture – March 29, 2011

Connecting Every Student to a Meaningful Future – March 10, 2011

The Civil Rights Issue of Our Generation – April 29, 2011

Tool for Building Quality Schools – December 9, 2010