Increasing student achievement in urban schools is an important priority in many metropolitan school districts.  Here's a slideshow summarizes important issues in multicultural education and outlines steps teachers can take to more-fully meet the diverse needs of diverse learners.  Just click the RIGHT ARROW BUTTON to advance through this slideshow and see this lesson.

Urban Education & Wisconsin Schools

While schools in Wisconsin are mandated by law to provide an appropriate education for every child, historically, public schools have never met the needs of diverse learners – especially those from disadvantageous socioeconomic backgrounds. This is especially true in urban areas with high concentrations of poverty and/or unemployment.  In America, these burdens more-heavily fall on people of color, especially African Americans and Hispanic Americans.

Does the American public support, in a meaningful way, principles of equity as they apply to education? Can a general consensus of how to improve schools changed emerge? Do today’s education leaders have workable solutions to problems facing some school districts? Can families that currently send children to under-performing schools wait for meaningful change? What can parents, and underserved communities do to help children succeed in schools?

A meaningful dialog about school reform must look at the larger socioeconomic issues that negatively impact a family’s ability to raise children in an enriched environment that prepares them for academic achievement. This is especially true in urban communities where the functions of macro economics and government policies have created high concentrations of unemployment, poverty, and little hope for residents to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”

Saying that urban schools can resolve structural problems and issues that have little to do with education is not a rational approach. Meaningful change demands recognizing that not all parents, for various reasons, are in a position to provide enriched early childhood experiences.

The early years are critical, from 0 to 4, this is when a child’s brain is developing. An environment that stimulates a child’s development prepares them to learn. Disadvantaged socio economic status, poverty, and stresses that adversely impact families can undermine enrichment experiences that nurture a child’s ability to learn. Young children that grow up in urban areas with high concentrations of poverty start school at significant disadvantages and more likely to have problems learning to read throughout their K-12 experiences.

When children start school, differences between students’ language skills and early literacy development are striking. Students that are behind in terms of their “readiness to read” are at significant disadvantage and are unlikely to catch up. Schools generally let students develop reading skills at their own rate. Special attention and interventions are not provided until students have failed to acquire reading skills.

By this time, gaps between poor and proficient readers are large and often cannot be overcome for the remainder of disadvantaged students’ K-12 schooling. The current system allows students to “fail” before recognizing basic problems – by that time, it is really too late.

These burdens fall most heavily on students in high-poverty schools. Indicators of socio-economic status are consistently found to predict academic outcomes. Clearly, poverty undermines schools. Children from high-poverty communities are less likely to meet literacy and academic standards. As students fall behind in reading, they also have less access to academic curriculum than their peers.

Crisis in Wisconsin Schools

Wisconsin has the largest gap in academic achievement between majority and non-majority students in the country. Reading and math skills of some groups of students are among the lowest in the nation.

African American and Hispanic American communities are especially hard-hit. A recent study finds that the standards Wisconsin uses to access proficiency in reading and math are among the lowest in the nation.

This is unacceptable and unsustainable. While these issues exist across America, they are especially bad in Wisconsin and its only "major league" city, Milwaukee, which has some of the highest unemployment and poverty rates in the nation. Only Detroit has a higher unemployment rate.

Across America, 1 out of every 6 children lives in poverty, by far the highest rate of any the world's wealthy nations. In Milwaukee, 2 out of 5 children live in poverty. This is the 7th highest concentration of poor families in this nation's urban centers. But high rates of poverty are not just in Milwaukee.

In a recent visit to Madison, Marc Moriel, President and CEO of the National Urban League, released the appalling statistic that 80% of all infants of color born in Madison are born into poverty! We can find these issues in other Wisconsin communities too. Low expectations and highly concentrated poverty and unemployment in any community create a recipe for disaster.

Today's students need effective reading, math, critical thinking, and information and technology literacy skills. Public schools are failing to serve some student, especially children in urban communities with high concentrations of poverty. According to the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank that has advocated for school choice for almost twenty years, the "choice" schools are not working either.

There is no "quick fix" that will reform schools. Many believe that the factors that create dysfunctional schools are largely outside of what schools can influence. The lowest performing schools in America are in communities with high poverty and unemployment.

All children deserve "schools that work" and this needs to be more than a slogan on bumper stickers. Can we wait for rational, effective, long-term solutions?

School Accountability

While today’s “accountability movement,” is, in theory, designed to help students; it actually holds young children responsible for “achievement” and does hold powerful economic interests, politicians, and government policies responsible for the socio-economic and macro economic conditions that undermine the ability of families to more-fully prepare children for academic success. A real “accountability movement” would acknowledge factors that impact child development and strive to help all families support children with early learning at home, before children start school.

Assessment, both formative and summative, are important parts of effective instruction – the way standardized achievement tests are used today put pressures on schools to register short-term gains at the expense of more beneficial longer-term skill development. The scores on tests that are currently used to assess student learning can be increased by merely practicing those tests. Practicing test formats, which many believe amounts to teaching to the test, does not give students meaningful skills.

Real academic achievement demands adequate literacy and critical thinking skills. Whatever potential “accountability” and its accompanying assessments may have to increase school performance, that potential is undermined if test prep, “drill-and-practice” usurps teaching or interventions that build fundamental skills like early literacy and reading.

Given what is known about the importance of early literacy, reading development, and academic outcomes, why aren’t students’ early literacy skills assessed before children fall behind their peers in reading and academic achievement? Why are assessments given after some children have fallen behind in early literacy development the driving force in “accountability?”

Current practices fail to acknowledge that if assessment is a key part of “accountability”, then assessing early literacy skills that can be demonstrated to predict academic success should be the start of the entire process. If the goal of “accountability” and assessment is to help students, then there is a need to quantify early literacy skills in preschool and early elementary school. These are nurtured from birth when language and communication skills begin to develop.

The most important thing we can currently do to increase academic performance is to support children and families so that students enter school ready to learn and “ready to read." Affluent communities know that their children have a “head-start” and advantage when they are enrolled in quality preschool programs.

These communities are also in a better position to provide enrichment experiences before children start preschool. When children live in poverty, they are less likely to attend quality preschool programs. Only 47% attending any program at all compared with 59% of children being raised above the poverty line. In this nation, the burden of poverty falls most heavily on African Americans and Hispanics.

Studies show that the single greatest factor predicting a child’s success in school (K-12) is entering the system “ready-to-read.” A child’s experiences beginning at birth affect a child’s success or failure once they start their formal education. Research demonstrates that experiences, early learning, and physical development before the age of 3 is just as important as experiences, early learning, and physical development between the ages of 3 and 5.

Exposing children to books at an early age, reading to them, and a “print rich” environment helps children get ready to read and ready for school. Children that enter school behind their peers in reading readiness are unlikely to catch up, are at-risk for reading failure, are more likely to drop out of school and encounter any number of problems as they struggle to find a productive place in society.

Ready to Read - Ready for School

At the heart of “school readiness” are early literacy skills which can be defined as: “what children know about reading and writing before they can actually read or write” (ALA, n/d). The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health have researched the developmental needs of children and identified 6 skills that correlate to a child’s success learning to read and has identified these skills as correlated to a child’s success in schools (K-12).

The Early Literacy Skills are:

• Print Motivation. Being excited about and interested in books.

• Phonological Awareness. Playing with the sounds in words.

• Narrative Skills. Telling stories and describing things.

• Enriched Vocabulary. Knowing the specific names of things.

• Print Awareness. Noticing print everywhere, knowing how to handle a book, and following words on a page.

• Letter Knowledge. Knowing the difference between how letters look, their names, and their sounds.

For more information about Early Literacy Skills and how they can be shared with babies, pre-talkers, young talkers, preschool students, and early elementary school students; please check out www.earlyliteracyweb.com

A dialog about schools is not enough because it assumes that changes will occur in schools that “fix” problems impacting urban education, issues that exist largely outside of schools. We need to talk about ways to support families and children, especially as it relates to the early years, 0-4. Scientists generally agree that this is a “critical window” in a child’s development.

According to Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children (1998), “Children who are particularly likely to have difficulty learning to read in the primary grades are those who begin school with less prior knowledge and skill in certain domains, most notably letter knowledge, phonological sensitivity, familiarity with the basic purpose and mechanisms for reading, and language ability.”

Equity in education outcomes demands looking at how to prepare students to be ready to enter school and recognizing how populations that bear the burden of poverty in the United States, especially high-concentrations of urban poverty, benefit from early literacy initiatives.

Family literacy programs, instruction in phonics, cooperative group activities, and peer teaching methods that promote active learning and multicultural literacy will make a difference helping children get ready to read and ready to learn.

While these issues impact other groups of Americans that live in high concentrations of poverty, African Americans are uniquely affected due to the legacy of slavery and segregation in society and schools.

Even after Brown v. Board of Education knocked down the lies of “separate but equal” schools, for too many, emerging from willful discrimination and racism of others has hindered escaping from poverty, academic achievement, and career aspirations.

A responsible dialog needs to acknowledge that some families have advantages when it comes to introducing children to early literacy skills. While poverty does not create an absolute barrier to academic achievement, it affects students’ readiness to learn and education in many ways, some direct, some subtle, some indirect

In her book Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning in Print, Marylyn Adams estimates that the typical middle-class child enters first grade with 1,000 to 1,7000 hours of one-on-one picture-book reading while children from low-income families average 25 such hours.

Studies show that family early literacy interventions are effective, especially when shared with those living in poverty. Perhaps even more important, these early literacy interventions are most effective with children that are furthest behind their peers developing “ready to read” skills – students with the greatest needs benefit.

It must be acknowledged that economically disadvantaged people, often in multi-generational contexts, those that have been underserved by public schools (often in multi-generational contexts) and English language learners face unique challenges introducing and nurturing early literacy skills to their children.

Reaching out to the diverse needs of urban communities with high concentrations of unemployment and poverty and promoting early literacy skills demands sensitivity, respect, and an acknowledgement that the socioeconomic conditions that impact academically underserved populations are largely beyond the control of economically disadvantaged urban residents.

Bibliography

American Library Association (ALA) (n/d). Early Literacy.

Anyon, Jean (2005). Radical Possibilities. Taylor & Francis Group, LLC., New York.

Borsuk, Alan (2007, October 23). Choice May Not Improve Schools, Study Says: Report On MPS Comes From Longtime Supporter Of Plan. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Borsuk, Alan (2007, October 16). Reading Gap is Nation’s Worst. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved October 20, 2007, from

Borsuk, Alan (2007, September 25). Reading Gap is Nation’s Worst. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Borsuk, Alan (2007, October 3). State Sets Low Test Standards: Skills Needed For Students' Proficient Ratings Vary Across U.S., Study Says. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children (1998), Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.

Duncan, G. L. & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2000). Family Poverty, Welfare Reform, and Child Development. Child Development, 71 (1), 188-196.

enGauge (2003). 21st Century Skills: Literacy in the Digital Age.

Gatto, John Taylor (2000). The Underground History of American Education: A schoolteacher’s Intimate Investigation into the Problem of Modern Schooling. Oxford Village Press, New York.

Ghoting, Saroj & Martin, Pamela Diaz (2005). Early Literacy Storytimes @ Your Library: Partnering With Caregivers for Success. ALA, Chicago.

Huntington, Barbara (2005). Early Learning Initiative for Wisconsin Public Libraries. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Madison, WI.

Kozol, Jonothan (2005). The Shame of the Nation. Crown Publishing, New York.

Lavin-Loucks, Danielle (2006). The Academic Achievement Gap. The J. McDonald Williams Institute.

Lewis, Amanda (2003). Race in the Schoolyard. Rutgers Press, Piscataway, NJ.

Lionni, Paolo (1993). Sabotage of the US Educational System. Heron Books, Sheridan, OR.

Manset-Williamson, G., St John, E., Hu, S. & Gordon, D. (2002) Early literacy practices as predictors of reading related outcomes: Test scores, test passing rates, retention and specials educational referral. Exceptionality, 10, (1), 11-28.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Staff. (2007, October 12). We Need The Courage To Do What Works. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Missall, K., Reschly, A., Betts, J., McConnell, S., Heistad, D., Pickart, M., Sheran, C., & Marston, D. (2007). Examination of the Predictive Validity of Preschool Early Literacy Skills. School Psychology Review, 36 (3), 433-452.

National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). (May 1998). Overview of Learning to Read and Write: Developmentally Appropriate Practices for Young Children.

National Research Council. (1998). Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. National Academy Press, Washington D.C.

National Research Council. (2001). Eager to Learn. National Academy Press, Washington D.C.

National Research Council. (2002). From Neurons to Neighborhoods. National Academy Press, Washington D.C.

Nieto, Sonia (1999). The Light in Their Eyes. Teachers College Press, New York.

Northwest Regional Education Laboratory, Child and Family Program (1998). Learning to Read and Write. Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, Portland, OR.

Perkins, Helen J. & Cooter, Robert B. (2005). Issues in Urban Literacy: Evidence-based Literacy Education and the African American Child. International Reading Association, Newark, DE.

Whitehurst, Grover (2004). Early Literacy Begins With You: You Can Help Your Child Be Ready to Read. PLA/ALSC, divisions of the American Library Association. Chicago.