Intentional Contacts

Poverty In School System

 Americans  have been working on closing the financial gap between those of the wealthy and those living in poverty. The lack of funds a family have has placed a great impact of the child education. Lack of resources makes it difficult for children to complete homework. Also, many American children only receive meals during the school hours. American schools offer breakfast and lunch to all students, depending on the family financial status these meals can be free of charge. During the summer many schools serve as a site for the Free Lunch program which feeds children up to the age of 18 free of charge once a day. 

 

My Question: Does your school system serve children breakfast/lunch?
Is there an academic issue for those that aren't wealthy?
What programs can families living in poverty reach out to for resources?

 

Carolyn Response:

We do not have formal meal programs in our school system, however many regions do set up informal programs based on need.

Most food is donated by local businesses or families to meet these needs.

We do have an extensive food bank system in our area, again funded through donations and some government grants.

Our food banks are set up like a grocery store, often in church basements, where families can identify that they are in need and "shop" on a weekly basis.  There is also a clothing / accessory store in most major communities, where they can shop on a monthly basis for needed supplies and clothing.

This is just one of the many social services that are available to families.

Bilingual

The American Early Childhood field was original based off the Caucasian child. It later included the African American children. Now today's classroom is filled with more than just black and white students. Hispanic children are becoming the majority in the classroom but aren't fluent in the English language causing the teacher to revise the lesson plans and include ways of teaching non-English speaking students.

My Question: Does your country speak more than one language? What is the native language? What language do teachers use to teach students?

 

Carolyn Response: Canada is bilingual.  We speak english and french.

In my region english is predominant, with very little french or other languages spoken.

We do have children who are non-verbal in our schools who use PECS

http://www.pecs-canada.com/pecs.php

Web Resources

The Opening Bell: National Education Association

Tennessee Report Points To "Systematic Failure" In Teacher Evaluation System.

The Tennessean (7/17, Gonzalez) reports that the Tennessee Department of Education has released a new report which found that the state's new teacher evaluation system "'systematically failed' to identify bad teachers and provide them more training." Moreover, the report "found that instructors who got failing grades when measured by their students' test scores tended to get much higher marks from principals who watched them in classrooms. State officials expected to see similar scores from both methods." The paper quotes the report, "Evaluators are telling teachers they exceed expectations in their observation feedback when in fact student outcomes paint a very different picture. This behavior skirts managerial responsibility." The piece notes that the student performance-based evaluation system is part of the state's obligations under its Race to the Top grant.

        The AP (7/17, Johnson) reports that as a result of the study, state education leaders are "considering changes" to the system, noting that the report "said about two-thirds of the state's teachers should be allowed to opt for a smaller portion of their evaluations to be based on such data. ... The recommendation seeks to address concerns raised repeatedly by teachers since the evaluation measure was first enacted as part of Tennessee's federal Race to the Top grant application in 2010." The piece notes that Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman "didn't discuss specifics, but he said his report - which is due to lawmakers next month - will also deal with value-added testing data." The Knoxville (TN) News Sentinel (7/17, McCoy) runs a similar report. 

Evaluations are the test teachers must pass to continue teaching at that particular school. I have been subjected to evaluations during my student teaching experience. Because this is a randomly done evaluations every quarter I believe it did not paint a clear picture of growth or areas that needed to be improved upon. It is my opinion that evaluations should not be done my "outsiders" that are not familiar with the teachers work ethics. Also the specifics of the evaluations are created my non-educators which can be misleading.

Sharing Web Resources

I am a member of the National Education Association www.nae.org

The mission of NEA is "To advocate for education professionals and to unite our members and the nation to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world." 

The website covers a numerous amount of news concern education. Each news topic is separated into 5 categories:

1. Leading the News
2. In the Classroom
3. On the Job
4. Law and Policy
5. Safety and Security 

They also have tabs labeled 

1. Issues & Action
2. Tools & Ideas
3. Grants and Events

NAE Today: The State of Parent-Teacher Relationship is Strong

Summary: While the gap between home and school has made some closure there still remains a disconnect between parents and teacher. A survey done between Parent Magazine and National Education Association showed "88 percent consider teachers to a partner in helping their child succeed in school. Only 54 percent of teacher, however, believe parents do their part at home to assist them in accomplishing this goal." The finding were given to Parenting’s. Due to such an alarming disconnect a conference was held. "The panelists spoke to the audience about fostering a family-school partnership and offered solutions for bridging the gaps in communication as revealed by the survey."

A few pointers that were made at the meetings:

• Do not look for the "one size fit all" approach"
• Establish Trust
• Take initiative