Hodgkinson On Demographics

How fascinating! Harold Hodgkinson's article on shifting demographics (Educational Demographics: What Teachers Should Know) and the challenges they pose for today's educators was truly illuminating to me, (although I'm sure that for many who are currently immersed in the public education system, it serves to confirm what they already finding out).

This article was infinetly more intersting than our reading from last week because it goes beyond mere statistics to provide a meaningful look at America's changing student population and their needs, and offers what I feel are some valuable suggestions for teachers as well. To some extent this article even goes beyond the subject of education, giving us an extended view of how America itself is an ever-changing global entity, and therefore, one that is increasingly difficult to define.

It was particularly interesting to find "transiency" mentioned as a major obstacle to educators today. This is something I never thought about, but makes total sense. Just anecdotelly, my daughter briefly had a friend in elementary school whose family was always relocating. (This seemed to be not for job reasons, but more about an unstable family situation, but that is a totally separate issue). At any rate, this was one obviously very bright girl, who also happened to be very precocious and popular, but she seemed to be getting in trouble a lot and failing in school (6th grade) because she refused to study or do homework. My daughter and other kids, spent a lot of time urging this girl to do her work because they didn't want to see her get left back again (she was a bit older than them), but she just didn't care, claiming that "what was the point of bothering, her family was just going to move again", and you guessed it -- within a year, her mother had gotten divorced again, and they were history.

The point here, is that regardless of race, socio-economic status or any other factor, no child can succeed in school if they are constantly being moved around for whatever reasons, and according to this article there is a real lot of this. Therefore it is a revealing , though reasonable correlation that "states with the lowest rates of high school graduation and college admisssions are the five most transient states in the U.S."

Equally interesting was the study's discussion of race and how it is becoming less and less important in providing clues to what is going on in our schools. The other makes an argument that this is due in part to the "blurring" of racial lines -- more mixed marriages, people falling into more than one category, yada...yada. (I was shocked by my own ignorance to realize that the term "Hispanic" does not define a race -- I even looked it up in Websters! After a lifetime of seeing it as a race box to check off on forms, I suspect that many others share this ignorance as well. Yet think about it -- it is no more of a race than "Jewish" -- a religion or cultural background, is.) But the key point here is that what affects performance globally in school is not race but POVERTY. This is one thing that unfortunately affects kids of all races and from all countries.

So where does race fit in? Well according to the author, it is not so much race, but culture and cultural-climate that teachers need to be sensitive to and Hodgkinson provides several interesting examples of cultural differences to be aware of and possible ways to respond to them. all of which make great sense to me.

Lastly, the article addresses our aging population and raises questions about the baby boomer generation (over 70 million!) and whether or not they will maintain their interest in supporting public education once their own children have left the school system. With rising costs of health care, medications and the like, along with shrinking Social Security benefits, it is not surprising, nor hard to understand that many seniors who value education, would elect to opt out of paying school taxes if allowed. However the "side effect" of this demographic is critical and could be life-threatening to the future of schools. Therefore in the same way, that public consciousness is being raised about global warming to ensure the health of the planet for future generations, the public needs to be educated about the debt owed to future generations by ensuring the health of our public school system.

In conclusion, this article is not only essential reading for future teachers, but helps to illustrate that demographic studies can be interpreted in many ways and that statistics are more than a collection of numbers--they are indicators of an intricately linked series of cause and effect phenomenon that have implications way beyond the obvious. For those willing to navigate them, they can provide valuable clues that can help make the journey a smoother one.

A Public Education Primer

Although these statistics held few surprises, they were very useful in presenting an overall picture of the state of public education, who controls the purse-strings and where the biases lie.


A few things that I didn't know ---

* over 90% of funding for public education comes from state and local sources
(We don't have to strain our brains to guess where all that federal money IS going....)

*Less than 5% of our Gross Domestic Product is devoted to public education
(Definitely not something to brag about if you ask me!)

*That over 46% of teachers drop out, burn out or switch careers in the first five years! (Low pay? Tough students? Weak teachers? The study doesn't give the reasons for this phenomenon, but I would be interested to see any more detailed studies on "teacher burnout"). Although definitely not a good thing, this does mean that there will be additional employment opportunities for those entering the profession to fill the gap.



The most mind-boggling tidbit --

* Did you know that Camden, New Jersey spends more money per student than any other district in the state? Unless this is an error, the explanation may lie in the footnote that claims that the this may be due to the greatest number of low-income students enrolled resulting in the most federal assistance being given out.( I haven't visited any public schools in Camden, but I wonder if it would be apparent where all this extra money is going). The district with the lowest expenditure per student is Brick Township, NJ.



Of the most personal interest --

Were the statistics about immigration and the direction it is taking.
(Did you know that 1 in 10 public school students is an English language learner, and that there has been a 65% increase in English language learners between 1993 and 2004?)
This is personally significant to be since when I decided to pursue a degree/certification in art education, others already in the teaching field, intimated to me that perhaps it is not the easiest area in which to find employment. Therefore, following a vague hunch, I decided early on that I would pursue an additional certification in TESL (teaching english as a second language) and these statistics seem to confirm the notion that that this is a hot (aka "in demand") area for future teachers. It is my hope that this additional certification will make me a "value added" prospect and provide more opportunity and flexibility for future employment.


Conclusions:

While opinions may vary about the reasons for deficits in our public education system, where the faults lie and on what course of future action should be taken, statistics paint a somewhat clearer picture of the current situation that new teachers are facing, and being forewarned can help one to be forearmed and prepared. Going into a new situation with "eyes wide open" ie: realistic expectations, may help to lessen the new teacher burnout rate that is apparently a huge problem in our schools today.