WASHINGTON SCHOOLS DEMONSTRATE SUCCESS

By Editor Ken Harvey

For years the Migrant Education Program (MEP) staff in Olympia and the three Migrant Education Regional Offices (MEROs) in the state have been working to help school districts improve their instruction of the most struggling students – migrant students.

However, they have not always been able to see a lot of impact.

The MEP and MERO staffs presented workshops at the National Migrant Education Conference on recent efforts to achieve measurable and sustainable systemic changes in struggling schools.

MEROS DEVELOP MENTOR SCHOOL PROGRAM

The Mentor Schools Project was started about three years ago. Each of the three MEROs, located in Yakima, Wenatchee and Anacortes, were to select several schools or school districts with which to focus the efforts of their expert curriculum specialists.

In the past the curriculum coordinators for MERO 105 in Yakima would present trainings to educators around their large region of some 50 school districts as they felt were needed.

“It was kind of hit and miss,” says Parent Services Coordinator Dalia Candanoza. “We needed to find out what kind of impact we could have if we went as an office” with all three curriculum coordinators providing focused support to one school. “It’s not just ‘as needed’; we are there all the time.

“With the Mentor School Program, we wanted to be able to say, ‘This is what’s happening at these schools,’” she says.

The MERO had sent out letters and applications to districts in the region. They selected three districts – Washington Middle School in Yakima, Toppenish Middle School, and Paterson Elementary School.

The MEROs in Wenatchee and Anacortes developed similar projects.

Some problems were encountered for the Yakima MERO staff when it became obvious that only a few administrators knew about the three-year agreements that had been developed, and there was no buy-in by others, says Candanoza.

During the first year a needs assessment was conducted and a plan defined for the three mentor schools serviced by the Yakima MERO. The curriculum coordinators reviewed with district leaders important concepts and strategies for helping migrant students succeed in school.

Discussion related to effective instructional strategies for English language learners (ELLs), second-language acquisition, culture and poverty, migrant issues in education, parent involvement, cooperative learning, authentic assessment, dual-language immersion, and reading and math instruction for ELLs.

Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) was given particular emphasis. SIOP stresses techniques that help English language learners to achieve greater comprehension of concepts taught in the content areas, such as math, science and social studies. In every SIOP-based lesson, a language and a content objective is identified; visual aids enhance understanding; students have hands-on practice, application and interaction; and students are evaluated through “authentic assessment,” employing real-world tasks.

“What we find is that teachers realize these practices are not just effective for English language learners but for all students,” says Candanoza.

The second year the MERO staff began providing SIOP and other specific training.

“We showed them the best practices we knew of and why we thought they would work for them,” says Candanoza.

As parent services coordinator, Candanoza’s task was to increase parent involvement, setting up or strengthening the Parent Advisory Committees (PACs) and providing related staff and parent training.

 “One of the things we did was develop a parent leadership curriculum,” says Candanoza. “A lot of hands-on training. They are practicing the skills we are talking about,” such as communications and goal-setting.

Curriculum/Math Coordinator Jim Beichler helped Candanoza establish Family Math Nights. Staff members or high school students manned the activity tables around the room. After families participated in the fun activities, they were given free materials, such as dice, to use in home activities.

By the end of Year 3 they “needed to set up a system that could be sustained,” says Beichler.

“In the fall we provided training for the para-eds because they are doing a lot of the instruction,” he says.

The curriculum specialists also began using the “train the trainer” model to teach teachers and administrators from 18 school districts, including those involved in the Mentor Schools Program, how to better understand and adapt to the needs of Latino students and parents.

 “We want to help the mainstream teachers understand how to teach the English language learners in the classroom rather than pulling them out,” explains Dora DeWitt, the curriculum/literacy coordinator.

“The response has been great,” says Candanoza.

The MERO also provides website and other support.

“We’re not going to just send them back and say, “You’re on your own,” Beichler says

“A lot of the staff didn’t really understand the culture,” says Candanoza.

Before one training, a principal warned her there might be a negative reaction because many of the teachers were not accustomed yet to the changing demographics. But the evaluation after the 2.5 hour training was very positive.

“Now we understand,” one teacher said.

“It’s a very powerful curriculum. There are many barriers. We just talk about some of them,” Candanoza says.

For example, they discuss some of the cultural differences, such as body language. For Latinos, when a child is being reprimanded, it is disrespectful for him to look the adult in the eyes, whereas for Anglos it’s disrespectful not to. Latinos also tend to stand closer and use more gestures.

Beichler says Candanoza “is a nice liaison between teachers and parents.”

She explains that “speaking just one or two words in Spanish shows the teacher is trying.”

But Candanoza adds that to have successful parent involvement, districts must have administration buy-in, too. She recalled the powerful impact of having two principals and three school board members showing up at a recent potluck and mingling with parents even without knowing how to speak Spanish.

Meanwhile, many of the math teachers in Toppenish Middle School were not “highly qualified” to teach that subject. Beichler would model key teaching techniques in their classrooms and provide other training, but he recognized their needs were greater than what he could handle by himself.

“The district has been in a situation where they’ve been just grasping at straws,”  Beichler says.

The MERO arranged with Heritage University to provide training to 10 teachers in math, 10 in literacy and all 20 in the SIOP approach to instruction.

“We didn’t have much in-depth knowledge. A lot of the teachers didn’t understand the concepts,” says teacher Rebecca Molina via videotape. “It has really changed the way we teach. It’s fun for us to teach and easier for students to understand. It feels more manageable. A lot of us are moving up from the novice level to become experts. We’re bringing math from the back burner to the front burner. I really appreciated the whole process.”

While the contracted period is ended, says Beichler, “we will still be there to support them next year.”

MEP DEVELOPS K-12 DEMONSTRATION MODEL

As the Mentor School Projects wound down, Migrant/Bilingual Education Director Alfonso Anaya launched a similar program overseen by his Olympia staff, specifically Program Supervisors PhuongChi Nguyen and Raymond Paiz.

Nguyen took the lead with Grandview School District while Paiz oversaw Tukwila School District Demonstration Project with Phouang Hamilton.  The presentation at the National Migrant Education Conference focused on the Grandview project.

The approach to the K-12 Demonstration Project was similar to the MERO’s Mentor Schools, but this time Anaya wanted to develop a full K-12 model.

The first phase was identification and recruitment of prospective districts. MEP personnel discussed expectations with district leaders. They needed districts that would consider what systemic changes might need to be made and how they might achieve sustainability.

“In Phase 2, after they submit their proposal, we verify their proposal and take a look at it for comprehensiveness,” Nguyen explains. “One district submitted a plan that discussed their dual-language program and funding, but dual language is only a strand, and in each elementary building only touches about 25 migrant/bilingual students altogether. But what about the other students in the three elementary schools not in the dual-language program? What about the middle school students and the high school students?

“So we spent time talking to them about their reality and ideal and how much time it will take to achieve that. And now we have a revised proposal pending signature by the board. It was made clear from the start this plan must have board approval. The board may have to make policy changes at the district level. Then, once the board and superintendent sign the proposal, we’re ready to move on to the next phase,” Nguyen says.

MEP officials decided they wanted to work with smaller districts under 5,000 students.

“There are fewer students and educators to work with, and the purpose of this is to establish a process that we can replicate throughout the state. It’s better to start small,” Nguyen says.

During the initial phases, the districts needed to do some honest introspection regarding where they are at and some brainstorming about where they wanted to be.

“If you had all the money in the world, what would your school look like?” district officials were asked.

“That was the beginning of the whole collaborative process for us. We wanted to look at the reality and the ideal, and the action plan to close the gap,” Nguyen says.

“Then we work with them to see what it will take to get them from reality to their dream. Research on effective schools suggests it takes about five years altogether. Our project is to just begin the process, and then continue working with them to create that systemic change and sustainability so they can continue doing it on their own,” Nguyen says.

Grandview School District has only 3,354 students -- 83 percent Hispanic, 25.1 percent transitional bilingual and 15.6 percent migrant.

“We looked at this data and saw 83% Hispanic but only 25% transitional bilingual. So that suggests most of the Latino students may be either second-generation or they have exited from the bilingual program. But if they’ve exited from the bilingual program, that doesn’t mean they don’t need support services. The needs may still be there,” says Nguyen. The student population was only 15.8 percent white.

Prior efforts by the district have been focused on reading at the elementary level, so state WASL assessment scores showed a relatively high percentage of the elementary students meeting or exceeding state standards. There is no achievement gap between Hispanic and white students in fourth-grade math (39.9% of the Hispanic students and 39% of the white students passed), and very little gap in reading (70.1% for Hispanic; 82.9% for whites) and writing (54.7% to 56.1%).

But the gap between white and Hispanic in seventh- and 10^th-grade WASL tests is “huge,” Nguyen points out. In seventh grade, whites surpassed Hispanics in achieving WASL standards 63.2% to 36.5% in reading, 60.5% to 39.5% in writing, and 48.6% to 21% in math.

In 10th grade, whites surpassed Hispanics in achieving WASL standards 78.7% to 58.4% in reading, 81.3% to 62.7% in writing, and 40.4% to 22.7% in math.

The widening gap in middle and high schools is not due just to excessive focus on elementary school educational reforms, says Anaya.

“It’s the same pattern we see nationally. In second, third and fourth grades, the students tend to score better, but it’s a false ceiling. By seventh grade, you see big gaps in reading and writing because of the way we teach. The Spanish kids just don’t connect. It is the wrong way to teach English for children who come from homes where English is not spoken well.

“Many times districts will pat themselves on the back when they see the English language learner and the English speaking students are doing comparably well in the early grades, but then later on the pattern shows up like this,” he adds.

“When we look at how we teach students to read, predominately it is in English and the process is the same that is used to teach the majority English speakers,” Anaya explains. 

Districts like Grandview where the majority of the students are Hispanic, high poverty and poor education in the home need to understand there is another way to approach instruction that does work.

“We say to these districts, ‘Let’s not base our decisions on false assumptions. The data you have shows there is something wrong here,’” Anaya says. “So they themselves begin to look at how they can change.”

Educators and textbook companies assume students are English language dominant, which isn’t always true.

“You cannot teach reading to a Latino the way you teach reading to an Anglo kid,” Anaya says. “Direct instructional materials do not work. We know from research that what works with Latino students is a direct approach in an interactive setting – a constructivist approach so they can reconstruct and rename and draw connections.

“For example, we know what a fish hatchery is, but poor Latino kids may not know what that means. They may get in their minds a picture of a fish sitting on a nest trying to hatch an egg. They might be able to break it up in phonics and make meaning of it, but they won’t be able to connect the concepts,” he says.

That may get them through the early grades, but not later as the concepts become more complex.

“So from the seventh grade on, academically they bomb out,” he says. “What we need people to understand is that you don’t lower the standards, you don’t lower the expectations. You keep the standards high, but how you get the poor minority student there, and specifically the Latino student, is very, very different. It has to include differences in language acquisition and knowledge of language differences. Spanish and English are very different languages.”

While Anaya and other MEP officials have strong opinions on some reforms that ought to be adopted, they purposefully choose a neutral facilitator to run the meetings with the districts so the state is not seen as imposing its will on the local educators.

“We want to make sure it is a fair process because we are replicating this process with other districts,” says Nguyen. “Whatever we agree upon has to be something the schools agree with and we agree with. We don’t want to be a bulldozer.”

Nevertheless, the MEP staff does bring up important concepts for the local school staff to consider.

“If we focus on the mainstream teachers having the skills needed to educate our migrant/bilingual students, then these students will have access to the core instructional program,” says Nguyen. “But more than that, we want to look at our supplemental programs for migrant education to make sure they are of the highest quality so our students will have the connection back to the core instructional programs and that they accelerate their learning.”

By employing strategies, such as SIOP, the migrant/bilingual students can progress faster, but so can other Latino and white students.

Nguyen notes that education consultant Dennis Parker teaches: “What works for the least will definitely work for the best, meaning your gifted students. But the reverse is not true.

“So we’re always talking to the schools about what they need to do to move the migrant/bilingual students ahead. For whatever you do for this population is going to work for the entire student population,” Nguyen says.

Curriculum materials need to be enriched and not remedial.

“Because of their weak English skills, schools use material that is remedial and dumbed down,” Nguyen says. “I’m reminded of one of our students who wanted to be a medical student, so he needed to have the highest level of math. But just because of his language and being migrant, they automatically placed him at a lower math when he is able to do a higher math.

“So when he’s a senior, he should be in calculus, but he won’t be able to get that high. He will only be able to get to the pre-calculus level. So, we need to make sure we know who our students are and what their needs are,” she says.

Another area of focus is parent empowerment.

“We specifically use the term ‘empowerment’ instead of ‘involvement’ because we want to make sure our parents are involved in the system and are part of the decision-making body. That will help our student population,” Nguyen says.

They also look at consistency at the classroom level from first grade to first grade to first grade, but also at the building level, she says.

“There is that vertical line that needs to happen. And also at the district level because when we have mobile migrant students, they come in and out of the district and they come in and out of the buildings, too. We need to have a consistency there for our students when it comes to curriculum, instruction and assessment,” Nguyen says.

They also want to build capacity and make sure that all staff – certified, classified and administrative –have the capacity to support the learning of migrant and bilingual students.

And there needs to be sustainability.

“Whatever is being done, it needs to be done systematically over time. Sometimes there are pockets of teachers who do the program well, but in that same building, right next door even, you don’t have that same rigor,” Nguyen says.

“And in evaluation of instruction and in evaluation of programs we need to make sure our students are growing linguistically and academically,” she adds.

Student assessments also need to be correlated.

“When you don’t have the same assessments, you don’t have the same data to compare,” Nguyen says.

Grandview is now creating a district assessment approval system to make sure all schools using the same assessments. A committee of teachers and administrators will determine which assessments everyone will be using. If they are using any outside of that, it is not appropriate, she explains.

In another district, Nguyen notes, the principal and teachers from each grade level sit down every other week and review the progress of each student so all of them know how each child is doing, and they help devise intervention strategies.

“That was shared with Grandview School District, and we’re hoping that is one of the things they will be implementing,” she says.

District officials need to review their financial resources to support systemic change. MEP officials make it clear that involvement in the K-12 Demonstration Project does not necessarily mean more money from the state.

“The process of the Demonstration Project isn’t about the Migrant Education Program giving you dollars on top of what you already have. But it is about taking a look at your school and changing the mindset, changing the structure. How can you change what you are doing with the same funding resources that you already have?’” Nguyen explains. “It is different than what happened in the past when they wrote the grant, got the money and then decided what to do with the money. With this, there is no money from the get-go, and you simply go through the process with us to find what you need to do differently. Then we’ll talk about the dollars that you might need above and beyond everything else that you’ve done.”

Nguyen points out that Grandview is already restructuring its budget to pay for reforms.

“With the same amount of funding they were able to hire ELL and literacy coaches at the elementary and at the middle school level,” she explains. “They made a conscious decision that instead of having more paraprofessionals, they grouped all those dollars so they could hire coaches. It is wonderful to see the ELL and literacy coaches working together for the benefit of the students. They are dreaming big dreams.”

Anaya says as Grandview improves its schools, they will find that financial savings will also be achieved.

“Whenever you improve anything, it becomes more efficient and it costs less. So the public is willing to support you more, and along the way there are more resources and money available,” he says.

He notes that the district where he served as superintendent went through a comparable experience. The teachers union was asked to sacrifice for a few years while reforms where taking place, but a few years later after the efficiencies had been achieved, the district was able to reward teachers with a big pay increase.

SPREADING THE WORD

Anaya is meeting with local school board, state legislators, educators, the state school board, ethnic organizations and essentially anyone else who he thinks can help struggling students succeed.

“We have entered into a year-long dialogue across the state about the condition of English language learners, trying to re-educate people about how we are doing it wrong in the state of Washington,” he says. “I’ve personally driven probably 60,000 miles in the last year to attend small-group and large-group discussions and to get into this critical dialogue.”

The dialogue started with about 200 educators and four universities that came together to discuss the educational challenges of migrant/bilingual students. The dialogue then expanded from there.

“We’ve probably gotten 2,000-3,000 decision-makers involved in the dialogue. We’ve spent I don’t know how many thousands of hours on the road to build momentum to this point,” Anaya says.

“Then we started these demonstration projects, beginning with a small group of people, including the superintendent and then expanded that discussion,” he says.

But discussion isn’t enough. He wants commitment.

“We don’t want a school board to say, ‘Oh, that’s kind of cute.’ We want the board to say, ‘We’re totally committed to this plan.’ If they won’t do that, then we won’t get involved with them,” Anaya says.

At their last meeting in Grandview they had grown their discussion group to about 50 people.

“We started at 4:30 and it lasted until 7, and if we hadn’t stopped the conversation, it would have gone on. They were so excited about it,” says Nguyen.

And Anaya hopes many other districts will follow suit.