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The Disintegration of Our Schools

Daniel Ward argues that expansion of the school voucher system could undermine integration

Growing up in a multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual environment is the basis for the establishment of the integrated society that most of us claim to want for our children. Many of us would prefer a multilingual and religiously diverse environment as well, as it may provide the best chance for survival in an increasingly radicalized world. However, the desegregation of public schools in the U.S. is faltering and may even be on the decline. Unfortunately, federal education policies are set to accelerate this decline unless action is taken to reverse it soon.

The U.S. public education system is based on the core principles of equality and inclusion; however, schools are about as segregated today as they were 50 years ago. While racial segregation plummeted between the late 1960s and 1980, it has steadily increased ever since, mainly due to school districting, demographic shifts, and private preferences. The result is that 37% of our public schools are one-race schools—nearly all white or all minority (“Brown at 62: School Segregation by Race, Poverty and State,” UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, May 2016).

Many policymakers argue that public schools are failing, especially in urban areas, and parents are just exercising their right to seek the best education for their children, so they move to areas with better schools or seek out charter schools. However, the reality is more complex, as there is little evidence to support the claim that charter schools are more successful than other public schools and plenty of examples of for-profit charter school failure in economically disadvantaged areas.

A federally backed school voucher system would exacerbate the problem.

Voucher supporters argue that school choice will allow low-income and minority children to go to a school with their more affluent white peers, but David Berliner and Gene Glass have shown that school choice increases segregation, leaving minority students in under-funded public schools (50 Myths and Lies That Threaten America’s Public Schools, 2014).

New research from the Albert Shanker Institute (“Public and Private School Segregation in the District of Columbia,” September 2017) suggests that private schools are a major factor in the segregation of children in Washington, DC’s public schools. So much so, in fact, that if segregation between black and white students within public schools were completely eliminated, over half of total segregation would still remain, specifically because of how segregated the student populations are between public and private schools.

Another report (White Growth, Persistent Segregation: Could Gentrification Become Integration?), released last month by the UCLA Civil Rights Project, shows that DC’s most rapidly gentrifying areas have seen a decline in racial segregation, more so in traditional public schools than in charter schools.

America’s public school system is one of the nation’s greatest achievements because it is for every child, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, language, income, or legal status. By encouraging states to implement voucher systems to fund enrollments in private schools which are not subject to the same standards and free to exercise religious or cultural bias, the administration may not only undo decades of progress in social integration, it may undermine the cohesive fabric that bonds together this country’s disparate mix of races, ethnicities, and religions.

 

 

Macron Sees Bright Future for French

 

Burkina Faso

French president Emmanuel Macron said his native tongue would “be the first language of Africa” and “perhaps of the world.”
Speaking to students in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou, the French president, who is currently on a tour of West African nations, added that French should not be viewed as a “relic of a colonial power.”
He said, “It is not just a heritage to be protected. It has a future and this future is playing out in Africa . The radiance,  the attractiveness of French does not just belong to France.”
Macron was on the three-day regional tour to improve relations with France’s former colonies and boost cooperation on migration, terrorism, and human rights. He told students in Ouagadougou that slavery and human trafficking in Libya were a “crime against humanity” and that he wanted a “European-African initiative” to end the “terrorists’ and human traffickers’ strategy.”
He pledged to end a history of “Francafrique”—a term often used to criticize France’s relations with its former colonies—saying, “I haven’t come here to tell you what is France’s African policy, because there no longer is one, there is only a continent that we need to look
straight in the face. The crimes of European colonization are unquestionable… It’s a past that needs to pass.”
Shortly before his arrival in Burkina Faso, authorities said several people were wounded by a hand grenade aimed at French soldiers, the Associated Press reported.

Brazilian Literature Goes Global

Kristal Bivona hopes Kindle catches fire in Brazil

Brazilian literature has been a well-kept secret from the rest of the world for decades. While Hispanic countries in Latin America have been exporting their literary production since the Boom of the twentieth century, comparatively few Brazilian authors have reached an international audience. To the horror of Brazilian literary scholars, many international readers can only name one Brazilian writer: Paulo Coelho. However, governmental and private sector investments are attempting to change that by promoting Brazilian literature abroad.

The Brazilian government is anteing up over US$35 million to fund a program over the next eight years that aims to inject Brazilian literature into international markets by funding translations into other languages, grants to publishers outside of Brazil to promote Brazilian publications in translation and in other Lusophone countries, and travel grants to send Brazilian authors on world publicity tours. Meanwhile, Brazilian publishers, authors and translators are preparing for the 2013 Frankfurt Book Fair, where Brazil will be the Guest of Honor. International companies are also looking to Brazil as an untapped digital publishing market.

Last month’s announcement that e-commerce leviathan, Amazon, closed deals with some of Brazil’s largest publishers, including Globo, Objetivo, and most recently Companhia das Letras is more evidence that Brazil’s culture industry is bleeding into the rest of the world. With the new Brazilian Kindle Store, readers everywhere have access Brazilian literature in a digital format. Additionally, Amazon is offering  Portuguese language reading apps for Android, iOS, Mac and PCs.

“With the collaboration of Penguin, […] we seek to experiment with new formats and make our catalogue available to the most channels possible, giving more freedom of choice to the reader,” said Companhia das Letras editor Luis Schwarcz in a statement. “The agreement with Amazon and our conversations with other international players represent another step in this direction.”

For the growing number of Portuguese speakers in the U.S., the possibility of accessing ebooks is good news considering the rarity and high cost of traditional books in Portuguese.

Brazilian literature is also becoming increasingly available in translation. With a new issue of Granta literary magazine released in November entitled The Best Young Brazilian Novelists (issue number 121), readers around the globe can absorb texts on the cutting edge of Brazilian literature.

“We buy Brazil’s clothes, we admire its football, we dance to its beats, but the dream-life of the nation – something contemporary fiction creates in a unique and vital way – remains mostly invisible to us, simply because of a lack of translation,” explained Granta editor John Freeman. “I’m hoping this issue can change that a little, and introduce writers who will be with us for decades.”

The international release of The Best Young Brazilian Novelists and the availability of Brazilian ebooks abroad are part of a general push to share Brazil’s culture with the rest of the world.

 

Kristal Bivona is an assistant editor at Language Magazine.



Youthquake Hits Oxford

Today, Oxford Dictionaries announced its Word of the Year 2017 is YOUTHQUAKE (noun /ˈjuːθkweɪk/), defined as a significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people

In a statement, Oxford Dictionaries explained its selection: “2017 has been, without doubt, a year of seismic cultural, political, and social shifts played out across the globe. But it was the so-called political awakening of the oft-maligned millennial generation which generated the word of 2017.”

Announced as the chosen word in a blog post and video, youthquake saw a 400% increase  in usage between 2016 and 2017, following the British general election where much debate focused on the mobilization of young voters in supporting opposition parties. Aftershocks have been felt across the world, including in New Zealand and in France, and whether or not they experienced a youthquake, the word certainly highlights the increased awareness of young people’s capacity to influence, and even drive, political change.

However, despite so aptly capturing the mood of 2017, youthquake is not a new word but rather one that is newly prominent this year and being used in different contexts. Based on the formation of the word ‘earthquake’ and originally coined in the 1960s by then-Vogue editor, Diana Vreeland, to describe how British youth culture was changing the world’s fashion and music, youthquake was resurrected this year to be used in a new context.

“Youthquake may not seem like the most obvious choice for Word of the Year, and it’s true that it’s yet to land firmly on American soil, but strong evidence in the UK calls it out as a word on the move,” says Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Dictionaries.  In a dedicated blog post, Grathwohl notes, “We chose youthquake based on its evidence and linguistic interest. But most importantly for me, at a time when our language is reflecting our deepening unrest and exhausted nerves, it is a rare political word that sounds a hopeful note. Sometimes you pick a word as the Word of the Year because you recognize that it has arrived, but other times you pick one that is knocking at the door and you want to help usher it in.. This past year calls for a word we can all rally behind.”

Susie Dent, consultant to Oxford Dictionaries, said: “There’s not a lot of sunshine in the standout words this year. Words like Antifa, and kompromat speak to fractured times of mistrust and frustration. In youthquake we find some hope in the power to change things, and had a little bit of linguistic fun along the way. It feels like the right note on which to end a difficult and divisive year.”

The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a word or expression chosen to reflect the passing year in language. Every year, the Oxford Dictionaries team debates over a selection of candidates for Word of the Year, choosing the one that best captures the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of that particular year.

In alphabetical order, the shortlisted words (along with Oxford’s definitions and context) for the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2017 are:

Antifa noun- a political protest movement comprising autonomous groups affiliated by their militant opposition to fascism and other forms of extreme right-wing ideology

Antifa is a shortening of ‘anti-fascist’ and has morphed over time to become a proper noun used to refer to an extreme anti-fascist movement. Originally a loan word from German with usage dating back to WWII, Antifa is only becoming widely used in English now and its pronunciation and grammar are still very much in flux. Our current definition uses a capital letter and gives two pronunciation forms: primary stress can either go on the first syllable (as it would for the word ‘antifascist’) or on the second syllable as with Spanish words like ‘tortilla’. Use of the word skyrocketed following high-profile protest movements across the world this year and it looks set to become a permanent part of our current political lexicon.

broflake noun (informal, derogatory) – a man who is readily upset or offended by progressive attitudes that conflict with his more conventional or conservative views

Lexically, broflake combines two prominent trends in 21st century English lexical innovation: the appropriation of terminology from one’s political opponents and the popularity of compounds using ‘man-’ and ‘bro-’ to refer to male behaviour and characteristics. Spawned by the growing derogatory use of ‘snowflake’ to refer to an overly sensitive or easily offended person, progressive activists reversed this by combining the ‘-flake’ from ‘snowflake’ with ‘bro-’to target behaviour regarded as emblematic of male privilege and anti-feminism.

Widely used to deride conservative figures when they revealed their own sensitivities around issues such as female-only spaces and challenge the idea of the male experience as a default, broflake was being used in social media by late 2016 but appeared for the first time in mainstream sources this year and is now spreading to social media in non-English languages. It is a word that not only emerged in 2017 but truly captures some of the most hotly debated issues underpinning it.

gorpcore, noun – a style of dress incorporating utilitarian clothing of a type worn for outdoor activities

A 2017 fashion trend, the word gorpcore was created by combining ‘gorp’, an American term for trail mix and frequently thought to be an acronym for ‘good old raisins and peanuts’ (although this is unsubstantiated), with the suffix ‘-core’ taken from ‘normcore’. It refers to a trend for functional outdoor clothing worn for fashion, rather than for practical reasons.

Popular with fashion commentators in 2017, gorpcore was celebrated for capturing an idealism in the outdoors—without its wearers necessarily having to directly interact with anything more wild than the leafy suburbs—as well as bringing comfort to the upper reaches of designer fashion.

kompromat noun – compromising information collected for use in blackmailing, discrediting, or manipulating someone, typically for political purposes

A loanword from Russian, kompromat is a blended abbreviation of the phrase komprometirujuščij material (compromising material), which is ultimately derived from those English words, making this a sort of ‘boomerang loanword’, in which an English word is adopted into a foreign language, changed and remixed, and then borrowed back.

Kompromat hit the headlines at several points throughout 2017 following high profile accusations against politicians across the world and shadowy suggestions of secret dossiers. The prevalence of kompromat this year underlines the global nature of our political interchange as well as our free flow of language between different countries and cultures.

Milkshake Duck noun – a person or thing that initially inspires delight on social media but is soon revealed to have a distasteful or repugnant past

Imagine a milkshake-drinking duck. Beloved of the online community for its innocent and adorable milkshake-drinking antics. Cute, right? But then you find out that this duck is actually a rampaging racist… Voilà, the quintessential ‘Milkshake Duck’!

Originating in the Twittersphere in 2016, ‘Milkshake Duck’ has become a way to refer to any person or thing that gains fleeting popularity for something seemingly pleasing, only for a deeper exploration to reveal unfortunate truths about their past or opinions, typically a connection to or history of some form of bigotry. It saw a spike in usage in June 2017 following some unfortunate revelations about a popular game developer.

newsjacking noun – the practice of taking advantage of current events or news stories in such a way as to promote or advertise one’s product or brand

Remember when La La Land was named Best Picture instead of Moonlight? And remember how Specsavers jumped straight on that meme band wagon? The internet loved it – a perfect example of how newsjacking came to the fore this year.

The term itself originates from the 1970s where it was used in reference to the theft of newspapers in order to sell them to scrap dealers. The current usage has been around throughout the early 21st century and the technique utilized by savvy marketers for years. The strength of feelings around the themes and stories that were the focus of this year’s newsjacking campaigns and the support or backlash they inspired ensured that “newsjacking’”took a slot on this year’s Word of the Year shortlist.

unicorn adjective [attributive] – denoting something, especially an item of food or drink, that is dyed in rainbow colors, decorated with glitter, etc.

The “rainbowfication” of the world’s foodstuffs has been on our radar (and Instagram feeds) since 2016 but peaked this year with the launch of a Unicorn Frappuccino by Starbucks in April. Bringing the trend fully into the mainstream, 2017 will go down in history as the year that we all had our fill of unicorn lattes, unicorn bagels, and even, unicorn grilled cheese…

white fragility  noun – discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice

Coined in a 2011 journal article by the U.S. academic and educator Robin DiAngelo, white fragility reached the mainstream this year as questions of racial equality ran close to the surface of debate across the world. With evidence for the term’s use particularly strong in university newspapers, white fragility encapsulates a key undercurrent of political and cultural debate in 2017 and could not be overlooked for this year’s Word of the Year shortlist.

Bookworm Gets the Girl

James Snyder photo credit: Philicia Endelman.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area over the holidays and are looking for hugely enjoyable way of impressing the value of reading on kids, look no further than the Lythgoe Family Pantomime Beauty and the Beast: A Christmas Rose, now playing at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

Being British, I may be biased in favor of this oh-so Anglo tradition, but my three Californian, surfer-dude sons (12,10 and 8) all said it was the best show they’d ever seen and that it might even inspire them to read more. This is interactive theater with today’s pop hits, superbly-choreographed, and executed, modern dancing, performed by an all-star cast, with the timely message of never judging a book by its cover.

Kelli Berglund photo credit: Philicia Endelman.

In addition, Lythgoe Family Panto (LFP), in association with Pasadena Playhouse, announced that the opening night celebration of the world premiere of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST – A CHRISTMAS ROSE at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on Wednesday, December 13 will benefit Give Kids Panto, a non-profit educational program, serving yearly over 5,000 Title 1 students across America, many of whom will see theatre for the first time through this program.  All funds raised that evening will go to support the Panto student matinees for LAUSD and PUSD students.

Live theatre Pantos are produced across the country and Give Kids Panto raises funds so that theatre production companies can add a student matinee to their performance schedule. Give Kids Panto supply the bus, organize the bus and buy the tickets to the performance for these shows.

For tickets, visit www.Ticketmaster.com/PantoPasadena or call 626-449-7360.

My Linguistic Career

Nataly Kelly looks at full-time and freelance opportunities for world languages teachers
in translation and interpreting

Translation and interpreting offer two distinct career paths with ample opportunities for linguists to put their skills to use in exciting areas. From video game localization to interpreting for astronauts in outer space, from translating Harry Potter books to accompanying heads of state on diplomatic missions overseas, translation and interpreting offer many career opportunities to inspire and encourage students to learn foreign languages while allowing them to pursue other interests as well.

A Fast-Growing, Recession-Resistant Industry

The market for outsourced translation and interpreting is worth more than US$33 billion globally in 2012, according to the latest estimates from Common Sense Advisory. The market is divided into numerous segments with written translation making up by far the largest component, followed by on-site interpreting, which refers to spoken language interpretation services that are provided in person. Another important segment of the market is software localization, which involves not only translating text so that software can be used in other languages, but preparing the software for international use and acceptance in a given market.

Other services exist too, such as telephone interpreting (in which interpreters render information verbally over the phone), multilingual subtitling, and trans-creation (also known as cultural adaptation or multilingual copy-writing). Within the U.S., many industries have suffered job losses due to global economic uncertainty – but the opposite has occurred for jobs in translation and interpreting. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that from 2010 to 2020, the number of jobs for interpreters and translators will increase by 42%, compared with just 14% for all occupations, and only 13% for other jobs classified in the “media and communications” field.

Where the Jobs Are

The vast majority of translators and interpreters are freelancers, but there are many organizations that offer full-time positions too. Full-time positions for interpreters are available at hospitals, courts, and schools in nearly every major city in the U.S. Most cities also have translation or interpreting agencies serving the local market. These firms do not usually employ translators, but they hire individuals with language backgrounds for other jobs — such as project management, account management, and sales positions. Typically, they offer freelance assignments to translators and interpreters. However, students need not limit their dreams of job prospects to within U.S. borders. The Canadian government’s Translation Bureau has more than 1,700 employees. Many international organizations, such as the United Nations, have an ongoing need for translators and interpreters. Some even visit universities in the U.S. to recruit students on campus.

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation employs 2,500 people who translate information into and out of 23 different languages, and the European Parliament has 350 full-time interpreters on staff. Even some manufacturing companies — including major European automobile companies — hire in-house translators for their research and development or technical documentation teams. Nearly every industry that requires companies to communicate across languages relies on translation at some point. If a company sells its products to customers who speak other languages, chances are there is translation taking place at that company.

This means that students can find work in areas that combine their other interests with their language skills. For example, many Major League Baseball players come from Japan or Latin America, so there has been an increase in demand for interpreters who not only speak those languages but who also are knowledgeable about baseball. Similarly, professional players in other sports — such as basketball, hockey, and golf — require professional interpreters too. Interpreters who are specialized in sports can end up interpreting for the Olympic Games or the World Cup. Even the astronauts working with the International Space Station depend on teams of full-time interpreters and translators.

As another example of how passions and interests can combine with language skills to become a career, students who are passionate about engineering or technology can work in the field of localization. In fact, there are many translators who spend their workdays testing the newest video games and coming up with the best ways to translate the information that appears on the screen or recording voice-over material. Similarly, there are many translators who are highly specialized in a given area, such as health care, financial, or legal fields. Some translators even earn a living from translating material related to fashion or cosmetics, while others translate breaking news from around the world.

Getting Started

Translation and interpreting require different skill sets, so the choice between the two tracks generally needs to be made before choosing program.

Prospective students are expected to have advanced fluency in two or more languages before they can begin studying translation or interpreting, and language proficiency tests are often required before students can enroll. For both professions, additional education is a must. Translators must learn to use computer-assisted translation tools and terminology management software. Interpreters, on the other hand, must learn how to take notes, improve their memory skills, and quickly render information accurately in different modes, such as consecutive and simultaneous. Unfortunately, there are not many formal degree programs in the U.S. for these fields, but the number is increasing. The Monterey Institute of International Studies in California offers some of the best-known graduate-level degree programs for translation and interpreting.

Many of its graduates go on to interpret at the United Nations, to translate for the Department of State, and to work in prestigious positions throughout the world. The University of Arizona has a program that prepares students to take the federal court interpreter exam. In the U.S., there are several universities that offer undergraduate programs and certificate programs, such as the University of Minnesota, Century College, Virginia Commonwealth University, Bellevue College, and University of Wisconsin.

There are also several community college programs. The American Translators Association (www.atanet.org) publishes a helpful list of relevant schools worldwide. Some certificate programs are offered online as well, although these often do not prepare students well enough to pass professional examinations. Once students graduate from a degree program, they can sit for professional exams and certifications. Usually, professional accreditations are available for the most commonly requested languages.

In the U.S., the American Translators Association certification is the most widely recognized for translators. For interpreters, various certifications exist. Court interpreters can be certified to work in state courts, but they must take a different test to work in federal courts. Medical interpreters are not generally required to have certifications, but there are programs currently in development. Conference interpreters often take exams depending on where they wish to work – for example, the Department of State has exams that are different from the ones administered by the United Nations.

Earning Potential

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the median annual wage for interpreters and translators in the U.S. was $43,300 in 2010. However, the top 10 percent earned more than $86,410. How much a person earns can depend on many things, but there are several main determining factors. The languages a person speaks will dictate to a great degree how much work is available for them. Translators and interpreters for less common languages can typically charge more for their services because they are more difficult to find. However, there is no shortage of work for interpreters and translators who speak languages that are commonly needed, such as Spanish in the U.S. One of the biggest factors that influences how much money an interpreter or translator can earn is how specialized they are. Some translators have doctoral degrees in specialized fields such as microbiology, so they can be trusted with highly technical patent applications for life sciences firms, and they can charge more for this work.

Others might have a talent for advertising or marketing copywriting, so they can command a higher hourly rate for this kind of creative work. In general, translators charge by the word for translation services, but many also charge by the hour for other services, such as developing glossaries. Translators often charge a minimum fee and will charge more for expedited or quick-turn projects. Some translators do also charge by the page or by the line, but this is less common. Interpreters charge differently depending on where they work. Conference interpreters normally charge a minimum daily rate. Interpreters who work in courts or hospitals are often paid by the hour, but some charge a minimum fee in order to cover their travel, because they may need to drive from one city to another or across town in order to get to an assignment. Interpreters who work via telephone may be salaried, paid by the hour, or paid by the minute. Another major determining factor with regard to earnings potential is the amount of work the individual accepts.

Freelance translators and interpreters can take on as much or as little work as they wish, but they generally have to build up their own client base over time in order to ensure a steady stream of work. Translators and interpreters who are self-employed can experience peaks and troughs in income. However, given the demand for these services, most freelancers report that they have no problem getting enough work. For some languages, translators must compete with individuals who live in other countries and might be able to charge less. Interpreters who provide their services in person generally do not have this problem because they tend to work near where they live.

The need for translation and interpreting is not going away. In today’s globally connected world, demand for these services is at an all time high. Governments around the world are clamoring for more interpreters and translators. Advances in technology, such as Google Translate, only appear to be fueling demand. As more people see the possibilities offered by translation on the internet and on their mobile phones, their tolerance for language barriers is decreasing, thus fueling demand. The professions of translation and interpreting show great promise for the years to come, making the work of language educators and trainers all the more necessary.

Nataly Kelly is the chief research officer at language services industry research firm Common Sense Advisory. Her latest book is Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World, which features stories about interpreters and translators working in many of the settings mentioned in this article. She publishes a free newsletter for interpreters at www.interprenaut.com.

How Repealing Net Neutrality Could Affect Schools’ Internet Access

Richard Culatta, CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education, talks to NPR’s Kelly McEvers about the potential impact on classrooms if net neutrality is repealed.

Growing Gains

Diane Glass explains why measuring reading growth should be a top priority for educators

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are transforming the way that reading is taught and assessed. The complexity of texts associated with the CCSS exceeds the level of the reading material typically used in our schools. New proficiency standards are more rigorous and link directly to more sophisticated texts, some of which are intended for post-secondary readers. To reach the goal of college and career readiness for literacy involves improving rigor in actual content and materials. The instructional implications for all teachers, not just those who specialize in English Language Arts, are enormous.

The CCSS aim to coax out analytical depth through increased text complexity, which will define a new role for teachers. In this new role, teachers will facilitate content discovery, collaborate across grade levels, and use data to refine and differentiate instruction. Students will have new roles, too. They will no longer be passive consumers of instructional content. Rather, they will be expected to take ownership of their own learning. The changes brought about by the CCSS are far-reaching. Nextgeneration assessments, in development now, will change the face of accountability and proficiency testing, with a new emphasis on analytical thinking and performance tasks. At the same time, new teacher and principal evaluation systems are putting a premium on student growth as a key metric in career development. To foster the needed growth in reading, educators can no longer rely solely on the curriculum-based measures of quizzes, tests, and unit exams to interpret reading proficiency.

Curriculum-based measures can be self-reinforcing and do not always indicate if readers are growing. To improve literacy development, educators also need assessments that track to an objective outcome, which could be addressed using growth measures. Growth measures provide the road map to the CCSS by:

  • Quantifying literacy goals to college and career readiness;
  • Broadening responsibility for literacy development across the content areas;
  • Improving student ownership in learning.

Growth measures reflect the rate of academic progress students make over time. Quantitative, equally incremented, and typically on a single scale, growth measures are objective and outcomes-based, targeting a specific goal. They differ from other forms of assessment, such as curriculum-based measures, which tend to report on the students’ mastery of the actual content. Growth measures do not identify whether standards-based content was covered in the classroom. Instead they report on the student reading progress demonstrated as a result of appropriate curriculum and instruction. Growth measures focuses on what was learned rather than what was taught.

Accountability Growth measures broaden accountability for literacy development to content area teachers and, importantly, to our students. When curriculum- based measures are used as the only measure to describe student progress, the underlying questions remain:

  • “What content has the teacher imparted?”
  • “Were the standards covered?”
  • “Was the curriculum taught?”

If standards and content are the central focus, and achievement is recognized through curriculum-based measures, the subject-area teachers are held accountable, usually in isolation. This ignores the interconnected nature of learning: that a child’s literacy skills must scale to the science classroom and to the social studies text. All teachers need information on student readiness for instruction to differentiate learning and maximize instruction. By measuring growth, schools can set clear, targeted goals.

When reading goals are quantitative and objectively based and not solely qualitative and subject specific, then all texts — nonfiction and fiction — books and articles, print or electronic — can be accessed in the service of these goals. Because of their objective nature, growth measures can encompass all reading — not just growth in the English Language Arts or Reading classrooms, where responsibility has historically been quartered. The use of growth measures should not be interpreted as a call to sidestep explicit reading instruction for primary students and older struggling readers. Growth measures are best used in tandem with curriculum-based measures especially for struggling readers. These measures add flexibility to instruction.

A teacher may find it difficult to make adjustments to instruction if the gist of the assessment process concerns itself with reporting on curriculum and standards. By measuring growth, schools can interpret how students respond to instruction and understand the effects of change and innovation. To meet college and career readiness goals, new gains in literacy proficiency depend on students developing skills to comprehend nonfiction and informational texts — the natural domain of content area subjects like science and social studies.

Meanwhile the texts associated with literature serve to develop critical thinking skills and help students derive meaning from their worlds. Text associated with science, history, and technology track higher on quantitative readability measures. They are denser, more complex, use specific vocabulary, and are less subject to interpretation. Non-fictional texts and the involvement of content area teachers in literacy development are the essential drivers for college and career readiness.

Student Ownership of Learning Growth measures can drive student ownership of learning. When teachers set individual, obtainable, realistic goals that both honor and challenge the student, that student can be expected to participate in his or her literacy development. Growth measures provide data that can inform such goal setting, thus reinforcing student ownership.

Students who take a growth assessment in the fall can work with their teachers to review data, understand what it means about their unique academic needs. Children will challenge themselves, set goals, and then use the results of subsequent tests to monitor their own progress. When setting individual goals for students, a key understanding is that while growth rates may vary, an interim decline in a student growth trajectory is a signal to educators that immediate action should be taken. When students experience failure, it is rarely a result of an emergent academic problem but rather it is the result of an incremental and cumulative decline in growth.

As schools move away from a wait-to-fail model before intervention, setting individual growth trajectories becomes a clear method to prevent possible failure of both struggling and on-level readers. In a busy classroom, how is a teacher guided to set individual growth goals? Many times we set goals based on average growth, the annual growth a proficient student will make. Setting goals based on an average works well when discussing large enrollments, but this metric underserves struggling readers. If average growth is an expectation applied equally to all students, the struggling students will not have received a goal that accelerates them to grade-level proficiency, or college and career readiness. Indeed, setting average growth as a single metric for all students perpetuates an insufficient trajectory for those most in need of increased intensity of services.

If a student’s annual gain is measured by average growth, that student, if not on grade level, will year after year fall further and further away from achieving college and career readiness by graduation. Goals should be set based on the starting point of the individual readers and targeted to various benchmarks including multi-year trajectories. A struggling older reader who is four or five years behind cannot reasonably be expected to close the performance gap in a single year; but over two years, could become grade-level proficient. A similar but inverse situation occurs with our high-performing readers.

A student who is closer to the goal of college and career readiness has a smaller gap to close before reaching that target. Eventually, that student’s growth will be in smaller increment and may actually be less than the growth exhibited by the average reader. When setting goals, we should expect older more proficient readers to grow less than younger less proficient readers, and we should expect less proficient readers grow more than their more proficient peers. To set growth expectations, data from a norm-referenced tool reporting on a vertical scale should be used as the basis for setting individual goals.

How Growth Measures Support CCSS

In the transition to the Common Core State Standards, these types of measures directly support the underlying philosophy of this initiative. First, growth measures placing greater value on the products of learning rather than the details of content delivery. The simple refocus on measuring what was learned versus what was taught supports the changing relationship between teacher and student. Second, growth measures provide clear, explicit tools to drive student ownership in their own learning to the quantifiable goal of college and career readiness. Third, they support shared goals across grade levels and across content for focused and sustained efforts in improving student literacy levels.

Finally, they provide an anchor amid change. By measuring students on a vertical scale before the implementation of new standards, and benchmarking student growth throughout the process of change, educators can interpret the direction and gauge the success of their new initiative.

Hallmark of Growth Measures

  1. They are obtained from assessment tools that are norm referenced.
  2. They report on a vertical scale so that growth is interpretable across grade levels.
  3. They are sensitive to student growth that is far above and far below grade level
  4. They feature an independent, outcomes-based measure.
  5. They articulate multiple benchmarks and provide data on expected annual growth expectations at all levels of proficiency.

References

Gewertz, Catherine (2011). “Success of College-Readiness Intervention Hard to Gauge.” Education Week, January 26, 2011. Knutson, Kim et al. (2011) Growth Expectations; Setting Obtainable Goal for Students, New York: Scholastic, Inc. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects, Appendix A. Washington, DC: Author. Smith, Malbert (2012) “Not So Common, Comparing Lexiles with the Text Complexity Measures of Other Tools.” Accessed August 28, 2012 Lexile.com Williamson, G. L. (2008). A Text Readability Continuum for Postsecondary Readiness. Journal of Advanced Academics, vol. 19 (4), 602-632.

Diane Glass manages assessment programs for Scholastic Inc. and writes frequently on assessment topics.

Software Focus

Preteen boy and girl using laptop computersIn addition to the humble book, publishers have launched an array of reading programs
designed to help readers of all types acquire the skills they need

Here’s a selection of the most innovative

Academy of READING

The Academy of READING is an intensive, online intervention program for struggling readers in grades 2-12 which instructs students in the five critical areas of reading — Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. Continuous assessment and progress monitoring provide robust data to inform instruction and illustrate students’ reading gains.

The program breaks the complex task of reading into manageable pieces. Students learn using a structured and sequential approach, in – creasing their automaticity and building higher order comprehension skills. Each student is given individualized instruction based on real-time formative data. Assessment and progress monitoring tools create goals and give each student a personalized learning plan. The dynamic learning environment provides positive feedback and coaching, motivating the most reluctant students. Real-time, web-based reports allow teachers and administrators to monitor student progress and document reading gains. Teachers can access student and class level data, while administrators can view performance at the school and district level.

Dynamic Vision Training — Eyes in Conflict

The Gemstone Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation, offers Dynamic Vision Training (DVT) to help students age nine and up who skip lines, lose their place, see words wiggle or jump around, or even see double on occasion. Proven effective in classroom situations from grade 3 through adult, DVT uses 3D technology in an online interactive format, so it feels like playing a game. Each session is 15 minutes long and the entire program contains 30 sessions. DVT is perfect for a pull-out or after school program for students who read below grade level yet have no known reading disorder and have passed school vision screening. Between 20% and 50% of poor readers like this have Eyes in Conflict, a condition where the two eyes are not well coordinated. The problem is easily identified and can be remedied by DVT in most children regardless of ESL or Special Education status, because no reading is required.

English 9A

English 9A is a newly refreshed course from PLATO Learning that is now fully aligned to Common Core State Standards. The program gives the instructor a variety of ways to engage different learning modalities and to give the student an opportunity to experience a range of standards and objectives to ensure academic success. Learning activities include tutorials, lesson activities, online discussions, and unit activities to deepen understanding of key unit objectives. The course also includes comprehensive assessment tools like unit pretests, mastery tests, unit post-tests, and end-of-semester tests. These assessments combined with instructor-evaluated unit and lesson activities provide multiple data points that result in a more accurate evaluation of a student’s strengths and needs. Reading assignments cover a wide range of authors, periods, and genres, from The Sport of Biathlon to The Iliad; from Sport Utility Vehicles and Safety to Paradise Lost. Unit activities include Visualizing as you Read, Understanding Figurative Language, Using Prior Knowledge to Read Expository Text, and Analyzing Personal Narratives. The flexibility of this program allows for considerable customization for Common Core alignment, and it can also be optimized to meet the unique needs of students and their learning environment. The teacher controls the instructional choices for individual students as well as for the classroom. The instructor may use all of the components as sequenced or select specific activities to support and enhance instruction.

HearBuilder

HearBuilder Phonological Awareness – Sound Awareness for Reading is an award-winning, evidence-based software program from Super Duper Publications designed to help children improve their common core phonological awareness and listening skills. Students segment, blend, and manipulate words, syllables, and sounds in nine target areas: Sentence Segmentation, Syllable Blending, Syllable Segmentation, Rhyming, Phoneme Blending, Phoneme Segmentation and Identification, Phoneme Deletion, Phoneme Addition, and Phoneme Manipulation. Players move through multi-level tasks earning instruments and band members to form The Phonemix virtual rock band.

HearBuilder Phonological Awareness has won nine national awards including Parents’ Choice, Tech & Learning, Creative Child, Family Choice, Bessie, EdTech Trendsetter, Academics’ Choice, and Children’s Tech Review. READ 180 Next Generation READ 180 Next Generation has been developed to prepare students for the rigorous expectations of the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Assessments. The program is designed to meet students where they are, accelerating them toward reading independence with grade-level text, and putting students on a personalized learning path to college and career readiness. It offers a staircase of text complexity that builds confidence and fluency for struggling readers in each rotation of the proven model for blended instruction, including Whole- and Small-Group, Instructional Software, and Modeled and Independent Reading.

Students read increasingly complex text daily, building their comprehension and fluency with teacher-led instructional scaffolds. Rigorous text-based questions and evidence-based performance tasks accompany each type of text in the program, ensuring that students gain content-area knowledge and skills that are highly portable to their science, social studies, and math classrooms. With READ 180, students can also choose from a wide array of highly-motivating, age-appropriate leveled texts that span genres and text types. Leveled paperbacks, audiobooks, and new 100% nonfiction eReads provide students with access to grade-level texts with the support of scaffolding.

Reading Rockets

Reading Rockets is a national multimedia literacy initiative aimed at parents and educators of kids in preschool through grade 3 which produces original programming for PBS, including the award-winning Launching Young Readers series. Our comprehensive website, www.ReadingRockets.org, offers a wealth of teaching strategies, Ask the Expert and FAQs, parent tips, professional development webcasts, reading research, online video and podcasts, video interviews with children’s authors and illustrators, children’s book lists, blogs, a daily news service, and free monthly e-newsletters. The project is funded by the Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.

Skoolbo Core Skills

Skoolbo Core Skills is an innovative literacy and numeracy program designed to assist elementary students in mastering the fundamental reading and math skills that serve as the building blocks of education. The multi-player games incorporate beautifully designed 3D worlds, customized avatars, and an enticing rewards system to promote effective learning in a fun and engaging environment. One of the core elements of the program is the involvement of the teacher and parent. Through comprehensive reports detailing strengths and weaknesses of the student and individualized activities for student improvement, it makes teachers and parents an integral part of the learning process.

Smarty Ants Reading World

Smarty Ants Reading World is a comprehensive, online PreK – Grade 2 reading curriculum. It is an immersive virtual world where students create their own ant avatar and become a learner in a world where they choose from a variety of activities like snowboarding, rock climbing, hoops, story time, dancing, races, and game shows as they learn to read. It offers sequenced, scaffolded instruction and allows students to make choices to match any learning temperament.

There are 72 different learning paths that students might follow for every new concept they learn. The program also allows students to modify their learning path as they desire. There are versions for students whose primary language is not English. In these versions all of the instructions and directions are delivered in the student’s primary language while the student learns to read English. Smarty Ants Reading World records every click and progress students make on their personalized learning path. By collecting this data, it can quickly recognize patterns which give insights into students who are having specific difficulties, and provide immediate intervention and scaffolding specific to those issues. Three Data Dashboards (district, school, and classroom) enable student data to be reviewed in a concise and meaningful manner, providing real time insights into how they are progressing (including standards mastery reports).

SRA Reading Laboratory 2.0

SRA Reading Laboratory 2.0 is an all-digital, interactive, and personalized reading practice program based on the classic SRA Reading Laboratory print program created by Don H. Parker, Ph.D. now featuring innovative 21st century digital and social skills that can be used anytime, anywhere, on any device to improve a student’s reading level and skills. Students are assigned fiction and non-fiction reading passages based on their Lexile level and interest, and then the complete comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, word analysis, writing and study skill activities that encourage deeper understanding of the passage. Interest is maintained through engaging community, reward, and game features.

Teachers are provided everything they need to track and communicate progress through their home page. Classroom management tools are provided for both individual student detail and whole class rosters. Reports are provided by student and class on Lexile level, student progress, standards, skills, and fluency. Teachers have the ability to customize their classrooms and individual student experience through additional tools such as: assigning specific reading and skills instruction, creating new readings and activities, managing rewards, and writing notes. Reading Laboratory 2.0 can be used for individual or small groups before, during, and after school, and even at home as homework.

Start-to-Finish Online Accessible Library

As districts scramble to find efficient ways to get the most out of their iPad collections, Don Johnston has launched an online accessible library that may be an ideal way of filling these blank slates. The Start-to-Finish library features some of the most powerful books of all time like Anne Frank, Call of the Wild, and Moby Dick, which were re-written to be age-appropriate for students on IEP and 504 plans. The 90+ books come to life with professional narration, and end of chapter quizzes track comprehension. Students can finish 50 chapter books a year just by reading Start-to-Finish books for 20 minutes a day. School-wide access enables each student to have access to an entire library of age-appropriate books tied to the Common Core on their iPads, computers, and smartphones. There are no apps to sync so schools can get started right away.

WriteToLearn

Despite its name, WriteToLearn, Pearson’s online tool for building writing skills is also designed to help students in grades 4-12 develop reading comprehension. This innovative, web-based tool provides students with the opportunity for repeated, personalized practice in reading, writing, and vocabulary development. Based on more than 15 years of research and evaluation at the University of Colorado and New Mexico State University, WriteToLearn is the only online writing instructional tool that reinforces the required interplay between reading, writing, and vocabulary – the foundation of strong literacy skills. The program supports the new Common Core State Standards in key areas across the curriculum, including English language arts, history/ social studies, and science. The latest release includes iPad support, adaptive and personalized support for vocabulary development and additional tools that make it easier for all students, but particularly English Language Learners (ELL) and struggling learners, to build literacy skills.

Reading Literature Not Only a Pleasure

Research proves that a good book stimulates the brain

Just in case anyone needs another reason to encourage the reading of literature, researchers at Stanford University have come up with more proof that it’s good for you. In an innovative interdisciplinary study, neurobiological experts, radiologists, and humanities scholars are working together to explore the relationship between reading, attention, and distraction with the help of Jane Austen.

Surprising preliminary results reveal a dramatic and unexpected increase in blood flow to regions of the brain beyond those responsible for “executive function,” areas which would normally be associated with paying close attention to a task, such as reading, said Natalie Phillips, the literary scholar leading the project. During a series of ongoing experiments, functional magnetic resonance images track blood flow in the brains of subjects as they read excerpts of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. Experiment participants are first asked to leisurely skim a passage as they might do in a bookstore, and then to read more closely, as they would while studying for an exam. In both instances, Philips noticed an increase in blood flow that exceeded “just work and play.” In the case of more critical reading— the type you’d engage in while writing an essay or preparing for a test—blood flow increased beyond executive function regions, or those areas responsible for problem-solving.

Phillips said the global increase in blood flow during close reading suggests that “paying attention to literary texts requires the coordination of multiple complex cognitive functions.” Blood flow also increased during pleasure reading, but in different areas of the brain. Phillips suggested that each style of reading may create distinct patterns in the brain that are “far more complex than just work and play.” So both leisurely reading and close-reading benefit us neurologically. The experiment focuses on literary attention, or more specifically, the cognitive dynamics of the different kinds of focus we bring to reading. This experiment grew out of Phillips’ ongoing research about Enlightenment writers who were concerned about issues of attention span, or what they called “wandering attention.” This research is “one of the first fMRI experiments to study how our brains respond to literature,” Phillips said, as well as the first to consider “how cognition is shaped not just by what we read, but how we read it.”

Critical reading of humanities-oriented texts are recognized for fostering analytical thought, but if such results hold across subjects, Phillips said it would suggest “it’s not only what we read — but thinking rigorously about it that’s of value, and that literary study provides a truly valuable exercise of people’s brains.” Though modern life’s cascade of beeps and buzzes certainly prompts a new kind of distraction, Phillips warned against “adopting a kind of historical nostalgia, or assuming those of the 18th century were less distracted than we are today.” Many Enlightenment writers, Phillips noted, were concerned about how distracted readers were becoming “amidst the print-overload of 18th-century England.”

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