Some of you may know that there is currently some legislation in Congress that proposes a number of budget cuts, including the elimination of funding for the Corporation for National and Community Service, the umbrella organization over Americorps, of which I am a member. With the hope that with more awareness will come more action against such legislation, I wanted to share a letter the CEO of the organization I work for will be sending to all of our supporters:
"Dear Friends,
We need your help to Save Service. The United States Congress is considering legislation to eliminate funding for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) from the budget, jeopardizing thousands of service initiatives around the country, including our own. Contact your Member of Congress today to get involved in the conversation and sign up for “Save Service District Day” at the link below.
With CNCS programs like AmeriCorps, Learn and Serve and Senior Corps at risk, our communities could potentially lose the support of organizations providing needed services like Teach For America, Admission Possible, Foster Grandparents, Habitat for Humanity, Public Allies, City Year, YouthBuild and many other local organizations, jeopardizing services in education, youth development, elderly services, healthcare and nutrition. At our organization in this year alone, 72 AmeriCorps and VISTA members provide college access and success services to 7,400 low-income students, and we hope to continue to grow in those communities and others nationwide.
These competitive CNCS grant programs are some of the strongest levers of public investment, each requiring private sector matching dollars and demanding results-based reporting. The federal investment made in faith based and community organizations through CNCS leverages nearly $800 million in matching funds from companies, foundations and other sources. At our organization, every dollar in AmeriCorps investment is matched by four private sector dollars. Additionally, these national service programs provide needed full-time and part-time career opportunities for Americans in today’s economy.
Congress is debating this bill now, and they'll be looking to their constituents to see how much -- or how little -- the American people support these cuts.
We need your help. Tell Congress that we cannot afford to lose the critical services these programs provide in our communities. Contact your Member of Congress today, and sign up today at www.saveservice.org
for your local "Save Service District Day.” Visit your representative’s local office on February 25th to make sure they hear your voice."
When I think of this legislation, I am almost silenced by how shocked I am that it exists. I consider myself a pretty reasonable and open minded person, and while I tend to fall on the liberal side of things politically, I pride myself in being able to understand the opinions of many conservatives (I owe that to my proud Republican father and, probably, my religion degree). However, I cannot, in any way, understand the reasoning behind cutting funding to CNCS.
Let's forget, for a moment, about the moral and social implications of such cuts- which would be unfathomable (can you imagine a society without these kinds of public service organizations?). Instead, let's think about money- because, after all, that's what this seems to boil down to. According to a less than perfectly trustworthy source (wikipedia), more than 85,000 people currently serve with Americorps (plus thousands more serving through other CNCS programs). We don't make a salary, we are awarded a living stipend of around $11,000 for a year of service. Based on the number of hours we end up working at my organization, that evens out to about $3 and hour- not even close to minimum wage. This means that there are more than 85,000 government slaves working for our country right now. Or, as a colleague of mine said in a slightly less abrasive way: "we're the cheapest labor out there!" I understand that the government is in need of money right now, but at this point, if nothing else, Americorps is keeping some 85,000 work eligible people at bay and paying them practically nothing to do some of the toughest jobs in our society! How is it in any way logical to cut funding for these programs, releasing these employees out into the world only to become unemployed because of the terrible job market?
So, if you're reading this and are thinking about pressuring your local politicians to oppose this legislation, I encourage you to do so! Do it for the students I'm trying to get into college, or the families moving into their first real home, or the students being helped with their reading so they can succeed in school, or simply because it makes the most financial sense- whatever your reason, I hope you'll support continuing funding to CNCS.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Photographic Reflections on the Past Few Weeks
My new years resolution of posting here has crashed and burned, but I guess that's what happens when you work 3 50+ hour weeks in a row. A lot has been going on, and while I am planning a more thought provoking post, here's a little update in picture form.
Last week was Valentine's day! Victoria and I obviously went all out:
Here is Victoria with the box of chocolates we wish we had received on Valentine's day.
And here I am the day of dressed in as much work appropriate pink and red as I could find.
We decorated our office for the special day as well:
Note the following decorative elements (outlined in hearts with arrows pointing to them):
1. Decorated foam hearts hanging from the ceiling.
2. Our awesome "Jux Stay in School" heart- sneakily making fun of our students who like to text/write the word 'jux' instead of 'just'
3. Valentine's mailboxes for me and Victoria. Unfortunately, neither of us got any notes in our boxes...
4. Calendar of Robert Pattinson, which is not actually reserved for valentine's day, Victoria just loves him.
This past week has also been the kick off for student recruitment- which means that we are attacking sophomores left and right trying to get them to join our program. The crazy excitement portion of recruitment is called "Hoopla" in our organization, and here are some ways we have been getting students excited:
We made a recruitment rocket! Please don't mind the awkward whited out areas, I'm trying to maintain some confidentiality for the organization I work for. Victoria wears this rocket with a tin foil hat and runs around scaring students. I'm honestly not actually sure this makes our organization appealing for students, but it's really entertaining for me.
We decorated the office! Doesn't it look welcoming?
We also had some of our students do a rap that we're playing during morning announcements. Here are the musical masterminds:
And here is one last image to leave you with for now: Victoria showing some attitude to a student who missed two make up ACTs after school- he looks pretty terrified to me!
Last week was Valentine's day! Victoria and I obviously went all out:
Here is Victoria with the box of chocolates we wish we had received on Valentine's day.
And here I am the day of dressed in as much work appropriate pink and red as I could find.
We decorated our office for the special day as well:
Note the following decorative elements (outlined in hearts with arrows pointing to them):
1. Decorated foam hearts hanging from the ceiling.
2. Our awesome "Jux Stay in School" heart- sneakily making fun of our students who like to text/write the word 'jux' instead of 'just'
3. Valentine's mailboxes for me and Victoria. Unfortunately, neither of us got any notes in our boxes...
4. Calendar of Robert Pattinson, which is not actually reserved for valentine's day, Victoria just loves him.
This past week has also been the kick off for student recruitment- which means that we are attacking sophomores left and right trying to get them to join our program. The crazy excitement portion of recruitment is called "Hoopla" in our organization, and here are some ways we have been getting students excited:
We made a recruitment rocket! Please don't mind the awkward whited out areas, I'm trying to maintain some confidentiality for the organization I work for. Victoria wears this rocket with a tin foil hat and runs around scaring students. I'm honestly not actually sure this makes our organization appealing for students, but it's really entertaining for me.
We decorated the office! Doesn't it look welcoming?
We also had some of our students do a rap that we're playing during morning announcements. Here are the musical masterminds:
And here is one last image to leave you with for now: Victoria showing some attitude to a student who missed two make up ACTs after school- he looks pretty terrified to me!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
A Classist ACT Prompt?
Last weekend my students took their third practice ACT. This is an exciting time because they have finally had a few good weeks of ACT strategy and they are eager to see if their scores have improved. This is also an important time for me to figure out which students are understanding the material and which students need some extra attention. While most of my students seemed confident that they had at least improved a little on each section, they left the test with defeated looks on their faces after finishing the last section, the essay. After reading the prompt, it's not hard to see why my students felt this way.
The prompt goes:
"Most people enjoy having a yard so that they can design both the exterior and the interior of their homes. Some people prefer landscaping that is polished and controlled, with lush green lawns, carefully trimmed shrubs or bushes, and flowers that are replaced each season so that they remain fresh and colorful. Proponents of this type of landscaping believe that the visual design of a yard is the most important factor and that neighborhoods should have standard guidelines so that the area looks uniform and consistent. Opponents of polished landscaping believe that yards require a variety of treatments, based on factors such as the climate conditions of the region, and advocate for choices that incorporate water conservation, native species, and edible plants. In your opinion, should people follow standard landscaping guidelines that focus on a yard's visual design, or should they vary their landscaping design out of consideration for other factors like climate or conservation?"
As I see it, there are two main problems with this prompt:
1. We told our students that every prompt they would get on the ACT would have something to do with their lives as students, something they could relate to. We gave examples of debates surrounding school uniforms, year round schools, single sex education, serving fast food in the cafeteria, weighted grades, the list goes on. This prompt has nothing to do with the lives of the majority of high schoolers in this country and I'm pretty sure that most high schoolers would have no opinion on the issue whatsoever (unless you're one of my good friends who worked summers with a landscaping company).
2. This prompt certainly has no relevance or context for most low income or urban students- who may be living in housing without yards or might not have the income to afford landscaping. This is the issue I will be focussing on for the remainder of this post.
Most of my students qualify for free or reduced lunch and if they don't, they definitely make well under the average income for the state. The neighborhoods surrounding the school where I work have small yards, but, as far as I can tell, no neighborhood association regulating landscaping or anything else. When I think of neighborhood associations, I think of wealthy neighborhoods where the residents can afford to pay dues to have a council that puts on BBQs and gives gifts to the mailmen. That is certainly not the kind of neighborhood my students come from. For those who don't live in single family homes, they live in apartments or town homes without yards. Thus, this prompt brings up a concept that almost none of my students have any experience with.
In fact, quite a few of my students did not know what landscaping was- and this was true among my coworkers as well. In their essays we had students argue for having landscapes instead of yards or having a back yard, or what to put in your yard (think swimming pool and playground). It was clear that besides not having any personal experience with landscaping in their own yards, they had never even encountered the term.
To me this begged the question: 'is this a classist prompt??' And honestly, I believe the answer is yes. The definition of 'classist' is "biased based on social or economic class." For a writing prompt to be classist it would have to give an unfair advantage to those of a certain social or economic class. I believe this prompt does just that. If I had this prompt when I was taking the ACT (or SAT in my case), I would have had absolutely no trouble answering the prompt. Why? Because most if not all of the neighborhoods I lived in growing up had guidelines for landscaping. More than that, I'm pretty sure that for at least the last 13 years my family has had a LANDSCAPER. I grew up seeing drawings for new gardens in our yard, hearing about the installation of underground sprinklers, and watching my parents ask permission from neighborhood councils to put fences in my yard (and wouldn't you know they even cared about what material the fences were made out of). I grew up surrounded by this information because my parents had the expendable income to pay for everything that comes with landscaping and because we belonged in a social class that expected it of us.
Most of my students do not have the same exposure to landscaping as I did, giving them an unfair disadvantage when approaching this prompt. In the words of one of my co-workers: "they might as well have asked if hired help should be full time or part time or if neighborhoods should be gated or not!"- this prompt was clearly aimed towards a set of students with a certain life style, one which, from my knowledge, most urban low income students do not share.
It's incredibly frustrating to think that a standardized test, one which is supposed to put students on an even level regardless of their high school, background, religion, race, etc. can so blatantly give an advantage to some students over others. What's worse is that it is really difficult to help our students overcome this type of disadvantage. We can teach our students how to write a well structured essay, but we cannot give them life experiences they've never had- and when a whole prompt is based on such an experience, having it can make or break one's score.
The prompt goes:
"Most people enjoy having a yard so that they can design both the exterior and the interior of their homes. Some people prefer landscaping that is polished and controlled, with lush green lawns, carefully trimmed shrubs or bushes, and flowers that are replaced each season so that they remain fresh and colorful. Proponents of this type of landscaping believe that the visual design of a yard is the most important factor and that neighborhoods should have standard guidelines so that the area looks uniform and consistent. Opponents of polished landscaping believe that yards require a variety of treatments, based on factors such as the climate conditions of the region, and advocate for choices that incorporate water conservation, native species, and edible plants. In your opinion, should people follow standard landscaping guidelines that focus on a yard's visual design, or should they vary their landscaping design out of consideration for other factors like climate or conservation?"
As I see it, there are two main problems with this prompt:
1. We told our students that every prompt they would get on the ACT would have something to do with their lives as students, something they could relate to. We gave examples of debates surrounding school uniforms, year round schools, single sex education, serving fast food in the cafeteria, weighted grades, the list goes on. This prompt has nothing to do with the lives of the majority of high schoolers in this country and I'm pretty sure that most high schoolers would have no opinion on the issue whatsoever (unless you're one of my good friends who worked summers with a landscaping company).
2. This prompt certainly has no relevance or context for most low income or urban students- who may be living in housing without yards or might not have the income to afford landscaping. This is the issue I will be focussing on for the remainder of this post.
Most of my students qualify for free or reduced lunch and if they don't, they definitely make well under the average income for the state. The neighborhoods surrounding the school where I work have small yards, but, as far as I can tell, no neighborhood association regulating landscaping or anything else. When I think of neighborhood associations, I think of wealthy neighborhoods where the residents can afford to pay dues to have a council that puts on BBQs and gives gifts to the mailmen. That is certainly not the kind of neighborhood my students come from. For those who don't live in single family homes, they live in apartments or town homes without yards. Thus, this prompt brings up a concept that almost none of my students have any experience with.
In fact, quite a few of my students did not know what landscaping was- and this was true among my coworkers as well. In their essays we had students argue for having landscapes instead of yards or having a back yard, or what to put in your yard (think swimming pool and playground). It was clear that besides not having any personal experience with landscaping in their own yards, they had never even encountered the term.
To me this begged the question: 'is this a classist prompt??' And honestly, I believe the answer is yes. The definition of 'classist' is "biased based on social or economic class." For a writing prompt to be classist it would have to give an unfair advantage to those of a certain social or economic class. I believe this prompt does just that. If I had this prompt when I was taking the ACT (or SAT in my case), I would have had absolutely no trouble answering the prompt. Why? Because most if not all of the neighborhoods I lived in growing up had guidelines for landscaping. More than that, I'm pretty sure that for at least the last 13 years my family has had a LANDSCAPER. I grew up seeing drawings for new gardens in our yard, hearing about the installation of underground sprinklers, and watching my parents ask permission from neighborhood councils to put fences in my yard (and wouldn't you know they even cared about what material the fences were made out of). I grew up surrounded by this information because my parents had the expendable income to pay for everything that comes with landscaping and because we belonged in a social class that expected it of us.
Most of my students do not have the same exposure to landscaping as I did, giving them an unfair disadvantage when approaching this prompt. In the words of one of my co-workers: "they might as well have asked if hired help should be full time or part time or if neighborhoods should be gated or not!"- this prompt was clearly aimed towards a set of students with a certain life style, one which, from my knowledge, most urban low income students do not share.
It's incredibly frustrating to think that a standardized test, one which is supposed to put students on an even level regardless of their high school, background, religion, race, etc. can so blatantly give an advantage to some students over others. What's worse is that it is really difficult to help our students overcome this type of disadvantage. We can teach our students how to write a well structured essay, but we cannot give them life experiences they've never had- and when a whole prompt is based on such an experience, having it can make or break one's score.
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