The Power of Personal History in Education, A Research Proposal

What is the most powerful way to motivate students, especially urban middle school and high school students?

I've been working with children for 50 years as a teacher, social worker, counselor, and abuse investigator. The greatest danger to urban children is a lack of motivation and direction in middle school and high school.

University research is needed into the patterns and achievements that have emerged since 2005 with the School Time-capsule Project, students writing about their plans for the future and archiving those plans in a very visible time-capsule in their school.  The project has evolved such that now we encourage parents to write the first letters to their child about their dreams for them.  We ask parents to include a story from the family history they want their child to remember.  Then the child writes a response, a letter to themselves, about their own plans for the future.  Both letters go into a centrally located 500-pound vault bolted to the floor in the school lobby where they remain for the years in middle school, or in high school. The vault location should be very visible daily to students as they walk to and from class.  That provides potential for an occasional quiet reminder of the letters inside.  They may be reminded of what Mom wrote.

In both the 8th grade and the 12th grade those initial letters are returned, and final letters looking 10 years into the future are written.  They are then archived pending 10-year class reunions, 8th grade middle school reunions as well as the more normal 12th grade high school reunions.  The goal is to have these students return, retrieve their letters, and then perform a mentoring role when asked to speak with current students in the school. They will talk about their recommendations for success.  They will be prepared to answer questions such as, "What would you do differently if you were 13 again?"  Imagine what such annual reunion events at a Dallas middle school could do for the future focus of students in those schools.  The future focus would change with very positive results as we are already seeing.

Since 2005 the graduation rate at Sunset High School, the high school that most quickly embraced this Time-Capsule Project, has gone from a 33% graduation rate to one near 70%, with indications it will be beyond 80% by 2016!  (This is an urban, inner-city, high school with a poverty rate over 75%.) 

Research is needed into what is happening with this project.  How can this project be improved?  Why are these improvements in graduation rate being experienced?  How can this experience build toward college?  Should elements from this Time-Capsule Project be replicated at the College level?

University level research is needed.  Please share this page with anyone you know who may be searching for a graduate research project.

Bill Betzen
bbetzen@aol.com

Texas Graduation & College-Ready Rates 2013

Today there was a very misleading article in the Dallas Morning News: 1 in 4 Texas high school grads ready for college, ACT results show.  It tries to give the impression that 25% of students in Texas graduate college ready.   The more accurate number is possibly less than 6%.

The report linked to this article states very clearly that only 82,373 students took the ACT tests used to make the 25% determination. How many students took the SAT, or took neither test, was not given.

According to the Texas Education Agency there were 392,040 students in this same student group when they were in the 9th grade in 2009/2010. Three years and 7 months later only 82,373 of those students took the ACT! What are we hiding? While Texas may claim that 1 in 4 high school grads are graduating ready for college, where are the missing students?  Did they take the SAT?   How did they do? 

These numbers indicate that less than 6% of the 9th grade class of 2009/2010 finished high school with their Class of 2013 as college ready.   Do we need more data from SAT tests that may help improve this percentage, or would those numbers help?   Fortunately Texas is constantly improving as shown clearly in the following enrollment by grade history.


Texas K-12 Enrollment by Grade & Graduation History: 1997 to 2013
(Click above image to enlarge.)

Somehow TEA is also claiming an 87.7% high school on time graduation rate for Texas students: "Last year, the Class of 2011 in Texas set a graduation rate that was among the highest in the nation, and now the Class of 2012 has bested that number," was said Commissioner Williams and released by TEA on 8-6-13.  

 

 

Here is a Texas Tribune article from 11-29-2012: Texas Posts Top High School Graduation Rates, But Why?   This article gives a much more accurate view of the Texas graduation rates, rates that are much closer to 75% than to 87% when you count all children.

A Letter to Your Child

The struggle against poverty and for justice and equality starts at home.

Too few public school parents understand the power of education. Public schools must put more energy into changing that by helping parents put words to their own dreams for their child. The most simple way is to have an annual project at the start of each school year with parents writing a letter to their child about their dreams for their child.  That letter should also include at least one story from their own childhood or their family history, different stories each school year. Imagine parents recording and passing on to their child stories told to them by their grandparents, stories they wanted their child to remember as an adult. Would those become priceless letters?

Such letters could document family tradition and a foundation for the future. If you had received such letters, you would probably share them with your own children and grandchildren.

The start of a new school year is a perfect time to write such a letter. The reading of this finished letter with their child could quickly become one of those priceless parent/child conversations about goals and life, events we definitely want to encourage. This letter could then go into your child’s photo album, or their scrap book, so as to document evolving dreams and goals at the beginning of each school year.

A parent could also encourage their child to write a letter in response. Knowing a parent's dreams helps a child to form their own goals. It helps in the evolution, and the changing of goals. Few lessons in life are more valuable.

Knowing more about their own family history and stories helps a child become more resilient. Children will know the challenges of those who went before them, and how they conquered those challenges. Consequently they will be better able to face their own problems in life. Research and experience has repeatedly proven the connections between knowing the dreams and histories of those who cared for you and your own success in life.

Sadly, only a minority of parents write such letters. We need to encourage the writing of such letters by all parents at the start of every school year. As the years pass, more and more parents would follow the practice.

 

School counselors could use this same parental letter writing practice, focusing on goals and family stories, in their work with families and students during the school year. It is the perfect way to refocus a family, and their student, onto the important things in life, especially when that student has discipline or academic problems. Parents of unmotivated students will probably not have written such a letter.

As the value from such a letter writing tradition is seen it may become a normal annual event centered in our schools and our families. A refocusing on family dreams and history is the perfect way to kick off the school year!

 

Can you think of a better way to create a school atmosphere with parents actively involved in the education of their children?

DISD Middle Schools: 65 teachers lost in budget!

In the currently planned 2013/14 budget for Dallas ISD 65 teachers will be cut from middle schools! One more student is added to the average teacher.  Since DISD middle schools already account for 60% of all discipline referrals within DISD this is a planned disaster! While 9th graders, due to other progress, now account for less than 14% of all referrals, both the 6th and 7th grade each account for over 19% of all discipline referrals, and 8th graders account for 21%!  Compared to the number of referrals in the 5th grade, in the 6th grade discipline referrals increase 441%!!!

Disciplinary actions against students by grade, Dallas ISD, 2012/13
Click on the above image to enlarge.

The discipline problems in middle school are nothing new.  Yes, parents are watching, and have been watching for some time! Notice how the number of children being withdrawn from DISD after 5th grade has been increasing, especially since 2006 when the transfer of 6th grade into middle school started:

Students leaving Dallas ISD after 5th and 9th grade over past decade.
Click on above chart to enlarge.

This chart also shows the wonderful progress DISD has made with the transfer into high school and then from 9th grade to 10th grade. We are now loosing less than half of the students we used to loose during this critical transfer. Our 10th grade enrollments are some of the largest in DISD history while the 9th grade enrollments are some of the lowest in decades due to the elimination of the "9th grade bulge."  That "9th grade bulge" was created by 9th graders failing and repeating 9th grade, sometimes even more than twice.   We now have more students getting past this barrier and graduating than at any time in 30+ years!  That is the good news.

But patterns relating to the discipline problems in middle schools have been documented across the nation and ignored in DISD. Thousands of middle schools have closed over the past 20 years. School districts have paid attention to mounting research that middle schools are damaging to children. (See a collection of such research at http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2012/02/separate-middle-schools-vs-k-8.html .) 

 

But the immediate crisis in DISD is the current budget!

This Thursday, June 27, 2013 the proposed 2013/14 budget will be approved with a 65 teacher decrease planned for middle schools, moving from 24/1 to 25/1 student/teacher ratios. This move will only increase the damage to achievement already happening in DISD middle schools.  Discipline problems will only get worse in middle schools.  They are the only schools loosing teachers in spite of the increased funding from Austin.  More teachers will resign from middle schools.  We must work to reverse this tragedy set to happen in DISD.  We cannot ignore our middle school children!

 

Please contact your DISD Board Member to correct this assault on DISD middle schools!  Contacting them makes a very real difference!

 

Call DISD Board Services by Wednesday to speak at 6/27/13 5:00 PM Board Meeting to give opinion of 2013/14 Budget as presented in public PowerPoint presentation. See http://sire.dallasisd.org/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=595&doctype=AGENDA for agenda.

 

Addendum 6-28-13:

The Board Meeting went past midnight, ending just after 1:00 AM this morning.  The 65 middle school positions will be saved!  Six out of the 8 Board members voted to support an amendment to the budget to restore the middle school formula to 24-1.  That amendment will be drafted for final approval in August.  Thus the 9,585 positions in this budget will be amended to 9,650 positions with this amendment in August.

Time-Capsules installed, or moved, to date in 2013

The year 2013 has already been the most active year for vault installations, and it's not over yet! For the first time a vault had to be moved due to building re-modeling.  This was at Browne Middle School.  Since vaults are bolted to the floor that involved opening the vault, removing all the letters and shelving, loosening the bolts so the vault could be removed from the location, and sheering off the bolts in floor level.

T. W. Browne Middle School Time-Capsule

The Browne Middle School Time-Capsule was then moved to a new location, just outside the front office and in a good location passed by all students several times a day. It was then bolted once again into the concrete foundation. If a toronado ever destroyed one of these schools, the 500-pound vault would remain fastened to the foundation.

 



To date in 2013 there have been three Time-Capsule installations of new vaults.  The first was at Rosemont K-8 school:

Rosemont K-8 Time-Capsule
The first 8th grade class will be in 2015.

The Time-Capsule project started in 2005.  It is rather symbolic to now have a time-capsule with the first year being 2015. Rosemont is transitioning into a K-8 school with this years 6th grade going forward to be that first 8th grade class, in 2015.  

 

The next installation was at Atwell Middle School. Atwell teachers had already had students planning for the future and writing their letters for the vault.  Therefore there are letters already on the 2013 shelf.  (Note: due to the national demand for vaults there is a normal month or more delay for installation.)

W. H. Atwell Middle School Time-Capsule

South Oak Cliff High School was the next installation:



South Oak Cliff High School Time Capsule

Lobby at South Oak Cliff High School with Time-Capsule

Dallas ISD Discipline Reports by Middle School 2012-13

From 2005/06 to 2012/13 the percentage of all discipline referrals within DISD that were made against middle school students grew from about 40% of the total to almost 60%.  The bulk of this increase happened due to the movement of 6th grade into middle school.  Sixth grade referrals increased from 5.6% to 19.4% of all referrals. 

The following report covers discipline reports for each middle school and covers only the first semester of the 2012/13 school year.  It gives a very solid idea as to the distribution of discipline problems for each middle school.

Disciplinary actions per student in DISD Middle Schools 2012/13
Right click on image to enlarge or print.

This is ONLY a report on the official reports made. There are variations from school to school as to how the principal allows reports to enter the DISD system, but generally this gives some idea of differences between schools.   Some schools have ended their in-school suspension alternatives due to staffing cuts. In some cases this appears to have resulted in more out of school suspensions, but more study is needed.   If anyone wants to join with me in exploring this data I would gladly freely share the Excel data files that were released to me by DISD following upon an open records request.  Just email me at bbetzen@aol.com and state what you are requesting. 

Dallas must bring these numbers down.  Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) must be used so that our classrooms, especially in middle schools, become more quiet and peaceful places of learning.

DISD Budget & Middle School Chaos

The current version of the 2013/14 Dallas ISD budget is adding one student per teacher at the middle school level.  That is an idea that will only add to the record level of chaos already damaging achievement in DISD middle schools!

The three middle schools grades have the most discipline problems of any grade in DISD.  They EACH already account for over 19% of all DISD referrals, EACH!  6 out of every 10 referrals in DISD originate against middle school students!  This is not what used to happen when the old "highest referral grade" was the 9th grade going back decades.  The 9th grade now for the second year in a row only accounts for less than 14% of all referrals.  This progress happened since 9th grade coordinators worked to eliminate the damaging "9th grade bulge."  Now all of those 9th grade coordinator positions have been eliminated.  Will the 9th grade bulge return?

Until we can decrease the discipline problems in middle schools, we must not add another student to each middle school teacher's workload.  Middle school teachers are already dealing with multiple times more discipline problems than the average DISD teacher!