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Research
That Matters
Introduction by Dean Pat Wasley
On Thursday mornings this year, I spent time in a Washington state elementary school, and what was most striking to me was the children. They represent our future world.
The faces are African American, Asian, Latino. The languages are Vietnamese, Farsi, Chinese. The cultures are Somali, Samoan, Japanese: very different from the classrooms I taught in not so long ago. Predictions are that by mid-century up to half the nation’s population may be "minorities," and that the majority of children in our nation’s schools will be from all the world’s cultures, races and ethnicities.
The challenges to our teachers — more than 90 percent of them of European descent — are staggering, and so are the pressures. As the demographics of our schools continue to change, can our schools meet the ever-higher expectations for achievement for all students?
It’s a question researchers at the University of Washington College of Education are tackling as they roll up their sleeves, move into local communities and address issues of educational equity in the 21st-century classroom.
What are the obstacles to closing that gap? What cultural misunderstandings arise? Are low-achievers held to low expectations? How does a child’s home life come into play? Do children, like their parents, dream of a college education?
Minority parents’ expectations are high, but too often, their children’s performances are low. Seattle Public School statistics show that the percentage of children of color who enter high school will increase 10 percent each year over the next century. What percentage will give up and quit? The drop-out rate is a constant worry.
The gap in achievement in this state and in our nation resides squarely between races and is demarcated by poverty. In Washington, the drop-out rate for most minority students and limited-English speakers is about twice that of whites. Test scores show similar divides. Although their numbers are showing improvement, non-Asian minorities typically score 20 or more points lower than their white counterparts on Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) tests.
State and federal mandates are demanding progress across the board, and holding accountable the teachers and school leaders charged with overseeing it. The No Child Left Behind Act requires that all students meet state proficiency standards by the year 2014. Already, students who fail the WASL are facing the realities of not graduating from high school.
The pressure is on schools to increase scores, level playing fields, reshape learning and ensure that, regardless of background, students adapt to classrooms and classrooms adapt to students.
It’s an enormous task. To help accomplish it, UW researchers are taking an active role through partnerships with multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, high-poverty schools in the Puget Sound area, where almost 20 percent of residents are born outside the United States, and in Yakima, where more than one-third of the residents are Latino.
The College’s "action research" teams are on the ground, in the field. They’re in high school math classes, facilitating discussions and videotaping teachers as they lead students who’ve received D’s and F’s toward high-level problem-solving. They are standing side-by-side a new generation of district leaders as they knock on minority students’ doors, accompanied by translators, to ask families about the expectations they have for their children, and the barriers they see in the way.
They’re walking alongside principals as they step out of offices and into classrooms to spur rigorous instruction in their schools, and they’re training support teams to assist teachers in managing inclusive classrooms where all students have an opportunity to learn. They’re on playgrounds and in playrooms, studying the out-of-school lives of children to see how everyday scientific curiosity can be translated into meaningful new curriculua. They’re in farming communities, interviewing parents and kids about the causes of alarming drop-out rates.
The College of Education faculty are working with their public school colleagues challenging assumptions, shattering myths and practicing real-world research that can help eliminate the disconnects in the changing 21st-century classroom.
They’re charting changes, tracking changes and making changes in their own classrooms back at the University.
Because educational research is situated in the practice of teachers and schools and in the learning of students, their collective work must inform our research as much as our research informs their work. It is this intimate relationship between our research and the real lives of students and educators that forms the basis of this publication. Ultimately, we hope that you will join the effort to strengthen the public school system in this state and in our nation. We believe that our future, not just theirs, depends on it.
That Matters
...As the demographics of our schools continue to change, can our schools meet the ever-higher expectations for achievement for all students?
—Pat Wasley
—Pat Wasley