10th grader Jennifer Addo immigrated to New York from Ghana in 2009, and grew up speaking Twi (pronounced “Tree”) - a traditional West African language. She now attends the Coalition School for Social Change in East Harlem, New York - a neighborhood where more than half of the population identifies as Hispanic.

(Note: This story was produced by youth at the Coalition School for Social Change in collaboration with the youth-media program Children’s PressLine. Because English is Jennifer’s second language, she may be hard to understand at times throughout the story. Please feel free to use the transcript below to follow along.)

For more information on Children’s PressLine, please visit www.cplmedia.org.

Transcript

[Sound up: street sounds, cars passing]

[Jen, walking: Right now, I’m on 125th and 5th avenue. I’m about to cross the street.]

Jen: My name is Jennifer. I’m from Ghana.

I came here with my dad and my two twin sisters.

My mom’s in Ghana with my baby sister. She did not get a visa.

[bus passing]

[entering school, walking upstairs]

Jen: In the morning like 8 o’clock… It’s ESL class. I’ve been in that class for like…eight months.

[Sound up: Neva in front of class]

Jen: My first language is Twi. When I started school I started speaking English, when I was like six years.
Like…Ghana we speak English, but we don’t speak like how Americans speak. Americans, they speak it fast. But in Ghana we don’t speak it fast like that. So when I come here it was difficult for me.

[Neva: Nerlandi, will you read us your response please? You're too shy? Oh my goodness...]

Jen: I don’t know, I feel shy. I feel shy when I’m talking. I’m not shy when I speak Twi, but sometimes English, my accent is not good so…that makes me shy.

[laughing, Spanish speaking in class]

Jen: Most of the kids speak Spanish in the class.

Auri: My name’s Auri, I’m from Dominican Republic.

Carlos: My name is Carlos, and I’m from Dominican Republic.

Ranfis: My name is Ranfis, I came from the Dominican Republic.

Jen: They’re Dominican, they’re Puerto Rican people.

Carlos: Most of the people in the ESL room is from Dominican Republic. In my house they only speak Spanish, my mother, my grandfather, me, my sister, my brother…

Auri: My mom, my cousins, my dad…

Ranfis: My father speaks Spanish sometimes and sometimes he speaks English…

Auri: All my friends mostly I speak Spanish.

Jen: I don’t speak Spanish. Just me.

[post - buzz sound]

Jen: When I was first coming here, I didn’t know…I didn’t even know that they got some Spanish people here. The only thing I knew was blacks and whites, that’s it.

Jen: When I came here, they gave me a Spanish class, but I didn’t know nothing about Spanish. So I told them I can’t do it.

Jen: It’s hard for me.

Jen: When you’re with the Spanish people and they’re speaking Spanish, you don’t know what a person is saying. That is hard.

[post - music]

Carlos: When I speak Spanish I feel like I’m in my country. In Dominican Republic.

Daniel: When I was with my friends, my family speaking Spanish.

Carlos: That’s my natural language.

Ranfis: I feel more comfortable because I know Spanish better than English and I understand everything they’re saying and I don’t feel like…

Jen: …that’s my language and because I know everything…everything in there, so. When I’m talking, I’m good.
[beat]

Jen: I wish there were other people in this school that speak Twi.

Jen: If you are the only one in school that speak Twi or one language that no one can even hear you when you’re speaking it, it’s sad. So she’s speaking with them.
Jen: And I’m like, [fade out music] Oh my god, I wish my school got the same. I would speak with them.

[Beat. Fade in classroom]

[Classroom B Roll: Neva: Do you think English in the United States, do you think it’s a good idea to have English as the universal language?]

Daniel: Yes.

Neva: Why?

Daniel: They say, the more languages you know, the more your pocket grows. [laughs]

Jen: My teacher in ESL Class is Neva. [My name is Neva and I am an ESL teacher here at the Coalition School for Social Change.]

Neva: If they start speaking Spanish to each other, that’s fine. Obviously when the material is presented, chalk and talk I like to call it, everybody is in English and for the purpose of academic responses, each student will respond in English.

Neva: Most English as a Second Language Teachers would agree, when they’re speaking amongst themselves, they can speak in their own heritage languages.

[Classroom: Neva: Explain how these jobs, performed by immigrants, contribute to the American economy...Daniel: many jobs are filled by immigrants who cannot speak English but they are able to contribute to the American economy by taking jobs that other Americans may not desire…]

[Neva: Good class, good class. Have a nice weekend!]

Jen: I want to be a nurse. My auntie says, no, set the high one first. If someone ask you, be like you wanna be a doctor.

Jen: She said you need to know Spanish when you working. Cause…someone might come there and the person don’t know how to speak English so you got to translate it for the person.

Jen: I think I want to take Spanish again.

[post - music]

Jen: I miss my mom a lot. I miss her. My auntie was like, oh, I’ll take you to a visit, and I was like, I’m not going, I’m not going. I want to get my job, do everything before I want to go there. When I get my job…I’m going to visit, oh my god. I wish it’s happening.

Jen: I’ll be like, oh mom…I’m here! She’ll be happy.

Jen: For Children’s PressLine, I’m Jennifer Addo.

Michigan’s governor actually brought in an Emergency Financial Manager to deal with the situation. His name is Robert Bobb, and he’s got a lot of critics – especially DPS employees who fear that Bobb has an agenda to turn all of Detroit Public Schools into charters. Why might they think this? Well, foundations that support charter schools are paying almost one third of Bobb’s salary. Just what is Bobb’s agenda for the Detroit Public Schools?

Full disclosure: this podcast mentions the Broad and Kellogg foundations. Learning Matters has had support from the Broad Foundation for our coverage of New Orleans and Washington, DC. That grant has not been renewed. Our ListenUp! Youth Media Project has a current grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Osiris’ “Circle of Courage” is one strategy the school is using to try and help students stay out of trouble and pass their classes. But how much can sitting in a circle and talking really help?

Connor graduated from Princeton College with a PhD in Classics in 1961, and went on to be a professor there for over twenty years. He then worked as the president of the Teagle Foundation, which advocates for liberal arts in higher education. Currently, he serves as the senior advisor to the president. Producer John Tulenko interviewed Connor about why he thinks liberal arts education remains as a valuable path for American students.

For more information on The Teagle Foundation, visit www.teaglefoundation.org.

The Asia Society is trying to change the reputation of America’s education system. Its created a network of 20 schools that try to answer the question, what should today’s students learn about the world? This network of schools, called the International Studies Schools Network, teaches foreign languages, connects students from across the globe to work on projects together, and seeks to embed global history in all facets of education. So, how are they doing? Producer John Tulenko speaks with Tony Jackson, Vice President for Education, Asia Society.

For more information visit www.asiasociety.org.

Photo credit: Jami Saunders.

Today, Teach for America (TFA) is the country’s largest provider of teachers for America’s low-income communities. Wendy Kopp sat down with us in Spring 2008 to talk about TFA’s core values, some bright alums (including Michelle Rhee) and how TFA is influencing DC and New Orleans school districts.

This video is part of our series following the day in the life of a Teach for America recruit. Watch the entire series here and weigh in with your comments.

Whether the additional funding will produce a better application remains to be seen. When winners are announced in April, many will be curious to learn who got help and who did not.

This video is part of our series covering the Race to the Top. Watch all related videos and listen to more podcasts here.

We joined her in Pueblo Colorado where she confronted a room full of skeptical teachers and parents.

This video is part of our series covering the Race to the Top. Watch all related videos and listen to more podcasts here.

Arizona is ranked 50th in the nation in per-pupil funding.  On top of that the Tucson school district had to cut 10% of their budget last year.  Nonetheless Fagan is optimistic that innovative thinking will improve Tucson schools and reverse a steady decline in attendance.  For her sake it better work — only three of the five members of the Tucson School Board voted to hire her.

John Merrow spoke with Dr. Fagen to find out how Tucson schools are weathering the “great recession.”

Can it be stopped?  The Ford Foundation is trying. 10 years ago it launched the International Fellowships Program, a 350 million dollar effort to nurture talent in developing countries and keep it there.  In this
podcast, we hear from the program’s director, Joan Dassin.

Dassin runs one of the largest international scholarship programs in the world and after hearing her you’ll want to tell your friends all about it.

Learn more about the International Fellowships Program: http://www.fordifp.net.

1. What percentage of college students attend community college?
A) 12%    B)  25%    C) 35%    D) 50%

2. To reform community colleges, President Obama proposes to spend?
A) 12 billion   B) 3 billion    C) 500 million    D) 100 million

3.  What’s the graduation rate at community colleges?
A) 35%    B)  22%     C) 55%     D) 65%

If you missed any of these questions, then you should learn more about community colleges.   They are overflowing with students seeking to save on college tuition and laid off workers seeking to train for new careers.  The President considers community colleges crucial to the economic recovery and wants them to get far bigger and better in the years to come.

In this podcast, Dr. Kay McClenney, discusses her just released report on the state of community colleges. “The Community College Survey of Student Engagement” polled thousands of students at some 300 campuses to find out what works in this fast growing section of higher education.

Read the report online: http://www.ccsse.org.

[Answers: 1) D; 2) A; 3) B.]

In a conversation with John Merrow, Ravitch, a former Assistant Secretary of Education under George H.W. Bush, questions the federal government’s new role in public education.

But there’s a catch: in order to compete states must promise to raise standards, track student performance and tie it to teacher pay, turn around the lowest performing schools, mainly by opening charters and more. The requirements are already causing a stir in the education community.

In this interview, John Merrow interviews Jodie Gittleson, Eve McCarey, Crystal Proctor and Tina Bradshaw-Smith, four DC teachers who were laid off during the Reduction in Force (RIF).

Podcast producer Selly Thiam interviewed Jason Kamras, one of the architects of IMPACT and the Director of Human Capital Management for Washington, DC’s teachers about the evaluation system and how he thinks it is going to change teaching in Washington, DC.

Ron Fairchild is the Director of the National Center for Summer Learning, an organization focused on creating awareness and promoting policy change for summer learning opportunities. He shares why summertime can be a risk for many low-income children across the country.

In 2000, McCourt talked with John Merrow about teaching–what it was like when he began and how it changed over the years.

Listen to the radio program above.  Below is an excerpt of the interview that first appeared on NPR.

Full transcript (PDF)

INTERVIEW EXCERPT:

JOHN MERROW: Could you talk about those first few days and weeks of teaching where you must’ve felt like just turning and running.

FRANK McCOURT: It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And I had done hard things before. The first of … surviving that childhood in Ireland, I think. But then when I came here, uh, all the jobs I had were menial jobs, laboring jobs. Loading and unloading trucks and ships. The … the piers, the warehouses, down around la– … (Inaudible) Street and Laight(?) Street. So, it was very, very hard physical work and I was in great shape but to go before five classes a day, fi– five days a week of American adolescence is the most daunting thing I’ve ever done.

JM: And of course, the kids knew it.

FM: Oh, they knew it. But the thing is, I think what saved me was … was my accent. Because if I’d walked in there as an ordinary American high school teacher, they would’ve said “Here we go again.” But, uh, the minute I opened my mouth they’d say “Hey, yo, teach, you Scotch or somethin’?” And they were interested in where I came from. And, uh, and then when one of the girls said “Hey teach, you’re cute.” (Laughs)

JM: And you turned beat red.

FM: I was very … I didn’t– I didn’t know anything about American teenagers. They’re a dangerous species. And I … I have … sometimes I have to look back on that and give myself credit for survival. Just in a kind of a dogged, desperate way going in there everyday.

JM: You didn’t … you didn’t get much help from supervisors.

FM: Oh, you got no help at all. No. You were thrown into the classroom and that was it. And they’d come in and observe you. They … if you were a … if you were a substitute teacher, as I was, you were observed three times a term. So that’s six times a year. And generally, their observation reports were negative. And of course they were negative. How could you … and they themselves, the supervisors and the administrators were generally people of limited teaching experience.

JM: Let … let’s connect this conversation to teaching today as we go along through your own memoir. I mean, do you suppose it’s that much different for a new teacher today? You were thrown in, sink or swim.

FM: No. It’s not much different at all because first of all, human nature doesn’t change. Kids are the same. Kids are tough. And kids are constantly seeking out your weaknesses. That’s their business anyway. They pit … pit themselves against you. And the people who were … who are the supervisors generally, I’d say, 95 percent of them have had that limited teaching experience. And all they do is sit there and they’ll … they’ll write up an observation report…

JM: So it’s a kind of “gotcha” attitude?

FM: It’s “gotcha,” yeah. Because and they … they have … they have less teaching experience and they get higher salaries. That’s the craziness in the education system. That the farther you get from the classroom, the more money you get. The more … the more you’re rewarded.

JM: You get rewarded for getting out of teaching.

FM: You get, yeah, you get your reward for leaving the classroom. And there’s something wrong with that. It would be like to saying to a brilliant surgeon “Leave the operating room and take this desk and we’ll give you much more money.”

JM: Crazy system. Do … do you miss teaching?

FM: Oh, yeah. I miss it because well, I wouldn’t have the energy for it now. Uh, I miss it because of the immediate … the immediate results you get for it. You don’t know about the long ranges of it. You don’t know what you’ve done for them or to them. But you see, you know, when the– when a class is going well. You’ve had that experience yourself. You know what it’s clicking. And you see from … and you see them sit up. And you see kids with the … with the short attention span. They’re paying attention because whatever is going on in the classroom is magic. That was the part that I loved.

JM: What was your way in teaching?

FM: My own way, you have to discover your own style and that … that takes a long time (Inaudible) nearly 30– really 30 years in the classroom consid– with … with … community colleges and so on. And it took me 15 years to … to become a teacher. To fi– to become comfortable in the classroom. To … to find my own style. To go my own way and to do … and they did leave me alone at Stuyvesant. I had to say that for the … the principal and the … academ– the chairman of my department.

The main thing that the kids taught me was to tell the truth. And just to say “We’re in this together.” Because you’re learning about teaching, you’re learning about your subject and you’re learning about the human heart and you’re learning what the chemistry of your class. All of this is going on, and it’s very complicated, and nobody’s ever written about it.

JM: But you say, to find your own way. But you’d been to college… and you’d been told about teaching. There’s a teacher training…

FM: Well teachers … to teacher train … they … these are professors who … who wouldn’t know what to do in a college … in … in a … in an English high school class. They wouldn’t not … they have all kinds of theories of … there was a … a course down at NYU called “Principles and Practices of Secondary Education” taught by a high school principal who is now an assistant professor or something like that. He didn’t know anything about teaching. You couldn’t … you … you have to get into the classroom. It’s like, uh, Michael Jordan in college was not given great credit. He was not … an A player. But then, he went to the Bulls and becomes the … the greatest basketball player ever. He had … but he … and there are kids in … who imitate him. You can’t imitate Michael Jordan. You can imitate Hemingway but you’ll never be Hemingway.

JM: But does this mean that you … you just don’t believe in teacher training?

FM: It has to be done by teachers. It has to be done by in the classroom. It has to be an internship. That you can’t sit in the … in the college classroom and talk about teaching unless you have teachers come in, veteran teachers, who will come in and talk … well, what’s it like. What the chemistry of a class is like. And how to open up the kids and how … and then a lot depends on yourself. How you open up yourself. I know it’s a … it’s a bit of a cliché, this opening yourself up. But you have … you have to do something like that. You have to do something that’s individual.

JM: So you … can a good teacher be trained? A good teacher is born, not made?

FM: Well, it … a good teacher … can you teach somebody how to write a poem? You can’t. You can help them. You can suggest and hint and suggest but, uh, I think … I think there are … a good teacher is … you can’t make a teacher. I think … there is an innate quality, there’s a personality … but then, I think the only way of … of finding out is to be in the classroom three or four years in front of the kids and you’ll find out.

We’ve been following him for the past two years, chronicling his efforts to fix New Orleans’ troubled schools by bringing in Teach For America Recruits and modernizing classrooms (just to name a few).

In this podcast, John Merrow asks Paul Vallas for a “quick list” of what he has accomplished so far in New Orleans and what is on the horizon for his third year.

Hartford High was divided into four small, career-themed academies each with its own principal and wing of the building. The change seems to be working. Test scores are inching upward, parents are becoming more involved and students are changing their aspirations.

So why, with over half a billion dollars in federal education stimulus money flowing to Connecticut—money intended to promote reform and protect jobs—is Hartford Public High School laying off teachers?

In this podcast, producer Selly Thiam talks with program producers John Tulenko and Jane Renaud to talk about what they discovered while producing this segment about the effects of the stimulus package on the Hartford School District.

In this podcast, producer John Tulenko sat down with Marc Porter Magee, Chief Operating Officer of ConnCAN to discuss the changes including school choice, a new policy in Hartford, which allows families to choose to send their kids to any school in the district.

When Hartford (CT) Public High School opened last September, the 1,600-student school — where for years just one in three students graduated — was nearly unrecognizable. HPHS is now divided into four small, career-themed academies, each with its own principal and wing of the building.

It’s part of a fledgling effort, just two years old, to turn around Hartford’s public schools, and it seems to be working. So far, test scores are inching upwards, parents are becoming more involved, and, as HPHS principal Adam Johnson says, “I see kids who are changing their aspirations, and we’re getting them to be more hopeful in the world.”

So why, with over half a billion dollars in federal education stimulus money flowing to Connecticut — money intended to promote reform and protect jobs — is Hartford Public High School laying off teachers? Here’s why: even after receiving a share of the stimulus money, Hartford Public Schools faces a $21 million deficit, because Connecticut’s governor, M. Jodi Rell, proposes to drop state education spending by the same amount Connecticut gets from Washington. And Connecticut isn’t the only state playing this game.

This program gets an on-the-ground look at how the stimulus is affecting some of the nation’s most challenged schools.

Download transcript (pdf)

In this podcast, Branche talks about the challenges of running a traditional public school in a charter dominated system.

In this podcast, Sharon Clark talks about her school’s success.

Orleans Parish School Board president Woody Koppel is skeptical of Vallas’ plan to fix his failing schools by “charterizing” the district. In this podcast, he talks about the future of his district and more.

In this podcast, Joe Daschbach, a research assistant at the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teacher’s College at Columbia University, talks about Vallas’ push for charter schools, his performance as superintendent and whether New Orleans trusts him to fix the schools.

Before Michelle Rhee became chancellor of the Washington, DC public schools in 2007, an average of 15 teachers a year were put on the plan. Today about 150 teachers are on the plan. Still, that’s not even four percent of the DC teaching force. The percentage is much higher at Darrin Slade’s school, where he has 40 teachers.

In this podcast, Darrin Slade talks with John Merrow about the 90 Day Plan and how he implements it in his middle school.

We’ve been covering Ron Brown Middle School this year as we follow the reform efforts of Michelle Rhee, the controversial new Chancellor of DC Public Schools. The week after their story appeared in the Washington Post, we spoke with some students and 7th grade teachers at that school about safety and discipline.

Green Bay schools have to provide more basic needs than ever—food, supplies, clothes for children—while trying to raise academic achievement.

In this podcast, David Wald, Managing Producer at Learning Matters, sat down with producers Valerie Visconti and Tania McKeown to talk about the growing number of homeless youth in Green Bay’s Public Schools.

Listen to the story of Marion Delray–she’s a mother in Green Bay, Wisconsin who found herself suddenly homeless. She talks about how homelessness has affected her children and their education . . . and how her children’s school has stepped in and offered her the support she needed to get back on her feet.

Duncan shares his thoughts on best strategies, and how he hopes to impact an education system where 3 out 10 ninth graders fail to graduate.

Weingarten offers her opinion on how the new secretary should use his budget and explains why she thinks national standards should be his priority.

Mr. Cross details the challenges Duncan will face as he aims to spend his department’s $160 billion budget. With over 200 special interest groups and countless superintendents clamoring for his attention, Cross says Duncan has a tough job ahead.

In 1976, John Merrow asked similar questions on his NPR program–and it’s surprisingly relevant today.

Visit EdAdviceForObama.org to learn more.

She is currently on the faculty of NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education as senior scholar and adjunct professor. We spoke with her about the U.S. educational system and what advice she has for President Obama.

Part of our project, Education Advice for President Obama.  Visit the site to learn more and hear more advice.

We traveled to Northern Ireland to talk with Michael Wardlow, CEO of the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education. In this podcast, he discusses the impact ‘integrated education’ can have on ensuring lasting peace in a country rife with religious conflict.

Last September Rudy Crew, superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, and Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City Board of Education, debated these issues. The panel was held in Washington, DC, before the Broad Foundation Urban Education Award Ceremony.

In this podcast, Lute Olson–interviewed in the film–talks about the educational aspects of college sports and why basketball and football in particular are critical to the university and all other college sports.

Now several months into his superintendency of the Recovery School District in New Orleans, Vallas is betting on some bold initiatives to turn the system around and improve education for students. Hear Vallas talk about trying to upend old ways of doing business and set about changing how students learn.

Hear Maddie Fennell, the 2007 Nebraska Teacher of the Year, discuss how the law looks differently in Washington than it does in her Omaha classroom.

Lynn Riggs, a science teacher in Fairfax County, Virginia, worries that students are learning how to give the right answers – at the cost of learning how to ask the right questions.