Reflection on TFA Founder Wendy Kopp’s Visit to Georgetown

By Allyson Lynch

I managed to snatch one of the last available seats in Copley Formal Lounge, which was filled with people waiting to hear from Wendy Kopp, Founder and CEO of Teach For America.  As someone interested in post-graduation work in education, I was beyond excited to be present at this event.  One topic brought up over the course of the evening related to the fact that many TFA teachers do not end up pursuing teaching as their permanent career.  This comment immediately caught my attention, because, were I to participate in a program like Teach For America, I would most likely end up in this group.  I have wanted to become a doctor since I was 12, so imagine my surprise when I came to Georgetown, joined DC Reads somewhat casually, and ended up just as engrossed and fascinated by educational issues as much as I was by the prospect of going to medical school...

Therefore, for the past three years, I have struggled with my non-compatible interests in both fields and wondered how to reconcile them.  What would be the point of doing a program like TFA if not to become a teacher eventually?  I would end up in this former TFA “non-teacher” group.  And according to Wendy Kopp, that is great.  As she put it, having experienced teaching and its challenges, especially in the schools TFA teaches in, is a valuable experience that can go a long way in changing things in the future for education, regardless of whether you end up an actual teacher.  The people who have experiences like that of TFA under their belt need to be in all other sectors, not just education.  When people who know what post-TFA teachers know go into other professions, they can help articulate the scope of the issues that face our education system, leading to a more universal understanding of why change is necessary, which can only help fix schools in America.  It was an inspiring message, especially for those of us that may still be undecided about our future career paths; even having had experience as tutors in DC Reads gives us the voice to impart change in education regardless of where our future takes us.  

 

Fall Fest!

By Caroline Seabolt

I love the idea of Fall Fest as a way for DC Reads tutors to strengthen our relationships with the children we help.  As a morning tutor, I do not have an individual tutee but have 20 incredibly cute kindergarteners at Kenilworth Elementary to call my own, so for me Fall Fest was more of a helping and observing experience.  The atmosphere was fun and celebratory of the fall and Halloween season. Kids dressed in full costume looks so genuinely happy with their tutors as they went to games, collected candy, and stopped at my booth.  I ran the table where kids would stick their hands in jars to determine which scary body part they were feeling, it was so fun to see their reactions!  

Facts That Will Shock You

By Bisi Orisamolu 

Yesterday DC Reads hosted a seminar with guest speaker Mr. Latham who had taught second grade for the past three years at Houston Elementary School. One thing in particular that Mr. Latham said was especially surprising to me. Someone asked the question of how and when it is determined whether a student should move on to the next grade level or repeat a grade. Mr. Latham revealed that in the DC Public School system, a student can only be retained in 3rd and 5th grade and only once. If the student has an Individualized Education Plan which is a program designed for special education students, then they cannot be retained at all. If a teacher would like to hold a student back in any other grade, there needs to be a special write up consisting of a lot of paper work that must be submitted and the consent of parents needs to be given. When asked how many kids he thinks are moved on to the next grade when they should be retained, Mr. Lantham answered all of them that are not at proficient. At Houston Elementary this would be about 60%. In a system where most of the kids are failing, it seems to only encourage the problem by making it so hard to fail.
It comes as no surprise that kids that are not on grade level are passing through to the next grade. However, the system is so imperfect that kids that do not know their letters or colors are passing through to middle school and high school. Holding 60% of a grade back might be impractical but holding back 0% also seems wholly inefficient. This causes there to be large discrepancies in the ability of the children in a single classroom. For example, Mr. Lantham said that in a 6th grade classroom the teacher may single out a group that is reading on a 3rd grade level and give them material on that level. Instead of creating an atmosphere of different grades under one teacher, it seems more logical to leave kids who are not passing in the grades that match their ability.

Protect the Vulnerable and Create Opportunity

By Helen Conway

Last Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with Dick Durbin, a Senior US Senator and Assistant Majority Leader. Durbin is a major proponent of the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act would allow undocumented immigrant students who came into the country as minors to earn legal status by attending college or enlisting in the military.

Durbin’s talk focused more on the contested issue of immigration and not on education. However, Durbin said one thing in support of the DREAM Act that stood out to me: “Protect the vulnerable and create opportunity.”

Since arriving at Georgetown, I’ve thought a lot about opportunity. I graduated from a failing public high school. An impoverished community run by a highly politicized and inefficient school board made for lack of resources, lack of community involvement and a lack of vision. 

Clearly, my high school experience was a lot different than that of many of my peers. Upon hearing of my friend’s experiences at private schools or superior public schools, I find myself feeling envious. I value my high school experience but I would have loved the opportunity to attend one of those schools and receive that quality of education. I believe it is the right of every student in America to receive a quality, well-funded education. Not every student should have to attend an elite private school or live in an affluent community for this to be possible.

Education in its current state is a hindrance to the future of our country. Unless bipartisan systematic reform takes place, it will continue on this path. Education creates opportunity however the current educational system is denying thousands upon thousands of deserving students the right to seek such opportunity. Coming from a failing school district, as well as now serving as a literacy tutor in Ward 7, I can speak to this from personal experience.

What can be done to solve such a crisis? I haven’t figured that out yet; that’s why I’m at Georgetown. However, when I become frustrated and despondent, I remember a quote from my favorite TV show – The West Wing. “Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense. That's my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet.” You’re so right, Sam Seaborn.

Growing Demand for Mobile Enterprise Application Services

More capable smartphones and media tablets are now joining a variety of highly portable netbook computers that have already invaded the workplace. Many are being combined with mobile apps that tap into cloud-based productivity solutions.

According to the latest market study by ABI Research, healthcare is one of the most dynamic sectors for mobile technologies, and manufacturing is now the largest sector for mobile enterprise applications worldwide.

By 2016, manufacturing will generate approximately 23 percent of the nearly $5 billion in mobile enterprise application service revenues.

Mobile enterprise applications, also called mobile B2E applications, include dashboard apps, work flow approval apps, and line-of-business applications for both the smartphone and tablet.

ABI's mobile services practice director, Dan Shey, says, "Manufacturing beats healthcare for B2E app adoption and revenues because of its large employment worldwide and the breadth of occupations that can benefit from mobile apps."

China is also one of the biggest drivers for manufacturing B2E mobile app adoption.

Manufacturing is the second largest employer worldwide. Manufacturing also employs a wide range of occupations using B2E apps, including shipping or receiving workers, delivery drivers, management and supervisory personnel, sales, and installation and repair workers.

Moreover, China is the world’s manufacturing hub, which drives B2E app needs -- not only for Chinese manufacturers but also for companies visiting their Chinese subcontractors.

Healthcare is the top sector in B2E mobile app adoption when viewing the data at the regional level. Healthcare leads in Western Europe, the Middle East, and especially North America, where healthcare B2E adoption outpaces manufacturing by nearly five to one.

A Book a Day Keeps the Doctor Away!

By Justine Achille

Not exactly the phrase we’re used to hearing— but reading one book per day might be just what the doctor prescribed for our DC Reads tutees. Living in a society where the majority of adults are functionally illiterate* leads to low expectations for the future generations and unfortunately, it has also been proven to lead to decreased life expectancy. *(Do not possess the reading/comprehension skills necessary to fill out simple forms such as a job application.)

It may seem strange that the ability to read and understand what you are reading can be tied to your health—but it turns out that there is a direct correlation between literacy and wellbeing. Up to a certain degree, the more literate you are, the healthier you will likely be. But why is this so?

 It all comes down to the definition of health literacy. According to HHS Healthy People 2020, health literacy is “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needs to make appropriate health decisions.” 

To get a better glimpse at what it might be like to be have very low literacy try reading the following passage that was presented to my Health Promotion and Disease Prevention class: 

GNINAELC – Ot erussa hgih ecnamrofrep, yllacidoirep naelc eht epat sdaeh dna natspac revenehw uoy eciton na noitalumucca fo tsud dna nworb-red edixo selcitrap. Esu a nottoc baws denetsiom htiw lyporposi lohocla. Eb erus on lohocla sehcuot eht rebbur strap, sa ti sdnet ot yrd dna yllautneve kcarc eht rebbur. Esu a pmad tholc ro egnops ot naelc eht tenibac. A dlim paos, ekil gnihsawhsid tnegreted, lliw pleh evomer esaerg ro lio.

(The American Medical Association Foundation & American Medical Association considers this a simulation of how someone who is “non-literate in English” would view a printed page)

It’s difficult, isn’t it?—especially if there is the occasional misspelled word. Well what if I asked you some questions about that paragraph—such as: what color should the particles on the tapehead be when you clean it?—would you be able to answer? Did you even know that this paragraph is about cleaning tapeheads? Do you know what that means? Well now imagine you are a third-grader from Ward 8, twenty years in the future. You are at a doctor’s office reading about a procedure you need to get to stop the horrible headaches you’ve been having—but unfortunately, you read at a first-grade level. That consent form you are reading is going to look a lot like the paragraph above, and chances are you won’t understand the majority of it. 

This scenario occurs every day throughout America. Patients who cannot read at their age-level fail to understand information that is critical to their health. This results in missed appointments, incorrect use of medicine, and potentially death.

To give another example of a common problem in health literacy read the following phrase that is often put on brightly colored labels on medicine bottles: 

MEDICATION SHOULD BE TAKEN WITH PLENTY OF WATER

This sentence was determined to be at a fourth-grade reading level—about the age of our DC Reads tutees. While it was estimated that a little under two-thirds of people at a fourth-grade reading level would be able to understand this label, in reality only a little over one-third of people at a sixth-grade reading level could understand this. **

Clearly, without good literacy we are setting the future generations up for failure—and potentially poor health. Remember that DC Reads is more than a tutoring program; we are an organization that prepares the youth for success in all areas of life—keeping to the cura personalis motto of Georgetown.

Next time you are at a doctor’s office filling out forms, take note of how many times you cannot understand exactly what is being asked of you, and then reflect on what it must be like to try to read that same form at the reading level of a third-grader.

** Information presented here reflects data found by UNC Program on Health Literacy. See http://www.nchealthliteracy.org/ for more information.

The transition to managed cloud services

The transition to managed cloud services is having a trickle-down effect on various stakeholders in the business technology landscape. As an example, in the evolving enterprise communications market, customer premise equipment (CPE) vendors must confront imminent erosion in their installed base -- as cloud services gain traction across the public, private, and hybrid cloud domains.

According to the latest market study by ABI Research, 41 percent of all enterprise communications users -- or 386 million lines or seats -- will be on virtual infrastructure by 2016, which is posing a serious danger to the traditional CPE market.

"For CPE vendors, the cloud threat is real," says ABI senior analyst Subha Rama. "By 2016, the communications CPE market will only grow 4.3 percent, while cloud communications will grow by over 21 percent, reaching $8 billion in revenues."

Smaller vendors with point solutions will see cloud services rapidly displace their installed bases. Moreover, some large systems vendors are becoming cloud providers or key enablers of this migration.

However, according to the ABI assessment, many of the CPE solutions are simply not "cloud ready" and will see performance downgrades when virtualized.

The Top Three Forces Influencing Cloud Migration are:

1. The growing adoption of data center architectures and virtualization technologies.
2. The need to integrate multiple applications to deliver the connected experience to users across different devices, including smartphones and media tablets.
3. The promise of lower costs and increased efficiencies from standardized platforms and processes in the cloud.

Enterprises are adopting a non-linear approach to cloud migration; while certain applications undergo experimentation, others are retained on premises.

Mixed environments and hybridization are becoming the norm, especially with larger enterprises. However, the technology to manage hybrid clouds and to enable seamless movement of applications instances across different vendor clouds is in its infancy.

"Enterprise mobilization is also driving migration to the cloud," says ABI practice director Dan Shey. "Cloud applications ease application delivery for businesses that are increasingly relying on access across fixed and mobile endpoints."