[Infowarrior] - A 'feel-good' label for 'at-risk' kids?

[Richard Forno]

OFFS, right??  -rf


A 'feel-good' label for 'at-risk' kids?
By Jay Mathews
Monday, November 16, 2009

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/15/AR2009111502189_pf.html
I sympathize with those who might not be comfortable with the latest  
plan to rid our schools of at-risk kids. Several educators across the  
country, including Alexandria Superintendent Morton Sherman, have  
decided not to call them that anymore. Henceforth they will be known  
as "at-promise" children.

"We use the term 'at-promise' in Alexandria City Public Schools to  
describe children who have the potential to achieve at a higher rate  
than they are currently achieving," Sherman said in a July 23 op-ed in  
the Alexandria Gazette Packet. "Really, all children are at-promise,  
because we, as educators, have made a promise to each and every child  
that we will work toward higher achievement for all."

Cathy David, Alexandria schools deputy superintendent, said at a  
School Board meeting last December: "The previous 'at-risk' model was  
a deficit model that identified and categorized children by criteria  
such as low income, special education, ethnicity or English language  
proficiency, with the assumption that if the criteria fit the child,  
then the child must have some sort of deficit. The 'at-promise' model  
comes from strengths."

Word of this change has spread slowly. I first heard it a few days ago  
from a teacher. I sought reaction from people I know who stay current  
on educational trends. They weren't thrilled.

"This is a perfect example of school systems concentrating on feel- 
good language instead of admitting that part of the problem of low  
achievement is caused by the lack of motivation and effort on the  
student's part," said Vern Williams, a nationally recognized math  
teacher in Fairfax County.

Abigail Thernstrom, a McLean-based education scholar and vice  
chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said, "The schools  
can change the rhetoric, but at the end of the day, all that counts is  
what they actually accomplish."

Former Arlington County School Board chairman David Foster said "at- 
promise" is "a politically correct term that conveys no meaning."

"The wordsmithing of 'at risk' vs. 'at promise' is an example of K-12  
gobbledygook at its worst -- not only a distinction without a  
difference but a really awkward phrasing at that," said J. Martin  
Rochester, a political science professor at the University of Missouri- 
St. Louis.

Still, Sherman and David are exemplary educators who are thoughtful  
about their jobs. They knew they were going to get slammed for this,  
as did other teachers who have adopted it. But they taught their  
students to strive for clarity in speaking and writing, and "at risk"  
wasn't doing that for them.

"At promise" has been floating around for at least a decade. The  
earliest media reference I could find was in a September 1997  
Associated Press article about a mentoring program for junior high  
students in Norfolk, Neb. The term did not find fertile soil until  
2004, when motivational speaker and educational consultant Larry Bell  
used it often in a speech to a San Diego conference sponsored by  
SIATech, a nonprofit group that runs 14 Job Corps training centers in  
four states.

Two SIATech officials, Eileen Holmes and Linda Dawson, were so  
inspired that they started holding at-promise conferences. Then they  
established the Reaching At-Promise Students Association to spread the  
notion that every child has potential to improve.

Attention-grabbing labels frequently blossom in the education world,  
then wither away. This might be just one more. But that does not mean  
that the people embracing it are wrong.

Educators accept without thinking many concepts that encourage  
unhealthy policies. What about our focus on the achievement gap, which  
urges improvement for minority students but implies that white kids  
are doing well enough? Why not seek more achievement for all? Isn't  
that what the at-promise concept means?

The educators who have adopted this buzz phrase will be getting more  
than their share of taunting e-mails. At-promise students may lose the  
label before they knew they had it. But the teachers I know who do the  
most for kids are positive thinkers, just like the at-promise people.  
Maybe we should be, too.