SEPTEMBER 2001

FSU WORKS TO SAVE 'F' SCHOOLS

A small band of Florida State researchers is quietly throwing public school teachers a lifeline.
In inner cities in Dade County, a research team targets educators in at-risk schools, where math and science teachers struggle to re-engage seemingly impossible students.
And they believe they're turning the tide.
"Rather than throw these people away, [why not] try to help them?" said David Foulk, an FSU curriculum and instruction professor, who directs the tea-cher program.

At the heart of Foulk's mission is a revamping of the way science and math are taught and bringing tactics and hope to weary veteran teachers.

The program began in 1997 as a partnership with the Miami-Dade schools, the nation's fifth largest school district.

The goal was to rescue those district schools the state graded as failing-schools having poor standardized testing results-and in danger of losing state money. To do that, the group-a mix of math and science instructors and graduate students, along with mathematicians, physicists and chemists-set about retooling the classroom approach of math and science teachers.

The group addresses course content and teaching methods. Foulk said teachers learn to give their kids "real world" problem-solving experience, such as family budget planning or start-up business projections.

There are now 189 teachers in the program, an intensive, two-year course of study combining internet coursework and on-site instruction. The teachers continue to work while in the program.

About 400 teachers have graduated, Foulk estimated. The program is free for participating teachers and is paid for by a grant from the National Science Foundation, with additional support from the United Teachers of Dade, the FSU College of Education and the Office of the FSU Provost.  

  The second group graduated Aug. 11, when the teachers received master's degrees or specialist's degrees.
Ted Yntema, an elementary school science teacher in the Overtown section of Miami, said the program was the hardest thing he'd ever done, "because it's about becoming the teacher you want to be instead of the teacher you've been pushed into the mold to be."

The 20-year veteran of teaching elementary science said the program focused heavily on "self-analysis," in addition to coursework content.

He said he found his own "authentic way to teach," and he believes there is no single best way.

While educators may cite social or economic backgrounds as a way to explain low test scores, Yntema doesn't agree.
"That's not acceptable for a teacher," he said. "The students are capable," providing the teachers can tap that capability.
"The best we can do is make progress. We've pushed and pushed and pushed, but we're still a 'D' school."

And so they push harder.

The FSU program taught Yntema "to highly value what your students bring to the classroom, not to be the passive person but to be very active," he said.

According to Foulk, the FSU program has helped rescue failing schools, though many are still tagged "at-risk." Foulk said the scores began to improve when teachers were passing through the program.

Schools once rated as "F," or those whose students' scores in reading, math and science fell below established standards, are now passing. Had they continued to fail, the schools would have lost more state money.

"Anytime you energize the faculty...[there is an] automatic increase in performance," he said, especially in inner cities, where it's "a tough grind and a very tough teaching environment."

Yntema couldn't agree more.

"The thing I can see in teachers [is] a heightened level of satisfaction in their work," he said. "A desire to be at school every day is really the best fruit from this course."-Michelle Hayes

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