Inspiration to me why i am a education policy management student negative year. Inspired by her every day i hope i dont have to do the wake up just to be like her. But that is just me she is wonderful and also, end im so lucky. My favorite educator and best mom to the stage. [applause] not every day are you able to be introduced by your daughter. Very cool. If anybody wants to get up. I believe very deeply they are raising teachers so give it up for them. [applause] so i have here to talk about the book you will all by because you dont make money writing books that you will buy it because the royalties go back to the kids and that is important to me for go live first book still the of royalties are going back to the art academy kids and so will this as well as here. It is important to buy it. And from independent bookstores as well. A one to know how many are you teaching right now as teachers . How many have never taught . How many have never led school scorer organizations . So i wrote this book to start a larger conversation to what will help students succeed. I am 83 at what it takes to really create access and equity in this country. We continue as a responsibility of the most will burble amongst us. Those with the least amount of access i wrote this book that is just not true. The hardest questions are not on the test so here is the story that was a lot of my motivation. One of my students at the arts academy graduated at the top of her class and was accepted to her dream Callers College with a scholarship a first and scholarship how many you firstgeneration kids . Disappointing there not more at harvard and there should be but for complicated reasons she never stepped foot on her college campus. She lost her scholarship this summer after high school because she missed a deadline to send in a deposit to hold her space. For reasons was of lack of experience and absence of capital and i am sure some of shame this one mistake had a dramatic effect on the course of schanita life that is the impetus for this new book. When i step down from the daytoday leadership of the academy and wanted to take a more critical look at what i had accomplished and examine some longheld assumptions. In those who had graduated to the people started that a spoken to dozens more. Schanita story was not the exception. And to all of you and those that go on to college to say yet like that. To golan to that conservatory but all of you will go on to college is the right promise to make it is still feel that way but the emphasis was wrong i did not do enough to promote Career Opportunities along with college and as i listen to my former students to be a clear refrain if we begin to interrogate them and this is the invitation of the book that i believe we can build better bridges the book is organized around these five by what you to know that many money is not an obstacle. Number two. Race doesnt matter. Just work harder. If you believe your dreams will come true. In the of statistics. End with nearly twothirds graduating they are extraordinary figures for any school all and those that did not go to college . And now wanted to a understand the journey. It is too easy that all students start in the same place and everyone has access to the same degree of knowledge as a recent New York Times article says coming at out just as they turn this into the publisher for young people with collegeeducated parents it could be stressful but there is a road map. And then to pay for the prep course. If tsa is lackluster they can hire the riding coach. If they cannot decide which is the best fit and then they will push them on. A few of these are in support for low income for firstgeneration students and that is what this is about. To assume those deep inequities can be overcome by individual effort and to just work harder we will be fine because there are sold many wonderful stories and i tell those stories. Many of you may have heard of dalian in the country we love. She was part of being interviewed for this book. But we make the assumption in that those that just lack determination are the reasons that people will not get ahead. And this pedagogy has been popularized in the school. In to critically examine that i will read a little excerpt from the book and read that behavioral expectations. I hope youll runout to buy the book to say grit is not what we need to be talking about right now. 253rd raiders as we know were about to begin the unit and with many braids and ribbons in her hair and asked is this where we get to see the snake walked out of the skin . Yes. We will see that and then to make sketches. Everyone nodded eagerly and a nervous excitement came through the class. Clearly this was a lesson they were eagerly anticipating. When we were ready sitting up and then to hold those clipboards. And to students in the back row were overtaken with the giggles and seem to have a hard time putting in the paper or pay attention. Clearly they were in a world of their own. And then run not paying attention. Suddenly the teacher said it is clear to me that the class is not ready to engage in learning. Lets go back to our desk until we have 100 percent engagement. You are not respecting the learning process you have completely forgotten about. Did you lose your back muscles . Tim many are slouching. I will hand out the merits. So no i will tell you know what slanting is . Set up, look, ask questions, and nod, a track of the speaker. Part of that gripped the those is that all kids know how to do that of the rand. The little girl with the braves was spurred were not showing respect. Her friend nodded. They quietly got to their seat with an air of the respondents and i really dont want a demerit when the class was dismissed for lunch the teacher demanded everybody lined up silently as they proceeded to do that cafeteria they pass the second grade class who were walking in hogs and abubble formation very common these days these eight roles held their arms crisscrossed like in a straitjacket their cheeks were puffed out as if they caught a bubble and they proceeded silently to the cafeteria where they would drop their arms. Five different classrooms in the cafeteria and all of them they ate in complete silence while the teachers wanted to the room. Now i will just drop because i do not tell you what schools these are from but this is not an Exceptional School i dont want you to think it is i visited many many schools like this. I inquired if this was a british river for bad behavior in and for that assignment lunch was a regular occurrence. We want students to have time in the day when they are quiet and peaceful but it felt anything but peaceful but more like a prison with the teachers on guard. I was stunned this was a regular practice. It is being a carefree kid not of a student in this school. As in many schools their young and white and female so what message does this send to kids who are not of the dominant culture . The school felt suppressive while making eye contact is not wrong the slant system is not contextualize to a variety of learning environments if used in the school is it an emphasis of behavior over active learning in other words you are considered a good lerner if you can demonstrate slant with this is a minimal condition for learning and in most situations. For many students this behavior has nothing to do with learning it is hard to teach they are cutting up in class but the Science Teacher had described they were trained to stop in the absence of 100 compliance. Later the teachers admitted she felt badly about her decision to abort the lesson in favor of behavior. In this school we believe if students are not practicing aslant them learning is compromised. You have to take care of the small things before the big things or nothing will get fixed. But this adherence to slant and i have witnessed in so many new excuse schools makes me wonder about the message we send to our young people. The word repressive kept coming to mind a little room existed for divergent thinking. The one that is opposite of the no excuses in the urban Public School in new york city i witnessed a group of eighth graders and what struck me in it addition to their professional level of discourse to raise some solace in the classroom some sat on top of their desk and others were on chairs not everyone was in a circle one participated in the discussion even though he looked angry the entire time. And other student sat at the teachers desk when i asked in the teacher if the seating arrangement was distracting to him or other students he looked at me curiously. Why should it matter how they set . If they are participating and respecting one anothers opinion . That is my goal. Can i talk to one another from the text . Can they find evidence from their points of view . But what about the facts not everybody is living by the same rules . Look. He began impatiently what i like everyone to sit in the circle . Of course. Do i want to sacrifice valuable time to be constantly reminding students . And more importantly do i want to make sure the classroom is the place where there is room . I know what is going on i know why they moved out of the circle the press the rest of the class doesnt care and i am not satisfied with his answer. I wanted to know if he had seen the practice is in no excuses schools where rules were quickly adhered to in teacher spelled teaching could begin. Of course. Many students have come from schools like that theyre asked to leave because they were not disciplined enough and held up his fingers he is still smarting from the memory of his last will and by the way you will see those ubiquitous College Posters on my walls my job is to teach students to think and i know it may sound political but to get them to think for themselves i agree with fact but i am not comfortable with a lack of structure or consequences in his classroom i wondered if that no excuses grit pedagogy could be used could ec how well behaved his students were in those schools was and he impressed with their test scores . Clearly they have learned to listen to one another but he countered i know many of my colleagues believe by following that formulas land with no excuses kids will get out of the ghetto but ill think theyre asking the students were the community that they come from what success looks like for them. What were missing is learning about selfdetermination and advocacy for oppressed people everywhereverywher e. And though it is a lot to ask the teachers but we cannot keep seeing ourselves as a historical being. We is teachers and white teachers in particular need to understand that students of color are in this situation because of systemic racism we have to critically examine how we might be perpetuating back. Mr. Johnson went on to describe how his students were doing in highschool the one that challenge we the of most are those who do the best and highschool and college. They know how to think critically and independently. So i asked if the no excuses planned intervention is successful . I question the longrange effectiveness and my question the implications by questions of training teachers in the is my bids with the benefit of lockstep learning may have been overrated with rates such as curiosity the boy is to giggle the most maybe the most curious lerners later on. The 21st century Critical Thinking collaboration and communication and creativity that employers and others that have that repetitive the economy are not wellsuited by that no excuses approach. Another assumption i address is one that says colleges for everyone. We know that is not true or realistic but we have done little in our schools to truly prepare students for careers that will allow them to leave middleclass lives. We must change our language to college and career ready move away from icn here in secondary schools which is everyone will go to college. My new call is success and dignity for all with the promise of earning a living wage. Or more succinctly college and career for all here are the national statistics. Fiftytwo of highschool graduates enroll in college and that means nearly half of the students do not. So in what kind of preparation are we giving them . To answer that question aisle of local and international and heres what i conclude. We must do a better job with career and Technical Education with internships and Work Experience while young people are in high school. Consider the neck statistic. It took me a long time to get this in my head and those with the highest employment rates come from families with income above 120,000. That teenagers with the highest employment rates here i am arguing for Work Experience, i come from the families with incomes over 120,000. We are perpetuating again and again in kahn inequality. Those young people from low income sectors are in greatest need of Work Experience but the least likely to receive it. In switzerland one of the countries i looked at as a counter example Students Experience a more cohesive approach and at least 50 percent of 16 through 19 yearold are involved in Vocational Education and one of the off hallmarks of the swiss system is it is permeable they can go back and forth between career and Technical Education and more academic education there is a sense that apprenticeships is the highest status to learn for are taught this level of education in some schools in our country but not nearly enough in the book i talk about one school 40 miles from here the Technical High School located in a workingclass Community Just outside of boston. Here is what one student said for using college as a place to grow what is very expensive. I am glad i have been exposed to so many different areas to specialize. And others didnt tell me he was graduating from the Health Program and was certified as a nursing assistant but now new he did not like patient care he will now go to college to major in Clinical Lab Science and found he did not like director service work but the Science Behind the disease my guess that the written another book of my experience of Public Schools career and Technical Vocational High School told such promise and underfunded for over three decades i truly believe having a strong sense of what youre interested in pursuing in college or a career of technical programs needs to become the focus of highschool across this country. In the book i talk about the forprofit schools because they come in to say they filled the gap but the Horror Stories of my alums was enough to move me very quickly away from them although i did try in some cases to look at them. Elizabeth warren the senator from massachusetts has a web site that serves as a watchdog and urges us to stay vigilant especially in a time where forprofit colleges are coming back so in the book i have many suggestions how we can reinvigorate careers and one of the things i spent some time discussing is the need to reinvest Community Colleges and redress in sure that theyll have Work Experience. Not just middle and upper class. Not Just Community service but a real commitment and i even suggest once service year for all americans a National Program where they have the chance between high school and college as part of their senior year to work deeply in daily in an area that speaks to their passion. Those who know me i take on this countrys current obsession with testing this is one of reasons no longer room in the curriculum for career in Technical Education. We have become so focused on shrinking and sorting students we have lost sight of the importance of teaching empathy and how to get along with those different from you at a time when the Democratic Institutions daily in mind to believe her curriculum focused on Student Agency and activism can help prepare young people to enter a world in which they have the tools to reshape the reality. We must continue to embrace of largest purpose of education to tell our young people understand the context of their lives including the cultural linguistic history as well as the of lives of those that our different from themselves. I know from seeing these young people with education in the arts does just that in the increasingly complex world we need to ensure the young people graduate from school can walk in one anothers shoes and to embrace languages and cultures and movements that our foreign to our own culture and learn to express connections through drawings and paintings to present those differences from becoming impediments to change. It is our job to help young people critically perceive the world the way it exist in the world and not as a reality but in the process of information even in the era of trump i remain hopeful in large part from the generation of students that i have taught and will continue to teach. My hope is further strengthened because of the raising teachers i have known who continue to do such amazing work each day. They create classrooms where they can realize their collective dreams. I hope the book gives tools to keep fighting. Thank you. [applause] i promised a student i would read her email to me on the radio a couple weeks ago. Dear ms. Nathan what a surprise i was listening to npr when i heard your name then your book i almost 32 cry it is a joy to hear it was not my fault that i did not make it. Hearing this silent tears of the struggle that many of us go through to make it through college and never do. Questions . [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] i talk about performing too understated the importance but what i take on in the book is the Unhealthy Alliance the schools have made them particularly those in an urban schools so the idea of working together is critical but that it is your fault the you dont succeed is not true. Can you address Teacher Retention . I ask because you describe those to teachers and to figure how to prioritize educational issues and my experience everything in the classroom is a negotiation but if you stay with it long enough between three and eight years you have a nuanced sense of what those tradeoffs are and then to say this is the line in the sand i dont care if use it this way but to day shall be the difference of a fact and opinion and it is a multiyear negotiation this is what i negotiate in this what i dont that when young people leave the field they dont reach that point to deal with that chaos and reality of a changing classroom. Not in this book but all of my work it took me eight years so of you have not gotten there my students your read this at the beginning of this semester. Eight years to be a good teacher then you can Start Talking about what you want to do. We have to get a lot better with Teacher Retention year three you were just getting your feet between three and eight you begin to figure out years number eight you can start to do some good work. Thanks for your comment. Students to Start College and then leave how do they make it back in . There isnt a lot of capital for nontraditional students. That is what started this. It is a real tragedy. I have too many alums that are out there and i tell the story of one still working to pay off those loans. One story i talk about is those not on scholarship can drop the class and take in the summer the with a scholarship they cannot say double jeopardize the students with the least experience. The book is a critique of higher education. I was appalled in this 21st century ad the lack of infrastructure for firstgeneration kids one of my students said if higher ed was evaluated the way the case through 12 than half of the colleges would be shut down they except as but dont graduate us. This isnt about you personally but through financial the kids tell me that i document they are here raising it took me calling a College President of one of my alums who did not have the wherewithal to do her Health Insurance bill to get her back in grootes a junior in college. This is not exceptional this is the hard part. I had hoped during the Obama Presidency we would do a massive Loan Forgiveness Program and we have not so we have so many young people out there still trying to pay back College Loans and they will never get a College Degree and that should send alarm bells every where. That is a lot of what i wrote about. Things for the question i am glad your in the work hopefully you can change your institution. Let me know how i can help. So students that are attending college if they provide this information of how to navigate the cost . Highschool can do some hand we do and i argue for a better bridge but when i was trying to say is that colleges have gotten off so easy on this that they dont think it is their responsibility but it is. I had a terrible beating sun years ago with the admissions people from boston area colleges and i did it to bring us together and it was so clear to me that the college did not think it was their responsibility you send us them prepared and we will take them but i dont think that is successful. This book tells me that it is not. Thanks for your question. Hi linda. How are you . As an eight year teacher banks for that comment. [laughter] i would like to ask you the issue of the internships and Vocational Education to help us move past the college for all model to focus on career and location of fields of all students you mention in madison park in particular and ultimately underfunding is one thing but do you feel there is room for internships for Apprenticeships Store parttime Work Experience or introduction of Vocational Education to those of a younger age . Many students have begun to solidify their identity prior to 14. Interestingly when i started in the late 70s as a middle School Teacher we were required to teach Career Education we also had woodworking we have gotten rid of some of those that were the most important to all seventh and eighth graders they had to do internships. There used to be a program where many traders often did one weeklong internship. These are not new ideas. I dont say i am so smart to figure it out but to say we have to bring this back that we did very well in the past. It is critical middle schools and highschool star places where kids can begin to model what if i did this as a career . Because what they see in their family and neighborhood is limited so i do believe this is where it is prek12 responsibility to broaden the curriculum. What you said about grit as that itos with that double paula deen spoke to me also as a growth mindset so how do you explore that . Thank you i talk about mindset and i go back to where these ideas came together and ionize the tried to run package them. There is nothing wrong with the idea to persevere or to be tenacious. Grit is not a bad thing but what is bad the way we have taken this and so many classrooms that i visit to tell the stories just be greedier with the pitchers on the of bulletin board. What about max just being nice today . But there is nothing wrong with the growth mindset. I just want us to critically examine the way we swallow this wholesale. I do try to be nice. Im not trying to bash anybody. She is a psychologist. I dont know if she knew her work would be taken by what she did. Dont feel that you have to start asking questions we can sell books. [laughter] with those observations in massachusetts you mentioned their teacher had more of a of a loose environment so im curious to know did you observe like with gender the male teacher command something different. I saw a lot of very disturbing male teachers. Im not sure i differentiate that is interesting and i dont think i saw men commanding better or worse than women horror being more akin to gripped philosophy youre not. I will have to think about that. Thanks for the presentation you made wonderful points. So just to reflect the nature of the opportunities available to 40 percent of the population reynaud. Color immigrants or African Americans and the impact of racial or economic oppression in the you have spoken of has come the holiday looking at education and also what we need to be doing because talking about Vocational Education but if there are not decent jobs meeting the needs of the communities instead of corporations destroying communities what does that mean for the educational system or a progressive system . And we need to emphasize more the up power of community i mean from which they come. To be equally if not more important than the power of educators and teachers and administrators and social workers because it being agreed devalued to underestimate the capacity of the indigenous leadership within the community. Very few people would say they are recognizing the incredible capabilities of those in the community that are holding up their communities despite the horrible assaults on these communities. Maybe a way to consider moving Forward Spending more time talking about creating opportunities parents or people who may never have the opportunity to go to school but from the community to work with teachers and students to begin offering darr it is what we can do to change education. I think were missing a fundamental step people from the community with students and parents to come together thanks for those comments. What other reasons i wanted to start with young people is that the kids are working together to figure out the leadership issue. , a. Hello. I am the great fan of your parents they invited me to come and through them i emigrate fan of you and i have visited you and have seen you in action for a whole day so i think youre terrific and the you are really onto something. She is not paid. [laughter] so i want to take you up on something that you mentioned which honestly didnt feel was as important but now why do the importance of internships for students even Elementary School but middle school and highschool. This is the experience that i had now i am wishing this could be replicated in other places. For a number of years i worked for harvard one of my positions was as the assistant director at the kennedy school. One day we look bad education in social policy and health this was primarily at masters and doctorate levels. One day the head of the center was a grudge with of the School Called me in to say ive just met with someone here in my office now i want you to meet him he is the head of the Work Force Program in cambridge. I really think we should put our money where our mouth is to take on one of the students through this program and that started i think a most Rewarding Partnership that went on for all of the years to be with the center for god and she said we will take one of the students. So from cambridge Public Housing and most of them maybe a few eighth graders but all in Public Housing so we took our First Student and she was fabulous was her supervisor but we gave her projects to do for the center as Research Centers and she got to know about our research and administration with the. Cspan party and invited us to go to which. I will cut you off because we have a few other questions i think your point is wonderful. But very briefly of want to say that this did we had the longest was for rea and were in touch we helped her to apply to colleges she went to college and the same thing happened to her she got into a terrible debt with credit cards and could not pay them off and had to drop out but it took over eight years to graduate and at that time to be sponsored by the state was a program in the summertime for kids in cambridge at a certain income level so then we could employ eight at a time for special programs for them and wish we could do more now. Now we will take one more question. Many people may say to the pendulum is swinging the opposite way and now that is their relevance to one wonder how the wind gauge that . The second part is i talked here in cambridge and i found interesting that schools and progressive schools provide students with handson experience of carpentry or internships they do not call that vocational but yet they leave students with negative leave with these experiences with the social economics and wonder is an added repackaging . College it crafts or arts. That is vibrant. I will do the first question. I am as aware as anyone about tracking these historically perpetuating schools for the black and brown kids who could not go to college per gram very appreciative the term is no longer vocational and if you went out 40 minutes you would see a dumpy building but it is data of the art and not just plumbing or carpentry or cosmetology that we tend to think about the strongest is life and Health Sciences though kids are truly leaving with job skills. If you think of all of the design in visual communication kinds of skills i am very proud the center is now a career and Technical High School. And visual communication is the other. Our kids can graduate now with a certificate going right into the workforce. If we can love your ideas to repackage that all kids can have as a parent in cambridge it lost its accreditation a few years back now with his back with the idea that all ninth graders should take the exploratory as part of their curriculum to go through different studios. Maybe if we use that word instead of career or technical will get us further faster. The lights are hot you have been sitting want to make sure that i selling thank you so much. [applause] [inaudible conversations]. So the questions theyre going to ask me but when we were promoting adios america with the Trump Campaign i was down in los angeles where they canceled on me and i found out early one saturday morning in the middle of the summer instantly they picked up instantly that was so wonderful you really are wonderful editor always available and i did go back with five counts of misdemeanor a misdemeanor with gregory. But that has always been famously of thursday fantastic books they would publish something one of which was my favorite was about senator kennedy but he was kicked off of the kennedy thing after the chappaquiddick river so years later and no new york publisher would touch it and then it is 27 weeks on the New York Times list but 27 other publishers turned it down but regnery publishes it. So the way things that are going now every day that somehow that facebook page. [laughter] if you live in america in 2016 you could not drive up my old without seeing a sixfoot donald trump signed. [inaudible conversations] good