Education Resources

Andragogy

Andragogy a term originally used by Alexander Kapp (a German educator) in 1833, was developed into a theory of adult education by the American educator Malcolm Knowles (April 24, 1913 — November 27, 1997).

Knowles held that androgogy (from the Greek words meaning “man-leading”) should be distinguished from the more commonly used pedagogy (Greek: “child-leading”).

Knowles’ theory can be stated as four simple postulates [1]and [2]:

1. Adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction (Self-concept and Motivation to learn).
2. Experience (including mistakes) provides the basis for learning activities (Experience).
3. Adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance to their job or personal life (Readiness to learn).
4. Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented (Orientation to learning).

Knowles’ work (most notably the book Self-Directed Learning: A Guide for Learners and Teachers, published in 1975) has been controversial. To some, his proposed system states the obvious, to others, he has merely proposed an adaptation of existing child-learning theories.

The term has been used by some to allow a discussion of the difference between self directed and ‘taught’ education. However as the attitude of society towards young people change the differences in educational methods will tend to diminish (self directed education being encouraged in earlier age groups).

See also

• Educational psychology
• Educational technology

References

• Knowles, M. (1975). Self-Directed Learning. Chicago: Follet. ISBN 0842822151
• Knowles, M. (1984). The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species (3rd Ed.). Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing. ISBN 0884151158
• Knowles, M. (1984). Andragogy in Action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 0608217948

External links

• One of several useful pages on learning theories from the Theory into Practice Database
• Knowles’ Curriculum Vita
• Biography of Knowles from Informal Education Encyclopaedia of lifelong learning
• Statement of principles by Dr. Knowles
• Description of Andragogy from the encylopaedia of informal education and lifelong learning

Apprenticeship

“Apprentice” redirects here. There is also a reality show called The Apprentice.

Apprenticeship is a traditional method, still popular in some countries, of training a new generation of skilled crafts practitioners. Apprentices (or in early modern usage “prentices”) build their careers from apprenticeships. Most of their training is on the job, working for an employer who helps the apprentices learn their trade, art or craft. Less formal, theoretical education is involved.

The system of apprenticeship first developed in the later Middle Ages and came to be supervised by craft guilds and town governments. A master craftsman was entitled to employ young people as an inexpensive form of labour in exchange for providing formal training in the craft. Most apprentices were males, but female apprentices can be found in a number of crafts associated with embroidery, silk-weaving etc. Apprentices were young (usually about fourteen to twenty-one years of age), unmarried and would live in the master craftsman’s household. Most apprentices aspired to becoming master craftsmen themselves on completion of their contract (usually a term of seven years), but some would spend time as a journeyman and a significant proportion would never acquire their own workshop.

Subsequently governmental regulation and the licensing of polytechnics and vocational education formalised and bureaucratised the details of apprenticeship.

Universities still echo apprenticeship schemes in their production of scholars: bachelors are promoted to masters and then produce a thesis under the oversight of a supervisor before the corporate body of the university recognises the reaching of the standard of a doctorate. The modern concept of internship is also analogous.

Also similar to apprenticeships are the professional development arrangements for new graduates in the professions of accountancy and the law (that is, lawyers), a British example was training contracts known as ‘articles of clerkship’.

Contents 1 United Kingdom 2 Germany 3 France 4 See also 5 Further reading 6 External links

United Kingdom

Apprenticeships have a long tradition in the United Kingdom’s education system. In early modern England ‘parish’ apprenticeships under the Poor Law came to be used as a way of providing for poor children of both sexes alongside the regular system of apprenticeships, which tended to provide for boys from slightly more affluent backgrounds.

In modern times, the system became less and less important, especially as employment in heavy industry and artisan trades declined. Traditional apprenticeships reached their lowest point in the 1970s: by that time, training programmes were rare and people who were apprentices learnt mainly by example. In 1986, National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) were introduced, in an attempt to revitalise vocational training. Still, by 1990, apprenticeship took up only two-thirds of one percent of total employment.

In 1994, the government introduced Modern Apprenticeships (in England - but not Scotland or Wales - the name was changed to Apprenticeships in 2004), again to try to improve the image of work-based learning and to encourage young people and employers to participate. (Modern) Apprenticeships are based on frameworks devised initially by National Training Organisations and now by their successors, Sector Skills Councils, state-sponsored but supposedly ‘employer-led’ bodies responsible for defining training requirements in their sector (such as Business Administration or Accounting). Frameworks consist of National Vocational Qualifications, a technical certificate and Key Skills including literacy and numeracy. Those who complete all elements of the framework receive a certificate, but the Apprenticeship is not a discrete qualification.

There are now more than 160 Apprenticeship frameworks (2005). Unlike traditional apprenticeships, the current scheme extends beyond ‘craft’ and skilled trades to areas of the service sector with no apprenticeship tradition. Employers who participate in the scheme have an employment contract with their apprentices, but off-the-job training and assessment is wholly funded by the state through various agencies - formerly the Training and Enterprise Councils, now the Learning and Skills Council in England or its equivalents in Scotland and Wales. These agencies contract with ‘learning providers’ who organise and/or deliver training and assessment services to employers. Providers are usually private training companies but might also be Further Education colleges, voluntary sector organisations, Chambers of Commerce or employer ‘Group Training Associations’; only about 5 % of apprenticeships are directly contracted with single employers participating in the scheme. There is no minimum time requirement for apprenticeships, although the average time spent completing a framework is roughly 21 months.

In 2000 the Government established the Modern Apprenticeships Advisory Committee (MAAC) to recommend ‘how best to ensure that the quality of Modern Apprenticeships fully matches the standards set by leading nations worldwide’ . Its 2001 report noted that ‘England currently does not have a strong apprenticeships system’; critical weaknesses identified included: declining participation by young people; low completion rates, with only about a third of all apprentices completing their frameworks; and weaknesses in training, assessment and data collection. Many young people and employers were still unaware of exactly what an apprenticeship involved.

Changes recommended by the Committee at first seemed to have little effect: between 2000 and 2003, the number of people starting apprenticeships fell from 76,800 to 47,300. In 2001, just over one fifth of young people under age 22 took up an apprenticeship: of these, only 33% actually completed it, making approximately 7% of young British people under 22 who completed an apprenticeship in 2001. Between 2001/02 and 2004/05, however, the percentage of young people completing apprenticeships rose from 24% to 39% and in 2005 it was announced that the target of getting 28% of 16-21 year olds to start an apprenticeship had been met. Recognising that demand for apprenticeship places exceeds supply from employers, and that many young people, parents and employers still associate apprenticeship with craft trades and manual occupations, the Government developed a major marketing campaign in 2004.

Refinement of the Apprenticeship system continues - in 2005 the Learning and Skills Council, Department for Education and Skills, and Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, together with their equivalents in Wales and the Sector Skills Councils, launched the Apprenticeship Blueprint for England and Wales, which revises and redefines the essential and flexible elements of an apprenticeship framework.[1]

Germany

Apprenticeships are part of Germany’s successful dual education system, and as such form an integral part of many people’s working life. Young people can learn one of 356 (2005) apprenticeship occupations (Ausbildungsberufe), such as Doctor’s Assistant, Banker, Dispensing Optician or Oven Builder. The dual system means that apprentices spend most of their time in companies and the rest in formal education. Usually, they work for three to four days a week in the company and then spend one or two days at a vocational school (Berufsschule). These Berufsschulen have been part of the education system since the 19th century.

In 1969, a law (the Berufsausbildungsgesetz) was passed which regulated and unified the vocational training system and codified the shared responsibility of the state, the unions, associations and chambers of trade and industry. The dual system was successful in both parts of divided Germany: in the GDR, three quarters of the working population had completed apprenticeships.

Although the rigid training system of the GDR, linked to the huge collective combines, did not survive reunification, the system remains popular in modern Germany: in 2001, two thirds of young people aged under 22 began an apprenticeship, and 78% of them completed it, meaning that approximately 51% of all young people under 22 have completed an apprenticeship. One in three companies offered apprenticeships in 2003; in 2004 the government signed a pledge with industrial unions that all companies except very small ones must take on apprentices.

The precise skills and theory taught on apprenticeships are strictly regulated, meaning that everyone who has, for example, had an apprenticeship as an Industriekaufmann (someone who works in an industrial company as a personnel assistant or accountant, etc) has learned the same skills and had the same courses in procurement and stocking up, cost and activity accounting, staffing, accounting procedures, production, profit and loss accounting and various other subjects. The employer is responsible for the entire programme; apprentices are not allowed to be employed and have only an apprenticeship contract. The time taken is also regulated; each occupation learnt takes a different time, but the average is 35 months. People who have not taken this apprenticeship are not allowed to call themselves an Industriekaufmann; the same is true for all the 356 occupations.

France

In France, apprenticeships also developed between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, with guilds structured around apprentices, journeymen and master craftsmen, continuing in this way until 1791, when the guilds were suppressed.

In 1851 the first law on apprenticeships came into force. From 1919, young people had to take 150 hours of theory and general lessons in their subject a year. This minimum training time rose to 360 hours a year in 1961, then 400 in 1986.

The first training centres for apprentices (centres de formation d’apprentis, CFAs) appeared in 1961, and in 1971 apprenticeships were legally made part of professional training. In 1986 the age limit for beginning an apprenticeship was raised from 20 to 25. From 1987 the range of qualifications achieveable through an apprenticeship was widened to include the brevet professionnel (certificate of vocational aptitude), the bac professionnel (vocational baccalaureat diploma), the brevet de technicien supérieur(advanced technician’s certificate), engineering diplomas and more.

On January 18, 2005, President Jacques Chirac announced the introduction of a law on a programme for social cohesion comprising the three pillars of employment, housing and equal opportunities. The French government pledged to further develop apprenticeship as a path to success at school and to employment, based on its success: in 2005, 80% of young French people who had completed an apprenticeship entered employment. In France, the term denotes manual labor only. The plan aimed to raise the number of apprentices from 365,000 in 2005 to 500,000 in 2009. To achieve this aim, the government is, for example, granting tax relief for companies when they take on apprentices. (Since 1925 a tax has been levied to pay for apprenticeships.) The minister in charge of the campaign, Jean-Louis Borloo, also hoped to improve the image of apprenticeships with an information campaign, as they are often connected with academic failure at school and an ability to grasp only practical skills and not theory. After the civil unrest end of 2005, the government, led by prime minister Dominique de Villepin, announced a new law. Dubbed “law on equality of chances”, it created the First Employment Contract as well as manual apprenticeship as soon as 14 years old. From this age, students are allowed to quit the compulsory school system in order to quickly learn a vocation. This measure has long been a revendication of conservative French political parties, and was met by tough opposition from trade unions and students.

See also

• Education
• German model
• Guild
• Indentured servant
• Journeyman
• Tradesman
• Vocational education

Further reading

• Modern Apprenticeships: the way to work, The Report of the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee, 2001 [2]
• Apprenticeship in the British “Training Market”, Paul Ryan and Lorna Unwin, University of Cambridge and University of Leicester, 2001 [3]
• Creating a ‘Modern Apprenticeship’: a critique of the UK’s multi-sector, social inclusion approach Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin, 2003 (pdf)
• Apprenticeship systems in England and Germany: decline and survival. Thomas Deissinger in: Towards a history of vocational education and training (VET) in Europe in a comparative perspective, 2002 (pdf)
• European vocational training systems: the theoretical context of historical development. Wolf-Dietrich Greinert, 2002 in Towards a history of vocational education and training (VET) in Europe in a comparative perspective. (pdf)
• Apprenticeships in the UK- their design, development and implementation, Miranda E Pye, Keith C Pye, Dr Emma Wisby, Sector Skills Development Agency, 2004 (pdf)
• L’apprentissage a changé, c’est le moment d’y penser !, Ministère de l’emploi, du travail et de la cohésion sociale, 2005

External links

• Facts about Germany: Apprenticeships, Federal Foreign Office
• Apprenticeships - a great idea (UK)
• UK Apprenticeships, on “Edexcel” site
• L’Apprenti, in French
• Article on the history of apprenticeship in the U.S. from EH.NET
• Barry Yeoman, Academic Apprentices: Still an Ideal?, Duke Magazine

Autodidacticism

Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-education or self-directed learning. An autodidact, also known as an automath, is a mostly self-taught person — typically someone who has an enthusiasm for self-education and a high degree of self-motivation. Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan and Newton’s contemporary Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz were largely self-taught in mathematics. Occasionally, individuals have sought to excel in subjects outside the mainstream of conventional education. Jean Paul Sartre’s Nausea depicts an autodidact who is a self-deluding dilettante. Other autodidacts have excelled within, and brought innovative perspectives to, their more mainstream disciplines. For example, physicist and Judo expert Moshe Feldenkrais developed an autodidactic method of self-improvement based on his own experience with self-directed learning in physiology and neurology. His was motivated by his own crippling knee injury. In addition to Feldenkrais, Gerda Alexander, William Bates, Heinrich Jacoby and a number of other 20th-century European innovators worked out methods of self-development which stressed intelligent sensitivity and awareness.

A person may become an autodidact at nearly any point in his or her life. While some may have been educated in a conventional manner in a particular field, they may choose to educate themselves in other, often unrelated areas. It should be noted that self-teaching and self-directed learning are not necessarily lonely processes. Some autodidacts spend a great deal of time in libraries or on educative Web sites. Many, according to their plan for learning, avail themselves of instruction from family members, friends, or other associates (although strictly speaking this might not be considered autodidactic). Indeed, the term ’self-taught’ is something of a journalistic trope these days, and is all too often used to signify ‘non-traditionally educated’, which is entirely different.

Inquiry into autodidacticism has implications for learning theory, educational research, educational philosophy, and educational psychology.

Contents 1 Famous autodidacts 2 The Ignorant Schoolmaster 3 Autodidacticism quotations 4 Books 5 See also 6 External links

Famous autodidacts

Mythologist Joseph Campbell is one of the most famous autodidacts, and is seen by some as a poster-boy for autodidacticism. Following completion of his masters degree, Campbell decided not to go forward with his plans to earn a doctorate, and he went into the woods in upstate New York, reading deeply for five years. According to Campbell, this is, in a sense, where his real education took place, and the time when he began to develop his unique view on the nature of life.

According to poet and author Robert Bly, a friend of Campbell, Campbell developed a systematic program of reading nine hours a day. It is speculated by some that Campbell felt the work he did during this time was far more rigorous than any doctoral program could have been, and more fruitful in developing his unique perspectives.

For a listing of famous autodidacts see Category:Autodidacts.

The Ignorant Schoolmaster

In The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Jacques Rancière describes the emancipatory education of Joseph Jacotot, a post-Revolutionary philosopher of education who discovered that he could teach things he did not know (for instance, Jacotot taught Flemish students to speak French without speaking any Flemish himself). The book is both a history and a contemporary intervention in the philosophy and politics of education, through the concept of autodidactism; Rancière chronicles Jacotot’s “adventures,” but he articulates Jacotot’s theory of “emancipation” and “stultification” in the present tense. .

Autodidacticism quotations

• “Institutions are not pretty. Show me a pretty government. Healing is wonderful, but the American Medical Association? Learning is wonderful, but universities? The same is true for religion… religion is institutionalized spirituality.” – Huston Smith [1]
• “If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” – Joseph Campbell
• Actress Jada Pinkett Smith said of the Matrix directors: “The Wachowski Brothers are very unique. They are probably– Larry and Andy are probably two of the smartest people I know. Larry reads everything. He reads everything. I mean, everything, you know what I mean. One thing I learned through Larry, through Andy also, is that life is about research. Larry, he’s constantly researching. And he’s constantly reading and that’s one thing that I’ve taken away from this project, that life is about research.”
• “The new age of education is programmed for discovery rather than instruction. Art as radar environment, radar feedback, early warning system: the antennae of the race.” – Marshall McLuhan
• “My education was of the most ordinary description, consisting of little more than the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic at a common day school. My hours out of school were passed at home and in the streets.” – Michael Faraday, who had little mathematics and no formal schooling beyond the primary grades, is celebrated as an experimenter who discovered the induction of electricity. He was one of the great founders of modern physics. It is generally acknowledged that Faraday’s ignorance of mathematics contributed to his inspiration, that it compelled him to develop a simple, nonmathematical concept when he looked for an explanation of his electrical and magnetic phenomena. Faraday is considered by some to have possessed two qualities that more than made up for his lack of traditional education: fantastic intuition, and independence and originality of mind.
• “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” – Albert Einstein
• “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” – Albert Einstein
• “I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker… I never learned anything at all in school and didn’t read a book for pleasure until I was 19 years old.” – Stanley Kubrick
• “I never let schooling get in the way of my education.” – Mark Twain

Books

• The Passion To Learn: An Inquiry into Autodidactism by Joan Solomon ISBN 0415304180
• SELF-UNIVERSITY: The Price of Tuition is the Desire to Learn. Your Degree is a Better life. by Charles D. Hayes ISBN 0962197904
• The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education by Grace Llewellen ISBN 0962959170
• The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation (Stanford Univ. Press, 1991) by Jacques Rancière ISBN 0804719691
• The Day I Became an Autodidact by Kendall Hailey ISBN 0385296363

See also

• Unschooling
• Jacques Rancière

External links

• Autodidactic.com (Publisher)
• Autodidactproject.org (personal website)
• Autodidacticism

Blended learning

Blended learning is the combination of multiple approaches to pedagogy or teaching. For example:- self-paced, collaborative or inquiry-based study. Blended learning can be accomplished through the use of ‘blended’ virtual and physical resources. Examples include combinations of technology-based materials and traditional print materials.

The concept of blended learning has particular relevance to language learning (see point 8 below).

Contents 1 Current usage of the term 2 Alternative usage of the term 3 “Pre e-learning” and “non e-learning” usages 4 Current non-e-learning-based blended learning 5 An example that may help you grasp the idea 6 A better example 7 A Model used by Language Schools 8 See also 9 External links

Current usage of the term

With today’s prevalence of high technology in many countries, blended learning often refers specifically to the provision or use of resources which combine e-learning (electronic) or m-learning (mobile) with other educational resources.

Some would claim that key blended-learning arrangements can also involve e-mentoring or e-tutoring.

These arrangements tend to combine an electronic learning component with some form of human intervention, although the involvement of an e-mentor or an e-tutor does not necessarily need to be in the context of e-learning. E-mentoring or e-tutoring can also be provided as part of a “stand alone” (”un-blended”) e-tutoring or e-mentoring arrangement.

Researchers Heinze and Procter have developed the following definition for Blended Learning in higher education:

Blended Learning is learning that is facilitated by the effective combination of different modes of delivery, models of teaching and styles of learning, and founded on transparent communication amongst all parties involved with a course.

A major criticism of such a definition revolves around their rigid insistence upon features such as “communication”, “transparency”, “parties” and “courses”. These features do not necessarily have clear or unambiguous meaning in environments outside that of higher (or other institutionalised) education systems. In other words, the definition fails to acknowledge environments where blended learning does not raise issues of “transparency of communication” in the way it is envisaged in the institutional definition. This might refer to artificial intelligence systems, or animal training systems, which can be involved in blended learning since they employ combined resources. More on this definition can be found at this site

It should also be noted that some authors talk about “hybrid learning” (this seems to be more common in Northern American sources) or “mixed learning”. However, all of these concepts broadly refer to the integration (the “blending”) of e-learning tools and techniques with traditional methods. Two important factors to consider are the time spent on online activities and the amount of technology used. This can be seen in definition “Conception of Blended Learning” at http://www.aheinze.me.uk

Alternative usage of the term

The term “blended learning” can also be used to describe arrangements in which “conventional”, offline, non-electronic based instruction happens to include online tutoring or mentoring services.

This combination of e-tutoring plus conventional learning, although it is a perfectly valid example of blended learning, is the “opposite way round” to most current blended learning arrangements, in that the solution is driven by conventional learning techniques, not by the electronic techniques.

“Pre e-learning” and “non e-learning” usages

As with many things prefixed with ‘e-’ (originally standing for “electronic”, but eventually more specifically applied to the involvement of computer-based or more recently Internet-based technology) the e-learning aspect of blended learning can often mislead the unwary into believing that it is the defining constituent of ‘multi-resource’ educational approaches.

Those involved in school education (as opposed to many of those responsible for developing occupational training resources) are often more familiar with ‘combined resource’ educational tools that do not necessarily involve computer technology:

• Classroom based audio-tape resources (language laboratories);
• Auditorium multimedia visual resources (movie projectors, slideshows, VCRs);
• Textual resources: textbooks, exercise books (although these are obviously the mainstay of traditional school educational resources, they are actually a neglected and under-valued potential component of e-learning-based blended learning);
• Home-learning resources (video recordings, audio recordings);
• Blackboard and whiteboard resources, including high-tech “printing whiteboards” and “online whiteboards”;
• Demonstration resources, including “museum exhibits”, “laboratory experiments”, live theatre, historic re-enactment, hands-on workshops, role-playing, etc;
• Non-instructional education resources, such as examination, quizzes, invigilation, test-grading, etc.

The above, whilst they do not include e-learning, are nonetheless potential constituents of a blended learning approach.

Similarly, in the same way that “non-human resources” which are not e-learning are not included in many blended learning solutions, the human component of an e-learning-based blended learning arrangement does not need to be “high-tech”.

Interaction with a human being in blended learning solutions is typically delivered through real-time chat systems or online message boards or email. However, telephone contact with a tutor or trainer may be just as effective and potentially far more reassuring to the learner.

Current non-e-learning-based blended learning

Sometimes, especially in IT training, learners may use computers as a training resource in a conventional classroom setting. The presence of a classroom tutor often tends to prevent training delivered in this way from being labelled as e-learning or blended learning.

This kind of instructor-led training can itself be conducted completely online, using email, chat or message boards. While there is a sense in which this not really “blended” (it ultimately constitutes just a single “delivery method”), the combination of human teacher and online interaction can certainly be thought of under the blended learning umbrella, especially if the online interaction is conducted using some of the more sophisticated online interactive whiteboard tools like NetMeeting.

An example that may help you grasp the idea

From BlendedLearning

Blended learning is nothing new! Teachers have been using versions of it all the time. Many people use the term ‘hybrid learning’ or ‘combined resource’ teaching to describe similar concepts. Really, it’s just mixing teaching and or facilitation methods, learning styles, resource formats, a range of technologies and a range of expertise into a learning stream. For example, it could simply mean wheeling a TV into a class and screening a relevant DVD. There! You have mixed a potentially engaging technology with what might have otherwise been a standard lecture style presentation. But this hardly rates as a full blending learning experience.

A better example

From BlendedLearning

What if a DVD, or particular scenes in that DVD, were used to prompt a class discussion on a particular issue? While the class discussed the issue face-to-face, 3 of the students might take the opportunity to peruse a class wiki website? At the end of the discussion each student could be tasked for the week to go and research further areas of particular interest and note what they found in their weblogs. The class discussion might continue through an eGroup and weblog comments, including home-schooled students online. The teacher could moderate the weblog entries and prompt students to update the wiki when key points are raised.

3 weeks later, several class groups could be invited to give presentations that are recorded onto MP3 audio and uploaded to students’ weblogs and the class ‘wiki’. Any presentation slides and project pictures could be loaded onto Flickr.com. This is just one example of what blended learning might look like. It has relied on a constructionist pedagogy, catering to a neomillennial learning style, incorporating technology, encouraging learning through networks, and fostering connectivism.

Throw in a photocopier, a scanner, some scissors and glue, a town planning meeting… and… well… who knows what could happen!

A Model used by Language Schools

Language learning (especially ELT, “English Language Teaching” and EFL, “English as a Foreign Language”) has been at the forefront of the development of blended educational solutions. ELT in particular requires a combination of face-to-face teaching and interactive (and therefore frequently electronic) practice activity. This can be achieved through the adoption of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

VLEs have been a major growth point in the ELT industry over the last 5 years. They are developed either as an externally-hosted platforms onto which content can be exported by a school or institution (examples being ‘Worldwide Web Course Tools, WebCT’ or the ‘Blackboard’ VLE) or as content-supplied, course-managed learning platforms (an example being ‘Macmillan English Campus’). The key difference is that the latter is able to support course-building by the language school. This means that existing learning pathways are supported by games, activities, listening exercises and grammar reference units online.

See also

• Educational technology
• Networked learning

External links

• Blended learning for languages An non-technical overview of the advantages and disadvantages of Blended Learning applied to language learning.
• Blended Learning Approach Paper An interesting outlook on blended learning, Author - Namit
• Blended Learning in K-12
• Institute for Research on Learning Technologies Conducts research on blended learning

California Virtual Academies

California Virtual Academies (CAVA) is a network of virtual public charter schools, founded in the summer of 2002. It is sponsored by a small number of school districts spread throughout California. Since it is a part of the public school system, no tuition is charged and computer equipment is loaned to enrolled students. Students are invited to some regular school activities to compensate for the reduced social interaction as they are not going to a school building each day. Parents still report daily attendance and certified teachers monitor student progress, but beyond this level of support, the experience is close to that of homeschooling.

Fiction

Some of Vernor Vinge’s short stories set around Fairmont High suggest elements of how this might develope, one day, unless our paradigms change meanwhile.

External links

• http://www.caliva.org/
• http://www.homeschoolchristian.com/Position/CAVA.html

Charter school

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.

Charter schools are semi-autonomous nonsectarian public school choice educational alternatives that operate with freedom from many of the regulations that apply to traditional public schools in the United States. Generally they are organized by educators, parents, community groups or private organizations with an express purpose or philosophy, and controlled independent of any local school district. Charter schools are generally financed by the same per-pupil funds that traditional state schools receive.

In the United States, laws governing charter schools vary from state to state. The legal charter establishing each such school is a performance contract detailing the school’s mission, program, goals, students served, methods of assessment, and ways to measure success. The length of time for which charters are granted varies, but most are granted for 3-5 years. Charter schools are accountable to their sponsor—a local school board, state education agency, university, or other entity—to produce positive academic results and adhere to the charter contract. The basic concept of charter schools is that they exercise increased autonomy in return for this accountability. They are accountable for both academic results and fiscal practices to several groups, including the sponsor that grants them, the parents who choose them, and the public that funds them. Charter schools can be closed for failing to meet the terms set forth in their charter.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Charter school popularity 3 Locations of charter schools 3.1 Inside the United States 3.2 Outside the United States 4 Results 4.1 Early promise 4.2 Recent Findings 4.3 Other Problems 5 Policy and practice 6 References 7 External links

Overview

The term “charter school” started in the U.S., but many of the related ideas such as granting greater autonomy to local schools, independence from local school boards, and operating under a charter, have existed in and out of the U.S. for some time. Charters allow publicly funded schools to act and operate more like private schools, but still have public obligations that private schools do not have. Some charter school advocates believe that competition from charter schools provides choices to families, which will force the other public schools to perform better.

The concept of public charter schools was first proposed by the Citizens League, a Minnesota think tank and lobbying organization. The first charter school opened in Minnesota in 1991, and as of the 2005-2006 school year, more than 3,600 charter schools are in operation in 40 states and the District of Columbia, enrolling more than 1 million students (National Charter School Directory, The Center for Education Reform). Charter schools reflect their founders’ varied philosophies, programs, and organizational structures, and serve diverse student populations.

Charter schools are commonly founded as schools for students that may not be served well by traditional public schools in their communities (such as pregnant teens or teen parents, drop-outs, and other at-risk populations) or those with special educational needs. Some provide a “niche” education, providing a strong focus on dual languages, technology, or the arts.

Critics of charter schools claim they may siphon off the best students and leave regular public schools worse off. Supporters argue charter schools have been more likely to serve disadvantaged student populations. Many charter school administrators and parents argue that charter schools serve those students who are not getting their fair share at public schools. Most charter schools in big cities focus on Title I students.

Opinions vary as to the success of charter schools, in part because of the philosophical outlook taken, and in part because—as may be expected—such schools vary one from another in quality, competence, and effectiveness.

Charter school popularity

Some members of the public are dissatisfied with educational quality and school district bureaucracies (Jenkins and Dow 1996). Today’s charter-school initiatives are rooted in the educational reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, from state mandates to improve instruction, to school-based management, school restructuring, and private/public-choice initiatives.

The charter approach uses market principles while insisting that schools be nonsectarian and democratic. Many people, such as former President Bill Clinton, see charter schools, with their emphasis on autonomy and accountability, as a workable political compromise and an alternative to vouchers. Others, such as President George W. Bush, see charter schools as a way to improve schools without antagonizing the teachers union. Bush has made charter schools a major part of his No Child Left Behind Act. Recent reports have shown charter schools not faring as well as public schools on state administered standardized testing. The number one reason given for low performance was because charters attract many students who have not performed well in other schools, and who may lack basic skills and knowledge needed for these assesments. Other studies show marked improvement over time by students who move from traditional public schools to charters. Indeed, many charter school students later surpass the test scores of their traditional school counterparts.

Locations of charter schools

Inside the United States

In 1991, Minnesota adopted charter school legislation to expand a longstanding program of public school choice and to stimulate broader system improvements. Since then, the charter concept has spread to 40 states and DC. State laws follow varied sets of key organizing principles based on the Citizens League’s recommendations for Minnesota, American Federation of Teachers guidelines, and/or federal charter-school legislation (U.S. Department of Education). Principles govern sponsorship, number of schools, regulatory waivers, degree of fiscal/legal autonomy, and performance expectations.

Current laws have been characterized as either strong or weak. Strong-law states mandate considerable autonomy from local labor-management agreements, allow multiple charter-granting agencies, and allocate a level of funding consistent with the statewide per pupil average. Arizona’s 1994 law is the strongest, with multiple charter-granting agencies, freedom from local labor contracts, and large numbers of charters permitted.

40 U.S. states have Charter-school laws. The vast majority of charter schools (more than 70 percent) are found in states with the strongest laws: Arizona, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, and North Carolina (Charter School Laws Across the States, Center for Education Reform).

Despite the map, Washington has yet to pass a law to create charter schools.

Outside the United States

Well before American charter schools, New Zealand went far further in granting power to individual schools by abolishing all school boards and making each school independent, with local parent and teacher invovlement in decision making.[1] Although not called charter schools, each school does have a charter under which it operates and has a high degree of autonomy. The main difference, though, is that since all schools have the same status, individual schools don’t all have the uniqueness typical of a charter school.

The United Kingdom established grant-maintained schools in England and Wales in 1988. They allowed individual schools that were independent of the local school authority. When they were abolished in 1998, most turned into foundation schools, which are under their local district authority but still have a high degree of autonomy.

About three years after their introduction in the U.S., the Canadian province of Alberta allowed charter schools beginning in 1994. Alberta charter schools have much in common with their US counterparts. As of 2005 there are only about a dozen charter schools in the province, compared with over 50 school boards, with the largest one alone having over 200 schools. The idea of charter schools initially sparked great debate and is still controversial, but has had limited impact. No other province in Canada has yet followed Alberta’s lead.

Overall, charter schools have had much less support outside the U.S., although many of the choices provided by charter schools have long existed elsewhere under different names.

Results

Early promise

Evidence on the growth and outcomes of this relatively new movement has started to come in. The U.S. Department of Education’s First Year Report, part of a four-year national study on charters, is based on interviews of 225 charter schools in 10 states (1997). Charters tend to be small (fewer than 200 students) and represent primarily new schools, though some schools had converted to charter status. Charter schools often tend to exist in urban locations, rather than rural.

This study found enormous variation among states. Charter schools tended to be somewhat more racially diverse, and to enroll slightly fewer students with special needs and limited-English-proficient students than the average schools in their state. The most common reasons for founding charters were to pursue an educational vision and gain autonomy.

“Charter schools are havens for children who had bad educational experiences elsewhere,” according to a Hudson Institute survey of students, teachers, and parents from fifty charters in ten states. More than 60 percent of the parents said charter schools are better than their children’s previous schools in terms of teaching quality, individual attention from teachers, curriculum, discipline, parent involvement, and academic standards. Most teachers reported feeling empowered and professionally fulfilled (Vanourek and others 1997).

Recent Findings

A report issued by a pro-charter school group, released in July 2005, looks at twenty-six studies that make some attempt to look at change over time in charter school student or school performance. Twelve of these find that overall gains in charter schools were larger than other public schools; four find charter schools’ gains higher in certain significant categories of schools, such as elementary schools, high schools, or schools serving at risk students; six find comparable gains in charter and traditional public schools; and, four find that charter schools’ overall gains lagged behind. The study also looks at whether individual charter schools improve their performance with age (e.g. after overcoming start-up challenges). Of these, five of seven studies find that as charter schools mature, they improve. The other two find no significant differences between older and younger charter schools.

In August 2005, a national report of charter school finance found that across 16 states and the District of Columbia—which collectively enroll 84 percent of the nation’s one million charter school students—charter schools receive about 22 percent less in per-pupil public funding, or $1,800, than the district schools that surround them. For a typical charter school of 250 students, that amounts to about $450,000 per year. The funding gap is wider in most of twenty-seven urban school districts studied, where it amounts to $2,200 per student. In cities like San Diego and Atlanta, charters receive 40% less than traditional public schools. The fiscal inequity is most severe in South Carolina, California, Ohio, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Missouri. The primary driver of the district-charter funding gap is charter schools’ lack of access to local and capital funding.

On August 16, 2004, the Department of Education released a great number of reports without public announcement. Buried in the mountains of data was the first national comparison of test scores among children in charter schools and regular public schools. These results, from a study of 6000 4th grade pupils in 2003, showed charter school students performing worse in both mathematics and reading than comparable students in regular public schools. This study may have been buried to avoid negative publicity, since the Bush administration has been a strong supporter of charter schools.

These results were the most comprehensive so far, holding constant such factors as race, neighborhood, and income. Many conservative foundations had requested the study, hoping that the results would show gains for charter schools. Chester Finn, the president of one such foundation, admitted “The scores are low, dismayingly low.” (New York Times, August 17, 2004) One possible explanation is that enrollment in charter schools selects for students who were having academic trouble. A number of promintent research experts called into question the usefulness of the findings and the largely unrigorous media coverage they received (Advertisement in the New York Times, August 2004).

At a December 2004 workshop held by the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) to discuss the findings of the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) pilot study on charter schools, government officials urged charter opponents and proponents alike to use caution in making “sweeping” conclusions from the NAEP report. NAGB Chairman Darvin Winick called attention to what he called the “fine print” of the study - that is, “one snapshot in time cannot determine the achievement of students.”

A Harvard study also released in December 2004 that included 99 percent of all elementary charter school students found that they performed favorably in both math and reading compared to similar students in nearby conventional public schools, and that the longer the charter school had been in operation, the more favorably its students compared.

Other Problems

Nearly all charter schools face implementation obstacles, but newly created schools are most vulnerable. Most new charters are plagued by resource limitations, particularly inadequate startup funds.

Although charter advocates recommend the schools control all per-pupil funds, in reality they rarely receive as much funding as other public schools. They generally lack access to funding for facilities and special program funds distributed on a district basis (Bierlein and Bateman 1996). Sometimes private businesses and foundations, such as the Ameritech Corporation in Michigan and the Annenburg Fund in California, provide support (Jenkins and Dow). Congress and the President allocated $80 million to support charter-school activities in fiscal year 1998, up from $51 million in 1997.

Charters sometimes face opposition from local boards, state education agencies, and unions. Many educators are concerned that charter schools might siphon off badly needed funds for regular schools. The American Federation of Teachers urges that charter schools adopt high standards, hire only certified teachers, and maintain teachers’ collective-bargaining rights. Also, some charters feel they face unwieldy regulatory barriers.

According to Bierlein and Bateman, the odds are stacked against charter schools. There may be too few strong-law states to make a significant difference. Educators who are motivated enough to create and manage charter schools could easily be burnt out by a process that demands increased accountability while providing little professional assistance.

Policy and practice

As more states start charter schools, there is increasing speculation about upcoming legislation. In an innovation-diffusion study surveying education policy experts in fifty states, Michael Mintrom and Sandra Vergari (1997) found that charter legislation is more likely considered in states with poor test scores, Republican legislative control, and proximity to other states with charter schools. Legislative enthusiasm, gubernatorial support, interactions with national authorities, and use of permissive charter-law models increase the chances for adopting what they consider stronger laws. He feels union support and restrictive models lead to adoption of what he conisders weaker laws.

The threat of vouchers, wavering support for public education, and bipartisan support for charters has led some unions to start charters themselves. Several AFT chapters, such as those in Houston and Dallas, have themselves started charters. The National Education Association has allocated $1.5 million to help members start charter schools. Charters offer teachers a brand of empowerment, employee ownership, and governance that might be enhanced by union assistance (Nathan).

Over two dozen private management companies are scrambling to increase their 10 percent share of a “more hospitable and entrepreneurial market” (Stecklow 1997). Boston-based Advantage Schools Inc., a corporation specializing in for-profit schooling, has contracted to run charter schools in New Jersey, Arizona, and North Carolina. The Education Development Corporation was planning in the summer of 1997 to manage nine nonsectarian charter schools in Michigan, using cost-effective measures employed in Christian schools.

Professor Frank Smith, of Columbia University Teachers College, sees the charter-school movement as a chance to involve entire communities in redesigning all schools and converting them to “client-centered, learning cultures” (1997). He favors the Advocacy Center Design process used by state-appointed Superintendent Laval Wilson to transform four failing New Jersey schools. Building stronger communities via newly designed institutions may prove more productive than charters’ typical “free-the-teacher-and-parent” approach.

Charter schools might also benefit by adopting research-based schooling models, such as Accelerated Schools and the Success For All Program.

President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act also promotes charter schools. It is as yet unclear whether recent test results will affect the enacting of future legislation. A Pennsylvania legislator who voted to create charter schools, State Rep. Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia, said that “Charter schools offer increased flexibility to parents and administrators, but at a cost of reduced job security to school personnel. The evidence to date shows that the higher turnover of staff undermines school performance more than it enhances it, and that the problems of urban education are far too great for enhanced managerial authority to solve in the absence of far greater resources of staff, technology, and state of the art buildings.”

References

• Allen, Jeanne, and Anna Varghese Marcucio, “Charter School Laws Across the States: Ranking and Scorecard, 8th Edition.” Washington D.C.: Center for Education Reform, 2004.
• American Federation of Teachers (August 2004). Charter School Achievement on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress. (pdf)
• American Federation of Teachers. CHARTER SCHOOLS: DO THEY MEASURE UP? Washington, D.C.: Author, 1996. 68 pages.
• Bierlein, Louann, and Mark Bateman. “Charter Schools v. the Status Quo: Which Will Succeed?” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM 5, 2 (April 1996): 159–68. EJ 525 971.
• Budde, Ray. “The Evolution of the Charter Concept.” PHI DELTA KAPPAN 78, 1 (September 1996): 72–73. EJ 530 653.
• Hassel, Bryan. “Charter School Achievement: What We Know.” Washington, DC: Charter School Leadership Council. July 2005.
• Hoxby, C. (December 2004). Achievement in Charter Schools and Regular Public Schools in the United States: Understanding the Differences. (pdf)
• Jenkins, John, and Jeffrey L. Dow. “A Primer on Charter Schools.” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM, 5, 2 (April 1996): 224–27. EJ 525 978.
• Mintrom, Michael, and Sandra Vergari. “Political Factors Shaping Charter School Laws.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (Chicago, March 24, 1997). 46 pages. ED 407 708.
• Nathan, Joe. CHARTER SCHOOLS: CREATING HOPE AND OPPORTUNITY FOR AMERICAN EDUCATION. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1996. 249 pages. ED 410 657.
• Smith, Frank L. “Guidance for the Charter Bound.” THE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR 54, 7 (August 1997): 18–22. EJ 548 963.
• Stecklow, Steve. “Businesses Scramble to Run Charter Schools.” THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 137, 37 (August 21, 1997): B1, B8.
• U.S. Department of Education. A STUDY ON CHARTER SCHOOLS: FIRST YEAR REPORT. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1997. 74 pages. ED 409 620.
• Vanourek, Gregg and others. “Charter Schools as Seen by Those Who Know Them Best: Students, Teachers, and Parents.” Washington, D.C.: Hudson Institute, 1997. 12 pages. ED 409 650.

External links

• Charter Schools. Eric Digest. The original Wikipedia article listed here is based on the text at this public domain site.
• Charter School Weekly News Connection.
• Charter School Leadership Council
• Updates on New Charter School Research and Resources.
• Perspectives on Charter Schools: A Review for Parents. ERIC Digest.
• Charter Schools: An Approach for Rural Education? ERIC Digest.
• Arguments for and against the creation of charter schools.
• Public Charter Schools and Students with Disabilities. ERIC Digest.
• The Center for Education Reform
• US Charter Schools by state
• NEA Charter School Page
• Charter Friends National Network charter school on-line resources and links
• State profiles—charter schools.
• Nation’s Charter Schools Lagging Behind, U.S. Test Scores Reveal. New York Times
• Education Evolving Education Evolving
• MACS Minnesota Association of Charter Schools
• eSchoolSearch Directory
• Massachusetts Charter Public School Association - “Myths and realities About Massachusetts Charter Public Schools.”
• Wyoming Charter Schools Initiative

Colegio César Chávez

Colegio César Chávez (Spanish for “César Chávez College”) was a U.S. college-without-walls program that existed in Mount Angel, Oregon (a small town about 50 miles or 80 km south of Portland) from 1973 to 1983. Colegio was the first independent, four-year accredited Chicano college in the United States. Though it was in the planning stages as early as 1973, Colegio closed its doors in 1983 after having graduated only about one class of students. The college was named after Mexican American civil rights activist César Chávez.

From the start, Colegio faced many challenges. Colegio staff was small and relatively inexperienced and therefore unprepared for the challenges of starting a new college, and eventually staff succumbed to infighting. Because Colegio was a college-without-walls program, it was difficult to foster an on-campus sense of community among staff and students (some students were from as far away as New York and Canada). Colegio was founded during a time of downturn in activism in the Chicano Movement. Colegio was founded during a period of growing political conservatism marked by less federal support for cultural programs. Colegio was founded in a small Oregon town whose population, largely of German American descent, disliked Colegio and was relatively prejudiced against Mexican Americans. Lastly, Colegio was named in honor of a man many local farm owners found controversial.

In his book Colegio Cesar Chavez, 1973-1983: A Chicano Struggle for Educational Self-Determination author Carlos Maldonado claims that, in reference to the many challenges it faced, Colegio was often referred to as “the longest running death in history”. Maldonado claims that study of Colegio Cesar Chavez will “help promoters of new ethnic institutions to raise questions of feasibility, anticipate problems, and provide direction in the establishment of new and more sophisticated institutions.”

Contents 1 Evolution 2 College Without Walls Program 3 Leadership 4 Facilities 5 Transition into St. Joseph Shelter 6 References 7 External links

Evolution

Colegio César Chávez evolved from various other collegial institutions that had existed in Mount Angel, Oregon for nearly a century. In 1888, the Catholic Order of the Benedictine Sisters founded Mt. Angel Academy. The Academy was originally a female charter academy but later evolved into a normal school in 1897 to train women for careers in education. In 1947, Mt. Angel Normal School was renamed Mt. Angel Women’s College and, with accreditation from the Northwest Accrediting Association, it granted a Bachelor of Science degree in elementary eduation. In 1957, Mt. Angel Women’s College became coeducational and was renamed Mt. Angel College.

By 1966 Mt. Angel College was facing financial problems for which it received two federal loans which it used to expand the campus. Within the next seven year Mt. Angel College found itself burdened by a one million dollar debt and low student enrollment. In 1977, Ernesto Lopez became Dean of Students of Mt. Angel College and Sonny Montes became Director of Ethnic Affairs and minority recruiter. By 1972, Mt. Angel College had a student body of only 250, only 37 of whom were of Mexican American descent.

Citing the Mt. Angel College’s financial instability and low enrollment, the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges withdrew the college’s accreditation. In light of such bleak signs, most students and staff left the college. Sonny Montes, Ernesto Lopez, and four others decided to attempt to salvage the college by redirecting its focus. On December 12, 1973, Mt. Angel College was renamed Colegio César Chávez. In 1975, Colegio was granted accreditation candidacy from the same association that had withdrawn Mt. Angel College’s accreditation. Colegio aimed to create a four-year college completely under the control of a staff chiefly of Mexican American, or “Chicano”, descent. Colegio was also structured on an experimental educational model known as a “college without walls” program.

Previous to settling on the name “Colegio César Chávez”, staff had considered three other names for the college: “Colegio Che Guevara”, “Colegio Ho Chi Minh”, and “Colegio Virgen de Guadalupe”. César Chávez’s name was chosen because he was one of the key figures in the Chicano movement, often organizing boycotts and protests for farm workers in California and eventually throughout the entire Pacific Northwest. The majority of Mexican Americans in the Pacific Northwest had migrated to the region World War II in search of work as farm laborers.

College Without Walls Program

Colegio César Chávez operated under the “El Colegio Sin Paredes” (”The College Without Walls”) model. This model granted students the ability to actively engage with their community, to maintain control of their own education, and to combine their classroom studies with experience outside of the classroom.

The College Without Walls Program had been established by the Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities. This format allowed for the inclusion of a wide range of age groups, encouraged the participation and collaboration of students, staff, and administrators in creating and implementing the corriculum. Alternative means of evaluation was also encouraged. In this program, instructors were redefined as facilitators in the learning process. Additionally, Colegio staff, administration, and students relations were structured in accordance to a framework that Colegio termed “La Familia” (”The Family”). To that end, the “family” members were encouraged to participate in the decisions effecting the college. Such a framework inevitably required for students to be self-motivated and to initiate and pursue an independent course of education.

Colegio’s core educational foundation consisted of work in four areas: Social Science (Anthropology, Economics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology); the Humanities (Literature, History, Arts, Philosophy, Language); Natural Sciences and Mathematics; oral and written bilingual Communications. Each student was required to complete fifteen credit hours in each area, totaling 60 credit hours. Credit transfers from parallel areas was allowed. Students could also receive credit for prior learning.

Leadership

From its inception, the leadership of Colegio César Chávez was in a constant state of flux. In its brief ten years, Colegio was served by four administrations. Each administration faced substantial institutional crises. In 1973, Ernesto Lopez, former Academic Dean and Acting President of Mt. Angel College, became Colegio’s first President. Lopez retained this position for only one year. After the departure of Lopez, the position of administrative head was altered into a co-directorship. Sonny Montes was named Director of Administration. Jose Romero was named Director of Academics. The split into two co-directors was made in an attempt to relieve the overwhelming duties that Lopez had faced.

Sonny Montez did not possess an advanced degree, as had Lopez, and he had far less experience working in higher education than had Lopez. Montez’ organizing abilities and many contacts within the Chicano Movement were compensations. It was during the joint Montez-Romero administration that Colegio César Chávez received accreditation candidacy on June 18, 1975 from the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges. Sonny Montez retired as Colegio administrator in October of 1977, citing personal and economic concerns. He was extended an invitation to serve on Colegio’s board, which he accepted.

Salvador Ramirez followed Sonny Montez, becoming Colegio’s top administrator in 1977. Ramirez, who held a master’s degree in history, had served Colegio as history teacher since mid-1976. His previous work experience included employment with University of Colorado at Boulder and Washington State University. During Ramirez’ tenure, Colegio finalized its negotiations with HUD. Ramirez resigned from his position at Colegio in 1979.

Irma Flores Gonzales, previously a member of both Colegio’s board and staff, became president of Colegio in 1979. Gonzales held a B.A. in education and a M.A. in psychology. It was during Gonzales’ time as president that Colegio faced its greatest challenges: difficulty in developing and maintaining a financial base; preparing Colegio for accreditation by June of 1981; and expanding college enrollment. During Gonzales’ time as president, Colegio staff succumbed to infighting. By this point, many activitists within the Chicano Movement had become disillusioned with Colegio. Gonzales was Colegio’s last president.

Facilities

Colegio César Chávez’s main campus building was the two-story administrative building called Huelga Hall. (”Huelga” is Spanish for “strike”.) When it was a part of Mount Angel College, Huelga Hall was known as Marmion Hall and was used as the campus dormitory for women. Huelga Hall was the hub of campus activity and was where most classes were held. In many regards, Huelga Hall was in disrepair. Due to the lack of an operable central heating system, students and staff were often forced to huddle near small room heaters in order to keep warm. In the basement of Huelga Hall was Lupe Library, which had been flooded. Many of the books were warped by the water. Toward the end of Colegio’s existence, Huelga Hall was permeated by the odor of rotting books. The walls of Huelga Hall were covered with large Mexican-themed murals, some in the style of Diego Rivera, others being transcriptions of ancient Aztec artwork. In the main reception room there was a mural of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara near the fireplace. To the north of Huelga Hall stood two buildings that served as dormitories for Colegio students.

Colegio also owned two homes. Directly behind Huelga Hall was the Art Building. The Art Building was a two-story farm house in the Victorian style. It had been built in the mid-1900s by the Bernt family of Mt. Angel. When Mount Angel College took possession of the Bernt house, it was renamed Studio San Benito. Under Colegio’s ownership, the house was referred to as the Art Building. The Art Building lay vacant and unused for most of Colegio’s existence until when in 1980 it was occupied by the family of Arthur Omar Olivo. Mr. Olivo was the grounds keeper and facilities maintenance manager of Colegio César Chávez. After a falling out with Colegio president Irma Gonzales, the Olivo family vacated the Art Building in 1982 shortly before Colegio’s closure. Beside the Art House stood another two-story house that was referred to as the Pottery Building.

On the other side of Main Street, across from Huelga Hall, Colegio maintained Guadalupe Hall, a building named in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Transition into St. Joseph Shelter

After the closure of Colegio César Chávez, the facilities and grounds were left unused and abandoned for several years. Eventually, a private benefactor purchased the former Colegio grounds and facilities and donated it back to its pre-Colegio owners, the Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Angel.

Today, the former Colegio grounds and facilities are used as St. Joseph Shelter. [1] Shortly after reclaiming ownership of the former Colegio building, the Benedictine Sisters had all but one Colegio-era mural painted over. The one remaining mural is titled “College Without Walls” and was created by Deniel Desiga. The mural depicts an arch entry overlooking a vast strawberry field. The arch has been interpreted as representing the college without walls program of Colegio, and the vast strawberry field in the background is likely a reference to the field workers and the fact that many Colegio teachers and students had either worked in the fields or were from families who had survived by means of field work. The mural is found on the wall near the entrance to the former Colegio building, just outside of the receptionist’s office.

References

• Colegio Cesar Chavez, 1973-1983: A Chicano Struggle for Educational Self-Determination was published in 2000, and it says that Colegio was referred to by some as “the longest running death in history” because of the battles it faced to stay alive.
• Nosotros: The Hispanic People of Oregon, Essays and Recollections contains a section called “Memories of Colegio Cesar Chavez” that provides some reflections by those who were involved in the founding of Colegio.

External links

• The Mexican presence in Oregon
• Oregon State University’s “Oregon Multicultural Archives” collects, preserves and makes available materials documenting the lives and activities of ethnic minorities in the state of Oregon. Plans are underway to archive resources regarding Colegio César Chávez.

Community High School, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Community High School (CHS; nicknamed “Commie High”) is a public alternative school serving grades 9–12 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Located on a 3.2-acre site at 401 North Division Street near the Kerrytown district of shops, CHS today enrolls approximately 450 students.

Established in 1972, CHS was one of the first public magnet schools in the country, offering students a smaller alternative to the city’s two large comprehensive high schools. It is one of the nation’s few survivors among the wave of experimental high schools that were founded in the 1970s.

Unlike many public alternative schools in other cities, CHS is not restricted to a particular student population (such as “gifted” or “underachieving” students), nor does it explicitly emphasize one particular area of study over others. Established initially on an experimental “school-without-walls” concept, CHS continues to offer opportunities to interact with the surrounding community, primarily through its open campus and its Community Resources Program, an avenue for students to design their own courses for credit through experiental learning projects in the Ann Arbor area. In contrast to many traditional high schools, CHS has been known for its small size, its open campus and downtown location, student participation in school governance and staff hiring, and loose attendance policies more similar to those of colleges than those at most high schools. The school has also eschewed many of the characteristics of traditional high schools, including interscholastic sports programs, valedictorians, dress codes, detention, hall passes, changing bells, mascots (aside from a rainbow-spangled zebra), and (until the late 1990s) proms.

Contents 1 Early history 2 Merger with Earthworks 3 Community High in the 1980s and 1990s 3.1 School-board election of 1994 3.2 Enrollment battles 4 People 4.1 Deans of CHS 4.2 Alumni 5 Further reading 5.1 External links 5.2 Selected books and articles

Early history

By the early 1970s, Ann Arbor had developed as reputation as one of the most liberal campus towns in the country. The city played host to numerous radical political organizations, eventually electing three members of the left-wing Human Rights Party to its city council. Meanwhile, the teenage group Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor was carving out a role as a national pioneer in the nascent youth empowerment movement, with one fifteen-year-old member’s insurgent school-board candidacy earning her 1,300 write-in votes, or eight percent of the total, in spring 1972. Reflecting this non-traditional ethos, the city’s school district opened two experimental alternative schools during those years: Earthworks (originally Pioneer II) in fall 1971, and Community High School (CHS) in fall 1972.

The Community High idea, according to the 1972 blueprint, was to use the city as classroom – thereby creating a “school without walls” where students could develop their own curricula by drawing on experiences and resource people throughout the community. Although the concept was new to Ann Arbor, planners took inspiration from similar innovative programs in other cities, including Chicago’s High School for Metropolitan Studies and Philadelphia’s Parkway High School. Drawing on the liberal educational philosophy of the period, other goals in the early CHS proposals were “to provide an opportunity for a heterogeneous group of students and faculty to learn and work together and to combat prejudices based on race, sex, age, lifestyle, and school achievement,” and “to foster the development of identity and responsibility.” The plan emphasized placing students of all grades in the same classes and programs, and had at its heart the Community Resources Program and the Forum Program, small units of students integrated by age, sex and race which would provide home bases for counseling and cultural-studies work.

CHS opened in September 1972, after a $100,000 renovation to an empty downtown building that had formerly housed Jones Elementary School, a majority African-American school which was closed in 1965 due to re-districting for racial-desegregation purposes. Although members of the school board proposed naming classrooms after Ann Arborites who had been killed in the Vietnam War, these plans angered local citizens and teachers who opposed the war, and were never implemented.

The school’s first dean, the aptly named Dean Bodley, told the Ann Arbor News that the school’s only formal rules would be two safety precautions: “no smoking except in the student-teacher lounge and persons must wear shoes” – although even these were quickly abandoned. The first commencement, held at the nearby St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, banished the caps and gowns, valedictorians and salutorians of traditional graduation ceremonies. The community-based education concept flourished during CHS’s first several years, with students developing 569 Community Resource courses in the fall of 1974 alone. Unorthodox course offerings included subjects as diverse as dream analysis and Eastern philosophy.

Through the 1970s, enrollment remained in the high 300s. Dr. R. Wiley Brownlee, a civil-rights activist and former principal of Willow Run High School in Michigan, became CHS dean in the school’s second year. In his time at Willow Run High, Brownlee had taken a conciliatory approach to mounting racial tensions at the school, an approach that eventually cost him his job. His insistence on fair treatment for minority students had also propelled him into national headlines when, in 1971, he was assaulted at gunpoint, then tarred and feathered, by members of the Michigan Ku Klux Klan following a Willow Run school-board meeting.

After taking the reins at Ann Arbor’s Community High, Brownlee in 1974 characterized the student body as sixty-percent “high achievers who are politically disenchanted” and forty-percent students who were “academically disenchanted.” In 1975, CHS became the first alternative school in Michigan to receive accreditation from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Accreditation officials, according to news reports, were mildly taken aback by the school’s eccentricities, questioning the lack of any non-smoking area within the school and some students’ practice of bringing their pets to school.

Merger with Earthworks

Through the mid-1970s, CHS was not the only alternative high school in Ann Arbor. Earthworks High School, a smaller school with an even more experimental culture, had been founded as “Pioneer II” in 1971. The school was initially an offshoot of Pioneer High School, one of the city’s two large traditional schools, and it eventually was merged with CHS.

Largely student-driven, the 1971 Earthworks proposal declared that students must be equipped “to function creatively, contributively, responsibly and happily in a world whose central characteristic is radical change,” a task at which traditional institutions were allegedly failing. Students and teachers explained that they sought to depart from “the authoritarian model of teaching,” where teachers are considered “imparters of knowledge” who are seldom mistaken. The school board approved the project despite a rebuke from the board of the Roman Catholic St. Thomas School (now Gabriel Richard), which called the plan “discriminatory by giving support to one group looking for alternatives.”

Diversity proved one of the main stumbling blocks. Before the program opened, some citizens attacked the school board for not considering minority issues, and in the first year, only five students were of minority background (three African American, and two Asian). Difficulties aside, Earthworks opened in October 1971 with 108 students choosing to attend. The school operated in a three-room building at 995 North Maple Road, the former site of Fritz Elementary School, now furnished with rugs and mattresses instead of desks and chairs.

Operating under “free-school” principles, Earthworks students selected their own teachers from among those at the sponsoring Pioneer High School. In addition to three full-time teachers and one administrator, they recruited about a dozen tutors from the University of Michigan, as well as fifty supporting resource people in the community. During the first two weeks of operation, students and teachers worked together in a series of meetings and “rap sessions” to develop a curriculum – one that centered on allowing students to control their own education, work at their own speed, and follow their own interests; and which utilized “contracts” setting out student goals and methods to achieve them. As the Huron Valley Advisor explained, subjects ranged “from geometry, algebra, and American history to Russian literature, organic gardening and parapsychology (witchcraft) – which is taught by a student.” Some in the traditional schools derided Earthworks as “a hippy kindergarten.” But a 1972 Ann Arbor News survey reported that students were pleased with the freedom, power, emphasis on individuality, and ability to control their own educations, although a few disliked the school’s unorganized nature and felt that some students didn’t thrive with the radical lack of structure.

By the end of 1977, enrollment at Earthworks was down to fifty students, with two full-time teachers. Feeling that the program would complement that at Community High, the school board merged the two high schools in 1978, despite qualms from many in each program that the Earthworks identity would be lost in the merger, and that CHS would grow too large. After its absorption, Earthworks became the name of a separate educational track at CHS, and the program continued to run through the late 1990s as a multidisciplinary experiential-learning class emphasizing community activism.

Community High in the 1980s and 1990s

Through the 1980s, Community High’s programs continued on much as they had in the heady days of the 1970s, even as the experimental educational philosophies of the 1970s receded elsewhere in the state and the nation. During this decade, the school had a much lower profile in Ann Arbor, and it was often stereotyped as a haven for misfits or drug users, with its detractors afixing unflattering nicknames such as “Hippy High” or “Community Get-High School.” During the 1991–92 academic year, CHS temporarily moved to alternate facilities at Stone School in eastern Ann Arbor while its downtown building was renovated and expanded. The year was marred by a series of conflicts that arose between CHS students and students in adult-education programs already located at Stone School, and the alternate location made it difficult to maintain programs that depended on CHS’s downtown setting. Still, through the 1980s the school continued to draw a steady stream of enthusiastic applicants dissatisfied with the strictures of the city’s traditional high schools.

By 1990, however, CHS had emerged from its status as a quirky, largely unknown alternative, on the road to becoming one of the most desirable and high-profile educational options in the area. In 1989, the school had its first-ever waiting list for students, and through the mid- and late 1990s its growing popularity and unorthodox approach once again drew statewide media coverage. CHS also began to attract attention in the municipal political arena, eventually becoming one of the main issues in Ann Arbor’s contentious school-board election of June 1994.

School-board election of 1994

In 1994, CHS found itself at the center of a bitter and divisive school-board election. Following the 1993 passage of a Michigan state referendum capping local property taxes, money for schools had grown tighter. At the same time, the city’s two traditional high schools faced mounting problems with overcrowding.

The conservative education group Citizens for Better Education (CBE), which had held a 6–3 majority on the Ann Arbor school board since 1991, favored the city’s traditional high schools and a “back-to-basics” educational approach. With student populations exploding at the traditional high schools, CBE board members questioned both the small size and higher per-pupil spending at CHS. They proposed expanding the school by 100-200 students, and equalizing its per-pupil expenditures with those at the city’s larger schools. Proponents of alternative education countered that expanding the student body so drastically would destroy the school’s intimate ethos, and that the higher per-pupil spending resulted from CHS offering many classroom places, uncompensated, to students from other high schools who commuted for one or two classes. However, their proposal for a new alternative school to take pressure off the existing high schools was quashed by the board’s conservative majority.

The June 1994 school-board election thus hinged, in large measure, on the alternative-schools issue. A liberal slate of candidates known as New Challenge took on the three CBE incumbents up for re-election, mobilizing heavy support from Community High parents and students. Two of New Challenge’s three candidates were CHS parents. Meanwhile, students at the school formed a political action committee that contributed $1,313 and many hours of volunteer time to New Challenge efforts. The student PAC, according to state officials, was the first in Michigan formed by teenagers to influence a local race, and it garnered regional press coverage in the process.

CBE incumbents criticized the CHS student group – one decrying it in the Detroit Free Press as “narrow-minded, with a narrow focus,” another claiming that “Community High is not going to be the moving force in this town.” The race was one of the most heated and expensive in the city’s history, with the two slates running cable TV ads (a first for Ann Arbor school elections) and spending a combined $32,000, more than in any previous campaign. In the end, New Challenge swept to victory, defeating all three CBE incumbents and assuring the continuance of Community High School in its existing format. The new, more liberal school-board majority soon revived plans to establish another alternative school, known simply as “The New School,” although that project was curtailed in 2000 after four difficult years of operation.

Enrollment battles

From 1989 to the present, CHS has attracted far more applicant students than it can accommodate. The process for choosing which students may attend, determined by the school board, eventually reached farcical levels. A lottery was used in 1992, but in March 1993 a first-come/first-served method produced a twenty-four-hour line-up on the school’s front lawn. In 1995, the line formed three days ahead of time; in 1996, the method produced a two-week line-up outside the school district’s administration building, complete with mobile homes, portable toilets, roving television news crews, and sardonic editorial cartoons in the local press.

In May 1991, the school board had agreed that black students on the waiting list would receive priority, in order to boost CHS’s relatively low numbers of African Americans. But many CHS students charged that the first-come/first-served admissions method of the mid-1990s was producing a less diverse student body, one comprised of teenagers whose parents (or, in several cases, parents’ secretaries) could afford to take many days off from work to hold down positions in line. The return to the lottery procedure in 1997, however, eliminated the frantic annual queuing ritual. By the early 2000s the number of applications was still growing each year, with approximately three students applying for each of the 108 slots for incoming freshmen.

A number of local critics have argued that the high number of applications suggested serious weaknesses at the city’s traditional high schools. But, to the extent that applicants are motivated by overcrowding at the city’s other schools, the problem is expected to be ameliorated once the city finishes construction on a third traditional high school, approved by Ann Arbor voters in 2004.

People

Deans of CHS

• Dean Bodley, 1972–73
• Wiley Brownlee, 1973–77
• Connie Jo Craft, 1977–83
• Liz Gray, 1983–86
• Al Gallup, 1986–88
• Bob Galardi, 1988–94
• Judy Conger, 1994–present

Alumni

Well-known CHS alumni include:

• Katt Hernandez, (1992): maverick violinist, community arts activist
• Randy Napoleon, (1995): jazz guitarist and recording artist
• Brian Pollack, (1980): guitarist for 1980s punk group The Necros; studio engineer
• Davy Rothbart, (1992): author, radio personality, magazine editor
• Gene Sperling, (1978): former economic adviser to President Bill Clinton and chief of the National Economic Council from 1996 to 2000
• Andrew W.K. (Wilkes-Krier), (1997): nationally known punk/metal/noise musician
• Peter Zale, (1976): nationally syndicated cartoonist

Further reading

External links

• Community High School homepage
• Student-run website and blog
• Community’s bi-weekly publication, The Communicator
• University of Michigan site on the