Free Lunches and English Educational Inequality

  "In life, there is no such thing as a free lunch."

     Last night, I attended a lecture hosted by Beyond Profit, a social entrepreneurship club. Beyond Profit works on business initiatives which combine social good and economic profit. This type of initiative is working to meet the disparate and often conflicting drive of individuals of this generation. The concept uses business principles for socially beneficial ends. As the Beyond Profit mantra goes: "There are people who want to save the world and there are people who want great personal success. Nowadays most of us want to try and do both. Beyond Profit is the place to find out how to achieve this." Because of my desire to make Bridges Through Education Corporation self-sustaining, I decided to become active within the club and to learn from those with more experience and knowledge.

   This night's event covered educational inequalities within Great Britain. The program was sponsored by Beyond Profit, yet it was presented by Alex Spiers of Teach First, the UK equivalent of Teach for America. Of note, the program does not receive the same philanthropic funding that its compatriot in the U.S. receives. Its funding comes from the state, donors (corporate/private), and schools. Money is exchanged for the service of providing high caliber teachers, but the business board receives only one pound per year. The program offers the opportunity to teach in comprehensive schools in which at least 50% of students fall into the low income range within the UK. Unlike the U.S. educational construct, all individuals who attain a bachelor’s degree may become teachers through hands-on student experience (the equivalent of student teaching in the U.S.). Education majors do not exist in the UK. Thus, a program like Teach First faces less institutional push-back as 50% of the individuals who work in the program continue teaching at the end of their one year commitment. No additional education is required. With the merits of the different methodologies and qualifications aside, the program targets the issue of educational inequality within the UK.

      Educational disadvantage is about more than someone being "lucky." In this era, it is despicable that family affluence remains a primary determinant of children’s educational and career outcomes. Education impacts the entire life span of an individual not just childhood, but as time progresses, the divergence between the well-education and the poorly educated is accentuated. 17% of UK individuals ages 16-24 years old are NEET (Not in education, employment, or training). From a fiscal standpoint, it costs the central government and more directly, the taxpayers, 35 billion pounds per annum ($55-$60 billion U.S. dollars). In addition to the financial burden, this issue creates long-term negative externalities: prolonged unemployment, lower income, depression, mental health issues, and alcoholism. These phenomena are the logical bedfellows of poor educational outcomes.

     In the UK, data collection and analysis is excellent. One study analyzed the differential in school readiness between the rich and poor. At the age of three years old, the rich already possess a one year advantage in terms of behavior. At the age of 5, the gap in vocabulary development between the rich and poor is 15 months, which continues to widen over time. In terms of socioeconomic differences, 27% of students receiving free lunches (need based food programs) achieve the required scores on the GSCE (Proficiency or Graduation Test Equivalent) to continue onto A-Level, which is the university preparatory curriculum. In comparison, 54% of students who do not receive free lunch achieve this standard. The disparity is even greater when one compares comprehensive schools (public schools) and independent schools (charter/private schools). At Age 11, 93% of UK students attend comprehensive state schools and only 7% attend independent schools. At Oxbridge (Oxford and Cambridge), 54% attended comprehensive state schools and 46% attended independent schools. Only 43 out of the 600,000 students per year on free school lunches in the United Kingdom are currently continuing their studies at Oxbridge. The statistics speak for themselves: affluence provides opportunities which are not otherwise enjoyed by the poor.

   Teach First works to counter this startling trend by turning exceptional graduates into inspirational educators and leaders who work to overcome educational disadvantage and educational inequality. The program targets schools with a large underprivileged population and schools with underperforming teachers. Interestingly, "performance" evaluation of teachers is on a value-added basis. Based upon post code and family income, models clearly predict academic performance on the GSCE. If the student performs better than their surroundings suggest and their predicted score indicates, the teacher has had some "value-added" and is considered proficient. The program works on the concept of "micro-change" where change/improvement occurs at the local level. Individual students and groups benefit. The culture and internalization of educational stereotypes is changed within schools. At the end of the teaching obligation, teachers become eligible to be Teach First Ambassadors, which affords them the resources and mentorship required to start their own social enterprise. Thus, the program retains a strong alumni group which benefits from business and non-profit support.

   To conclude, the United Kingdom and the United States face similar challenges of educational inequality. Social mobility via educational attainment appears stunted and dysfunctional. It is the youth who suffer, both affluent and poor. The affluent neither know nor understand the nuances of poverty and struggle. The poor neither know nor understand the institutional knowledge of education. If they do, they often do not have the means to achieve the desired end. Everyone loses without socioeconomic diversity within the educational framework. Some lose more than others.

Reading, Writing, Socializing, and Civil-Society Activism

Studying at the University of Cambridge is truly a blessing. The reading load is quite heavy; the socializing is quite vibrant; but more importantly, I finally have time to work on two major initiatives.

Bridges Through Education Corporation, Non-Profit 501-C3

While we received significant criticism for the shallowness of our intent in launching Bridges Through Education Corporation, Brandon Beckler, Dien Nguyen, John Deterding, and I pushed through to organize this 501-C3 non-profit organization. We are trying to do what we expect others to do within their sphere of influence: identify a problem/shortcoming and work to remedy it regardless of the scale. National affluence comes with responsibility. Our mission is quite idealistic:

To build bridges between the United States and the developing world through the moral and material support of the educational process and to promote cross-cultural and historical awareness in order to support educational opportunity and eliminate cultural and historical divides.

This mission is the consequence of our shared experiences in Vietnam. For students there, English enhances social mobility and increases students’ ability to integrate into the world system. This integration is a vital component in increasing not only competitiveness, but also cross-cultural awareness. By providing elementary English texts, we are able to provide the foundation for English literacy which breaks the poverty trap that undermines social mobility. It is not some grand panacea, but rather it is a start. Education allows for a range of options, whether a student pursues something in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math or the Humanities.

Vietnam was an ideal place to start. The U.S. is currently the number one foreign direct investor in the country, a stark contrast from the past. Interestingly, our relations with Vietnam only began to normalize in 1995 under the Clinton administration. From 1975 to 1995, our only real interaction with the Vietnamese was on the military to military level; we retained a trade embargo, limiting growth and undermining the transfer of not only technology, but also culture and understanding. We hold shared culpability with our Vietnamese counterparts for stunting the healing process. During this period of disconnect, our only interaction centered on the recovery of POW/MIA remains throughout the country. As we continue the process of rebuilding relations with our Vietnamese friends, we should recall the sacrifice of those 58,220 Americans who perished and the 1,687 who remain missing as well as hundreds of thousands more who suffered injury whether mental or physical during the conflict. These casualties are shared by the people of Vietnam. Estimated deaths throughout Vietnam range from 1 million to 1.25 million. Given these sacrifices, it seems appropriate that it is us, the current generation of military leaders who reach out and win the peace by building friendship and understanding through shared civil-society organizations.

In May, our initial shipment of 8 boxes (approximately 600 books) arrived in Quang Tri Province in Central Vietnam. Last month, these books were distributed throughout the province. Our initial project “Bridges to Dong Ha” was successful in its infancy! With this success, we are moving forward, generating revenue, and expanding to another developing country: South Africa. Brandon Beckler, a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, is currently there working on building relations with the local Rotary and setting the foundation for large shipments to underprivileged schools and libraries near Capetown. I plan to visit him and the project in December. In addition, we are planning a return to Vietnam in the Spring of 2012 to increase the ante. Instead of putting hundreds of books on the ground, we hope to put thousands in cooperation with the tireless workers of Global Community Service Foundation and Books for International Goodwill, a Rotary foundation out of Annapolis, Maryland. By working with these organizations, we are able to ship a high volume of books around the world at reasonable cost. As we continue our progress and institutionalize the donation process, I ask for your support.

The Next Step Initiative

In the 2010-2011 school year, Joseph Badger Local Schools, my alma mater, was designated Excellent with Distinction on the state report card which evaluates schools based on standardized tests and graduation rates. While I felt academically prepared to compete at the U.S. Naval Academy, I was overwhelmed by the differences in institutional knowledge that was enjoyed by my new peer group. When I was home over the summer, I was asked by a young man “Where can I find information and apply for scholarships? My mom and dad said that I should start applying for some.” At that moment, I realized that students truly are disadvantaged in comparison to their suburban, upper-middle class contemporaries. A knowledge gap exists between three groups: rural students, urban students, and suburban students. As a rising senior, the young man should have been working on taking the ACT/SAT again and tweaking his resume, essays, and application in order to get into his ideal school and winning scholarships at the University level. These actions were what his contemporaries in the suburbs were doing. They know and understand the game which is college admissions and funding. The young man did not understand the game, nor did I when I started playing.

Partnering with the school administration and guidance program, Andrew Morris, a graduate of Badger and Ohio University, and I are spearheading an initiative which we call The Next Step Initiative. It works to pair academic excellence with improved institutional knowledge of the post-high school process and the mechanisms which will maximize the range of opportunities available to students. We hope for a whole of community approach. By leveraging the academic foundation provided by teachers and staff, we as alumni hope to provide equal access to information by sharing our shortcomings, experiences, successful methodology and timelines, and most importantly, what we would do differently. As the program progresses, I will continue to update you on our progress, but it is too early to tip our hat.