Sizable majorities of Chicago residents as a whole (86 percent) and public school parents (92 percent) agreed with if teachers are going to teach longer hours, they should be paid more for it.

Chicago Teachers Union officials are calling Marc Wigler “a spy,’’ a “stool pigeon” and a “rat’’ following his April 24 ouster for life from the union for allegedly feeding a top Chicago Public Schools labor official information about an internal union meeting. Wigler was accused of sending CPS labor relations chief Rachel Resnick a 50-bullet-point email, detailing what CTU officials told union delegates during a special meeting the evening before, CTU officials say. Wigler, who earned $85,000 last year as a resource teacher working in multiple schools, declined to comment Tuesday. (Sun-Times)

Some parochial schools in Chicago will close because of the NATO summit May 20-21. But, Chicago Public School officials plan to hold classes at schools near McCormick Place. (ABC 7 News)

The State Board of Education has given preliminary approval to a nearly $1 million contract with the consulting firm that former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas heads. According to documents posted on the board's website, the contract would call for Vallas Group to work on "coordination of interventions in low-performing school districts."

Reading In Motion released the results from a study revealing that a combination of music-based curriculum, coaching of teachers and small-group instruction can raise the number of kindergarten students who are reading at grade level to 92 percent, compared to 63 percent without these components. The study involved six Chicago Public Schools and 550 students. In the first year, teachers got 63 percent of their students to grade level in reading, using their standard methods. The same teachers were able to get 92 percent of their students to grade level the following year with the use of Reading In Motion’s program which incorporates all three components – music, teacher support and small group instruction. (Press release)

IN THE NATION
Under a new pilot program, kindergartners could help put Georgia at the forefront of a growing movement to make student surveys part of how teachers are rated. Students in every grade will participate in the program, and, depending on its results, the state may incorporate the feedback into teacher evaluations as early as next year, when it will join other measures such as student test scores. (Washington Post)

As a response to the Department of Education’s $10 million funding cut to the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, advocates held a briefing on Capitol Hill Tuesday to defend the program’s strong track record and share data showcasing the program’s positive impact on underserved students. Founded in 1986, McNair prepares low-income, first-generation and minority undergraduates for careers in academia. (Press release)

The National Center for Education Statistics is rechecking data on about 5,000 high schools after faulty information from the federal agency led to erroneous rankings for the high schools on U.S. News & World Report's "Best High Schools" list. (Education Week)

But in digging deeper, there are significant security and privacy concerns that this decision raises that present real and potential dangers to the students, teachers and administrators in CPS.

Consider just two examples among many:

You are a student using the school-provided email service. Without logging off of your email account, you decide to click on a web browser to conduct research for a school report on birth control in developing countries. Without your express consent, the commercial provider of the email service collects and stores your search history and the content of your emails. Later, you are surprised - and mortified - when you receive a targeted pop-up advertisement for reproductive services.

Or consider a student who suddenly finds himself inundated with foreign-language emails and social media messages – some harmless, but some loaded with viruses that can destroy his computer – all because of a data breach on a server in a country temporarily storing that student’s supposedly secure data.

These scenarios aren’t far-fetched. Former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff recently warned of the threat of off-shore cloud data breaches that poorly-secured cloud hosting can make more likely. Breaches like this can happen when school districts outsource their data and related services to cloud computing companies, particularly cloud companies that focus on monetizing user data for advertising purposes.

Cloud vendors need tough vetting

There are tremendous benefits to cloud computing, not the least of which is that it promises significant savings to cash-strapped districts by allowing them to outsource their email services, data storage and collaboration technologies. Doing this cuts district costs for servers, hardware, software and technology support and permits them to invest more in key priorities like teacher salaries.

But districts moving to the cloud, like CPS, must insist on the proven security and privacy provisions that most private-sector cloud customers demand. Security risks, already visible in an Internet-connected world, are magnified in the cloud. One issue is that school employees – hired and overseen by school administrators – will no longer control school data. Cloud computing vendor employees will have access to children’s field trip photos, parent-teacher email exchanges, student and teacher dates of birth and social security numbers, and on and on. And sometimes, these employees may make use of sensitive data for their own purposes, as occurred in 2010 when a Google employee was reportedly fired for accessing a minor’s call logs, chat transcripts and contact lists.

While employee malfeasance is also a risk with school-based databases, the loss of control over those who manage school data in the cloud is a security wrinkle that schools must address. Before moving to the cloud, districts should ask cloud vendors several questions, including: Will student data be stored in countries with lower privacy requirements than the U.S.? What information is mined by advertisers? How are employees of cloud vendors with access to student data vetted and supervised? Will all information that a student flows through a third-party vendor’s platform be unavailable to advertisers? Hopefully, CPS asked these questions when choosing their cloud vendor. If they were not asked, we have to ask ourselves, why not? Our children’s privacy and data is at stake.

Privacy issues that do not arise in school-based server environments can quickly become apparent when schools resort to the cloud. In particular, cloud vendors’ mining of school data for commercial purposes can be a very unwelcome intrusion for students, parents and educators alike. Schools should demand assurances from cloud vendors that school information stored in the cloud will not be data-mined, used for targeted advertising or sold to third parties. While schools can never be sheltered entirely from commercial ads, they should not become marketing free-fire zones simply because they have opted to embrace cloud computing technology.

There are clear advantages when districts migrate to the cloud, with cost savings being a significant impetus. However, schools should not ignore new and more complicated data security and privacy issues presented by this appealing data management option. When making vendor choices, however, there is no free lunch. What is not paid for in dollars is instead paid for using the currency of our children's private information. Do we really want to trade our children's private lives for cheap email?  

Jon Bernstein is the president and founder of The Bernstein Strategy Group, a Washington, D.C.-based education technology consultancy.

But CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll fired back, accusing the CTU of putting out misleading information about the details of the proposal in an attempt to fire up the base. “If I were a CTU member, I would be disappointed,” she said.

The CTU also announced that it is planning a massive rally at 4:30 p.m. on May 23 at the Auditorium Theater. Once gathered, the group plans to march to district headquarters. The Board of Education holds its monthly meeting on May 23.

CTU delegates distributed the poll to members on Thursday. CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said the union would not reveal how many of the 25,000 members took the poll, or release specific results for each of the four questions asked. He said the purpose of the poll was to “get a temperature” of how members feel and to see how the logistics of such a poll would work.

The poll did not ask the members whether they would vote to authorize a strike, though one of the questions was whether the union should reject the board proposal. After negotiations broke down, the CTU asked to call a fact-finding panel, which is now in the process of meeting. The fact-finding panel is one of the final steps of a lengthy, legally required pre-strike process set out in Illinois law. The fact-finding panel's report is scheduled to be completed on July 16.

Sharkey admits that the poll was designed to elicit specific “yes, no” answers to questions. He said the strongest reaction came to the question of whether members think the board’s proposal would harm students and lower the quality of education in schools.

Another question asked whether members think that  CEO Jean-Claude Brizard should resign. Carroll called that question “unfortunate.”

Sharkey said the union is not releasing the poll results for the Brizard question. With the recent resignation announcement of the chief education officer, he said there’s already too much instability in the district.  

Along with taking the poll, the union used the opportunity to present its summary of the board’s proposal. Carroll said many of the characterizations were inaccurate. On Thursday, CPS posted to its website its own fact sheet.

One example is that the union said CPS is offering a “one-time 2 percent raise with lanes and steps frozen; nothing in years 2, 3, 4 and 5 unless we agree to test-based merit pay and the elimination of lanes and steps.”

CPS negotiators have not included any proposal about a test-based merit pay system, Carroll said. Instead, the proposal is to have CPS and CTU come together next year to create a mutually agreed-upon compensation plan, she said.

Brizard has talked about a “differentiated compensation system” that would look at a number of factors, including student growth measures, she said. 

Union delegates say they are having no problem convincing members that the board’s proposal is bad for them. Sue Garza, a union delegate at Addams Elementary School, said all 58 members at her school came to a meeting Thursday morning and they unanimously said CTU should reject the board’s proposal.

“We just want our job to be validated,” she said. “We feel disrespected.”

Jay Travis is now a program officer at the Woods Fund of Chicago. For more than a decade, Travis was the executive director of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), one of the city’s oldest grassroots organizations.

Butch Trusty has been named senior program officer for the Joyce Foundation’s Education Program, and Jason Quiara is the foundation’s new Program Officer for Education. Both will join the staff in June. Trusty currently is a manager with The Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit strategy consulting firm in New York City. He has worked with a wide range of nonprofit and philanthropic organizations focused on education reform and policy change, including two large urban school districts; the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation; the Education Equality Project; and the NAACP LDF. Quaira is from Jobs For the Future, a Boston-based national nonprofit organization that helps states strengthen their education and workforce development policies. As Senior Project Manager for state policy development and advocacy, Quiara has led a multi-state initiative aimed at improving secondary and postsecondary education outcomes for low-income and minority students.

Warren Chapman, vice chancellor for external affairs at the University of Illinois Chicago, is moving over to Columbia College, where he will serve as senior vice president, overseeing the transition to a new president in two years and responsible for marketing, communications, media, planning, compliance and research. Chapman is a member of the Catalyst Editorial Advisory Board and the board of Community Renewal Society, the publisher of Catalyst.

Attallah Wilson, a senior at Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, and Stevie Bailey, a senior at Chicago International Charter School (CICS) Longwood, were winners of the 7^th annual citywide business plan contest sponsored by the Future Founders Foundation. Attallah won in the products and services division for Stick and Zips, a product that helps keep opened food fresh. Stevie won in the technology division for 10 Trey Records, an online music production company for aspiring artists and producers.

Gabrielle Lyon and Paul Sereno, co-founders of Project Exploration, have been named 2012 National Afterschool for All Champions by the Afterschool Alliance for their dedication to afterschool programming.

Monique Blakes, a first grade teacher at Oscar DePriest Elementary School; Elizabeth Luna, a kindergarten teacher at Murray Language Academy; and Susan Stephan, a first and second grade teacher at Norwood Park Elementary have been named Golden Apple Excellence in Teaching Award recipients for the 2011-2012 school year. The three CPS educators are among 10 recipients of the Golden Apple Awards for Excellence in Teaching and were selected from a pool of 560 nominees from throughout the Chicago metropolitan area.

Fund for Teachers awarded 34 Chicago teachers $155,000 in grants to travel the world this summer. When the school year concludes, they will embark on learning adventures that they designed in 17 different countries. Since 2005, 317 CPS teachers have leveraged $1.2M in Fund for Teachers grants to inspire authentic learning in 218 schools across the city.

The Illinois House Executive Committee voted 10-1 to approve the proposed bill, which is still far from a done deal. It still must pass the full House, make its way through the Senate committee process and win majority support in the Senate before it can be delivered to Gov. Pat Quinn for his consideration.

House Speaker Michael Madigan filed HB 4277 in January as a “shell bill,” void of content. But Madigan handed sponsorship to Rep. Daniel Burke (D-Chicago) last week and waived procedural deadlines that have killed most other bills that originated in the House and have not yet reached the Senate.

The vote came despite a furious campaign by the union and other organizations that fear the bill will divert millions of dollars away from neighborhood public schools. But already in Chicago, the district is moving toward equal funding for charter schools through its district-charter compact, which calls for equalized funding, more charter accountability and other measures. Cities that participate in the compact, an initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are eligible for a pot of $20 million in implementation funding that the Gates Foundation will dole out over the next several years.

Opponents of the bill also pointed out that, while charter schools would receive an equal share of a district’s tax dollars, the neighborhood schools would not share in the corporate and philanthropic contributions that charter school organizations often reap.

HB 4277, as amended, would require districts to provide at least 95%--up from 75%--of the district’s per capita student tuition to charter schools, multiplied by the number of students enrolled in the charter. Student tuition is the dollar amount a district would charge a non-resident student and is based on the district’s operating costs per student. CPS operating costs are $13,078 per pupil, according to the district’s 2011 state report card.

Burke argued that the bill is “an issue of fairness,” adding that his main concern is the disparity in the salaries of teachers, which are often lower in charters than in traditional schools in which teachers are CTU members. “They start out fairly equal, but by five years [on the job] you see a great difference in their salaries,” he said.

Advocates for charter schools sought to reinforce Burke’s fairness argument. Opponents pointed out that neighborhood schools already suffer from lack of funding, a situation that would worsen if the bill becomes law.

Elizabeth Purvis, CEO of Chicago International Charter Schools, claimed that charters “are part of the public school system.” CIC schools serve 9,000 students in Chicago and Rockford, she said, with 86% of them from low-income families and 95% of them minorities.

Charters must hire state-certified teachers and meet all state and federal requirements, maintain financial stability and meet any local regulations, she said. “Over 50,000 students in public charter schools [in Illinois] deserve equal treatment under the law,” Purvis said.

Meanwhile, the union charged that the bill would “force school districts to divert more funds from neighborhood public schools to charter schools. While public schools are funded almost entirely by taxes, charters receive private money from corporate privatization proponents.”

“Now is not the time” to increase charter funding “to the detriment of our neighborhood schools,” CTU Political Director Stacy Davis Gates told the committee, referring to the $700 million budget deficit that CPS says it faces in the FY 2013 budget.

Gates also cited national research showing charters have “not been particularly effective” at educating students and that they often “exclude English language learners and special education students.” A widely-publicized 2009 Stanford University study found that only 17% of the nation’s 5,000 charter schools reported academic gains “significantly better than traditional public schools,” while 37% performed worse and 46% made “no significant difference.”

Illinois Education Association lobbyist Jim Reed objected that HB 4277 would affect agreements reached in negotiations between charter schools and their school district boards. A spokesman for the Raise Your Hand organization complained that neighborhood schools in Chicago are already underfunded, citing large class sizes and the lack of music and art instruction.

HB 4277 will not achieve the parity in teachers’ salaries that Burke desires, the Raise Your Hand witness said. “We’re not against equalized funding … [but] there’s no guarantee [in the bill] that the money will go to salaries.”

Jim Broadway is founder and publisher of State School News Service.

Here's the first article in an ongoing Catalyst Chicago series that will follow minority teacher candidates through their student teaching experience, job hunt and first year in the classroom. This installment introduces Michael Vargas, a participant in the Grow Your Own program, an initiative that aims to build diversity in the profession by training candidates who have ties to communities of color.

Gov. Pat Quinn surprises Elizabeth Luna, a kindergarten teacher at Chicago’s Murray Language Academy, with a  Golden Apple Award for Teaching Excellence. (Sun-Times)

The Illinois House Executive Committee voted 10-1 Wednesday afternoon to approve a bill that would significantly increase the amount of funding that school districts have to provide for charter schools.

Parents and staff of several Chicago public schools met with police Wednesday night to discuss their concerns about possible disruptions during the upcoming NATO summit. Several schools near McCormick Place and in the so-called Loop Red Zone could be affected by security arrangements for the NATO summit, being held at McCormick Place on May 20-21. (CBS Chicago)

Substance News takes a look at CPS' expansion of its communication staff, using information obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request. In October 2011, CPS had 12 people working in "Communications." By February, 18 people were working in "Communications." Of those 18 people, 15 have been hired since June 2011. Substance raises the point that "CPS declared it was too poor to pay contractual raises" and has made most of the hires—many paid more than $100,000—without putting them in a Board Report, which then become public record.

A school teacher convicted of computer tampering for changing the grades of Antioch High School football players has been charged with forgery for allegedly defrauding her new employer. (Tribune)

West suburban Morton High School District 201 board voted Wednesday to censure a fellow board member for a racist post on his Facebook page, despite calls from hundreds of parents in Cicero and Berwyn requesting his resignation. The school board members publicly admonished board member Michael Iniquez, who also apologized for his actions at the board meeting. (Sun-Times)

IN THE NATION
School districts have resorted to hiring debt collectors, employing constables, and swapping out standard meals for scaled-back versions to try to coerce parents to pay off school lunch debt that, in recent years, appears to have surged as the result of a faltering economy and better record-keeping. (Education Week)

A charter school organizer said he's "ready to roll" with the first charter school in St. Louis County if the Legislature allows charters to open statewide. (Tribune)

Jay Bookman, a columnist and blogger at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in a post this week, ends with this thought on the roots of the cheating scandal that rocked the Atlanta public school system:
"Here in Georgia, for example, state leaders have insisted that standardized testing be used as the educational equivalent of an industrial quality-control system. They produce a standardized model, and the tests determine how closely students conform to that model as they come off the assembly line.

Yet at the same time, we are told, the one-size-fits-all public-school industrial model must be dynamited to make way for a more experimental, let-a-thousand-flowers-bloom approach to education via charter schools and even vouchers. There’s a fundamental incoherence between those two messages that leads me to suspect that we really don’t know what we’re doing, and in fact are using schools as a battlefield in a deeper social struggle that we do not wish to acknowledge."

The vote came despite a furious campaign against the bill by the Chicago Teachers Union and others who fear the bill will divert millions of dollars away from neighborhood public schools.

HB 4277, as amended, raises the minimum support for charter schools from 75% to 95% of the district’s “per capita student tuition, multiplied by the number of students residing in the district who are enrolled in the charter school.”

The tuition is a dollar amount that a district would charge a non-resident student to attend a school in the district. It is based on the district’s operating costs per student.

Rep. Daniel Burke (D-Chicago), chairman of the committee, sponsored HB 4277 and the amendment that turned the bill essentially into an income producer for charter schools. Although charter school laws apply statewide, by far most charters are a part of CPS.

Burke said the bill is aimed at achieving “equal funding for our charter schools, equal funding with the public schools.” It is “an issue of fairness,” Burke argued, adding that his main concern is the disparity in the salaries of teachers. “They start out fairly equal, but by five years [on the job] you see a great difference in their sala4ries.”

In a last-minute effort to get its members and supporters to lobby legislators against Burke’s bill, the Chicago Teachers Union argued that it would “force school districts to divert more funds from neighborhood public schools to charter schools. While public schools are funded almost entirely by taxes, charters receive private money from corporate privatization proponents.”

Jim Broadway is founder and publisher of State School News Service.

Why did America initially decide to stay neutral, he asks?

“Because they didn’t want to get involved in what wasn’t their business,” one boy says.

“Because they were supplying both sides,” says another.

Staying out of the war was the plan, Vargas says. “We’re going to find out about why that didn’t work very well.” He points out parallels between the presidents then and now: Woodrow Wilson’s re-election slogan was “He kept us out of the war,” President Barack Obama campaigned on a promise to end the war in Iraq. Geography played a role, too. Americans didn’t want to get involved in a war across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe.

But America was pulled into the conflict anyway, leading eventually to the law that created the draft for the first time. “So that’s like the jury duty of war, I guess,” one boy says.

Vargas draws another parallel to current events. A draft wasn’t necessary after the attacks of September 11, 2001, because so many Americans signed up for the now-voluntary Armed Services, including three of his friends.

Outside of class, Vargas explains that his goal as a teacher is to establish a dialogue with students and encourage them to use critical thinking skills to apply, analyze and evaluate information. He also wants them to understand history from the perspectives of different ethnic groups that are sometimes overlooked in the history books.

“When we are talking about the pioneers and the West, I make it a point to have them see it from the perspective of the pioneers as well as the Native Americans who already occupied the land,” Vargas says. “It’s more about the how and the why [of history] than the what.”

At 33, the tall, former school security guard is at ease in front of students and about a decade older than the typical student teacher about to graduate from college. Vargas is also Latino, the most under-represented group among CPS teachers. As more young white teachers flood into the district, Latinos are still just under 15 percent of the teaching force. Yet Latinos are now the largest group of CPS students, at 44 percent of the student population.

At Talman last year, only seven of 19 teachers were Latino and just one was male, according to state teacher service records for the 2010-2011 school year. Enrollment at Talman, a small, high-achieving neighborhood elementary school in Gage Park on the Southwest Side, is 96 percent Latino.

Delia Rico, education director at the Latino Policy Forum, notes that statewide, just 5 percent of teachers and school administrators are Latino. The shortage, she says, is partly due to a spiral effect: Latino students often fall off-track academically in middle school, then end up dropping out of high school or college. Some students attend community college, but never transfer to 4-year schools.

Many schools of education aren’t doing enough when it comes to preparing teacher candidates to work with minority students, Rico adds.

“Where they are falling short is in addressing the understanding of culture, the value of language, the understanding of [the] life experiences that children bring with them to the classroom,” Rico says. Student teaching is a particular concern, since placements are not necessarily in communities where teacher candidates could practice these skills.

Teachers who don’t understand children’s cultural background may not recognize the importance of having books in their students’ native language, or materials that reflect that culture, Rico says.

The Latino Policy Forum plans to work with teacher preparation programs to increase awareness of the importance of cultural competency in the teaching force, and to incorporate more coursework on English language learners for all teachers.

*          *          *

Grow Your Own Teachers, the program that Vargas joined, was created in 2005 to bring more diversity to the teaching profession by supporting candidates—including parents—who live in and have ties to communities of color. In fiscal year 2012, the program received $2.5 million to fund 15 partnerships between community groups and universities to recruit and train teacher candidates. Gov. Pat Quinn recommended no increase in funding for the 2013 fiscal year.

The ability to relate to students and to draw on community resources to help them, are important components of teaching success. A strong relationship between communities and schools, which Grow Your Own aims to foster, is one of the five “essential supports” for school improvement identified by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.

Universities, which are generally responsible for assigning student teachers to schools, make sure the Grow Your Own candidates get assignments in their own neighborhoods.

In a small-scale evaluation of the program—covering six Grow Your Own graduates—principals reported that they performed as well as other beginning teachers in the classroom, with classroom management and teaching content knowledge emerging as strong points. The study, which was done by education research firm OER Associates, will be updated soon with data from the current school year.

The Grow Your Own teachers told evaluators that their background and life experiences help them to understand and respect students. They also reported that, as parents themselves, they value family involvement in schools.

Candidates typically take three to seven years to complete Grow Your Own, since the program targets adults—most from ages 30 to 50—who are working full-time and have families. Half of candidates have household incomes under $30,000. Given these challenges, nearly half the candidates drop out. Some are counseled out.

“We have recognized that for some candidates, Grow Your Own will not work out because they are juggling so many responsibilities and don’t have a lot of financial leeway,” notes Anne Hallett, director of Grow Your Own Illinois.

Since its launch in 2005, only 54 candidates have graduated. But by December, that number is expected to almost double, to about 100.

*          *          *

Vargas grew up around 53rd and Wolcott in New City, near Gage Park. At school, his teachers were mostly white and from upper-middle class backgrounds. “They never knew where I was coming from,” he says.

His teachers talked about spending summer vacations at family cabins. Vargas’ family “was eating” but had almost no extra money.

 “I have known what it is like to live in a small apartment with 10 people,” Vargas says. “My goal is to push that these are not excuses, they are tools--reasons [to] put effort in to greater understanding and using different perspectives.”

Vargas’ family later moved—his brother had been beaten up by African-American boys in the neighborhood who mistook him for white, he says—to “a cruddy house” at 54^th and Lawndale. Vargas was enrolled at Peck Elementary. Again, the teachers were mostly white, with a student body that was a mix of 2^nd- and 3^rd-generation Latinos who did not speak Spanish, plus African-American children who were bused into the neighborhood.

When Vargas was 20, his first child was born. He had to work, but attended Daley College, a community college that is part of City Colleges of Chicago, on and off. When he found out about Grow Your Own, he re-committed himself to his goal of becoming a teacher. Eventually, he transferred to Northeastern Illinois University and enrolled full-time.

Getting his degree was no picnic. Vargas worked full-time as a school security guard, and had to hold down a second part-time job to make ends meet. Sometimes, he worked part-time at a third job in an after-school program.

The schedule was grueling. Often, Vargas would arrive home from Northeastern at midnight four or five days a week, then have to wake up at 5 a.m. to get his three kids ready for school and go to work.

“I tell my students, I didn’t do [college] when I was supposed to, so this is the price I have to pay,” he says. “If I really want it, I have to go after it.”

Vargas credits support from his wife, who is also studying to become a teacher, and from his parents and in-laws, with helping him to get through the program.

His supervising teacher at Talman, Theresa O’Rourke, notes that Vargas’ background is an asset.

“Because of his age and experience of having worked in a Chicago public school, he’s familiar with that, as opposed to just coming in from a university,” O’Rourke says. “He has a pretty good understanding of some of the social and economic needs of the student population.”

*          *          *

Vargas says he’s pleased at how much latitude O’Rourke has given him to try out his own style of teaching.

“I am basically occupying space in someone else’s room. It’s like the equivalent of sleeping on someone’s couch,” he notes. “She kind of allows me to do my own thing.”

Not everything has been easy, though. Vargas’ biggest challenge has been figuring out how to handle students who just don’t speak up in class.

“I forced them,” he says. “I told them I want to hear from someone I haven’t heard from yet. They did it in the beginning out of the need to participate. They did it later because they are starting to understand what this means.”

One way Vargas builds understanding is by helping students see the connection between the Spanish and English versions of vocabulary words. “When it derives from the same root, you’ll see the ‘Aha,’ ” he says.

Vargas’ presence has already sparked a small ripple effect. Margarita Ortiz, a parent worker in Vargas’ class, says that his example has sparked thoughts of becoming a teacher herself. (Ortiz participates in a program that provides small stipends and training for parents to work in schools.)

Ortiz rarely speaks in class, mostly assisting with paperwork and helping students who need it.

“I am scared of speaking in front of a lot of people,” she says. “[Vargas] is just starting, but he has that confidence in him. Seeing him is great motivation.”