Education Week - August 24, 2016 - 11

Trips Abroad Expose
D.C. Students to World
Fully paid travel for 400 students
Andrew Black had never been on
a plane, and his traveling experiences had been limited to car trips
in the United States.
But this summer, the rising senior at Coolidge High School in
the District of Columbia traveled
to Spain and the Netherlands, an
experience he may have never
had if not for an ambitious studyabroad pilot program the district
has launched.
"It was really impactful," said Andrew, whose interest in visual arts
was solidified when he saw how
Spain's art was influenced by crosscurrents of cultures and religion.
The student, who lives in the northwest Washington neighborhood of
Takoma, was particularly struck by
the intricate architectural details of
a mosque that had been taken over
by Christians. His tour group traveled to the Sagrada Família, a massive basilica in Barcelona designed
by Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí
that has been under constant construction since the late 1800s.
"There's a lot of diversity in terms
of religion and architecture," Andrew said. "The Muslims and Christians ... all ruled Spain at one point.
It's all mixed together in the architecture."
Andrew was one of 400 8th and
11th grade students the school district sent on fully paid international
trips to 12 countries this summer,
including China, Costa Rica, France,
Italy, and Nicaragua.
The mission, spearheaded by
soon-to-depart Chancellor Kaya
Henderson, is to eventually send
every District of Columbia public
school student on two study-abroad
trips before graduation, using private contributions to underwrite the
effort. The scale of the undertaking
is unusual; if the district reaches
its goal, it will coordinate travel for
about 5,000 students a year. And the
pilot is already drawing the attention of other school systems.
"I started talking about this a
couple of years ago, and I think my
team thought I was bananas," Henderson said. "But if these things
were possible and easy, then everyone would be doing them."

Global Education
The trips, to countries that correspond with students' language
courses, combine two goals: exposing
students to global ideas and providing previously out-of-reach opportunities for low-income children.
D.C.'s public schools have worked
in other ways to build a "more
global" education for students in
recent years. Elementary schools
offer at least 45 minutes a week of
world-language instruction, middle schools offer language classes
in every grade with the option of
earning high school credits for

some courses, and high schools provide Advanced Placement language
courses.
The district's schools also partner
with 65 embassies located in the nation's capital to expose students to
other cultures.
Research shows that lowerincome students often fall behind their wealthier peers in outof-school exposure to enriching
activities like travel, theater, and
museum attendance. Advocates
have called the concept "the enrichment gap," which can exacerbate
the poorer academic experiences
of lower-income children, who are
more likely to attend schools with
fewer resources.
Authors of a 2013 study found
that, as overall income inequality has expanded, the gap between
what wealthier and middle-class
parents and poor parents spend on
their children for such activities has
widened even more.

Photos by T.J. Kirkpatrick/Redux for Education Week

By Evie Blad

'Enrichment Spending'
Using data from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, researchers from
the University of Pennsylvania
found that between 1972 and 2007,
"enrichment spending" more than
doubled from an average of nearly
$3,000 per child per year to more
than $6,000 per child per year for
parents in the top income decile. In
the same time period, enrichment
spending for parents in the lowest
three deciles remained relatively
stagnant, at around $1,000 per child
per year, researchers found.
And because of schools' "pay to
play" policies that require students
to ante up fees, as well as money for
equipment and travel, lower-income
students are missing out on opportunities to grow their engagement,
persistence, worldview, and socialemotional skills, Harvard University professor Robert Putnam wrote
in his 2015 book Our Kids.
Henderson, who is stepping down
from her role as chancellor Sept. 30,
agrees. She remembers her own experiences traveling to Spain in high
school, which gave her a chance to
flex the Spanish language muscles
she'd been building.
"It was completely eye-opening
and perspective-changing for me,"
Henderson said. "I wanted to bring
that experience to our kids in Washington, D.C."
Around the country, nonprofit
organizations team with high
schools to offer low-income students
chances to travel internationally in
small groups. But, if D.C. schools
succeed in expanding the program
districtwide, it will be unique in
scale and scope.
Organizers of the program raised
money to cover all costs, from lodging and transportation to passport
fees, for participating students.
The district also paid for aides to

travel with students who have special needs covered by an individualized education plan and covered
the costs for teachers and district
staff to chaperone trips.
And school district officials arranged for some students, whose
families rely on their children's
summer income for support, to receive $11.50-per-hour minimumwage pay during their trips through
the city's summer youth-employment program.
The pilot, which drew about 1,000
applicants, cost $2 million, and students with limited international
travel experience were given priority, said Tre Jerdon-Cabrera, a
spokeswoman for the D.C. Public
Education Fund, which helps raise
private donations to support district
initiatives.

Indelible Experiences
Organizers are planning trips for
500 students next year at an estimated cost of $3 million, she said.
And though Henderson led the
charge to start sending students on
trips on a large scale, fundraisers
plan to continue the work after her
departure, Jerdon-Cabrera said.
Students returned from this summer's trips with photos and videos
they shot with district-provided
GoPro cameras. They will be required to share their experiences
with classmates through projects
and presentations, and some have
already contributed to a group blog.
On a trip to Beijing, 8th graders

felt like celebrities, they wrote on a
blog, when locals asked to take their
photos, they learned about studentled demonstrations at Tiananmen
Square, and they took rickshaw
rides. In Costa Rica, juniors visited
a farm where tayota, a squashlike
crop, grows. They painted a mural
with local youths and cooked on
outdoor stoves.
On Andrew's trip to Barcelona in
June, students learned to barter at
a market, giving them a chance to
practice their Spanish skills. "I've
taken Spanish for three years, but
I was still terrible when I went," he
said.
One of Andrew's key memories
was learning about Great Britain's
vote to leave the European Union.
Being closer to the people affected
by the vote made it more meaningful, he said. He also took in little
differences, such as the dry air and
the use of olive oil in almost every
food he ate.
In Amsterdam, Andrew and his
travel group visited the house were
Holocaust victim Anne Frank hid
from the Nazis.
"I learned that there's always
someone trying to make the world
better," Andrew said, describing his
big takeaway from the trip.
Those sorts of experiences are
what Henderson envisioned.
"Many of our wealthy kids would
have international experiences
whether we provide them or not,"
she said. "But so many of our kids
would never have this experience if
we didn't provide it."

FROM TOP: Randy Sams,
17, a student at Ballou
High School in the District
of Columbia, loads his
luggage onto a school bus
before he and some of his
classmates head to Dulles
International Airport
for a study-abroad trip
to Argentina this summer.
Raziya Wells hugs daughter
Kaiya Burnett, 17, a student
at Ballou High School,
before she departs for her
trip to Argentina.

[S]o many
of our kids would
never have this
experience
if we didn't
provide it."
KAYA HENDERSON
Chancellor
District of Columbia Schools

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Education Week - August 24, 2016

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