Top 7 Ways Technology Stifles Student Learning in My Classroom | gadflyonthewallblog

Top 7 Ways Technology Stifles Student Learning in My Classroom | gadflyonthewallblog

Top 7 Ways Technology Stifles Student Learning in My Classroom

As a middle school teacher, I have real concerns about the ways technology is used in the classroom and the effects it’s having on students.

That does not make me a technophobe.

The fact that you are reading this article on a blog – a regularly updated Website containing personal writings or a weB–LOG) should prove that point.

I use technology in my everyday life and in many ways find it indispensable.

However, that does not mean I embrace all uses of technology just as criticizing some forms does not mean I think we should get rid of them all.

But after 17 years of teaching, I have legitimate concerns about what all this technology is doing to our students and our schools.

I have seen technologies come and go. Some – like a computerized grade book – have been extremely helpful, and I would not want to have to do my job without them.

Others have fallen by the wayside, been discontinued or proven a waste of time or even worse – they’ve become impediments rather than assistants to student learning.

In general, I think we have become too reliant on technology in schools. We’ve welcomed and incorporated it without testing it, or even reflecting upon whether it CONTINUE READING: Top 7 Ways Technology Stifles Student Learning in My Classroom | gadflyonthewallblog

Jon Schnur and His Nonprofit Accelerator, America Achieves: A Deep Dig | deutsch29

Jon Schnur and His Nonprofit Accelerator, America Achieves: A Deep Dig | deutsch29

Jon Schnur and His Nonprofit Accelerator, America Achieves: A Deep Dig

Sometimes the ed-reform deep dig is really deep.

On July 22, 2019, I wrote a post about a nonprofit, Results for America, that was incubated by another nonprofit, America Achieves.

I had planned to follow up with a post about America Achieves, which received its nonprofit status in November 2010 and which was co-founded by its chair, Jonathan Schnur, and co-chair, Rod Washington. (Washington is no longer listed on the America Achieves site, but his bio can be access using this archived America Achieves bio link from January 2013.)

What I noticed on America Achieves’ 2011 tax form is that in 2010, revenue for this brand-new nonprofit was already $4M, and in its second year (2011), revenue jumped to $13.5M. Contributions and grants accounted for most of the revenue ($2.9M in 2010 and $13.4M in 2011), which indicates that its founders were really connected.

It is in researching Schnur that the ed-reform dive became deep.

Jon Schnur

Princeton University is a hub of education reform. Schnur graduated from Princeton University in 1989 with a degree in politics, the same year that Teach for America (TFA) founder, Wendy Kopp, graduated with a degree in public policy. Whereas Kopp pitched her TFA idea as her senior thesis, Schnur’s idea for a principal training nonprofit, New Leaders for New Schools (name later reduced to New Leaders), happened circa 2000 during his time at Harvard when he took graduate coursework. (Schnur appears not to have graduated; there is CONTINUE READING: Jon Schnur and His Nonprofit Accelerator, America Achieves: A Deep Dig | deutsch29

The pervasiveness of poverty in schools demands real solutions

The pervasiveness of poverty in schools demands real solutions

A school administrator tries to shame poverty away
The pervasiveness of poverty in schools demands real solutions

Last time I checked, being poor was not a crime. But earlier this month, school officials in Kingston, Pennsylvania, treated it as one.

On July 9, Wyoming Valley West School District officials mailed a letter to approximately 40 parents, warning that if they did not pay their child’s debt for school meals, “the result may be your child being taken from your home and placed in foster care.”

The backlash to the letter was immediate and understandable. There were those who criticized the decision to collect a meal debt in this way because it missed the larger point: Parents may not be able to afford reduced-price lunches. Shaking down parents would amount to punishing them for being poor. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) tweeted, “No child should have to imagine the horror of being ripped away from their parents because their family is struggling economically.” Sympathetic responses also sought to solve the real budget hole created by parents not paying.

NPR reported that at least five individuals each offered to pay the accumulated debt of $22,000, representing dozens of students who hadn’t paid for meals. However, the school district’s president, Joseph Mazur, who leads one of the poorest districts in the state, rejected their offers, reportedly because it was owed by parents who could pay. Mazur’s refusal laid bare the real motivations of the letter: He sought to shame parents and their children with an absurd lesson on responsibility. His warning that an educational system is willing CONTINUE READING: The pervasiveness of poverty in schools demands real solutions

LA Unified’s spending plan should be rejected and rewritten, says advocates’ complaint | EdSource

LA Unified’s spending plan should be rejected and rewritten, says advocates’ complaint | EdSource

LA Unified’s spending plan should be rejected and rewritten, says advocates’ complaint
LCAP doesn’t fully document how $1.2 billion will help high-needs students

A public interest law firm that has bird-dogged Los Angeles Unified’s spending has filed a formal complaint demanding that the state’s largest school district redo its 2019-20 school accountability plan.

The complaint argues that the district wrote a vague and deficient Local Control and Accountability Plan — or LCAP – that fails to meet the state’s transparency requirements on how it will spend $1.2 billion in state funding dedicated to high-needs students. The district’s board of education approved the plan last month, although several board members acknowledged at the hearing that they found the LCAP and the budget to be confusing.

In what could eventually could become a lawsuit, Public Advocates, together with the Los Angeles law firm Covington & Burling, expedited their complaint by sending it directly to the California Department of Education instead of first filing it with the district and, if needed, with the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

Public Advocates wrote that going through the channels would be “futile” given the district’s unresponsiveness to past complaints and the county office’s “consistent rubber stamping” of previous LCAPs. Delays in ruling on the complaint would “irreparably” harm children relying on the funding to improve their education, the complaint said.

But Jeff Breshears, an administrator who oversees LCAP complaints for the state, rejected that argument as premature and forwarded the complaint to the district and the county office of education. The county office hadn’t completed its evaluation of the 2019-20 LCAP when the complaint was filed, Breshears’ letter noted. Breshears ordered the district to rule on the complaint within 60 days.

Spokespeople for both the district and the county office declined to comment on the complaint, saying it was under review.

State law requires that districts and charter schools, in consultation with parents and the community, write an LCAP every three years, with annual updates, to account for CONTINUE READING: LA Unified’s spending plan should be rejected and rewritten, says advocates’ complaint | EdSource

Big Education Ape: Growing Scandal at Sacramento School District: Additional Email Reveals More Deception - Sacramento City Teachers Association - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/07/growing-scandal-at-sacramento-school.html

Study: California schools earn low grades compared to nation

Study: California schools earn low grades compared to nation

Study: California schools earn low grades compared to nation

(KGTV) - As parents and children prepare for a new school year, a study shows California schools do not earn top grades compared to other states.

California ranked 38th among the 50 states and District of Columbia in 29 categories, according to the Wallet Hub study.

Data considered to measure quality included graduation rate, dropout rate, math and reading test scores, Advanced Placement exam scores, student-teacher ratio, and SAT and ACT results.

Safety was measured by number of school shootings, share of high school students who were armed, participating in violence, or access to illegal drugs, school safety plans, youth incarceration rates, and safety grades of roads around schools.

California was 4th best for the percentage of threatened or injured high school students. The state came in last for its student-teacher ratio.

Other key rankings: 

• 44^th – Math Test Scores

• 38^th – Reading Test Scores

• 32^nd – Median SAT Score

• 16^th – Median ACT Score

• 22^nd – % of Licensed/Certified Public K–12 Teachers

• 34^th – Dropout Rate

• 7^th – Bullying Incidence Rate

Top states for education included Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, Virginia, and Vermont. The worst states were West Virginia, Mississippi, Arizona, Louisiana, and New Mexico.

Study: California schools earn low grades compared to nation

Fake Play and Its Dangerous Alignment to Standards and Data

Fake Play and Its Dangerous Alignment to Standards and Data

Fake Play and Its Dangerous Alignment to Standards and Data

Where does pretending come in? It relates to what philosophers call “counterfactual” thinking, like Einstein wondering what would happen if a train went at the speed of light.

~Alison Gopnik, “Let the Children Play, It’s Good for Them” Smithsonian Magazine. July 2012.

There’s a troubling phenomenon happening in early childhood education. It involves aligning standards to fake play.

Children own real play.

In Educating Young Children, Mary Hohmann and David P. Weikart discuss the HighScope preschool program and the welcome backseat adults often take to allow children to freely play. They say: When children are playing or starting to play, and are receptive to other players, adults can sometimes join them in a nondisruptive manner. This is real play.

Real play involves children using their imaginations to plan and work things out on CONTINUE READING: Fake Play and Its Dangerous Alignment to Standards and Data

Teacher Preparation and the Kafkan Nightmare of Accreditation | radical eyes for equity

Teacher Preparation and the Kafkan Nightmare of Accreditation | radical eyes for equity

Teacher Preparation and the Kafkan Nightmare of Accreditation

Over three-plus decades of teaching, I have found that students are far less likely to laugh while reading Franz Kafka than, say, while reading Kurt Vonnegut. But Kafka and Vonnegut are essentially satirists, though both traffic mainly in dark humor.

Franz Kafka 1923 (public domain)

The Metamorphosis is the work most people associate with Kafka, but it isn’t readily recognized, I have found, that the work is filled with slapstick humor—the scene when Gregor is revealed as a bug to his family—while also making a damning commentary on the consequences of the bureaucratic life.

You see, Gregor Samsa’s metamorphosis into a bug is merely a physical manifestation of his life as a salesman, which, Kafka illustrates, is nothing more than a bug’s life.

This, of course, was Kafka’s impression of early twentieth century Prussia as well as the corrosive nature of materialism. As I enter my eighteenth year as as a teacher educator, after eighteen years as a public school English teacher, I can attest that Kafka has pretty much nailed my career on the head as well.

So when I saw Teacher-Preparation Programs Again Have a Choice of Accreditors. But Should They? in Education Week, I immediately recognized that this was the wrong question—or at least incomplete.

Accountability, standards, and assessment have been pervasive my entire career in education, which began in 1984. Over that career, I have heard a CONTINUE READING: Teacher Preparation and the Kafkan Nightmare of Accreditation | radical eyes for equity

The Case for Making College Free – Have You Heard

The Case for Making College Free – Have You Heard

The Case for Making College Free

In the latest episode of Have You Heard, economist Marshall Steinbaum talks free college, human capital theory, educationism and why it’s time to disrupt the individualized logic of higher education. If that sounds like a lot, well, it is! You may need to take notes—or lie down for a while, but we guarantee that listening to this episode will add to your stockpile of human capital. Complete transcript available here. And if you enjoy this high-quality content, please consider supporting us on Patreon. You’ll get access to our subscriber-only In the Weeds segment, reading lists, and the satisfaction of knowing that you’re keeping the best little education podcast out there afloat.

The Case for Making College Free – Have You Heard

CURMUDGUCATION: Why Charter Schools Must Waste Money

CURMUDGUCATION: Why Charter Schools Must Waste Money

Why Charter Schools Must Waste Money

Back in March, the Network for Public Education, a public education advocacy group, released a study showing that the Department of Education has spent over a billion dollars on charter school waste and fraud. Education Next, a publication that advocates for charter schools, offered a reply to that report. The rebuttal to the rebuttal just appeared in the Washington Post, but there is one portion of the Education Next piece that deserves a closer look.

Charter schools should be held accountable for performance, which requires closing them when they don’t meet standards. Even with the best plans and under the ideal circumstances, opening a charter school is difficult. Charter Schools Program funding is intended to serve as seed capital to encourage innovation, and some experiments will fail. That is expected.

This is part of the premise of corporate education reform--that schools should open and close and rise and fall just like a car dealership or a food truck. For these fans of choice, having schools closed down is a sign that the system is working, not a sign of failure.

There are several problems with this feature.

One is the disruption for students. Being booted out of your school (especially if it happenssuddenly, unexpectedly, and in the middle of the school year) is not like discovering that your favorite taco truck isn't at the corner today. Families have to find a new school. Students are wrenched out of familiar surroundings with familiar teachers and school friends. Being the new kid in school is socially isolating. Learning to live by a whole new set of rules is troubling. For a  CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Why Charter Schools Must Waste Money

New thoughts on Charter Schools…. | Deborah Meier on Education

New thoughts on Charter Schools…. | Deborah Meier on Education

New thoughts on Charter Schools….

Just took a long swim in my pond and feel restored—maybe to age…. 50?

I’ve been involved this past year in working with Steve Zimmerman, who has started two community-based charter schools in Queens. He’s helped me do some hard thinking about my divided loyalties.

On one hand I’m a fierce critic of privatizing K-12 schooling. Of course. And that includes all kinds of subtle forms of privatization and using public monies to make a profit off of educating young citizens. I’m also shocked by the many ways in which the corporate and philanthropic world has lied and cheated and abetted the growth of the “charter chains” which operate within the worst of all worlds. They are corporate-style operators with control resting in the hands of privately selected board members who live and operate worlds apart from the communities and families they make decisions for.

BUT. What about colleagues I know (like the late Ted Sizer) who started charter schools because, unlike me, no one in the public school world offered them a chance to have CONTINUE READING: New thoughts on Charter Schools…. | Deborah Meier on Education

Will “Big Ideas” Reduce/End the Achievement/Opportunity Gap? How Will Culturally Relevant Education (CRE) Impact Student Learning? | Ed In The Apple

Will “Big Ideas” Reduce/End the Achievement/Opportunity Gap? How Will Culturally Relevant Education (CRE) Impact Student Learning? | Ed In The Apple

Will “Big Ideas” Reduce/End the Achievement/Opportunity Gap? How Will Culturally Relevant Education (CRE) Impact Student Learning?

For decades researchers, think tanks, politicians, talking heads have chipped in with programs and policies to shrink/eliminate the “achievement gap.” The Moynihan Report (1965), entitled “The Black Family” pointed to dysfunctional Black families as a source of poverty, a Report long since discredited. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act  (1965), at the core of the President Johnson’s War On Poverty provided dollars to poor districts, vital dollars, and has not had the impact we had hoped for.  Court-ordered busing in the 70’s did integrate schools until higher courts intervened. No Child Left Behind (2002) was a bi-partisan widely supported law that ended up as “test and punish.”

Universal Pre-K and 3 for All in New York City will have significant impact over time.  Locally created integration plans will nibble around the edges; Race to the Top dangled dollars if states linked teacher accountability to student test scores, endorsed charter schools and the Common Core, and only succeeded in creating the Opt-Out movement.

All glowed brightly and faded to the dustbin of failed solutions.

In other words, there are no magic bullets.

School systems do need fixes.

More teachers of color, especially male teachers are a goal, although the school district with the largest percentage of teachers of color in New York City is a low achieving district. Around the city about 40% of principals are of color and a  CONTINUE READING: Will “Big Ideas” Reduce/End the Achievement/Opportunity Gap? How Will Culturally Relevant Education (CRE) Impact Student Learning? | Ed In The Apple