CURMUDGUCATION: Can Personalized Learning Deliver

CURMUDGUCATION: Can Personalized Learning Deliver

Can Personalized Learning Deliver

A new report published by the National Education Policy Center looks at the current state of K-12 personalized learning and finds that there are many reasons for school districts to think twice about embracing this hot new trend. “Personalized Learning and the Digital Privatization of Curriculum and Teaching” was written by Faith Boninger, Alex Molnar and Christopher M. Saldana of the University of Colorado Boulder, and it lays out several areas of concern. As the model spreads—and concerns spread with it—this report provides a clear view of the objections to modern personalized learning.

A History Lesson 

Imagine a technology “which gives tests and scores—and teaches.”  Or a call for a revolution in which science and technology would “combine to modernize the grossly inefficient and clumsy procedures of conventional education” as well as saving teachers time by freeing them from administering and scoring tests. All of that comes from Sidney L. Pressey, the inventor of the first real teaching machine, patented in 1928. Neither personalized learning nor the problems that come with it are new. In fact, the idea of personalizing learning through some sort of mass customization is almost 100 years old; ironically, one of the common pitches for current techno-privatized education is as an antidote to classrooms that supposedly have not changed in 100 years. 

 B. F. Skinner emerged in the 1950s with an alternative approach to Pressey’s, but as the authors note, the two both claimed that their approach would provide students immediate feedback, allow them to work at their own pace, and provide them more personal attention from teachers. “Both Pressey and Skinner also assumed that a student’s ability to provide the required response to a question demonstrated competency/mastery—and therefore ‘learning.’”

Modern personalized learning has not left any of this behind. 

The Modern Version 

You would assume that personalized learning meant something like “a humane school and classroom CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Can Personalized Learning Deliver

Why Has the “School as Factory” Metaphor Persisted? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Why Has the “School as Factory” Metaphor Persisted? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Why Has the “School as Factory” Metaphor Persisted?

Why has the image of tax-supported public schools looking like and operating as factories stuck? 

In an earlier post, I traced the history of the metaphor since the early 1900s and its 180-degree switch from a positive to negative meaning. Over the past century, the metaphor of school-as-factory has served the interests of two sets of perennial reformers (yes there is a third group that borrows from each side but I will stick with the two major groupings).

The Incrementalists

There are reformers (e.g., policy elites, practitioners, parents, researchers, and donors) who see the age-graded school and its standardization of curriculum, instruction, and student behavior in need of improvement to make it work as it was intended, particularly for poor and minority students.Thepurpose of schooling is to prepare the young for a demanding and ever-changing workplace and future civic duties.

Former U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan made that point initially in 2010 and again in 2018:

About 100 years ago, America made secondary education in high school compulsory. That was almost unprecedented, a massive leap forward, and it drove a lot of our economic boom over the past 100 years. The problem is we haven’t moved past that and we haven’t adjusted the model. Obviously, the world is radically different from that time, but unfortunately education isn’t much different. And you see other nations out-educating, out-investing, out-innovating us. Not only have the skills needs changed dramatically, but we now have a globally competitive economy, a flat world. It’s no longer Iowa versus Indiana versus Montana CONTINUE READING: Why Has the “School as Factory” Metaphor Persisted? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The "X"odus Files: Accountability is the Problem. | BustED Pencils

The "X"odus Files: Accountability is the Problem. | BustED Pencils

The “X”odus Files: Accountability is the Problem.

t’s time to stop trying to rescue “accountability.” It’s a horrendous word and its application only results in blame based authoritarianism.

I have seen the attempts to “reclaim” accountability and I have taken my fair share of criticism for my critique of accountability. But why reclaim something that has nothing to do with empowering the human spirit? And why use language to appease? We gain nothing by reclaiming a toxic narrative and appeasing critics.

Accountability is forced compliance. It’s an out of date factory term and actually defines the moment we are all living quite well.

Teachers and public schools are shitty and can’t be trusted so forced compliance—accountability—will bring the system back in line.

The harsh reality is that forced compliance through accountability creates a system that forces teachers and public schools to be shitty. Accountability is the overseer in this upside down world where teachers are forced to enact harmful pedagogies that maintains our current socio-economic and political reality.

This has never been about test scores and failing schools and shitty teachers. No. The last CONTINUE READING: The "X"odus Files: Accountability is the Problem. | BustED Pencils

A Wise and Witty Review of The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch | tultican

A Wise and Witty Review of The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch | tultican

A Wise and Witty Review of The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch

By T. Ultican 5/27/2019

Maybe not as witty and wise as I had hoped but definitely positive and impressed. I admit; I am a Diane Ravitch fan-boy and this latest release from Garn Press reinforces that posture. Diane is a warrior of ideas who has stood courageously against lavishly financed purveyors of reactionary ideologies. Billionaires are calling for the privatization of democratically run public schools in America and she won’t have it. This book is a compilation of a decade of her winning arguments that have gone far toward stemming the tide of the theft of America’s public schools. They call it “reform”.

The Fundamental Argument

America’s super-wealthy espouse a position echoing the antebellum south. The scholar Johann N. Neem’s book Democracy’s Schools; The Rise of Public Education in America notes, “Because of their political power and the way the tax burden fell largely upon them, slaveholding elites spread an antitax gospel to convince ordinary whites that taxes were a bad thing.” That same gospel is embedded in the Tea Party and other Libertarian movements.

Franklin Roosevelt became President at the height of the Great Depression. In 1935, Roosevelt signed the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance law more commonly known as Social Security. In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare extension. In the Social Security administration’s history CONTINUE READING: A Wise and Witty Review of The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch | tultican

Thanks For Coming To My TED Talk (For The Culture) | The Jose Vilson

Thanks For Coming To My TED Talk (For The Culture) | The Jose Vilson

THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK (FOR THE CULTURE)

I’m so proud to share my most recent TED talk about teacher voice with the world for various reasons:

• I talked about my family (shouts to Luz and Alejandro!)
• I talked about my own classroom and students (shouts to last year’s 801-803 in the video)
• I shouted out #EduColor (We really outchea!)
• I concretized the definition of teacher voice (Please share it widely)
• I shared screen shots of my teacher evaluations with the world (“No weapon formed against me shall prosper,”)
• I did this in front of NYC Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza!

Imagine my shock when I found out that Carranza and I would appear as bookends to this event at TED HQ on the day of. I had prepared this talk for a month, mulling over every word, every slide, every GIF, and every salient point that I wanted to fit into this 10-minute talk. I had already given a TED talk that still gets watched in professional development sessions, but this felt different. The stakes were higher. I had more data points, including my own son in school.

When I finally had a product I liked, I asked a few friends and family to join me. Then it happened. “By the way, here’s the list of who’s in attendance.”

After I took a few seconds to inspect the list: “You sure this isn’t going to be awkward?” I told the CONTINUE READING: Thanks For Coming To My TED Talk (For The Culture) | The Jose Vilson

One Size Does Not Fit All | Live Long and Prosper

One Size Does Not Fit All | Live Long and Prosper

One Size Does Not Fit All

More than four dozen literacy experts have signed on to a letter expressing concern over the lack of balance in PBS Newshour’s segment about dyslexia.

Among the signers of the letter are Reading Hall of Fame members, Richard Allington, Pat Cunningham, Ken and Yetta Goodman, Michael Graves, Stephen Krashen, P. David Pearson, Gay Su Pinnell, David Reinking, and Barbara M. Taylor.

The entire letter can be found at Concern_letter_to_PBS.pdf and is listed with all signers.

One objection the signers have with the PBS episode is the assumption that there is only one way to teach reading that works for every child, and that other variables and individual characteristics of students are unimportant. The show also implies that America’s teachers don’t know how to teach reading, once again, misdirecting blame onto teachers for a lack of achievement among students.

There are a wide variety of out of school factors which could result in reading difficulties such as vision problems, lack of literacy experiences in the home, exposure to environmental toxins such as lead, and family trauma.

Dyslexia is defined differently in different places and by different people, so one single method of teaching reading is insufficient to cover all differences. Because of the confusion and differences in defining dyslexia, the American Psychiatric CONTINUE READING: One Size Does Not Fit All | Live Long and Prosper

EXTRA: Ohio Senate’s School Transformation Plan to Replace HB 70 Is Still a State Takeover | janresseger

EXTRA: Ohio Senate’s School Transformation Plan to Replace HB 70 Is Still a State Takeover | janresseger

EXTRA: Ohio Senate’s School Transformation Plan to Replace HB 70 Is Still a State Takeover

This blog will take a one-week early summer break and come back in June on a new, three-day, Monday-Wednesday-Friday summer schedule.  Look for a new post on Monday, June 3.

I have been reading a May 7, 2019 draft Ohio School Transformation Plan. This is the Ohio Senate’s proposal to replace the current Ohio HB 70 state takeovers of Youngstown, Lorain, and East Cleveland and state takeovers scheduled for ten more school districts in the next two years. Currently Youngstown, Lorain and East Cleveland are operating under state appointed Academic Distress Commissions. In Youngstown and Lorain, now completing their fourth year under Academic Distress Commissions, the dysfunction, chaos and ill-will are unsustainable.

The Senate’s just proposed Ohio School Transformation Plan plan was designed by an Academic Distress Working Group that includes representatives of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Akron, Warrensville Heights and Mansfield school districts; Ohio’s state superintendent, Paolo deMaria; Senator Peggy Lehner, chair of the Ohio Senate Education Committee; and representatives of several advocacy groups including the Thomas Fordham Foundation, Ohio Excels, Capital Partners, Education First, and Learn to Earn Dayton.  The Ohio School Transformation Plan is being prepared for inclusion in the Senate’s proposed FY 2020-2121 Ohio biennial budget.

Here is how the Working Group describes the plan: “The group recommends that in the budget, action be taken to incubate a new approach to turning around low performing schools and districts in Ohio… In the budget language for the Senate, the Working Group recommends establishing the Ohio School Transformation Plan. This is to be accomplished through a phased implementation—addressing the needs of districts currently within the Academic CONTINUE READING: EXTRA: Ohio Senate’s School Transformation Plan to Replace HB 70 Is Still a State Takeover | janresseger

L.A. Charters Suspend Black and Disabled Students at Higher Rates - LA Progressive

L.A. Charters Suspend Black and Disabled Students at Higher Rates - LA Progressive

L.A. Charters Suspend Black and Disabled Students at Higher Rates

Los Angeles charters suspended black students at almost three times the rate of traditional schools; students with disabilities were suspended at nearly four times the non-charter school rate.

School suspensions are out, restorative justice is in. At least that’s the case at the Los Angeles Unified School District and wherever schools are struggling to shift from the harsh, zero-tolerance discipline of the past to a less punitive, problem-solving approach. Restorative justice de-emphasizes punishment and instead aims to repair the damage that is done when, for example, a child disrespects a teacher, or a student starts a fight. The goal is to have misbehaving students think about their negative behavior and hear directly from the person that they hurt—often in what’s known as a harm circle — about how they were affected and what can be done to fix the situation and the relationship.

22 L.A. charters — nearly all of them in high- poverty neighborhoods –accounted for 42% of the charter schools’ nearly 3,700 suspensions last year.

The shift comes 20 years after the fatal shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado, after which many schools turned to “no excuses” discipline policies to stem violence. While such policies haven’t stopped school shootings, they have been profoundly damaging to some students – particularly African-Americans and those with disabilities. According to researchers at the University of California and elsewhere, students from these two groups have been suspended at far higher rates, with consequences that can last a lifetime – making school discipline a civil rights issue. CONTINUE READING: L.A. Charters Suspend Black and Disabled Students at Higher Rates - LA Progressive

Rachel Cohen: The Untold History of Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Rachel Cohen: The Untold History of Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Rachel Cohen: The Untold History of Charter Schools

Thanks to Los Angeles blogger Sara Roos for calling my attention to this very interesting article by journalist Rachel Cohen. We have had an extended exchange about the article.

Cohen says that the typical origin story of charter schools credits the idea to AFT President Al Shanker. She shows that the idea was percolating long before Shanker began promoting charters in 1988. The idea of public-private partnerships was in the air in the late 1980s and was the underpinning of what was called Third Way politics, as practiced by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

Cohen does an excellent job of describing the milieu in which the charter idea emerged. Shanker was not its originator but he was an important publicist for the idea. Without his support, charters might never have achieved national attention.

Right-wingers today, as Cohen notes, likes to credit paternity of charters to Shanker, which is amusing since 90% of charters are non-union. Charter advocates who think of themselves as progressive also cling to Shanker as their forebear, but can’t explain why the charter sector isboth non-union and highly segregated.

Cohen fails to mention that Shanker renounced charters in 1993, five years after embracing them, because he realized that his idea had been sabotaged and had turned into a tool with which to bust unions and to privatize public schools. In one of the paid advertisements that he published every Sunday in the New York Times, he wrote that charters were no different from vouchers. And he denounced them.

Strangely, neither the right-wingers nor the progressive charter fans ever acknowledge that Shanker denounced what was allegedly his big idea.

It is important to recall what Shanker had in mind when he supported charters.

1. He saw them as schools-within-schools, not as independent schools operating with their own school board, nor as corporate chains replacing public schools.

2. He saw them as teacher-run schools.

3. He saw them recruiting the weakest and most CONTINUE READING: Rachel Cohen: The Untold History of Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

CURMUDGUCATION: Amazon Wants To Read Your Heart

CURMUDGUCATION: Amazon Wants To Read Your Heart

Amazon Wants To Read Your Heart

One of the frontiers in creepy computer intelligence is the pursuit of software that can read the details of your face, your breathing, your eyeballs, and out of those details, construct a computer-generated window into your very heart and soul.

Some of the attempts are laughable, like the NWEA feature that presumes to know how engaged and focused your students are based on wait time for answering questions on a computerized standardized test. Some are ambitious, like the project that claims the ability to "read" a whole batch of different emotions as displayed on human faces.

But this is one of those areas where it pays to look outside the education arena, because there are so many different applications for this sort of Big Brothery technocreeping. And when a major player like Amazon decides to join the biz, attention should be paid. Last week, Bloomberg served notice:

Amazon.com Inc. is developing a voice-activated wearable device that can recognize human emotions.

Bloomberg says it has seen internal memos, and that the wrist-worn gadget is a collaboration between various creepy divisions of Amazon that already work on the Fire phone, the Echo speaker, and Alexa. The idea is that the device will be able to "discern the wearer's emotional CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Amazon Wants To Read Your Heart

Jane, the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union and Illinois’ Reproductive Health Act. – Fred Klonsky

Jane, the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union and Illinois’ Reproductive Health Act. – Fred Klonsky

JANE, THE CHICAGO WOMEN’S LIBERATION UNION AND ILLINOIS’ REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH ACT.

I remember Marilyn Webb from my SDS days.

She was one of the earliest voices I heard talking about women’s rights as a part of the sixties movements for change.

Of course, my Mom was a feminist and Grandma Esther was a feminist. But in the movement I was a part of in 1966, this was new stuff.

As was something called the Women’s Liberation Movement.

In yesterday’s NY Times, Nicholas Kristoff wrote a column that included Marilyn Webb’s story of being forced out of the University of Chicago for being a woman.

The U of C has finally, after five decades, agreed to give Marilyn Webb her doctorate.

I Googled Marilyn and came across a web site for a 2014 documentary called She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry.

Guess what we watched last night.

You can find it on Youtube and Amazon Prime. You should see it.

Marilyn Webb is CONTINUE READING: Jane, the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union and Illinois’ Reproductive Health Act. – Fred Klonsky

Sadness and Tears on Memorial Day | Diane Ravitch's blog

Sadness and Tears on Memorial Day | Diane Ravitch's blog

Sadness and Tears on Memorial Day

Let us pause and remember the men and women who lost their lives while serving in the military.

The older I get, the more I hate war.

I despise those who see war as a political tactic, those who stir up war talk to get votes.

Those who drop bombs and fire missiles to raise their poll numbers are contemptible.

There is evil in the world, for sure.

I saw it when I visited the “killing fields” in Cambodia last year.

There is a high school in Pnomh Penh that was turned into a torture camp by the Pol Pot forces.

The walls of the school are lined with photographs of hundreds and hundreds of men, women, and children, taken just before they were killed. Horrifying.

It is our challenge to be on the side of kindness, justice, charity, love, and forgiveness.

That may be hard. But in a time when so many nations have weapons of mass destruction, we have no choice.

“We must love one another or die.” (W.H. Auden).

He also wrote, in another version of the same poem, “We must love one another and die.”

Both statements are true.

Sadness and Tears on Memorial Day | Diane Ravitch's blog

John White Co-Founds His Own Nonprofit: Propel America | deutsch29

John White Co-Founds His Own Nonprofit: Propel America | deutsch29

John White Co-Founds His Own Nonprofit: Propel America

On June 06, 2018, Louisiana state superintendent John White filed this business registration in order to co-found his own nonprofit, Propel America (EIN 83-1867782), with former Camden, NJ, superintendent, Paymon Rouhanifard.

White mentions himself as a Propel America “officer” on his 2018 Louisiana ethics disclosure form.

John White

Both Rouhanifard and White are Teach for America (TFA) alumni, and both were officials at the New York Department of Education (White, from 2006 to 2011, and Rouhanifard, from 2009 to 2012).

In April 2018, Rouhanifard resigned as Camden’s superintendent effective June 30, 2018; according to his Linkedin bio, he then became a Walton Family Foundation “entrepreneur in residence.”

The point of White’s and Rouhanifard’s Propel America nonprofit is “supporting high school students transition to career”:

Propel America connects employers, high schools, training providers, industry-experienced mentors and technology in a scalable, low-cost system of skill-building, job training and placement that engages young adults at the critical transition between high school and post-secondary life.

Propel America is not a program operated in certain sites by one non-CONTINUE READING: John White Co-Founds His Own Nonprofit: Propel America | deutsch29

What We’re Waiting to Hear: The Education Fight No Candidate Mentions (Thus Far)

What We’re Waiting to Hear: The Education Fight No Candidate Mentions (Thus Far)

What We’re Waiting to Hear: The Education Fight No Candidate Mentions (Thus Far)

All the democratic presidential candidates have plans how to run the country and positively affect the world. Some have good ideas about how to improve public schools and support teachers.

But none has yet to speak about America’s education crisis.

Educators and parents who rally around public schools and the teachers who work in them know the fight. It’s no secret.

We want a presidential candidate to pledge that they will help stop the takeover of our public education system by wealthy venture capitalists, corporate CEOs, and billionaires who want to remake public education into their for-profit, privatized vision.

• We want great public schools for all children. Not rich private schools for the wealthy and poor charters for students living in poverty.
• We want better and fair funding of our public schools, so states and local school boards don’t have to worship the wealthy for resources that result in school closures and charter schools. Here’s Bill Gates in Tennessee the other day.
• We want a candidate to say no to a cheap, unqualified education workforce, fueled by groups like Teach for America, New Leaders, and Relay Graduate CONTINUE READING: What We’re Waiting to Hear: The Education Fight No Candidate Mentions (Thus Far)

SAT Adversity Score is an Antidote to Poison None of Us Need Take | gadflyonthewallblog

SAT Adversity Score is an Antidote to Poison None of Us Need Take | gadflyonthewallblog

SAT Adversity Score is an Antidote to Poison None of Us Need Take

Let’s say someone gave you a vial of poison.

Would you drink it? Of course not.

What if he gave you the antidote, too. Would you take the poison then?

Heck no!

Why would anyone knowingly ingest poison even if they knew they could counteract its effects?

But that’s pretty much the situation high school students across the country are in today with the SAT test.

The College Board has admitted that the test unfairly assesses students – especially poor and minority students. However, if we add an “adversity score” to the raw score, then voila! Fairness!

The organization is piloting a program at 150 colleges and universities to adjust SAT CONTINUE READING: SAT Adversity Score is an Antidote to Poison None of Us Need Take | gadflyonthewallblog

Jersey Jazzman: NJ Public Workers' Health Benefits Are NOT Overly Generous: Some More Evidence

Jersey Jazzman: NJ Public Workers' Health Benefits Are NOT Overly Generous: Some More Evidence

NJ Public Workers' Health Benefits Are NOT Overly Generous: Some More Evidence

Warning: This one's going to get wonky...

The anti-public worker political wing in New Jersey -- which includes nearly all the state's Republicans and the machine Democrats -- spends a good part of its time trying to convince the state's citizens that health care benefits for teachers, cops, and other public workers are way too generous.

You'll hear lots of bemoaning of the "fact" that public worker benefits often fall into the "platinum" level instead of "gold," with no real explanation of what those terms actually mean.* You'll hear that public workers are enjoying a huge advantage in health care while private sector workers get worse care that costs them more.

These analyses leave out a few important details. First, there is a well-documented wage gap for New Jersey teachers and other public workers: when controlling for education, age, time worked, and other factors, these workers earn less than comparable workers in the private sector. Better benefits are an attempt to make up for that wage gap -- an attempt that generally fails, but an attempt nonetheless.

Second, when comparing health benefits, we should take into account three things:

1. What is covered.
2. Where enrollees can seek services.
3. How much they contribute to pay for their premiums.

Balancing these three factors to determine the total generosity of a health care plan is tricky, and the data we have on private health care plans isn't great. Further, we must make an appropriate comparison: looking at a teacher with a masters degree's benefits and comparing them to a part-time worker with only a high school diploma is not a valid comparison, because the workers aren't being drawn from the same labor pool.

This said, it is instructive to look at how one of the factors above -- employee contributions CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: NJ Public Workers' Health Benefits Are NOT Overly Generous: Some More Evidence

Baker charter school backtracks after telling students they failed, needed to attend summer program

Baker charter school backtracks after telling students they failed, needed to attend summer program

Baker charter school backtracks after telling students they failed, needed to attend summer program

BAKER, La. (WAFB) - Parents of students attending Advantage Charter Academy are fuming Friday night after being told their kids would be held back and would need to attend a 16-day summer school program in order to advance to the next grade.

The summer school begins May 28, leaving parents little time to speak with school officials to understand why their child is being held back.

One parent questioned the legitimacy of the program. In an interview with WAFB she highlighted students would have a shorter time to learn information they should’ve learned over several months throughout the school year as an issue. “What can they get in 16 days?”

Making matters more confusing for her and other parents is a statement provided to WAFB Friday night by Leah Nixon, a spokeswoman for the school. The statement implies parents have input as to whether students will or will not be held back. That decision doesn’t have anything to due with academics, rather the school is allowing parents to choose because of a procedural error on the school’s part.

Parents should have been notified over winter break that their kids would be asked to attend summer school, but instead were not notified until the end of the year.

Read the full statement below:

"When our students make a mistake, we teach them to own it, to apologize, and to fix it as best they can.

We have made a mistake in the process outlined in our student handbook by failing to inform parents in a timely manner of our intent to retain their child. Our handbook states those conversations should have CONTINUE READING: Baker charter school backtracks after telling students they failed, needed to attend summer program