Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Edutopia | Jacobin

Edutopia | Jacobin:


Edutopia

Education is not a design problem with a technical solution. It’s a social and political project neoliberals want to innovate away.

erickson
The new edition of Jacobin, focusing on technology and politics, is out now. Four-issue subscriptions start at only $19.
At a recent professional development training, I was told to imagine what kind of school I would design if I had five million dollars. I scribbled down a few ideas, shared them with the group, and was then asked to consider how I could implement them now, without the money.
The point was this: forget the cash. Forget that American teachers spend an average of $500 a year supplying their classrooms with materials. Anything is possible, if you put your mind to it.
Similarly, Design Thinking for Educators, the eighty-one page “design toolkit” made available to teachers as a free download by New York City-based firm IDEO — which has designed cafeterias for the San Francisco Unified School District, turned libraries into “learning labs” for the Gates Foundation, and developed a marketing plan for the for-profit online Capella University — contains no physical tools. Problems ranging from “I just can’t get my students to pay attention” to “Students come to school hungry and can’t focus on work” are defined by the organization as opportunities for design in disguise.
Tim Brown, IDEO’s CEO and a regular at Davos and TED talks, has described design thinking as a way to inject “local, collaborative, participatory” planning into the development of products, organizational processes, and now schools.
Design Thinking for Educators is full of strikingly drawn graphic organizers and questions like, “How might we create a twenty-first century learning experience at school?” with single paragraph answers. “Responsibility” is used three times in the text, always in reference to teachers’ need to brainstorm fixes for problems together and develop “an evolved perspective.” (The word “funding” is not used at all — nor is the word “demand.”)
We’re told faculty at one school embarked on a “design journey” and came to an approach they call “Investigative Learning,” which addresses students “not as receivers of information, but as shapers of knowledge,” without further detail on how exactly this was accomplished.
Of course, the idea of engaging students as experienced co-teachers in their own education isn’t novel, nor is it an innovation that sprang forth from a single group of teachers using graphic organizers to brainstorm and chart solutions.
Marxist educator Paulo Freire developed his critique of the “banking model” of education — in which students’ minds are regarded as passive receptacles for teachers to toss facts into like coins — while teaching poor Brazilian adults how to read in the 1960s and ’70s. His book Pedagogy of the Oppressed helped reignite the progressive education movement during that era, and his collaborative approach to learning remains influential in American schools of education today.
Peter McLaren, who taught elementary and middle school in a public housing complex for five years before becoming a professor of education, has since further developed Freire’s ideas into an extensive body of revolutionary critical pedagogy, which I was assigned in my first class as a master’s student in education. The Radical Mathproject, launched a decade ago by a Brooklyn high school teacher whose school was located within a thousand feet of a toxic waste facility, draws heavily on Freire’s perspective in its curriculum for integrating social and economic justice into mathematics.
Yet, here we are, a “nation at risk,” with lower test scores than our international peers and children still arriving at school every day without breakfast.
Like all modern managerial philosophies that stake their name on innovation, “design thinking” has been framed by creative-class acolytes as a new way to solve old, persistent challenges — but its ideas are not actually new.
According to Tim Brown, design thinkers start with human need and move on to learning by making, “instead of thinking about what to build, building in order to think.” Their prototypes, he says, “speed up the process of innovation, because it is only when we put our ideas out into the world that we really start to understand their strengths and weakness. And the faster we do that, the faster our ideas evolve.”
What design thinking ultimately offers is not evolution, but the look and feel of progress — great graphics, aesthetically interesting configurations of furniture and space — paired with the familiar, gratifying illusion of efficiency. If structural and institutional problems can be solved through nothing more than brainstorming, then it’s possible for macro-level inputs (textbooks, teacher salaries) to remain the same, while outputs (test scores, customer service) improve. From the perspective of capitalism, this is the only alchemy that matters.
Design Thinking for Educators urges teachers to be optimistic without saying why, and to simply believe the future will be better. The toolkit instructs teachers to have an “abundance mentality,” as if problem-solving is a habit of mind. “Why not start with ‘What if?’ instead of ‘What’s wrong?’” they ask.
There are many reasons to start with “What’s wrong?” That question is, after all, the basis of critical thought. Belief in a better future feels wonderful if you can swing it, but it is passive, irrelevant, and inert without analysis about how to get there. The only people who benefit from the “build now, think later” strategy are those who are empowered by the social relations of the present.
The same people benefit when analysis is abandoned in favor of technical solutions — when the long history of education for liberation, from Freire to the SNCC Freedom Schools to Black Panther schools to today’s Radical Math and Algebra projects (none of them perfect, all of them instructive) is ignored.
It’s not surprising, then, that when Carlos RodrĂ­guez-Pastor Persivale, the billionaire son of an elite Peruvian banking family, decided to expand his empire of restaurants and movie theaters by buying up a chain of for-profit English-language elementary schools, his first step was to contact IDEO and commission them to design everything: the buildings, the budget, the curriculum, professional development opportunities for teachers. The network is calledInnova, and it’s on its way to becoming the largest private school system in Peru.
According to “ed tech community” edSurge, Innova is “more than just an example of how first-world ideas about blended learning and design thinking can be adapted in a developing country.” It aims to close the achievement gap, build Peru’s next generation of leaders, “and make a profit while doing so.”
Innova students use computer tutoring programs designed by Pearson and Sal Khan, a Gates Foundation protĂ©gĂ©. (By now, Khan’s story is canonical among readers of the Harvard Business Review: in 2005, the former hedge-fund analyst created a simple computer program for practicing math problems and some instructional videos to help tutor his cousins remotely. These went viral on YouTube among parents looking for after-school enrichment activities for their children, including Bill Gates.)
In a photograph of one location posted to IDEO’s website, students sit in groups of six, each absorbed in his or her laptop. The school’s modular walls collapse to allow classes of thirty to be joined together into one large group of sixty students at various times throughout the day.
After a visit, Khan remarked, “I was blown away when I visited Innova. It was beautiful, open, and modern. It was inspiring to see an affordable school deliver an education that would rival schools in the richest countries.” The question is, affordable for whom?
Tuition at an Innova school is $130 a month, which is considerably less than the cost of your average American private school, but would require shelling out over a quarter of the monthly income of a family Edutopia | Jacobin:

As testing begins, parental opposition to Common Core ramps up - The Hechinger Report

As testing begins, parental opposition to Common Core ramps up - The Hechinger Report:

As testing begins, parental opposition to Common Core ramps up

In some districts up to 80% of families opt-out










 Dear Jayne,

I am glad to hear that you were able to avoid the problems with Common Core testing experienced by other Florida schools. Testing is stressful enough without technology glitches.
New York will begin its third year of 3-8 Common Core testing next week. Last spring, the parents of 60,000 New York students refused to have their children take the test. This year the number will be far higher, with estimates of a quarter million or more. Thirty percent of our district’s parents have already handed in opt-out letters. The superintendent of the Comsewogue Schools has test refusal letters for 80% of his students, and a principal upstate has over 60%. All across the state, resistance to Common Core tests is increasing.
Boards of Education have reacted in various ways to the opt-out movement but most districts have been tolerant of parental rights. Many local teacher associations have their support, and the president of the New York State United Teachers, Karen McGee, called for a boycott of the tests. One of the members of our state’s Board of Regents, Kathleen Cashin,  a retired superintendent, publicly stated that she does not believe that the Common Core tests measure learning and that they should not be used to evaluate teachers, principals or schools.  She also said she understood why parents were refusing to have their children take the test.
In my 25 years in education, I have never seen such resistance to standards and their tests. Opt-out has become a movement of conscience for parents and teachers. Prior changes to standards and tests were implemented with some grumbling, but we quickly adapted. This is not the case with the Common Core.
The local television station, PIX11, did a series on the standards. The reporter, a Yale graduate, took the eighth-grade test and was stumped by several questions. I was interviewed by him and asked to participate in a Webchat on the topic. One after another, parents expressed their dismay. I was saddened when two students lamented, “I don’t think this test really measures if I am smart.” I reassured them that it does not.
I find that to be one of the most distressing aspects of standardized testing—students internalizing the results and drawing conclusions about their abilities and potential. Whether it is an IQ test, SAT or a Common Core test, the sorting and labeling of children deeply disturbs me.
Jayne, at the heart of our disagreement is that you see the Common Core Standards as a path to equity and I see them as a wall. You separate the standards from the tests and their consequences, and I cannot. There are high-stakes decisions made on the basis of student performance which impact children, teachers and schools. Standards are the first link in that chain.
How will we respond when the Common Core tests exacerbate the inequality in graduation rates, school entrance and promotion? As school leaders, how can we stand by and let that happen? I know from your last letter that you believe that retention does more harm than good. I hope you speak out on that issue in your state. You are well respected and your voice will matter.
I also disagree that the standards themselves promote more equitable opportunities for economically disadvantaged students. You wrote that the Common Core “minimizes personal experience, by calling on students to respond to questions with evidence from the text”, thus eliminating what you see as disadvantage for students of As testing begins, parental opposition to Common Core ramps up - The Hechinger Report:

My Observations on the Alexander-Murray ESEA Reauthorization Draft, Part II | deutsch29

My Observations on the Alexander-Murray ESEA Reauthorization Draft, Part II | deutsch29:

My Observations on the Alexander-Murray ESEA Reauthorization Draft, Part II







 I have been reading the Alexander-Murray, Senate reauthorization draft of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), which they have entitled, Every Child Achieves Act of 2015.

The Alexander-Murray draft is scheduled to go before the Senate education committee on April 14, 2015.
In my first post, I wrote about my impression of key issues in the first 136 pages (out of 601 total) of the Alexander-Murray reauthorization draft. (The full draft can be read here.)
Below I add some details from the first 136 pages not included in my first post. These investigations are the result of inquiries from readers. The notes immediately following concern money, state standards, alternate standards, assessments, alternate assessments, and special populations (students with cognitive disabilities; English language learners).
Here are those additional observations:
Page 12: Regarding federal funding, the Alexander-Murray document does not include specific dollar amounts. For funding 1) local education agency grants, 2) state assessments, 3) education of migratory children, 4) prevention and intervention programs for children and youth who are neglected, delinquent, or at-risk, 5) federal activities, and 6) school intervention and support, the Alexander-Murray reauthorization document, Section 1002, states, “…there are authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary for each of fiscal years 6 2016 through 2021.”
Page 29: State standards are to be “aligned with [college] entrance requirements, without the need for remediation.” This does not mean that students might not require remediation; only that the standards account for what academic exposure is required of students upon acceptance to college. Also, state standards need to be “aligned My Observations on the Alexander-Murray ESEA Reauthorization Draft, Part II | deutsch29:

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 4/9/15


Special Nite Cap - Catch Up on Today's Post 4/9/15


Special Nite Cap 

CORPORATE ED REFORM



#WhyTeach: Our Chance to Push Back | Young Teachers Collective
#WhyTeach: Our Chance to Push Back | Young Teachers Collective: #WhyTeach: Our Chance to Push Backstephrrivera / 21 hours agoOver the past several years the narrative around public education has grown increasingly negative, and young people are often discouraged from going into the profession at all. One of the main goals of the Young Teachers Collective is to amplify the voices of new and future
Debate over 'backfilling' at charters raises questions of fairness | Philadelphia Public School Notebook
Debate over 'backfilling' at charters raises questions of fairness | Philadelphia Public School Notebook: Debate over 'backfilling' at charters raises questions of fairness File this story under "wonky but important."In an era where standardized test scores often determine a school's reputation and, ultimately, its survival, comparing and judging schools based on results has become a com
Schools Matter: Felony Convictions and Up to 20 Years for Teachers: No Convictions and $20 Million Bonuses for Banksters
Schools Matter: Felony Convictions and Up to 20 Years for Teachers: No Convictions and $20 Million Bonuses for Banksters: Felony Convictions and Up to 20 Years for Teachers: No Convictions and $20 Million Bonuses for BankstersOtherwise faced with sure failure for their schools, these Atlanta teachers made the wrong choice:  They coached children and changed answers, rather than doing the morally r
Teacher Turnover At Success Academy Charter Schools | Shanker Institute
Teacher Turnover At Success Academy Charter Schools | Shanker Institute: Teacher Turnover At Success Academy Charter Schools A recent New York Times article about the Success Academies, a large chain of New York City charter schools, focuses a great deal on the long working hours and heavy stress faced by teachers at these schools. The article reports that three Success Academy (SA) schools had te
NEA - “Opportunity for All: ESEA Week of Action” Twitter Storm
NEA - “Opportunity for All: ESEA Week of Action” Twitter Storm: #GetESEARight TWITTER STORM INSTRUCTIONSGoal: to generate as many tweets possible from NEA members, leaders, partners, parents and activists onThursday, April 9 between 7 -- 8 PM EST.The hope is that such a flurry of activity will help push our hashtag -- #GetESEARight -- to generate online attention from members of Congress and media
Governor Cuomo Started This War: Teachers and Parents, Let's Prepare For Battle | M. Shannon Hernandez
Governor Cuomo Started This War: Teachers and Parents, Let's Prepare For Battle | M. Shannon Hernandez: Governor Cuomo Started This War: Teachers and Parents, Let's Prepare For BattleAs a public education activist, who focuses most of my efforts on local school-based, student-centered reform, I have literally been sick to my stomach since the New York State Legislature approved a budget, complete
Change the Stakes | Because a Good Education Can’t Be Measured By a Test Score
Change the Stakes | Because a Good Education Can’t Be Measured By a Test Score: WHAT’S NEW FROM CTSNY State tests begin on April 14th! Find everything you need to refuse the tests in NYC here.Also see Opting Out of the State ELA & Math Tests in NYC: Frequently Asked QuestionsSpring 2015 Testing ScheduleGrades 3-8 English Language Arts (ELA): April 14-16Grades 3-8 math: April 22-24Grades 4 &
Privacy Laws Inadequate to Protect Student Data from Advertisers and Others | National Education Policy Center
Privacy Laws Inadequate to Protect Student Data from Advertisers and Others | National Education Policy Center: Privacy Laws Inadequate to Protect Student Data from Advertisers and Others NEPC releases 17th annual reporton Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends Contact: William J. Mathis, (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.netFaith Boninger, (480) 390-6736, fboninger@gmail.comAlex Molnar, (480) 797-7261, nep
What Happens When Students Boycott a Standardized Test? — The Atlantic
What Happens When Students Boycott a Standardized Test? — The Atlantic: What Happens When Students Boycott a Standardized Test?The movement to opt-out of nationwide exams is gaining traction—and forcing policymakers to rethink the role of such assessments in public education. Standardized tests have been an integral part of the American school routine since the 1970s, the protocol changing very li
What Can We Agree On, After Atlanta? | Taking Note
What Can We Agree On, After Atlanta? | Taking Note: What Can We Agree On, After Atlanta? “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” William Butler Yeats wrote in 1919 in ‘The Second Coming.’ Yeats was describing the world after the Great War, but it aptly describes American education today[1]: polarized, shouting at, but rarely listening to, each other. We disagree about dozens of issues: the Co
School District projects 22 percent graduation rate in 2017 | Philadelphia Public School Notebook
School District projects 22 percent graduation rate in 2017 | Philadelphia Public School Notebook: School District projects 22 percent graduation rate in 2017 Photo: Rachel FeiermanProjected impact of Keystone exams on Philadelphia graduation rates.In two years, Pennsylvania students will have to pass three standardized tests -- the Keystone Exams -- to graduate high school.Right now, 65 percent o
Federal funding is crucial for our charter schools : News
Federal funding is crucial for our charter schools : News: Federal funding is crucial for our charter schools Thousands more of St. Louis’ children could soon get their shot at achieving the American dream and be on the path toward getting prepared for a career of their choice. Or not, depending on what happens in Washington over the coming months as Congress determines funding for charter schools
Mapping the Growth of Statewide Voucher Programs in the United States CEEP: Indiana University Bloomington
CEEP: Indiana University Bloomington: New CEEP Policy BriefMapping the Growth of Statewide Voucher Programs in the United StatesA new brief comparing statewide voucher programs finds all are growing as never before in the last five years. The brief, “Mapping the Growth of Statewide Voucher Programs in the United States,” examines four statewide voucher systems for students in general education pro
Teachers unions: wanting the perks of membership without the politics - LA Times
Teachers unions: wanting the perks of membership without the politics - LA Times: Teachers unions: wanting the perks of membership without the politicsIf  you're a public school teacher and you pay your union dues, you get to enjoy whatever salary deal the union negotiates for you.But the union spends part of your dues on political lobbying and campaigning, perhaps for causes and candidates you ca
Two Pro-Common Core Groups Urge Against Overhaul of No Child Left Behind | TheBlaze.com
Two Pro-Common Core Groups Urge Against Overhaul of No Child Left Behind | TheBlaze.com: Two Pro-Common Core Groups Urge Against Overhaul of No Child Left Behind Two pro-Common Core advocacy groups are now urging against a dramatic overhaul to another education reform effort – No Child Left Behind.After a bipartisan Senate bill was introduced Tuesday with backing from the White House to replace th
D.C.'s lessons for New York on teacher evaluations | Capital New York
D.C.'s lessons for New York on teacher evaluations | Capital New York: D.C.'s lessons for New York on teacher evaluationsWhen Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed a new teacher evaluation system in January that would rely heavily on the judgment of outside consultants, rank-and-file teachers and principals across the city exploded in outrage.Similar consultants have already evaluated teachers in a handf
Guiding principles for a more enlightened U.S. education policy - The Washington Post
Guiding principles for a more enlightened U.S. education policy - The Washington Post: Guiding principles for a more enlightened U.S. education policyMichael V. McGill is the long-time superintendent of the Scarsdale school district in New York, one of o the most successful in the country. Now a professor of school leadership at Bank Street College of Education, McGill challenges the dominant visi
What's next for Atlanta Public Schools? | Cover Story | Creative Loafing Atlanta
What's next for Atlanta Public Schools? | Cover Story | Creative Loafing Atlanta:What's next for Atlanta Public Schools? The school system’s historic cheating trial verdict has closed the books on one of the city’s darkest moments.CASE CLOSED: On April 1, Fulton County Superior Court jurors found 11 former Atlanta Public Schools educators guilty of racketeering and other lesser charges such as the
LDOE Lays an Egg: Violates FERPA and Their Own MOU Providing Data to CREDO | Crazy Crawfish's Blog
LDOE Lays an Egg: Violates FERPA and Their Own MOU Providing Data to CREDO | Crazy Crawfish's Blog: LDOE Lays an Egg: Violates FERPA and Their Own MOU Providing Data to CREDO I know its reaching, but I thought I’d give everyone a little Easter reference with this surprise post.  Before I left LDOE 3 years ago I was asked to help assemble some de-identified data for a research outfit named CREDO. 
All That Glitters: Top Down Change in Minneapolis | Bright Light Small City
All That Glitters: Top Down Change in Minneapolis | Bright Light Small City: All That Glitters: Top Down Change in MinneapolisLeave a replyTop down reform is all the rage in education these days, from Arne Duncan on down to individual districts, like Memphis (taken over by the state), Little Rock, AK (wrestling with an attempted takeover by the Walton family and their Wal-Mart money), and New Orle

YESTERDAY

California high schools violating graduation cap and gown fee law | 89.3 KPCC
California high schools violating graduation cap and gown fee law | 89.3 KPCC: California high schools violating graduation cap and gown fee lawHundreds of thousands of California seniors are getting ready for their much-anticipated public high school graduation ceremony, though many don’t know it's against the law for their schools to require them to buy a cap and gown without offering a set to u
Opinion: PARCC Is Part of the Problem, Not Part of the Answer for NJ Schools - NJ Spotlight
Opinion: PARCC Is Part of the Problem, Not Part of the Answer for NJ Schools - NJ Spotlight: OPINION: PARCC IS PART OF THE PROBLEM, NOT PART OF THE ANSWER FOR NJ SCHOOLSMARK WEBER | APRIL 8, 2015Complex online tests can’t address chronic school underfunding, segregation, and povertyMark WeberIs it just me, or are the cheerleaders for PARCC coming across as increasingly desperate?PARCC -- Partnersh
Failing as a starter jump-started Reynolds' career - The Orange County Register
Failing as a starter jump-started Reynolds' career - The Orange County Register: Failing as a starter jump-started Reynolds' careerOne of the top relief prospects in the Angels' farm system, Danny Reynolds will start the season at Double-A Arkansas.MORRY GASH, THE ASSOCIATED PRESSTEMPE, Ariz. – It is probably not a stretch to say that almost every reliever in the majors was a starter who just need
Have you gotten a call from Ready Washington about the wonders of Common Core Standards and the SBAC? If so, this is why | Seattle Education
Have you gotten a call from Ready Washington about the wonders of Common Core Standards and the SBAC? If so, this is why | Seattle Education: Have you gotten a call from Ready Washington about the wonders of Common Core Standards and the SBAC? If so, this is whyReady Washington Coalition… of the boughtOffice of Superintendent of Public InstructionPartnership for Learning, the education arm of the
The Silencing of the Educators: A Shocking Idea, and Trending |
The Silencing of the Educators: A Shocking Idea, and Trending |: The Silencing of the Educators: A Shocking Idea, and Trending In a recent post I published titled, “New Mexico UnEnchanted,” I described a great visit I recently made to Las Cruces to meet with students, parents, teachers, school board members, state leaders, and the like. In this post, I also described something I found shocking as
Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 4/8/15
Special Nite Cap - Catch Up on Today's Post 4/8/15Special Nite Cap CORPORATE ED REFORMTisch: 'Opt out' movement could lead to national test | Capital New YorkTisch: 'Opt out' movement could lead to national test | Capital New York: Tisch: ‘Opt out’ movement could lead to national test ALBANY—If too many students "opt out" of Common Core-aligned state exams later this month, New York migh




2015 National Conference – Chicago

The Countdown to Chicago Has Begun!

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago