Is All This Student Data Changing the Way Teachers Teach? | MindShift

Is All This Student Data Changing the Way Teachers Teach? | MindShift:

Is All This Student Data Changing the Way Teachers Teach?

Francesca Segrè | June 2, 2014 | 7 Comments

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Christy Novack works with students in her Burlingame, Calif. classroom. Francesca Segre/MindShift

With so much access to student data these days, teachers are experimenting with different tactics, and figuring out what’s working and what’s not. As with most scenarios using education technology, it’s a mixed bag. But questions of privacyaside, how it’s used depends on a variety of factors in each school and in each teacher’s classroom. Some teachers are embracing student data to inform their teaching, while others believe there’s a risk of an over-reliance on hard numbers that doesn’t take into account the human factor.

For example, for Amy Walker, who teaches Spanish in a small, rural, low-income school in Marionville, Missouri, says using data can be helpful, but she’s leery of relying too heavily on it.

“There is a place for data, but it can be overrated,” she says. “If you only use data, you’re overlooking the humanity of the students.”

Likewise, another educator raises a similar concern. “What then, you may be wondering, does a teacher do to assess a student’s learning? Easy: We look, we listen, we give regular quizzes and tests to see what a child has retained. We confer with children, we ask them what will interest them, what will make them tick and want to keep working hard at school,” writes commenter Dave in response to an article about storing student data.

But educators who do embrace data-driven teaching report that using data adds one more tool to their existing teaching tool chest, allowing them to help students in more specific areas of need.

Of the hundreds of educational apps and software programs on the market, most fall into three categories: analytical, motivational and instructional tools. And of these, many cross over and serve more than one purpose.

Pinpointing Student Needs

At Roosevelt Elementary School in the small, affluent San Francisco suburb of Burlingame, Calif., teacher Angelique Barry gives students short reading assessments, and uses DIBELS literacy software, an analytical tool, to determine precisely where a child needs help. As an intervention specialist, she checks the analytics daily, then circulates between classrooms giving extra instruction to kids who need it.

“The data allows me to hone in on what specific area the student needs,” she says. “Instead of just saying ‘Johnny’s not a good reader,’ well, what makes Johnny not a good reader? Is it his fluency? His comprehension? His decoding?”

“You don’t just pop a kid on a computer for an hour and a half everyday. That’d be as boring as worksheets or writing out times tables.”

Barry says the numbers allow her to group children with similar needs together and come up with diagnoses and solutions Is All This Student Data Changing the Way Teachers Teach? | MindShift:

6-9-14 Wait What? - Jonathan Pelto: Gubernatorial Candidate and A Really Nice Guy

Wait What?:

  Wait What? 

Time for Connecticut to dump the Common Core

Connecticut has wasted enough time and money on the unnecessary and wasteful diversion called the Common Core and its associated Common Core testing scheme. It is time for Connecticut to scrap the Common Core and re-direct scarce resources to ensuring that all of Connecticut’s public school students get the education they need to lead fulfilling […] The post Time for Connecticut to dump the Common

by jonpelto / 1h 

6-8-14 Wait What? - Jonathan Pelto: Gubernatorial Candidate and A Really Nice Guy

Will politics prevent justice from being served – the Kenneth Moales Story Continues - Wait What?:   Wait What? All WeekWill politics prevent justice from being served – the Kenneth Moales Story ContinuesThe controversy surrounding Reverend Kenneth Moales, Jr. expands even further Documents on file with the Connecticut Superior Court and the City of Bridgeport reveal that while Reverend Kenneth Mo

by mike simpson / 13h 

Shanker Blog » A Few More Points About Charter Schools And Extended Time

Shanker Blog » A Few More Points About Charter Schools And Extended Time:

A Few More Points About Charter Schools And Extended Time

Posted by Matthew Di Carlo on June 9, 2014

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post that made a fairly simple point about the practice of expressing estimated charter effects on test scores as “days of additional learning”: Among the handful of states, districts, and multi-site operators that consistently have been shown to have a positive effect on testing outcomes, might not those “days of learning” be explained, at least in part, by the fact that they actually do offer additional days of learning, in the form of much longer school days and years?

That is, there is a small group of charter models/chains that seem to get good results. There are many intangible factors that make a school effective, but to the degree we can chalk this up to concrete practices or policies, additional time may be the most compelling possibility. Although it’s true that school time must be used wisely, it’s difficult to believe that the sheer amount of extra time that the flagship chains offer would not improve testing performance substantially.

To their credit, many charter advocates do acknowledge the potentially crucial role of extended time in explaining their success stories. And the research, tentative though it still is, is rather promising. Nevertheless, there are a few important points that bear repeating when it comes to the idea of massive amounts of additional time, particularly given the fact that there is a push to get regular public schools to adopt the practice.

We’re talking about massive amounts of additional time. The first and most simple point, which I have madebefore, is to remember that, when it comes to big name charter chains, we’re not just talking about an additional week or two of school. We’re talking about additional months. By adding 2-3 hours to the regular public school day, which is usually 6-7 hours, most of the big name chains offer 30-50 percent more time in school, the regular public school equivalent of up to four months (regular public schools, of course, could not achieve this increase without lengthening the school day, even if they eliminated the summer and all vacations).

To be clear, this is not a criticism. Quite the contrary; many such schools serve children in high-poverty neighborhoods who begin schooling far behind their more advantaged peers. And keeping struggling students in school longer might be one way to help them catch up. But let’s not forget that, in these cases, “extended time” means a lot of extension.

Large-scale time extension is a somewhat blunt instrument. This brings me to my second point on this issue, one that is deliberately provocative. It might be posed as a question: After 20 years, is this the biggest concreteShanker Blog » A Few More Points About Charter Schools And Extended Time:

6-9-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Seattle School District Priorities (By Senior Staff)

Again, more from the Retreat and analysis later but here's what staff put out as priorities (and this in reference to trying to do the bell time analysis work plus all these items). Seattle School District Priorities 2014-2015

by Melissa Westbrook / 11min hide  //  save

Seattle Schools and Later Bell Times

Just wanted to put this up for tonight; some further input from the Retreat and thoughts tomorrow.Seattle School District presentation on bell times. Framework timeline for work on bell times.Board Resolution (not yet adopted) on later bell times.

by Melissa Westbrook / 13min 

Letter to Seattle Schools Principals from Superintendent Banda

 Also to update: The C&I Committee Chair and staff have agreed to move the math adoption update to first place on the agenda.  So that discussion will be at 4:30 pm, not later as I has reported. Letter from Banda (bold mine).  It looks like cooler heads have prevailed...for now.Dear Principals,Over the last few weeks there has been extensive focus on the K-5 math elementary adoption. When we s

by Melissa Westbrook / 30min 

Curriculum & Instruction Meeting Today; Update

I just checked in with the Board office on the order of items on what should be a very enlightening Curriculum and Instruction Committee meeting.  The math adoption was added late Saturday and, if you are following this blog, things are changing fast and furiously.Because this agenda had been made up for awhile and other staff have presentations that were on the agenda previously, in the name of f

by Melissa Westbrook / 29min 

Shelter in Place at several Seattle South End Elementaries

From SPS communications 8 minutes ago via Twitter:Report of shots fired nearby. These schools in shelter-in-place: Orca K-8, Aki Kurose MS, and Dearborn Pk, Graham Hill, ML King, Wing LukeFrom SPD tweets:Officers responding to area of 51 Ave S/S Brandon St for a reported shooting. No known victims at this time.

by Melissa Westbrook / 2min 

Math Adoption Documents

More documents at Scribed from Julian A.  They include info on 2015 Math in Focus and several school math waivers.  Scroll to the bottom to access other documents. 

by Melissa Westbrook / 24min 

6-8-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Seattle Schools' Math Adoption: What's Happening at Your School?A reader suggested that we start a thread and try to keep track of what is happening at all the K-5/K-8s vis a vis the math adoption.  There are 59 elementary schools and 10 K-8s so I'm not going to try to list them all here. In the Comments Section, note your school, what you are hearing at your schoo

by mike simpson / 20h 

6-9-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:

Reporter Visits NOLA Charter Cult Where Parents Filed Civil Rights Complaint

A clip from the story, followed by part of my email to the reporter, Andrew Vanacore:. . . . Its campuses have never been outwardly impressive. Its first, Sci Academy, opened in 2008 in a set of trailers near what used to be Abramson High School. The group began a phased takeover of Carver High School, in the Desire neighborhood, in 2012, splitting it into two separate programs with a combined foo

by Jim Horn / 31min hide  //  save

Fighting the Common Core is Everyone's Fight

Mark Naison nails it here: The greatest threat to democracy in the United States is the excessive concentration of wealth in a small number of hands. It is because of this that one single extremely wealthy individual- Bill Gates- was able to leap on a relatively obscure proposal for a national curriculum and get 45 states to adopt it at breakneck speed, with little scrutiny and no field testin

2 by Jim Horn / 1h 

6-8-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter: Chicago Teacher Adam Heehan On How Common Core Threatens Good Teachingfrom Chicago SunTimes:I teach Financial Literacy as a semester-long social studies course in a Chicago public high school. This quarter we focused on professional skills. My students must find living arrangements on a fixed salary, then explain their plan to the class.Students must calculate their biweekly net pa

by mike simpson / 22min 

Paul Thomas: The Problem Isn't Just Common Core, but the Entire Reform Agenda - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Paul Thomas: The Problem Isn't Just Common Core, but the Entire Reform Agenda - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Paul Thomas: The Problem Isn't Just Common Core, but the Entire Reform Agenda

By Anthony Cody on June 9, 2014 10:17 AM

Guest post by Paul Thomas.

Before the Common Core debate reached the fevered public debates of the past year, I took a stand against standards-based reform represented by Common Core, Why Common Standards Won't Work:

A call for national standards ensures that we continue doing what is most wrong with our bureaucratic schools (establish-prescribe-measure) and that we persist in looking away from the largest cause of low student achievement: childhood poverty.

A call for national standards is a political veneer, a tragic waste of time and energy that would be better spent addressing real needs in the lives of children--safe homes, adequate and plentiful food, essential health care, and neighborhood schools that are not reflections of the neighborhoods where children live through no choice of their own.

Education is in no way short of a knowledge base. And even if it were, tinkering (yet again) at a standard core of knowledge while ignoring the dehumanizing practices in our schools, and the oppressive impact of poverty on the lives of children, is simply more fiddling while the futures of our children smolder over our shoulders and we look the other way.

Recently, Oklahoma and my home state of South Carolina have rejected Common Core, as The Washington Post and Education Week have reported. And while I would like to celebrate, I have been quick to note that these mostly partisan decisions at the state level are, in fact, not the sorts of changes in policy we need.

Instead of celebrating, we must recognize that South Carolina, specifically but as a typical example, is directly rejecting Common Core as a federal and thus flawed set of standards while continuing to develop and implement policy to design (yet again) new SC standards, new SC high-stakes testing, and new SC accountability--all of which are the essential structures that are ineffective.

The problem for education reform, then, is not specifically Common Core, but that the evidencePaul Thomas: The Problem Isn't Just Common Core, but the Entire Reform Agenda - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher: 

Lab Rats | EduShyster

Lab Rats | EduShyster:

Lab Rats

Welcome to New Orleans—America’s urban education laboratory

Do you dream of being part of our nation’s greatest experiment in urban education? I know I do—which I why I was thrilled to be the recipient of a recent Google ad inviting me toTeach, Live and Love New Orleans. Welcome to NOLA, reader, where you’ll find plenty of *that je ne sais quoi, that elan, that bon temps* but absolutely pas d’excuses. In other words, it’s time for us to button up our lab coats and get busy. We’ve got a city to colonize an achievement gap to crush.

Whiter and brighter (and an outsider)
The first thing you’ll notice about our laboratory of innovation is that most of the other lab technicians are, to use abons mots, whiter than a lab coat. That’s because while NOLA, as we’ll insist upon calling it, abounds in *locavore markets and stores,* you won’t find many locavore teachers here these days. Nor will you findmany African American teachers period, despite the fact that New Orleans remains amajority/minority city. They’re long gone, fired (illegally, as it turns out), in the wake of Lab Rats | EduShyster:

Bill Gates Insists that His Common Core Philanthropy is Not For Any Self-Interest | Missouri Education Watchdog

Bill Gates Insists that His Common Core Philanthropy is Not For Any Self-Interest | Missouri Education Watchdog:

Bill Gates Insists that His Common Core Philanthropy is Not For Any Self-Interest

inShare

Bill Gates insists in a Washington Post article that his philanthropy is not for any personal gain.  Maybe it’s for the destruction of a representative government?  That’s how the Common Core State Standards Initiative adoption and implementation occurred: it was the circumvention of the political process and certainly transformed the way our public education systems operated.  They are now in the control of private organizations unaccountable to voters and legislatures.

The veil has been lifted on how the Common Core State Standards Initiative was anything but state led and voluntary.  The Washington Post published an article on an interview with Bill Gates and his involvement in the Initiative.  From How Bill Gates pulled off the swift Common Core revolution:

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation didn’t just bankroll the development of what became known as the Common Core State Standards. With more than $200 million, the foundation also built political support across the country, persuading state governments to make systemic and costly changes.

Bill Gates was de facto organizer, providing the money and structure for states to work together on common standards in a way that avoided the usual collision between states’ rights and national interests that had undercut every previous effort, dating from the Eisenhower administration.

The Gates Foundation spread money across the political spectrum, to entities including the big teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, and business organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — groups that have clashed in the past but became vocal backers of the standards.

Money flowed to policy groups on the right and left, funding research by scholars of varying political persuasions who promoted the idea of common standards. Liberals at the Center for American Progress and conservatives affiliated with the American Legislative Exchange Council who routinely disagree on nearly every issue accepted Gates money and found common ground on the Common Core.

It’s a fascinating article on how a “philanthropist” could help create educational policy and Bill Gates Insists that His Common Core Philanthropy is Not For Any Self-Interest | Missouri Education Watchdog:

About Failing Leadership and Unfair Portrayals | PWC Education Reform Blog

About Failing Leadership and Unfair Portrayals | PWC Education Reform Blog:

About Failing Leadership and Unfair Portrayals

June 9, 2014 — pwceducationreform

Over the last several days the social media world in PWC has been up in arms over accusations that school division leadership is failing our schools and that characterizations of our schools as failing are unfair.  On one hand you have Justin Wilk, who has written several letters that were published in local media that expose and call into question less than desirable things happening in our schools.  On the other hand you have PWCS and school board Chairman Milt Johns, who clearly don’t care for what Justin has to say and lashed out at Justin in a recently published response that was shared with every teacher, public school employee, and parent of a child in the school division.

Justin is justifiably upset at how he was characterized in Chairman Johns’ letter and is upset that the school division shared Chairman Johns’ letter with everyone they have access to. To Justin, I say welcome to the club.  Attacking the messenger is something PWCS does exceptionally well.

This blog started as an offshoot of the math wars here in Prince William County.  It was created by the parents who were denigrated on a regular basis by PWCS for exposing the truth about Math Investigations.  For several years PWCS had a publication on their web site that identified a parent by name and more or less called him a liar.  However, I must note that during the math wars, Chairman Johns was one of the few school board members who stood up for us and challenged the school division’s spin.

From Math Investigations to test scores, the cemetery, and the school pool aquatics complex, PWCS is a school division that hides its dirty laundry and doesn’t like to see it aired.  Secrecy and spin are their lines of first defense, expedited by an About Failing Leadership and Unfair Portrayals | PWC Education Reform Blog:

Time for Congress to Investigate Bill Gates’ Role in Common Core | Common Dreams

Time for Congress to Investigate Bill Gates’ Role in Common Core | Common Dreams:

Time for Congress to Investigate Bill Gates’ Role in Common Core

by Diane Ravitch

Billionaire founder of Microsoft Bill Gates. (Credit: World Economic Forum / Flickr Creative Commons)A new Washington Post story by Lyndsey Layton about how Bill Gates’ funded the Common Core revolution is startling. His role and the role of the U.S. Department of Education in drafting and coercing almost every state to adopt the Common Core standards should be investigated by Congress.

The idea that the richest man in America can purchase and — working closely with the U.S. Department of Education — impose new and untested academic standards on the nation’s public schools is a national scandal. A congressional investigation is warranted. The close involvement of Education Secretary Arne Duncan raises questions about whether the federal government overstepped its legal role in public education.

Thanks to the story in The Washington Post and to diligent bloggers, we now know that one very rich man bought the enthusiastic support of interest groups on the left and right to campaign for the Common Core. Who knew that American education was for sale? Who knew that federalism could so easily be dismissed as a relic of history? Who knew that Gates and Duncan, working as partners, could destroy state and local control of education?

"The idea that the richest man in America can purchase and — working closely with the U.S. Department of Education — impose new and untested academic standards on the nation’s public schools is a national scandal."

The revelation that education policy was shaped by one unelected man — who underwrote dozens of groups and was allied with the secretary of education, whose staff was laced with Gates’ allies — is ample reason for congressional hearings.

I have written on various occasions (here and here)  that I could not support the Common Core standards because they were developed and imposed without regard to democratic process. The writers of the standards included no early childhood educators, no educators of children with disabilities, no experienced classroom teachers; indeed, the largest contingent of the drafting committee were representatives of the testing industry. No attempt was made to have pilot testing of the standards in real classrooms with real teachers and students.. The standards do not permit any means to challenge, correct, or revise them.

In a democratic society, process matters. The high-handed manner in which these standards were written and imposed in record time makes them unacceptable. These standards not only undermine state and local control of education, but the manner in which they were Time for Congress to Investigate Bill Gates’ Role in Common Core | Common Dreams: