The Greatest Ed Tech Goof Of All Time (Adam Laats) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Greatest Ed Tech Goof Of All Time (Adam Laats) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Greatest Ed Tech Goof Of All Time (Adam Laats)

Adam Laats is an educational historian at Binghamton University, State University of New York. A former teacher, he is currently at work on the Lancasterian system of schooling in early 19th century America. Laats had read a post by Audrey Watters, “The 100 Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade.” He then wrote this post for his blog.

What have been the top ed-tech goofs of all time? The top choice from my current research is pretty clear, c. 1804. [My readers] are probably sick of hearing about Joseph Lancaster. And I’m sorry. But his plan was such a perfect mix of tech-naïveté and Zuckerberg-level hubris that I can’t stop marveling over the 21st-century feel of Lancaster’s tech-obsessed school system.

If you’re just joining us, Lancaster was a young man who opened a school for poor kids in London in 1798. He tried some new tricks, including banishing corporal punishment and using students as teachers. He really believed technology could solve all the problems of education and therefore of society.

For example, he dreamed of new systems of “reading telegraphs,” “alphabet wheels,” and benches with holes for hats. His assumption—like that of so many of his peers—was that the right machine could eliminate traditional problems with school organization.

None of those failed ed machines, however, gets my pick as the top ed-tech goof CONTINUE READING: The Greatest Ed Tech Goof Of All Time (Adam Laats) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Opting Out: The Story of the Parents’ Grassroots Movement to Achieve Whole-Child Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Opting Out: The Story of the Parents’ Grassroots Movement to Achieve Whole-Child Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Opting Out: The Story of the Parents’ Grassroots Movement to Achieve Whole-Child Public Schools

This is a book you will want to read if you are a parent, a teacher, a teacher educator.

Opting Out: The Story of the Parents’ Grassroots Movement to Achieve Whole-Child Schools is an essential addition to your bookshelf.

It was written by Professor David Hursh of the University of Rochester and parents leaders of the New York Opt Out movement Jeanette Deutermann, Lisa Rudley, and Hursh’s graduate students, Zhe Chen and Sarah McGinnis.

Together they explain the origins and development of the one of the most significant parent-led reactions against high-stakes testing and in favor of education that is devoted to the full development of children as healthy CONTINUE READING: Opting Out: The Story of the Parents’ Grassroots Movement to Achieve Whole-Child Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Jeff Bryant: Have Democrats Changed Course On Charters? | OurFuture.org by People's Action

Have Democrats Changed Course On Charters? | OurFuture.org by People's Action

Have Democrats Changed Course On Charters?

Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bennet wants you to know how much he cares—really cares—about education. Speaking at the Public Education Forum 2020, Bennet began his remarks by declaring he is “the first school superintendent in the history of America to run for president of the United States.” Bennet led the Denver school district from 2005 to 2009 before he was appointed to fill the state’s empty U.S. Senate seat. “Every single thing I do in the Senate runs through the lens of the kids that I used to work for in Denver,” he said.

Not that other Democratic presidential candidates at this strictly education-focused event weren’t equally intent on convincing the crowd they’re also deeply committed to educating the nation’s children. After all, the forum was sponsored and organized by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers along with some other labor unions and civil rights and education advocacy groups. An audience of 1,500 in attendance seemed to be comprised mostly of educators and former educators from across the country.

Seven candidates each took to the stage one after the other, including Bennet; South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; billionaire activist Tom Steyer; former Vice President Joe Biden; and Senators Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. (New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who has since left the race, had committed to attend but dropped out due to a bout of the flu.)

But Bennet at times seemed the most passionate among the candidates, raising his voice and jabbing the air on a number of CONTINUE READING: Have Democrats Changed Course On Charters? | OurFuture.org by People's Action

CURMUDGUCATION: How Tech Killed Tractors, And Why Teachers Should Care

CURMUDGUCATION: How Tech Killed Tractors, And Why Teachers Should Care

How Tech Killed Tractors, And Why Teachers Should Care

If you don't spend a lot of time around farms and farmers, you might have missed this story, which just made its way into legit journalistic coverage via the Star Tribune of Minnesota-- there is an exploding market for forty-year-old tractors.

Adam Belz reports on auction bidding wars over old tractors. Is it because of tractor nostalgia? Nope-- and if you think about your car or music system or the device with which you're reading this post, you already know the answer. Those earlier tractors were well-built and have lots of hours in them, but there's one other factor:

The other big draw of the older tractors is their lack of complex technology. Farmers prefer to fix what they can on the spot, or take it to their mechanic and not have to spend tens of thousands of dollars.

“The newer machines, any time something breaks, you’ve got to have a computer to fix it,” Stock said.

The tractors are loaded with shiny new tech. As Jason Bloomberg put it at Forbes, "John Deere is but one of thousands of enterprises undergoing digital transformation as it becomes a software company that runs its technology on tractors, rather than the other way around."

Farmers have steadily lost the right to repair, meaning that a tractor breakdown can result in a lomng wait for your turn to get a costly repair. It's not just the cost and the downtime that suck; as pointed out by Greg Peterson, the CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: How Tech Killed Tractors, And Why Teachers Should Care

School Siting Task Force report and spreadsheets | Class Size Matters

School Siting Task Force report and spreadsheets | Class Size Matters School Siting Task Force report and spreadsheets | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes

School Siting Task Force report and spreadsheets

The School Siting Task Force, created by Local Law 168, met only twice with no input from parent members appointed by the DOE or City Council members.

It produced only a 1 1/2 page report, along with two spreadsheets, one a list of empty city-owned sites from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (“DCAS List”) and another, more inclusive list of empty sites from the Department of Finance (“DOF List”).

We obtained the report and the spreadsheets via a Freedom of Information request from the Council.

Of the 29,509 sites on these spreadsheets, the School Construction Authority said they would investigate two locations as possible sites for new schools, one in D21 and the other in D23.

The SCA has not yet analyzed over 75% (22,000+) of the locations because they are not owned by the City. The SCA claims that these sites will be looked at “in the near future.”

We are in the process of summarizing some of the many ambiguities and discrepancies in the Task Force report and the spreadsheets.

Sources

School Siting Task Force Report (Oct. 2019)

Spreadsheets (DCAS and DOF)

School Siting Task Force report and spreadsheets | Class Size Matters School Siting Task Force report and spreadsheets | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes

YONG ZHAO: PISA Peculiarities (2): Should Schools Promote a Competitive or Cooperative Culture? - Education in the Age of Globalization

Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » PISA Peculiarities (2): Should Schools Promote a Competitive or Cooperative Culture?

PISA Peculiarities (2): Should Schools Promote a Competitive or Cooperative Culture?

PISA has many peculiar and surprising discoveries…

Should we encourage students to co-operate?

Yes, because according to PISA, the omnipotent judge of education policy and practice:

In about 78% of school systems, and on average across OECD countries, students scored higher in reading when they reported greater co-operation amongst their peers, after accounting for the socio-economic profile of students and schools (as measured by the PISA index of economic, social and cultural status) (Table III.B1.8.10). (OECD, 2019, p. 122).

But wait. PISA also found:

In about 88% of the countries and economies that participated in PISA 2018, students who see themselves as competitive scored higher in reading than students who perceive themselves as less competitive (Figure III.8.4). (OECD, 2019, p. 123).

Furthermore, PISA reports:

The results clearly show that students who agreed or strongly agreed that they try harder when they are in competition with other people scored considerably higher than students who disagreed with the statement (a difference of about 12 score points, on average across OECD countries, after accounting CONTINUE READING: 

Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » PISA Peculiarities (2): Should Schools Promote a Competitive or Cooperative Culture?

In Sacramento, Youth Activists Push to Get Police Out of Schools

In Sacramento, Youth Activists Push to Get Police Out of Schools

In Sacramento, Youth Activists Push to Get Police Out of Schools

As a 10th grader at Sacramento’s Luther Burbank High School, Stephanie Lopez remembers when she saw a school resource officer treat her brother like a criminal.

Her brother had bumped into the officer and apologized, Lopez said. But the officer proceeded to question him and asked him for his ID.

“It was all new to me,” said Lopez, now 17 and a senior, of the aggressive approach the officer used with her brother. “When I was younger, I wanted to be a police officer. When I got to high school, I finally saw what it’s like for us, for people of color. It really angered me, because I didn’t notice it in my childhood.”

As a result, more students such as Stephanie are organizing to confront school boards in California about feeling threatened, uneasy and unsafe with the police presence on their campuses. The goal is to pressure school boards to drop contracts to staff school resource officers, or SROs, and use the funds to pay for more mental health experts, counselors, nurses, librarians and other staff they say are lacking on their campuses.

The campaigns have not completely pushed out SROs, but some districts have drafted memorandums of understanding to address how school resource officers are used and the kind of services they can and cannot provide.

“A lot of our work is getting folks organized … we’re the train moving in the opposite direction,” said Carrie Lorraine Ayala, the regional connector for Central Valley Movement Building. Her organization is CONTINUE READING: In Sacramento, Youth Activists Push to Get Police Out of Schools

More Latinos Earned Degrees This Past Decade Than Any Time In History

More Latinos Earned Degrees This Past Decade Than Any Time In History

More Latinos Earned Degrees This Past Decade Than Any Time In History

70% more Latinos earned degrees in the past decade than any previous decade.

Last month, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a comprehensive data analysis on the state of education across all educational levels, and it appears enrollment of Latino students at college campuses has increased.

But while Latino enrollment has increased overall, the Latino student population as a whole still lags behind the enrollment rate of other groups. The same pattern exists with the number of college degrees awarded to Latino students.

During the 2017-2018 cycle, there was around 26 million students enrolled in postsecondary institutions in the U.S., including degree and technical/non-degree programs.

While 18-24 year olds enrolled in degree-granting postsecondary institutions only made up 40 percent of the student population in 2017, the majority of the students were non-traditional (above 25 years of age).

Also, according to the NCES data, the year 2010 experienced the largest number of enrolled students, a number which is estimated to be surpassed later in 2028. 

Another fact to consider is that from 2007 to 2017, there was only a slight increase of enrolled CONTINUE READING: More Latinos Earned Degrees This Past Decade Than Any Time In History

Why Are Grades Important? Some Teachers Say They Do More Harm Than Good | Teen Vogue

Why Are Grades Important? Some Teachers Say They Do More Harm Than Good | Teen Vogue

Why Are Grades Important? Some Teachers Say They Do More Harm Than Good
Schooled is a series by Zach Schermele, a freshman at Columbia University, that explores the nuances of the American education system.

English teacher Gina Benz began to worry when several Advanced Placement (AP) students she knew were hospitalized for behavioral health problems in 2010. The need to “keep a high GPA, get that high ACT score, and get into that certain college” was taking a toll, she said. And she felt it, too. Benz used to spend hours grading papers at home — time that she said could have been better spent with family and friends and caring for herself instead of “drowning in the waters of competitive academic culture.” Something needed to change.

“Initially, I waded into the gradeless classroom waters for my own wellbeing,” she told Teen Vogue. “I wanted to reduce the hours of schoolwork I was doing at home each night. After only a few weeks, I realized that I wasn't getting the benefits I'd hoped for, but my students were experiencing benefits I never anticipated.”

Benz decided to make her classroom “gradeless” two years ago. Instead of “slapping a letter or number at the top of an assessment,” she now focuses on providing her students with high-quality feedback instead. Her students test ideas, make discoveries and embrace failure in an environment where learning is “transformational, not transactional.” Although she is technically required to give a final grade at the end of the semester, that number is based on cumulative evidence of her students’ progress, not a grade average. Benz says her students’ AP test scores haven’t dropped because of the change, and that parents have embraced it. Students tell her they have more “joy for learning” and better emotional health.

“Every week, I hear students talk about being awake until 1, 2, or even 3 in the morning doing homework,” she said. “The gradeless classroom releases students of the pressure CONTINUE READING: Why Are Grades Important? Some Teachers Say They Do More Harm Than Good | Teen Vogue

Why isn't our teacher workforce diverse enough?

Why isn't our teacher workforce diverse enough?

Why aren’t our teachers as diverse as their students?Several states and districts have pledged to try to close the diversity gap

Diversity is growing among students in most U.S. schools, but not among teachers, The Washington Post reports. 

Only one-tenth of 1 percent of Latino students attend a school system where the portion of Latino teachers equals or exceeds the percentage of Latino students, according to the Post’s analysis.

For black students, that figure is 7 percent, while for white children, it’s nearly 100%, the newspaper reported.

“Representation absolutely matters and it matters for … almost every educational outcome you can think of,” Seth Gershenson, a public policy professor at American University, told the Post. 

In Chicago Public Schools, the district school board recently held a hearing with stakeholders who said there aren’t enough teachers of color in the district and questioned why the ones who have worked have left, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

While only 10% of the district’s students are white, half of its teachers are, according to the Sun-Times. “We’re down to only 20 percent of our educators in CPS being black. That’s unacceptable,” Chicago Teachers Union chief of staff Jennifer Johnson said at the hearing, according to the newspaper. “I was often the only black educator that many of my students saw in the high school where I taught.”

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More from DA: Are districts doing enough to fight bias and hate speech?

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In Rhode Island, Johns Hopkins University researchers found that lack of diversity among teachers at Providence Public Schools was a major concern, but it that was not being address by education leaders, according 89.3-FM, The Public’s Radio.

The state education department, which took over the district this fall, says it plans to address the CONTINUE READING: Why isn't our teacher workforce diverse enough?

Fraud, waste, misconduct: Inspector General’s report details year of cases in Chicago schools

Fraud, waste, misconduct: Inspector General’s report details year of cases in Chicago schools

Fraud, waste, misconduct: Inspector General’s report details year of cases in Chicago schools

Chicago schools’ investigative office discovered a swim coach who pocketed nearly $30,000 in pool-rental fees, the district’s failure to collect nearly $2 million in pre-kindergarten payments, and school employees underreporting their income to obtain free preschool. And the office opened nearly 500 investigations into alleged sexual abuse.

The board of education’s Office of the Inspector General details those and other findings of waste and misdeeds in a 72-page report released Monday summing up last school year’s cases in Chicago Public Schools.

By far the largest portion of complaints, more than one-fifth, that the independent office received dealt with alleged sexual abuse. That may be because of heightened public awareness from stories in the Chicago Tribune detailing school-related sexual assaults, and the inspector general forming a specialized unit to deal with them. 

The report from the office of Nicholas Schuler details the district’s response to the findings, which included termination and debarment in some cases. 

“We take seriously our duty to hold accountable any individual who commits serious breaches of district policy or seeks to cause harm,” said a school district spokeswoman, Emily Bolton, in a statement.  “The district appreciates the Office of the Inspector General’s continued efforts to investigate wrongdoing as we work to CONTINUE READING: Fraud, waste, misconduct: Inspector General’s report details year of cases in Chicago schools

Charlotte, N.C.: Voucher School Abruptly Closes Mid-Year | Diane Ravitch's blog

Charlotte, N.C.: Voucher School Abruptly Closes Mid-Year | Diane Ravitch's blog

Charlotte, N.C.: Voucher School Abruptly Closes Mid-Year

The Legacy Prep School in Charlotte, North Carolina, closed its doors at the end of the holidays, leaving parents and students on their own to find a school.

Legacy Prep was a private school that relied on vouchers from the state.

Parents were stunned.

“Yes, 100% caught off-guard,” said Jackie Davis, whose son attends Legacy Prep. 

On Friday, she and other parents whose children were enjoying holiday break, received an email from Stacey Rose, the school’s principal, that told them the school would not re-open on January 7th due to funding issues. 

“It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that Legacy Preparatory will have to close its doors and cease all operations immediately.  As such, we will not reopen for classes on January 7th (or any time thereafter) as originally planned,” Rose wrote in-part.

“It’s a burden,” Davis said. “I’m thinking I’m in a CONTINUE READING: Charlotte, N.C.: Voucher School Abruptly Closes Mid-Year | Diane Ravitch's blog

Prison “Reform” To Incarcerate The World: “Smart” Justice & Global Finance – Wrench in the Gears

Prison “Reform” To Incarcerate The World: “Smart” Justice & Global Finance – Wrench in the Gears

Prison “Reform” To Incarcerate The World: “Smart” Justice & Global Finance

Imposition of social control through brutal policing, incarceration, state supervision, exorbitant fines, and forced labor has a long, well-documented history in the United States. The ongoing harm, and devastating legacy of trauma linked to it, disproportionately affects Indigenous and Black communities, the very ones upon whose stolen land and labor this nation’s wealth has been extracted. Dismantling the prison industrial complex MUST be a priority, and yet care should be taken that we do not allow short-term “wins” to inadvertently pave the way for long-term disasters.

For the past month and a half I’ve been attempting to sort out the deep-pocketed interests behind what is being represented as prison “reform.” Many names I encountered were familiar to me from my previous education and impact investing research including the MacArthur, Ford, and Casey Foundations, Arnold Ventures, and Chan Zuckerberg. The same folks aiming to engineer the futures of preschoolers as human capital have their sights on incarcerated populations, too.

There’s actually quite a lot of overlap between communities accepting MacArthur Foundation “Safety + Justice” grants and those involved in “cradle to career” efforts implemented through Strive Together and other “collective impact” organizations. I will discuss this more in future posts, but below is a map to give you a sense of it. Use the link to the interactive CONTINUE READING: Prison “Reform” To Incarcerate The World: “Smart” Justice & Global Finance – Wrench in the Gears

CURMUDGUCATION: NC: Whitewashing The Charter Report

CURMUDGUCATION: NC: Whitewashing The Charter Report

NC: Whitewashing The Charter Report

North Carolina's 2020 Annual Charter Schools Report has caused some consternation among members of the state's Charter Schools Advisory Board (CSAB). They've seen the first draft and requested a rewrite, because, well, members of the public might become confused by the information that suggests Bad Things about North Carolina's charter industry.

This is not the first time the issue has come up. Back in 2016 the Lt. Governor called the report "too negative" and pushed to have it made "more fair." The report was not substantially changed-- just more data added. But in 2016 it still showed that North Carolina's charter schools mostly serve whiter, wealthier student bodies. This prompted a remarkable explanation:

Darrell Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, said that fact is simply a reflection of which families are applying to charters.

Well, yes. Education reform in North Carolina has been about crushing the teachers' unions and teachers themselves, while also being aimed at enabling white flight and accelerating segregation. One might be inclined to deduce that they hope to set up a spiffy private system for whiter, wealthier folks (including a corporate reserve-your-own-seats policy) along with vouchers, while simultaneously cutting the public system to the bone so that wealthy taxpayers don't have to spend so much educating Those People's Children. North Carolina has done plenty to earn a spot in the education policy hall of shame, enabled by some of the worst gerrymandering in the country.

But while NC legislators don't seem to experience much shame over what they do, they sometimes CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: NC: Whitewashing The Charter Report

Vouchers: Should States Be Subsidizing Private Education at a Steep Cost to Public Schools? | janresseger

Vouchers: Should States Be Subsidizing Private Education at a Steep Cost to Public Schools? | janresseger

Vouchers: Should States Be Subsidizing Private Education at a Steep Cost to Public Schools?

Wisconsin and Ohio were the pioneers, the states which launched school vouchers—public tax dollars covering private school tuition.  Wisconsin launched Milwaukee vouchers in 1990, and Ohio followed suit in 1996 with a Cleveland voucher program.

What are the problems with the idea of vouchers?

Vouchers have always been endorsed by their proponents as providing an escape for promising students from so-called “failing” public schools—as measured by test scores.  But research demonstrates (see here and here) that test scores correlate not with school quality but instead with the aggregate income of the neighborhoods where public schools are located and the families who live there.  Research demonstrates that ameliorating student poverty would more directly address students’ needs.

The idea that vouchers help students academically hasn’t held up either.  A study by the pro-voucher Thomas Fordham Institute demonstrates that in Ohio, voucher students regularly fall behind their public school counterparts.  But proponents of school privatization (including the Thomas Fordham Institute itself) regularly ignore the evidence.

In a recent summary published in The Nation, Jennifer Berkshire explains that while there is a lack of empirical evidence justifying vouchers, their proponents support them ideologically: “But the GOP’s true policy aim these days is much more ambitious: private school vouchers for all. In Ohio, students in two-thirds of the state’s school districts are now eligible for vouchers, a ballooning program that is on track to cost taxpayers $350 million by the end of the school year. And in Florida, school vouchers are now being offered to middle-class students, the latest gambit by conservatives in their effort to redefine public education as anything parents want to spend taxpayer money on. ‘For me, if the taxpayer is paying for the education, it’s public education,’ Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis proclaimed earlier this year.”

In Ohio, based on state report card grades which legislators from both parties seem to agree are deeply flawed, vouchers are now to be awarded to students in so-called ‘under- CONTINUE READING: Vouchers: Should States Be Subsidizing Private Education at a Steep Cost to Public Schools? | janresseger