Judge: Plaintiffs may still access complete California student database, but with tightened security | 89.3 KPCC

Judge: Plaintiffs may still access complete California student database, but with tightened security | 89.3 KPCC:

Judge: Plaintiffs may still access complete California student database, but with tightened security

A massive database that includes sensitive information on every student who attended California public schools since 2008 will no longer be handed over in its entirety to a small team of experts and lawyers who've filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Education.

Instead, a federal judge has ordered state officials to allow the plaintiffs to use the department's computers to run searches on the state's database, known as CALPADS — which does include some students' Social Security numbers, along with home addresses and test scores.

The order U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly J. Mueller filed this week follows widespread alarm among parents after state officials began notifying them of the pending release last month.

Mueller wrote that her office was inundated with letters objecting to the release of the information — so many, she said, that it would be impossible to individually review each one.

Parents still have until April 1 to mail a letter to the judge objecting to the release. Though sending a letter does not opt a former student out of the release of data, she writes that she "construes the objections in bulk as objecting strongly to public disclosure of personal identifying information."

The plaintiffs — a group of parents who organized into a group called the California Concerned Parents Association (CCPA) — never sought the wide release of the database to the general public. In fact, they have said they never wanted access to the most sensitive data.

CCPA's lawsuit claims the state has been failing to offer special education services to all students who need them — an allegation the state disputes. The plaintiffs' lawyers were seeking access to the state's full database in hopes an expert statistician on their team could run queries to test their claim.

"It is important for the public, especially parents, to understand that this is a civil rights case largely focused on anti-discrimination," a post on CCPA's website read. "The merits of this case will be tried in the court of law — not through the media."

Mueller's order noted that many of the objection letters seem to be based on Judge: Plaintiffs may still access complete California student database, but with tightened security | 89.3 KPCC:

CURMUDGUCATION: Britain Is Also Hemorrhaging Teachers

CURMUDGUCATION: Britain Is Also Hemorrhaging Teachers:

Britain Is Also Hemorrhaging Teachers

Hemorrhaging Teacher

Just in case you thought only the US had decided to gut teaching as a profession, thereby driving people out of it, here's Nick Morrison in Forbes pointing out that the UK has some issues as well.

In fact, the article hinges on one striking factoid--

According to the Department for Education’s own census, more teachers left the classroom than entered it in 2014, the latest year for which figures are available, only the second time this has happened in the past 10 years.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, England's chief inspector of schools, is noted for a fairly aggressive approach to his job, having recently raised the frequency for school inspection as well as raising a fuss by threatening to inspect Sunday schools as well. Wilshaw likes the idea of golden handcuffs, requiring newly-minted teachers to serve a proscribed time in publicly funded schools until they jump ship. Because nothing enhances education like a teacher who has been forced into a particular classroom when they'd rather be elsewhere.

The ship-jumping has apparently been to well-funded high-paying international schools. Wilshaw hassounded the alarm about this before, and Morrison reported that teachers, particularly in London, cannot afford to live in the communities where they teach.

In addition to the monetary issues, Morrison notes that there are other problems

Workload, a high-stakes testing regime and the low status of teaching also help push teachers out of the classroom, as does the scrutiny of Sir Michael’s own school inspectors.

Sound familiar? Sure it does, as does the government's search for any solution other than paying CURMUDGUCATION: Britain Is Also Hemorrhaging Teachers:


 It's Not The Implementation, Stupid

How can we still be having this conversation? How??

Marc Tucker (he of the infamous Dear Hillary letter outlining the cradle to career pipeline) is over at Ed Week declaring that the Common Core are absolutely awesome and any alleged failure is actually the failure of the whole entire national education system and everyone associated with it. The Common Core Standards are genius-- it was just an implementation problem!

Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope AND nope.

First of all, Tucker builds a whole point around an invalid comparison. To see it thoroughly and accurately skewered, read this post from the indispensable Mercedes Schneider. Bottom line: his idea that putting Common Core into current schools like putting a modern fuel injector into an old car shows a lack of understanding of both education and fuel injection. It is the perfect picture of reformster hubris, the notion that, of course, I know enough about this system to overhaul it completely.

Tucker goes on to list all the many things that should be changed in order to implement the Core properly so that it can be the raging success that it truly is, from changing the way teachers are prepared to changing the way teachers teach to changing the way the publishing industry creates materials etc etc etc.

It reminds me of some freshman dorm conversations from my college days, when someone would say things like, "You know, communism would be a perfect system if only people and governments would behave completely differently." Or every professional development session in which a sales rep explained that the Shiny New Wonkometer System will be a huge help to any classroom teacher who changed all of her goals and techniques. Or everybody who ever cried out, upon being dumped, 


 It's Not The Implementation, Stupid

Incredulous: Watching CT Department of Education officials lecture school administrators on how to mislead parents - Wait What?

Incredulous: Watching CT Department of Education officials lecture school administrators on how to mislead parents - Wait What?:

Incredulous: Watching CT Department of Education officials lecture school administrators on how to mislead parents

 Just when I thought I had truly seen everything when it comes to the arrogance, elitism, audacity and contemptuousness of those associated with the corporate funded “Education Reform” effort, I witnessed something even more breathtakingly incredible this past Monday at the Connecticut State Department of Education.

It has taken the week to even begin to be able to put into words what I and a handful of other parents and public school advocates witnessed.  In fact, I wouldn’t have believed it, had I not seen it for myself.

As was initially reported in the Wait, What? blog post entitled, “Malloy-Wyman Administration ramp-up attack on parents who opt their children out of the Common Core SBAC testing fiasco,” a group of targeted Connecticut public school superintendents and principals were ordered to attend a mandatory meeting at the Department of Education to discuss their failure last sprin, to stop enough parents from opting their children out of the unfair, inappropriate and discriminatory Common Core SBAC testing scheme.

Thanks to the anti-local control, authoritarian policies being pushed by Governor Dannel Malloy, Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman and their Commissioner of Education, the Connecticut State Department of Education summoned a group of local school administrators to a “roundtable discussion on family and community engagement strategies” on Monday, February 29, 2016 from 3:00 – 4:30 at the State Office Building in Hartford. The session was presented as a mechanism to enhance the communication skills of school administrators so that they could do a better job of ensuring that no more than 4.9 percenIncredulous: Watching CT Department of Education officials lecture school administrators on how to mislead parents - Wait What?:

U.S. Dept of Ed Names Committee Members to Draft Proposed Regulations for Every Student Succeeds Act | U.S. Department of Education

U.S. Department of Education Names Committee Members to Draft Proposed Regulations for Every Student Succeeds Act | U.S. Department of Education:

U.S. Department of Education Names Committee Members to Draft Proposed Regulations for Every Student Succeeds Act

 The U.S. Department of Education today named committee members who will draft proposed regulations in two areas of Title I, Part A of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). This is the latest step in the process of implementing ESSA.

“We look forward to working with the committee to promote equity and excellence for all students by providing states and school districts with timely regulations so that they can plan ahead and support students and educators,” said Ann Whalen, senior advisor to the secretary, delegated the duties of the assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education.

ESSA replaces the outdated No Child Left Behind law and expands on the work this Administration, states, districts and schools across the country have already started. The new law will help build on key progress that we’ve made in education over recent years—including a record high school graduation rate of 82 percent, significant expansion of high-quality preschool, and a million more African American and Hispanic students enrolled in college than in 2008, when President Obama took office.

ESSA promotes equitable access to educational opportunities in critical ways, such as asking states to hold all students to high academic standards to prepare them for college and careers and ensuring action in the lowest-performing schools, high schools with low graduation rates, and in schools that are consistently failing subgroups of students. Maintaining effective, high-quality assessments and ensuring that all states and districts know how to meet the updated “supplement not supplant” requirement are crucial to achieving these objectives.

The Department hosted public forums, held meetings with stakeholders and received hundreds of written comments on how to best support states, districts and schools in the transition to the new law, which informed the negotiated rulemaking process that is now underway. The negotiators and alternative negotiators announced today represent the constituencies that are significantly affected by the topics proposed for negotiation, including state and local education administrators and board members, tribal leadership, parents and students, teachers, principals, other school leaders, and the civil rights and business communities. Negotiators were selected to represent all of the geographic regions of the country. In addition, the Department selected negotiators who would contribute to the diversity and expertise of the negotiating committee.

The committee will draft proposed regulations in the following two areas of Title I, Part A of ESSA: (1) the requirement that federal funds supplement, not supplant, non-federal funds in high-need schools and (2) assessments. The selected negotiators and their alternates have received background materials to help prepare for their discussions, including issue papers on key areas identified by the Department in the notice announcing formation of the committee. Those areas are:

1. Supplement not supplant

2. Assessments

• Computer adaptive testing
• The exception for advanced mathematics assessments in 8th grade
• Locally selected, nationally recognized high school assessments
• The inclusion of students with disabilities in academic assessments
• State administration of alternate assessments based on alternate academic achievement standards for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, subject to a cap of 1 percent of students assessed in a subject
• The inclusion of English learners in academic assessments
• The inclusion of English learners in English language proficiency assessments
• Updating existing regulations to reflect statutory changes

In some issue papers, the Department included draft regulatory language intended to facilitate discussion among the negotiators. The committee has ultimate authority over the content of its final recommendations to the Department and may use the materials as guides. To access the materials provided to the committee, please see our website:http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/essa/index.html.

The committee will convene March 21-23 and April 6-8 with an optional session April 18-19 at its discretion. These meetings are open to the public, and more information on the time, location and other logistics for the meetings will be distributed at a later date.

Members of the ESSA Negotiated Rulemaking Committee:

Constituency	Negotiators
State administrators and state boards of education	Tony Evers, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Marcus Cheeks, Mississippi Department of Education
Local administrators and local boards of education	Alvin Wilbanks, Gwinnett County Public Schools, Georgia Derrick Chau, Los Angeles Unified School District, California Thomas Ahart, Des Moines Public Schools, Iowa *
Tribal leadership	Aaron Payment, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe, Michigan Leslie Harper, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, Minnesota*
Parents and students, including historically underserved students	Lisa Mack, Ohio Rita Pin Ahrens, District of Columbia
Teachers	Audrey Jackson, Boston Public Schools Ryan Ruelas, Anaheim City School District, California Mary Cathryn Ricker, St. Paul Public Schools/American Federation of Teachers, Minnesota*
Principals	Lara Evangelista, New York City Department of Education, New York Aqueelha James, District of Columbia Public Schools*
Other school leaders, including charter school leaders	Eric Parker, Montgomery Public Schools, Alabama Richard Pohlman, Thurgood Marshall Academy, District of Columbia*
Paraprofessionals	Lynn Goss, School District of the Menomonie, Wisconsin Regina Goings, Clark County School District, Nevada*
Civil rights community, including representatives of students with disabilities, English learners, and other historically underserved students	Delia Pompa, Migration Policy Institute, Texas Ron Hager, National Disability Rights Network, District of Columbia Liz King, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, District of Columbia* Janel George, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, District of Columbia*
Business community	Kerri Briggs, Exxon Mobil, Texas Kenneth Bowen, Office Depot, North Carolina *

*Non-voting member

• U.S. Department of Education Names Committee Members to Draft Proposed Regulations for Every Student Succeeds Act | U.S. Department of Education:

ESSA says tests can’t collect personal beliefs. – Missouri Education Watchdog

ESSA says tests can’t collect personal beliefs. – Missouri Education Watchdog:

ESSA says tests can’t collect personal beliefs.

The law of the land, Every Student Succeeds Act, ESSA, got something right: we shouldn’t be collecting information about how students feel, their personal beliefs, their attitudes.

From ESSA, page 24-25:

(B) REQUIREMENTS.—The assessments under subparagraph (A) shall— (iii) be used for purposes for which such assessments are valid and reliable, consistent with relevant, nationally recognized professional and technical testing standards, objectively measure academic achievement, knowledge, and skills, and be tests that do not evaluate or assess personal or family beliefs and attitudes, or publicly disclose personally identifiable information;

Share this little tidbit of ESSA with your legislators and state and local education boards. Also remind them that plenty of folks are also looking at these other laws that edtech and student data collection may be circumventing.

.

One has to wonder how data collection via  Social-Emotional-Learning and measuring 21st Century skills and “grit” will factor into this ESSA language.  This statement in ESSA should also be addressed when considering blended learning, adaptive learning, online personalized learning–whatever you want to call the big push for embedded data collection via Competency Based Education, CBE and formative online tests.

 .

Congressman Jared Polis recently mentioned this technology data privacy concern while speaking at a hearing with John King, the nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education.   You can listen to this short snippet here.

 

Congressman Polis asks John King how ESSA will balance the issues of over-testing, and states with new “blended ESSA says tests can’t collect personal beliefs. – Missouri Education Watchdog:

Student Privacy Protections in Morgan Hill Case - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education)

Student Privacy Protections in Morgan Hill Case - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education):

Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Applauds Federal Court Order 

Strengthening Student Privacy Protections in Morgan Hill Case

 

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today applauded a federal court order strengthening protections for student data in the case of Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association vs. California Department of Education.

"The court has heard loud and clear from California's families that they want their students' privacy protected. This is a good first step. The court responded to these concerns and ordered additional measures to safeguard data," Torlakson said. "The California Department of Education will continue to fight vigorously to protect student privacy rights as this case proceeds."

In her March 1 order, U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly Mueller noted the large number of objections to the potential release of student data received by the court following the posting of the Notice of Disclosure of Student Records on February 1. In response to the objections, the court ordered that the CDE maintain custody of the most sensitive of its databases, the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS), while running searches for information requested by the plaintiffs. The court also reiterated that no student personally identifiable information may be released to the plaintiffs unless and until they demonstrate to the satisfaction of the court that the method to be used to store the sensitive student data is secure. The parties are still litigating the extent of the disclosure of student data.

Parents, guardians and former students over 18 have the opportunity to object to the data release by printing out, completing, and mailing to the court the Objection to Disclosure of Student Information and Records form or sending a confidential letter to the judge. Instructions and the objection forms are available at the CDE Morgan Hill Case Web Site. The forms and letters are due by April 1, 2016.

Judge Mueller's March 1 order made clear that the objection forms are not a means to "opt-out" of any data release. The court also noted that it "has not and cannot realistically review the objections individually" due to the volume of the objections it has received. Therefore, the court will consider "the objections in bulk as objecting strongly to public disclosure of personal identifying information contained in the CDE's educational records." The court will maintain the objection forms in sealed boxes in a secure room at the federal court building in Sacramento.

The March 1 court order follows a February 29 special status hearing in the lawsuit filed by two organizations, the Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association and the Concerned Parents Association, against the CDE that dates to 2011 alleging systemic failure by the CDE to monitor the provision of special education by school districts, in violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The CDE denies these allegations.

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Last Reviewed: Friday, March 4, 2016

Student Privacy Protections in Morgan Hill Case - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education):

Oakland District at Heart of Drive to Privatize Urban Schools - The New York Times

Oakland District at Heart of Drive to Transform Urban Schools - The New York Times:
Oakland District at Heart of Drive to Transform Urban Schools

 OAKLAND, Calif. — The 70 teachers who showed up to a school board meeting here recently in matching green and black T-shirts paraded in a circle, chanting, “Charter schools are not public schools!” and accusing the superintendent of doing the bidding of “a corporate oligarchy.”

The superintendent, Antwan Wilson, who is an imposing 6-foot-4, favors crisp suits and Kangol caps and peers intensely through wire-rimmed glasses, has become accustomed to confrontation since he arrived in this activist community from Denver two years ago. One board meeting last fall reached such a fever pitch that police officers moved in to control the crowd.

Mr. Wilson is facing a rebellion by teachers and some parents against his plan to allow families to use a single form to apply to any of the city’s 86 district-run schools or 44 charter campuses, all of which are competing for a shrinking number of students.

How he fares may say a great deal not only about Oakland, but also about this moment in the drive to transform urban school districts. Many of them have become rivalrous amalgams of traditional public schools and charters, which are publicly funded but privately operated and have been promoted by education philanthropists.

Photo

Police officers entered the crowd during the fractious board meeting at La Escuelita Elementary School in October. CreditPreston Gannaway for The New York Times

Mr. Wilson is trying to bring the traditional schools into closer coordination with the charters. ”If he gets it right, it’s a model for moving past the polarized sense of reform that we have right now,” said Robert C. Pianta, dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.

But Mr. Wilson has emerged as a lightning rod partly because he is one of a cadre of superintendents who have been trained in an academy financed by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. Like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, Mr. Broad, a Los Angeles billionaire who made his fortune in Oakland District at Heart of Drive to Transform Urban Schools - The New York Times:

La. House Ed Chair Nancy Landry Wants to Pay Teachers Less | deutsch29

La. House Ed Chair Nancy Landry Wants to Pay Teachers Less | deutsch29:

La. House Ed Chair Nancy Landry Wants to Pay Teachers Less

 Rep. Nancy Landry (R-Lafayette) is the 2016 chair of Louisiana’s House Education Committee.

In 2012, Landry was responsible for the motion to require teachers who attended House education hearings to first tell what kind of leave they had taken from their classrooms in order to be present at a public hearing held in the middle of the school day.

No other Louisiana legislative committee before or since has required members of the public who wished to speak before a legislative committee to declare the details of how they came to be present before the committee.

Landry could have offered a motion to reconvene education hearings at a time when school was not in session, but she did not do so.

Now, in 2016, she is the House Ed chair, compliments of House Speaker, Taylor Barras (R-New Iberia).

As of this writing, Landry has only a single piece of prospective education legislation on file for the regular 2016 session, HB 392, “Provides relative to the reduction of teacher salaries under certain circumstances.”

Yep. Landry is seeking to open a wide door to cut teacher pay.

The bill is less than two pages long, but in it, Landry adds wording that would allow a district to cut teacher salaries across the board and allow for reduction in salary if the district decides to transfer a teacher to a lower-paying position.

Below is the text of HB 392 in full. The underlined sections are those that Landry wants added:

2016 Regular Session

HOUSE BILL NO. 392

BY REPRESENTATIVE NANCY LANDRY

TEACHERS/SALARY: Provides relative to the reduction of teacher salaries under certain

circumstances

AN ACT

To amend and reenact R.S. 17:418(C)(1) and (3), relative to salaries for teachers and other

school employees; to authorize the reduction of salaries for teachers and other school

employees in certain circumstances; and to provide for related matters.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of Louisiana:

Section 1. R.S. 17:418(C)(1) and (3) are hereby amended and reenacted to read as

follows:

418. Salaries; teachers and other school employees

* * *

C.(1) The amount of the annual salary paid to a teacher or other school employee in any school year shall not be reduced below the amount of such 

La. House Ed Chair Nancy Landry Wants to Pay Teachers Less | deutsch29:

Civil rights groups asks feds to keep an eye on states as new education law moves forward | | Dallas Morning News

Civil rights groups asks feds to keep an eye on states as new education law moves forward | | Dallas Morning News:

Civil rights groups asks feds to keep an eye on states as new education law moves forward

President Barack Obama at the December signing of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the new federal education law. (AP)

 The country’s most vulnerable children need assurances that their interests are being protected as a new federal education law takes effect, civil rights leaders said Friday.

That includes students who are: living with disabilities; from poor families; English-language learners; Native Americans; LGBTQ; homeless; in foster care; in the juvenile justice system; boys and girls of color.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and  54 organizations issued a letter to acting Education Secretary John B. King urging him to use whatever power he could to make sure states and school districts implement the Every Student Succeeds Act with “robust and meaningful” regulations and oversight.

In December, No Child Left Behind – one of former President George W. Bush’s signature initiatives – was scrapped as lawmakers rewrote the education law by significantly shifting accountability standards back to the states.

Most everyone agreed it was time to fix NCLB as some claimed it was too punitive and relied too much on standardized testing. But many worry that efforts to hold states and school districts accountable for all children will be scrapped with it.

Schools had to make progress on subgroups to receive passing marks. That meant making sure children with disabilities, poor students, English-language learners, Blacks, Hispanics and other groups of students were learning.

Schools, districts and states faced escalating punishments for not meeting “adequate yearly progress.”

Now that the ESSA allows for states to be the driving force in setting accountability standards, groups representing such students want assurances.

“Given the long history of state and local decisions shortchanging vulnerable students, the department cannot shirk from its regulatory and enforcement responsibilities to ensure that the implementation of ESSA eliminates, not perpetuates, persistent inequities in our nation’s public education system,” reads the letter.

Lawmakers in Washing, D.C., are holding hearings on how the new law should be implemented. You can watch last month’s hearing here.Civil rights groups asks feds to keep an eye on states as new education law moves forward | | Dallas Morning News:

Garn Press Chapters: The Educator and the Oligarch by Anthony Cody - Garn Press

Garn Press Chapters: The Educator and the Oligarch by Anthony Cody - Garn Press:

Garn Press Chapters: The Educator and the Oligarch by Anthony Cody

 Garn Press Chapters: A new series from Garn Press. Featured in this post, Chapter 20 of The Educator and the Oligarch, which is available in paperback on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and as an ebook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, andiBooks.

It takes courage to challenge the decisions made by the richest man in the world about the U.S. public school system, but that is exactly what Anthony Cody has done. He received the NCTE 2015 George Orwell Award for The Educator and the Oligarch for speaking truth to power. Anthony continues to speak truth to power and is consistent in his message that not only is Bill Gates wrong, his educational reforms are dangerous.

Anthony Cody leaves us in no doubt that the educational reforms forced on teachers, children, and their parents by Gates and the corporate elites with whom the billionaire keeps company are risking both the future of our kids and the opportunities they will have of living and thriving in the rapidly changing world we now inhabit.

At Garn Press we applaud Anthony Cody for the consistency of his educational reporting and his indomitable courage. Here is a link to his Living In Dialogue blog site and to a recent post that builds on Chapter 20 of The Educator and the Oligarch, which Garn is featuring here.

Chapter 20

The Classroom of the Future: Student-Centered or Device-Centered?

A basic question is emerging as our schools are urged to embrace the Common Core State Standards and the computer-based learning systems aligned to the standards. Are these digital devices becoming central to the classroom—and coming to dominate the way we teach and learn? And how will this serve our students?

In March, 2014 we heard from Bill Gates the virtues of the Common Core explained this way:

If you have 50 different plug types, appliances wouldn’t be available and would be very expensive,” he said. But once an electric outlet becomes standardized, many companies can design appliances and competition ensues, creating variety and better prices for consumers, he said.[1]

In the classroom, these “appliances” are the tablets and other digital devices now being aggressively sold. In 2012, Gates explained this model of device-centered “personalization”:

Teachers have not had these tools before. Fragmented standards that differ from state to state and district to district have made it hard for innovators to design tools to reach a wide market. The common core will help change that. In the classroom of the not-too-far-off future, kids will have computer devices with phenomenal interactive content. This will allow teachers to do what they call “flip the classroom.” Instead of learning a concept in class and applying it at home, students would learn the concept at home, on video, and apply it in class, where they can get help from the teacher. When students learn a concept on video, they can take as much time as they need and learn at their own pace. They can pause the video, rewind it, or just listen to it all over again. Then the students can use class time to do the problems. The teacher sees instantly on the dashboard which kids are getting it, and steps in if someone is stuck. The students move on when they master the material, and not before. This is very different from the old method where every student moves on to the next topic after the test, whether you got an A or a D.[2]

Iwan Streichenberger, the CEO of the now-defunct Gates-funded inBloom data-storage project used a slightly different analogy:

Our purpose is to remove the friction in the deployment of technology in the classroom. It’s not very exciting, but if you don’t have plumbing you can’t have appliances.[3]

In (now defunct) inBloom’s view, the “plumbing” is the system that will allow data from all these devices to be collected and used by all the appliance makers. Our classrooms are being re-wired and standardized to allow the proliferation of appliances that will transform education.

What do these appliances look like? What does this transformation entail?

At Austin’s SXSWedu, in March of 2014, I attended the product launch for one such appliance. Rupert Murdoch’s Amplify has produced a new tablet for the classroom market, which comes with a complete ELA, math, and science curriculum. The program promises:

With an e-library stocked with more than 300 books and educational games, and tools for immediate, in-class student assessment, Amplify ELA aims to help students read three times more and write three times more, and to help teachers provide three times more meaningful feedback.[4]

As the students work, the device keeps track of what they have read and written. Words that were misspelled are Garn Press Chapters: The Educator and the Oligarch by Anthony Cody - Garn Press: