Ed Reform and National Security

Wow, there has been a lot of talk lately about education reform in US.  Education reform is nothing new to those of us in Kentucky when the last major push was implemented by KERA (Kentucky Education Reform Act) which was born out of inequities in education funding around the state. 

While I'm not an expert in funding, what I perceive is that state funding is more-or-less equitable.  Yet, private sources of funding provide an advantage to the economically-advantaged areas of our state and much of federal funding targets the highly-poverty stricken areas.  This leaves a huge group in the middle that do not get additional assistance.  In my district, we often say "we aren't poor enough."  This is despite the fact that we have nearly 50% of children that are in the free/reduced lunch program.

My post tonight is in reaction to our own Education Commissioner's blog post today.  He quotes from a report called the U.S. Education Reform and National Security, that “America’s failure to educate is affecting its national security.”

I don't doubt that for a moment, but without scrutinizing the report for accuracy, I cannot say that it has any merit.  I'm not interested in this report and I'll tell you why.  The three recommendations from the report (as posted by DocH) are the following:

1. Expand common core to science, technology and foreign language.
2. Engage parents and communities in education reform through more choice of education programs.
3. Develop a national security audit report for schools and districts that is transparent to parents and communities.

1.  I whole-heartedly agree, except...

With CCSS, we currently have Mathematics and ELA standards, and yes, Kentucky was the first state to adopt these standards.  There was a great deal of effort (I think at least) to incorporate some deep-thinking skills in these, but I still question how these higher-skills will be assessed.  We continue to rank schools on standardized assessments that I would bet mostly assess basic facts and calculation skills.  I don't know this for certain, because we are only privy to past released test items and not examples of future ones.

When I was in the classroom (albeit a billion years ago), I put more weight in my grading practices on how students could apply their knowledge than I did their recall of facts.  I'm not saying I was the perfect teacher; I was far from it.  Yet my favorite methods of assessing student performance were not in multiple choice questions, it was in problems where they had to show their work (so I could "see" their thinking), it was in constructed response questions (so I could gauge if they really understood the concept), it was in performance assessments (so I could tell if they could do something with their knowledge).

Sure, expand CCSS, provide a national curriculum, but allow individual states or individual schools to be able to assess the competence of their students.  Regurgitating facts does not make a country stronger, especially when those facts are quickly forgotten or obsolete in a year or two.  Teach kids to really think and watch what happens.

More importantly, devaluing and degrading education (as has been common recently, with the identification of low-performing schools or low-performing teachers) will NOT improve the situation.  Nor will promising rewards for high-performing institutions and individuals (based upon standardized tests).  Think about this just for a second... what educator thinks that it is okay to announce to their class that the lowest score on the recent test was "Jamie" and the highest was "Peyton"?

2.  Engage parents and the community, yes... through more choice?  Is this a plug for charters?

If we had more engaged parents and a more engaged community, then there wouldn't be a question of choice.  Parents and the community are a vital part of education.  All of us collectively need to embrace the future of our country, i.e. our children.  There is no better way for these groups of people to be actively involved in society and actively encouraging the young people they know than to instill the values of learning.

3.  Develop a national security audit report for schools and districts that is transparent to parents and communities.

What?


I'll step of my soapbox tonight.  Thanks for listening and cheers!

What do kids really need from education?

[resurrecting this from a Facebook note]
I had a couple of candid conversations with students today [Dec 20, 2011] that primarily focused on one content area. I think their feedback, however, is universal no matter what subject we are teaching. From the mouths of babes (paraphrased for clarity):

• Give us as much time as we need to learn the content. Don't tell us that we have one week to cover it and then we are moving on to something else.
• Explain how what we are learning connects with real life. (Give practical examples that helps us see the connection on why would want to learn the concept in the first place.)
• Build positive relationships with your students. Have a sense of humor (even if it is a dry sense of humor, which seems to be very intriguing to our youth.)
• Don't assign homework for a grade.
• Understand that failure is a part of learning and don't punish me for that if I can show you I eventually met your expectations.
• Love your job. There is nothing worse than a teacher that acts like they would rather be somewhere else.
• Treat me like I am a real person trying to do real things in the real world.

If you are a teacher, I implore you to digest these words thoughtfully.

Are you an Outdated Educator?

When the world has already been inventing ways to access information quicker and easier, when dreamers are already envisioning a way to do this without the clunky mobile device in our pockets, why are we in education still embracing the "know" and "does not know" mentality?

News flash: innovators will continue to create new ways that technology can deliver basic facts and relevant information to others.  Technology already allows us to find correct answers to any basic question, even more complex questions such as solving a set of two variable linear equations (just search WolframAlpha).

Having a solid base of understanding in any particular area of study is important, but I think we could all agree this alone does not make a person successful. 

So, with the infusion of technology everywhere, how can we teach kids to use technology to their advantage?  Teach them sift through the noise.  Teach them to learn how to create real things with technology and share those creations with the world.  Teach them how to use technology to better themselves, their community, and/or their world.

Ask yourself, are you an outdated educator?  Do you put more value on the facts that your students know, or are you more interested in what your students can do with those facts?  Do you think that facts have to be learned before students develop skills on how to apply them, or do you let students discover concepts for themselves?  Do you give packets for homework, or do you provide students with a thought-provoking challenge that makes them want to learn the content?

Most of all, are you an education dreamer and innovator?  Education could use a lot more of these!

My inspiration tonight is the following video from 2009 ...



Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

Flawed Premises and High Hopes

I know I originally touted this blog (three short posts ago) as a place for Education Technology discussions; however, at this particular point in time there are issues that encompass the entirety of education that are paramount.  These issues will also have an effect on EdTech, so anyone with a passion for infusing technology in education should be paying attention.

1. VAM (Value-Added Measurement) for teacher evaluation in which teachers are ranked publicly upon how well their students perform on state standardized tests.
2. Alleged "rampant" cheating in schools by teachers and others on state standardized tests.

Hmmm... there seems to be a common theme with the two big issues as popularized in media over the last several days.  Could it be that the vehicle for measurement of both students and teachers is flawed?

[If you want to read more, check out AJC regarding the cheating scandal and the EdWeek article about Duncan's views of teacher ranking.]

It is my contention that the practice of standardized testing, as we know it today, is the cause of America's decline in education in the recent past.  We have put such extreme pressures on principals and teachers to perform well on these tests and what do the tests really measure?  Mostly lower-level skills, recall and basic calculations. 

If we want our kids to be fact-machines, then keep teaching them how to memorize and learn the "3 R's" AND assessing them on their ability to do just that.  Our counterparts in certain countries have been successful at that, and they have been an avenue of American companies for finding "cheap" and "out-sourced" labor.

If, instead, we value a higher standard, one that asks our kids to be the next great innovators, or asks if students can find facts when they need it and apply them to the current problem at hand, or seeks for our youth that know how to work together to solve problems, then we might just have a fighting chance.  And we, as educators are obligated to find a way to assess this.

Yet, the real question is why assess it at all?  Is it to label poor performing schools or teachers?  Or is it a means for a teacher to determine what strategies may have been most successful?  Or is it a means for a principal to track performance and make the best decisions for the school?  Another question is, who really needs to see this information?

As far as the EdTech connections in this post, I have long believed that the true power of education technology is not in the technology itself, it is when it used in conjunction with higher-order skills, the same skills that will move us forward as a country, and the same skills that every nation should be embracing.

Competition versus Cooperation

This is a short clip of an email I sent a colleague tonight.  You'll have to read between to the lines to get the connection between competition/cooperation and accountability/responsibility.  My words were inspired by Pasi Sahlberg, an education expert/enthusiast in Finland.

American culture loves competition. American culture is killing education. More than ever, we need cooperation, not competition. We don't need to know who are the stars and who are the losers. We need to know what works and what does not.

Fostering a culture of accountability will kill us. Fostering a culture of responsibility is our saving grace.

STEM, STEAM, HOTS and other educationally-Appropiate acronyms

Education has an above-average ability for devising intriguing acronyms.  The three above are just a few.  Yet, acronyms like these are the one I believe will be the true power behind any initiative involving integration of technology in education.

Let me back up a decade or so.  I've been the CIO/Tech Coordinator for a relatively small district (roughly 2100 students as of today) since 1999.  While many of my early years in the position were spent on getting my feet wet, inheriting projects from my predecessors, learning new things and worrying about the Y2K apocalypse that never happened, I also spent a good deal of time planning for how to integrate more technology in the classroom.

The term integration has evolved over time.  At one time, it used to mean that the teacher could utilize technological tools for whole group instruction, or if we were lucky, small group and perhaps individual practice.  Just a few years ago, integration meant that students were given multiple opportunities to use technology for education.  We are still grappling with what "multiple" means; mostly we grapple with that term when it comes to technology because of the resources we have available to us.  At least I hope that is the reason.  Consider if 30 years ago, we evaluated our use of instructional resources using the statement, "students are give multiple opportunities to use a textbook to enhance their learning."  That's just silly.

Opportunity is not enough.  How the technology is used is more important than the fact that it was used at all. 

That brings us to today.  There has been a resurgence of a need for thinking, deep thinking.  Deep thinking is nothing new in human history; I contend that we've lost our way (at least in education as a whole) over the last several decades, perhaps a century give or take, on the journey to build thoughtful, creative minds.  What we've built instead is a complex system of accountability that nourishes teaching low-level skills.

In the technology realm, I've seen district after district investing enormous amounts of money in technology initiatives.  While some of these initiatives are software-based, I would like to concentrate on the hardware-based initiatives, specifically 1:1 or even BYOD.

What I have heard from teachers and parents in districts (no, my reach isn't wide, but I listen) that have some sort of 1:1 program is that it is failing.  It is failing for a number of reasons:  teachers aren't prepared; students haven't been taught how to resist the temptation of playing games, etc.  It's not failing across the board, some teachers have learned to adapt.  Yet, if the adaption is "put your iPad away", then they're missing the point.

Giving every kid a device to access information is not enough.  Opportunity is not enough.

Integration today means using available devices hand-in-hand with developing the thinking, creativity, communication/collaborative skills necessary for being a productive citizen in our global society.

Débutante, of sorts

Welcome to my first official blog.  The place I hope I can share some of my thoughts, hopefully insights, as they relate to technology in education.  The place I hope others will banter with me, give me alternative views, or commiserate with my experiences.

I've played around with posting my opinions or my experiences before.  Ever heard of Facebook? From time to time I have posted a note when something really remarkable strikes me. 

However, my motivation in starting this blog is entirely selfish... it's for my OWN personal learning.  I want to grow my skills at communicating with others.  I want a place to reflect on my role (and others') in education.  I want to learn something new.

Why the name?  While it might seem apropos for an educator in Kentucky, it has nothing to do with basketball.  Technology in education has been both criticized and praised.  The criticisms and praises have both had merits and also unsubstantiated claims.  Just because you put a kid on a computer, doesn't mean she'll learn.  Likewise, ignoring the powerful ability of technology to bring our kids into a global economy can be just as detrimental.

The title alludes to what I see in my daily life.  Many of us are using technology largely for entertainment purposes.  Why not use it to connect to people beyond our immediate grasp, to empower our kids (and ourselves) to make a better world, to make life-long learning really mean something?

Cheers and hoping for some lively and thoughtful discussions!