Schooling, Education and The Way Forward

Image created by Andrew T. Garcia @berkshirecat

Seth Godin got me blogging about 4 years ago. Though his rants relate to marketing and business, what he had to say had relevance in my field: Education. His sentences were direct, pithy and always filled with a sense of urgency, in a 'take it or leave it' kind of way. Good stuff and he's still at it. If I'm stuck finding something to write about, a little reading of Godin will start the juices flowing. One thought leads to another and then I just HAVE to write. That would be my advice to anyone stuck trying to write anything (a blog post, a memo, a short story)-read something related to what you want to write about. Or, if you are interested in change and not in maintaining the status quo, just read Seth Godin.

Public Education should probably be renamed Public Schooling. I have no reservations saying that. Because Schooling is what we do. It is a system, with standards and standardized ways of doing things. Education is a corollary benefit for some, maybe. My entire master's thesis written more than a decade ago dealt with this problem. In a nutshell, my question (for middle school kids) was: 'Is School Real?'. I was attempting to get at whether school and a kid's real world have anything in common. The lengthy title of the thesis was: Schooling and student perceptions: Understanding meaning and relevance of 'the place called school' in the lives of middle school students. Turns out that students saw a connection in the cafeteria, at recess, sometimes in PE, Music or Industrial Arts and in the hallways. Everyplace else in school required them to play a role-to 'check out' from their real world; to grin and bear it.

This was 11 years ago. Before Apple invented the i-pod. Before MySpace, Friendster and Facebook. Before social networking. Before Xbox, Wii, World of Warcraft. Before cell phones with apps and wireless everything. So, 4 years ago, when I saw all these things that evolved quickly and were here to stay, I began to realize that the Schooling System was being left in the dust. I began reading Godin. His sentiments fit what I saw in Education as a problem. I began writing about it. Don't know if all the ranting did any good but in the last 4 years others were thinking the same thing. Thus, we now have Classroom 2.0 where Educators interested in using technology for change can share ideas. We have Thomas Friedman urging us that the World is Flat and we better wake up. We have Daniel Pink saying the same only different--we must become Artists and Creators in the Future because the routine jobs will be left to robots or will be outsourced. There is a modest and growing group of Educators using Twitter to advance change and share information about better ways forward. And now we have State Department's of Education recognizing that, indeed, there is something new afoot and that kids are growing up different (digitally, creatively, expressively).

This something has been termed '21st Century Skills'. Standardizing and then prescribing those skills will not work because the new way is not about memorization and testing, it is a way of BEING. The whole manner in which young people go about getting things done has changed. And Public Schooling needs to change, now, too. For Real. No more pretend change. No more going through the motions.

So Godin got me started and he still inspires me to think and do and change and grow. With Linchpin, his latest book, he offers a solid premise as to WHY we are where we are in Education. He doesn't blame good teachers or even good administrators. He blames the Schooling System. But he does challenge teachers (YOU) to change things, to be extraordinary, indispensable. I think, if you're a teacher now, that means leading by example (using new tools, creating, connecting, collaborating) and fighting to change the current Educational Paradigm of schooling.

NCLB Accountability Illusion

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute just released a report finding that academic standards vary widely from state to state under the No Child Left Behind Act, creating an “accountability illusion.” 

Obama/Duncan Moving Education into 21st Century

from e-school news:

President Barack Obama and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, want to do more than save teachers' jobs or renovate classrooms with the new economic recovery law. They're hoping to reinvent education for the 21st century--while transforming the federal government's role in public education in the process.

Public schools will get an unprecedented amount of money--nearly double the education budget of this past year--from the stimulus bill in the next two years. With those dollars, Obama and Duncan want schools to do better.

From Duncan's perspective, the sheer size of the stimulus bill makes it a once-in-a-lifetime chance to put lasting reforms in place.

"It's also an opportunity to redefine the federal role in education, something we're thinking a whole lot about," Duncan said recently. "How can we move from being [about] compliance with bureaucracy to really the engine of innovation and change?"

The bill includes a $5 billion fund solely for these innovations, an amount that might not seem like much, considering the bill's $787 billion price tag. But it is massive compared with the $16 million in discretionary money that Duncan's predecessors got each year for their own priorities.

"It's unprecedented that a secretary would have this much money and this much latitude," said Charlie Barone, director of federal policy for the group Democrats for Education Reform.

Congress laid out broad guidelines for the fund in the stimulus bill that became law on Feb. 17. But it will be up to Duncan and the team of advisers he is assembling to decide how to dole out the money. They have until Oct. 1, when the next fiscal year begins, to start distributing the dollars.

What would the fund pay for? Rewarding states and school districts that are making big progress--and showcasing these entities and their reforms as models for others to follow.

For example, Tennessee recently overhauled its graduation requirements and academic standards as it works to boost student achievement. As part of that effort, officials want more rigorous state tests; Tennessee has been criticized because students pass state exams with flying colors, yet they do poorly on well-regarded national tests. Better tests cost money.

Or in California, school officials would like to expand the ConnectEd curricula, now in 16 high schools, that links academics to actual work in aerospace, biomedicine, and other careers. The program is aimed at getting students ready for college and keeping them from dropping out.

It doesn't come cheaply; teacher training, equipment, and technical help all are costly.

"We ought to be able to take what's working in the very best schools and make that common practice across all schools," said Ted Mitchell, president of California's state board of education.

To get the money, states will have to show they are making good progress in four areas:

- Boosting teacher effectiveness and getting more good teachers into high-poverty, high-minority schools;

- Setting up data systems to track how much a student has learned from one year to the next;

- Improving academic standards and tests; and

- Supporting struggling schools.

Also, at the urging of Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, the fund sets aside $650 million for schools or districts in partnership with nonprofit groups. This could include charter schools or other programs with a track record of boosting achievement.

The nation's schools are in trouble, advocates of these reforms say. Three in five kids can't read or do math at their grade level. One in four kids drops out of high school. Internationally, the U.S. is losing ground as other countries surge ahead in math and science.

"There is so much at stake today," Duncan said. "We're going to have significantly more resources than we have ever had. We need to use every penny of that wisely."

Duncan has experience at turning schools around. He spent the past seven years running the Chicago Public Schools, an urban district with high dropout rates and hundreds of low-performing schools. Under Duncan, federal dollars helped create new programs that tie teacher bonuses to student performance, bring professionals from other careers into teaching, and help start more charter schools.

Those are the sort of ideas the Obama administration wants to encourage with the new fund. Duncan views the infusion as crucial, because with huge budget deficits that threaten to slash funding for schools, there may be little left over at the state level for innovation.

The ideas are not new. The No Child Left Behind education law was supposed to address the education crisis by closing the gap between minority and poor children who are driving the low achievement numbers and white students in more affluent schools.

But some ideas have been controversial. For example, teachers' unions have resisted performance pay for teachers--raises based in some measure on student test scores--though some have begun to accept it.

Unions are watching closely to see how the fund is spent. The bill itself gives wide latitude over how the dollars are handed out, and unions want to make sure teachers have a seat at the table.

"We would certainly hope there is some requirement that the state has to collaborate with teachers' organizations in the state in deciding what to do with the money," said Joel Packer, a lobbyist for the National Education Association, the biggest teachers' union.

And Republicans, who like Duncan's ideas for fixing schools, argued against the fund because its main goal is not to create jobs right away. They also criticized the massive infusion the bill makes to No Child Left Behind and special education programs, spending that will be difficult to cut once the economy is back on track.

"I don't like it," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., himself a former education secretary.

"Now, most people in education are delighted to get the money," Alexander told university presidents in Washington, D.C., last week. "I think the stimulus package ought to be for programs that create jobs now, that stimulate the housing industry. And then we ought to take up the long-term investments that we make."

Link:

U.S. Department of Education

Where Is Education Now?

Students can either be passive receivers of media messages or they can be digital content creators and creative thinkers.