Arne Duncan announced that he plans to hold a national competition for a redesign of the high school. He wants to dangle $300 million (if Congress agrees) for those who come up with the best redesign of the American high school. He is thinking STEM, technology, and other such big ideas.
As I read of this idea, I couldn’t help but remember back to 1991 when the first President Bush assembled smart people like Lamar Alexander as secretary and David Kearns (CEO of Xerox) as deputy secretary. David Kearns created a national competition to design the school of the future. The prize was $50 million (raised in the private sector) for the best plan to create “Néw American Schools.”
A new non-governmental organization was created to oversee the competition. It was called the Néw American Schools Development Corporation. Ten or 12 teams won the money. Their ideas were all over the place. The money was duly awarded.
So far as I know, not a trace remains.
Corporate types love the idea of incentivizing bold innovations by holding out big money for the winners.
But it is not the way to change schools. Schools are embedded in their communities. They reflect their communities. Schools change and evolve as society and the economy change.
Someday our educational leaders will grow a sense of humility. We may someday have leaders who don’t try to treat schools like businesses. Schools are not part of the free market. They are community institutions, and their values, practices, and mores are not those of the market economy. They do not compete to win. They exist to nurture students and educate them, not to turn a profit.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Aw shucks! Website isn’t active anymore.
http://www.naschools.org/
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Vanished Into Thin Air …
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Oh boy, too funny. Just too darn funny.
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http://articles.latimes.com/1991-10-05/news/mn-3156_1_educational-system
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Very true!
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Usage Note —
All the hip hyper-preneurs these days say incenting* — it’s so much more efficient than incentivizing.
* or in¢ing, to coin a term …
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Duncan and Obama have proven that all they know what to do is bad for the public. It is just that simple. They are bought and sold.
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Good News!!!!!!!!!!
Duncan will be Outta here in a few years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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RAND — Lessons learned.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR729.html
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Lessons from New American Schools Development Corporation’s Demonstration Phase (see above)
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From what I’m reading, it just caused the birth of charter schools. Correct?
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No charters existed before New American Schools.
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Sorry, missed placing a comma in this response. It should read:
No, charters existed before New American Schools. Or…charter public schools had been started before New American Schools began.
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Here’s another puzzlement: the design of high schools is, in my judgment, indefensible. They remain committed to sorting and selecting, emphasizing competition over collaboration, and aren’t organized in a way that does nearly enough to relate to the needs of individual students. Yet if we expect COMMUNITIES to change the way HS is designed we’ve got a lo-o-o-ong wait. When WAS the last time the design for HS changed? I think it was around 1920 when the so-called “Cult of Efficiency” decided it was a good idea to herd students together in large buildings in cities, an idea that Conant picked up on for the suburbs in the 1950s. Is ANY organization outside of HS the same today as it was in 1920?
I could be wrong, though… maybe the organization of HS is the best we can do…
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One of the outcomes of the New American Schools is a network of more than 30 high schools in “EdVisions” small high schools that use all or many of the following principles
* project based
* teacher control over curriculum, budget and staffing
* board of directors for the school includes a majority of educators who work in the school
* advisor-advisee system
* development and use of individual plan for each students
* graduation based on demonstration of various real world skills and knowledge, rather than accumulation of time-based credits
* extensive involvement in and service to the broader community
* multiple forms of assessment of student progress, including but not limited to whether students are developing a sense of hope and a belief that they can set goals and work toward accomplishing them.
* Periodic public presentations by students
More info is available here:
http://www.edvisions.com
The original EdVisions School, Minnesota New Country School, was established and developed with assistance from the New American Schools.
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Another RttT scheme
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=2039
Every time there is a new educational idea, program, or change the President or the US DOE Duncan wants to introduce , I can’t help but think it is their way to try to DISTRACT us while pushing their privatization agenda.
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1075
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More taxpayers money down the drain..
..
SAME BOOK-DIFFERENT COVER!
Do the people on the hill not understand that Americans do not want any of the Obama-Duncan innovations.
All are a takeover of the educational systems by the $$$$$$$$$$$ men!
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Let’s repeat the worst of our history since we refuse to learn and admit our mistakes. This is really exciting, but so are horror movies, only this one is real. I take solace in knowing this administration will end in a few years.
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In the Rand Study mentioned above (http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2007/MR729.pdf) it says this on page xiv:
“It was the combination of design and implementation that began to produce significant changes in the way school staff thought of their jobs and addressed the needs of students. Although not evident in every school, the end of Phase 2 saw many sites turning to the following as the means to make permanent changes to the culture of the school:
– A few vision of professionalism in which teachers take greater responsibility for all school functions and in which design teams assist or act as agents of change by providing: training; critical information systems; new forms of interactions between parents, teachers and students; and quality-control mechanisms for the delivery of curriculum and instructions, etc.
– Increased autonomy to ensure that the school has discretionary power over budget, staffing positions, and hiring and firing in keeping with design goals.”
Wow, I’m not sure that’s what Arne had in mind.
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Does anyone remember Microsoft’s School of the Future in Philadelphia? http://www.eschoolnews.com/2009/06/01/school-of-the-future-lessons-in-failure/
Give the reformers some credit, they don’t let failure or science get in the way of their faith based reforms.
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Blind faith reforms. Not faith-based.
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Yes, they are faith based. The faith being the ideology of psychometrics.
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Faith based because the reforms do not need any evidence. Reformers will believe in “accountability, merit pay & standardized testing” INSPITE of evidence.
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I don’t understand why Arne is allowed to use tax dollars for contests. Again, the Fugees say it best:
“(Quit) the gimmick; it’s nonsense. It’s no sense or value. A rapper. Disaster. “
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“But it is not the way to change schools. Schools are embedded in their communities. They reflect their communities. Schools change and evolve as society and the economy change.
Someday our educational leaders will grow a sense of humility. We may someday have leaders who don’t try to treat schools like businesses. Schools are not part of the free market. They are community institutions, and their values, practices, and mores are not those of the market economy. They do not compete to win. They exist to nurture students and educate them, not to turn a profit.”
I hope to commit most of this to memory as it is an eloquently-stated, fundamental argument with the premise that the deficit is one of humility. I would love to know the sort of person Mr. Duncan is. From what I can observe President Obama does have humility but why he doesn’t exercise it as it comes to policies for educating Americans puzzles me. Does anyone know whether Arne Duncan exhibits a sense of humility in his everyday dealings?
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You quote Diane “Someday our educational leaders will grow a sense of humility.”
I almost spit my tea at the screen on that thought. They will “grow a sense of humility when the teachers and administrators* grow a set of cojones and force some humility upon them, no sooner.
*I’m not including the parents because they weren’t the ones who went along to get along to allow this current abomination of educational malpractices to take shape, but they are becoming a formidable anti-edudeformer force in and of themselves, I applaud the parents now way more than most current teachers and administrators.
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I work in a brand new high school that has won national recognition for its design. I will say, the building is beautiful and does all of the right things. It pays tribute to the arts with a state of the art auditorium; emphasizes healthy choices with a beautiful fitness facility and the right staff to run it; enhances collaboration and interdisciplinary work by pairing subjects in the same hallways – humanities wing, arts wing and STEM wing. We are a comprehensive high school that was once a “voc-tech”, with academics on one side and the vocational classes on the other. There was literally a bridge seperating the two. Now are classes co-exist in a beautiful, open and well respected space. I have to say that this new design has had a positive impact on our students, staff and our community. It is a source of pride.
This facility was the result of collaboration between the city, the architects and the schools. What we have here might not be the right fit everywhere therefore I do agree that picking one new design is a mistake. That being said, it’s not just the building that makes the difference. The teachers here are committed to keeping up with changes in technology and pedagogy and are able to do so through our Professional Learning Communities. We also apply yearly to a number of grants that enable teachers to design and complete interdisciplinary projects/lessons with the necessary materials to make it all effective. Our conversations are geared around making our teachers the best they can be by enabling them to meet the needs of each of their students. We do our best to create a positive and collaborative atmosphere, which could exist without the new building but I have to admit, this new and fresh space doesn’t hurt.
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You must indeed be lucky if you “. . . are able to do so through our Professional Learning Communities.” Because my experiences with PLCs (in two districts over the last fifteen years) are that they are a method for the administration to control the teachers to enforce raising tests scores-a pure waste of time, so much so that I finally have an excuse to get a cell phone with internet connection so that I can be reading productively during that time. Most PLCs are nothing at all like what the DuFours originally proposed.
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Sounds like you are making good use of an exciting opportunity, Ms. Murray. Thanks for sharing.
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Maybe they will decide to go back to the ’60’s and ’70s when they decided to make comprehensive HS’s in every neighborhood? Think of all the money to be made to redesign and build new High Schools again. After all they will have to redesign them to bring them up to 22nd century (Is it too soon?) standards?
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Nah, make it 23rd century standards and I’ll be okay with it! (Maybe by then we will have figured out what the hell an educational standard is.)
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Exactly, Duane. The whole notion of what a standard is needs to be subjected to critical scrutiny and radically atomized into lots of different sets of goals for lots of different kinds of kids (and parents) with different dreams for their futures.
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Interesting story about a NY high school and some of their students and families encountering challenges, and seeking ways to reduce or resolve them:
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Back in the summer of 2011, I and a team of educators….REAL ONES…including a college freshman presented a workshop on that subject. Arne didn’t come. We will do it again for him if he likes. We help high schools redesign themselves every year.
“I approached that question as well in the NYT (in 150 words or less) in this Sunday Dialogue letter.As a former high school teacher for 38 years, I find Mr. Bernstein’s “solution” a cover-up for budgetary woes. Seniors can be incredibly interested students. The lack of imagination most high schools have in terms of reaching their passions and interests often astounds me. Instead we should ask, “What do we do about the senior year?”
The best answer is a program now in over 60 schools across the nation called WISE (Wise Individualized Senior Experience). In it, second-semester seniors do a project for academic credit to explore a chosen passion, whether it is a career search, hobby pursuit or scientific experiment. We call it an “infinite set of senior electives.” Isn’t that a better way to help seniors move forward to the next part of their life, college or not?”
DAVID GREENE
Hartsdale, N.Y., Feb. 27, 2013
The writer is a staff member at WISE Services.
Tell Arne to give me a call.
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Sounds like a good approach, Mr. Greene. As you note, a number of schools are encouraging students to do such a project during the spring term of their senior year.
Another approach that some hs seniors find valuable is to take courses on college campuses. This helps them explore possible interests and gain a better understanding of what college/universities will be like.
Another option is to do an internship during the spring term of a senior year. I know some young people who did this because they wanted to be out of any kind of academic institution. One youngster did an internship with a local tv station that ended up with him being invited to join the tv station in covering a flood several hundred miles away.
Another younger did an internship at a social service agency, learning about a career in early childhood education. That internship convinced her to pursue another one of her interests…teaching math.
Such internships can help young people learn more about what they would like to do – and sometimes what they would not like to do, given more indepth experience.
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Joe, Thanks,
If you examine the WISE Website, or ask me if that’s easier, WISE Individualizes Seniors’ projects so all of what you say and much more is possible within the framework.
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