I am not in the region but this Nevada initiative looks like it is spawning a lot of backscratching arrangements for consultants and evaluators
When I poke around on local news reports, I see that “Opportunity 180” is focussed on charters for Clark Co Nevada. A trip to the “Opportunity 180” website shows that outfit is part of the national network of “Education Cities,” but with three “local” foundations supporting the charter initiative.
Surprise. Surprise. Surprise. There is the Broad Foundation, not exactly local. If you want to see where else this intended capture of public schools is being engineered, go to the Education Cities Website http://education-cities.org/who-we-are/
There you will find the 31 “city-based organizations” in 24 cities where nonprofit organizations seek control of public schools. For Las Vegas, Nevada, 180 Opportunity is listed. The bottom line, evident in the funds for 180 from the Broad Foundation, is that this is a national movement.
Education Cities are cities where unelected nonprofits, foundations, and civic groups are organized for the purposes of controlling the governance of public education, substituting their judgment for policies and practices forwarded by professionals in education, elected school boards, and citizens whose tax dollars are invested in public schools.
The national work of Education Cites is supported by the Broad Foundation, The Walton Family Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. http://education-cities.org/who-we-are/our-contributors/.
Here are the cities and the local groups that want the power to govern your schools.
Arizona, Phoenix, New Schools for Phoenix
California, Los Angeles—Great Public Schools Now
California, Oakland—Educate 78 & Great Oakland Public Schools Leadership Center & Rogers Family Foundation
California, Richmond—Chamberlin Family Foundation
California, San Jose—Innovate Public Schools
Colorado, Denver—Gates Family Foundation Donnell-Kay Foundation
District of Columbia— Education Forward DC & CityBridge Foundation
Delaware, Wilmington—Rodel Foundation of Delaware
Illinois, Chicago—New Schools for Chicago, Chicago Public Education Fund
Indiana, Indianapolis—The Mind Trust
Louisiana, Baton Rouge—New Schools for Baton Rouge
Louisiana, New Orleans—New Schools for New Orleans
Massachusetts, Boston—Boston Schools Fund & Empower Schools
Michigan, Detroit—Excellent Schools Detroit & The Skillman Foundation
Minnesota Minneapolis—Minnesota Comeback
Missouri Kansas City—Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
Nevada Las Vegas—Opportunity 180
New York, Rochester—E3 Rochester
Ohio, Cincinnati—Accelerate Great Schools
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia—Philadelphia School Partnership
Rhode Island, Providence—Rhode Island Mayoral Academies
Tennessee Memphis—Hyde Family Foundations
Tennessee, Nashville—Project Renaissance
Wisconsin, Milwaukee—Schools That Can Milwaukee
This is an example of philanthrogovernance by stealth, except for customer friendly branding of initiatives including words such as forward, accelerate, great, new, innovate, empower, now, and so on.
Be aware that United Way organizations are being co-opted as providers of choice for any wrap-around services needed in this new and privatized “ecosystem” of schooling.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Michigan, Detroit—Excellent Schools Detroit & The Skillman Foundation
They have sure got their work cut out here.
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Like Retired Teacher suggests: a hydra with many tentacles
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Thanks for your research, Laura. I read through the website, and it is a masterful example of circumlocution. These billionaire privatizers are like a hydra with many tentacles. Upon a “closer” reading, I figured out they are promoting blended instruction and personalized learning for the children of the proletariat. Beware!
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“I figured out they are promoting blended instruction and personalized learning for the children of the proletariat. Beware!”
CBE, SLO/SGP’s are a major part of the proles’ training.
And the teachers and adminimals keep on keepin on being GAGA Good Germans in instituting those malpractices.
“But, but, they’re only doing their job. They’ve got to feed their families.”
Yep, sure do! Like any lilly livered, self serving SOB that has lived.
“Oh, but it’s for the children, we’ll moderate the effects of those malpractices.”
Tell that to the children harmed by their malpractices.
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Agreed. It’s all bad practice designed to make a profit for a few at the expense of many.
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Personalized learning is best practice. It is time to leave the assembly line factory model that has all educators hamstrung. Two books to read, The End of Average – Todd Rose and Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning. Children and teachers are not parts in a factory they are humans and need to be treated as such.
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Personalized learning is not personalized. It is standardized and mechanistic.
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I think you and I are talking two different terms. Have you looked at either of the books I referenced? Do you know the work of iNACOL?
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Craig,
I have read the report “Digital Learning NOW,” and read a great deal about data mining by online instruction and assessment.
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Here are two definitions one on personalized learning and the other on student centered learning. This is nothing new, John Dewey talked about this almost 100 years ago.
*Personalized learning tailors learning to each student’s strengths, needs and interests, including enabling student voice and choice in determining what, how, when and where the learning occurs—providing flexibility and supports to ensure mastery of the highest standards possible.
*Student-centered learning means: 1) Learning is personalized; 2) Learning is competency-based; 3) Learning happens anytime, everywhere; 4) Students take ownership over their learning (e.g., student agency).
In personalized learning we eliminate the assembly line education fixation on seat time and norm grading for starters.
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Craig,
The tech entrepreneurs promoting “personalized” learning never heard of John Dewey.
Personalized learning is the interaction between and among humans, not people and machines. A machine is not a person.
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You are correct. I have not maintained that computers are a lynch pin to personalized learning.
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Please expand on what you mean by “personalized learning”. TIA, Duane
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Try this:
Learner Profiles: This involves capturing the individual skills, gaps, strengths, weaknesses, interests, and aspirations of each student. It’s about knowing each student through a combination of assessments, surveys, and relationships built inside and outside of the classroom.
• Personal Learning Paths: This involves creating an individual pathway for each student, based on his or her unique learner profile. Each student has his or her own learning goals and objectives, and learning experiences are diverse and matched to the individual needs of students.
• Individual Mastery: Schools must continually assess student progress against clearly defined standards and goals. Students advance—generally at their own pace—based on demonstrated mastery of these learning targets.
• Flexible Learning Environments: Educators should include multiple options and approaches in their delivery of instruction to support student learning.
• Student Agency: Students should have some control over how they learn. With the help of their teachers, they should be involved in designing their own learning process and should be given a choice in how to demonstrate their learning through performance-based assessments.
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And how is this to be accomplished? What are the pedagogical techniques to be used? What is the role of computer algorithm based training in the pedagogy? Who determines those algorithms? Who are the “educators”? Are they certified teachers in the appropriate subject/grade level? What are your thoughts on class size for this type of computer algorithmic training?
OBE has been tried before and failed as a pedagogical method. What makes those things you cite any different other than being driven by computer algorithms?
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Well, check out some school districts that have gone to competency learning, for example Lindsay School District in CA. When you say “competency-based learning has been tried before and failed” that is in the context of the industrial model. As long as we use seat time, Carnegie units, norm grading as our foundational reference points, nothing can work, such as differentiated learning when offered in our current traditional setting. We are putting good teachers into an unwinnable situation in our current system. Of course there will be challenges with a personalized system, but not as bad as the loss of human potential that is happening in the current assembly line education system.
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I see the use of computer based competency learning to be just an extension of that “assembly line education system”. It really doesn’t break out of that mode at all. The depersonalization obtained by computer training is the sad extension of that assembly line education system that you rightly decry.
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Not if it is properly based in project based and inquiry type learning environments. When you are learner centered, then computers are used by the learner to achieve his/her ends. Learner agency is another central tenant of personalized learning.
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Can agree with that thought to a degree.
Question: How does the student/learner know what the ends are? Or even if there are any ends?
I ask that as a retired HS Spanish teacher. How does one go about learning a second language when one has no clue whatsoever of what a particular language is about? I’m not so sure that each student inventing the wheel, so to speak, for him/herself is necessarily a good/desirable thing. I contend that the overwhelming intricacies that make up learning a second language are so great an obstacle that without proper guidance from the teacher, the student would throw up their arms in frustration (and I’ve yet to see any computer second language program be anywhere near adequate).
While project based and inquiry type learning have their place in the teaching and learning process, they are but just a couple of many pedagogical techniques that a very human teacher may utilize depending upon age, subject matter, class size etc. . . .
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Yes, personalized learning is not the end of teachers. I want to free teachers to do the heavy lifting of supporting the development of critical thinking. Rote learning can be taught by the computer now. The flipped classroom movement is advocating for this kind of practical real world instruction. As I said in a previous reply, a good teacher knows all pedagogies have their time and place. That is what I learned over my teaching career. I like to say that I knew everything about teaching when I started at age 22 and gradually learned I didn’t know a lot about teaching but needed to practice the rest of my life. Kinda like Pablo Casals quote in his 90s, I think I’m making progress.
I think I see some improvement.
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Definitely agree with your observation on time and place for various pedagogies and how we, as teachers, should be in a constant state of learning.
What do you mean by “flipped classroom”?
Now, though, you’ve hit a nerve with the “practical real world instruction” concept. As one who didn’t start teaching until I was 39 I had plenty of “outside of schooling” experience and it was no more real than my in-school experiences whether as a student or teacher. School is the “practical real world” for students. Outside of school experiences are also of a “practical real world” realm. The dichotomy that is suggested by the term “practical real world” leaves a lot to be desired in my mind. Neither is more or less “real world” than the other.
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Google Flipped classroom. It is another term used that is in vogue for awhile. Essentially, homework is watching a video at home that the teacher creates of his lecture and the next day work on project based learning or the likes that uses information from the video as reference. The teacher is freed up to work with individual kids on their learning rather than delivering the lecture. If you distill it, the video is just another form of the textbook. Just a different form. But, they at least are pushing progressive pedagogies.
Regarding “real life learning” when students memorize facts for a test that they forget within a few days, that is not real world learning. If they can’t apply what they learned, that is not real world learning. Students after only getting an A in class can be blinded by the A and not be learning for life. I am not saying all, but many. And if you think about it, the industrial model was not built to teach everyone. The norm grading system helped sort out the 50% + that didn’t need to go to college.
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Can’t disagree with the “learning [actually training] for a test” which is exactly what has occurred with the standards and testing regime now in place, being an educational malpractice.
And I agree that getting an “A” does not mean a student has necessarily truly learned the subject matter. And that is because the A-F grading system and normed testing are onto-epistemologically bankrupt. If you haven’t read Noel Wilson’s 1997 dissertation showing all the inherent errors, falsehoods and psychometric [modern alchemy at its finest] fudging involved in the standards and testing and grading regimes I strongly recommend that you do:
“Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
If you would like I can post a summary of the dissertation-hell, I’ve only posted the summary hundreds of times here and will be more than happy to do so again!
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I am lost at why computer algorithms have become the central issue around personalized learning. Adaptive learning engines are merely a tool used in personalized education. Information is now ubiquitous, that reality must be addressed with how we teach our children. The teacher is no longer the fountain of knowledge, rather the wise coach to guide the student to reach his/her greatest unique potential. Every student has his/her own learning path.
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If the teacher is not the “fountain of knowledge” then they should not be teaching. Mastery of subject matter and/or grade level pedagogy is the first requisite of a teacher. While I agree that a teacher cannot “teach” anything, that the student must learn the subject at hand, without teacher mastery of the subject how can the teacher “guide the student” to his/her own mastery? No doubt each student has his/her own trajectory of learning and no computer can recognize all the facets of that learning process to any extent at all in comparison to what a subject matter and pedagogically trained teacher can. There is so much more to teaching than discerning correct answers which then, according to the computer algorithms “allows” the student to continue. There is no personalization with computer training. Actually there is a depersonalization that degrades the teaching and learning process.
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Yes, if all a student saw all day was a computer that would be as bad as the present system is for 50% of our children. I don’t understand why you equate personalized learning with 100% computer learning.
When I say the teacher is not the fountain of knowledge I mean that a student can get much of the facts a teacher delivers on the internet. Knowledge is ubiquitous now. How to use that knowledge and think critically is not ubiquitous. That is where a teacher steps in.
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For me those “facts” do not equate to “knowledge”. And no, that knowledge isn’t ubiquitous now. Facts may be ubiquitous on the internet and those facts can be instantaneously accessed at times but as you state using facts to gather/obtain knowledge (I consider knowledge to be a “compendium” of facts that an individual has learned and can use coming out of one’s own mind without the aid of a technological device) and think critically isn’t. The teacher is one who leads the student before the need to “step in” so that the student doesn’t have to go through all of the trial and error of reinventing the wheel, most of which can be eliminated through proper teaching and learning techniques/pedagogy.
I have found that if teachers aren’t that “fountain of knowledge” if they don’t have command of the subject matter and/or grade level curriculum the students, even elementary ones, will “eat them alive”. The students recognize an imposter when they see one and a supposed teacher without mastery is just that an imposter even if that supposed teacher might be able to find facts on the internet.
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I agree with you completely,a teacher must know the material.
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My responses to your posts (the one’s before our discussion here) were the way they are because I was reading a lot of edudeformer and privateer deceptive language usage that we’ve all seen too often. It seemed to me that you were pushing that “agenda” but with our discussion I see that perhaps I was reading more into what you wrote (although it seems others have also) than what was there.
Again, thanks for the interesting discussion!
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Unfortunately many conversations have been polarized that way today. If we want to make a change then we have to each take responsibility and listen and not categorize people by one comment they make or position they take. I have been working on myself to listen better and lead a conversation to a point of shared learning. If we are going to make it through our present crisis we must be the ones to lead the way patience and listening, critical thinking, and great humility that we too are part of this systemic problem.
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De acuerdo.
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And thanks to you for hanging in there to listen and work through the ideas! You are exhibiting the kind of behavior we all need to practice. Blessings to you. 🙂
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Thanks for your kind words!
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In your mention of grade level and subject please specify how that is pertinent to this discussion.
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Perhaps you don’t believe (which I doubt) that subject matter expertise/depth of knowledge not only of the subject but of pedagogical methods that are age and subject matter appropriate is not important. It seems that you are saying that the teacher as a “coach” only needs to be able to find the information that a student may or may not need. And that the computer can do it all. It can’t. Never has and never will be able to come close to handling student’s needs and concerns, not only of the subject matter/grade level instruction but of the very human interactions that occur on a daily, hourly basis in all the “teacher led” classrooms of the world.
The teaching and learning process is messy, non-algorithmic, at times chaotic and always an interaction among human beings (even if that human interaction takes place/is mediated by technology).
If I may ask, Craig, have you ever taught K-12? If so, what subject and the number of years? Public or private schools? Lest you think that is not germaine to the discussion, it helps me to understand where you are “coming from” and allows me to steer my comments in a way that might help you see better what I am trying to communicate.
Good discussion!
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Well I taught for 20 years grades 3 through 8 and used project-based, inquiry, constructivist, and what ever other pedagogy best met the needs of the students I taught. Madeline Hunter, John Holt, Ivan Illich, Tony Wagner, Jonathon Kozol, Nancy Atwell are just a few of the progressive educators that inform my world view. Computers are not at the center of personalized education, they are merely the tool of our times. Read the book or see the movie Most Likely to Succeed, by Tony Wagner. My dissertation work in 1999 was about education and technology. My conclusion was that technology would help progressive education gain the success it was never able to in the hundred years previous.
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Thanks for the info!
While I can agree with “computers are not [should not be] at the center of personalized education”, these days when I hear of personalized education I can only think of how that term has been bastardized by those who seek to destroy the very human teaching and learning process and replace it with computer driven screen time algorithmic training.
Which brings me to the second part of the statement “they are merely the tool of our times.” Can’t agree that they are “‘the’ tool of our times”, ‘a’ tool but certainly not ‘the’ tool. I don’t have your faith in technology being much of a solution, but then again I was/am a fairly “old-fashioned” teacher of Spanish who believes in memorization of vocabulary.and using grammar as a bridge to organize the learning of said language. In other words I’m not a fan of the Krashen school of second language teaching.
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Just because someone has bastardized the use of a word is not a reason to abandon the whole liberating movement of personalization. I think you can understand the thought process there.
I am sure you touched many kid’s lives for good. But we no longer live in an industrial society. If you are a student of history, you understa nd that this industrial model of education has only been around as long as the industrial era. It was a product of that era. But if we want to evolve, than we need hold high the ideal of each human as an individual with a unique path to live. Herding kids for 12 years in groups of 25 into rooms in which they sit in rows and turn their brain to a specific subject for 50 minutes and then march to another room and do the same thing again with a different subject is not the kind of humane system we can deliver or should accept in this day. We can do better.
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“But we no longer live in an industrial society.”
And I don’t agree with that statement. We very much still do. We aren’t that “post-industrial” yet. But that still doesn’t mean that schools have to be viewed from/through an industrial lens. (and yes, I have read a bit of history over the years from many sources, was even a member of The Historical society (evidently now defunct) for many years. I just don’t agree with your analysis of where society supposedly is.
For me the most pressing issue is class size. The difference in teaching 12-18 students in a class vs 25-35 is huge. If we truly want “personalized learning” then that is the way to go. In elementary classes should be no more than 12-15 with a teacher, an aide and a sped teacher or two as needed. Middle and high school should be capped at 15-20 with a teacher, an aide and a sped teacher or two as needed (obviously except for classes such as band, choir, drama, etc. . . that benefit from larger numbers, but then the number of teachers/aides should increase proportionately).
Will respond to your last response in another post as it’s getting to be a tad late here in the Show Me State. It’s been a pleasure having this discussion. Sure beats the political thread discussions!!
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ditto
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And I’m glad you pointed out the co-opting of United Way. Eli Broad is a major funder of United Way, and in return they send the people out to support his candidates and resolutions for the school board. And then United Way has the gall to expect teachers and unions to participate in their giving campaign. I made my contributions directly to the charities doing good in the community.
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I have also concluded that the more specific my contributions the better.
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Diane,
The Clinton campaign is now backing the push for recounts.
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Well, only Wisconsin so far.
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Probably because The Green Party has already filed for the recount.
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I think this is a Saturday Night Live sketch. And it doesn’t have a good ending. But who knows. This whole mess gets more and more unprecedented every day.
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“Dear leader” has said that Stein’s recount effort is a scam: “This recount is just a way for Jill Stein…to fill her coffers with money…a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded” “Glorious” leader has such a way with words (barf-o-rama).
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/11/26/donald-trump-claims-jill-stein-fill-coffers-money.html
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We should all know whether or not Trump was put in by Putin.
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I am not happy.
This is such a scam.
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Yes. Got your email. Good questions and good reasons for your anger. Even if there is no immediate reply, you are circulating questions that need to be asked.
I looked at the map at the 180 website for Clark County. It is desinged to show clearly that few schools are “five” star or even “four” star and thus to make to case for charter expansion in order to meet the need for “high quality” seats. The slider scales– intended to show the location of schools with a high proportion of students who qualify for free and reduced price lunch, are ELLs, have IEPs–were not working. The graphics were are also set up to show various regions by zip code, and other political divisions. The interactive graphic, entirely dependent on disaggregated test scores, was designed by a company called Big Lake Data. I hope to see if other Education Cities are using the same scheme. If so, it is a big contract with a lot of the demographic data imported and the test scores and school locations added to that.
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Alas, the Broad Foundation won’t have to launch “grassroots” organizations in every community in the US: the “failing schools” narrative has taken hold and the argument for equity has vanished. http://wp.me/p25b7q-1DB
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Looks like recounts will take place in all three states.
If hacking was involved, this will become a major story and issue with consequences.
http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/11/27/michigan-presidential-recount/94509238/
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If Governor Scott Walker and Rick Snyder allow recounts that seek to detect hacking.
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Testy Bernie. We have the right to recount. But don’t get hopes up.
Still, we must decide whether or not to chuck the electoral college.
https://www.google.com/amp/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_583ae6b5e4b01ba68ac4cdd5/amp?client=safari
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If they don’t allow check for hacking, this will become an enduring story and threaten all confidence in all future elections, unless somehow as analysts get closer to the votes they decide/communicate that hacking was very unlikely.
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Focus is on absentee ballots. I assume they will check that. Obama is merely repeating there is no evidence so far if hacking, which we already knew.
Too bad we can’t go back in time and redact all the fake news or increase the IQ in a large swath of the population with one tiny pill.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/25/jill-stein-election-recount-clinton-trump-michigan-pennsylvania-wisconsin?client=safari
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None of these citizens will continue to be educated in public schools thereby increasing their cognitive abilities immeasurably.
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