This is the abbreviated format I will use to alert you to a good piece of writing and thinking, leaving me time to work on my book.
Ed Berger is a retired educator. He lives in Arizona and fights against privatization and what he calls “partial schools” (charter schools).
He wrote about what matters most in education.
Do you agree?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, then we get to this: “America has now fallen to over twentieth place in the world ranking in education.”
How is that any different from what every ed rephormer in the country has been telling us? Diane has debunked this notion in her books – the U.S. was never ranked highly in the world on education.
Anyway, how do we “measure” [sic] this “twentieth place in the world ranking”? By test scores, no? And isn’t that what Mr. Berger is opposed to?
I dunno, I agree with a lot of what he’s written, but I also had many “well, yes, but” sorts of moments. If I have more time later, I’ll spend some time looking at it more closely, but my initial impression is that it’s just more “rethinking schools” talk. I’ll be the first to say that there is a lot that needs to be re-thought, but I’m not in favor of completely upending the system either.
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Beat me to the punch again, Dienne!!!
And the Dufours??
I remember battling against our adminimals insistence upon using the Dufour nonsense. Dufour this, Dufour that. Oh, that’s right all the edudeformer malpractice failures are failures due to implementation and not the conceptual bases of said malpractices.
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If you have been paying attention, there are states that have removed certification from teaching requirements. Many school districts can not hire experienced teachers due to budget cuts. Classrooms are jammed with students and there are inadequate funds to even buy pencils. If this information – nation wide – does not suggest that America has fallen in world standing, then what does tell us? I agree I might have delineated the 20% with more information, but I live in Arizona. I have visited schools in Europe and even Africa. What has happened to American education must be exposed. OK, this turned you off. So you must teach in a school that resembles the great schools I taught in. Ed Berger, Ed.D.
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The thing is Ed, I’ve never been one to consult league tables whenever it comes to ranking students, schools, states and/or countries. Those rankings are fundamentally bogus and serve no good whatsoever other than to be a mental masturbation of a quick getting off. Nothing more.
The reason that I’ve seen American education go downhill has nothing to do with league tables themselves but with the malpractices that are mandated down onto the schools and teachers, along with the straight (and not so straight on sometimes) attacks that the xtian fundie privateer right-exemplified by Betsy the Ditz-and supposed liberal left as exemplified by Cuomo, DFER, etc. . . that form the basis for those tables that are used to privatize the community public schools. So I agree with you that what has gone down must be exposed, just for fundamentally different reasons.
My 21 years of teaching experience came in suburban/rural and rural poverty districts where the teachers do as much as possible within the constraints and mandates thrown upon them by GAGA Good German Educrats, edudeformers and privateers. The lack of ethical cojones shown by most in the public education system is one of the root causes of the worsening of the public schools. I won’t say that what you wrote “turned me off” just that I didn’t agree with some of the underlying causes and supposed “metrics” supposedly showing the bastardization of American Public Education.
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“World rankings” based on test scores measure nothing more than income inequality and poverty.
World rankings of child poverty and access to prenatal care and access to high quality preschool are what matter most. They are the proximate causes of test scores.
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To answer Diane’s question: Overall, NO!
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I watched two YouTubes of Michael Fullan whom Ed Burger seems to love.
Readers should know that Michael Fullan is selling edTech 24/7 and the pitch will be obvious. He works on the assumption that technologies entering schools are benign. He is also looking at a “global” venture–actually ten or eleven countries—a collaboration designed really and truly to get rid of brick and mortar schools—he says as much on YouTube.
I first learned of Michael Fullan when I was doing research on the CORE districts in California. I also found his work cited by the New Schools Venture Fund, http://www.newschools.org/news/new-index-assesses-digital-innovations-in-education/
and in the “The U.S. Education Innovation Index: Prototype and Report” (September 21, 2016) from Bellwether Education Partners (rating cities on every reformy idea that will kill public education in favor of market-based everything).
Fullan is a retired Canadian scholar in education, a former Dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, multiple books on whole system reform, and much honored in Canada, and elsewhere.
Fullan has collaborated with Katelyn Donnelly, an economist and director of Pearson’s venture fund for low-cost schools in the developing world. Their own Innovation Index is here, with colorful charts intended to show the potential influence of technology on learning
Click to access alive_in_the_swamp.pdf
In 2012, Michael Fullan, Greg Butler, Joanne Quinn and representatives from Intel, Microsoft, OECD and Promethean (a huge edtech company) convened in Toronto and laid out a vision for a Global Partnership that would seek to collaboratively build knowledge and practice in new pedagogies for “deep learning” and support whole system transformation.
The current version of this effort is called New Pedagogies for Deep Learning.
The “deep learning” meme and movement has been funded by the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, also funding “New Pedagogies for Deep Learning” reports, at leas $1. 500,000.
In this multi-national partnership, all subject-centered learning is subordinate to the 6 C’s. Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking, Citizenship, Character, Communication. The 6 C’s are routinely described and discussed as “competencies” —a term essential for any discussions of digital education.
Competencies replace standards and tests. You get “badges” for levels of competency.
The report at the following website will show how rubrics are being constructed to rate students on competency in the 6C’s and which countries are participating in this effort on behalf of digital education. http://npdl.global
In the meantime, most of the big edtech companies are hitching their stars to IMS Global—where IMS stands for Instructional Management Systems. That effort envisions all digital too, but plug and play. No surprise, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a platinum sponsor. See imsglobal.org/k12-revolution
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Thank you for Dr. Edward Berger’s post that is packed of wisdom.
His wisdom has ended from lots of examples and his own teaching experiences in near 8 decades. Whoever has different idea to oppose Dr. Bergers’ heartfelt thought and care, must write his own true (= popular to public) experience as an invincible evidence.
Here is the invincible truth:
1)The students are assigned to the room by age/grade and subject, not developmental level or their particular learning style or nature of intelligence.
2) Schools that are shaped by political and business expedience and exploitation have failed.
3) Professional educators know what to do and how to do it but we cannot do what is necessary until we evolve the way schools and learning opportunities within schools are organized.
4) Andy Hargreaves (Emeritus Boston College): We must work toward a future where children’s creativity and curiosity is combined with adults’ wisdom, maturity and duty of care.
5) Diane Ravitch (New York University. Founder and President of the Network for Public Education. Blogs reaching more than 30 million concerned citizens).
In conclusion, IMHO, I hope that people recognize that honesty, integrity, and intelligence [which are affected by being brought up from a parental background and the environment (=resources) including religious and cultural belief], will guide leader and followers to be the best person (=who will care for other sentient beings’ welfare) in all up and down situations in their course of life. Back2basic
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I think this article uses a new language to promote reformers. It starts out saying, the current system of teacher training is fundamentally crap, which gave me a pause. It then promotes “deep learning” and gives a link. The link has the term “change-leaders” in it
http://npdl.global/change-leaders/
A quote from that webpage confirms who these guys are: topdownists
In 2012, thought leaders Michael Fullan, Greg Butler, Joanne Quinn and representatives from Intel, Microsoft, OECD and Promethean convened in Toronto and laid out a vision for a Global Partnership that would seek to collaboratively build knowledge and practice in new pedagogies for deep learning and support whole system transformation. Invitations to join this movement were sent out to all levels of the system from education ministries to school districts to stake holder organizations.
Sounds like manager talk, doesn’t it?
This “new” language ends up giving you the same old feeling, since these people cannot escape their own mindset. Consider this, from the post article
Sadly, these learning activities can not flourish in structures that are not designed to allow true learning, student involvement, and effective teaching. (Deep Learning, as Michael Fullen, Global Leadership Director, New Pedagogies For Deep Learning, defines it.) Teacher’s time, resources, and student contacts must be structured so that all the elements necessary for true and vital education and the development of critical thinking through empowerment and application will happen.
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More from the “deep learning” website
Digital is changing the role of teachers to that of activators of learning who design learning experiences that build on learner strengths and needs, create new knowledge using real-life relevant problem solving and help all students identify their talents, purpose and passion.
Pretty gaggy, isn’t it?
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It’s worth reading Deep Learning’s “how to measure” webpage
http://npdl.global/measuring-impact/
For example
NEW PEDAGOGIES
Through the design of deep learning experiences, teachers are identifying and developing New Pedagogies that accelerate deep learning outcomes for students.
Teachers share their experiences through the submission of Deep Learning Exemplars (see below), which describe real-life learning experiences and their impact on learners. Once submitted, Exemplar moderation processes at the school, Cluster, and global levels demonstrate our progress and further strengthen our capacity to design deep learning.
These guys are not just topdowners, but they are Global
The 2016 NPDL Global Report revealed early findings and learning with which to inform the future direction of our global partnership. Findings in NPDL’s key research areas include the following:
As a global baseline, students’ level of development of the 6Cs is widely Emerging; the way in which learning has been traditionally designed and implemented has not effectively developed deep learning outcomes.
New pedagogies learning design facilitates student development of the 6Cs and strengthens teacher capacity to align and embed curriculum focuses, design and measure deep learning, and assess performance using a broad range of evidence.
The adaptability of NPDL’s tools and processes allows for successful deep learning implementation on a local and global scale.
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Run thou, Máté, run thou with as much god speed as possible from the devils of data driven ‘deep learning’ for if it catches you, you will become operationally obliterated, overcome by numerology, numerancy and other nothingness nonsense.
But, hey if there’s a buck or two in it, why the F not?
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It’s deep alright.
“Stopping by farmers’ fields on a smelly evening” (by Robert Frost)
Whose fields these are
I think I know
He’s sleeping in the farmhouse though
He will not see me stopping here
To see manure down below
My lovely wife must think it queer
To stop and smell manure here
That’s rank and foul and laid on thick
A stench that’s sure to curdle beer
It’s quite enough to make you sick
(And even if you are a hick)
The other smell will make you weep
From rotting skunk, that’s bloody (ick!)
The manure is smelly, dank and deep
But I have benefits to reap
And profit$ to take before I sleep
And profit$ to take before I sleep
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“And profit$ to take before I sleep
And profit$ to take before I sleep”
These two lines is top poetry for eduquackers and choicerers. For them, this is “the most inventive rhyme in world literature”.
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It never ceases to amaze me how much manure these people can shovel in just a few short sentences.
They must all have taken the same class in college: Shoveling Bullcrap 101
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See, you write a whole poem because we are not allowed to say “Deep Sh*t” here. This is exactly how I reasoned to my kids to convince them not to cuss: if you cannot swear, you’ll speak eloquently.
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“So you must teach in a school that resembles the great schools I taught in. Ed Berger, Ed.D.”
The problem with the article is not with how the present and past is evaluated but with the proposal for how the future is envisioned.
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I guess the title should really be “Stopping by Deformers’ fields on a smelly evening”
Whose fields these are
I think I know
He’s sleeping in the Whitehouse though
Fixed.
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Just to clarify
My comments refer to the Deep Learning stuff and the other crap that has come from Deformers in recent decades ( not to what Ed Berger wrote)
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“not to what Ed Berger wrote”
Of course. He does point to Deep Learning, though, and that ruins the narrative. He needs to switch his vision for the future.
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Speak eloquently?
You mean like this?
It’s quite enough to make you sick
(And even if you are a hick)
The other smell will make you weep
From rotting skunk, that’s bloody (ick!)
Ha ha ha!
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Exactly.
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Incidentally
In case you can’t tell.
I just LOVE that poem.
It’s the first poem I ever learned by heart (in 7th grade, we had to memorize a poem and that’s the one I chose)
The thing I love most about it is that it lends itself to all sorts of topics.
Over the years, I must have written about 6 or seven different versions, all dealing with completely different themes.
The potential to be “mangled”is probably not what most people (particularly not English teachers) think of as making a poem great, but it IS what I think of.
Its part of its universality — that you, as a reader, can make it your own.
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And it’s not just that poem.
Many of Robert Frost’s poems have this “manglability” (sp?) quality.
The sign of true genius.
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And not just in poetry.
There are many cases in science in which one theory has been modified to explain seemingly disparate phenomena.
A good example is QED modified to explain the strong interaction (QCD.)
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Another rendition I wrote years ago (luckily, I still remember it)
“Stopping by an RV park on a summer evening”
Whose campers these are, I think I know
With houses is in the Midwest, though
They will not see me stopping here
To see their mobile homes in tow
Their little kids must think me queer
To stop without a gas pump near
Between the parking lot and lake
The hottest evening of the year
Their generators whine and quake
To run AC – so folks won’t bake.
The only other sound’s the hew
Of pounding hammer, driving stake
The campers are lovely, long and new
And oh, how I would love one too
But haven’t the bucks, so I am blue
But haven’t the bucks, so I am blue
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It’s worth bringing up Dintersmith here again since he is the best in presenting these “brand new ideas” to revamp education. It’s hard to disagree with any of the ideas he presents here.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/03/15/heres-what-our-secretary-of-education-needs-to-hear-by-a-venture-capitalist-who-visited-200-schools-in-all-50-states/
The problems begin when he talks about how the future should look.
I think the issue is how people define the purpose of education. Anybody who talks mostly about workforce, citizenship, productive adulthood will be found not to consider the kids’ interest first. Yeah, you want kids to be able to balance a checkbook, but that’s not the reason for learning math; yeah you want kids to be creative, but that’s not why they learn art; yeah you want kids to learn about the Civil War and the Constitution, but not because this makes them better American citizens; yeah, we want kids to conduct themselves well at interviews or business meetings, but this is not why they learn to speak eloquently and expressively.
The more we justify education in terms of pragmatic goals, the more concessions we make to serving the kids’ interest. Imo.
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“Deformer vision for the future”
The vision for the kids
Is hard and software bids
A vision for the biz
Is what it really is
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“The more we justify education in terms of pragmatic goals, the more concessions we make to serving the kids’ interest. Imo.”
¡Sí señor!
Unfortunately, far too many see those pragmatic goals as the primary goals and not the secondary/tertiary ones they ought to be.
What then might we consider THE primary goal of public education? This is what I have come up with after studying the 50 state constitutions for the purpose of public education:
“The purpose of public education is to promote the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.”
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Sounds good, Duane. Thinking of the Constitution and its long history of (mis)interpretations, it may be worth breaking this statement, which contains several ideas, down into several smaller statements, and follow each one with short explanations, warnings.
For example, when one says “each person may savor the right to liberty”, an explanation is needed that individual liberties cannot be pursued at the expense of the liberties of others. Otherwise, some billionaires may donate money to education departments and to public colleges so that they promote “free market” ideas in their teacher training programs, and they could sell it by saying free market is a theater for realizing individual liberties.
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Interesting that right after I hit the send button a similar thought occurred to me. That I should explain the components of the statement because not all might understand what is meant not only in toto but the separate parts.
Will have to do that one of these days. Right now the new knee is letting me know about being careful of doing any longer driving like I just did to see my sister, her daughters and nieces/nephews. Need to go lay down and ride out the pain until the miscellaneous pain meds kick in.
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See all is connected in education; even the health of a teacher’s knee.
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