Ivanka Trump visited the Wilder Elementary School in Wilder, Idaho, accompanied by Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, to tout technology in schools and Apple products.
Tim Cook is openly gay. I wonder if he asked Ivanka about the Trump administration’s demonization of transgender students.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wonder if she asked about the Apple/Pearson/Los Angeles Schools project?
PS the students and some teachers boycotted the show!
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Tim Cook is prolly scoping out the schools looking for child labor that Apple can use in it’s iPhone assembly factories in China.
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Even though Tim Cook is better than some of the oligarchs, I lost any faith in him when he claimed Apple manufactures in China because of the skills gap in America. Liar, liar! He is teaming with Ivanka to sell more products. They have a symbiotic relationship.
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siNbiotic would be more apt.
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Cooked up Logic
We’ve got a skills gap here
The fact is very clear
The Chinese child
Is meak and mild
And works for food and beer
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Tim Cook cares
About only Apple shares.
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2 things about this visit…
Only 1 newspaper was allowed to cover Trump and Cook’s visit to the school–and the reporter was not permitted to speak to either person or ask any questions–just “observe”
This quote is just jaw dropping: “Cook gestured around the classroom: “You notice in this classroom there is no teacher, there is a mentor. It makes the learning process for students very different because in a classroom where there is a mentor, people can move at different rates. This is life. We all learn things at different rates.”
The school that Ivanka and Jared send their kids to, a private Jewish day school in DC, touts the “strong relationships built between teachers and students,” and “hands on learning”. I doubt Ivanka’s kids are in classrooms without a teacher.
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Dementor*
Dementor in the room
Was watching over kid
Recording, we assume,
Most all he said and did
Dementor:one who facilitates insanity
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It is jaw-droppingly hypocritical for rephormers to be claiming that students moving at different rates is a good thing. It was just a short time ago that the rephormers were telling us how great Common Chore was because all students at the same level would be learning the same thing at the same time in the same way. That way, if Pat from North Nowhere, Nebraska moves to South Somewhere, South Carolina, little Pat will be able to pick right up where he left off and won’t be confused. When teachers at the time suggested that perhaps different students need to learn different material at different rates they were pooh-poohed quite resoundingly.
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Diene,
You correctly cited the theory of ComminCore: all students learning the Sam things in the same way at the same pace. This obviously does not produce the same outcomes because we already know that students in the same class with the same teacher get different results.
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I went to an American international schools conference in Bangkok years back when I was working at the International School of Kuala Lumpur. The main speaker for this convention was from Bangkok International School and told about the fantastic things that this school was doing. [I sat in the back of the auditorium and cringed.] Teachers had had to meet after school for hours for months to come up with the ‘perfect school’.
Every class had exactly what was to be covered. The Headmaster [superintendent] or principal could look in on any class at any time and know exactly what was being taught. The curriculum was THAT rigid. Parents could look online and know exactly what was being taught. All classes rigidly followed the same outline.
I couldn’t imagine this actually working. What were these administrators thinking? International schools of this caliber tend to have top students. Still, there are always a few who don’t quite get what is being done. God help the poor kids who were left in the mud.
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The tech titans are at war with each other and we are stuck in the middle! Gates and his Common Chore was going to save our children and now Tim Cook is promoting the exact opposite of Gates. Do these people think that we are so stupid as to believe in anything they are trying to pump out as an educational panacea. They are SELLING products and nothing more.
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@Carolmalaysia…..I live in a wealthy school district that does EXACTLY what you state. It’s dreadful….for students and teachers. I have been privy to information by teachers because they know I am anti-test, anti- common core. Parents don’t want to listen because they are crazy over the competition with grades and scholarship $. We get really high test scores (PARCC and AP), but our children don’t really receive an education. No one wants to look at the statistics of kids dropping out of college or failing college level courses because that would look poorly for our county (and it’s high tax rates and prominence in US World & News reports). Child #2 is now in private HS due to this mess.
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Good point, Dienne
As I am sure you have noticed, consistency, coherence and logic are not among the deformers strong points –or even among their weak points.
But I would argue that in a wierd way, Common Core achieved it’s goal. Since students were uniformly confused by it, they all ended up at the same location: the bottom.
When you are at the bottom of a valley, moving around makes no difference in your level.
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LisaM
People like Tim Cook not only believe we are stupid enough to buy their load of manure. They KNOW it from past experience because we keep doing it. We buy it and when they switch to an entirely different type of manure, we buy that too.
Not all of us, of course, but a good fraction of us, if not the majority (at least the majority of those in positions to make the purchase decisions for schools)
Many people wrongly assume that people like Tim Cook and Bill Gates have beneficent motives.
People simplyaccept the dishonest things that Cook and Gates tell them without question.
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This is the same program the whole state of Maine adopted and then scrapped.
I don’t know why they’re still selling it. They used the entire public school population of children in Maine to test these products and it was a failure.
“Maine’s meltdown matters because the ideas at the core of the state’s efforts are influencing states and school districts across the country. Forty-eight states have adopted policies to promote “competency-based” education to varying degrees, often at the urging of a constellation of influential philanthropies, including the Nellie Mae Foundation, which poured at least $13 million into Maine’s effort.
Meanwhile, new research documents the challenges that beset the effort seemingly from day one. And there remains little evidence that proficiency-based education has boosted student learning, in Maine or elsewhere.”
Please stop using our kids to test product. We know a sales pitch when we see one, but they may not yet.
Public school kids are not a guinea pig population to be used by multi-millionaires.
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Our district is implementing CBE along with going one-to-one chromebooks for all. ROTC is being rolled out next year, and our businesses are excited about the emphasis on workforce development and giving high school students academic credits for working.
I’m not opposed to students obtaining part-time jobs, but this emphasis on producing “human capital” over well-rounded, active citizens is disturbing.
As it unfolds, it’s turning into a slow-motion, long-term disaster. Students prefer spending most of their class time on screens than participating in a discussion. We are a high-poverty district whose leaders are easily swayed by data, data, data, as well as the bright shiny baubles of technology and the fads of moment.
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eleanor: “Students prefer spending most of their class time on screens than participating in a discussion.” I’ve read that students today don’t know how to write essays. They are used to texting and thinking in short sentences. They are also not learning social skills. The long term affects of this are not yet known but can be guessed. Selling of tech products makes money for tech companies so the future must be good.
Dumb down the working class. Who needs critical thinkers?
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Many adults don’t know how to write either. The mere fact that Twitter is so popular is a testament to that.
Twitter is the perfect medium for the illiterate.
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What great photographs! The President’s daughter and the CEO posing with the Apple products with the students as background props.
Please don’t come to my son’s school. We don’t want what you’re selling. Stay in DC.
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I have nothing against iVanka visiting schools( unless it is to shill for Apple), but given Apples exploitation of child labor in China, Cook should not be allowed anywhere near schools or anywhere else children reside.
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Wonder how much this advertising for Apple cost the taxpayers for Ivanka’s “visit”?
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I have a brother and an aunt who live in Idaho. I graduated from Borah High in Boise and graduated from Boise Junior College. It is a strong Trump supporting state.
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STUDY: IDAHO TEACHER SALARIES RANK LOWEST IN NATION
Kevin Richert 07/11/2018
(UPDATED, 5:50 p.m. Friday, to reflect response from State Board of Education President Linda Clark.)
From pre-K through college, Idaho educator salaries rank at or near the bottom nationally, according to a new study.
Using Census Bureau numbers, the Brookings Institution’s The Hamilton Project compares salaries and accounts for local cost of living. Here’s the grim rundown:
For all teachers, not counting postsecondary instructors, Idaho’s salaries rank lowest in the nation, and come in 12 percent below the national average.
Kindergarten and pre-K teacher salaries also rank lowest in the nation, and lag 18 percent behind the national average.
Special education teacher salaries rank second-lowest in the nation, topping only Maine. Idaho’s average salary comes in 23 percent below the national average.
Idaho’s salaries for primary and secondary teachers lag behind the national averages by 13 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Postsecondary instructors fare better; here, the Idaho average comes within 4 percent of the national average.
The numbers don’t paint an up-to-date picture, State Board of Education President Linda Clark said Friday.
In a guest opinion submitted to Idaho Education News Friday, Clark points out that teacher salaries have increased 9 percent over the past three years, when the state implemented its five-year, $250 million teacher career ladder.
“The (Idaho Education News) article does not paint an accurate picture of teacher salaries in Idaho today,” Clark wrote. “We have momentum, and Idaho is making headway improving teacher salaries.”
The Hamilton Project’s teacher salary numbers are part of a much bigger study, titled, “Where Work Pays: How Does Where You Live Matter For Your Earnings?” The researchers looked at 320 occupations and compared salaries across all 50 states and 420 metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas.
One more set of numbers, for the sake of comparison: Idaho editors and reporters make 20 percent less than the national average. (Just saying.)
To slice and dice the numbers for yourself, here’s a link to The Hamilton Project’s interactive map.
The Brookings Institution is a nonpartisan public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C. The Hamilton Project (and yes, it is named for Alexander Hamilton of “Hamilton” fame) says its mission is to produce “innovative policy proposals on how to create a growing economy that benefits more Americans.”
by Jennifer Swindell, IdahoEdNews.org. Please also link back to our home page, https://www.idahoednews.org
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This is how well the iPads are working in Wilder schools in Idaho. The URL was about three inches long so I didn’t post it.
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IVANKA TRUMP AND APPLE CEO VISIT WILDER SCHOOLS
Clark Corbin 11/27/2018
…Nadia, a Wilder sophomore, wanted to make sure the public heard both sides of the iPad story.
“We came out to tell you guys what’s really going on with our school,” Nadia said. “We are not really learning anything. The teachers are not allowed to teach anything. We are learning on iPads all day and we have to wait at least a week or so to get a test unlocked. And a lot of kids have been falling behind and then they cover that up and say everyone’s on target.”
Thomas, a Wilder 11thgrader, agreed with Nadia.
“There are a lot of things going wrong at this school and every time we try to speak out about it we are shut down and kept quiet,” he said.
Thomas and Nadia said they walked out of class once they realized the school was about to be locked down for the visit. They said they were unsure if they would be allowed to return to school.
Student achievement data shows that Wilder lags behind the state average in several academic indicators. This fall, the State Department of Education identified Wilder Middle School as one of the lowest-performing schools in Idaho. At Wilder Elementary, where Trump and Cook checked in Tuesday, just 26.7 percent of students scored “proficient” on math Idaho Standards Achievement Test in 2017-18. At Wilder High School, the go-on rate in 2017 was 25 percent, well below the state average of 45 percent, according to Idaho EdTrends.
Both students said they only learned of Trump’s visit on Monday. News of the visit first broke late Monday afternoon by the Idaho Press.
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Jim Crow is well and alive.
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So much crowing about soon having “mentors” in the room with these magical computers….but no mention of taking teachers who expect professional salaries, benefits and pensions out of the game and paying computer “mentors” a non-contracted minimum wage
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But who was she wearing?
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Regardless of who it was, it was paid with blood money.
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Check out this site for articles on IdahoEdNews. It seems to be a group that is working to get facts out to the public. You’ll have to hunt for these headlines, AFTER THE IVANKA TRUMP VISIT: SOME THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT WILDER and IVANKA TRUMP AND APPLE CEO VISIT WILDER SCHOOLS
by Jennifer Swindell, IdahoEdNews.org. https://www.idahoednews.org
Some of the poorest kids in Idaho are getting their total education on Apple iPads. This is sickening.
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AFTER THE IVANKA TRUMP VISIT: SOME THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT WILDER
11/27/2018
Wilder has gone all-in on one-to-one classroom technology. Through a 2016 Apple grant, every K-12 student in this rural Canyon County district has access to an individual iPad. Not everyone is sold on the idea. While Trump was on her school tour, a group of high school students held court with reporters outside, criticizing the school’s reliance on technology and questioning whether their education is preparing them for life after high school.
Indeed, the life-after-high school numbers are grim.
Only a fourth of Wilder’s 2017 graduates went on to college; the state’s go-on rate was a stagnant 45 percent. Wilder’s go-on numbers have languished below the state’s average since at least 2014.
But Wilder’s demographic challenges are daunting.
Wilder is one of the poorest districts in Idaho. In 2018, all of Wilder’s students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, a metric commonly used to measure poverty. Wilder uses a federal rule called the Community Eligibility Provision — which allows high-poverty districts to forgo the paperwork requirements and provide free lunch to everyone.
Seventy-nine percent of the high school’s students are Hispanic, compared to 18 percent statewide.
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Those chumps up in Wilder beat my team in the televised high school bowl. I believe the famous pitcher Walter Johnson’s first pro-baseball job was playing for the Wilder Wildcats.
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I’m so impressed with the knowledge that Ivanka demonstrated on what is necessary for educating students. Imagine the knowledge imparted by students holding iPads all day long. [This staring at a screen all day long will most likely in the future wreck their vision. How many children are motivated to work hours on end with a iPad? My bet is that these kids aren’t learning much of anything and they are bored to death. The school was putting on its best performance and there was no teacher, only a mentor, in the room.]
This email just came from the WH:
Ivanka Trump teams up with Apple CEO Tim Cook
Yesterday, students at Wilder Elementary School in Idaho lined up in anticipation for two very special guests: Apple CEO Tim Cook and Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump. With iPads in hand, the students got a chance to show off their tech prowess.
The goal of the visit was simple: to see firsthand how American companies like Apple are transforming classrooms across the country. By incorporating handheld technology, the Wilder School District is personalizing the learning process for students, tailoring the instructional environment to individual strengths and needs.
“Instead of a teacher standing before the entire class and lecturing, the students at Wilder hold the classroom in their hands and complete the work at their own pace,” Cynthia Sewell writes in the Idaho Statesman.
Great teachers remain as important as ever in the age of high-tech classrooms. “This is what is so exciting, the harnessing of technology in conjunction with incredible educators to create this type of really personalized learning experience,” Ms. Trump said yesterday. Such programs “prepare students for a world where digital literacy is absolutely critical.”
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Wow! She caught on fast, using the phrase “personalized learning experience” on her first day visiting a school (if one could call it that, given the comments/experiences of Thomas & Nadia).
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retiredbutmissthekids: She said she’d visited 20 schools. She’s now qualified to teach any subject and is qualified to tell teachers how good schools are run.
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Ivanka could go to Relay “Graduate School of Education” and turn in her school visits as credits for life experience.
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I’m pretty sure that Cooky boy coached her about what to say.
I knew he was an expert on using child and slave labor to produce products, but who made him an expert on education?
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Himself.
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The same CR*P that is going on in the rest of the country has hit Idaho. This makes me sick. Idaho is at the bottom of funding for schools and people like Terry Ryan are spreading the garbage that charters outperform public schools.
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THOUSANDS WAIT FOR CHARTER SCHOOL SEATS
Devin Bodkin 09/24/2018
Waitlists provided by the schools are a bit inflated because some parents add names to multiple lists, said Terry Ryan, CEO at Bluum, a nonprofit devoted to advancing charter schools in Idaho.
Still, Ryan said, the growing lists reflect the need for more charters.
“We have more work to do,” Ryan said.
Bluum’s “20 in 10” goal aims to create 20,000 new charter school seats in Idaho in the next decade. This would nearly double the amount of children attending charters in Idaho.
Fulfilling the goal would help meet the growing demand, but some leaders worry the growth would cause pain to traditional school districts.
Idaho’s school funding formula is based largely on average daily attendance. State dollars that could go to districts are attached to students flocking to charters.
Earlier this week, Boise School District superintendent Don Coberly said Bluum‘s “20 in 10” goal could divert money away from his district. Boise’s average daily student attendance has dropped from 24,802 to 24,490 over the last four years, despite rapid population growth within the district’s borders.
Two new charter schools opened in Boise this month, enrolling about 500 students. There are now six charter schools within district boundaries, serving more than 2,500 students. Online, private and parochial schools are also available to Boise families.
To combat the charter school movement, Boise is launching a marketing campaign to attract and retain students.
“We’re willing to respond because we’ve got the goods,” Coberly told Idaho Ed News.
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF IDAHO CHARTER SCHOOLS
Ryan said one of the reasons parents are flocking to charter schools is because, on average, they outperform traditional districts….
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Never believe claims of a “long waiting list” for charters. This is nothing more than marketing to grab market share.
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It seems that people who are not in education or people who do not work daily with students in our schools across the country seem to want to remove the teacher. From on line learning to apple ipads everyone seems to want to remove the teacher.
The country has turned its back on our teachers and the future of teaching will be interesting in the sense that it appears that everyone wants to change the way we educate our kids and teachers are in the middle.
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