A few years ago, billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs pledged $100 million to launch 10 super new innovative schools, which she dubbed XQ schools. Each would get $10 million to show their stuff. She surrounded herself with veterans of the failed Race to the Top, like Arne Duncan and Russlyn Ali. What could possibly go wrong?
I reported last week that two of the 10 had failed.
The XQ school in Somerville, Massachusetts, was rejected when town officials realized that the cost of running a new school for 160 students would cause budget cuts to existing schools.
Leonie Haimson pointed out that a third had failed, in Oakland.
More on the Somerville story here (not behind any paywall): https://hechingerreport.org/anatomy-of-a-failure-how-an-xq-super-school-flopped/The XQ Institute also awarded $10M to start a Summit Learning HS in Oakland that never opened. https://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Backers-abandon-10-million-Super-School-project-11176992.phpThat means 3/10 of the awardees of their Super School prize have already failed. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-09-14-xq-institute-announces-ten-winners-of-super-schools-competition.
Stay tuned.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why no pilot test of Powell’s ideas? Why doesn’t she fund them until they show enduring effectiveness? Sandra Stotsky
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Sandra, Are the Koch’s paying you for your time posting here?
BTW- is heartless Heartland a private joke of naming by the Koch’s?
Are you volunteering your children to be pilot tested?
on the nose
Pilot testing by university researchers requires approval by an IRB board. It protects people from inappropriate, unproven and unscientific experiments. Why are ed reformers exempt from oversight? Should they be allowed to conduct experiments on children by bypassing standards of research scientists?
In a serious response to Sandra Stotsky — does Powell actually HAVE any ideas? It seems like she devoted all this money (including an enormous budget for flamboyant hype) to some totally unfocused fantasy, vaguely nodding toward the ideas of so-called education “reform,” but without any actual knowledge or understanding.
The whole laughable project was based on her supposedly doing a few minutes of volunteering in a perfectly decent S.F. Bay Area suburban high school and deciding that it was bad, bad, bad, and that she could set them on the right path. But there don’t appear to be any real ideas at work here.
There’s the cartoon mascot for XQ- it may have been Powell’s idea. And, there’s a shopping tab for branded trinkets at the XQ site. That may reflect Powell’s input.
See, Mrs. JobsPowell does have ideas.
XQ’s once-smiling cartoon mascot, now has a frown. Sad.
Where will Arne pop up next?
The $10 million designated for the Oakland Summit charter school that never opened was quietly reassigned to an existing Summit charter school in Daly City (an unassuming suburb immediately south of San Francisco). There’s zero fanfare or publicity for that school or what’s being done with the $10 million.
What with flamingly bad publicity for Summit Learning’s other projects and some obvious hooey about its charter schools (Summit claims, absurdly, that every one of its students passes 5 AP classes, which needless to say would stand up to no scrutiny), this Bay Area chain stays out of the limelight.
Antwan Wilson, OUSD’s former disgraced superintendent, was the champion behind the Summit charter opening right near Oakland Tech, one of the more popular full service community high schools in Oakland. The possible location of Summit was designed clearly to poach kids from Tech. But it doesn’t end there. Oakland did get its $10M after all; was given by XQ to open another charter, Latitude, that had initially been rejected by the district and Alameda County, but was allowed to appeal to the state board, which predictably rubber-stamped the approval. XQ is nothing more than an ego-driven excuse to fund more charters. The flashy song and dance routine about these schools being Super (!) is just for show, literally.
I believe it’s a sincere effort by someone stupendously clueless and arrogant, myself. (I know someone who was offered a job (unsolicited) working for the project for a huge amount of money — the person turned down the job, recognizing that it consisted of flimflamming poor clueless Laurene Powell Jobs into continuing to fund the project so everyone else could keep their jobs.
As they like to say, the road to hell is paid with good intentions…
Isn’t Race to the Top the ultimate XQ-like failure? How many billions of dollars were squandered with that experiment? And what about The Common Core and it’s reinvention of public schooling? After everything he’s wasted, Arne Duncan steering $100 million to the anything but traditional schools reminds of the big game gambler being forced to play penny slots.
O, great comment!
Thanks, Diane! (It’s me.)
Hmmm… not sure how this is any different than what our public school system is doing. Diverting money and staff for for a tiny HS with a 25:1 student/teacher ratio, while the “public” HS’s ratio is much higher. This Personalized Project Based Learning school had no quota require for students with disabilities and nothing more than a “goal” to serve a percentage of low income students. These 100 lottery winners (test subjects) will also have the benefit of a full time VP while other District schools more than 4X the size have to make due with a part time VP.
Our District recently passed the largest school bond in the history of the state. Opponents feared the the money would be diverted to this pet project (brought to the community in the form of “special” board meetings) and the creation of tuition based preschools on each elementary school campus while they peddled the propaganda that the money would pay for decades long outcry for the remodeling of school bathrooms and cafeterias. The bond contained nothing specific so no actual oversight , other than ensuring fraud is not committed.
Click to access PR-NamingMES-Obama060519.pdf
http://www.smmusd.org/edservices/ProjectBasedLearning.html
The PR/Naming of the school is the cover. The presentations changed when it was realized that “personalized” learning had a negative connotation so instead they call it “progressive” project based learning. Then they added the name of the former Presidential Family to site even while families were organizing to help feed needy students at Olympic HS, a small student body assisting at risk youth. The faculty at Olympic were kept in the dark about the PPBL school. One Olympic High teacher had this to say:
““Historically the district has marginalized and compromised the facilities for Olympic High School and its students. I doubt that any other school has been relocated as many times as Olympic High School has in the past decades, three times that I can personally remember, for the sole purpose of the district and its need for space. It is my opinion that this encroachment and disregard for SMMUSD students would never happen at any other school.”
She said the district should work towards improving education for everyone.
“I would like to see advocacy and programs better aligned to current student needs, not all students and student groups thrive as is. Let’s work to better support the struggling learners and those at-risk for not graduating to meet these 21st Century Learning goals. Let’s provide a needs analysis for current student populations whose voice and advocacy may be systematically silenced. Let’s improve the systems and structures we have in place. Can this be done alongside the Project Based Learning School, absolutely. But please, let’s not forget nor forgo the current needs of all students within our school district.”
https://www.smdp.com/perspective-on-the-project-based-learning-center-coming-to-the-olympic-h-s-campus/176944?fbclid=IwAR2I1O__sZYjhbCzcXspeg7NHO6rg87qPWEvbeRMMUnzLcZQ79JscVz1Oxg
Why is project-based learning synonymous with good education? Is there proof of its efficacy?
I don’t know the answer to your question. I can only say that every study I saw about Core Knowledge schools showed they were not using didactic instruction. When I think about my own children,I think their most memorable lessons involved assignments that required them to do research and become engaged. For example, inexsin was assigned the role of general counsel for the NAACP in the Brown decision. To prepare, he read histories and court cases and testimony. That’s a great example to me of the power of interest. He could have listened to a lecture in less time but he would not have learned as much or gotten so involved.
Project Based Learning Schools promote themselves by citing high percentages of graduates accepted into 2 and 4 year colleges. Aren’t all high school graduates accepted into community colleges?
Is it personalized learning? The requirement to personalize learning for 100 students means students must choose between seven interests then divide themselves equally into these interest based groups. Will all students be engaged in their assignments?
Are one or two day a week internships appropriate substitutes for academic instruction?
Click to access PPBL-FAQs.pdf
Are America’s schools heading in this direction? Is this why the Waltons and Tech are entrenched in privatizing public education?
“Hundreds of schoolchildren have been drafted in to make Amazon’s Alexa devices ”
“Interns can account for up to 15% of the workforce.”
“”Teenagers who spoke to researchers said the factory work has no relevance to their courses and they have been pressed into working overtime.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/aug/08/schoolchildren-in-china-work-overnight-to-produce-amazon-alexa-devices?fbclid=IwAR0fLc66nRNB66uh8l_QI-EvfGQJVxchi7_B2SjQKWXZUPMRyWIAoG_aMtk
I was impressed with project-based learning when my own kids were involved. But not impressed with hype.
Assume all claims about “percentage of graduates accepted to college blah blah blah” are lies.
Yes, community colleges accept all high school graduates (and possibly non-high school graduates); for-profit scam-ish colleges like University of Phoenix and San Francisco’s huge Academy of Art University accept anyone who fills out the application; and also, there’s a category of perfectly respected Catholic colleges that accept anyone with minimal or no qualifications — here in the San Francisco Bay Area, Notre Dame de Namurs, Dominican College and more. So walking a student through a minimal application process to any of those as a high school graduation requirement takes care of the bogus claim about all students being accepted to college. Or at least it’s bogus as any indicator of academic success.
Diane,
“To prepare…” This, I think, is the key. If kids are prepared, they can do project-based learning fruitfully. But what does preparation look like? For your son, it was reading. But what prepared him to read history and Supreme Court cases? And can one gain this preparation though PBL? My guru E.D. Hirsch would probably say that there’s a long, complex, hidden –and therefore easily overlooked –etiology to your son’s preparation to read challenging texts like Supreme Court cases. If you son’s success at PBL depended on other modes of learning shouldn’t we recognize and recommend those other forms of learning first? Perhaps one can say this with confidence: PBL can be fruitful as a capstone to a long slow process of preparation. It’s advanced level learning, not beginner level learning.
This is true, IMO: lectures (for young kids we call this “show and tell”) can be fruitful and joyful –even for –maybe especially for –beginners. PBL doesn’t work with beginners; it can be fruitful for advanced learners, though it’s uncertain that it’s superior to lectures. The ed-world’s anti-lecture bigotry and PBL-supremacism are both unwarranted.
” PBL doesn’t work with beginners; it can be fruitful for advanced learners…”
Of course it works with beginners! I suspect that you meant that no matter what stage of learning, project learning requires some preparation. My children participated in PBL from the time they were in kindergarten with more or less scaffolding. I don’t know why you insist on making this an either/or discussion. It isn’t. It is at the very least a both/and since the two techniques hardly encompass all the tools and techniques used by a good teacher..
SPED: I think PBL is oversold. It’s frequently awful, and when it succeeds it’s because of lots of non-PBL preparation that gets no credit.
I’m curious to know specific examples of the kinds of PBL that worked for your kids in kindergarten.
My kids went to a great kindergarten. There were lots of blocks, trucks, and toys to build a city. There was water play. There was a play kitchen. There were lots of books right for children that age. The children learned to take turns, to take care of their things, to collaborate, and lots of other crucial lessons. One son went to Amherst and Yale Law School. The other earned his BA at Yale. PBL certainly didn’t hurt them. They learned to read when they were four, because we read books together, often the same books over and over. The ones they loved. They both developed a thirst for learning.