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Laura Chapman on the Gates-Zuckerberg Alliance

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2018 //
48

Laura Chapman reviewed the Gates-Zuckerberg alliance and their thoughts about next steps for reformers:

Forget charter schools but not test scores.
Here is where a big pot of money is going next.
“Forget crumbling schools” and “decades old teaching materials.”
That is the wisdom coming from Bob Hughes education leader for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Jim Shelton leader of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in education collaborators on a new project: Advanced Research and Development on three areas of interest.

Citing the mediocre NAEP tests scores in math and ELA, these hired hands of billionaires say they want to “meaningfully put more students on paths to success after high school. The truth is that we need to dramatically accelerate learning, and to do that, we need to understand it more deeply in order to design teaching environments and support systems that can deliver much better outcomes”

In addition to completely ignoring the crumbling schools and decades old instructional materials to say nothing of pre-judging teachers are too lethargic and muddled in getting students ready for “success” after high school, these two Quick Draw McGraw data-hungry fans of computers and artificial intelligence want to invest in proofs of the efficacy of their interests in 1. Mathematics, 2. Nonfiction writing, and
3. Executive function (the skill set concerning memory, self-control, attention, and flexible thinking). In the press release and invitation to researchers, each of these topics is presented with a brief rationale for inquiry along with the specific interests of these funders—interests that researchers should address.

The program called: Improving Writing: Developing the Requisite Habits, Skills and Strategies is introduced with some moaning about the low “proficiency” scores in writing on NAEP tests presented in a graph with breakouts for sub-groups. That graph is followed by a 2004 claim from a College Board Report that American companies spend about $3.1 billion annually for “writing remediation.” So, the education funders begin with a misunderstanding of “proficient” on NAEP tests, plus an outdated quote about the cost to businesses of remedial writing. That claim also comes from a dubious source of information, the College Board. Apparently a good reason to teach writing faster and better is to save money for business.

The brief rationale ends with a list of ten topics of interest for funding. Researchers are to address one or more of them. Here are a few:
—-“Support for writing planning – Efficient, technology-enhanced approaches to guide the planning of writing projects, for both teachers and students.”
—-“Intelligent tutoring systems for writing – Support processes (including teacher involvement) to develop narrative, descriptive, expository, and/or persuasive writing models that meet or exceed the impact of 1:1 human tutors.”
—-“Artificial Intelligence – Writing-focused AI that can provide analytics and feedback to teachers and students for context, syntax, sentiment or other analytics to improve writing skills.”
—-“’Learning Engineered’ professional development – Professional development and support for writing instruction that is grounded in evidence-based principles of human learning and motivation. “
—-“Writing mindset and motivation – Developing and measuring positive mindsets and motivation around writing capabilities.”

I conclude that tech-oriented proposals are of great interest and viewed as potentially more perfect, precise, intelligent and efficient (time and cost) than human teachers.

For “Improving Mathematical Understanding, Application, and Related Mindsets” the draft proposal begins in the same way, bemoaning NAEP scores but with the expectation that rapid improvement can be gained by computer-assisted approaches that would scale up practices of the “best 1:1 tutors.”

Ten topics of interest for research are outlined, all reeking with jargon about personalized, actionable, and scalable this and that.
—-“Performance-based measures and analytics – New and novel methods for measuring mastery, both procedural and conceptual, and providing immediate, actionable feedback for students and teachers.”
—-“Intelligent tutoring systems – Highly personalized, engaging math tutoring systems that take a whole-student approach and provide actionable information to students and teachers.”
—-“Artificial intelligence – Includes algorithms to improve personalization and/or real-time feedback to the student, virtual assistant technologies to improve engagement and interactivity with students, and support tools for teachers.”
—-“Technology-enhanced content – Innovative and engaging content to integrate in an intelligent tutoring system including, but not limited to, Augmented Reality, (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), games, comics, lecture, laboratories, etc., together with tools to connect teachers into these activities and student progress within them.”
—-“Neuroscience-based measures – Scalable technologies to provide measures of engagement, attention, and comprehension, delivering actionable information to students and teachers while safeguarding student privacy. “

I judge that the funders intend to pursue biometric monitoring of students with devices that give real-time, immediate, actionable feedback to students and teachers. See for example https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-10-26-this-company-wants-to-gather-student-brainwave-data-to-measure-engagement

The final area of interest is Measuring and Improving Executive Function (EF). Because there are no NAEP or other test scores for EF, the funders include references for three studies is support of their desire to improve the development of the executive function (EF) in children, students, teachers and other adults. The funders cite some research to claim that skills for EF—working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control—if strong in childhood, “predict higher socio-economic status, better physical health, and fewer drug-related problems and criminal convictions in adulthood.”

In my opinion, the research citations (three) allow the funders to sidestep the profound influence of poverty on outcomes, shifting attention instead to initiatives that are “scalable, precise, and effective ways to track progress or kinds of interventions to improve EF; ” and to “affordable cost to implement (solutions)- below current market pricing for existing solutions and attainable at a variety of per-student funding levels.” Should we be surprised that the billionaires want low cost and precise interventions at several tiers of per-student funding?

The specific areas of interest for proposals are presented as
—“Tracking progress of student executive function, PreK-12,” especially with unobtrustive, real-time measures of performance;
—“Student-facing interventions/programs/practices/tools to support EF development and use,” including “Technology-enhanced programs in or outside of school: Games, simulations, or other engaging content paired with teacher and family supports…”
—”Measures of educator EF and environmental EF supports,” including…”scalable, valid and reliable, repeatable, pragmatic measures of … (an) educator’s own EF within student learning contexts;” “Adult capacity to support EF growth in students, and technology-enhanced programs for these.”
—-“Critical field-building research topics, including, EF precursor skills”…such as “autonomy, supportive teaching and caregiving;” neuroscience connections such as “neural underpinnings of EF intervention effects, neural developmental progressions, compensatory pathways vs. EF improvement in the brain” and interactions between EF and other factors (e.g., stress, biology, motivation) toward academic and nonacademic outcomes/behaviors.” WHEW.

I conclude that this last area of interest is intended to increase the use of surveillance systems in classrooms with these devices targeted to capture student behavior and teacher behavior without them being aware of the data-gathering. There is clearly a desire to get data and issue judgments about teachers and adults as more or less competent that technologies in supporting improved EF. Surveillance systems are built into games and mobile technologies. These are also of interest as sources of data for improving EF—self control, delayed gratification, and cognitive flexibility. In addition, the funders have an interest in neurology— a medical understanding of EF and intervention effects, captured with biometric monitoring.

It is worth noting that all of these research interests call for a data-gathering on individual students (and teachers). All three initiatives ask researchers to “ identify ”possible privacy implications and strategies for ensuring the privacy and security of information.” Meanwhile Gates is among many others who are marketing tech-centric personalized learning and leading initiatives to get rid of FERPA constraints for any research intended to improve student outcomes.
Welcome to the brave new world of tech-mediated interventions and hope for “precise” solutions to accelerated learning of the kind these billionaires want to invest in.

Click to access FERPA%20Exceptions_HANDOUT_horizontal_0_0.pdf

http://k12education.gatesfoundation.org/researchanddevelopment/

Categories Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Corporate Reformers, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Peter Greene: What Happens When Gates and Zuckerberg Pool Their Ideas? A Lot of Laughs!

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2018 //
18

Peter Greene has fun dissecting a brainstorming session featuring tech titans and billionaires Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. He says, “They never learn.” Same old, same old, repackaged as new.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative are going to attempt– once again– to change the whole world of education.

Their newly-released Request For Information is looking for “all promising ideas for how to use existing and new knowledge and tools to achieve dramatic results against the challenges we describe.” The list of challenges sadly does not include “the repeated failure of rich amateurs to impose their unproven ideas on the US public school system.”

They want YOUR ideas, but they start out with plenty of their own.

A few nuggets of Peter-Greene-Wisdom:

Here are the areas they believe “require more exploration”

Evidence-based solutions for writing instruction, including mastery of the “spectrum of skills encompassing narrative, descriptive, expository and/or persuasive writing models,” a “spectrum” that I’ll argue endlessly is not an actual thing, but is a fake construct created as a crutch for folks who don’t know how to teach or assess writing.

New proficiency metrics. Can we have “consistent measures of student progress and proficiency”? I’m saying “probably not.” “Can we use technology to support new, valid, efficient, and reliable writing performance measures that are helpful for writing coaching?” No, we can’t.

Educator tools and support. Gates-Zuck correctly notes that “effective” writing instruction requires time and resources, so the hope here is, I don’t know– the invention of a time machine? Hiring administrative assistants for all teachers? Of course not– they want to create “tools” aka more technology trying to accomplish what it’s not very good at accomplishing.

Always looking for ways to get better. Kind of like every decent teacher on the planet. I swear– so much of this rich amateur hour baloney could be helped by having these guys shadow an actual teacher all day every day for a full year. At the very least, it would save these endless versions of “I imagine we could move things more easily if we used round discs attached to an axel. I call it… The Wheeble!”

They want your ideas about “Measuring and Improving Executive Function,” which Peter says should creep you out. It creeps me out!

This is personalized [sic] learning at its worst– a kind of Big Brother on Steroids attempt to take over the minds, hearts, and lives of children for God-knows-what nefarious schemes. Only two things make me feel just the slightest bit better about this.

First of all, I’m not sure that Gates-Zuck are evil mad scientist types, cackling wickedly in their darkened laboratory. I’m more inclined to see them as feckless-but-rich-and-powerful computer nerds, who still believe that education is just an engineering problem that can be solved by properly designed sufficiently powered software. They’re technocrats who think a bigger, better machine is the best way to fix human beings.

Second of all– well, wait a minute. The two guys who have bombarded education with enough money to make a small island and who do not have a single clear-cut success to point to– these guys think they’ve got it figured out this time? They have never yet figured out how to better educate the full range of ordinary students (nor ever figured out what “better educate” means) now think they can unlock the formula for better educating students with larger challenges?

This is like going to a circus and the announcer hollers that Evel Von Wheeble is going to jump his motorcycle over fifty buses, and you get very excited until you read the program and see that Von Wheeble previously attempted to jump over ten, twenty and twenty-five buses– and he failed every time.

Peter Greene is still the only blogger who makes me laugh out loud!

Categories Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Humor, Technology

Nancy Bailey: Beware of Tech Titans Bearing Gifts

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2018 //
8

Nancy Bailey learned that the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative was giving $14 Million to the schools of Chicago to put more students online.

Apparently no one in Chicago ever heard of the Trojan horse.

Read on.

Categories Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Chicago, Online Education, Technology

The “Learning Engineer” of the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2018 //
73

 

A reader recently noted that the multi-billion dollar Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative had hired Dr. Bror Saxberg to lead their efforts “to improve and accelerate the use of learning science and ‘learning engineering.” Before joining the CZI in 2017, Saxberg was “Chief Learning Officer” at the for-profit Online Kaplan “University,” where he worked for eight years. Before that, he was “Chief Learning Officer” for nine years at Michael Milken’s for-profit virtual charter chain K12 Inc., which is notorious for high atttrition and poor results. He also co-authored a book with Rick Hess of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. The announcement said that he is “widely known through education for his work on the science of learning,” but I confess I never heard of him until now.

What is a “learning engineer?” Let Bror Saxberg explain it. 

Read the article to understand. Here is a nugget.

“We need learning engineers. By this phrase (first used, as far as I am aware, in the 1960’s by Herbert Simon, the computer-scientist and Nobel-prize winning economist), we mean people who are deliberately trained and focused on designing and systematically improving learning environments at scale in measurable ways. They make use of the current and new science of how learning and motivation work, and they do collect careful measurements, but the focus is on improving success and impact at scale, within constraints (economic, regulatory, practical), not research per se.

“If we are designing a new chemical factory, we very likely don’t want chemists designing that plant: they’re neither experienced nor interested in regulatory, safety, or economic issues, nor do they possess the mix of mechanical and other skills needed to do the job. That’s why there’s a demand for a large group of chemical engineers: approximately 30 thousand of them currently (rounding to the nearest thousand or so) work in the US.

“There are approximately zero thousand true learning engineers working in the US, rounding to the nearest thousand, who are trained and following learning science, and also working at scale within real-world constraints to design, build, and measurably iterate based on outcomes. The lack of folks like this will hold back the entire enterprise of implementing more efficient, effective, higher-yield learning environments: we will miss targeting learning efforts on what experts actually decide and do (versus what they merely say they decide and do); we will continue to include inefficient methods for learning that cause many to fail unnecessarily; we will use technology in more arbitrary rather than targeted ways (which, in failing to produce intended outcomes while being “cool”, will cause investment to continue to cycle from boom to bust); we will not generate valid and reliable evidence that we could use to target interventions early and effectively (and, indeed, we may drown in bad data that we “should” be using).

“We can do better than this. We can begin to train more people on learning engineering fundamentals, to improve their own decision-making as teachers, teacher-trainers (teachers have minds too, so this is its own learning engineering challenge), purchasing decision-makers, publishers, edtech developers, venture and other funders, philanthropists, policymakers and more. We can begin laying out more clearly what learning environments would look like if they had been well-designed as learning engineered environments, and hold folks increasingly accountable to reach that standard. We can become more alert to the quality and use of learning and learning interventions data, so that we are aware of what evidence is “good enough” to make real decisions about learning environments, either at scale or for individual students.”

Well, you would not want chemists to design a new chemical factory, nor would you want teachers to design a school of the future.

Get ready for the Learning Engineers. They are coming to redesign your workplace and your life.

Can we ask for a practical demonstration of “Learning Engineering” before we unleash this new wave of innovation on our children, teachers, and schools? In one state, school district, in one school? Anywhere?

 

Categories Accountability, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Education Reform

Does Your Classroom Need Software to Teach Social-Emotional Learning?

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2018 //
47

 

What will they think of next?

How about software to teach social-emotional learning?

Would it impress you to know that Mark Zuckerberg is backing this venture?

“Boston-based Panorama provides software to help public K-12 systems understand how self-esteem, family engagement and other factors affect student achievement.

“Panorama’s goal: “helping school districts take a more holistic view at growing and developing a child,” says CEO Aaron Feuer.

“The software, called Panorama Student Success, is being used in 400 school districts, including New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Dallas.

“Panorama aims to integrate the software with 300 other educational-data tools, from 20. The company’s Series B funding was led by the Emerson Collective with backing from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Spark Capital, Owl Ventures, and SoftTechVC.

“Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg backed Panorama’s 2013 $4 million seed funding round.”

Categories Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Education Reform

Connecticut: Suburban District Drops Summit Online Platform Due to Parent Revolt

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2018 //
29

Parents in Cheshire, Connecticut, took the lead in ousting the Summit Online Learning Platform developed by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative as part of CZI’s plan to remake American education.

The Summit Program was developed by Summit “Public Schools,” which in fact is a privately managed charter chain that pretends to be public. It describes its approach as “personalized learning,” which is a euphemism for machine learning that moves at a different pace for each student, depending on algorithms. The parents preferred human teachers to machines.

“The fast-growing online platform was built with help from Facebook engineers and designed to help students learn at their own speed. But it’s been dropped because parents in this Connecticut suburb revolted, saying there was no need to change what’s worked in a town with a prized reputation for good schools.

“The Summit Learning program, developed by a California charter school network, has signed up over 300 schools to use its blend of technology with go-at-your-own-pace personalized learning.

“Cheshire school administrators and some parents praised the program, but it faced criticism from others who said their children were spending too much time online, some content was inappropriate, and students were not getting enough direct guidance….”

“The reversal was vindication for parents who started a petition drive against the program and blasted it at public meetings.

“What was broken in the Cheshire school system, a highly successful system, that they needed to experiment with our children?” parent Heidi Wildstein said in an interview.”

The superintendent believes that the parent Revolt was caused by misinformation circulated on social media.

Categories Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Connecticut

Leonie Haimson Visits a Summit Charter School, Funded by the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative

By dianeravitch
December 7, 2017 //
11

A few days ago, I posted an article by Kristina Rizga about Summit charter schools and their online lessons. On the whole, it seemed to me, the article was admiring.

Leonie Haimson has a different view of Summit.

Haimson has played a leading role in the movement to stop data mining of students and to protect student privacy. After writing a column in The Answer Sheet Blog expressing her concerns about the Summit charter schools and their online platform, Haimson was contacted by the founder of Summit and invited to visit one of their schools.

Haimson writes here about her experience when she visited the flagship Summit Charter School in Redwood City, California.

“Summit charter schools and their online platform, now used in over 300 schools across the country, both public and charter, have received millions of dollars from Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg; Zuckerberg has pledged to support the continued expansion of the online platform through his LLC, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative.

“Shortly after my Washington Post piece appeared, I was contacted by Diane Tavenner, the CEO of Summit charter schools, who asked if we could meet when she was visiting NYC. I agreed. We had lunch on Sept. 15, and I handed her a list of questions, mostly about Summit’s privacy policy, most of which my associate, Rachael Stickland, had already sent to Summit staff that she had met at SXSW Edu the previous March, and to which she’d never received a response….

“During the lunch, I mentioned that I was going to be in Oakland the weekend of Oct. 14- 15 for the Network for Public Education conference, and that I would be interested in visiting some schools after that are using the Summit platform. I said I was especially eager to visit public schools, since I’d heard from many public school parents in five states who told me their children had negative experiences with the program. These parents were upset that Summit had withdrawn the right of parents to consent to the system shortly after CZI took over, and they were concerned about how their children’s personal data was being shared with Summit and then redisclosed with unspecified other third “partners” for unclear purposes.

“Diane later emailed me and said that I could visit Summit Prep charter school on Oct. 16, in Redwood City, their flagship school. An Uber would come and pick me up at my Oakland hotel, she said, and the drive would take about an hour each way…

“At Summit Prep, I was met by two school leaders, and we talked in an empty office for about a half hour, where they explained to me about the platform and how it was designed. Then we briefly toured two classrooms. In the first classroom, there were about thirty students engaged in “Personalized Learning Time”, gazing at computer screens and working on their individual “playlists.” These playlists include content in different “focus areas” delivered via various mediums, including online texts and videos. When students have learned these materials, they’re supposed to take multiple choice online tests to show they’ve “mastered” the area. In addition, in each of their courses, there are projects they are supposed to complete…

“I visited another classroom where 12th graders were engaged in peer-reviewing essays they had written at the beginning of the class, grading them according to the Summit’s complex rubric of cognitive skills. When I asked why the essays were written on paper rather than on computers, the school leaders told me that this was because they were practicing for the California state exam in which students are asked to write essays on paper.

“I noted that I had seen no classroom or small group discussions. The Summit leaders said that was because none were occurring during my brief visit. It is true that the amount of time I spent in classrooms wasn’t sufficient to make an informed judgment either way, but what I saw did not encourage me.

“When we returned to the office, I questioned why delivering content primarily online was an effective method of teaching. Shouldn’t learning happen in a more interactive fashion, with the material presented in person and then discussed, debated, and explored? Why did they have this comparatively flat, one-dimensional attitude towards content? And how could math be taught this way, given that math requires helping students learn how to solve problems in a more interactive fashion?

“They told me math is taught differently, and indeed had to be taught through teacher-student interaction, but that this isn’t true of any of the other subjects, whether it be English, social sciences or physical sciences.”

Leonie reviewed the many complaints that she has heard from parents at Summit charter schools, especially regarding privacy of student data and long hours in front of a computer.

She writes,

“Yet the juggernaut that is Summit will be difficult to stop. The Silicon Valley Community Foundation gave $20 million to Summit in 2016. The Gates Foundation awarded Summit $10 million in June 2017, “to support implementation of the Summit Learning program in targeted geographies.” In September, the day before I met with Diane Tavenner, Summit was one of the ten winners of the XQ Super High School prize, receiving another $10 million from Laurene Powell Jobs’ LLC, the Emerson Collective, to create a new high school in Oakland.”

Besides, Betsy DeVos loves Summit.

Categories Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Privacy and Privacy Rights, Students, Technology

Kristina Rizga: Should Silicon Valley Redesign American Education?

By dianeravitch
December 4, 2017 //
92

Kristina Rizga, who writes about education for “Mother Jones,” dug deep into the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiatives’s plan to redesign American education and produced this article.

It is titled “Inside Silicon Valley’s Big Money Push to Remake American Education.”

The title led me to expect that Rizga, a sharp journalist, would bring a skeptical eye to the very concept that Silicon Valley whould take charge of remaking education.

Although she drops in a few cautionary comments by outsiders, the overall tone of the article is wide-eyed adulation for the CZI effort to bring personalized learning to every school in the nation.

As one of those who continues to believe that the most important factor in the classroom is human interaction, I was disappointed by what is virtually a puff piece for “personalized learning.” I expected skepticism about the chutzpah of a callow billionaire who decides he wants to remake American education. Who elected Mark Z?

Categories Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Technology

Facebook Blocked Ads from the Network for Public Education Critcizing School Choice

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2017 //
53

I earlier posted Steven Singer’s account of being blocked by Facebook when he tried to post a criticism of school choice.

The Network for Public Education tried to post an ad critical of school choice during “school choice week” and was permanently banned by Facebook.

Carol Burris wrote this description of our ouster:

“During School Choice Week, we rebranded the week, ‘School Privatization Week’. We were careful to make sure that the logo we created, which played off the Choice Week logo, was quite dissimilar and therefore could not be confused with the choice logo, or be in violation of copyright.

“We made it a Facebook ad. It was accepted and all was fine. Then, after a few days, Facebook refused our buys and blocked us from boosting any of our posts. We are still blocked from boosting or buying nine months later.

“I tried to contact Facebook by email. No reply. I called the number. It was disconnected. I spent a day trying to reach a human being. It was impossible. Network for Public Education is in the Facebook doghouse and we have no idea why.

“Yet Russians can place awful ads that try to sway our elections.”

An interesting series of questions:

Why does Facebook block posts and ads that are critical of School Choice?

Why do their algorithms fail to recognize ads that interfere in our elections but block criticism of School Choice?

Why do their algorithms ignore ads placed by Russian troll farms yet block ads placed by the Network for Public Education?

Is this chance, bad luck, faulty algorithms, or the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative at work?

Categories Accountability, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Network for Public Education, School Choice
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