Archives for category: Education Reform
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Texas: Is Joe Strauss the Last Moderate Republican in Texas?

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2017 //
16

Joe Dtrauss, Speaker of the House in Texas, recently announced that he was stepping down. This heartened the radical right wingers in the legislature because Strauss had repeatedly blocked vouchers and almost singlehandedly stopped passage of a bill about transgender bathrooms. He was known as a moderate who was business friendly. The rightwing ideologues are salivating at the chance to take control.

Christopher Hooks, who wrote this article for The Texas Observer, says that Strauss has not ruled out running for another Office. Governor? We can only hope.

With the demographics of Texas changing and the state becoming increasingly multiracial, the reactionary white faction can’t hold on to power indefinitely. It is only a matter of time until Hispanics and blacks flex their political muscle and win key offices in the state. In the meanwhile, it would be amazing if Joe Strauss took on Governor Gregg Abbott and put together a ticket that sent reactionary Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the voucher zealot, back to running his radio talk show.

Categories Education Reform

Mike Petrilli: Why Is Republican Support for Charter Schools Declining?

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2017 //
51

Mike Petrilli is concerned that Republican support for charter schools has declined sharply. He suspects it is because charter advocates have tried too hard to pretend that charters are all about being progressive.

He thinks it is time to remind Republicans that charters are a conservative idea.

“We found a 12-percentage-point drop in public support for charter schools from the spring of 2016 to the spring of 2017. What’s most surprising is that Republican and Republican-leaning respondents helped to drive this trend, with GOP support down 13 percentage points. Nor is this a one-year blip; roll back the tape to 2012 and Republican support for charter schools is down a whopping 22 points.

“The puzzle is why. This is no idle question, as Republican support has been crucial to the growth and success of the charter movement over the past twenty-five years.

“While the charter movement has historically received proud bipartisan backing in Washington—Presidents Clinton and Obama both strongly supported charter schools, as have Presidents Bush II and Trump—charters are almost entirely a GOP accomplishment at the state level, where charter policy is made. To be sure, some blue and purple states can count a handful of Democratic legislators and the occasional Democratic governor as proponents, but the charter movement has relied on strong Republican support to sustain it. If that support evaporates, the movement could hit a brick wall.

“One would imagine then, that advocates of charter schools would be exquisitely attentive to the political math at the heart of their coalition: They typically need virtually every Republican vote, plus a handful of Democrats. Such attention would inexorably lead to an obsession with shoring up support on the right side of the aisle, correct?

“Well, no. Instead, many leaders of the charter movement have spent the past decade displaying their progressive credentials and chasing after Democratic votes that almost never materialize. Thus, the case for charter schools today is almost always made in social-justice terms—promoting charters’ success in closing achievement gaps, boosting poor kids’ chances of upward mobility, and alleviating systemic inequities. That was certainly the approach taken by President Obama and his social-justice-warrior secretary of education, Arne Duncan….

“A simpler, more direct way to boost conservative support is to remind people what made charter schools conservative in the first place. This means emphasizing personal freedom and parental choice—how charters liberate families from a system in which the government assigns you a public school, take it or leave it. Choice brings free-market dynamics into public education, using the magic of competition to lift all boats. And while some conservatives understandably would prefer private school choice, which allows a family to select a religious school, for example, instead of an independently run public school, charters are much more than a way station to vouchers. They have proven to be scalable and powerful, especially in cities.

“But there’s another aspect of charter schools that gets very little attention these days, especially from the social-justice types: Most are non-union. In fact, in most districts, union representation is the most significant difference between charter schools and traditional public schools. It’s hugely important. It’s why charter schools can and do fire ineffective teachers, why they can turn on a dime when an instructional approach isn’t working, why they can spend their money on the classroom instead of the bureaucracy, and why they can put the needs of students first, every day, all day. Yet most charter supporters almost never talk about any of this.”

Yes, It is time to remind Republicans—and Democrats—that charters are a conservative strategy. They sacrifice community to competition. They get rid of unions. They make teachers at-will employees.

But I disagree with Mike about the reasons for declining support for charters among Republicans and Democrats alike. I think that the public—that is, members of both parties—are hearing quite a lot these days about charter scandals and swindles in their own states. They don’t want to waste their tax dollars on exorbitant charter salaries coupled with frequent reports of graft, misappropriation of funds, and indictments of charter operators. How do people react when they hear about the millions paid to virtual charter operators? What about the convictions of swindlers in Pennsylvania and Michigan? Most Republicans went to public schools, send their own children to public schools and are happy with them. They cheer for the local teams and show up when their neighbors’ kids are in a school play. They don’t want charters in their neighborhood. Many serve on school boards. They are not antagonistic to public schools, not like  DeVos or the people who work at conservative advocacy shops inside the Beltway. In New York, for example, Republicans in the legislature vote for charters but don’t want them in their own backyard. They think charters are fine for black and brown kids, but not their own.

Charters could never have gotten this far without bipartisan support so it was useful for their advocates to play the “social justice” card. Now that Republicans control so many states and DeVos is Secretary of Education, why not tell the truth? Charters are a way to break up public schools and replace them with competition and choice, while getting rid of unions. They are and always have been a conservative ploy to launch school choice. Obama and Duncan fell for it. So have Corey Booker and Andrew Cuomo. They got fooled into attacking their political base. Will Democrats continue to support charters now that they are clearly part of the Trump-DeVos agenda?

Republicans support charters for “those kids,” not for their own kids. If they are losing faith in the charter idea, it is probably because they don’t want them for their suburban and rural communities.

Categories Charter Schools, Democrats, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Republicans

Philadelphia: The End of a Failed Experiment in State Control Should Begin an Era of Public Control of Public Education

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2017 //
8

Since 2001, Philadelphia’s public schools have been controlled by a “School Reform Commission” that has failed again and again to improve public education.

In this article, parent leaders call for a new vision for public schools.

They write:

“Over a year ago, we launched the Our City Our Schools campaign to end the 16-year-long failed experiment of the state-controlled School Reform Commission (SRC). The SRC was set up in 2001 in a supposed attempt to bring in more state funding, but instead led to dozens of school closures in black and brown neighborhoods, increased school privatization, failed for-profit consultants like Edison, and an austerity budget that has hurt students, parents, school staff, educators, and the city at large..

“Regaining local control is a huge step forward on the path toward true, democratically based community control of our schools.

“While we celebrate the mayor’s leadership, the question of how our schools will be governed is critical. For the last six months, Our City Our Schools and supporters have pushed for a transitional task force that could study successful school governance models and gather broad public input on what comes next — from an elected school board like those in the other 499 districts in Pennsylvania to the mayoral-controlled board of Philadelphia’s past…

“We can return a voice to the people who know our schools best. In ending the 16-year state takeover, we can define who are the true stakeholders of the Philadelphia schools. For too long, our schools have been treated like a business where decisions are made by people seeking to profit off of our children’s education. In this new era, we need to return power to the people who work, teach, and learn in neighborhood and charter schools every day, the parents who volunteer to fill budget gaps, and the community members who have supported their neighborhood schools for decades.

“We can end the era of conflicts of interests. The most important focus for any school board should be the thriving health of students, teachers, staff, and their schools. With local control and accountability, we can vet new board members for conflicts of interest and end backroom deals.

“Our next school board must push forward a progressive agenda for our schools. Our next school board must see quality education from locally based schools as a key racial and economic justice issue of our time. The SRC failed to stand up against a state legislature that continues to use our schools for its racist and privatizing agenda. Is the next school board ready to lead the fight for more equitable school funding across the state, for Philadelphia-based corporations and developers to pay their fair share toward our schools, and for an end to massive giveaways to private school managers?”

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Education Reform, Philadelphia, Privatization

John Rogers: Teaching and Learning in the Age of Trump

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2017 //
18

John Rogers of the University of California in Los Angeles has written a powerful analysis of Trump’s effect on teaching and learning. You will not be surprised to learn that the vulgarity and crudity that Trump regularly expresses towards vulnerable groups has affected the climate in schools. His hate speech has spilled over into the atmosphere. He has given license to bigotry.

Here is Valerie Strauss on the Rogers’ report.

The full title is “Teaching and Learning in the Age of Trump: Increasing Hostility and Stress in America’s High Schools.”

This is the press release:

Trump’s Heated Political Rhetoric Spills Over into Classroom,
Increasing Stress and Undermining Learning

New National Survey of Teachers by UCLA finds Heightened Stress and Anxiety, Polarization, Incivility and Hostility Among Students in First Months of Trump Administration

Amid the first months of a Trump administration characterized by highly charged and divisive political rhetoric, a new national survey of public high school teachers finds heightened levels of student stress and anxiety and concerns for their own well being or that of their family members, according to a new study published by the UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education and Access. Teachers in the survey also report a rise in polarization and incivility in classrooms, as well as an increased reliance by students on unreliable and unsubstantiated information. Teachers also report hostile environments for racial and religious minorities and other vulnerable groups.

“Hate speech and acts of intimidation are not new to U.S. Schools, but its disconcerting that numerous teachers are telling us that the level of animus they are seeing is ‘unprecedented’ in their careers, says John Rogers, a professor of education at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and the lead researcher for the study. “The harsh political environment of the first few months of the Trump administration is clearly spilling over into the classroom, increasing anxiety and undermining learning.”

The study, Teaching and Learning in the Age of Trump: Increasing Stress and Hostility in America’s High Schools, reports the results of a nationally representative survey of more than 1,500 high school teachers conducted in May 2017 examining the impact of the national political environment on students and the implications for student learning. More than 800 teachers also responded to an open-ended question regarding how their “classroom and school climate has changed this past year as a result of changes in national politics.”

More than half of teachers responding to the survey report more students are experiencing high levels of stress and anxiety than in previous years, and more than three-quarters say students are concerned about their own well being or that of family members. Immigration is the issue causing the most concern, with more than half of teachers saying students are concerned about proposals for the deportation of undocumented immigrants. These concerns are significantly higher in schools serving predominately students of color.

Teachers also report heightened polarization on campus and incivility in their classrooms. One teacher said, “In my seventeen years I have never seen anger this blatant and raw over a political candidate or issue.” More than 40 percent of teachers also report that students were more likely than in previous years to introduce unfounded claims from unreliable sources, with many linking the use of unsubstantiated sources and growing incivility.

Teachers also say that a growing number of schools, particularly predominantly White schools, became hostile environments for racial and religious minorities and other vulnerable groups. More than one quarter of teachers reported an increase in students making derogatory remarks about other groups during class discussions. Teachers responding to the survey described how the political environment “unleashed” virulently racist, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, or homophobic rhetoric in their schools and classrooms.

“Many teachers are telling us that students seem to be ‘emboldened’ to use harsh racist and bigoted rhetoric,” says Rogers. “They cite examples of students being targeted for the color of their skin, their Muslim faith, or sexual orientation, while others tell stories of students openly embracing racism and white supremacy, and confronting classmates in threatening ways. These acts are taking a toll on young people and undermining student learning.”

Teachers also say that the stresses in the school environment are impacting student learning. 40 percent of teachers reported that students’ concerns over one or more hot-button policy issues including immigration, travel bans with Muslim countries, restrictions on LGBTQ rights, healthcare and the environment impacted students’ learning in terms of their ability to focus on lessons and their attendance.

It is important to note that teachers also have felt heightened stress in the first months of the Trump administration. More than two-thirds (67.7%) of U.S. public high school teachers reported that the level of stress associated with their work increased during the 2016-17 school year.

Teachers responding to the survey want more help to support civil exchange among students and greater understanding across differences. They also believe that leadership matters in cultivating positive school culture and student learning. But just 40 percent of teachers report that school leaders are issuing public statements confronting the problems and just over one quarter say leaders are providing guidance and support. Teachers in schools serving predominately students of color were substantially more likely than teachers in schools with predominately white students to say leaders were speaking out publically or acting to provide teachers with guidance or support.

“Unfortunately, the schools facing the greatest need for leadership to respond to the changing political climate were the least likely to experience it,” says Rogers.

Teachers also strongly support the need for political leaders to address the underlying causes of much campus incivility and stress – the contentious political rhetoric and policies that threaten student well being. More than 90% of teachers agreed that national, state, and local leaders should encourage and model civil exchange and greater understanding across lines of difference.

“In these tense political times, these findings from America’s teachers have important implication for our nation and its schools,” concludes Rogers. “The growing polarization and contentiousness in classrooms and schools undercuts the democratic purposes of public education. Public schooling emerged in the United States as a strategy for developing the civic commitments and skills of each new generation. Ideally, public schools provide opportunities for students to deliberate productively across lines of difference and practice working together to solve collective problems. The heightened level of incivility makes it more difficult for schools to achieve this valued goal.

A complete version of Teaching and Learning in the Age of Trump: Increasing Stress and Hostility in America’s High Schools is available online at: https://idea.gseis.ucla.edu/publications/teaching-and-learning-in-age-of-trump

The study is a project of the UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. The study draws on the results of a nationally representative survey conducted in May 2017 of 1,535 social studies, English, and mathematics teachers working in 333 geographically and demographically representative public high schools in the United States. The study also draws on extended interviews with 35 teachers from across the United States who participated in the survey.

###

Summary of key findings

Stress and concerns with welfare have increased, particularly in schools enrolling few White students.

• More than half (51.4) of teachers reported more students experiencing “high levels of stress and anxiety” than in previous years.
• More than three-quarters (79%) of teachers reported students expressed concerns for their well-being or the well-being of their families in relation to one or more hot-button issues including immigration, travel limitations on predominantly Muslim countries, restrictions on LGBTQ rights, changes to health care, or threats to the environment.
• The policy issue prompting most concern among students was immigration. More than half (58%) of teachers reported some students had expressed concerns about proposals for deporting undocumented immigrants.

• Teachers in schools serving predominately students of color were almost six times more likely (53.8% to 9.1%) than teachers in predominately white schools to report that at least 10% of their students had expressed these concerns.

• 44.3% of teachers reported students’ concerns about well being in relation to one or more hot-button policy issues impacted students’ learning—their ability to focus on lessons and their attendance.

Polarization, incivility, and reliance on unsubstantiated sources have risen, particularly in predominantly White schools.

• More than 20% of teachers reported heightened polarization on campus and incivility in their classrooms.

• 41.0% of teachers reported that students were more likely than in previous years to introduce unfounded claims from unreliable sources. Many teachers noted a connection between students’ use of unsubstantiated sources and growing incivility.

A growing number of schools, particularly predominantly White schools, became hostile environments for racial and religious minorities and other vulnerable groups.

• 27.7% of teachers reported an increase in students making derogatory remarks about other groups during class discussions. Many teachers described how the political environment “unleashed” virulently racist, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, or homophobic rhetoric in their schools and classrooms.

School leadership matters.

More than 40 percent of teachers reported that their school leadership made public statements this year about the value of civil exchange and understanding across lines of difference. But beyond the “public statements” only 26.8% of school leaders actually provided guidance and support on these issues, as reported by teachers in the survey. Teachers in predominantly White schools were much less likely than their peers to report that their school leaders had taken these actions.

72.3% of teachers surveyed agreed that: “My school leadership should provide more guidance, support, and professional development opportunities on how to promote civil exchange and greater understanding across lines of difference.”

Teachers strongly supported the need for political leaders to address the underlying causes of much campus incivility and stress – contentious political rhetoric and policies that threaten student well being.

• More than 90% of teachers agreed “national, state, and local leaders should encourage and model civil exchange and greater understanding across lines of difference.”

• Almost as many (83.9%) agreed that national and state leaders should “work to alleviate the underlying factors that create stress and anxiety for young people and their families.”

Categories Bias, Bigotry, Education Reform, Racism

Jack Schneider: Betsy DeVos Doesn’t Understand How Markets Work

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2017 //
33

Jack Schneider, historian of education, writes that Betsy DeVos is an enthusiast about markets but she doesn’t understand how markets work.

In her recent speech at Harvard, she spoke admiringly about the food trucks that have parked around the Department of Education building due to the lack of nearby restaurants. This is a silly metaphor because the government doesn’t pay for lunches, and provision of lunch is not a government responsibility.

But Schneider tears the metaphor apart for other reasons. You can go to a different food truck every day, and you can judge the food yourself, but you can’t switch schools every day, and you can’t judge a school directly, the way you judge a cheese sandwich.

His analysis is more subtle than my representation of it here. The bottom line is that choice in schooling is disruptive without necessarily improving the quality of schooling.

But Betsy is a choice and markets person, without regard to quality or accountability.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Reform, School Choice, Vouchers

New Zealand: How Researchers Helped to Kill National Standards

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2017 //
43

New Zealand is one of the few—perhaps the only—nation that abandoned national standards.

As Professor Martin Thrupp Explains here, scholars and researchers helped to expose the flaws of national standards.

The national standards were driven by political, not educational, purposes. The ruling party pushed them and couldn’t stop pushing them, ignoring all criticism.

Thrupp’s book, co-edited with Bob Lingard, Meg Maguire, and David Hursh, “The Search for Better Educational Standards: A Cautionary Tale” teaches us that concerted efforts by educators, scholars, and parents can roll back ruinous education policy.

He writes:

“The National-led Government had become fully invested in the National Standards policy. When it was first announced in 2007, it was National’s big idea for education – the ‘cornerstone’ of its education policy. Over the 10 years that followed, the Government had dismissed all criticisms. Any late turning back would be a sign of weakness, and instead the National party wanted to plough on with this truly awful project that had already became a world-class example of how not to make education policy….

“Despite the National-led Government’s adherence to the National Standards, researchers and academics certainly pushed back against the policy…In fact, researchers and academics did a great deal in this space! A particular highlight for me was the 2012 open letter signed by over 100 education academics against the public release of the National Standards data. But there were countless other instances of academics and researchers opposing the National Standards, either publicly or more behind the scenes. Opinion pieces, articles, TV debates, radio, public meetings, meetings behind closed doors – and all the rest of it. Chapter 8 of A Cautionary Tale, about the politics of research, gives numerous examples.

“A number of us also did empirical research that helped to explain how the National Standards were a problem (see A Cautionary Tale, especially chapters 3, 5 and 7). And, of course, New Zealand researchers are part of international networks that are working on the same concerns about high-stakes assessment in other countries (see A Cautionary Tale, especially chapters 2 and 10). Note to Cullen: without doubt, some of the best work in this area is coming from Australian academics.

“It is true that some researchers and academics chose to support the National-led Government’s National Standards policies (A Cautionary Tale, chapter 8). This happened for various reasons that may have included the researchers’ educational views, their political beliefs, the political pressures that were upon them or their organisations, and the advantages that came with supporting the policy. It may have also involved a judgement that it was better to be ‘inside the tent’ and have influence than be on the outside.

“But this range of viewpoints among researchers and academics is no different than was seen within the teaching profession and amongst principals, where National Standards also had supporters. Indeed, a central problem that the new Labour-led Government will have to grapple with, having removed the National Standards policy, is doing away with the data-driven disposition amongst teachers and principals that grew along with the policy under the previous Government.

“Looking ahead

“Even though most teachers and principals did not like the impact of the National Standards policy, after a decade of its influence New Zealand primary schools are now marinated in the thinking, language, and expectations of the National Standards. This has also had wider impacts, for instance on early childhood education. It will all take a little while to undo.

“It’s great, though, that New Zealand primary schools will now be able to spend less time shoring up judgements about children – judgements that have often been pointless or harmful – and instead spend more time making learning relevant and interesting for each child. Removing National Standards should also allow teachers to be less burdened, contributing to making teaching a more attractive career again.”

Categories Common Core, Education Reform, International, Research

Black Alliance for Educational Options Is Closing

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2017 //
10

The rightwing-funded Black Alliance for Educational Options is closing its doors. It was launched by Howard Fuller, who was superintendent of Milwaukee public schools in 2000. Fuller was radicalized by his inability to change the system and formed an alliance with the far-right Bradley Foundation, which funded vouchers and wanted to privatize public education. Over the years, BAEO has been funded by white conservative foundations including the Walton Foundation.

BAEO Sought to persuade African Americans that school choice, charters, and vouchers, and privatization were in their interest.

Southern legislatures, controlled by conservative white men, liked BAEO’s ideas.

Education Week credits BAEO with getting Alabama and Mississippi to pass charter laws, and Louisiana and D.C. to pass voucher legislation.

White segregationists embrace school choice readily, as they have wanted it since 1954. Fuller pushed on an open door. Now southern states can fund segregated schools and do it with a clear conscience. Sort of.

Fuller no doubt was following his conscience, but it would be better if he had done it without all that rightwing money.

In the era of Trump and DeVos, it is difficult to play the role of a progressive when their agenda and yours are the same. Especially when the NAACP is speaking out against charters and privatization.

In a related story, the former chairman of the BAEO board Kevin Chavous has been named president of K12 Inc.s Academics, Policy, and Schools. K12 Inc. was founded by junk bond king Michael Milken and his brother Lowell and is the nation’s largest virtual online charter corporation. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Its schools have been notable for high attrition rates, low test scores, and low graduation rates. The NCAA withdrew accreditation from two dozen K12 schools a few years ago because of their poor quality. This is a choice strongly supported by DeVos. K12 Inc. is also known for paying lavish compensation, desite its poor academic results.

Categories Alabama, Black Alliance for Educational Options, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, K12 Inc., Louisiana, Mississippi, Privatization, Segregation, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

Coming Soon to a School Near You: A Biometric Device to Measure Students’ Brainwaves

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2017 //
32

They said it couldn’t or shouldn’t be done, but here it comes: a biometric headset that measures students’ level of “engagement.”

EdSurge reports that a start-up called BrainCo has invented a headset to measure brain activity. This information can be transmitted instantly to the teacher so she knows which students are engaged and which are not. Apparently, just looking at their faces and their expressions is no longer adequate. (Be sure to see the video that is included in the link.)

A few years back, Bill Gates invested in a biometric bracelet. In 2013, I posted several times about the Gates-funded galvanic response monitor. That didn’t seem to go anywhere, to my knowledge.

But the idea didn’t die. Now it appears to be arriving as a headset, not a bracelet.

If Blade Runner had a classroom scene, it might look something like the promotional video by BrainCo, Inc. Students sit at desks wearing electronic headbands that report EEG data back to a teacher’s dashboard, and that information purports to measure students’ attention levels. The video’s narrator explains: “School administrators can use big data analysis to determine when students are better able to concentrate.”

BrainCo just scored $15 million in venture funding from Chinese investors, and has welcomed a prominent Harvard education dean, who will serve as an adviser. The company says it has a working prototype and is in conversations with a Long Island school to pilot the headset.

The headband raises questions from neuroscientists and psychologists, who say little evidence exists to support what device-and-dashboard combination aims to do. It also raises legal questions, like what BrainCo will do with students’ biometric data.

BrainCo has some big ideas. The company’s CEO has said that BrainCo aims to develop a tool that can translate thoughts directly into text, or “brain typing.” To support that work, the company plans to use data collected from students using its headsets to compile “the world’s largest brainwave database.”

Theodore Zanto, a professor of neurology at the University of California at San Francisco, had two words when he first read through the company’s website: “Holy shit.”

The brains behind BrainCo

The founder and CEO of BrainCo is Bicheng Han, a PhD candidate at the Center for Brain Science at Harvard University. In 2015, his Somerville, Mass.-based startup was incubated in the Harvard Innovation Lab, and last year the company received $5.5 million in seed funding in a round led by the Boston Angel Club, with participation from Han Tan Capital and Wandai Capital, to develop BrainCo’s first product: Focus 1.

Teachers have an innate ability to know when their students are engaged, but we want to give them a superpower so they can track and quantify that over time.

Focus 1 is a headband that aims to detect and report brain activity through EEG, or electroencephalography, which measures in the brain. To advertise the device to schools, BrainCo packages the headset as Focus EDU, which essentially is the headset plus a dashboard where teachers can view all of their students’ EEG data. According to the video, a high numerical score for the EEG signal suggests that a student is paying attention; a low score is interpreted as a distracted or unfocused student.

Max Newlon, a research scientist at BrainCo, adds the company is also studying if the headset could help students and families “train their brain” to improve attention skills.

BrainCo is hardly the first company to sell so-called “brain-training”—or even EEG headsets. Similar devices include Muse, a “personal meditation” headband intended to guide relaxation based on real-time EEG readings. There’s also Neurocore Brain Performance Centers, clinics that “empower you to train your brain” also using EEG readings. (Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is among Neurocore’s investors.)

Focus EDU, by contrast, is among the first EEG products that will be marketed directly to teachers and schools.

“We are trying to be the first company to quantify this invisible metric” of student engagement, says Newlon. “Teachers have an innate ability to know when their students are engaged, but we want to give them a superpower so they can track and quantify that over time.”

The idea was enough for BrainCo to win awards including “Most Innovative” at a pitchfest during the 2017 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) national conference.

But the company has also faced less enthusiastic reviews. At the 2016 CES conference, an electronics and consumer tech tradeshow, BrainCo’s Focus 1 device flopped in a live demo, which attempted to use human brainwaves detected by the headband to control a robotic hand. The Daily Dot called it the most “cringeworthy demonstration” at the event. “That’s a mishap that calls into question the overall function of the device,” the reporter wrote. “Was it ever actually reading the brainwaves at all?”

When BrainCo returned to CES in 2017, the company arrived with an even bigger robot—which the site WearableZone reported was a success—along with a strategic “pivot” towards education.

More recently, BrainCo has chalked up some big wins: It signed education superstar, James Ryan, Harvard’s dean of education, as an adviser. And now it’s closed a $15 million Series A funding round, bringing the the company’s total funding to nearly $20.5 million. The funding was led by Chinese investors Decent Capital and the China Electronics Corporation, which on its website describes itself as “one of the key state-owned conglomerates directly under the administration of central government, and the largest state-owned IT company in China.”

My reaction: The same as Theodore Zanto, quoted above.

Categories Education Reform, Privacy, Technology

This Is Your Brain on Art!

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2017 //
13

As this article explains, there is a new kind of neuroscience that examines how the experience of art affects your brain.

https://apple.news/ApKmwwmY7TRiq_MqhOMSkdw

It’s all good.

“There is something about being in a group that stimulates your reactions. There’s something about the performance that heightens your senses.

“If you think about it, having a great time at the theater defies logic in many ways. We’re surrounded by strangers, bombarded with unusual images and often faced with a wordless language of symbols. Yet, on a good night, we generally laugh more, cry more and enjoy ourselves more at a live performance than when we’re watching TV at home. We may even lose ourselves and feel connected to something larger. How does this happen?…

“Social connection is one of the strengths of our species — it’s how we learn from others by imitation. We’re keenly attuned to the emotions and actions of people around us, because our brains are designed for this.

“If, for example, you’ve ever gone to an experimental performance-art piece where there’s hardly anyone in the audience but you, and you’ve felt a little exposed and awkward, this is why. We crave social connection. And the cues we get from those around us help our brains make sense of our surroundings. This starts from the moment we walk into a crowd….

“It helps us make sense of human behavior, a large part of which is evaluating movement and emotion within us and around us. Our brains like to share emotions with others. This is just one reason that seeing a live performance — a concert, play, opera, etc. — is a neural rush. With our brain’s capacity for emotion and empathy, even in the wordless art of dance we can begin to discover meaning — and a story.”

Open the link to see performances and understand how we react to art.

We need the arts. We need to see them, perform them, experience them, enjoy them. They are part of what makes us human.

Categories Art, Arts Education, Education Reform

No Degree of Separation Between DeVos, Cunningham, Duncan, and Jeb

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2017 //
27

Education Post announced a competition for videos celebrating the glories of school choice. There will be prizes of $15,000 each to the lucky winners.

Education Post is funded by Eli Broad, the Walton Family, Michael Bloomberg, and sundry other billionaires.

It is led by Peter Cunningham, who served in the first term of the Obama administration as Arne Duncan’s Assistant Secretary for Communication, P.R., etc.

On the presumption that it was part of the Democratic center, it supposedly supports charters (partial privatization), not vouchers. That was then. This is now.

Read Peter Greene about the contest.

But a closer look makes this contest even more interesting. First of all, instead of focusing only on charter schools, this contest is to promote a broader agenda:

There is no “one size fits all” school or educational model that works for everyone. That is why it is important for students and families to have the freedom to choose the pathway that best meets their needs, whether that is a different public school, charter, magnet, private school, virtual/blended, or homeschool.

That moves us away from the strictly-charter advocacy and into something more closely aligned with, well, the agenda of Betsy DeVos. Plenty of charter advocates have cast a leery eye on voucher systems– but this contest loves it all. And EdPost is promoting it.

Whose contest is this, exactly?

Well, the main address on the site is that of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, the Florida-based group that, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, was going to provide a platform to help launch Jeb Bush to the White House. FEE has actually changed its name, at least in some places, to ExcelInEd, a group that includes all the same players and still calls itself the Foundation for Excellence in Education in the fine print on its site. I bring ExcelInEd up only because they are nominally the launchers of this contest. Mostly I am just dying for them to open an Ohio branch so that we can call them EiEiO. FEE/EiE is one of the older, more well-entrenched reformy groups with a Who’s Who of deep-pocketed donaters including Gates, Walton, Broad, Kellogg, Bloomberg, Schwab, News Corporation and Dick and Besy DeVos.

Also sponsoring the contest? American Federation for Children, Betsy DeVos’s advocacy group. AFC is a dark money group that has been working hard to push privatization of education in this country (for the children).

Also? EdChoice, the advocacy group previously known as the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, the group launched by Milton Friedman.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »