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John Ewing: Let’s Celebrate Our Dedicated Teachers!

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2015 //
7

John Ewing is a mathematician and president of Math for America, an organization that supports STEM education. In this excellent post, he explains how the past several years of teacher-bashing has been deeply demoralizing to teachers. He writes that teaching must be a respected profession, and the teacher-bashers must recognize the harm they do.

Ewing writes:

“As another school year gets underway, the public receives its annual dose of hand wringing about the state of American education…..
Editorials excoriate public schools; pundits offer glib solutions; politicians excoriate “whining” teachers and their unions, which, we are told, have brought education to this state of affairs.

“This ritual of education bashing has become so commonplace that it’s easy not to notice and move on. But we ought to notice because the annual lamentation is causing great damage.

“Because of it, confidence in public schools has fallen by nearly half over the past four decades, from roughly 60 percent to below 30. Because of it, job satisfaction for teachers has fallen dramatically, from 62 percent to 39 percent in just five years. And because of it, experienced, accomplished teachers are leaving classrooms in droves, while interest in teacher training programs is plummeting.

“Each year, about 13 percent of the nation’s roughly 3.5 million teachers either move to a different school or opt-out of teaching altogether. This means schools are in a perennial scramble to find replacements. Some see recruitment programs such as Teach for America as the answer. But filling classrooms with bright people with little training or support is not much of a solution. A few recruits succeed, growing into talented and passionate long-term educators, but many more struggle and leave after a year or two. Recruitment is important, but until we find ways to retain outstanding teachers we will be pumping water out of a sinking ship instead of plugging the holes.

“Even more concerning, such programs are predicated on the belief that great teaching requires only enthusiasm and determination, not deep knowledge and carefully-honed skills. By perpetuating this view, they demean the profession and ultimately reduce its prestige. These programs may attract plenty of college graduates eager to burnish their resumes, but until teaching is viewed as a respected profession that requires both talent and training, our best and brightest will never consider it a career.

“Study after study shows that experience counts in teaching. While recruitment may be an immediate need, retaining a workforce of outstanding, experienced educators is the ultimate goal.

“So what do we do?

“First, stop casting teachers as the cause of the problem rather than partners in the solution. Stop pretending that one must choose between the interests of teachers and the interests of students. This only serves to demoralize the people on whom our education system depends. Teachers grow weary of having to defend themselves, and they eventually burn-out.

“Second, treat teachers like the professionals they are. Teachers, present and future, want two things–honest respect and sensible autonomy. Neither is automatic or easy in an accountability system that is designed on distrust, but both are possible. Programs like the one I head at Math for America attempt to create an environment in which teachers can thrive as professionals. We don’t fix them–our teachers don’t need fixing– but rather provide them with opportunities to grow, refine their craft, and take control of their own career. Teachers thrive in an environment of respect and autonomy…,

“We need to focus on excellence, not failure. We need to highlight teachers who are accomplished, not obsess about those who are not. We need to avoid driving away several outstanding teachers in order to rid ourselves of one who is mediocre.

“The good news is that retaining our most accomplished teachers–showing them respect, giving them independence, and making their careers not merely acceptable but prestigious–turns out to be the most effective way to recruit new teachers as well. If we want to attract talented people into the classroom, we must start by making the teaching profession more attractive.”

Categories Teachers and Teaching

OECD: Technology in Schools Associated with Lower Test Scores

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2015 //
49

No state has invested so much in technology as Florida. Jeb Bush has made educational technology his signature issue, and his Foundation for Educational Excellence has received generous support from the technology industry. Jeb has encouraged states to require students to take online courses as a graduation requirement.

But the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development reports that use of technology is associated with lower test scores.

This story, from Florida’s NPR state Impact describes 5 things we learned from the OECD report.

This research matters in Florida, writes John O’Connor, because:

“State law requires schools spend half of the instructional budget on digital lessons. School districts have spent the past few years adding Internet bandwidth, improving networks and adding high-tech teaching tools.

“Here’s five things we learned from their study:

“The more technology, the worse the performance on tests — This was the big conclusion. The students who spent the most time using computers or on the Internet in school did worse than expected on international tests.

“The students who ranked in the middle for technology use — what the OECD called moderate use — did the best on international tests.

“That’s pretty sobering for us,” said Andreas Schleicher, who leads the OECD’s education efforts. “We all hope that integrating more and more technology in school is going to help us actually to enhance learning environments. Make learning more interactive…but it doesn’t seem to be working like this.”

“The OECD noted that east Asian nations, such as China and Singapore, intentionally limited students use of technology. They also used more traditional techniques teaching math — and have the best-performing students on math exams.

“Basically, you can say the less computers are used in mathematics lessons,” Schleicher said, “the better students perform.”

“The OECD couldn’t pinpoint why students who use technology more didn’t do as well on tests, but suggested a number of explanations: Reading online is a different skill than reading on paper; technology can be a distraction; and schools aren’t making the best use of technology.

“Teachers who use technology get better results — The OECD found that nations that emphasized training teachers to use technology performed better on tests. That meant allowing teachers to connect by video conferencing, observing other teachers, sharing lessons and ideas and just chatting with other teachers.

“Again, it was east Asian nations which encouraged teachers to connect via technology that also had the best-performing students on exams.

“For the most part, Florida policy has focused on connecting students to technology. Plenty of teachers are advocates of high-tech lessons, but the OECD study suggests the state and districts might want to consider emphasizing training for teachers to get the most out of all the new gadgets in classrooms.

“Slow down and get it right — Right now, the way schools are using technology isn’t working for students. Schleicher said schools might want to take a step back, look at what’s working and focus on those areas.

“In Florida, schools are moving ahead with the state’s digital instruction mandate and lawmakers are considering setting aside money in the state budget each year for new technology….

“Digital skills are important — Right now, students aren’t getting good results from technology in schools. But Schleicher said computer and Internet skills are important job skills.

“And other research shows that most workers never use Algebra 2, Caluculus or other high-level math courses in their work — but most jobs require some digital skills. Teaching students how to use computers and the Internet is still time well-spent.”

Categories Bush, Jeb, Florida, Standardized Testing, Teachers and Teaching

Peg Robertson Eviscerates “Teach Like a Champion”

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2015 //
46

Peg Robertson has been teaching for 19 years in elementary schools in Colorado. To say that she is a passionate teacher would be an understatement. Peg is the founder and leader of United Opt Out.

Can you think of a better person to review Doug Lemov’s “Teach Like a Champion”? Lemov’s book is the Bible of pedagogy for no-excuses charter schools. It is used as a canonical text in the Relay “Graduate School of Education,” where successful charter teachers train new charter teachers how to get higher test scores.

To Peg, teaching is an art and a craft, not a science. To Lemov, teaching is a process that can be standardized to achieve the goal of education, which is higher test scores. To Peg, the goal of education is to inspire a love for learning, curiosity, and wonder.

To be fair, Peg reviews only half the book. She read half, then started writing because she disagreed so strongly with Lemov’s advice.

A few snippets:

“To be honest, after reading over 100 pages of the book (there will be a follow-up blog when I finish reading the entire book), I have to say it’s incredibly shallow and simplistic – yet the scary part is the dictatorial demand to keep everything shallow, uniform and simplistic. And as mentioned above, Lemov’s beliefs about “teaching like a champion” are beginning to co-opt what true educators really understand about teaching, child development, and engaging learners. This book is a great primer for reducing learning to uniform and robotic student behavior which is easy to “track” (Lemov’s word – not mine) and manage, in order to get the results that you want. And the results that they want are high test scores. Lemov is clear in stating that this work is gauged via state test scores.

“True learning is incredibly messy, but with an inherent structure in place to support the messiness. Those of us with vast experience in public education know this. And we also know that in order for true learning to occur, we must embrace the messiness, while all along keeping a structure in place to allow for the ebb and flow of learning. We create routines and structures, with student input, to foster an environment which supports student engagement, student learning styles and interests, all the while making certain that our teaching is developmentally appropriate and meeting the needs of each learner. If we have the necessary resources, the autonomy to teach, and a class size that allows for us to address each child’s needs – amazing things can happen. If children have food, healthcare and books in their home we can move mountains. However, in this day and age – having everything necessary for all public school children to thrive mentally, physically, academically and emotionally – is rare, if not non-existent.”

Here are her examples of what learning should be:

“In the 90’s I had great autonomy to teach. The inquiries and projects my students completed would not even be possible under today’s testing conditions. Several of my classes opened restaurants – we literally opened a restaurant in our classroom and charged for meals. We designed the restaurant, shopped for the ingredients at the grocery store, and we made the pasta from scratch in our classroom. Students applied for jobs at the restaurant. We took reservations for parents and district staff to come and eat! Another example was with a sixth grade class in which we created a partnership with a nursing home. Each sixth grader had a friend at the nursing home where we visited weekly to plant flowers, read, sing, and develop relationships with these women and men at the home. The sixth graders interviewed their friends, researched the corresponding time period, and wrote biographies. I had a fourth grade class who researched activists across the country who were making changes in their communities. These students really wanted to know how they could give back to the community. We created our own service learning project and gathered food for food banks and worked at the food banks and served at a soup kitchen. We canvassed the neighborhoods gathering canned goods and other items to support families in need. I had other classes who raised money to end landmines that were harming children – we researched these countries and read about the impact on children and created a public campaign to end the landmines. What is interesting about all of these inquiries and projects is that we could connect them to every facet of our day – math, science, social studies, language arts, music, art, and on and on. Those are just a few of the learning opportunities my students had….”

“On page 12 Lemov states, “Few schools of education stoop to teach aspiring teachers how to train their students to pass out papers, even though it is one of the most valuable things they could possibly do.”

Wow. I don’t even know what to say to that. Perhaps the best thing to say is that that statement pretty much exemplifies the depth of the entire book. Honestly, reading the book and watching the videos is terribly depressing.

The sections I have read in the book so far deal with getting students to answer questions and making sure that the answer is (god I hate this word) “rigorous.” Students must answer questions and if they can’t answer the question they must repeat the answer after another student or the teacher gives the answer. At one point in the book (p.92) he shares an example of a student who doesn’t parrot back the answer and he states that the child will have to come in at recess because this is a “case of defiance.” So – not “parroting” back an answer is defiant? Defiance is defined as a daring or bold resistance to authority or to any opposing force. I personally wouldn’t parrot it back because I’d find it insulting. I’m not a dog who needs to repeat a trick in order to be “trained.” If this is considered defiant I fear for the child who feels the need to scream and throw these worksheets in the trash.”

There’s much more of Peg’s explanation of her keen disapproval of the Lemov model. You will enjoy the review. Meanwhile, I await part 2.

Categories Charter Schools, Standardized Testing, Teachers and Teaching

Edweek: The Hype and Crash of Joel Klein’s Amplify

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2015 //
17

Rupert Murdoch made M a big bet on Joel Klein and his promise to bring radical disruption to the education marketplace, as he had brought radical disruption to the Néw York City public schools as Chancellor. Murdoch invested $1 billion in Klein’s Amplify company, which was competing with the giants in the business.

Amplify was a bust. It lost tens of millions every year. This year it lost $371 million, and Murdoch pulled the plug.

Only one district bought Klein’s tablet: Guilford, NC. Unfortunately, the new tablets had many problems. Screens broke. Chargers melted.

Now Amplify is searching for an investor so it can focus on curriculum and assessment. It is not clear that the market has room for this newcomer.

That’s the risk of the marketplace. Businesses come and go. Reputations rise and fall. Innovations may fail. People lose their shirts. Disruption is no guarantee of success.

Sort of like charter schools.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp Plans to Sell Off Unsuccessful Amplify

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2015 //
26

The New York Times reports that Rupert Murdoch’s venture into education technology is “nearing an inglorious end.”

News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, said on Wednesday that it would take a $371 million write-down on the education division and would move to wind down the production of tablets for schoolchildren, a key part of the unit’s offering.

Moreover, News Corporation’s chief executive, Robert Thomson, said in an earnings call with analysts that the company was in an “advanced stage of negotiations” with a potential buyer for the remaining education business.

Together, the moves highlight the difficulty that has confronted News Corporation and others looking to move teaching into the digital age, relying on the Internet and tablets to update traditional curriculums.
Few initiatives possessed the prominence of Amplify, which grew out of a nearly five-year-old acquisition of a testing software maker that became a small but visible part of News Corporation. And it gained a prominent leader in Mr. Klein, who oversaw New York City’s public schools under Michael R. Bloomberg and was known for pushing technology — sometimes controversially — into the city’s education system….

Yet the rollouts to various schools have been marred by problems, from malfunctioning tablets to slower-than-expected sales. In a note to Amplify employees sent on Wednesday, Mr. Klein said that many school districts lacked the necessary Internet connections.

To that end, he wrote, Amplify will stop marketing the tablet and will no longer accept new customers, though it will continue to support existing subscribers.

“This move will allow us to focus our efforts on the growth and success of our digital curriculum and assessment products,” he wrote.

The division is now in talks with “an outside investor” who would most likely be backed by the unit’s existing management.

“As positive as this relationship has been, Amplify and News Corp. both believe it is time to explore new and exciting strategic opportunities, working with partners who share a deep understanding of what it takes to be successful in education,” Mr. Klein added.

Apparently, the Murdoch corporation lacked the “deep understanding of what it takes to be successful in education.” According to multiple reports, Murdoch invested $1 billion in Amplify. With losses mounting every year, the initiative was impossible to sustain.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Michael Hiltzik: Is There Really a STEM Shortage?

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2015 //
26

Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times is one of our most thoughtful commentators on education. He cuts through hype and spin.

Recently he noticed a startling contradiction. a spokesman for QUALCOMM bemoaned the lack of well-prepared workers for STEM jobs. But at the same time, the same high-tech corporation announced that it was cutting its workforce.

He writes:

“Alice Tornquist, a Washington lobbyist for the high-tech firm Qualcomm, took the stage at a recent Qualcomm-underwritten conference to remind her audience that companies like hers face a dire shortage of university graduates in engineering. The urgent remedy she advocated was to raise the cap on visas for foreign-born engineers.

“Although our industry and other high-tech industries have grown exponentially,” Tornquist said, “our immigration system has failed to keep pace.” The nation’s outdated limits and “convoluted green-card process,” she said, had left firms like hers “hampered in hiring the talent that they need.”

“What Tornquist didn’t mention was that Qualcomm may then have had more engineers than it needed: Only a few weeks after her June 2 talk, the San Diego company announced that it would cut its workforce, of whom two-thirds are engineers, by 15%, or nearly 5,000 people.

“The mismatch between Qualcomm’s plea to import more high-tech workers and its efforts to downsize its existing payroll hints at the phoniness of the high-tech sector’s persistent claim of a “shortage” of U.S. graduates in the “STEM” disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.”

He questions whether there is a shortage of STEM graduates, or whether the tech industries are looking to import cheap workers.

The industry claims shortages and highlights national security concerns, but the facts are complex. “”If you can make the case that our security and prosperity is under threat, it’s an easy sell in Congress and the media,” says Michael Teitelbaum, a demographer at Harvard Law School and author of the 2014 book “Falling Behind? Boom, Bust, and the Global Race for Scientific Talent,” which challenges claims of a STEM shortage in the U.S.

“Despite its “cost-cutting initiative,” a company spokesperson says, Qualcomm “continues to have open positions in specific areas, and still faces a “‘skills deficit’ in all areas of today’s workforce, especially engineering.”

Hiltzik adds:

“The industry’s push for more visas glosses over other issues. As we’ve reported, the majority of H-1B visas go not to marquee high-tech companies such as Google and Microsoft, but to outsourcing firms including the India-based giants Infosys and Tata. They’re not recruiting elite STEM graduates with unique skills, but contract workers to replace American technical employees — who often are required to train their foreign-born replacement as a condition of receiving their severance. This is the scandalous method of cost-cutting used by companies such as Southern California Edison, which outsourced the jobs of some 500 information technology employees, as we reported in February.”

Categories Economy, STEM, Teachers and Teaching

Utah: Kim Irvine Puts Her Job on the Line

By dianeravitch
August 5, 2015 //
17

Here is a teacher worthy of joining the blog’s honor roll. She is willing to risk her career to do what is right for her students, her colleagues, and her profession. Let’s hope that speaking out protects her from vindictive retaliation.

From Kim Irvine, English teacher, Utah

To Whom It May Concern: The decision to write this has been a difficult one. I am the breadwinner for my family. I have an adult handicapped daughter who needs her seizure medication to survive. Without my insurance, her pills would cost over $750 a month, which I cannot afford. I put all of this in jeopardy by voicing my concerns. Many teachers feel the same as I, but are too afraid to speak. You must understand that teachers who speak out are labeled, targeted, and either forced to retire or resign. This may come as a surprise, but I have watched this happen to colleagues over and over. I know that I will now be a target, but the risk is something I have accepted because I must speak out for the sake of my students and my profession.

My philosophy of education and learning is simple. I believe that all students can learn. I believe that student learning is incumbent upon me, the teacher. I believe that authentic learning can only occur in an informed, stimulating, and safe environment, and I believe that the creation of that environment is my responsibility. I believe that the future of the quality of life for each of my students is directly related to whether or not they learn what I have to teach them. In short, I believe that my job is the most important job in the world because we desperately need the future innovations and ingenuity my students are capable of.

This is why I love my job, and all of my eighth graders. I like the way the adolescent mind approaches life. They are positive, creative, brilliant, and fearless, and I often end up on the other end of the teaching as their horizons expand and carry me with them. Every day is different and challenging, poignant and heartbreaking, but thoroughly exhilarating. I spend my days looking at life through the lens of an eighth grader, always looking for stimulating ways to teach. I’m fortunate because anything beautiful, noteworthy, or of good report, fits neatly into the English curriculum.

I have been teaching for 16 years and have always felt a special thrill when a former student contacts me saying they want to be a teacher just like me. But, lately, I hesitate because I am not sure what to say. Teaching is not the same profession it was, and many of my dear colleagues are leaving. It is not surprising to see that many of the states, that are paying attention to this exodus, are predicting a looming teacher shortage like we have never seen before. For example, in Indiana, the data show an alarming decrease in teaching licenses issued from nearly 7,500 six years ago to a measly 934 for 2013-14 school year.1 These figures are the canary in the coalmine and the culminating disaster in education will have rippling effects for a long time to come.

So why are we facing such a decline? Ask any veteran teacher and you will hear the same story. We can’t keep this up. The thirst for data is killing my profession and becoming the supreme focus above all else. Currently, we sacrifice over 30 teaching days a year currently with all of the mandated testing, and the fact that the data is used to discredit teachers is insulting. I will tell you right now that if I am unable to articulate where a student’s skill level was when they started my class, what specific skills we (the student and I) have targeted for the year, their current progress, and where we expect to be by the end of the year, I should be fired. That is my job. I am the professional. I have spent years perfecting and honing my craft of teaching. I collect my own data and drive my instruction based on that data. The data I get from the testing is nice, but frankly redundant and expensive and time consuming. I can teach reading to over 30 students at a time with reading levels ranging from 3rd to 11th grade in the same room at the same time and not only keep them all on task, but I can make it an exhilarating, successful experience for all involved. That’s what a professional teacher can do. That is the “art” part in the art of teaching.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. There is much at stake. Utah has many dedicated, passionate teachers who are working nothing less than miracles for our students. But, we are weary, and gun shy, and frustrated as we watch our class sizes increase, our pay and benefits decrease, and the mandated data-driven paperwork increase exponentially, while our state superintendent constantly reminds us that we are whiney, ineffective, and not worth our salaries. No wonder our numbers are dwindling. In sum, it is obvious why this next generation of college graduates is not choosing education. Why would they?

My father was a seminary teacher for over 36 years, and taught all over the world for the LDS Church Education System. He taught me an important precept, “Faith without works is dead.” The current state superintendent, Mr. Smith, recently explained that the thing our Utah students need most is faith, not necessarily more funding. 2 I disagree. I believe we need work; a lot of work, but we need to be careful to look closely because everything is not always as presented. Instead of spending ridiculous amounts of money on risky, unproven products created by vendors, we need to address the real issues that determine success or failure of our students. We need support for our students living in poverty and support for students struggling with language barriers. We need to insist on best practices for not only from Utah teachers, but our Utah legislature and Utah public servants as well. We need transparency and candor. We need authentic exploration into policy based on sound educational research, not propaganda produced by greedy vendors with intentions of using school funding and taxpayers’ dollars to line their pockets and increase their profit margins.

Education is not a business. Business is motivated by profit. Doing what is best for our students should be our motivation. We cannot serve two masters.

Sincerely, Kim Irvine

Utah State Democratic Education Caucus Chair

1 http://www.ibj.com/articles/53976-indiana-facing-chronic-teacher-shortage r

2 http://www.sltrib.com/news/2563101-155/state-superintendent-asks-for-faith- in Page 2 of 2

Categories Honor Roll, Teachers and Teaching, Utah

Are Scripted Lessons in For-Profit Schools “an Audacious Answer” for Poor Kids in Africa and Asia?

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2015 //
16

As this article in the Independent (UK) explains in detail, there is an exciting business opportunity in poor nations: developing and delivering scripted lessons at a low cost without government schools. The headline asks the central question: Is this “an audacious answer” to the problems of bringing schooling to the poorest children?

American investors think so. They like the idea of creating for-profit, low-cost schools where the lessons are exactly the same in every classroom, and the teacher is guided by technology to speak as he or she is told. This does not require credentialed teachers, and the training is minimal.

Charging $6 a month on average, Bridge InternationalAcademies, a multinational for-profit chain, is offering schooling about as cheaply as it can be done. Its founders hope to roll that out to 10 million children across Africa and Asia, the key to its own longevity and, it hopes, the global educational conundrum that has bedevilled policy-makers.

Bridge International now has some 400 schools across Uganda and Kenya. Investors worry, however, that the corporation “faces a potent threat to its survival in the shape of radical new teacher training proposals that would drive up the cost and put it beyond the reach of those that need it most.” The government of Kenya is considering requiring teachers to have pedagogical training, which would drive up the cost and threaten the entire enterprise. It would also signal to the world, says one investor, that no one should invest in Kenya.

Bridge currently enrolls 126,000 children; the profit begins when it reaches half a million. The market is promising.

Says the article: Bridge is arguably the most audacious answer yet to the question of how to bring education to the masses in countries where schools are plagued by overcrowding and teacher absenteeism. The lesson plans and script are prepared in the U.S., then delivered by technology to classes in Africa. Its teachers are “most school-leavers” trained by Bridge. School-leavers are what we would call dropouts, presumably high-school dropouts.

Step into any classroom at Bridge and the chances are that the teacher will be uttering exactly the same words that are being uttered in every single Bridge school. A handbook instructs the teacher to look up from the e-book every five seconds, to wait eight seconds for children to answer, and instead of asking the teacher to explain a mathematical concept, the lesson plan takes them through it step by step. “All I have to do is deliver,” said Mary Juma, a Bridge teacher.

While the scripted approach has earned Bridge acclaim, it has also attracted criticism. “It looks hi-tech, but it is really just someone following a lesson plan in a top-down way and not stimulating discussion,” says David Archer, head of programme development at UK charity ActionAid. “It is almost Victorian.”

While global studies of low-cost private schools have produced mixed results, Ms May is convinced that Bridge’s model works. It has commissioned independent evaluations that show children enrolled in its schools significantly outperform their state-educated peers in mathematics and English. The real test, though, will come in November, when a cohort of Bridge’s children will be ready to take the final primary school exams for the first time.

But here is the danger to investors:

Even as Bridge gets its chance to prove whether its model works, regulatory hurdles threaten to be its undoing. The Kenyan government is setting out new proposals that would radically recalibrate the financial calculations on which these schools operate. Most sweeping of all is a stipulation that half of all teachers in any one school should have a recognised teaching qualification and be paid accordingly.

As usual, it is those “wicked” teachers’ unions that threaten this bold and possibly financially rewarding experiment.

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, International, Teachers and Teaching

Memphis: Teaching by Remote Controlled Earbuds

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2015 //
41

In recent days, you have read posts about the program in Lawrence, Massachusetts, called NNN (No Nonsense Nurturing), a for-profit program in which coaches sit in the back of the room and tell teachers what to do and say via a wireless earbud. EduShyster wrote the original post. Others did research on google and connected NNN to the Gates Foundation and KIPP. It is a behaviorist approach to classroom discipline.

One reader points out that NNN was tried out first in Memphis.

Some wired-for-sound city school teachers are testing the value of real-time coaching that the NFL has made as common as a Sunday in the park.

Through earbud headphones, the teachers hear cues from experts observing from the back of the room.

“Once a teacher understands what it feels like to be successful, it takes root immediately,” said Monica Jordan, coordinator of teacher professional development in Memphis City Schools.

“The teachers get training first. It’s not like someone walks in and shoves an (earbud) in your ear and starts rattling in your ear,” she said.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding the work in Memphis, Tampa and New York, hoping to prove that tailoring professional development raises the needle on test scores….

Teach for America in Memphis sees so much promise it is spending $15,000 to conduct its own earbud research next year.

“Essentially we are looking at a control group that doesn’t get coaching to see to what extent coaching and real-time feedback enhances the process,” said Athena Turner, TFA executive director.

“We want to know, does it speed up the timeline in which a teacher develops?”

The back-and-forth between the coach and teacher is happening through walkie-talkies now. As early as March 2, the coach could be anywhere in the world, coaching with digital video feeds from Memphis classrooms….

“I think this new approach gives you an opportunity to differentiate professional development based on teachers’ own strengths and weaknesses,” said Thomas Kane, a Harvard University researching working with the Gates Foundation.

Kane’s hypothesis is that teachers who can watch themselves work will see places to improve.

“Next year, we would hope to have enough classrooms so we can start to answer that question,” Kane said.

Memphis ordered 11 180-degree cameras at $4,500 each. When parent permission slips are returned, the cameras will be set up in classroom corners.

“We’re asking teachers to watch themselves and reflect,” Jordan said. “What does it feel like to be your own observer? … What would you tell yourself if you had to give yourself feedback?”

The technology is so new that the cameras, which also record audio, are being built as they’re ordered.

“Memphis is right behind Harvard’s order,” Jordan said.

Question: Did Harvard get its order? Is it videotaping professors? Who is being videotaped and given earbud instructions at Harvard?

Next question: Is Lakeside Academy in Seattle, where Bill Gates’ children are students, putting earbuds in their teachers’ ears?

Next question: Four years have passed since the experiment was launched in Memphis: What are the results? Was there an experimental group of teachers with earbuds and a control group without earbuds? What happened to the test scores of their students?

Last question: Was the experiment worthwhile? O should the money have been spent on reducing class sizes and tutors?

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teachers and Teaching, Technology, Computers

EduShyster: Can a Teacher Learn to Act Like a Robot?

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2015 //
111

EduShyster posted an article by Amy Berard, who taught sixth grade in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where she became trained in what was called “No Nonsense Nurturing.” She had to wear a wireless earpiece and receive instructions from three coaches who sat in the back of her classroom, telling her what to say, how to act, how to respond to students, how to stand. She eventually left the district. She was “not the right fit.” Apparently, she got the idea that she was a professional, a human being with thoughts and feelings, and that what she was asked to do was unprofessional and dehumanizing.

 

It is a shocking article. This is how it begins:

“Give him a warning,” said the voice through the earpiece I was wearing. I did as instructed, speaking in the emotionless monotone I’d been coached to use. But the student, a sixth grader with some impulsivity issues and whose trust I’d spent months working to gain, was excited and spoke out of turn again. “Tell him he has a detention,” my earpiece commanded. At which point the boy stood up and pointed to the back of the room, where the three classroom “coaches” huddled around a walkie talkie. “Miss: don’t listen to them! You be you. Talk to me! I’m a person! Be a person, Miss. Be you!”

 

Last year, my school contracted with the Center for Transformational Training or CT3 to train teachers using an approach called No Nonsense Nurturing. It was supposed to make us more effective instructors by providing “immediate, non-distracting feedback to teachers using wireless technology.” In other words, earpieces and walkie talkies. I wore a bug in my ear. I didn’t have a mouthpiece. Meanwhile an official No Nonsense Nurturer, along with the school’s first year assistant principal and first year behavior intervention coach, controlled me remotely from the corner of the room where they shared a walkie talkie. I referred to the CT3 training as C-3PO after the Star Wars robot, but C-3PO actually had more personality than we were allowed. The robot also spoke his mind.
If you’re not familiar with No Nonsense Nurturing or NNN, let’s just say that there is more nonsense than nurturing. The approach starts from the view that urban students, like my Lawrence, MA middle schoolers, benefit from a robotic style of teaching that treats, and disciplines, all students the same. This translated into the specific instruction that forbade us from speaking to our students in full sentences. Instead, we were to communicate with them using precise directions. As my students entered the room, I was supposed to say: “In seats, zero talking, page 6 questions 1-4.” But I don’t even talk to my dog like that. Constant narration of what the students are doing is also key to the NNN teaching style. “Noel is is finishing question 3. Marjorie is sitting silently. Alfredo is on page 6.”
My efforts to make the narration seem less robotic—”I see Victor is on page 6. I see Natalie is on question 3″—triggered flashbacks to Miss Jean and Romper Room. All that was missing was the magic mirror. But even this was too much for the NNN squad in the corner. “Drop the ‘I see’ came through my earpiece. All this narration was incredibly distracting for the students, by the way, to the point where they started narrating me. “Mrs. Berard is passing out the exit tickets.” “Mrs. Berard is helping Christian.” “Mrs. Berard is reviewing the answer to question 4.”

 

Read it all. It is frightening. Some organization is being paid many thousands of dollars to turn teachers into robots who will treat the children as standardized widgets. Who dreamed up this absurd and insulting program?

 

PS: This program has the endorsement of an officer of the Gates Foundation, presumably speaking for the Foundation.

 

 

Categories Corporate Reform, Massachusetts, Teachers and Teaching
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